A Baked Ham Read online

  The First Time Ever Published!

  The Fourth Classic Diner Mystery

  From New York Times Bestselling Author

  Jessica Beck

  A BAKED HAM

  Other Books by Jessica Beck

  The Donut Shop Mysteries

  Glazed Murder

  Fatally Frosted

  Sinister Sprinkles

  Evil Éclairs

  Tragic Toppings

  Killer Crullers

  Drop Dead Chocolate

  Powdered Peril

  Illegally Iced

  The Classic Diner Mysteries

  A Chili Death

  A Deadly Beef

  A Killer Cake

  A Baked Ham

  The Ghost Cat Cozy Mysteries

  Ghost Cat: Midnight Paws

  Jessica Beck is the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Donut Shop Mysteries from St. Martin's Press and Author of The Classic Diner Mystery Series and The Ghost Cat Cozy Mysteries from Cozy Publishing.

  To every man and woman working the grill!

  A BAKED HAM: Copyright © 2013

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Recipes included in this book are to be recreated at the reader’s own risk. The author is not responsible for any damage, medical or otherwise, created as a result of reproducing these recipes. It is the responsibility of the reader to ensure that none of the ingredients are detrimental to their health, and the author will not be held liable in any way for any problems that might arise from following the included recipes.

  Chapter 1

  Given what I knew about the murder victim, it was probably a shame that no one but the killer saw Benjamin Barrymore Booth’s final performance. Knowing Benny, I doubt that he had died conventionally without his fair share of drama; after all, it just wasn’t his style. I thought it odd when Benny failed to take the stage during Jasper Fork Community Theater’s opening night of their production of The Last Man Left, but when the sheriff came out to announce what had happened to the actor, nobody was more surprised than me.

  Ordinarily, the whole thing wouldn’t have had that much of an impact on my everyday life, but there was a complication, as there always seemed to be around my family and me. The problem was that both of my grandparents had just taken part in a rather public argument with the dead man less than an hour before he’d shuffled off this mortal coil, and that put me, my family, and my staff from The Charming Moose Diner right in the middle of another murder investigation.

  It might help if I backed up a little.

  My name’s Victoria Nelson, and along with my somewhat eccentric extended family, I run The Charming Moose Diner, a quaint little place located in Jasper Fork, North Carolina.

  Twenty minutes before the play in question was set to begin, I was standing in the lobby of the community theater when I squeezed my husband’s hand. “I’m so excited that we’re going to see a real play.” We were both outfitted nicely for the occasion, me in a black dress that managed to make me look trim despite the fact that I was nothing of the sort, and Greg wearing the only suit he owned. There was no doubt that my husband looked dashing, but it was a little startling seeing the handsome man I’d married in anything but blue jeans, a T-shirt, and an apron. Greg’s work behind the grill at our diner would ruin that suit in thirty seconds, but sometimes I forgot just how dashing my husband looked when he was all cleaned up.

  “I don’t know how real it’s going to be,” Greg said with a grin. “With Benny Booth playing the lead, I’m not expecting too much.”

  “He does tend to get a little carried away with his roles at times, doesn’t he?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding me? He’s the biggest ham this side of Hormel,” Greg said. “It’s going to take every ounce of my restraint not to bust out laughing when he starts emoting like he does.”

  I squeezed his hand a little harder for just a second. “You’ll manage to contain yourself, though, right?”

  “Victoria, I’ll be so good you’ll think I fell asleep, which just might happen if this play is going to be as bad as folks are saying it will.”

  “That I don’t mind one bit. As long as you don’t snore, you’ll be fine,” I said. I was about to add something else when I heard a familiar voice shouting on the other side of the theater lobby.

  “Benny, are you on drugs, or have you just lost your mind? I can’t believe that you made a pass at my wife right in front of me! Keep your hands to yourself, or I swear right here and now that I’ll break them both off and feed them to you if you ever try something like that again!”

  That was my grandfather’s voice, there was no mistaking it, and he was angry.

  “Come on. Let’s go,” I told my husband as I started pulling him through the crowd toward the argument.

  “Finally, things are starting to get interesting,” Greg said with a slight smile as he allowed himself to be led. He was long used to my grandfather; in fact, the two of them were as close as they could be. I wasn’t quite so amused by the spectacle myself. The last thing I wanted was for Moose to get into any serious trouble.

  “I assure you,” Benny said, “that I never touched your wife.”

  “You just patted my fanny, and you know it!” Martha said. Normally my grandmother was a calm and levelheaded woman, but at that moment, she was as angry as I’d ever seen her in my life.

  “That’s it,” Moose said as he started to take his suit jacket off. “Now you’re insulting us both by trying to lie about what you did. You’re going to pay for that, Bennie boy, and I’m the man who’s going to collect the bill.”

