Murder at the Tremont House: Blue Plate Cafe Sries

By Judy Alter

When free-lance journalist Sara Jo Cavanaugh comes to Wheeler to do an in-depth study for a feature on small-town America, Kate senses she will be trouble. Sara Jo stays at the B&B, Tremont House, run by Kate's sister, Donna, and drives a further wedge int Donna's marriage to Wheeler's mayor Tom Bryson.Soon she's spending way too much time interviewing high school students, one young athlete in particular. Police chief Rick Samuels ignores Kate's instinct, but lawyer David Cinkscales, her former Dallas boss, takes it seriously.

Sara Jo arouses animosity in Wheeler with her personal, intrusive questions, and when she is found murdered, the list of suspects is long. But Kate heads the list, and she must clear her name, with the help of David and Rick. A second murder confirms that someone is desperate, and now Rick is convinced Kate is in danger.

There's a love triangle, a cooking school, a kidnapping, a broken marriage, and a lot of adventure before the threads of this mystery are untangled and Wheeler can go back to being a peaceful town. Recipes included.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alter Ego Press
• Release date: Aug 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9780999037164

Judy Alter

An award-winning novelist, Judy Alter is the author of six books in the Kelly O’Connell Mysteries series: Skeleton in a Dead Space, No Neighborhood for Old Women, Trouble in a Big Box, Danger Comes Home, Deception in Strange Places, and Desperate for Death. With Murder at the Blue Plate Café, she moved from inner city Fort Worth to small-town East Texas to create a new set of characters in a setting modeled after a restaurant that was for years one of her family’s favorites. She followed with two more Blue Plate titles: Murder at the Tremont Inn and Murder at Peacock Mansion.

Book preview

Chapter One

HINDSIGHT, THEY SAY, is twenty-twenty, but I think I knew Sara Jo Cavanaugh was trouble the minute she walked into the Blue Plate Café. I thought at first she was just passing through town and stopped to warm herself, because it was one of those raw March days when damp makes a temperature of forty degrees feel like ten. No snow but drizzle, which, to my mind, is worse.

She came in shaking her head as though to rid it of raindrops. Her reddish-brown hair was caught in a ponytail so at first glance I thought she was a college student. She wore a parka, with the hood thrown back, and had a large and expensive-looking leather backpack slung casually over one shoulder. Stomping her booted feet—Doc Martens, I suspected—she straightened, looked right at me, and I saw she was older than I’d thought. Probably mid-thirties. But a good mid-thirties, fit, determined, clear-eyed. Maybe I should have been cautious right then, but I’m in the habit of welcoming newcomers to the Blue Plate Café.

So I asked, I bet you need to warm up. Coffee? Hot tea? Cocoa?

Coffee. Black. She plopped herself down on a counter stool and set her bag on the counter, taking out a cell phone which immediately absorbed her attention. I served the coffee and left her to her own devices.

Until she suddenly looked up, held out a forthright hand and said, I’m Sara Jo Cavanaugh. We shook, and I introduced myself, and then she pressed a business card into my hand. It simply identified her as a freelance writer.

You live here long? she asked.

I grew up here.

Ever get bored in this tiny town? Think it’s time to move on from waiting tables in a café?

I bristled. Well, first, I own the café. And second, I had a fairly long career as a paralegal in Dallas. I’m back here by choice. No need to tell her about Gram talking through me. I’m no psychic, don’t even believe in the paranormal, but after she died, when the future of the café was up in the air, I’d open my mouth and find myself saying I was going to move from Dallas back to my hometown of Wheeler to run the Blue Plate. I swore Gram was putting words in my mouth, wherever she was, and then sometimes she’d talk to me, mostly in platitudes, and she rarely stayed around to listen to my reply. A few times though she did give me helpful hints, and I found the thought of her presence comforting. I don’t usually tell people about it, because they’d think I’m weird.

This Cavanaugh woman whipped out an electronic notebook and began making notes, while I stood in amazement. This was no ordinary person passing through town—besides, on the road through Wheeler, where would she be coming from or going to? Most travelers took the Interstate that was at least fifteen miles to the north or 64, the back road to Tyler, which was about five miles from us.

