If Onions Could Spring Leeks Read online

  Praise for the Country Cooking School Mysteries

  If Catfish Had Nine Lives

  “I’m addicted to Paige Shelton’s Country Cooking School mysteries . . . Ghosts, history of the Old West, modern crime, and cooking are blended together skillfully . . . If Catfish Had Nine Lives adds a few more fascinating ghostly legends to the annals of Broken Rope’s history.”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  “Paige Shelton lets her readers hit the ground running in the latest installment of the Country Cooking mysteries. Life is never dull in Broken Rope . . . Whether you like a fun paranormal element or a tasty recipe to try after the thrill of the mystery is over, I believe this series will appeal.”

  —Cozy Mystery Book Reviews

  “This is a fun cozy mystery series, and the cowboy-ish setting and ghostly aspects keep the plot fresh . . . Recommended for fans of the series, lovers of food cozies, and those who enjoy a little ghost activity in their cozy mysteries.”

  —Open Book Societ

  “A visit to Broken Rope is always time well spent. I enjoy Betts and Gram, and their devotion and loyalty not only to each other, but also to their town’s inhabitants—the living and the dead. While it is not necessary to read all of the Country Cooking School mystery series in order, I highly recommend that you get copies of all four books and have yourself a binge reading session. You won’t be sorry!”

  —MyShelf.com

  If Bread Could Rise to the Occasion

  “Lovers of the supernatural will be intrigued by the ghosts that populate the book, while lovers of symmetry will be relieved to know that all of the plot strands cleverly connect in the end . . . The recipes included in the book attest to the appeal of country cooking, Missouri style.”

  —Mystery Scene

  “Readers who love a little romance with their mysteries will not be disappointed . . . A wonderful addition to an intriguing and ghostly series.”

  —Debbie’s Book Bag

  “Start with an interesting premise . . . Add a pinch of a wonderful setting . . . Season with murder and ghosts and a dash of romance. It won’t be long until there’s an appetizing aroma of mystery . . . [A] treat for cozy mystery lovers.”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  If Mashed Potatoes Could Dance

  “Both mysteries were superb and I absolutely can’t wait to take a visit to Broken Rope again.”

  —Cozy Mystery Book Reviews

  “Once again, author Paige Shelton has cooked up a gem of a novel . . . Ghosts, a tiny old western town, seriously funny dialogue, and history and mystery make this a book you won’t want to miss.”

  —MyShelf.com

  If Fried Chicken Could Fly

  “Take a puzzler of a mystery, season with a dashing ghost, add a pinch of romance, and you have a blue ribbon–winning recipe for a tasty read.”

  —Jenn McKinlay, New York Times bestselling author of the Cupcake Bakery Mysteries, the Library Lover’s Mysteries, and the Hat Shop Mysteries

  “A juicy mystery that’s deep-fried fun.”

  —Riley Adams, author of the Memphis BBQ Mysteries

  “I guarantee your spirits—pardon the pun—will be lifted . . . Paige Shelton has created a vivid setting [and] fun, friendly characters.”

  —E. J. Copperman, national bestselling author of Inspector Spector

  “[Paige Shelton is] a prevailing voice in the culinary cozy genre . . . [A] rib-tickling read with a sturdy family core filled with amusement, hijinks, and love . . . Shelton writes with a Hitchcock essence that readers once found missing . . . until now . . . If Fried Chicken Could Fly simply warms your spirit with delicious homespun goodness.”

  —Blogcritics

  “If Fried Chicken Could Fly has terrific characters, including a wonderful ghost, and a perfect setting.”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Paige Shelton

  Farmers’ Market Mysteries

  FARM FRESH MURDER

  FRUIT OF ALL EVIL

  CROPS AND ROBBERS

  A KILLER MAIZE

  MERRY MARKET MURDER

  BUSHEL FULL OF MURDER

  Country Cooking School Mysteries

  IF FRIED CHICKEN COULD FLY

  IF MASHED POTATOES COULD DANCE

  IF BREAD COULD RISE TO THE OCCASION

  IF CATFISH HAD NINE LIVES

  IF ONIONS COULD SPRING LEEKS

  Specials

  RED HOT DEADLY PEPPERS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  IF ONIONS COULD SPRING LEEKS

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2015 by Paige Shelton-Ferrell.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63470-7

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2015

  Cover illustration by Phil Parks.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Version_1

  For the Level 1 Trauma Team at the University of Missouri hospital. Thank you for the miracles you so skillfully performed.

