The following short story by Olivia Blacke takes place in the Brooklyn Murder Mysteries. This short story is always free to read on OliviaBlacke.com. Distribution without express written permission is prohibited, but link sharing is encouraged. Copywrite Olivia Blacke, 2021. Thanks, and enjoy!
Note: You can also download this short story as an ePub or MOBI file to read on your favorite e-reader. Both files are zipped and will need to be unzipped.
KILLER RECIPE
This is a short companion story to KILLER CONTENT (02/02/2021) and NO MEMES OF ESCAPE (10/05/2021) available from Berkley/Penguin Random House
CHAPTER ONE
Odessa Dean @OdessaWaiting
Is it possible to have a case of the Mondays on a Wednesday? Asking for a friend.
#NYC #Williamsburg #adulting
There were days I wanted to murder my boss. Today was one of them.
I’m a waitress. To be specific, I serve a revolving selection of fresh, locally sourced (and delicious!) dishes and cold craft beer at the eclectic Untapped Books & Café in the hip Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg. Growing up in the tiny town of Piney Island, Louisiana, I never thought I’d fit in with New Yorkers at the tender age of twenty-three, but luckily I was wrong. The crew and customers at Untapped have embraced me as one of their squad and I love them all back.
Except Todd.
Todd Morris, the manager at Untapped Books & Café, is an unmitigated pain in the you-know-what. He swaps shifts without warning, yells a lot, and thinks his sense of humor is hilarious. Spoiler alert—it isn’t.
When he screams “Odessa!” I know it’s about to get interesting. As far as I can tell, Todd’s only hobby is assigning me all sorts of tasks that were way outside my job description. “Odessa, update the store’s Twitter account.” “Odessa, we’re running low on Pour Williamsburg Pale Ale. Run to the brewery and pick up a few cases.” “Odessa, walk Huckleberry, and give him his heartworm meds while you’re at it.” For the record, Huckleberry, the shop dog, hates taking pills and I have to get more creative with my bribes each time. “Odessa, the employee toilet is backed up again. Fix it.”
When he bellowed my name, I ducked into the tiny kitchen. Parker Reed, the day-shift short-order chef and my very dear friend, had his hands full as usual, juggling multiple orders. He looked at me in surprise. “Don’t you hear Todd?”
I nodded and skootched past him. The kitchen could fit two, if you were really, really friendly. “Hide me,” I begged.
Easier said than done. Even if the kitchen had ample room, there was no place to conceal a grown adult. The walk-in was barely larger than a regular fridge. I might be shorter than average, but I was full-figured and couldn’t squeeze into the narrow space under the counter, even if it wasn’t already jam-packed with spare dishes, a case of locally-made potato chips, and a stand-up mixer that hadn’t worked in ages.
Besides, I was wearing the neon green Untapped Books & Café polo uniform shirt. One can’t hide while wearing neon anything. Which, come to think of it, may have been the whole point. Although, I had a sneaking suspicion we bought them because the atrocious color was always on sale.
“There you are,” Todd said, poking his head into the pass-thru window.
Oof. I knew I couldn’t hide forever, but thirty seconds was Todd’s personal best. Hashtag impressed.
“I’ve been calling your name. Didn’t you hear me?”
Parker jammed a finger onto the highest blender setting, and the sound of grating ice filled the small kitchen. A few days ago, Parker came up with the idea of offering a different smoothie every day of the week, and so far the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Today’s smoothie was berries and kale. I hadn’t sampled it yet. I was afraid if I told anyone, they’d run me out of Brooklyn but I secretly hated kale. I thought it tasted like feet.
When Parker released the button, he gave Todd a friendly grin. Parker had a puffy mop of blond hair barely contained by a hairnet and big, green eyes. Even when the kitchen was slammed with orders, he had a calm, Zen-like demeanor and a nice word for everyone. “Sorry, boss, couldn’t hear you over the blender. Can you repeat that?”
Todd grunted. He wasn’t the most effective manager, nor the most sensitive. Todd couldn’t remember a simple password, couldn’t be bothered to hide his disapproval of hipsters and Millennials even though he ran a café in Williamsburg, and no matter how many times someone pointed out his offensive language, he always conveniently forgot a second later. He could yell at me all day—I was just a waitress, easily replaceable. But even Todd wasn’t thickheaded enough to take his petty power trip out on Parker.
Untapped Books & Café would be nothing without Parker. Any place could serve craft beer. Any place could carry niche books. Only Untapped had Parker’s brilliance in the kitchen, and Todd knew it.
He turned his attention to me. “Odessa, when you’re done here, I could use a hand.”
Parker slid sideways and flipped a sandwich on the small grill, his grin never wavering. “I kinda need her here, if you don’t mind.”
“My phone’s out of juice and I left my charger at home. I need Odessa to run back to my apartment and pick it up.”
“Don’t worry, Todd, we’ll hold down the fort while you go home and grab it,” Parker said. Then he added, “Excuse me,” and reached past me to rummage through the walk-in for the jar of artisan pickles. He plated the meal—one of his famous grilled apple, fennel, and cheese sandwiches on homemade sourdough bread, locally produced chips, pickles, and a thick slice of tomato grown on the rooftop garden next door—and poured a smoothie. He slid it onto the pass-thru, forcing Todd to take a step backwards so the other waitress serving in the café today could deliver it to Table Seven.
