by Libby Klein
Mother Gibson waved a stack of her bingo money. “I wanna put fifteen on Poppy ending up with that sexy new chef before the day is over.”
I felt a sudden warmth rise to my face.
Tim was bionic, chopping his monk’s beard.
Gigi put her hand on his back. “You’re not gonna be able to cook that if it’s dust, you know.”
I added the cinnamon to my mascarpone and tasted my filling. Perfect. Orange, cinnamon, lemony, creamy, that soft bite of chocolate chips and succulent dark cherries. It was going to be delicious.
I took my wonton cannoli shells out of the deep fryer as Tess was interviewing Horatio and Bess.
“Most of these chefs need to go back to basics,” Horatio lectured. “Food should evoke strong emotion, not just be slop on a plate.”
Bess raised her teacup. “Here here. And you shhhould know more than anyyyone, Horace . . .” Bess’s chin dropped to her chest before she finished her sentence.
That’ll look good on camera.
Ivy called the five-minute warning.
Horatio pulled at the neck of his bow tie to loosen it. “Chefs have lost the artistry of cooking, focusing instead on new and absurd menu items and molecular gastronomy. I’d like to see more quality over flair in their dishes. Cook from the heart, not from the trends.”
Bess was resting her head in her hands. Ivy told the camera to pull in tight on Horatio, so she wouldn’t be noticed.
I filled each cannoli shell with the sweet mascarpone and plated two on every plate like logs in a bonfire. Then I dusted them with powdered sugar.
“Time’s up!”
An audible hiss of relief fell over the kitchen like plunging a boiling custard into a water bath. No one was sabotaged. Everything was working. It looked like Restaurant Week had taken a turn to the positive.
I stepped away from my station and looked at my cannoli. Two beautiful cream-filled shells dipped in chocolate chips rested on each plate with a twist of lemon. I was proud of what I’d made. Gia came over to congratulate me.
“Beautiful! You do such nice work, Bella.”
Gigi muttered, “For an amateur.”
Gia winked, and returned to his kitchen.
“Gah! Oh God, no.” Tim was staring at his plates in horror.
I scanned his station. “What’s the matter?”
He ran his hands through his hair, tugging the pained expression on his face skyward.
“I was distracted because of . . .” Tim jerked angry eyes toward Gia.
I looked down at his plates. He’d forgotten to plate the monk’s beard. They were still in the sauté pan. That was a basket ingredient, and it was a required element. This would not go well for Team Maxine.
Adrian was paying close attention to our kitchen instead of his own. “Maxwell forgot his veg! I’m just pointing that out now, in case he tries to slip it on the plate when no one is looking.”
Gigi was not practiced in comforting the male ego. “Oh great. They are going to nail us for this mistake.”
“Thanks Gigi. Take five.” I put one hand on Tim’s arm. “It will be okay. I’m sure your veal piccata is so good, it will make up for it.”
It was time for the chefs to offer their dishes to the judges. Oliva was expected to sweep all three dishes, and I had it on good authority that she’d made one of her specialties, veal and pork Bolognese with fresh pasta.
We were going in order of score, so Philippe was first to present.
“What have you made for us today, Chef Philippe?” Tess asked.
“Blanquette . . . err . . . I mean Tuscan veal stew with onions and mushrooms.”
Bess mumbled something unintelligible, but held up an L, which we realized was an upside down seven.
Norman and Miss New Jersey also gave high scores to Philippe.
Horatio chewed thoughtfully. “Je préférerais manger un chat.”
Philippe simply nodded. “Thank you.”
“Ouch. He’s taking that really well.”
Tim whispered in my ear. “What’d he say?”
“Horatio said he’d rather eat a cat. See, there’s hope for us, even without the monk’s beard.”
Adrian could do nothing to please Horatio or Bess, but Miss New Jersey and Norman were impressed with his dishes.
Gigi’s petit lasagna fared well, but Tim’s entrée received twos because he forgot a basket ingredient.
Stormin’ Norman poked his fork at his plate. “Do my eyes deceive me, or am I missing monk’s beard on my plate?”
