Free 1 Death on Eat Street by J.J. Cook Page A

I cleaned. I couldn’t help it. Even though he’d been an ass with me, I still felt bad about the way he’d died.
    A chilly breeze swept through the truck and I shivered. There were worse things than losing a day with my biscuit truck.

EIGHT

    “Give you a hand with something?” Ollie asked.
    I jumped, startled from my thoughts of Terry being murdered.
    “I’m almost finished. Well, at least I’m almost finished cleaning up. I have to get the food ready for tomorrow. Then Miguel is coming to dinner.”
    Ollie waggled his black eyebrows. “That the way it is?”
    “Not the way you’re thinking. I invited him to dinner because he was very nice to me today. It was a difficult time. I was glad to have him there. Thanks for calling him after we found Terry. Why don’t you come for dinner, too?”
    He looked at his clothes. He was wearing the same T-shirt, hoodie, and jeans that he wore every day. “Don’t know that I’m dressed for dinner.”
    “Don’t be silly. You look fine. Come inside and let’s talk about savory fillings. I’ll make some coffee.”
    We spent the next few hours working on biscuit bowl fillings. Ollie took over my kitchen, throwing bits of this and that into a spicy gumbo.
    It almost drove me crazy. He had no recipe, no idea what he was going to put in next. He kept finding new ingredients and adding them to the pot. He’d stop, put a spoonful on a plate each time, and slurp it up to taste it.
    I watched him as I checked my laptop to make sure it was okay for me to park the Biscuit Bowl outside police headquarters in the morning. My permit was good for that area.
    “How can you cook like that?” I tidied up behind him. “I’d go insane if I had to work that way.”
    “What way?” He rolled his latest sample around in his mouth with a pleased expression on his face.
    “How do you know what to put in without a recipe? What if it’s too much, or not enough? What if the spices don’t blend well?”
    “Chill, Zoe. Give this a taste and see what you think.”
    Before I could protest, he’d stuck the big stirring spoon in my mouth.
    It took me a minute to get over that assault. By the time I had, I realized a new flavor was circulating through my mouth, tantalizing my palate.
    “Oh my God!” I cried out in ecstasy. “It’s amazing! How did you do that? You have to show me.”
    “Sure.” He spread out his ingredients again. “You take a pinch of pepper, and throw in some salt.”
    “No. I mean I need the recipe.”
    He pointed to his head. “It’s all in here. No need to write it down. I got it from my mama who got it from her mama who got it from her mama. It’s never been written down.”
    “That doesn’t mean we
can’t
write it down.” I grabbed a pencil and paper. “Okay I’m ready.”
    He stood there mute and defiant. I put down the pencil.
    “Can’t be committed to paper,” he said. “It would ruin everything.”
    That was the craziest idea I’d ever heard. I could see by his face that he was serious. I wouldn’t be able to coerce him into letting me write down the ingredients.
    Not right then, anyway. I’d keep working on him.
    “Let’s make another pot.” I redirected our conversation. “I can’t wait to take it out tomorrow. People are going to love this, Ollie.”
    I made the sweet fillings as he worked on the savory gumbo. I kept glancing over to take note of what he was using. It was hard to tell. I think he was purposely trying to keep me from seeing what he put into it. I didn’t understand why he’d be so secretive about it, especially since he was willing to share it.
    Uncle Saul had plenty of secret recipes. He rarely shared them with anyone. He wrote them down and hid them. Someday after he passed, I expected to unearth an entire cookbook.
    When we were done, I put the savory filling into a metal pan and put it in the refrigerator. It would stay warm in the food truck tomorrow over a vat of hot water, after being heated up in the morning.