“It’ll only take a sec,” Todd continued.
“Promise, we’ll be here when you get back,” Parker replied, deliberately misinterpreting him. Todd’s phone was old enough that it wasn’t compatible on any of our chargers. If he was too lazy to run home and get the charger himself, he was just going to have to spend the rest of his shift without a cell phone, which was fine by me.
Todd made a salty face and left.
Parker grinned at me. This time, it was genuine, not just a way of placating the boss. “He’s fun to mess with.”
“You really need my help, or were you just saying that to get rid of Todd?” I asked.
“Both.” He gestured at the blender. “Want a sample?”
Kale. Shudder. “Thanks, but no thanks. What can I do for you?”
Parker poured himself just enough to cover the bottom of a glass before tasting it. The smoothie must have met his high standards because he smacked his lips with satisfaction before setting the glass down on the counter. “My recipe book’s gone missing, and I need your help to find it.”
“Okie dokie,” I agreed. If Parker had asked me to change the oil in a car or help carry a couch up to a sixth floor walk-up, I would have agreed just as eagerly. Not that anyone I knew in Williamsburg had a car. Or could afford a new couch. I wasn’t afraid of hard work, and I’d do just about anything to help out a friend in need, especially Parker. I just wasn’t as keen on running unpaid or underpaid errands for a boss that saw me as a replaceable commodity no more valuable than a plastic one-use shopping bag.
Which, for the record, I was firmly against. I always brought my own reusable canvas bags to the store.
“Where’s the last place you saw your recipe book?” I asked. I was no detective. Okay, so maybe I’ve found a body. Or two. And managed to suss out who murdered them. And bring the killer to justice. Next to that, finding a mislaid recipe book was a snap.
“I lock it up in this drawer at the end of my shift.” He slid open a drawer with a flimsy hinge on it and a loop made for a small lock. I’d never noticed the drawer before, which was a good thing. Whenever anyone was on shift, whether they were waiting tables or working in the bookstore half of Untapped, we crammed all of our bags into an unsecured cabinet under the kitchen counter. As far as I knew, nothing had ever grown legs and walked away, but it was disconcerting to leave my wallet—empty as it usually was—cell phone, keys, and whatever other miscellany I had in my messenger bag in an unlocked communal space.
Then again, the drawer was hardly large enough to hold a recipe book with any room left over to spare for not only my phone but all the phones and wallets of everyone on shift at any given time. Besides, if everyone had a key to the lock, it would defeat the purpose. I’d worked in the food service industry long enough to know that we weren’t lazy—not even close—but we were usually too busy to be bothered with little things like locks and doors and personal security.
“Maybe you took it home and forgot?” I suggested.
“I only take it home at night when I’m working on a new recipe, and last night I had plans to go see my roomie’s new band play, so I knew I wasn’t going to get anything done.”
“I thought your kitchen was broken?” I asked. It was the ultimate irony. A chef with Parker’s talent, and he didn’t even have a working stove at home. He made do with a multi-use air fryer and a tiny microwave.
“It is, but my neighbor lets me use hers as long as I let her sample. She even cleans up afterward.”
“Sounds mutually beneficial.” Williamsburg was no utopia, but my generation was determined to make the world a better place one block at a time. Just the other day, I taught the girl who works in the bodega how to sew a teddy bear for her sister’s new baby. I’ve got a sewing machine and had a pile of scrap cloth that she was able to use for sewing and stuffing, so it didn’t cost me anything. In return, she made me some homemade zucchini bread that I brought into Untapped and shared with my co-workers. She’d grown the zucchini herself in a community garden and had a bumper crop—she couldn’t give it away fast enough.
Parker’s neighbor loaning him use of her kitchen in exchange for delicious treats was just another example of how if we all pooled our talents and resources, we could make a real difference.
“When I came in today, the drawer was locked, but the recipe book was gone.”
“Do you remember locking it up?” I asked.
“Not specifically, but I don’t remember doing the last load of dishes or double-checking that the walk-in was set at the right temperature, either. Some things are just habit.”
He had a point. I was afraid I would overfeed my aunt’s cat because I couldn’t always remember if I’d set down his meal already. Aunt Melanie’s cat, Rufus, liked to pretend he’s starving to death, so he’s no help at all.
“Why do you lock the drawer?” I asked. “You share all of the café’s recipes with Silvia already.” Silvia was the night cook. The evening crowd was a bit different—more interested in cold craft beer than warm toasted sandwiches, but there was more to Parker’s repertoire than grilled cheese. He made an excellent avocado toast, hummus from scratch, and light, sweet crepes that were to die for. He had a wide range of soups and side dishes, and was always adding new creations to the daily menu.
If someone ordered a Parker special when he wasn’t in the kitchen, Silvia or Andre—the assistant manager who usually stepped in on Parker or Silvia’s days off—would follow the instructions he left for them. Andre tried his best, but the regulars knew better than to order anything more complicated than a turkey club unless Parker was in the kitchen.
“I have other recipes in there,” he explained. “Recipes I haven’t perfected yet. Or secret recipes.”