Tim’s lips tightened into a line. “I apologize, judges. I forgot to plate the monk’s beard.”
“That’s a rookie mistake,” Norman gloated. “Chefs rarely win on Chopped when they leave off a basket item.”
Horatio dabbed the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “What happened today, Chef Tim?”
“I was distracted. I won’t let it happen again.”
Miss New Jersey looked down the table at the rest of the judges. “Wait. Something is missing?”
Norman rolled his eyes.
Horatio looked at Brandy. “Do you see a vegetable on your plate?”
Brandy looked at her plate. “The pine needles? We were supposed to eat that?”
Bess shook her head. At least, I think she shook it. It could have been shaking on its own.
Norman gave Miss New Jersey a look. “Yes, we were all supposed to have it on our plates.”
“Oh, well I like it better without.” She fluttered her eyelashes at Tim.
“Chef Tim, jussh whaat were you dishtracted by, may I ashk?” Bess’s eyes rolled around, and she had trouble focusing on the chef before her.
Tim looked at the ceiling and shifted his weight. “A small personal distress that is growing larger by this interrogation. I left the ingredient off. It was a mistake. I will be more careful about the rest of the week.”
Ivy called, “Okay, let’s move on.”
It was time to judge my dessert.
Horatio praised me for thinking of something so clever and with a ten brought our score up to a respectable level.
I held my breath as Bess took one bite of my limoncello cannoli. She was so hard to please, and I hadn’t been able to win her over all week. I held my breath as her eyes rolled back in her head, then her face fell forward, and she passed out on her plate.
“Cut!” Ivy marched over to Bess. “Wake her up! She is going to have to be replaced with someone else. I can’t have this on camera.” Ivy shook Bess’s shoulder. She didn’t respond.
Horatio was dabbing a wet napkin on his woolen suit jacket where some of Bess’s mascarpone had squelched out and hit him. “Of all the unprofessional, drunken—”
“Bess!” Ivy shook the older woman a little harder.
Something didn’t feel right. I had a growing pit of dread rolling in my stomach.
Norman shook Bess and her head flopped awkwardly to the side.
Ivy put two fingers on her neck. She pulled her hand back like it was on fire. “Oh no! Oh no no no! This can’t be happening. Not on my show.”
One of the biddies yelled from the audience. “What’s happening?!”
Ivy looked at the chefs lined up in their kitchens. “Bess is dead.”
Chapter Sixteen
Itty Bitty Smitty was the first to speak. “What are the odds of that?”
Aunt Ginny replied, “I gave it two hundred-to-one. I guess I underestimated.”
Ashlee spoke into the microphone like she was still on camera. “Did she drink herself to death?”
Norman shook his head. “Ted would never let this happen on Chopped.”
With a shaky voice and unsteady hands, Ivy said, “Everyone stay where you are. I’m going to call an ambulance.” She found her tote bag and pulled out a cell phone. After a minute of silence in the room, Ivy spoke. “I have an emergency. Someone is dead.” She walked out of the arena for privacy.
Everyone stood stock-still for about ten seconds, and then the arena eru
pted into chaos. Everyone was talking at once. The other judges got as far away from Bess as fast as they could. A hundred cell phones were activated. Roger held both hands up, pleading with everyone not to touch anything, but his appeals were flatly ignored.
Ashlee and Tess stood in front of the body and snapchatted the gruesome details for their followers. “OMG, someone literally just died. I mean, can you even?”
Gia was immediately by my side and pulled me into a hug. “It will be okay.”
Tim was deep in conversation with Hot Sauce Louie and Vidrine, commiserating over what this meant for their restaurants. He spotted me with Gia and frowned.
Aunt Ginny, Sawyer, and Smitty came down from their seats to stand in solidarity with me in the kitchen.
Smitty gave me a soft punch to the shoulder. “You okay, kid?”
“I think so.”
Aunt Ginny sniffed one of my cannoli. “Good Lord, Poppy. How much booze did you put in these that you killed the drunk lady?”
I grabbed Aunt Ginny’s arm. “Shh! Don’t say stuff like that. I didn’t kill her.”
