Pancakes & Pandemonium - Culinary Competition Mystery #6

Chapter 20

(Amy)

As they drove through their own neighborhood, Alex spotted an elderly couple who were slowly raking up the mess of twigs and sawdust that littered their front yard. A stump was all that was left of the huge pear tree that had shaded their house for many years. Whenever the fruit was ripe, the couple would take a stroll through the neighborhood. If anybody happened to be outside, sitting on their porch or perhaps washing a car, they would invite them to stop by and pick as many pears as they would like. Now the tree that so many had loved for its juicy, sweet fruit was gone.

"Would you mind if I go back and help them?" Alex asked when they pulled into their own driveway.

"No, go ahead. I'll start working on food for tomorrow."

He had only been gone for about ten minutes when Amy passed from the kitchen to the living room to add a log to the fireplace. There was a dark, rectangular shadow on the window of the front door. When she opened the door to investigate, Pogo tilted his head at her in his classic What Are You Doing? pose. He always went outside either through the back-patio door or the side one in the kitchen, which led to the driveway. The thing casting the dark shadow was a notice. It was now safe for her to use her stove. Yippee!

Once the fireplace was roaring, to keep Pogo warm, Amy headed back to the kitchen. Before he left to help the sweet, elderly couple Alex had topped off the gas tank on the generator that had been keeping their refrigerator and freezer cold for a week.

It had been a pleasant surprise when Amy opened the refrigerator the previous night to find that Alex had brought home fresh eggs, milk, and butter when he had made a mandatory trek out of Kellerton to find gasoline for the generator. The oven on the stove wouldn't work without electricity, but there was a lot she could do on the cooktop. Making food to feed the people who would chop up the tree the following day was an excellent way to spend the afternoon. The perfect time to try steaming a cake. Or two or three. Developing new recipes while making sure there would be plenty of treats on hand for the hungry tree cutters—what a wonderful way to celebrate the return of natural gas service.

She was folding freeze-dried strawberries into a honey-laced cornbread batter when there was a knock on the front door. The sound startled Pogo awake from his mid-afternoon nap. He was not impressed. His litany of barks made it sound as though there was an entire pack of angry dogs in the house. She didn't try to calm him down as she walked into the foyer. Not yet. Her friends always came to the side door of the house that opened into the kitchen, where Amy spent a lot of her time. She'd like the stranger, whoever it was, to know there was a watchdog present. A flying leap with a follow-up chomp, aimed at an intruder's private parts, would be an effective deterrent from her petite pup.

Amy opened the door a crack and peered at the visitor. She didn't need to protect herself from the person standing on the porch. He was sworn to protect the residents of Kellerton. It was Detective Chaucer, who was in charge of Catherine's case. "Hello," Amy said as she smiled at him. "What can I help you with?"

"I'm looking for Brenda Rowland."

Uh-oh. "She left here this morning to go stay with a friend."

Amy watched him closely. He was in the stone-faced, give-nothing-away mode that she'd seen her best friend's husband display so many times, both on- and off-duty. But this man wasn't Shepler, so she had no idea what he might be thinking or how tolerant he was of what seemed to be evasive maneuvers from her mother. Amy knew the likeliest reason for her mom shacking up with her shiny new boyfriend—she wasn't happy about all of the alcohol disappearing. The rather abnormal behavior could be viewed by the detective as trying to flee from him though.