Read Still Life in Brunswick Stew Online

Authors: Larissa Reinhart

Tags: #Mystery, #humor, #cozy, #Humour, #Romance, #cozy mystery, #southern mystery, #humorous mystery, #mystery series

Still Life in Brunswick Stew (3 page)

BOOK: Still Life in Brunswick Stew
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Under a long tent in a roped-off area, a stretch of people sat at folding tables, expectant looks on their faces and spoons at the ready. I guessed this was the judging area Max had difficulty locating.

However, all eyes were glued to the passel standing near the judges’ tent. Two men stood on the edge of the crowd, doing their best imitation of gorilla alpha male dominance without actually beating their chests.

Behind them, two lanky women faced off. Their snarling expressions matched almost as well as their big hair and flashy nails. The brunette and blonde obviously shared the same Sidewinder beauty shop. And clothing boutique. Both wore tiny sundresses swaddled in aprons proclaiming their team names in adorable curlicue letters and polka dots.

I recognized the signature curlicue style belonging to the meanest woman in Forks County, Shawna Branson. It figured she had found a way to make money off the festival. Now I understood the reason for my tent’s position next to the pony manure dump. Shawna had it in for me since we were kids and my scrawny, little self out dodged her wild throws to win a VBS dodge ball tournament. She got me back by almost garroting me with a well-placed arm in Red Rover. We have been enemies ever since.

I scanned the crowd looking for Shawna and caught a glimpse of her bubblegum pink visor stating OFFICIAL in curlicue letters. Wearing a white seersucker shorts ensemble and platform wedge sandals, she waved a clipboard. Evidently the eardrum-piercing scream came from Shawna. An unhappy Shawna will rupture any number of body parts.

“Get back to your booths,” Shawna yelled. “How dare you ruin this festival with your backwoods country shenanigans. I’ve put a lot of effort in bringing culture to this hillbilly folk fest. The Brunswick Stew competition is making a name for itself and you’re going to ruin everything. We’ve got real people here. Out of town folks. Even foreigners.”

“What is she meaning, the tall woman in the pink hat?” asked Max.

“She’s meaning they had better break up their fight. Shawna doesn’t want anyone making a spectacle of themselves unless it’s Shawna.”

The blonde woman with an apron reading “Team Cotton Pickin’ Good” stepped forward and snatched Shawna’s clipboard.

The crowd sucked in a communal breath.

“This will all be over as soon as you disqualify them.” The blonde pointed a long, French-tipped fingernail in the direction of the brunette. “Team High Cotton is messing with our stew recipe. I caught Bruce and Belinda Gable going through our bins.”

“Give me back my clipboard.” Shawna yanked the board out of the woman’s hands and studied the other couple. “And y’all just need to simmer down. The missing judge will be here soon. I don’t give a monkey’s hoot about your recipe, but I do care about you upsetting the judges. Go back to your cooking station.”

“What happened to Joe McGill?” asked the tall blonde. “He’s been officiating this contest for years. He’ll know what to do.”

“I’m the official now, and that’s all you need to know,” said Shawna. “I’m presiding over the Forks County Arts Council, and I took it upon myself to shape up this festival. So get your behinds back to your tent.”

“Maybe I can help.” A diminutive woman, as delicate looking as a baby bird, strolled forward wearing a straw hat that dwarfed her tiny head. “I’m Marion Maynard of Cotton Pickin’ Good. It’s true the Gables of Team High Cotton were looking through our bins, but some of the boxes did get switched around during the unloading this morning. Perhaps they thought we had their bins.”

“Well?” Shawna stared at the accused couple.

Bruce Gable took a moment too long to answer and received an elbow jab from his wife.

“That’s what happened,” said Belinda Gable, patting her glossy, brown hair.

“Bullshit,” said the heavier of the gorillas. He folded his arms over his Team Cotton Pickin’ Good apron. “They were rifling through our stuff. Marion, whose team are you on anyway?”

“Don’t be ugly, Lewis.” The tiny Marion smiled at Shawna. “That’ll be all. Thank you.”

Dismissing Shawna, Marion and her giant hat strolled back to the Team Cotton Pickin’ tent. Shawna gaped after her, unused to an abrupt dismissal.

With a few mouthed obscenities tossed at each other, the men scurried toward their stations with the women following.

“Now that’s class,” I said. “That Marion with the hat has some good breeding. You can tell just by her posture. You can’t learn to walk like that with a couple cotillion classes. That’s good genes, is what that is.”