“Secret recipes?” I asked. “That sounds intriguing. Are you a recipe spy, Parker? You know if you are, you have to tell me.”
He chuckled. “Nothing like that. Mostly old family recipes, handed down over the generations. My grandma would whoop my behind if she thought her famous Southern Blackberry Cobbler recipe had fallen into the wrong hands.”
My eyes got big as saucers. There might have been drool. “Southern Blackberry Cobbler?” I asked, my voice so high-pitched I barely recognized it.
I loved Brooklyn. In just a short time, I’ve fallen under its spell. I loved the people. I loved the food. I loved the art. I loved the music. I’ve even gained a grudging appreciation for the complicated, often dirty subway system, once I figured out how to read an MTA map. But at heart, I was and always would be Odessa Dean from Piney Island, Louisiana. The mere mention of blackberry cobbler conjured up happy childhood memories and made my mouth water.
I was suddenly and thoroughly homesick.
“Hey, are you almost done in here?” Todd asked, popping his head into the kitchen, breaking the blackberry cobbler spell.
“Not quite,” Parker said. “My recipe book’s missing and Odessa is gonna help me find it.”
“You mean the giant raggedy book you’re always scribbling in?” Todd asked.
“That’s the one,” Parker said.
“Dollars to donuts Andre has it.”
“Andre?” I asked. “Why on earth would he have it?”
“No kidding. I mean, I like the man, but Monday when he was in the kitchen, he actually heated up my cold summer macaroni salad in the microwave, if you can believe it. Good thing the waitress sent it back, or I’d have to explain how one of my dishes lost us a loyal customer,” Parker added. “Besides, Andre can read a knitting pattern like a pro but the last time I wrote a recipe down for him, he added a cup of salt and a teaspoon of sugar instead of the other way around. Why would he need my recipe book?”
“Because,” Todd said, drawing in a deep breath to add artificial tension to his announcement, “We got into a huge argument and now Andre is leaving Untapped Books & Café to start his own place. I wouldn’t put it past him to take Parker’s recipes with him so he can replicate our most popular dishes and steal all our customers.”
CHAPTER TWO
Untapped Books & Café @untappedwilliamsburg
When life gives you lemons, make creamy vegan lemon bars. Can’t cook? Swing by UB&C and we’ll cook for you.
Grab a cold Pour Williamsburg Pale Ale while you’re here. We’ll be waiting for you!
#CraftBeer #Books #Summer #Brooklyn
“Andre wouldn’t steal Parker’s recipe book,” I said. Andre Gibson was the assistant manager at Untapped Books & Café. Unlike Todd, he was hard working, personable, and a sheer delight to work with. Whereas Todd was old enough to be my dad, and sometimes wore the stone-washed jeans to prove it, Andre was more like the cool uncle. If he really was looking to open a rival café, I’d think long and hard about slipping him my resume.
“You are so naïve sometimes, Odessa.” Todd reached into his pocket and pulled out a keyring with a miniature Magic 8-ball dangling from it. I was only surprised it wasn’t a Rubik’s Cube. Then again, Rubik’s Cube were coming back, along with Slinkys and Tamagotchis. Everything old was new again, and most of the Gen X-ers I knew had a nostalgia streak a mile long. Don’t get me wrong, I had a box of old toys and Beanie Babies stashed in my parents’ attic back in Louisiana that I couldn’t bring myself to part with, but I wasn’t carrying them around in my pocket. Not that ladies’ clothes generally came with pockets, which is why I preferred to make my own.
Todd rattled one of the keys. “You know where I live. Apartment 2B.” It wasn’t the first time he’d asked me to fetch something for him. Last time, it was a roll of antacids that I could have picked up at any bodega, but he was too cheap for that. “This fits the top lock and the gold one fits the bottom lock. The charger should be on my nightstand.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
I was raised in the South, where we called our elders Sir and Ma’am. It was automatic for me, a reflex. It drove Todd nuts. I think it was because he didn’t like being reminded that he wasn’t a teenager anymore. All the more reason for me to keep saying it.
Todd lived in a basement of a rowhouse in the nearby neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn. Bushwick was just east of Williamsburg and south of Queens, and once upon a very long time ago was all farmland. These days it primarily known for semi-affordable housing, at least by NYC standards, and some of the best pastries in Brooklyn.
I took the L train—and paid for my own fare, thank you very much—all the way out to the cemetery, then walked back several blocks to Todd’s address. His building looked like every other building on the block, narrow rowhouses in alternating shades of cream built in the early 1900s. I opened a squeaky iron fence and descended down the basement steps. Todd had neglected to tell me which of the many keys on his keyring opened the outside door, but I was in luck. It was unlocked.
The hallway inside was narrow and well lit, with a unit on either side and another door at the far end that presumably led to an alley or courtyard. Todd’s apartment was on the left.
I unlocked the door and let myself inside. Back home in Louisiana, I had converted my parent’s two-car garage into a makeshift apartment for me. It had a swamp cooler in the window and a coffee maker, but no bathroom or kitchen. My tiny garage bedroom was a fair bit larger than Todd’s entire apartment, and better decorated.
