Egg Whites and Blue

Chapter 3-3

The heat was not treating his pie well. Dom poked up a bit of whipped topping from where it threatened to slump over the graham cracker crust and entered the large, rickety-looking structure that had a simple paper sign taped to the door reading, “Contest entries.” To his dismay, it wasn’t any cooler inside than it had been outside, but it was dimmer.

And strange. He had been expecting a wide, open space, like a barn, but instead the interior of the cheap structure seemed to be a maze of long, thin rooms. Immediately on entering, he could go one of three ways, down toward children’s, sides, or desserts. He chose desserts.

Card tables were lined up along one wall, containing entries with little printed numbers next to them. Dom made his way to the end, turned, and entered into another series of long passages. Although there were a few entries already patiently waiting, he found nobody and no place he could sign up to drop off his pie. It was beginning to irritate him, until he heard voices, and figured he should follow them.

He wasn’t particularly certain where he was going, but he turned a corner in the sides section and almost ran directly into Sander. The chef’s back was to him and he was holding a yellow plastic bowl of potato salad; Dom had the sudden urge to push him.

“—not that I don’t think every family recipe has its own merits, even if it is only for memory’s sake—”

“Sander,” said a woman a little farther down the room, and Sander turned.

“Bringing us an entry, Dominic?”

Dom gritted his teeth at Sander’s words, hating that the man remembered his name. He struggled for something biting to say, but Sander got there first.

“Is that it? What is it?”

“A pie,” said Dom, and the woman moved forward to take it from him, offering him a weak smile. She had shoulder-length brown hair and wore some kind of flowery summer dress.

“For the children’s contest?” asked Sander, though the expression on his face made it perfectly clear he knew that Dom had made the pie. “I didn’t realize you had kids.”

“Sander,” said the woman, frowning at him. “Not everyone’s a master chef. It’s the taste that counts, anyway.”

“Not the way we’re judging this year. We’re awarding points in multiple areas.”

“I’ll get you registered,” said the woman, ignoring Sander.

Dom was still trying to come up with a clever comment when the chef made a noise of disgust, set the potato salad down, and left. Dom tried not to be too short with the woman as she took down his name and contact number. When they were finished, she handed him a card with the number 17 on it and asked him to find a place to set his pie.

Dom walked up and down the dessert room that looked the most pie-inclined for a good five minutes, trying to locate the coolest place possible. He finally set his down next to what looked like a boring cherry pie and placed his card next to it. He then decided to check out the competition.

There were at least eight fruit pies that he could see, and two lemon meringue. He shook his head. Pie makers really didn’t have much imagination. He saw a lemon-blueberry pie, which seemed a step up, and then something that looked like a solid mass of chocolate in a crumbly crust. Frowning, Dom decided it was time to leave. For all he felt his pie was superior, he still had the urge to take a bite out of all the others.

He sucked on a bit of whipped topping that had gotten on his finger, wandering through the food entries. Making the place so confusing seemed a terrible idea; when he finally found the exit it turned out not to be the one he’d entered by, but one behind the nearby stage. Blinking in the sudden summer sun, Dom stumbled forward, trying to find a way back to the grassy field.

And tripped. The object was big enough to completely topple him, and it was only by catching hold of the stage that he managed to keep himself from falling to the ground. He swore, blinked, and looked down.

It appeared that he’d tripped over a person, a man by the looks of him, although Dom didn’t know whether it was anyone he knew because the body was face-down, motionless. Something protruded from the man’s back, and his white shirt was stained with blood around the handle of whatever the object was.

“Hey,” said Dom, kicking at the man’s ankle. He was not surprised to get no response, not when there had been no reaction to him tripping the first time. But he did not have a good feeling about the guy’s lifespan. He moved around to the man’s shoulder and shook it, pulled back immediately when he saw the open eyes and the expression on his face. No way this person was still alive. He pulled out his phone.

Got a case, he texted Kiko. Dead body.

What do you mean, “dead body?”

I just stumbled across it, typed Dom, feeling smug. There was a pause as he waited for Kiko to respond and he stood up, circled around the body. He was glad he didn’t know the man, or he might not be handling the incident so calmly.

Where are you?

Behind the stage.

Stay there, texted Kiko, I’m on my way.

Dom breathed out, realized he was a bit more on edge than he cared to be. He ran a hand through his hair, looked away from the body. Maybe he should be calling the cops. No, he’d wait for Kiko. Until then he would stay quiet and calm, and everything would go smoothly.

“You,” hissed a voice behind him. “What did you do?”