Just as abruptly, she whipped the notebook shut and explained, I’m working on a study of small-town America, and I’ve chosen Wheeler as a sort of microcosm. I’ll be here a while. I don’t suppose there’s a hotel. Any idea where I should stay? Travel agent suggested The Tremont House.

Family loyalty runs deep, even if my twin sister, Donna, and I see the world differently from almost any angle. Donna had finally opened her B&B on the edge of town in what was once a grand, two-story brick farmhouse belonging to the Tremont family, so she called it The Tremont House. Now it was elegant, with a state-of-the-art kitchen, gleaming hardwood floors (though I’d never forget the picture in my mind of Irving Litman lying in a pool of his own blood on that dining room floor). The rooms offered comfy down quilts—wonderful in weather like this—and TV, Wi-Fi, semi-private bathrooms, and all the comforts of home. Of course, there were only four guest rooms. And Donna served breakfast—sticky buns and breakfast casserole that I sent over early every morning and she pretended she’d been slaving over since dawn. I kept her secret.

The Tremont House sat on a large property with several wooded areas, thickets, a small pond, and several outbuildings—an old barn near falling down, what appeared to be a tool shed, built of concrete block, and what may once have been a guesthouse or servants quarters. Sometimes Henry, my nephew, and his buddies wandered around through the thickets, though Tom, his father, warned them about snakes and buildings that could collapse on them. When Tom said, I know. I shouldn’t worry about them so much, I simply replied, Boys will be boys. And they usually grow up without significant damage. His sisters Ava, now almost a teenager, and sweet young Jess never went near The Tremont House, which suited Donna. She didn’t think children belonged around a B&B but she tolerated the boys playing on the grounds. They could not, however, track mud into her newly sparkling kitchen or venture into the living areas. Meanwhile the girls were at home, wishing their mother was too. Not a happy situation.

I brought myself back to the present moment and Sara Jo Cavanaugh’s question. Sure. The Tremont House would be my choice. My sister owns it.

So your family is prominent in town?

I wouldn’t say that. My grandmother, Johnny Chambers, owned this café for years, and she was a legend. Donna and I don’t quite reach that height.

Just then, Rick Samuels walked in and sat at the counter, two stools away from the newcomer. I didn’t have to ask. I served him black coffee and said, Yes, I have one sticky bun with your name on it.

Good job, Kate. Thanks. Rick, who was never interested in much beyond his own duties, which he took very seriously, cast a sidelong glance at this Sara Jo and ventured the first casual conversation to a stranger I’d ever heard from him. It wasn’t a very original line. New in town or just passing through?

She looked long enough to take in the crisply ironed, tan uniform and the police badge. I’m here to stay for a while. Researching small town life.

The corners of his mouth did that funny thing they do when he means to smile. Wheeler can show you all the good and the bad.

Now what did he mean by that?

She asked the question that was on my mind but whipped out that notebook again as she did so. What do you mean?

Rick looked a little startled, but he plunged right in despite the daggers I was looking at him. Well, we have our share of problems. Life in a small town isn’t always as tranquil as I thought it would be when I came here from Dallas. He thought a minute. Let’s go sit at a table, and I’ll tell you about Wheeler.

If I’d really had a dagger, I’d have thrown it at him.

RICK AND I SORT OF are a couple and sort of aren’t. That’s hard to explain, but the first few months after I came back from Dallas, after Gram died suddenly, were hard, to put it mildly. I had my suspicions about Gram’s death, though Rick dismissed them, and then the mayor, who was determined to shut the café down and buy it at a fire-sale price, got deathly ill from eating greens from the Blue Plate. Donna complicated things by forging ahead with her plan for a B&B, even though she didn’t have financing, and she enlisted a financial advisor from Dallas and then had an affair with him. When he was found shot dead, Donna was charged, and I had to work to clear her name, in spite of the prickly relationship we had. With Gram helping from the beyond, I unearthed evidence against Gram’s accountant, a mouse of a man, or so we thought, named William Overton. I darn near got myself killed when I confronted him, and Rick hasn’t forgiven me completely yet. And then there was Steve Millican, who owned a nursery, sold drugs from it, tried to woo me, and built me a fence for my yard on his last day of freedom. Rick and I didn’t see eye to eye about that either.