Sawyer pulled me into a hug. “Oh honey. I’m so sorry about your dessert.”
Mother Gibson led a group of seniors down to my station. “Ooh child, don’t you worry about a thing. We saw everything you put in those desserts. We know you didn’t kill her on purpose.”
Thelma Davis held her smartphone up to show me her screen. “I recorded the whole thing, so you have evidence, dear.”
I looked at the screen, and it showed a ten-minute video of Mrs. Davis unwrapping a caramel and betting fifty-cent-off coupons for toilet paper that Adrian would fly into a rage if he got a low score. “Thank you, Mrs. Davis. I’ll let you know.”
The Sheinbergs were next to arrive.
Mrs. Sheinberg held and patted my hand. “Don’t worry, Bubula, we’ll think of something. There are laws against double jeopardy, preventing you from being accused of the same crime twice.”
“That’s only if she killed the same person twice,” Mr. Sheinberg added. “This isn’t the same gal you were supposed to have killed before, is it? Eh?”
Mrs. Sheinberg smacked her husband on the shoulder. “No this isn’t the same girl, ya schmegegge. This one’s older than dirt. The other one was a young thing like Poppy here.”
Mr. Sheinberg threw his hands in the air. “Oy, whaddya think I know, eh?”
“I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill either of them. We don’t really know what happened yet.”
Mrs. Dodson had taken the long way around the arena, passing the judges’ table to get a good look at the body before making her way to comfort me. “Poppy, you poor thing. You must have the worst luck in the world.” She looked at my extra plates of dessert and shook her head. “What a terrible thing to happen to cannoli.”
“Really, everyone. It wasn’t my cannoli. They’re fine. Here, I’ll show you.” I picked up one of my mascarpone-and-cherry-filled wonton shells and lifted it to my mouth.
They all lunged forward and yelled, “No!” like I was about to jump off the roof or get a bad perm.
Aunt Ginny smacked my wrist with her hand. “We believe you. Just drop the cannoli before you get hurt.”
A loud piercing whistle punctured the air. “What are you all doing? I said for everyone to stay where they were.”
We all turned to see Ivy, who had now been joined by a petite blonde cop whose hobbies included arresting McAllisters.
“Good afternoon everyone. I’m Officer Amber Fenton.”
Aunt Ginny had lost her internal filter long ago. She gave Amber a curious once-over. “Just how small is that police department?”
Amber took off her police-issue sunglasses. “I should have known. I’m going to have to ask everyone to stand back and not touch anything. This is an active crime scene.”
I may as well just drive myself down to the station and put on the orange jumpsuit right now.
The kitchen was locked down while Amber’s team collected evidence and questioned everyone. Did they notice anything? What did the victim have to eat and drink? Did the victim have anything to eat or drink that could be isolated to just her? Did anyone have a grudge against the victim?
Ivy sat in the corner hugging herself and rocking. “My career is over. I’m going to have to go back to dog grooming. I’m not ready to get bitten by the Anderson chihuahua again.”
Amber spent the most time with Roger. “And you made her this special tea every day?”
“Yes, ma’am. Several pots of it.”
“And no one else drank any but her?”
Aunt Ginny and I exchanged looks. While Amber cross-examined Roger, Aunt Ginny slowly crept over to the judges’ table.
“As far as I know. No, wait a minute. I think Miss New Jersey had some on day one. Because she was sick. I remember bringing in two cups.”
Aunt Ginny’s wrinkled little hands plucked a tissue from her purse and grabbed Bess’s teapot. She lifted the lid and bent down and gave it a good sniff.
Amber caught the movement out of the corner of her eye. “Put that down and back away from the evidence.”
Aunt Ginny gave Amber her most innocent little old lady look, which Amber knew was far from reality, and sidestepped away from the table.
“Well?” I hissed.
Aunt Ginny shrugged. “It’s just tea. Not booze at all.”
“Then how is she getting drunk?”
It was finally my turn to be questioned by Amber.
“What was your relationship to the deceased?”
“I didn’t really know her. She was staying in my bed and breakfast.”
