Murder Has a Sweet Tooth - By Miranda Bliss Page 0,18
came out of the dream when I heard myself sigh. “Oh, yeah,” I said, “Vickie Monroe had our dream life, Eve. Well . . .” I flinched. “Except for those cooking classes. And . . .” This time, even a flinch wasn’t enough to register my horror. I felt the blood drain from my face. “She had a perfect life except for the cooking classes, and the murder.”
Four
BELIEVE ME, I HAD A PLAN. AT LEAST A PLAN AS FAR as my investigation went. I had to wait until the medical examiner released Vickie Monroe’s body, but after that, I had every intention of attending her funeral. After all, everybody goes to a funeral: family, friends, neighbors, loved ones. Maybe even murderers. Oh, yeah, I would be there, too, and talking to everyone unfortunate enough to get too close to me.
Until then, I had other things to keep me busy. There was all the work I had to do at Bellywasher’s, of course. As business manager at the restaurant, I’m responsible for keeping all our invoices in order, paying our bills, balancing deliveries against receipts against those invoices. I make sure we order the supplies we need and I take care of our bank transactions every single day. I handle payroll, too, as well as things like making sure what we’re charging for food actually covers the cost of the food, the preparation, and that payroll. If we’re lucky, we can manage a smidgen of profit in there, too.
Yes, in my real job, I do all those wonderful, mundane things other people hate to do, and I love every minute of it. After all, I get all the excitement I need from murder. And from planning my wedding.
These days, it seemed as if the two things had a way of getting all mixed up.
Which was why on Thursday evening, I spent some time at the restaurant thinking about what I could do for Alex and how I’d proceed with my investigation. But once Bellywasher’s closed and I kissed Jim good night, Eve and I hurried over to the apartment that wouldn’t be my apartment for too much longer. This time, we were investigating—
“Cullen Skink?” I was sitting at my computer, and Eve was standing behind me. She leaned over my shoulder and pointed at the screen, reading out loud. “What on earth is it? And do you really think you’d want to serve something called Cullen Skink at your wedding?”
I wasn’t about to so easily dismiss anything that fell under the heading of Scottish cuisine. I clicked around the Internet site I’d found that promised to reveal the secrets of Scots food in all its glory. Or not.
“It’s fish soup,” I told Eve, speed-reading the page as I went. “And it doesn’t sound half bad. You need a smoked haddock, onions, milk, potatoes. I might actually be able to do this!” I grinned at the prospect until I got to the part of the recipe that said Method. Then I read aloud and my shoulders drooped. “The first thing you have to do is skin the haddock.”
“Oh, my Lord, Annie! We can’t have you doing that on your wedding day. You’ll smell fishy!”
Eve didn’t have to argue to convince me. With my mouse, I zoomed around the page, looking for other suggestions. “Here’s one.” I stopped and pointed it out. “I don’t know what it is, but it sure sounds Scottish. Crappit heid.”
She leaned closer and read, “It’s the head of a fish stuffed with oats, suet, and the fish liver. It’s boiled in seawater. Annie, you’re not actually thinking—”
“No.” I went back to Google and tried a different Scottish cooking site.
“How about that one?” Eve stopped me with her question. “Black pudding. That’s got to be like chocolate pudding, right? And what could be better or easier than chocolate pudding? Oh!” She shivered with delight at the very thought. “We could top it with dollops of fresh whipped cream and strawberries. Wouldn’t that be the best?”
It would have been, if black pudding was what we thought it was. The recipe proved otherwise. “It’s sausage made by cooking blood with filler until it’s congealed,” I told Eve, and she didn’t wait for me to read more. She grabbed the mouse and clicked off the page.
I was not to be deterred, even in the face of culinary adversity. I kept looking, and my efforts were rewarded. “Here’s one that’s traditionally served at weddings. It’s called cranachan. It’s made with whipped cream, whiskey,