Chicken Soup & Homicide - Culinary Competition Mystery #2

Chapter 5

(Amy)

Amy inhaled deeply as she scraped the tangerine across the microplane grater. Tangled threads of bright-orange rind landed on the milky-white porridge. The invigorating citrus scent was Mother Nature's wake-up call. The tired fogginess that had mired down her mind for the last half hour began to lift. The simple rice porridge was about the only thing she felt she could reliably cook that morning. Rice and milk, a few steps away from baby food but reconfigured into an adult, sort of gourmet breakfast with orange zest and dried currants. Her stomach bubbled from hunger as she scattered a handful of the dried berries into the thick hot cereal. She had considered adding dried cranberries but realized they would turn blood red as they cooked. Blood. Red. Not a color she wanted to ingest.

When she found Mandy Jo Pierce's body at the Kellerton Summer Festival Pie Contest, there hadn't been any blood on her body. The raspberry pie filling smeared all over her face looked a bit gory, in a B movie with no special effects budget type of way, but Mary Jo had been strangled, so the only blood involved in the crime had pooled into bruises under her skin. The previous night, when Chef Britton's body did a backflip out of the freezer, the entire front of his white chef's jacket had been soaked with blood. Frozen blood. Like an icy pop for vampires.

She shook her head to dislodge the weird, creepy image. Snacks for vampires? Where had that idea come from? Obviously some freaky thoughts were hiding in the sleep-deprivation fog occupying the distant corridors of her brain that hadn't been reached by the clarifying citrus aroma.

"Smells good. Is it some kind of oatmeal?"

Saved from the descent into Queasy Land by the Hot Hubby. Alex kissed her on the cheek as he passed by on his way to the coffeemaker. He yawned repeatedly as he filled his travel mug and dumped in several spoonfuls of raw sugar. When she had finally crawled into bed around 11:00 p.m., he asked if she had fun. He had assumed she and Sophie were out late celebrating a win in the showdown. So he got a wicked surprise when she gave him a recap of her terrible, horrible, unbelievable evening. He had tossed and turned for quite a while after she finished her monologue of murder.

Amy exhaled into the steam rising from the pot. The white mist shifted from the gust of discontent. "Rice porridge. Basically, stovetop rice pudding dressed up with a bit of fruit so it can be a decent breakfast."

"Sounds like an interesting alternative to muffins or pancakes."

"It's the only alternative my stomach has decided to allow. My body needs some fuel to make it through the day, but my brain keeps remembering the sight of Chef Britton's body." She spooned the creamy porridge flecked with plumped currants into bowls and handed one portion to her husband. "I'm not feeling very good this morning."

Alex grabbed her free hand and tugged her toward the breakfast nook. Amy collapsed onto the cushioned bench and stared at the snow-covered backyard beyond the window. Bare twigs from the line of blueberry bushes planted along the privacy fence poked out of drifts formed during the storm that had raged through the night.

"I'm sorry. Finding another body...that's just unbelievable." He scooted onto the bench beside her and draped his arm over her shoulders. "I'm going to stay home as long as possible this morning. Not much is going to go on right away with all of this snow."

She blinked as she looked at him. He was in jeans and a long-sleeve gray Henley shirt. He had been in the room for at least five minutes, and she hadn't realized he wasn't wearing his usual dress shirt and tie. She hadn't noticed those basic things about her husband, but every gruesome detail of bloody ice cube Britton was seared into her mind.