His walls were bare, with half-dollar-sized flecks of paint flaking away from a long-forgotten water leak. His bed was an unmade futon. His TV took up most of the far wall, blocking the only window. The only other furniture I could see was a leather gaming chair, two folding TV tray tables, and a dresser with a fishbowl on top of it. There was a colorful green betta swimming around in circles. He stopped to eye me, switched directions, and went back to swimming.
I went over and chatted with him for a minute, but he ignored me.
The charger was on one of the TV trays, next to the bed. I wondered if Todd ever had company if he converted the futon into a couch when he was entertaining, or not. The thought of Todd entertaining made me uncomfortable, so I snatched the phone charger and cable before I could think too much. I waved goodbye to the fish, locked the door after me, and headed out into the sunshine.
It really was a beautiful day. Warm, but not hot. The sky was slightly overcast and the tree-lined sidewalk was in the shade. I was in no hurry to get back to work. I ambled slowly back to the station, and took the L back toward Williamsburg.
As luck would have it, the train went out of service a few stops later. I’m sure the conductor relayed the important details of why and when the next train would come as we were all ushered off onto the platform, but I could barely understand her through the crackly speakers. I’ve been told that the MTA had undergone improvements over the years and the locals liked to talk about how nice the newer trains were, but to be completely honest, I couldn’t tell the difference. To me, they all looked like they were designed by the same person who decorated every Motel 6 in the country, and they all smelled to one degree or another like a high school locker room.
While I waited for the next train to arrive, I studied the map on the wall. To be one hundred percent honest, I was double checking that I’d gotten on the right train and was heading in the correct direction. Even with the aid of the handy MTA app on my phone, I’d more than once ended up in the wrong neighborhood. Once I ended up in the total wrong borough. I was trying to get to Manhattan but ended up in Queens instead.
Wait a second. Didn’t Andre live in Queens?
I texted my friend Izzy asking if she knew where Andre lived. She also worked at Untapped Books & Café, but instead of waiting tables, she worked the bookstore cash register. A minute later, she replied with an address in nearby Ridgewood. I located his street on the big map, and saw that instead of waiting for the next L train, I could transfer and take an M train right to his house. The M pulled up and without wasting time considering my options, I hopped aboard.
If Todd had wanted me to come straight back to Untapped, he would have said so. I’m fairly certain he didn’t wasn’t expecting me to take a side trip all the way out to Queens, but then again, I hadn’t planned on running his personal errands, either. It felt like a wash to me.
I got off the train in Queens and looked around. Like Todd’s apartment building, and much of New York residential real estate, Andre’s street was a seamless, solid block of brick row houses. Each individual house had a wide brick staircase leading up to the second floor of a three-story building, flanked on either side by rounded pop-outs, the one on the right belonged to the neighboring house distinguished only by a subtly different shade of brick.
I located Andre’s house number, mounted the stairs, and knocked.
A woman that looked to be several years younger than me—late teens, at best guess—opened the door. She had on no makeup and her curly hair was held back by a colorful scarf. “Yes?” she asked, eyeing me quizzically.
“Is Andre here?” I knew Andre still lived at home, a phenomenon that was more common with my fellow Millennials than Andre’s Xennials, that in-between generation that wasn’t quite X or Y. But New Yorkers commonly lived in multi-generational homes, especially if their family had a rowhouse or townhouse that had yet to be subdivided into multiple apartments.
“Who wants to know?” she asked, suspicious.
“Odessa. From work.”
“Wait a sec.” She closed the door in my face, and I heard a lock tumble into place. Back in Piney Island, we usually remembered to lock the doors at night before going to bed, but I couldn’t remember a single time growing up that we locked the doors during the day, much less when we were home. It was one of the many things I had to get used to about New York, but I learned quickly after the second time the automatic-lock on my aunt’s apartment locked me out and I had to beg the grumpy concierge downstairs to let me back inside.
I waited long enough that I started to wonder if the young woman was ever going to return when the door opened and Andre Gibson, assistant manager at Untapped Books & Café, filled the frame. He was tall, broad shouldered, and neatly dressed. As a matter of fact, everything about his appearance was neat, from his short-trimmed hair to his well-maintained goatee to his buffed nails. “Odessa, what’cha doing?” He waved his hand. “Come in, come in.”
I followed him inside. Every single inch of the hall, from the chair rail to the ceiling, was covered in framed photographs. I recognized Andre in several of the pictures, as well as the young woman who had answered the door. The hall opened up into a kitchen that was obviously the heart of the household. The cabinets were painted a glossy red and the countertops were gray granite. The floor tiles were black and white checkers and the ceiling was tin drop panels.
The center of the kitchen was taken up by a large cherrywood table, currently covered with colorful sheets of paper and a stack of origami cranes. Seated at one end of the table, in the middle of folding one crane, was the young woman who’d opened the door. At the other end was an older woman in an apron carefully threading a clear string through a tiny hole in a crane’s back. Her hair was shot through with silver. “Odessa, this is my ma. And you already met my cousin Ki. This is Odessa, she works in the café.”
“Pleased to meetcha,” I said.
“Where are you from, girl?” his mother asked. “You’re not from around here.”
“No ma’am, I’m not. Louisiana.”
“New Orleans?” she asked, sounding hopeful.
“No ma’am. I’m from an itty bitty nowhere place called Piney Island up near Shreveport.”
