Chicken Soup & Homicide - Culinary Competition Mystery #2

Chapter 19

(Amy)

When life got stressful, the stressed out went grocery shopping. Or at least that was Amy's philosophy. Her shoulder muscles loosened up as soon as she walked through the doors of Clement Street Market. An old warehouse had been converted over the summer into a year-round indoor market. The venue had only opened a month earlier, but it was packed full of customers every day. Vendors offered everything from stinky sheep's milk cheese to fresh passion fruit. There were tiny restaurant stalls serving Vietnamese street food, vegan Indian chaats, and even fresh oysters on the half shell. She inhaled. The mishmash of gourmet scents relaxed her more than laughing gas at the dentist. The sweet fragrance of donuts sizzling in hot oil mingled with the savory aroma of lemongrass chicken. The market was a foodie wonderland.

Amy settled the straps of her midnight-blue canvas tote bag on her shoulder and began to wander. Hopefully poking around the booths would keep the part of her brain that worried occupied, leaving the other half that came up with brilliant ideas to figure out how to prove Pitts's new allegations against Carla wrong. Considering his bulldog approach to pursuing her friend, probably the only way to get him to back off would be to present him with the murderer carrying a signed and notarized confession.

Alex had agreed to take her to Cornerstone restaurant. A huge victory in the fight to keep her marriage alive. She would concentrate on having a romantic dinner with her distracted hubby, but it wouldn't hurt to do some discreet eavesdropping on the staff if she got a chance. It wasn't like somebody would brag about how they knocked off the boss, but just maybe she could pick up a whispered rumor about who had.

Carla had spent the rest of the previous day holed up in the spare bedroom. She didn't want to be alone, but she didn't want to talk either. Her phone was turned off, so Shepler had resorted to calling Amy. But Carla refused to talk to him. It hadn't been a good day for anybody.

As Amy turned the corner at the end of an aisle, Chef Jake from Nibbles & Noshes scooted behind the counter of a butcher stall ahead. Amy stopped to try samples of homemade salsas and tortilla chips. She munched on the spicy chips while keeping an eye on the chef. From the look on his face and the scowl of the man working at the booth, things weren't going well between them either. When a customer stepped up to the counter to place an order, the scowling man said something to a woman behind him wearing a blood-streaked white butcher's apron. She frowned as both men exited the booth space.

Amy thanked the salsa purveyor for the samples and stepped into the stream of customers perusing the booths. Following people in a crowd was not an easy task thanks to her shorter-than-average height. Then again, since she was drowning in the tide of people, the men probably wouldn't realize she was following them. She spotted Chef Jake's man-bun turning left at the end of the aisle. Of course, a knot of senior citizens stopped to admire an artistically arranged French baguette display right in front of her. She executed a lateral stutter-step followed by a belly-dance shimmy to squeeze through a gap between two stationary bread aficionados. Jake's topknot bobbed out a side exit.

Great. She had just gotten warmed up, and it was back into the deep freeze for spy duty. She stepped through the automatic-opening doors and was greeted by an icy blast of wind. To the left, the men were walking along the edge of the snow-coated parking lot, heading toward the line of supply trucks emblazoned with the logos of vendors inside the market. Amy cut up an aisle until she was past the truck where the pair had stopped. Then she angled back toward them, moving between parked cars, looking from side to side like she was searching for her Mini. She knew where it was, several rows away, but it was often hard to spot among oversized SUVs and hulking pickup trucks. The lost-and-confused routine often played out for real.

Nobody else appeared to be around the cargo trucks. She called on her high school drama training and tried to assume a clueless look before scooting between trucks that belonged to a seafood company and a pie bakery. As she crept along the back of the vehicles, she could finally hear what the men were saying.

"Come on—I have to be one of your biggest clients. I know you can make me a better deal."

"I can't cut prices when costs are going up for me. You own a business. You know how it goes."

"I can't raise my menu prices right now. Not if I want to keep people coming in. My shtick is low-priced gourmet. Damn it, Harry. Give me a break, or I'll go somewhere else. Cut me a deal, or lose all of my business."

Amy stopped at the back bumper of the Christopherson Meats truck. She unzipped her purse and started digging through it. Hopefully, it appeared that she was looking for her keys or phone instead of eavesdropping on a potential murderer. There was silence. Had they moved away? She counted to three and peeked around the corner of the truck. They were still there, just staring at each other like two angry bulls in a face-off. She ducked back behind the truck and waited.

Finally, the butcher broke the silence. "I'll charge you the same price for this week's shipment only. Business is good here at the market. If you want to find another supplier, go for it."

"You sonuvabitch. You'll regret this."

The sound of work boots stomping away signaled the end of the conversation. Amy resumed her purse-search ruse just in case one of the men spotted her. Cute and cheerful Chef Jake had a dark side. And he wasn't above threatening people when they crossed him. Did he have enough of a temper to follow through on his threats?