Max didn’t reply. He probably had trouble following the argument. Shawna shooed off the festival bystanders and spotted us.

“Mr. Avtaikin,” the snarl in Shawna’s voice slipped into a sugary drawl. “Yoo-hoo.”

“Hey, Shawna,” I said, always prepared for a detente in our girl feud. “Hot enough for you?”

“Mr. Maksim Avtaikin.” She ignored me to give Max a full eyelash flutter. Nauseating stuff. “You have finally graced us with your presence. I’ve been waiting your arrival most anxiously.”

I wrinkled my nose. When Shawna tried too hard, she sounded like she swallowed Gone with the Wind.

“Show Mr. Max his seat and tell him the rules,” I said. “He doesn’t need to be whitewashed.”

“It’s not whitewashing. It’s called being polite,” snapped Shawna. She turned to Max, smoothing the seersucker over her abundant curves. “You surely need to keep better company, Mr. Avtaikin. This is an old county with old families. Some raised better than others. Since you come from Europe, you are probably unaware.”

“We have old bloodlines in my country, Miss,” said Max.

Shawna fanned herself with the clipboard in long strokes, eyeing Max like a malnourished tiger let loose in a hog confinement. “I’m sure you do. So you understand, as a business man, the importance of the type of company you keep.”

“Are you hinting I’m not good enough to hang around Mr. Max?” I snorted. However old Max’s bloodlines, I was pretty sure he didn’t come from the elite. His people likely led revolutions against the aristocracy. Or sold black market armaments to the coup leaders.

“I understand this perfectly,” Max said. “I will take my place with the judges. Good day to you, Artist.” He gave a short bow to me and strolled past Shawna to enter the judges’ tent.

“Hey Bear,” I called after him. “Enjoy the stew.”

He looked over his shoulder and gave the slightest hint of a smile.

The crowd swelled around me, eager to watch the judging. I dug my heels in to keep my spot in front. Teenage girls in matching gold aprons sashayed into the tent bearing trays of numbered cups filled with stew. As contestants for the Stew Princess pageant, the poor girls also wore headbands adorned with a bobbing, golden stew pot. Another Shawna idea to class up Sidewinder’s country festival.

“You’ve got one of those looks on your face like you’re either thinking hard or doing something unladylike,” said a familiar baritone. Then he goosed me.

I spun to the side and took a quick second to admire the dark, brown curls—raw umber with a tad of burnt sienna in his highlights—that had finally grown back from his Police Academy buzz. I had missed those curls, even though Luke had a finely sculpted head. But Luke had a finely sculpted everything.

Behind his kick-butt cop shades, cool gray eyes studied me. “I thought you were working a craft booth.”

“Taking a break to watch the cook-off judging,” I said. “They send the cops out to break up the fight?”

“What fight?” Luke swiveled his gaze from me to the crowd.

“Between two cook-off teams. Don’t worry, Shawna took care of it.”

“Good for Shawna.” Luke smirked at my scowl. “We’re taking shifts at the festival and a couple deputies got hired to direct traffic. I just kicked a guy out for handing out some health drink without a permit. Did you see a short, beefed-up dude hauling a cooler and passing out Dixie cups with green stuff in them?”

“That would be Griffin Ward,” I said. “Eloise’s musclehead boyfriend. He came by our booth earlier to drop off stew and hassle Eloise. He forced her to drink the green stuff.”

“Forced her?”

“That’s what I would call the emotional blackmail he uses on her. Claims his health drinks have healed her Crohn’s Disease. And she won’t admit it, but I think he’s gotten physical with her a few times. How can she go out with a jerk like that? Eloise is smart and talented. What is it about women with weight issues falling for guys with No Fat Chicks stickers on their vehicles?”

Eloise’s family and mine represented a common characteristic of the Georgia cracker: our body types ran to extremes. My Grandpa and I leaned toward the whippet-thin, rangy side of the Southern physique. My sister Casey, like my mother, took my Grandma Jo’s genes.

Their curves could run to pounds if left unchecked. With Casey’s love of Southern cooking, she fought to contain her weight. Eloise’s family gave in to the inevitable, finding happiness in bacon, butter, and lard. God bless them, they were content in their obesity, but Eloise suffered from a poverty that had to do more with self-image than money.