  Acknowledgments

  The last couple of years have been a whirlwind of changes and challenges. Thanks to those who have kept me on track and who forgave me when I forgot something. Extra thanks to my agent, Jessica Faust and my editor, Michelle Vega.

  There’s a group of very special people out there. I don’t know them all, but I do know some. An extra-extra special thank you to book bloggers and anyone who takes the time to spread the word about the books they enjoy. You truly make all the difference.

  As always, thanks to my guys, Charlie and Tyler. I don’t know what I’d do without your nerdy senses of humor. And Charlie, my willing and helpful research partner. If he hadn’t turned the car around to go back to the building I thought I saw deep in the Missouri woods, I’m not sure what this story would have been. Thanks for not letting me fall through the floors or in with the tiny fishes.

  Contents

  Praise for the Country Cooking School Mysteries

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Paige Shelton

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

/>   Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Recipes

  Chapter 1

  At first the mournful whistle sounded far away and lonely. I was asleep and I liked the noise, as though it were part of a sad but hopeful dream. But then it became less a part of the dream and more the thing that was waking me up.

  I sat up in bed and tried to gather my weary senses. I was home. Cliff wasn’t with me. Why? I remembered—he was in St. Louis picking up some equipment. He should be back tomorrow, or was that later today?

  The train whistle sounded again, its volume much louder and its pitch high enough that it would surely hurt my ears if I was standing close to it.

  I didn’t live anywhere near train tracks.

  “Oh. Not true,” I said aloud with a sleep-cragged voice.

  Clumsily, I rolled out of bed. I pulled a shirt and some shorts out of my dresser and threw them on over my nightshirt. I grabbed my phone, noticing that it was 3:04 in the morning, and hurried through and then out of the house, stopping short when I got to my small front porch.

  My house was located on a dead-end street; the dead-end part, the spot where now there was just an open field of neglected grass, was once home to the Broken Rope train station. In its heyday and before Route 66 was the Route 66, this spot of Missouri saw lots of train traffic, and the area where my house was now located had been a thoroughfare, busy with travelers coming and going. I wasn’t old enough to have any memories of the station, of course, but my best friend and the town historian, Jake, had shown me pictures. Black and white renditions of women in tight-waisted long dresses and hats that made my neck ache just by looking at them, and men in heavy suits and ties posing in front of oily black engines that spat out white clouds of steam. There weren’t many smiles in those pictures. I liked to tease Jake that it was because those posing for the pictures were so miserable in their heavy, tight, and itchy clothing. He insisted that it was because back then everyone had such lousy teeth.

  The field was five houses away, and currently no longer a field. Well, it probably still was a field, but I was seeing it differently. I was seeing it as it was back during the late 1800s when those long skirts and thick suits were all the rage, and back when people dressed up when they traveled.

  I was both concerned and fascinated, but more intrigued than anything else. I knew what was going on and it wasn’t an unusual occurence—for me, as well as for my gram, Missouri Anna Winston. I’d become used to seeing and communicating with ghosts from Broken Rope’s past, so I knew the scene being played out at the end of the street was something that would contain at least one specter searching for attention from someone still alive. Mostly, my and my grandmother’s ghosts were pretty harmless, but there were moments when the danger they brought with them was real and present-day, and potentially deadly.

  I stepped slowly and carefully down the porch steps, pausing again at the bottom. The train I’d heard approaching the station came into view nose-first, its squeaky brakes and loud whistle announcing that it was about to stop completely. I sniffed deeply and found a scent—flowers, a big, assorted bouquet of flowers. Or was that a neighbor’s garden? I couldn’t be totally sure, but the scent was so strong, so pure, that I thought that it was most likely attached to a visiting ghost.

  The station platform was on the other side of the slowing train, so my view of whatever was going on there was about to be blocked. I looked around, confirmed that no one was watching me or peering through their windows, and then hurried down the street. I stepped in front of the now stationary locomotive and over the seemingly very real train tracks. Those few steps transported me almost fully into the past. Different than some time I’d spent in an old bakery, I could still see my house and neighborhood in their present-day state, though all the houses, streetlights, and cars were dim and murky and much less real than the feel of the wood planks shifting with my weight as I moved onto the platform.

