Chapter 6
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The next morning, Doreen woke to her phone ringing right beside her. She picked it up to see it was Nan. “Now what has happened?” she asked her grandmother.
“Did I wake you? I’m sorry, child. I didn’t even think about the time.”
“What time is it?” Doreen muttered, as she brushed the hair off her face, so she could look at her phone and check the time. “Good God, it’s only six.”
“I’m sorry,” Nan replied. “I didn’t think.”
“What’s got you so excited?” Doreen asked.
“The Burgon family, child. Another one of them just died.”
Doreen threw back her bedcovers, then grabbed the notepad beside her. “What news do you have?”
“Just that one of the older generation was found dead.”
“Okay, but that could have just been old age, right?”
“No, but she’s at least sixty,” Nan clarified. “I get it that you think old age happens to anybody, anytime.”
“It does,” Doreen pointed out. “People die unexpectedly all the time. And just because you say, old age, that doesn’t mean they are your age.”
“That’s good,” Nan replied in a snappish tone, “because she’s only sixty-something.”
“Okay, do we know anything else?”
“All I heard was suspicious circumstances.”
“Okay, I’ll see if I can get more.” Doreen ended the call, raced to the shower, and, as soon as she was dry and dressed, she headed downstairs.
There she put on some coffee and fed the animals, checking their water bowls.
“Thanks, guys, for being so patient with me when I am working.” Then she opened up the back door so they could get outside all on their own.
Afterward she brought up her laptop, hunting through the recent newspaper articles, looking for something, anything that would tell her what was going on.
She found nothing.
Frowning, Doreen then went to the larger Vancouver news site, but nobody was covering last night’s happening in Kelowna, outside of a small byline confirming that a body had been found.
Doreen sent Mack a text. It’s one of the Burgon family, isn’t it?
He called her later and said, “I see the grapevine is operating as usual.”
“Yes, but it’s grossly ineffective,” she muttered. “We’re all looking for a little bit more than what the newspapers are saying.”
“Did they identify the family?” he asked.
“No, Nan did.”
Silence followed. “Of course she did,” he finally muttered. “Although how she knew that, I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either, but, if you want to know, you better contact her directly.”
“No, it’s fine,” he replied. “And, yes, it is one of the Burgon family—the daughter of Old Man Burgon. She was sixty-something. I think sixty-four.”
“How did she die?”
“She was in the kitchen.”
Doreen groaned. “Oh no, hang on a minute.”
“I know,” he interrupted her. “I know where you’re going with this.”
“Oh, I’m going with this all right,” she declared. “The question is, are we on the same track?”
“Unfortunately we probably are,” he conceded, “but that doesn’t mean you can get into my case.”
“And this is the same kitchen where the cook died, right?”
Mack went silent, then finally answered her. “All I’ll say is, yes, but don’t ask me anymore.” And, with that, he ended the call.
Doreen sat back, thinking about it, then called her grandmother to fill her in on what Doreen knew to date. “Same kitchen where the wannabe chef just passed away. Mack still didn’t give me a cause of death—a stabbing or whatever—not once I understood that both crimes occurred in the same kitchen.”
“Oh, that’s fascinating,” Nan noted. “Who is killing cooks?”
“I don’t know, but the food can’t be that bad.” Nan’s shocked silence followed, and then Nan snorted, which quickly turned into huge guffaws. Doreen smiled.
“Terrible timing for jokes,” Nan said, when she could finally talk, “absolutely terrible.”
“I know,” Doreen said. “On the other hand, it eased up the tension a whole lot.”
“Oh my.” Nan giggled. “I’ll have to tell Richie that one.”
“Maybe not right away,” Doreen shared. “It is definitely sad that we’ve got two people dead in the same kitchen in the same week.”
“It is absolutely sad,” Nan agreed, her tone turning serious. “However, you sure know how to turn something sad into a joke.”
“I shouldn’t have though. We need to be respectful.”
“Sure, we do,” Nan conceded, “yet that was a good one.” And Nan was gone before Doreen could warn her again about not passing on the joke.
She groaned. “Not exactly good of you, Doreen,” she muttered. Sure, it was just a quip, and it was meant to ease up the tension, but she certainly didn’t need to make fun of murder. Feeling horribly guilty, she got down to work, trying to make some sense out of this.
But what was there to possibly make sense of murder?
Two people had passed away in the same kitchen, just a matter of days apart.
Then she remembered that Old Man Burgon had a pub and a restaurant.
She called Nan back and asked, “What was the name of the pub and restaurant that the Burgon family owned?”
“Something like the Rocking Horse Post. I’m not sure on that but something along that line.”
“Rocking Horse Post. I read that they do craft beer,” she shared, having seen something about that.
“I think so, but I don’t really remember.”
“Okay, good enough.” She ended the call this time and sat down at her laptop and started searching.
It didn’t take long at all, and she had the business name and started to run a history on the family and their pub and restaurant.
The businesses had been involved in quite a few lawsuits, even a couple cases involving food poisoning.
That was interesting too. Did somebody lose somebody and was now blaming the people who worked there?
That was the only motive she could conjure up here so far.
As she worked her way through other possibilities, she lost track of time.
When her phone rang, she assumed it would be Nan again, but instead it was the uncle of the young woman he’d thought would be charged with the one death, the first one involving the wannabe chef. Doreen shook her head at that too.
“Is this Doreen?” he asked in that same bristly tone.
“Yes,” she replied.
“The private investigator is really busy right now and can’t take on the case. When I told him that you recommended him, he suggested that I should just get you to do it.”
“I don’t know about just getting me to do it,” she replied. “The PI has access to resources that I don’t have, but I can look into it.”
“I heard from my niece this morning, and I don’t know how bad things are, but she’s pretty worried, and now apparently something else has happened, but she was too upset to tell me about it.”
“Yes,” Doreen noted. “Another death in the same kitchen. I believe it was a Burgon family member.”
A shocked silence came on the other end. “Oh my God.”
Doreen continued. “I’ve already pulled a bunch of files and have a few questions I want to ask Jillian.” When he hesitated, Doreen added, “I can also get the information from the police, so that’s hardly an issue—or maybe from employees at the Rocking Horse Pub.”
“Good God,” he muttered. “I always hated that name.”
“If they’re involved with craft beer, it goes along with it. The names of some of those beers are something else.”
“I think that’s half the challenge,” he muttered. “Anyway … I’ll give you Jillian’s contact information, but she may not want to talk to you.” He finally gave her the number. As Doreen wrote it down, he added, “Jillian didn’t have anything to do with this murder either.”
And, with that, he ended the call.