Murder On The Menu: A Romantic Comedy Culinary Cozy Mystery (A Celebrity Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

opportunities they could have had for killing him off. Then I need to check alibis for each of those people. I’m assuming you have motive and, as you work with him, opportunity. As you’re so worried that you’re prepared to work with me, your unknown-quantity neighbour, without seeing any solid proof I work for a crime investigation agency, then I’m assuming you don’t have an alibi for the time of the murder.”
    I shake my head and avert my eyes.
    “So, come on then, tell me all about your relationship with your former boss.”
    “I wasn’t in a relationship with him,” I immediately protest. “I’m sworn off relationships right now anyway, but even if I wasn’t… ewww.”
    “From what I’ve seen of him on the TV, when he was in that big cookery competition a few years ago, he’s not a bad looking guy, so why would dating him be so awful?” Jack asks, his head tilted a little to one side again enquiringly.
    “Well, he’s married for one thing, well, getting divorced. Plus, he’s a creep,” I reply and then feel guilt surge through me, right down to my in-need-of-a-serious-pedicure toes. “Sorry, I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead; that’s what my aunt always used to tell me.”
    “Come across a lot of dead people did she, your aunt?” he quips, tapping his pen against the table so fast it’s almost a blur.
    “Don’t make jokes!” I protest, fearing the wrath of Aunt Molly crashing down on me as well as the might of the Cumbrian police force.
    “I’m not. I’m just checking your family doesn’t have a thing about stumbling across murder victims.” He stops tapping the pen and instead raises it in the air towards me, as though it’s a sword he’s seeking protection behind. “Perhaps you’ve lured me here to help you, with your sweet and innocent façade, when actually you are the murderer and I’m in danger of becoming your next victim.”
    “Ha ha! Very funny!” I scowl at him.
    “So, speaking of your aunt, Frazer told me you used to spend school holidays up here, staying at Eskdale and helping out your aunt and uncle. Shame I didn’t get to do the same, spending time at Wellbeck and helping out my grandfather, we might have met when we were kids if I had.”
    “Did you want to be at the farm back then?”
    He shrugs. “My dad was in the army…” he falters slightly, then gathers himself and continues. “Anyway, we all had a nomadic lifestyle because of that, so we were often living overseas and stuff and I didn’t get to visit Cumbria very often. Even as a kid Frazer always used to tell me that when he was grown up he wanted to put down roots before he started his own family. As things turned out, he inherited Wellbeck, which suited him just fine. It’s a great place to raise a family. I guess I inherited the adventure gene instead, always off and about somewhere, every day different.”
    The curious part of me wonders what happened to Jack and Frazer’s father but I don’t want to ask him outright. He looks a little upset.
    “Tell me more about why Armand is a creep,” he says, swiftly changing the subject. “What do the police think is your motive for killing him?
    “Disgruntled employee, I suppose. I mean, basically he yells at everyone and nothing is ever right.” I wonder how much I should say to Jack about Armand’s behaviour towards the young female employees at the restaurant. “He had very high standards at the Veggies.”
    Jack stops making notes and looks across at me, raising a questioning eyebrow. “Veggies?”
    “That’s what the locals call the pub and restaurant.”
    He nods, the penny dropping. “Ah, right. Viande Et Deux Legumes. Of course, meat and two vegetables in French.”
    “You speak French?”
    “Oui, bien sur. Special agents need to be fluent in at least two languages. Anyway, we’ve established that, in typical chef fashion, he was a perfectionist and volatile.”
    I nod. “That’s right. We had a new guy, Colin, start from