But we’ve decided to let bygones be bygones. Well, he has. I still have some rebellious feelings about being treated like the airhead party girl from Dallas, and he still pulls his I am the police chief and I take my job seriously attitude on me some. But we go to dinner and maybe a movie in Canton (there’s none in Wheeler), or I cook and we watch TV. I’ve come to see the soft side of Police Chief Rick Samuels, and I like it.

I did not like him taking Sara Jo Cavanaugh off into a corner to tell her about Wheeler.

IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM, join them. I got myself a cup of coffee and headed over to the corner table, the one at which I thought so many assignations had taken place and plots been hatched. As far as I was concerned, it’s a jinxed table, but that didn’t stop me.

Rick was regaling Sara Jo with the story of my encounter with the late William Overton, who nearly killed me. If his aim—or his hand—had been steadier, he’d have done the job. I was not particularly amused by this recounting, but Sara Jo whipped that notebook out again and was taking notes.

So Kate tried to cowboy it all alone, Rick said, but Sara Jo interrupted.

Cowboy it?

He gave her that raised corners of the mouth smile. You’re not from Texas, are you?

No. But she hesitated as she said it, and I pegged her as Dallas born and raised. City girls didn’t always know what it meant to cowboy it.

Cowboy it. Tough it out...by herself. Although I’ve warned her time and again. But she went after him, accused him...of course, she was the one with the evidence, but still, she should have called me. Anyway, he tried to kidnap her at gunpoint, but Kate was too smart. She threw a flowerpot at him and ran, and his shots went wild. That’s when I drove up.

Sara Jo keyed in things at a frantic rate.

See, Rick went on, things aren’t always quiet in this small town...or any other. Then he turned his attention to me, patting me on the arm. But, Kate isn’t going to try to save the world herself anymore, are you, Kate?

Dumbstruck, I shook my head. I felt like the slightly demented child—or elderly aunt—in the group. Rick was definitely talking down to me, and I resented it.

Sara Jo, if you’re not from Texas, where are you from? I broke into the conversation with the first of what I intended to be some blunt questions. It dawned on me I hadn’t detected any regional accent in her speech, though I’m deaf to Texas-speak. It all sounds natural to me.

Back east, she said vaguely, waving a hand in the air.

And what magazine are you working for? I pursued this like a bulldog.

The ponytail shook back and forth. I’m not at liberty to tell you that. This is a free-lance job, on a spec basis. If they like it, they’ll print it. But it’s big. Believe me. It’s national. We could put Wheeler on the map.

Favorably or unfavorably? I asked.

Depends on what I find, she said enigmatically. I’ll probably be here at least a month, and I’ll dig deeply.

Swell. Was she going to uncover hidden skeletons that even we didn’t know about?

The lunch crowd was beginning to trickle in, and I excused myself to take over the cash register. I’m afraid I was none too gracious in my leave-taking, but I was exasperated with her, with Rick, and suddenly with the whole town of Wheeler. Why uncover hidden secrets? She would dig into the accusation that Donna killed Irv Litman, and who knew what else she’d find?

I grumped my way through the lunch hour, and my mood was so obvious that one customer asked, You feeling okay, Kate? You’re not yourself.

Just a slight headache, I replied. I’ll be fine.

Marj, sliding by me to deliver a lunch plate to a counter customer, whispered, You sure it isn’t a heartache instead of a headache?

Briefly I considered knocking the plate out of her hand but decided it would be bad form. Marj had worked had the café as long as I could remember, thirty years at least. She had been faithfully loyal to Gram over the years and had now transferred that protective loyalty to me, though she couldn’t resist a tease or two. Other staff came and went, but there was always Gus, the dishwasher, an alcoholic Gram had somehow rescued from the streets of Dallas, and I relied on Benny, my assistant cook in the mornings, though I suspected he’d move on if a pretty Hispanic girl tempted him.

Rick and Sara Jo left soon after. Both came to the register to pay, though I made a big show of making Sara Jo’s lunch on the house, and Rick, who had not long ago eaten that last sticky bun, said, Save me a meat loaf sandwich. I’ll be back. Sara Jo said she was off to The Tremont House, and I called to make sure Donna was there. Then, with a sigh of relief, I saw them both out the door.