  The station was a long, wide, one-story building that ran along the back of the platform, made of what looked like the same pinewood planks under my feet. There were two doors in its middle, both currently open wide. To the right of the doors was a small window where I assumed long-ago tickets had been purchased. I stepped toward the doors and peered inside. There were two more ticket booths along one wall. The rest of the space was filled with rows of benches, also made of the same pinewood. The handiwork on the benches was much more utilitarian than I might have pictured it to be. Perhaps it was the movies of my time that made me think of curved, ornate arms and slanted backs, but these benches were simple, straight-backed seats that must have offered respite to only the weariest of travelers. The row of windows along the back wall seemed odd in a couple of ways. Daylight streamed through them, and they were made of glass and what looked like fancy wrought-iron frames. They looked almost elegant against the light pine everywhere. The contrast of the thick Missouri woods bathed in bright sunlight on the other side of the windows made me wonder why and when all the trees had been razed to make way for the present-day vacant grass field that now extended at least a hundred yards back.

  As I turned toward the train, more images began to appear. With faded beginnings, people quickly formed and solidified, becoming dimensional and bathed in the same long-ago sunlight that lit the trees.

  “But, Papa, I’m so very hungry,” a small girl with black curls and big green eyes said to a man with matching features who held her hand tightly.

  “I know, Mary, but we’ll spoil our dinner if we eat the peanuts right now. Save them. Grandmama will have dinner on the table when we get there. Don’t ask me again.”

  “All right,” she said with a sigh of disappointment.

  With her bottom lip stuck out, she looked up at me. I smiled and waved, but she didn’t respond, didn’t even blink. Did she not see me?

  An older gentleman who was still spry enough to be moving at a quick clip had his eyes on the pocket watch he held as he beelined directly toward me. I stepped to the side, but not quickly enough to avoid him completely. His left arm went right through me. I felt nothing, but it was one of those weird ghost things that I would probably never get used to.

  It seemed that none of these ghosts saw me, which was a first. Usually, if there was a ghost in the general vicinity, they could see and communicate with both me and Gram. It was what I thought “this” was all about—we could see and talk to them because they could see and talk to us. But the ghost rules had already proved to be fluid, changing at least a little bit with each new ghostly guest.

  I wondered what was going on, but didn’t sense any danger. I decided I could either go home and go back to bed or stay and wait for whatever happened next, discover if anyone would “see” me eventually.

  So many ghosts materialized that the platform became crowded. Even though I could not feel anyone’s touch or any sort of breeze their movements stirred up, I became uncomfortable and a little claustrophobic. No one was dodging me, and it was impossible for me to dodge everyone else, so I wove my way to a spot close to the building’s doors and out of the main streams of traffic. I heard their voices as they hurried to purchase tickets and sped toward the train or from it and toward whoever was greeting them. I saw their faces and expressions clearly, but still no one saw me.

  My fascination with this step back into another time wore thinner with each passing moment. It was late and I did have to get up early the next morning. Perhaps I could ignore all the noise that I was almost a hundred
percent sure I’d still hear from my house and catch a few more hours’ sleep. But just as I made that decision, something changed.

  The scent of flowers grew stronger, filling my nose so fully that a small twinge of sinus pain shot through my head. It mellowed quickly, becoming lighter and pleasant.

  A ghost came through the doors, stepping from the inside of the station to the outside platform. She was stunning; the kind of beautiful that made it almost impossible to look away from her. I wanted to study her, see the specifics of her appeal. Since I didn’t think she could see me, I figured I could stare all I wanted.

  She was tall and small-waisted—probably from a tight corset—she was curvy enough not to be called skinny, but thin enough not to be called chubby. Her neck was long and swanlike. Her dark skin was smooth and flawless and she had high, delicate cheeks. Her nose was button, but for some reason it fit well with her grown-up features. The sadness in her brown eyes was so palpable that when they pooled with tears my heart ached sympathetically.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said quietly.

  She looked at me, blinked back the tears and then opened her eyes wide. “Oh my, dear, where are your clothes? Here, let me give you my coat.” She made a move to unbutton the thin outer layer that looked like it was part of her dress.

  “Oh,” I said as I looked at myself. “No, I’m fine, thank you anyway. You can hear me? See me?”

  “Of course, silly thing, but what are you doing without so much as some good underpinnings on?”

  As she continued to unbutton, the scene changed again. Suddenly, it was just she and I on the platform. The steam engine remained and puttered in the background. All the other ghosts disappeared.

  She looked up and around and then at me. “Gracious, this is odd. Where did everyone go?” She stopped unbuttoning and took a large step toward the locomotive. Her fingers moved to a simple chain around her neck.

  “Uh . . . I’m Betts, Isabelle Winston,” I said as I stepped next to her. “This is all strange because it’s not part of what is happening in present time. My grandmother is Missouri Anna Winston. Perhaps you know her?”