I sometimes wondered if Eloise found her Crohn’s Disease a mixed blessing as the disease sometimes starved her appetite. I also wondered if Griffin felt that way as well, with his love of “No Fat Chicks.”

“Eloise is a smart gal, but I’ve seen it all. You can’t even imagine some of the domestic calls I’ve been on,” said Luke. “Not just in Forks County, but on the bases when I was an MP, too. It’s sickening.”

“He does it again, and I’m going to get Eloise to put a restraining order on him,” I said.

Luke sighed. “Chances are she won’t do it. I don’t get it. Some women get the living daylights beat out of them and won’t even press charges.”

My shoulders slumped.

“I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t worry. By the way, I have to cancel tonight,” he said and leaned down to kiss me before I could argue.

“Again? Eloise and I are going to the Viper for catfish. No way in hell do I want to be a third wheel if Griffin Ward shows up. Earlier today, I thought he was going to take a swing at me when I told him to lay off Eloise.”

“Don’t bait a guy like that. Do me a favor and take off if he shows up.” Luke lifted his shades so I could get a glimpse of his serious intent.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll leave Griffin alone. I wish you’d come out, though.”

“We’re stretched thin with the festival.” He shrugged. “You wanted me to work in Forks County. I got switched off nights. You should be happy.”

“I could talk to Uncle Will,” I said.

“Do not. I don’t like people who play favorites, and I sure as hell don’t want that reputation. Bad enough the crap I get for dating you.”

“What kind of crap? Why?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got to get.” He twitched my ponytail. “My shift here is over. I’ll try to catch you later.”

I watched him amble away, too agitated to enjoy the view.

Another broken date. From the difficulty of his twelve-hour shifts and his disinterest in doing much more than snuggling in his free time, the honeymoon period on our renewed dating status had cooled. It seemed we hadn’t quite worked out what we were doing romantically. Other than some real hot snuggling.

Cornering him on the state of our relationship was harder than lassoing a squirrel.

My irritation grew as I watched the judges take an outrageous amount of time to appraise their tiny cups of Brunswick Stew. What was so hard about swallowing stew and voting up or down? They raised the clear plastic cups of stew to eye level, exposing various shades of brown. Using the pressure of a spoon, one judge tested corn, potato, and okra slices for durability. Another loudly slurped each minuscule sip and pondered the taste like it was fine wine and not a side dish for barbecue. One woman picked out each piece of shredded meat and laid the insignificant threads on her tongue before swallowing.

Where the hell did Shawna get these judges? They certainly were not the local farmers, bankers, and shopkeepers who usually presided over this event. Sidewinder’s stew fest did get the occasional politician or high school football star, but these jokers seemed to have stepped off a higher epicurean plane to fall into our county gastronomical challenge. Once the locals figured out the charade, Shawna would rue the decision to axe the mud pit.

I was all for raising the cultural bar in Forks County, but there was a time and place for everything. A local festival roasting in the mid-summer rays of a Georgia sun was not the place to put on airs. Shawna had one savior that prevented the stars and bars crew from tossing their Natty Light cans at the tent. Max Avtaikin. He tossed back each cup without use of a spoon, wrote a single comment on his top-secret judging sheet, and slid his eyes to half-mast to wait out the proceedings. Around me, a few men elbowed each other and pointed out his lack of social grace. Women tittered and whispered.

But even Max’s shenanigans couldn’t keep me there. Between the heat and the heavy scent of food I couldn’t afford to eat, I decided to give up on the contest and traipse back to our portable art gallery.

Before entering the tent, I took a moment to admire our contribution to the culture of Forks County. My small oil paintings of beach scenes, bowls of peaches, and bulldogs. Typical Georgia themes that folks around here could appreciate. And Eloise had placed her Raku ware pots in pretty patterns that caught a lot of eyes. At the front display table, I adjusted a small, cobalt blue-crackled vase, turning it to better show off the glaze. That’s when I noticed Eloise hunkered in her chair, holding her stomach.

I hurried to her chair. “Are you okay? You’re looking kind of puny.”

She moaned. “Maybe my Crohn’s is acting up. Never had an attack so bad. My gut is on fire, like I ate glass.” She struggled to stand and teetered on her feet.

I grabbed her elbow. “Let me help.” I wrapped an arm around her shoulder when her legs wouldn’t accept her weight.

She shook her head. “I’m gonna be sick,” she whispered.

BOOK: Still Life in Brunswick Stew
13.35Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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