Murder Al Dente: A Southern Pasta Shop Mystery (Southern Pasta Shop Mysteries Book 1) by Jennifer L. Hart Page A
Authors: Jennifer L. Hart
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waste—"
" No." She stated as a fact. "People eat it. We give what is left to the shelter at church."
" Right. But we're giving it away, not turning a profit on it." I swallowed. "Maybe we could just make a little less pasta—?"
A sharp slicing hand gesture cut off my suggestion. "I make what we need, no more."
" But we're losing money. It's not smart business."
She turned her back on me and shuffled into the other room.
I stared at the ceiling. "Little help?"
* * *
"Hey Mike." I greeted the mechanic with a fist bump. "How's my baby?"
" Not pretty, Andy. You did a number on this car."
Grimacing at the mucked-up grill, the missing headlight , and the wrecked paint, I peeked under the hood and checked out his progress. Working on classic cars had always been a hobby of mine, though I was a rank amateur compared to Mike who had practically been born with a monkey wrench in his hand. Still, I knew how to check my oil, rotate my tires, and a few other sundry bits essential for a car-adoring single woman.
" Go easy on me here," I pleaded. "It's been a bear of a week."
" The frame is jacked-up good, babe. She's never gonna run like she did before, and you'll be burning through tires the way my wife goes through my paycheck."
" Damn it all." I looked around, needing something to kick other than my car or my mechanic. "How much to get her running again?"
Mike named a sum , and when the room stopped spinning and I was able to suck oxygen into my lungs again, I thanked him and headed back to the Town Car.
* * *
Pops had allowed me to drive him to his eye doctor's appointment, and while I waited for him to emerge from the squat brick building, I slid the Jones file out of my shoulder bag.
Most of what was in there w as public-record-type documents. Record of live birth listing Malcolm Devlin Jones, born January 27 th , 1976 at St. Lucy's hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. Mother listed as Delilah Jones, father unknown. Huh. Wonder if Lizzy ' s Dad had insisted on a paternity test, or if he even knew about little Malcolm prior to his birth. If there was one family in town that had been speculated on more than my own, it was the Tillmans. According to the grapevine, Robert Tillman would have been married to Lizzy's mother for about seven years around the time Jones was born. My imagination took over from there. The not so happy couple had difficulty conceiving, a much bigger deal with fewer options in the seventies than what's available today. Defying the time-honored tradition of booze and sleeping pills to mask her hurt, Mrs. Tillman had thrown all of her efforts into charity while Mr. T got his rocks off with a pretty little Miss Galaxy or two.
I wondered why she stayed with him. She was smart and determined and had a real head for business, even if she was the mother of the biggest brat east of the Mississippi. Love was a funny thing.
Turning back to the file I pieced together a little more on my favorite New Zealander. Delilah Jones 's profession was listed as waitress Jones attended public school, earned top grades, then went to college at Oxford University, where he studied pre-clinical health. That explained the medical training.
Halfway through his third year, his mother died in a boating accident. A lump formed in my throat when I read that one. He 'd been twenty-one at the time, older that I had been when my mother died, but still. I wondered if Jones had any wacky relatives who helped him through his grief. Somehow I doubted he had the benefit of doting grandparents, because he dropped out of school before the spring semester.
There was a large span of years from the late nineties until 2007 when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Otherwise there was almost a decade with no record of his activities. Whatever he'd been doing, he did it off the grid.
His photography business got a big bump when he won second place in the International Photography Awards with his photograph
" No." She stated as a fact. "People eat it. We give what is left to the shelter at church."
" Right. But we're giving it away, not turning a profit on it." I swallowed. "Maybe we could just make a little less pasta—?"
A sharp slicing hand gesture cut off my suggestion. "I make what we need, no more."
" But we're losing money. It's not smart business."
She turned her back on me and shuffled into the other room.
I stared at the ceiling. "Little help?"
* * *
"Hey Mike." I greeted the mechanic with a fist bump. "How's my baby?"
" Not pretty, Andy. You did a number on this car."
Grimacing at the mucked-up grill, the missing headlight , and the wrecked paint, I peeked under the hood and checked out his progress. Working on classic cars had always been a hobby of mine, though I was a rank amateur compared to Mike who had practically been born with a monkey wrench in his hand. Still, I knew how to check my oil, rotate my tires, and a few other sundry bits essential for a car-adoring single woman.
" Go easy on me here," I pleaded. "It's been a bear of a week."
" The frame is jacked-up good, babe. She's never gonna run like she did before, and you'll be burning through tires the way my wife goes through my paycheck."
" Damn it all." I looked around, needing something to kick other than my car or my mechanic. "How much to get her running again?"
Mike named a sum , and when the room stopped spinning and I was able to suck oxygen into my lungs again, I thanked him and headed back to the Town Car.
* * *
Pops had allowed me to drive him to his eye doctor's appointment, and while I waited for him to emerge from the squat brick building, I slid the Jones file out of my shoulder bag.
Most of what was in there w as public-record-type documents. Record of live birth listing Malcolm Devlin Jones, born January 27 th , 1976 at St. Lucy's hospital in Auckland, New Zealand. Mother listed as Delilah Jones, father unknown. Huh. Wonder if Lizzy ' s Dad had insisted on a paternity test, or if he even knew about little Malcolm prior to his birth. If there was one family in town that had been speculated on more than my own, it was the Tillmans. According to the grapevine, Robert Tillman would have been married to Lizzy's mother for about seven years around the time Jones was born. My imagination took over from there. The not so happy couple had difficulty conceiving, a much bigger deal with fewer options in the seventies than what's available today. Defying the time-honored tradition of booze and sleeping pills to mask her hurt, Mrs. Tillman had thrown all of her efforts into charity while Mr. T got his rocks off with a pretty little Miss Galaxy or two.
I wondered why she stayed with him. She was smart and determined and had a real head for business, even if she was the mother of the biggest brat east of the Mississippi. Love was a funny thing.
Turning back to the file I pieced together a little more on my favorite New Zealander. Delilah Jones 's profession was listed as waitress Jones attended public school, earned top grades, then went to college at Oxford University, where he studied pre-clinical health. That explained the medical training.
Halfway through his third year, his mother died in a boating accident. A lump formed in my throat when I read that one. He 'd been twenty-one at the time, older that I had been when my mother died, but still. I wondered if Jones had any wacky relatives who helped him through his grief. Somehow I doubted he had the benefit of doting grandparents, because he dropped out of school before the spring semester.
There was a large span of years from the late nineties until 2007 when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Otherwise there was almost a decade with no record of his activities. Whatever he'd been doing, he did it off the grid.
His photography business got a big bump when he won second place in the International Photography Awards with his photograph
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