  I was about to try to stop things from escalating further when Sheriff Croft stepped in between the two men. The sheriff looked grim as he clamped one hand down on Moose’s shoulder, and the other on Benny’s. Not many men in Jasper Fork could restrain my grandfather with one hand, and even less would be willing to try it, despite my grandfather’s age, but the sheriff didn’t even blink.

  As expected, Moose didn’t take particularly kindly to the lawman’s touch. “Let me go,” my grandfather said as he fought to pull away from the sheriff. “I have a score to settle with this over-baked ham, and I mean to do it right here and now.”

  Greg stepped in at that moment and put his own hand on Moose’s other shoulder. “Take it easy, my friend,” he said in an easy voice. “We both know that this isn’t the time or the place.”

  “What if he’d tried something like that with your wife?” Moose asked my husband angrily.

  “If he’d grabbed my behind, he’d have pulled back a stub,” I said. “Greg’s right, though. Settle down, Moose.”

  “Victoria, this isn’t any concern of yours. I’m handling the situation just fine all by myself,” my grandfather replied.

  “Funny, it looked as though you could use some help from where I was standing.” I noticed that the crowd around us was deadly silent, paying careful attention to every word uttered in our argument, no doubt so that they could repeat it all faithfully back later, with their own embellishments added, of course. I couldn’t really blame them. They were probably getting a better show in the lobby than they’d ever see on stage.

  “You’re needed backstage, Mr. Booth,” a young man with a clipboard said urgently.

  “Sorry, but I must go,” Benny said with great flourish. He turned to the sheriff and asked, “Will you kindly release me, Officer? I am needed, and after all, the show must go on.”

  The sheriff let Benny go, and the actor stepped quickly away while my grandfather was still being restrained by both Greg and the sheriff.

  As Benny made his way through the crowd, Moose yelled out, “This isn’t finished, you over-baked ham, not by a long shot.”

  Once the actor was safely out of sight, Moose looked at the sheriff and Greg as he calmly said, “There’s no need to restrain me now. You can both let me go.”

  “Only if you promise me that you’re not going to do anything about Benny Booth,” Sheriff Croft said.

  My grandfather bit his lower lip as he shook his head. “If that’s what it’s going to take to release me, you might as well lock me up, Sheriff, because that’s a promise I won’t make.”

  The sheriff frowned, and then he turned to me. “Victoria, will you promise to watch him?”

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” I said with a laugh. “There is no way that I’m taking on that obligation.” Moose looked pleased by my refusal, but clearly my grandfather misunderstood my intent. I hadn’t turned the responsibility down out of loyalty to him so much as to refuse to take on that kind of overwhelming charge.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll watch him,” Greg said.

  “Just as long as somebody does,” Sheriff Croft said as he released Moose. Greg quickly followed suit, and as soon as Moose was free, he started for the nearest exit.

  “Where are you going now?” the sheriff asked.

  “Anywhere but here,” Moose said. “If you think I’m going to go in there now, you’ve lost your mind.” My grandfather made his way through the crowd, which parted as though it had no choice, and soon enough Moose st
ormed out through the front door of the theater.

  “Oh, dear, I don’t like the looks of that. I’d better go after him,” Martha said as she headed for the door herself.

  “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you stay and watch the play with Victoria, and I’ll go after him myself?” Greg suggested. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle Moose.”

  “No thank you. As much as I appreciate your kind offer, Greg, I’d better be the one who goes after him. You two stay, though, and enjoy yourselves.”

  “I’m not so sure that I still want to see this performance after what just happened,” I said.

  “Come on, Victoria,” Greg said. “You’ve been looking forward to this for weeks. Don’t let one idiot spoil the entire experience for you.”

  “I agree,” Martha said. “We know how much you love us both, but this is our battle, not yours. Now, I really must go catch up with your grandfather before he does something that we’ll all end up regretting later.”

  After Martha was gone as well, I asked Greg, “Are you sure we shouldn’t go after them?”

  “Given the circumstances, I doubt that either one of us could do much good, and besides, Benny’s as safe from your grandfather right now as he’ll ever be. Moose wouldn’t dare attack him while he’s onstage.”

  “I think that you’re clearly underestimating my grandfather,” I said, “but I really do want to see this performance.”

  “Then you’re going to do just that. I’ll even try to stay awake, if you think that might help matters.”

  “Well, it couldn’t hurt,” I said.

  But I never got the chance to see the play at all.

  It turned out that Benny was dead wrong about one thing.

  The show didn’t go on after what the sheriff announced to the crowded theater ten minutes later.

  Chapter 2

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid that I’ve got some bad news. Tonight’s performance has been cancelled.”

  “What happened?” someone asked from the front.

  “I’m getting to that, if you’ll just give me a second. It appears that someone slipped into one of the dressing rooms and killed Benny Booth.”

  I grabbed Greg’s arm as I started to get up. “We need to find Moose and Martha.”