“How did she get along with the others?”
“Fine, I guess. She didn’t go out with them after the competition or anything, but she would hang out and chat with everyone around the house.”
“What has her behavior been like for the past forty-eight hours?”
“Fussy. Pretentious. To tell the truth, she seems to be a very heavy drinker. She’s either been some level of drunk or nursing a wicked hangover the entire time she’s been here.”
“What have you witnessed her drinking?”
“Well, nothing, really. But someone has been draining my sherry and brandy decanters every night.”
I filled Amber in about all of Bess’s likes, dislikes, and habits that I was aware of, then I was free to go. I was sick with fear that I would be arrested at any minute. It was my cannoli that Bess was eating when she died.
A couple hours later, everyone had given their statements, and the ambulance had arrived and removed Bess in a body bag. I felt my body give an involuntary shudder when the coroner zipped the bag shut. It was so loud it was as if Ivy still had a microphone on her. All the stress from the past several days broke through and mocked the strength I was trying to show. One tear broke through my little dam of resolve and rolled down my cheek. Tim took my hand and pulled me into his side. Gigi threw herself into his other side.
A young girl in a black vest with CSI printed on the back came to my kitchen, dumped my extra cannoli into a baggie, zipped it up, and dropped it into a duffel bag that said EVIDENCE.
My heart sunk. I was gonna eat that.
“For now, you are all free to go. I’ll be back after I receive the toxicology report, but the initial evidence suggests that the victim was poisoned. The crime scene techs have done a thorough sweep of the kitchen and pantry, and all suspicious items have been bagged. I have agreed, under duress, to let your director continue with the filming while we wait for the autopsy. If anything shows up, I’ll be back.”
The kitchen arena emptied faster than the National Zoo with a gorilla on the loose. Aunt Ginny and Sawyer had attached themselves to me as if they could somehow shield me from Amber. They probably should have removed my glow-in-the-dark apron, because she still spotted us on the way out.
“Finding you at my crime scenes is getting old. Should I move you to the top of the suspect list now and save us all some time?�
��
Aunt Ginny gave Amber a steely glare. “Only if you want to keep your track record of being wrong.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I can’t believe we’re caught up in the middle of another murder investigation.” Aunt Ginny squirted mounds of coconut whipped cream onto three almond-milk mochas. “This town is going to hell in a handbag.”
Sawyer sprinkled the tops of each mug with powdered chocolate. “Are we sure Amber is saying the poisoning was murder? Maybe Bess died of self-inflicted alcohol poisoning?”
We took our mochas and went to the library to sit in front of the fire. The rest of the guests were still at the college in some kind of production powwow with the director, so we had the house to ourselves for the time being.
“She used the word victim, so I’m pretty sure she meant murder.” I poked the logs to stir up the flames before joining Sawyer on the couch. “But who would want to kill her? She’s only been in town for three days. She doesn’t even know anybody.”
“I don’t want to speak ill of the dead,” Aunt Ginny said, “but she didn’t do herself any favors by turning her nose up at everything all the time. She was a royal pain in the patoot. I’ll be soaking that Lalique vase for hours to get the glue off.”
“If she was poisoned”—I pointed out what I thought was obvious, but it made me feel better to say it—“it would have to have happened at the college. The only other place she’s been is here, and I know I didn’t poison her.”
Sawyer and I slid our eyes to Aunt Ginny. Figaro had jumped up onto her lap under the guise of wanting to be petted when we all knew it was a ruse to get to her whipped cream.
Aunt Ginny paused in stroking Fig’s cottony fur. “What?”
“You don’t know anyone who may have poisoned Bess, do you?”
Aunt Ginny narrowed her eyes. “If I was going to poison the guests, I wouldn’t have stopped with that one. Those two girls that fight like a couple of wet hens would be on the top of my list. We need to figure out who would have a good motive for doing the old broad in.”
“What about the competition?” Sawyer asked. “Isn’t ten thousand dollars riding on the outcome of this week? That seems like a good motive. Would any of the chefs be mad enough with their harsh reviews to want to get Bess out of the way?”