Marj never said another word to me until the lunch rush was over. Then she suggested, Why don’t you run home and have a little rest before supper?

Now she’s treating me like a child, just like Rick did.

I agreed that was a good idea. I’d let Huggles in for a while, snuggle with Wynona, my cat I’d brought with me from Dallas, and collect my wits. But the peace I craved was not what was waiting for me when I got home. Huggles, my wonderful, shaggy dog, was waiting at the gate for me and gave me his usual enthusiastic greeting, full of wet slurps. It’s nice to have some living thing appreciate you when you’re feeling out of sorts with most of the world, as I was just then.

Gram hadn’t spoken to me since the death of William Overton and the recovery of the café’s embezzled funds, when she’d said, Well done, my child. I knew I was right to put my faith in you.

Suddenly she was back, and she wasn’t gentle. Katherine Anne Chambers, what has gotten into you?

I knew I was in trouble. When I was growing up and Gram called me by my full name, it meant something bad. And she had that same tone of voice.

Gram never waited for me to answer. You were downright rude to that Sara Jo, just because you think Rick Samuels has fallen for her. How shallow do you think he is that it would take him months to get close to you and then in—what? Less than two hours? —he’d fall for another woman? And as for Sara Jo, are you jealous of her career? You better look again. That’s a woman with a problem, and she’s going to need you.

I stammered, but I had no good reply. I knew I had behaved childishly. Gram left me with a final admonition, Put away negative thoughts, and start over again with positive thoughts. Gram always was fond of platitudes, but I heard her.

Having delivered her lecture and left me with way too much to think about, Gram disappeared. She never did wait around to hear my side of the story, but this time I knew my side was pretty weak. I surprised myself by feeling so possessive about Rick. After all, I’d done as much to keep him at arm’s length as he had. I think we had both burned ourselves in the party scene—call a spade a spade, the bar scene—in Dallas, and we were reluctant to trust. But I really did like our dinners and our time together. We liked the same books and movies; he loved Huggles, he was cute with my nieces and nephew, and he appreciated my cooking even if he wasn’t a cook. Oh, not the meals I served him at the café, but the dinners I cooked at home, like the coq au vin I made last week or, earlier, the chicken piccata. It was just...well, the spark wasn’t there. But if it wasn’t, why did I suddenly feel threatened when he talked to another woman?

And Sara Jo? Gram, you’re wrong. That woman doesn’t need anybody’s help. She’s going to cause trouble for Wheeler, not herself, and darn it, I can be protective of this town. You’ve taught me all over again that it’s my town, and these are my people.

Gram actually replied this time, but all she said was, Child, walk softly, and try walking in the other person’s shoes.

Now what did that mean? I should put myself in Sara Jo’s shoes and see Wheeler as she did?

I slept until five-thirty. When I groggily realized what time it was, I splashed cold water on my face, ran a comb through my hair, grabbed a fresh apron and made a beeline for the café. Marj just gave me a long look and said, If you’re back, I’m done for the day.

I assured her I could handle it. And I remembered Gram and her positive thoughts enough that when Sara Jo came in for supper, I was pleasant. She sat at the counter again, ordered tuna fish salad—I knew she would be diet conscious—and thanked me for confirming The Tremont House would be a good place to stay.

Donna has given me the suite, she exulted. So now I have a bedroom and an office. It’s going to be perfect. And we may work out a deal where I can have kitchen privileges, so I won’t have to buy all my meals here.

Maybe I should talk to Donna about undercutting my business. But I imagine even the Blue Plate menu would get old in a month. I just smiled and said I was glad it worked out. I even smiled when she told me what a kind, good person Donna was, though I admit I had to fight back some dark thoughts.

The café was slow, and I had time to talk so I answered her questions about what it was like to grow up in Wheeler, and as I talked I realized that growing up in Wheeler was a pretty wonderful experience. If I had kids, I’d want them to have the same small-town childhood, not the fast pace I saw in friends’ children in Dallas, with organized activities from sports to dance to music to karate taking up every minute. Then I thought about Donna’s kids who had the small-town experience all right but had no activities and no attention from their mom. Tom and I did what we could, but he had a hardware store to