Crêpe Expectations (A Pancake House Mystery)

Crêpe Expectations (A Pancake House Mystery)

When a murder case from the past heats up again, it’s up to Marley McKinney to sort through a tall stack of suspects in the latest Pancake House Mystery. . . Although it’s a soggy start to spring in Wildwood Cove, the weather clears up just in time for the town to host an amateur chef competition. Marley McKinney, owner of the Flip Side pancake house, already signed up to volunteer, and chef Ivan Kaminski is one of the judges. But when Marley visits her landscaper boyfriend Brett at the site of the Victorian mansion that’s being restored as the Wildwood Inn, she discovers something else pushing up daisies: human remains. The skeleton on the riverbank washed out by the early-spring floodwaters belonged to eighteen-year-old Demetra Kozani, who vanished a decade earlier. While the cold case is reopened, Marley must step in when some of the cook-off contestants fall suspiciously ill. Stuck in a syrupy mess of sabotage and blackmail, it falls to Marley to stop a killer from crêping up on another victim. . . Includes pancake recipes right from The Flip Side menu! “Readers will cheer this brisk, literate addition to the world of small-town cozies.” — Kirkus Reviews on Wine and Punishment Crépe Expectations A Pancake House Mystery By Sarah Fox KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP. Copyright © 2019 Sarah Fox All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-5161-0778-0 CHAPTER 1 A banner with bold lettering rippled in the breeze. It gave a snap now and again when a stronger gust tried to wrest it free of the table it was fastened to, but it remained in place, the thick paper refusing to tear. So far the banner had done its job, grabbing people's attention and directing them to the table where I sat with a stack of papers in front of me. "Looks like we've got the makings of a great competition this year," Patricia Murray commented from the chair next to mine. "I had no idea it would be this popular," I admitted, running my eyes down the list of names written on one of the papers. I leaned back in my folding chair and stretched my legs under the table set up in the parking lot of Wildwood Cove's grocery store. It was early on a Saturday afternoon, and normally at that time of day I'd be at my pancake house, The Flip Side, closing up and tidying the restaurant. Today, however, I'd agreed to volunteer my time to help with registration for the Olympic Peninsula's annual amateur chef competition. Each year, one of the peninsula's communities hosted the competition, and this time it was Wildwood Cove's turn. The event would take place over the following three weekends, and already several residents of Wildwood Cove and other towns had signed up. I'd been sitting at the registration table for two hours, and people were still arriving to put their names down for either the teen division or the adult category. "I was worried with all the rain this year that most people wouldn't want to come out and participate," Patricia said. She owned a bed-and-breakfast three properties away from my beachfront Victorian, and she was also on the organizing committee for the amateur chef contest. "We're definitely lucky the weather decided to change," I said before Patricia greeted the latest person to approach the registration table. I'd spent many of my summer vacations in Wildwood Cove while growing up in Seattle, but I'd only moved to the seaside town permanently the previous spring and had never been present for the cooking competition. It sounded like fun, though, and I was eager to be involved with the community, so I hadn't hesitated about volunteering to help out when Patricia had asked me. My participation would be limited to assisting with registration, but I'd been assured that I was providing some much needed help. As Patricia registered a teenage girl with dark hair even curlier than mine, I breathed deeply, enjoying the fresh air and the lack of rain. The peninsula had seen very little sunshine over the past two months, and the rainfall had been so heavy and persistent that the nearby river had flooded its banks, damaging some homes and causing a slew of problems. Now that we'd had a few days without any rain, the floodwaters were finally receding, allowing everyone to breathe easier, even though many people had a long road of cleanup and restoration ahead of them. I sat up straighter when I noticed a fifty-something woman approaching the registration table. She had her light brown hair tied back in a bun, and she walked with careful steps. A man about her age followed along behind her and hung back when she reached the table. I greeted her and provided her with the registration form. Her name was Dorothy Kerwin, I noted as she filled in the form with her name, address, and the division she was entering. When she'd completed the form, I provided her with the booklet that every entrant received. It contained the rules and the event schedule. "Hi, Dorothy," Patricia said with a smile when she'd finished registering the teen