She smiled. In my limited travelling experience, most folks couldn’t point out Shreveport on a map, but back home, that was “The Big City,” population just under two hundred thousand. That was only a tad bit over the current population of the two square miles of Williamsburg. And that wasn’t counting Bushwick, Ridgewood, or any other of the many nearby neighborhoods. “Well, pull up a chair. Can I offer you something to drink? Dre, get the girl a drink.”
“No thank you, ma’am,” I said. “I see y’all are busy. I just need a moment, then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“You hear her, Ki? That girl’s got manners. You can learn a thing or two.”
Ki paused in the middle of folding to look up at me. “Learn from her? I can’t even understand her.”
I had to laugh. I personally didn’t think my accent, more Southern than Cajun, was that noticeable, but New Yorkers acted like I’d come from another planet. “I get that a lot. Nice to meet you, Ki, Mrs. Gibson.”
Andre led me to the family room and offered me a seat. “What’s up Odessa? Something wrong at the store? Todd giving you a hard time? I mean, a harder time than usual?”
I shook my head. “Nothing I can’t handle.” Sure, he’d had me trek all the way out to Bushwick to retrieve the phone charger he had forgotten, but that really was par for the course. Besides, it beat waiting tables. At least here, and on the subway, I got to sit down. “Todd says you’re leaving Untapped?”
“Does he now?” Andre raised an eyebrow. Even his brows were neatly trimmed and combed.
“He said you two got into it, and you’re gonna quit and start a competing business.”
“And you came here to what, apply for a server position?” he asked.
I liked that about Andre. He called the folks that worked in the café servers instead of waiters and waitresses. Gender neutral labels were just so much less complicated. Maybe I should start calling myself a server. “Well, yes, but also to ask if you knew where Parker’s recipe book had gone off to.”
“You mean that giant journal that’s covered in food stains with Post-Its sticking out in all directions and ‘Property of Parker’ written on the front?”
I hadn’t actually seen the book yet, so I said, “Sounds about right.”
Andre laughed, a genuine, full-throated sound of enjoyment. “I can’t believe Todd put you up to this.” He shook his head. “Todd and I got into an argument, true, but you should know by now that’s a daily occurrence.”
I nodded. “Mood.”
He continued, “Even if I wanted to open my own café, I don’t have the time or energy to start something from scratch. As for Parker’s recipes, yes, he’s the best, but if I was leaving, I’d sooner poach Parker than steal his recipe book.”
“I didn’t say steal,” I said quickly. I didn’t want the assistant manager, and a man I really looked up to, thinking I was accusing him of theft.
“Chillax, Odessa.” He leaned forward with his hands on his knees. “You didn’t mean nothing by it. And no, I didn’t take Parker’s recipes.” He frowned and tilted his chin, thinking intently. “I did see it recently, and noticed it was out of place.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Do you remember where?”
“I’m trying.” He steepled his long fingers under his goateed chin. “It was at the front desk. Izzy was thumbing through it.”
“When?”
“Yesterday, maybe. I gave her a hard time about it, asking if she was tired of being vegan and looking to expand her horizons.”
“Lots of Parker’s recipes are vegan,” I said, feeling defensive. I never understood why people liked making fun of vegans so much. I mean, more bacon for the rest of us, right?
“Sure,” Andre agreed. “Our Parker is one talented cook, and I think it’s great that there’s always vegan and gluten-free options on the menu. We’d lose half our customers if a café in Brooklyn, Williamsburg especially, didn’t cater to all types.”
”True”. The closest thing to a vegan option we served at the Crawdad Shack back home was a glass of water. Northern Louisiana wasn’t exactly known for progressive dining. “Okie dokie,” I said, standing. “I appreciate you taking some time out for me. I’d love to stick around and learn how to fold those origami cranes, but I’d best be getting back to the café.”
“I’d offer you a lift,” he offered, “but we’re working on the decorations for my brother Silas’ wedding, and ma would have my hide if I tried to duck out.”
“No worries. I’ll take the subway.”
Andre walked me out. I headed down the steps and back toward the station. The streets were wide, with few trees to provide shade. The clouds from earlier had dissipated, and the comfortable day was turning suffocating. I pulled my shoulder-length hair up into a ponytail as I headed for the closest station.
Once on the subway, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window opposite me. My cheeks were flushed from the warmth and tendrils of hair were plastered to my forehead, but I was smiling. I was having fun. I enjoyed exploring neighborhoods I didn’t know. I liked visiting with Andre, and meeting his mom and cousin. I even liked making small talk with Todd’s betta fish. But most of all, I liked trying to solve the mystery of Parker’s missing recipe book.
CHAPTER THREE
Odessa Dean @OdessaWaiting
Nothing quite like friends, family & food
#feels
When I got back to Untapped Books & Café, my best friend, Izzy Wilson was behind the cash register. She was helping a customer. I waved at her before ducking into the hallway that ran the length of the store, and headed to Todd’s office.
The door was closed, so I knocked and waited a second before letting myself in. Todd’s office always seemed dark. Rumor had it that the mob once owned this building, back before Williamsburg was revitalized in the nineties. The office used to have a window looking over the street, but they had bricked it over, supposedly in a fit of paranoia that the government was spying on them. Then again, the building eventually did get raided and the mob boss arrested, so maybe he had good reason to be paranoid.
