by: Maddie Day
Series: Country Store Mystery
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release Date: August 24, 2021
Publisher: Kensington
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Robbie Jordan's Pans 'N Pancakes boasts delicious eats and the best vintage cookware finds in South Lick, Indiana. And now, for a limited time, there's a new special featured on the menu--murder!
Someone won’t make the cut...
Ever since meeting the wary owners of an antique shop opening across the street, Robbie has been scrambling to manage weird incidences plaguing her café and country store. Pricey items vanish from shelves without explanation, a fully equipped breakfast food truck starts lingering around the area each morning, and loyal diners mysteriously fall ill. When an elderly man dies after devouring an omelet packed with poisonous mushrooms, Robbie must temporarily close down Pans 'N Pancakes and search for the killer with a real zest for running her out of business--or else.
Chapter One
“Watch out, Robbie.” Aunt Adele grabbed my elbow. “Here comes trouble.”
I scanned the row of white and green tents covering booths stretching out in front of us at the huge outdoor Scottsburg Antique Fair. I spied caned rocking chairs and gleaming bureaus. Rusty washboards, tin toys, vintage red-handled beaters, and lovingly embroidered linens. The mood was upbeat, with everyone seemingly happy at the first outdoor fair of the season. Trouble didn’t seem to be part of the equation.
“What do you mean?” I asked Adele.
She pointed. “See that couple?”
A few booths down from us, a lean, gray-haired man with a trim beard and a petite woman wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat bent over a table arrayed with silverware sets.
“Yes,” I said. “And? Do you know them?”
“Let’s just say Francis there won’t be happy to see me.” She raised a single eyebrow.
“Do you want to turn around?” I wasn’t surprised my aunt recognized folks here. She, a lifelong schmoozer extraordinaire, knew people wherever she went.
“Nah. They’re busy. I didn’t do nothing wrong, anyhoo.” She tucked my arm through hers and steered me to the opposite line of booths. She walked with a brisk stride instead of a shopping stroll.
I pulled a wheeled cart in my other hand. We passed a booth full of antique kitchen implements across from where the couple stood. I slowed, disengaging my arm, at a table piled with metal graters. Box graters, cylindrical ones, flat graters with all sizes of holes, rotational graters with a hand crank. They all looked to be in good condition, particularly one box grater with a light green Bakelite handle and intricate metal stamping. Adele moved on.
“Where are these from?” I asked the vendor, an aproned young man with multiple piercings and an engaging smile. I picked up the green-handled one to inspect it. The bottom had a small blue stick-on label with $2 written on it.
“My grandma’s barn in a itty-bitty town south of Louisville,” he said. “She collected stuff like this, but she died last year. Pa thought we should make a few bucks off the stash.”
Graters and all kinds of cooking tools were my primary reason for being here, that and a fun outing with Adele. I was running low on vintage cookware to sell in Pans ‘N Pancakes, my country store in South Lick, Indiana, eighty miles north of this scenic town on the Ohio River. I made most of my money off the breakfast and lunch restaurant in the store, but many people were drawn first to my shelves of cooking tools and baking pans.
“Adele,” I called to her. “I’m stopping here.”
She turned around at the same time as the gray-haired man. He stared at her. Was that steam coming out of his ears? The woman with him turned, too. He took a step toward my aunt. His wife grabbed his arm. He shook her off. Adele moseyed back to me.
“Hey, there, Francis, Hattie.” She waved at the couple. “Come on the heck over and meet my niece.”
Hattie followed her husband across the busy aisle. At five foot three, nobody would call me tall, but I had at least two inches on Hattie.
“Adele Jordan, of all people,” Francis said. He smiled, but it was grim.
“Hello, Adele.” Petite Hattie did not smile, but her expression was friendly. Even though she had to be in her early seventies like my aunt, the skin on her face didn’t show age spots or sun damage and was nearly free of lines. Due to a hat-wearing habit? Probably.
“Haven’t seen y’all in a year of Sundays,” Adele said. “What’s it been, a couple few decades?”
“Twenty-three years.” Francis’s slate-colored ski-lift eyebrows met in the middle. His beard didn’t quite conceal a receding chin and an overbite. “And fifteen days.”
What? Whatever was going on here wasn’t pleasant. I glanced at Adele, who nodded slowly at him. We should get this little chat over with and move on. I could return to the cookware booth later.
I smiled at the couple but didn’t extend my hand. We’d all gotten out of the habit during the pandemic, and nobody much had resumed it. “I’m Robbie Jordan, Adele’s niece.”
“That’s my girl.” Adele beamed.
Girl of almost thirty, but I didn’t mind.
“Nice to meet you, Robbie.” Hattie also kept her hand to herself.
Her husband didn’t speak, and his gaze on Adele didn’t waver.
“Robbie’s got herself the cutest country store in South Lick, and she sells vintage kitchen whatnot,” Adele went on. “You should oughta stop by one day soon. You can eat breakfast and lunch at Pans ‘N Pancakes, too. Why, her cooking is to die for.” She turned to me. “Francis and Hattie live over in Gnaw Bone. They run a wholesale food business, last I heard.”
Gnaw Bone was the small unincorporated town a few miles east of Nashville, the county seat for scenic, hilly Brown County, where South Lick was also situated.
“We’re not in the food business any longer.” Francis folded his arms over his chest.
“Yes, we retired from that,” Hattie said. “As it happens, we’re opening an antique store in South Lick soon. High-end items. It’s been our dream for years.”
“Well, isn’t that nice, now,” Adele said. “Where at in South Lick?”
“Twenty Main Street.” Hattie lifted her chin a smidge.
I stared at the woman. So that was what was going on with the two-story limestone house directly across the road from my store. It had been bustling with carpenters and electricians lately. I hadn’t gotten around to asking who was renovating the nineteenth-century building. I liked the sound of “high-end.” That meant they wouldn’t be in competition for the contents of my retail shelves.
Adele blinked, then gave her head a little shake and restored her smile. “Then you know exactly where Robbie’s place is.” Adele squeezed my hand. “Isn’t that nice, hon? They’ll bring in more customers for your restaurant.”
“We’ll see about that.” Francis unplastered his gaze from Adele and laid his arm across his wife’s shoulders. “Dear, we wanted to look at the vendor in row fifty-two, didn’t we?”
Purchase No Grater Crime from:
The Country Store Mystery Series:
Flipped for Murder ~ Review
Grilled for Murder ~ Review
When the Grits Hit the Fan ~ Review
Biscuits and Slashed Browns ~ Review
Death Over Easy ~ Review
Strangled Eggs and Ham ~ Review
Christmas Cocoa and a Corpse ~ Review
Batter Off Dead releases February 22, 2022
Places to find Maddie Day:
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