Your Goose Is Cooked (A LaTisha Barnhart Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the glass into the air. It landed upright in the palm of his hand, ready to be filled with the milk Shiny was waiting on. I rolled my eyes.
    “Neat trick,” Chief observed.
    Hardy beamed. “Talent just oozes from my pores.”
    “ It’s blood gonna be oozing from your head if you don’t get that milk over to table three.”
    Hardy put the glass of milk on top of his tray and paused, leaning close to the chief, his voice raised so I could hear every word. “Spousal abuse, pure and simple.”
    I snorted. “Spousal abuse of the pure and simple, is more like it.” I flicked my hand at table five where Dr. Cryer had taken a seat. “Get that to the table before I fire you.”
    Hardy shuffled off, his smile fixed, gold tooth flashing. Which reminded me he had an appointment with Dr. Cryer this afternoon. Dentures.
    “How many times you fired him so far?” Chief spooned sugar into his coffee and stirred.
    “Too many to count. He sure swims in the vinegar, doesn’t he?”
    Chief made a strange sound in his throat and put his coffee cup down so fast it splashed. I handed him a paper napkin that he choked into for a full minute before a laugh popped out of his throat. “You’ve got a way with words, LaTisha . And I dare say Hardy’s not the only feisty one at your house.”
    My house. William. I wondered if Chief already knew about William moving in with us, or about the hit man. My guilty conscience was burning a hole in my head. Telling Chief would be betraying William, but Hardy was right, it sure felt wrong not telling him. I had a different method. “William told me he saw a new face in town yesterday.”
    “Told you?”
    He’s a sharp guy. “Scribbled it to me in a note. Whatever.”
    Chief cracked open the menu, his eyes flicking back and forth over the selections. “Old or young?”
    “Younger.” A guess, but what else did I have to go on? William would have noticed gray hair. Wouldn’t he? I picked up a glass and pressed it against the ice dispenser, then filled it with Dr. Cryer’s favorite raspberry tea.
    He snapped his menu shut. “I’m not in the mood for breakfast. I’ll take the Maple Gap.”
    “That be on white, wheat, grain, or a wrap? Toasted or no?”
    “Wheat. Toasted. Leave off the onions, but load me up with pepper relish.”
    My special pepper relish had the whole town forgetting all about needing slimy mayonnaise and high-sodium ketchup. I’d started growing the peppers in Hardy’s greenhouse, then chopped and stirred around different types of peppers until I was satisfied with the flavor and consistency of the relish. When I introduced it to the folks of Maple Gap as a condiment for the Maple Gap club sandwich, I’d run clean out of relish that first day. So I began to can the stuff. Hardy grumbled the whole time about having to wear rubber gloves and pick out the pepper seeds. Now that I think on it, maybe I could sell the relish online and raise money for our school. That would certainly show Lester Riley a thing or two.
    I scribbled Chief’s order on my pad of paper, ripped it off, and snapped it on the circular rack we used to hold orders, considering the problem of keeping up with the demand for the pepper relish and selling it for profit, watching as Hardy’s hand—all I could see from my angle—yanked the paper off the rack.
    Hardy popped out of the kitchen and slipped two more orders onto the ring. “Almost forgot to put them up there.”
    “Why didn’t you just put them on from back there? You had them with you.”
    “Didn’t want to mess up the system.”
    “You’re falling behind.”
    Hardy stroked his jaw. “Just don’t have your way with the scraper thingie .”
    “It’s called a spatula.”
    “See, I don’t even know the names of things.”
    This man. I decided I’d fill those orders myself and was about to disappear through the swinging doors to the kitchen when Hardy snatched up two glasses at once, doing his little flip-trick. He was showing off.