Free By Cook or by Crook (A Five-Ingredient Mystery) by Maya Corrigan

Sports. Its business logo, an X formed by a racket and a barbell, reflected the shop’s wares and its owner. Darwin had a reputation as a certified tennis pro and a certifiable dumbbell.
    He was helping a customer trying on shoes when Val entered the shop. A teenage clerk at the checkout counter chatted on her cell phone while ogling Darwin. A tennis has-been in his late twenties, he’d never graduated from the satellite circuit to a major tournament, but he could still compete in the local Adonis stakes. Transport him to Southern California, and he’d have looked like the archetypal surfer, skin tanned and hair bleached.
    Val studied the vintage equipment decorating the walls above the merchandise displays. Badminton rackets with small round heads, squash rackets with heads shaped like teardrops, and tennis rackets with oval heads, several made of wood. No obvious empty spots on the wall to suggest rackets removed for nefarious purposes.
    “Hey, Val.” Chatty Ridenour beckoned from the clothing racks beyond the shoe display.
    Val joined her tennis teammate. Chatty’s intricately tied scarf matched her indigo blue eye shadow and lent panache to her simple outfit, a white shirt and cropped pants. Without her flawless complexion and flair for clothes, she would go unnoticed, a woman in her late thirties with straight brown hair, average in height and weight.
    She pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed under her nose. “I’ve been miserable ever since I heard Nadia was killed. The police cornered me at the club. I couldn’t bear to play tennis after that. I had to shop to calm down.”
    “And I had to cook.” To each her own medicine. “What happened with the police?”
    “They asked lots of questions about Nadia, how well I knew her, things like that. I asked how she was killed, but they wouldn’t tell me.”
    “Did you say anything about the trouble between her and Monique?”
    Chatty answered Val’s question by flipping through the clothes rack, caressing the fabrics. Emotions never disturbed her lineless face, emerging instead in her hands. Her agitated fingers telegraphed that she’d blabbed to the police.
    Val tamped down her annoyance. “It doesn’t matter. If you didn’t tell them, someone else would have.”
    “I didn’t want to, but the deputy with the shaved head wouldn’t let up on me. He also kept talking about a hit-and-run a few weeks ago. What’s that about?”
    “Who knows? He asked me about it too. He’s obsessed with that hit-and-run though I can’t see what—” Val broke off as Darwin approached them.
    He flashed a smile worthy of a toothpaste ad. “Can I help you, ladies?”
    Val couldn’t risk talking about wood rackets in front of the inquisitive Chatty. “Um, she’s looking for tennis clothes.”
    Chatty waved to a broad-shouldered teenager entering the shop. “Hey, Kyle. You play tennis too?”
    The young man sauntered toward them. “How you doing, Mrs. Ridenour? Yeah, I’m taking up the game.” He clapped Darwin on the shoulder. “You got my special order, man?”
    Darwin tilted his head toward the rear of the shop. “In the backroom. ’Scuse us, ladies.”
    Val watched two sets of massive shoulders and bulging biceps go through a door at the back. “In Granddad’s video store, guys used to ask for the films stored in the backroom. He didn’t carry adult videos, but everybody knows backrooms are for things you can’t do in public.”
    Chatty touched an index finger to her lips and pointed her other index finger toward the clothes rack behind Val. The salesclerk stood at the rack, near enough to eavesdrop. If she’d heard Val’s comment about backrooms, she might repeat it to Darwin.
    Val searched for something bland to say. “Darwin and Kyle look like they spend a lot of time lifting weights.”
    “Darwin believes in survival of the fittest.” Chatty winked. “He volunteers as the fitness coach for the high school football team. Kyle’s the