A Chili Death: A Classic Diner Mystery by Jessica Beck Read Free Book Online Page A

cream to hold for him while his freezer’s getting fixed.  He doesn’t want folks to know that he’s having trouble, so it’s pretty hush-hush.”
    “With that goose ice sculpture we’re keeping, too, I’m amazed that we have room for our own supplies.”
    “Brian Wright made it for practice a week early before Sally Ann Culver’s wedding.  Is it his fault that it turned out so beautifully on the day of the murder?  It’s a real work of art.”  He paused, and then added, “It’s a swan, by the way, not a goose.”
    “I don’t care if it’s a replica of the Empire State Building, it’s taking up too much room in our storage area.”
    “Why are you suddenly so interested in what’s in our freezer, and when it got there?”  Before I even had the chance to answer, he did it for me.  “I left the back door unlocked after they brought the ice cream and the sculpture in, didn’t I?”
    “There was a catch in the latch when I shut it, but Greg, I’m not accusing you of anything,” I said.
    He shook his head as he answered, “You don’t have to.  I failed to lock up, and someone must have followed Lance into our freezer.  Why he was there in the first place is beyond me, but what I want to know is, when did they have time to sneak in?  I barely left the kitchen all day.”
    “Think about it.  Did you ever leave the back for more than a minute or two?  We know that door was unlocked between four when you took that delivery and seven when I found it and locked it back.”
    He considered it, and then nodded.  “You and I were eating dinner out front between five and five thirty.  While we were out in the dining room, someone killed Howard Lance in our freezer.  Victoria, I’m never going to be able to forgive myself for this.”
    It was my turn to console my husband.  “Greg, that’s crazy, and you know it.  You left a door unlocked and had dinner with your wife.  You didn’t have any more to do with killing Howard Lance than any of the rest of us.  Whoever decided to murder him could have done it just about anywhere that the opportunity arose.  The fact that they chose our freezer to make one of us look guilty just makes me angry enough to spit fire.  The killer tried to put this on us on purpose, Greg, and I’m not going to stand for it.”
    He accepted what I said, and then nodded in agreement.  “That goes double for me.  This might not have been my fault, but I’m not about to let someone else try to pin a murder on someone in our family.  We need to call Moose, and I mean right now.”
    I was about to do just that when I looked up and saw my grandfather marching quickly to the diner that had been named after him.
    It appeared that we weren’t the only ones who were livid about where the killer had chosen to strike.
     

Chapter 4
     
    “What’s the meaning of this?” Moose asked as he barged into the restaurant past the flashing lights of the police cars and the ambulance.
    The sheriff was just coming out of the kitchen area, and I noticed that there was a slight hitch to his step as he turned to face my grandfather.
    “There’s been a murder here, Moose,” he said calmly.  “No one’s allowed in the kitchen until my team is done in there.”
    “You can’t tell me what to do in my own diner,” my grandfather said loudly.
    I decided to get between them before Moose said something that we’d all live to regret.  “Leave him alone.  He’s just doing his job, Moose.”
    “Are you telling me that you’re on his side?” my grandfather asked, clearly amazed by my reaction.
    “I’m with you, one hundred percent, and you shouldn’t even have to ask that question, but I’m the one who found the body, or did no one tell you that?”
    “What?” he asked, crumpling a little.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t know.”  Moose wrapped me up in his arms much as my husband just had.  It wasn’t a rare response from Greg, but my grandfather wasn’t much of a