There were also whisperings that Untapped sat on top of an illegal prohibition-era speakeasy concealed in the building. I’d gone over every inch of this place and couldn’t find a hidden entrance, and there was no record of any additional rooms on file with the city commissioner’s office—I’d checked—so I don’t know if there was even a grain of truth to that one.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if a place called Untapped sat on top of an old, illegal bar?
Todd looked up from his computer, where he was two-finger typing. One bonus of growing up in the computer age was I could touch type before I could write in cursive. Although, to be honest, I still hadn’t mastered that particularly well. I could also text quicker than most people speak using only my thumbs, and could write an entire novel using nothing but emojis. Todd couldn’t be bothered to remember the password to his own Facebook account, and wrote it on a Post-It stuck to his monitor.
And for all that he and his fellow Gen X-ers griped about Millennials never owning a house, Todd’s basement studio apartment was nothing to brag about.
“You’re back,” he said. “Took you long enough. Thought you’d absconded with my keys.” I held out his keyring and phone charger, and he snatched them. “You didn’t make a copy, did you?”
“No, Todd. I did not copy your apartment keys. That would be weird.”
“Good.” He stared at me. “What are you waiting for? A trophy? Get back to work.”
“Yes, sir.” I turned and headed for the door.
“Oh, and Odessa?”
There it was, that hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-the-neck sensation. “Yes?” I froze and looked back over my shoulder at him.
“Thanks.”
I paused for a beat, but when nothing spontaneously burst into flames, I hurried out of his office and closed the door behind me. There were days that I can’t even with Todd. At least I knew how to relate to him when he was barking orders. A polite Todd was odd, to say the least.
I left his office and entered the bookstore, where Izzy was alone behind the register. A few customers browsed but no one was ready to check out just yet.
Izzy had short, spiky hair. This week, it was blue. She had a perpetual grin on her face, and a sunny outlook despite having had a complicated past. She liked to say she could handle anything they threw her way, and I believed her one hundred percent. I leaned against the counter. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself. Where you been, Odessa?”
“Running errands for Todd.”
“That’s why you needed Andre’s address?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Not exactly. Parker’s recipe book is missing. I wanted to see if Andre knew where it was. He said the last time he saw it, you were reading it right here.”
“Remember Parker made that amazing vegan no-bake raspberry cheesecake a while back?”
I nodded. It was delicious.
“I wanted to see if I could recreate it with blueberries. I went back to the kitchen to ask but Parker wasn’t there. I guess he was on break? Then I saw his recipe book and I figured I could copy the recipe without bothering him. I couldn’t find the cheesecake, but I found a lemon bar recipe I’m just dying to try.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, happy I could get Parker’s recipe book back. “Where’s it now?”
Izzy shrugged. “We got in a new shipment, including the Geoffrey Tate novel everyone’s been waiting for. I unboxed the new arrivals and arranged them on a display stand. I musta lost track of time, because the next thing I knew Andre was relieving me, and I left.”
“Did you take the recipe book with you?”
She looked embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to. I got about halfway home before I noticed that my bag was heavier than normal. In my haste to clear out, I must have grabbed the recipe book. I hurried back to return it to Parker in person and explain the mix-up, but he’d gone home and the drawer he leaves it in was locked, so I propped it up on the counter where he’d be sure to see it.”
I frowned. Back to square one. “It’s not there now.”
“Well, shoot.” Izzy sat up straighter. “You should help him look. You’re good at finding things.”
“Chuh. What do you think I’ve been doing all day? Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound snappish.”
“No worries. I’ll help you look. Have you searched the kitchen?”
“Parker did. I guess I can look again.”
“And I’ll check the shelves,” she offered.
Untapped Books & Café was divided equally between the bookstore and the café. If the bookstore portion had use of the entire building, it would probably still feel cramped, with books stacked seemingly at random on a mismatched collection of shelves. I don’t know how anyone ever found anything, but that was sorta the point. If a customer wanted a particular book, they could go to an online bookseller and it would be delivered to their door in days, if not hours.
We were different. We stocked the shelves with an eclectic mix of indie books, best sellers, and strange, difficult to find masterpieces. Untapped encouraged our customers to browse, and some would stay for hours, perusing through titles they’d never heard of to find a new favorite author. Izzy claimed to know where every book in the store was located at any given moment, but I found that hard to believe as there were thousands of books in no discernable order whatsoever.
“You don’t think it got shelved, do you?” I asked.
Izzy shrugged. “I didn’t shelve it, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.”
I glanced around at the chaotic collection. “It would take you days to search through all this.”
“You’d think so,” she replied with a grin. “I know where everything belongs, so it shouldn’t take long to find a book out of place, especially one that looks like it could fall apart at any second like Parker’s recipe book. Trust me, Odessa. If it’s here, I’ll find it.”
“I know you will,” I agreed. “I’m gonna go double check the kitchen.”
Parker lit up when he saw me enter the kitchen. “You found it?”
“Not yet. Andre doesn’t have it and neither does Izzy.”
“Why would Izzy have it?” he asked.
“Long story.”