  My husband stood as well just as the sheriff said loudly, “You all need to stay right where you are until I’m finished.” Was he looking straight at me as he’d said it? It surely felt that way to me. “I’m sorry for the delay, but I’m going to need to get everyone’s name and address before I can let anyone leave. Now, if you’ll all file out toward the back of the theater in an orderly fashion, I have officers stationed there to take down your information. It’s going to take a while, but bear with us; it can’t be helped. All I can promise you is that we’ll make it as painless for you all as we can.”

  “Greg, we can’t wait that long,” I said as I rejected the sheriff’s command and headed for the nearest exit instead of the back of the theater. It wasn’t going to be easy, though. Everyone else was standing as well, and it appeared that our way was solidly blocked.

  I was about to pull my husband through the crowd toward the side exit despite what the sheriff had just ordered when I heard the man himself speak to us from ten feet away.

  “Victoria, Greg, I need to see you both right now, if you don’t mind.”

  “From the tone in his voice, I have a hunch that it doesn’t matter if we mind or not,” Greg said softly to me.

  “Let’s just get this over with as quickly as we can so we can find my grandparents,” I said quietly to my husband.

  “I’ll try to do my part,” he said.

  “What can we do for you, Sheriff?” I asked as I turned and looked at him.

  “Not here,” Sheriff Croft said as he looked around. We were getting quite a bit of attention where we stood, so Greg and I followed the sheriff back up onstage. “That’s better. Victoria, where are your grandparents?”

  “How should I know?” I asked. “You saw us in the audience when you came out to announce what had happened. You were remarkably restrained during your announcement, by the way. What exactly happened to Benny, anyway?”

  “I’m not ready to release that information yet,” Sheriff Croft said tightly.

  “You can’t be serious. We’re going to find out soon enough,” I answered. “Why don’t you just save us all the trouble and tell us now?”

  I wasn’t sure that he’d go for it, but the sheriff finally shrugged as he said, “Keep it quiet for now; can I at least ask you to do that?”

  “We won’t tell anyone except family,” I said.

  The sheriff shook his head. “That’s a pretty broad exclusion, Victoria.”

  “Maybe so, but it’s the best I can promise you, and you know it.”

  “Fine,” the sheriff said, and I could see the exhaustion etched in his face. I wouldn’t have tried my hand at his job on a bet, though Moose and I had a little luck in the past solving a crime or two ourselves. Our efforts had strictly been on a volunteer basis, and no one was expecting us to save the day. Sheriff Croft, on the other hand, seemed to have a steady and unrelenting wave of crime coming at him all of the time, while Moose and I had the luxury to be able to investigate only the cases that had a direct impact on our lives, our family, and our diner.

  Suddenly I was starting to have a little remorse for badgering the poor man. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”

  Greg looked at me with his mouth agape, but before he could say anything, the sheriff said, “No, it’s okay. Somebody hit Benny in the back of the head with a trophy of some sort. Whoever did it scored a perfect hit, and he died right there on the spot.”

  “What kind of trophy would there be in a dressing room backstage?” Greg asked.

  “One of my officers told me that it looked like a Jasper Award. I’d never heard of it myself, but it turns out that it’s a local award they give to the best actor of the year in Community Theater, and Benny just won the thing. Evidently he took it with him everywhere he went. Anyway, that’s what killed him. Now, can you help me find your grandparents, Victoria? I really need to track them down. Do you have any guesses where the best place to look for them might be? We’ve checked their home, but they aren’t there.”

  “You don’t seriously believe that either one of them could have had anything to do with this, do you? Sheriff, you’ve known them both your whole life.”

  “Frankly, I hate this part of my job,” he said heatedly, “but you heard them both out in the lobby. There were threats flying around the room like seagulls tailing a trash barge.”

  “Check the diner,” Greg told the sheriff. I stared at my husband for three seconds before he reluctantly said to me, “Victoria, I agree that this is ridiculous, but the sooner the sheriff talks to Moose and Martha, the sooner they’ll be off his list of suspects and he can go after the real killer. I’d stake my life on the fact that neither one of them did it.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” the sheriff said.

  I planned to have words with Greg about what he’d just done, but I wasn’t finished with the sheriff yet. “How did the killer get into the dressing room without being seen by anybody? That hallway must be jammed with people so close to the curtain.”

  “You’ve clearly never seen the dressing room Benny was assigned. It has its own entrance from the outside. Whoever killed him could have easily slipped in from the alley, hit him, and then tore out of there before anyone but Benny even knew that they were there.”

  “I didn’t realize that,” Greg said sadly, his features sinking into despair. He looked at me and added, “Victoria, I figured that there was no way either one of them could have gone backstage without a dozen people recognizing them, so I thought that they’d both be safe.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Greg,” I said. “Neither one of them did it, so you’re right. The quicker they talk to the sheriff, the better off everyone will be.” I pointed to the mass of people jamming up the rear of the auditorium. “Sheriff, we helped you. Can you return the favor and let us out a side door so we don’t have to go through that?”