Part 1 (1/2)
IRISH STEWED.
by Connie Laux.
For the Airedale Terrier Club of Northern Ohio- great dogs, great people!.
Acknowledgments.
Every year near Saint Patrick's Day, our family hosts a huge party. There's bagpipe music, of course, along with plenty of brothers, sisters, in-laws, cousins, and kids. Oh my, these days there are a lot of kids! There's also always a groaning board of food. Irish stew, soda bread, corned beef, and cabbage. We're in charge of bringing the colcannon and we make upward of fifty pounds of mashed potatoes as a basis for the dish. Delicious? You bet! And always a hit with the partygoers.
It was this sort of family tradition that gave me the idea for basing a mystery series on ethnic foods. To me, the foods traditionally served by family equal comfort food. In my own family, it's things like stuffed cabbage, pierogi, and that wonderful bread my grandmother made at holidays that we simply called Sweet Bread.
In other families (like my husband's), the comfort comes from the Emerald Isle. And that's what makes ethnic food so interesting. We each have our own memories and our own traditions and there's no better way to celebrate them than by honoring the dishes our ancestors cherished.
As with all books, there are plenty of people to thank for help with this one, including my great brainstorming group (Sh.e.l.ley Costa, Serena Miller, and Emilie Richards), the folks at Berkley Prime Crime, and my agent. I'd also like to thank Georgia Schuff, my expert and go-to person when it comes to Hubbard, Ohio, and my family-all umpteen of them-for carrying on the tradition. Na zdrowie and slinte!.
Chapter 1.
”I can explain.”
At my side, Sophie Charnowski pressed her small, plump hands together and s.h.i.+fted from one sneaker-clad foot to the other. The nearest streetlight flickered off, then on again, and in its anemic light, I saw perspiration bead on her forehead. ”It's like this, you see, Laurel.”
”Oh, I see, all right.” Good thing I was wearing my Brian Atwood snakeskin ballet flats. In heels, I would have tripped on the pitted sidewalk when I spun away from the building in front of us and the railroad tracks just beyond. When I pinned short, round Sophie with a look, I meant to make her shake in her shoes, and it gave me a rush of satisfaction to realize the ol' daggers from my blue eyes still carried all the punch I intended. Sophie flicked out her tongue to touch her lips, then swallowed hard.
While she was at it, I stabbed one finger toward the train station and the sign that hung above the door that declared the place SOPHIE'S TERMINAL AT THE TRACKS.
”This isn't what I expected,” I said.
Sophie rubbed her hands together. ”I know that. Really, I do. I can only imagine how you must feel.”
”No.” I cut her off before she could say anything else ignorant and insulting. ”You can't possibly imagine how I feel. I just drove all the way to Ohio from California. Because you told me-”
”I wanted it to be a surprise.” Sophie was a full eight inches shorter than my five foot nine, and as round as I am slender. She had the nerve to look up at me through the shock of silvery bangs that hung over her forehead. Believe me, the hairstyle wasn't a fas.h.i.+on statement. When I picked Sophie up at her small, neat bungalow so we could drive across Hubbard and she could show me the restaurant, I had the distinct feeling I'd just woken her from an after-dinner nap. ”I knew once you saw the place-”
”Once I saw the place!” Was that my voice echoing against the old train station and bouncing around the semigentrified neighborhood with its bookstore, its coffee shop, its beauty salon, and gift boutiques?
I was way past caring. ”Sophie, you told me-”
”That I'm having my knee replaced tomorrow. Yes.” She took a funny sort of half step and pulled up short, one hand automatically shooting down to her right knee. She kept it there, a not-so-subtle reminder of the pain she'd told me was her constant companion. ”And that I need someone to help out while I'm laid up. Someone to run the restaurant.”
”Which isn't the restaurant it's supposed to be.”
”Well, really, it is.” A grin made her look so darned impish, I almost forgave the lies she'd been feeding me for years.
Almost.
”The Terminal at the Tracks has been a neighborhood gathering place for going on forty years now,” she told me, and don't think I didn't notice the way she rushed to get the words out before I could stop her cold. ”I always loved it here. We used to stop for breakfast on Sunday mornings after church. And after our Tuesday bowling league, we'd always get a bite to eat here. Only these days . . .” This time when she caressed her knee, she added a long-suffering sigh. ”Well, I'm not doing very much bowling these days. But that doesn't change how I feel about this neighborhood. It's got the feel of history to it, don't you think?” Instead of giving me a chance to answer, she drew in a long, deep breath and let it out slowly while she swiveled her gaze from the train station to the tracks behind it and the boarded-up factory beyond.
”When I had the opportunity to buy the Terminal fifteen years ago, I just jumped at it. So there's my name up there on the sign.” Sophie made a brisk ta-da sort of motion in that direction. ”And here I am.” She pointed at her own broad bosom. ”And now . . .” It was spring and almost nine, which meant it was already dark. That didn't keep me from seeing the rapturous look that brightened Sophie's brown eyes and brought out the dimples in her pudgy cheeks. ”And now here you are, too. So you see, everything is just as it's supposed to be.”
Really? I was supposed to buy into this philosophical, all's-right-with-the-world horse hockey?
My pulse quickened and my blood pressure would have shot to the ceiling had we been indoors instead of outside in front of the long, low-slung building with a two-story section built in the middle above the main entrance. When that streetlight went off and on again, it winked against the weathered yellow paint and the dark windows of the restaurant.
I hardly noticed the sparkle of the light against the gla.s.s.
But then, I was pretty busy seeing red.
I would have leveled Sophie right then and there if she weren't thirty years older than me and limping, to boot. Instead, I followed along when she hobbled to the front door.
”What you did was low, underhanded, and dishonest, Sophie,” I told her.
”Yes, it was.” She didn't sound the least bit penitent. She stuck her key in the front door. ”But now that we're here, you'll look around, won't you?”
I should have said no.
I should have put my foot down.
I should have opened my mouth and as so often happens when I do, I should have let what I was thinking pour out of me like the lava that spews from a volcano and incinerates everything in its path.
Why I didn't is as much a mystery now as it was then. I only know that when Sophie pushed open the front door and stepped inside the Terminal at the Tracks, I followed along.
”Welcome.” She touched a hand to a light switch and the fixture directly over our heads turned on.
Sophie beamed a smile all around.
I did not share in her enthusiasm. In fact, I took one look around the entryway of the Terminal at the Tracks, and a second, and a third.
That's pretty much when I had to remind myself to snap my mouth shut.
What I could see-at least here in the fifteen-by-fifteen entryway where customers waited for their tables-was a mishmash of kitschy faux Victorian, everything from teddy bears in puffy-sleeved gowns to posters advertising things like unicycles and mustache wax.
And then there was the lace.
Doilies and rickrack and bunting.
Oh my.
Brand spanking new, it would have been overblown and downright dreadful. With fifteen years of service under its belt, the lace was yellow and bedraggled. The teddy bear propped on the old rolltop desk that also served as a hostess station looked as if it could use an airing, and what had once been a magnificent floor made of wide, hardwood planks was scratched and dull.
”I knew you'd love it as much as I do,” Sophie purred.
Fortunately at that moment, a train rolled by, not twenty feet from the back of the restaurant, and the place shook the way LA had in the last earthquake I remembered. My sternum vibrated. My bones rattled.
By the time the train was gone and my body was done with its rockin' and rollin', I pretended I didn't even remember Sophie's last comment.