He chewed his bottom lip. “What am I gonna do? I wasn’t completely honest with you earlier. My grandma doesn’t exactly know I copied her cobbler recipe, so it’s not like I can ask for a replacement.”
“Don’t worry, Parker. I promised I’d find your book, and I meant it.” I leaned out the pass-thru window. The lunch crowd had departed and the dinner rush had yet to arrive, so there were only two tables seated. “Good. We’re not busy. We’re gonna rip your kitchen apart.”
“I’ve already done that,” he protested.
“I know, but maybe you missed something.” I started methodically opening cabinets, removing all the contents, then doing my best to put things back exactly the way I found them.
“You’re futzing up my kitchen,” Parker complained.
“When’s the last time anyone cleaned down here?” I asked. “Give me a damp rag, will ya? And maybe a spray cleaner?”
He handed me the cleaning supplies, and I cleaned as I searched. Every time I pulled something out of the cabinet and set it on the counter, Parker swiftly wiped it down before I could return it to its spot. Even if we didn’t find his recipe book, we’d ace the next health inspection, hands down.
A sinking feeling grew as I had to admit the recipe book wasn’t merely misplaced. There were only three people that were technically supposed to be in the kitchen. Parker hadn’t stolen his own book. I was convinced Andre didn’t have it. That left only one person and I hated to suspect her, because I really liked her. I opened my mouth to express my hunch, when I was interrupted by the very person I was thinking about.
“¿Qué pasa?” Silvia asked.
Speak of the devil. I was kneeling on the counter so I could reach the upper cabinets and Parker was steadying me from behind so I didn’t fall when the evening cook, Silvia Gómez, reported for her shift. “Hey, Silvia, you’re early,” Parker said.
She gestured at the wall clock as she twisted her long, black hair into a bun and stretched a hairnet over it. “Actually, I’m ten minutes late, but who’s counting?” She was carrying a cake caddy. She moved a kettle and an electric wok to make room for it on the counter. “You’re not rearranging the kitchen, are you? It’s already hard enough to find everything.”
“Not rearranging,” I told her. With Parker’s help, I climbed down off the counter and wiped my hands off on the now filthy cleaning rag I’d been using. “Trying to find Parker’s recipe book. You wouldn’t happen to know where it is, would you?” I crossed my fingers, hoping I was wrong. What reason would Silvia have to take it?
“You mean this book?” Silvia asked, pulling a heavy recipe book out of her backpack. The page edges were stained, and colorful scraps of paper marked several favorite recipes. The binding was loose, and Parker’s name was written in bold black marker on the cover. It bulged from the addition of extra pages crammed between other sheets.
“My recipe book!” Parker said, taking it from her and hugging it close to his chest as if it were a favorite blankie. “You had it all along?”
“Lo siento, my bad.” She bent to put her now empty bag in the cabinet where we stashed bulky items while we were on shift. “Man, there’s so much space down here.”
“Yeah, when we went through it, we found a jacket that belonged to someone who quit a year ago. Parker tried to call her, but the number’s out of service, so I’m going to drop it off at the shelter on my way home,” I said.
Parker cleared his throat and we both looked at him. His expression was sour. “The jacket story’s fascinating, Odessa, but the real question is why did you have my recipe book, Silvia?”
“Last night, I was getting hamburger meat out of the walk-in, and when I turned around, your recipe book had appeared out of thin air, just standing propped open on the counter.”
“Izzy put it there,” I explained.
“But Izzy had already gone home for the day,” Silvia said.
“She came back when she realized she’d almost taken the book home by accident,” I told them.
“Still doesn’t explain what Silvia was doing with it,” Parker interjected.
“Patience. I’m getting there. Look, I know I’m not half the chef that Parker is. I try my hardest, but face it, my cooking is basic.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “What about your tamales and empanadas? They’re the bee’s knees.”
“Thanks, but the tamales I bring in are mama’s, and empanadas are easy. I want to get better, but it’s always so busy in here, it’s not like I have time to actually improve. When I saw the recipe book, I thought I could take it home and practice. I didn’t think you’d even miss it. I’ve never once seen you refer to any recipe. It’s like you have them all up here.” She tapped the side of her head, and then scooted past me to wash her hands at the sink.
“That’s because I’ve done ‘em so many times,” Parker explained. He didn’t look upset anymore.
“Exactly. That’s why I wanted to practice, at home where there’s less pressure and no one’s yelling at me to hurry up.”
“You could have just asked, Silvia. I would have loaned it to you.”
“I didn’t know you wrote down your recipes. I hadn’t ever seen your book before. Then it appeared out of nowhere, like magic. I should have texted and asked your permission, but I wanted to surprise you.” Silvia lifted the cover off the cake caddy, and the smell of warm, freshly baked blackberry cobbler filled the tiny kitchen.
The top lattice crust was a perfect golden brown, with dark sprinkles that looked like cinnamon. The berries had bubbled up through the holes, staining everything they touched a lovely dark purple.
“That smells heavenly,” I said.
“I burnt the first one,” she admitted. “But this one came out perfect. Want a piece?”
“Do I ever!” I exclaimed, grabbing four small plates and a serving spoon off the drying rack.
“From the look on your face, I thought you were gonna just take a bite out of the pan,” Parker teased, handing us each a dessert spoon.
“Here, let me,” Silvia said, scooping out four servings. She passed one to Parker and one to me, set one aside for Izzy, and kept one for herself .
I took one taste and was transported back in time to when I was a barefoot, pigtailed girl who spent her days catching crawdads in the crick and trying to get as dirty as humanly possible before I had to go inside. It tasted like summer. It tasted like happiness. It tasted like home.
“Well?” Silvia asked, looking nervous.
“Came out real good,” Parker said.
“Umm um mmm umm,” I said around a bit of delicious cobbler. I know, it’s rude to talk with my mouth full but I was in such bliss I momentarily forgot my manners.
“I think that means she likes it,” Parker interpreted.
I nodded vigorously and took another spoonful. The top crust was crisp and flaky. The bottom crust—the detail that made an ordinary cobbler into a Southern cobbler—was moist and buttery. The berries were ripe and sweet, and they burst in my mouth.
Parker grinned at my obvious enjoyment. “Well, I was going to make this for Odessa as a surprise, but Silvia, I’m just as happy you made it. I know how messy this recipe is. Cleanup’s a bear.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you coulda warned me about that part.”
“If you would have asked, I would have told ya,” Parker said. Then he grabbed a pen from the cup next to the window. The servers were responsible for providing our own pens, but when we ran out—and we ran out constantly—it was good to have spares. He opened up the book to the cobbler recipe and added a note to set the pan on a foil-lined cookie sheet to minimize spillage and to scrub all dishes immediately before they got permanently stained.
After scraping my plate clean, I licked my spoon. If I’d been in the privacy of my own house, I might have licked the plate, too. But I had my pride. “That’s the best blackberry cobbler I’ve had in my entire life. Where exactly is your grandma from?”
“Connecticut,” Parker replied. “Why?”
“How did it come to be that a Connecticut Yankee could make such amazing Southern cobbler?”
Parker chuckled. “When I said it was my grandma’s recipe, I neglected to mention that she won it in a poker game.”
Pride be damned, I gave in and licked the plate. “Your grandma sounds like one interesting lady.”
“Oh she is,” he agreed with me. “Maybe I’ll introduce you two sometime. You’d like her. Just do not tell her how many people have a copy of this recipe now. She’d kill me.”
“I won’t,” I promised, reaching for another serving of cobbler as he locked his recipe book away in the drawer where it belonged.
“We good?” Silvia asked Parker.
He grinned at her. “Of course. No harm, no foul. But if you’re ever in the mood to teach me how to make your empanadas, I’d love some pointers. We can add them to the menu, if you’d like. I think they’d go over real well with the evening crowd.”
“I’ll do you one better,” Silvia suggested. “I’ll get mama to give us both a lesson on how to make the best Guatemalan tamales in North America.”
“Deal!” Parker agreed, his eyes shining with excitement. My belly might be full of Southern Blackberry Cobbler, but I salivated at the thought that soon I could feast upon Mama Gómez’ amazing tamales. Once again, Williamsburg community cooperation comes through for the win.
#TheEnd
More about Odessa Dean and the Brooklyn Murder Mysteries
Folks, I don’t know about y’all, but now I’m craving blackberry cobbler. Good thing that unlike Parker, I’m willing to share the family recipe with you. Just don’t tell my grandma! Get the recipe here: https://oliviablacke.com/blackberry-cobbler/
Look for more Odessa Dean and her friends at Untapped Books & Café in the Brooklyn Murder Mysteries available from Berkley/Penguin Random House by Olivia Blacke.
It’s murder most viral in KILLER CONTENT the debut mystery by Olivia Blacke.
Bayou transplant Odessa Dean has a lot to learn about life in Brooklyn. So far she’s scored a rent-free apartment in one of the nicest neighborhoods around by cat-sitting, and has a new job working at Untapped Books & Café. Hand-selling books and craft beers is easy for Odessa, but making new friends and learning how to ride the subway? Well, that might take her a little extra time.
But things turn more sour than an IPA when the death of a fellow waitress goes viral, caught on camera in the background of a couple’s flash-mob proposal video. Nothing about Bethany’s death feels right to Odessa–neither her sudden departure mid-shift nor the clues that only Odessa seems to catch. As an up-and-coming YouTube star, Bethany had more than one viewer waiting for her to fall from grace.
Determined to prove there’s a killer on the loose, Odessa takes matters into her own hands. But can she pin down Bethany’s killer before they take Odessa offline for good?
In NO MEMES OF ESCAPE, amateur sleuth Odessa Dean is about to discover the only thing harder than finding her way out of an escape room is finding an affordable apartment in Brooklyn in this sequel to KILLER CONTENT.
When an escape room turns deadly, it’s up to amateur sleuth Odessa Dean to solve the crime.
What could be more fun than an escape room? Solve a few puzzles, strategize with new friends, compete against the clock, and maybe even discover a dead body. The party grinds to a halt when a player is murdered in a locked escape room, and Odessa Dean and her bestie are included in the five possible suspects. With time running out to save her friend before Odessa has to leave Williamsburg for good, Odessa must navigate the demands of waiting tables at a popular bookstore-slash-café and the perils of internet dating, all while hunting a murderer.
Sign up for my newsletter for future access to exclusive early content, news, and giveaways!
