Restaurant Weeks Are Murder

by Libby Klein

  She sobered up quickly. “What? People will be lining up around the block to stay in the crime scene suite.”

  “I don’t want those kind of people. I want harmless little old ladies who sit around doing crafts and drinking tea.”

  Aunt Ginny crossed her thin, papery arms across her chest. “Like the psycho who just died?”

  Sawyer, the ever-helpful, switched loyalties. “Oooh, she’s got you there.”

  “Thank you, Sawyer. That will be all.” I rolled my head around my shoulders.

  Sawyer blew me off. “And what is the deal with that tea? Do you think that’s how the killer poisoned her?”

  “If her bag of tea was poisoned, Miss New Jersey would be dead right now. She had some on Saturday.”

  “Miss New Jersey is younger and in better shape,” Aunt Ginny said. “Maybe the poison needs more time to work on her.”

  “We’ll have to warn her to go get that checked.” I looked at the time on my phone. “I have to go meet Tim for dinner.”

  “It’s time for me to meet Adrian for coffee too. Where are you going for dinner?”

  “Brother’s Pizza.”

  Aunt Ginny prodded me. “How are you going to be able to stick to your Paleo Diet around pizza?”

  “They have salads.”

  “Uh huh.” Aunt Ginny gave me a look that said “you’re not kidding anybody.”

  “I have an idea.” Sawyer grabbed her coat. “If you’re willing.”

  “What kind of idea?”

  “Well, it’s a little sneaky,” she said.

  Aunt Ginny chuckled. “Then it’s right up her alley.”

  * * *

  Brother’s Pizza in West Cape May was just a couple of miles from the house. A small joint in a strip mall, you could smell the garlic and oregano from Sunset Boulevard. Tim was waiting for me at one of the beige Formica tables at the front of the red dining room. An ancient juke box sat in the corner, and there was a metal stand with a stack of Shoppe periodicals.

  Tim gave me a quick kiss and helped me out of my coat. “I ordered us a panzerotti. I know how much you love them.”

  “They have gluten-free panzerotti now?”

  Tim blew out a low breath. “Aww, Mack. I’m so sorry. I forgot about the gluten thing. Do you want me to get you something else?”

  “Uhhh, no. No. I’m sure it will be fine.” Oh, it was so not going to be fine. But I knew what was in store in just a few minutes, and I didn’t want the evening to begin with a disaster. Even if it was destined to end with one. “Amber came by and searched the house.”

  “She can’t possibly think you had anything to do with that lady’s death.”

  “Well, it’s Amber, so, you know. Rule number one: blame a McAllister.”

  “Gah! Did she find anything?”

  “Only if the smoking gun was a bag of Tootsie Rolls.”

  “A what?” Tim laughed.

  One of the brothers came over with our hot and gooey panzerotti. I could feel my resolve fly away like the steam from the bubbly cheese. I was just going to have one bite, you know, so as not to be rude and all. I mean, if a man asks you out on a date, it’s very poor manners not to join him in his panzerotti. Especially if you knew he was about to have a very bad night.

  “Oh hey, look who it is.” Sawyer had just entered the front door of the dining room and was unbuttoning her coat. She had Adrian in tow. In regular jeans and a short sleeve bowling shirt, he wasn’t half bad looking. The other half was still terrifying. “It’s Poppy and Tim. Hi Poppy and Tim.”

  Adrian froze. Scowled. “Nope. Can’t do it.” Spun around and headed back for the door.

  Sawyer caught his arm. “Come on. We’re all adults. How bad could it be?” She flashed Adrian her brightest million-dollar smile and he melted.

  He looked back at Tim and me and hung his head, resigned to just get it over with.

  Now I had to work on my side of the peace treaty, who currently had a death grip on my panzerotti. “It’ll be fine. Just breathe.”

  Tim gave a tight smile to Adrian and gestured for him to join us.

  Adrian pulled out the chair for Sawyer, turned his chair around backwards, and fell into it with a glower.

  Sawyer rubbed her hands together to warm them. “What are yooze eating? You got a panzerotti? I love those.”

  Sawyer’s Jersey Girl was coming out more than usual. She must have been really nervous.

  I tried to pull a piece out of Tim’s claw. “Inside out pizza, what’s not to love?”

  Adrian asked Sawyer, “You want a panzerotti? I’ll get you a panzerotti. Wit the works. But I’m not paying for them.” He gestured to Tim and me. “This ain’t no double date.” Adrian went up to the counter to order, and Tim looked from one of us to the other.

  “What’s going on here? What are you up to?”

  “Nothing.” Sawyer smiled. “We were just in the neighborhood and thought we’d get some pizza.”

  Adrian returned to the table with two root beers and settled next to Sawyer.

  Then we sat in uncomfortable silence.

  Sawyer gave me an imploring nod to say something.

  “So, Adrian. How well did you know Bess?”

  “Never met her. But then I didn’t go to community college. I went to CIA in Hyde Park. We didn’t exactly swim in her little pond.”

  “Is she well known in the industry?” I asked.

  Adrian shrugged. “How would I know? I never heard of her.”

  “How about you, Tim?” Sawyer tried to extend the olive branch.

  Tim shrugged and gave his head a shake.

  Well this was just a delight. We would have to do it again, never.

  “I got a second restaurant I’m opening in the spring,” Adrian announced. “We’re just too busy at Baxter’s By the Bay. Standing room only every night. I can barely get out of there for a night off. We’re up for review to get a Michelin Star, so this is probably my calm before the storm.”

  Tim looked up from the ball of dough he had squashed with his rage. “I probably need to get to Maxine’s soon. My dinner rush is about to start, and things will fall apart if I’m not there.” Tim took out his wallet and threw a couple twenties on the table just as Adrian and Sawyer’s panzerotti arrived.

  Visions of Tim’s near-empty dining room sprang to my mind. My heart sank. He just wanted to leave. Sawyer’s scheme to get the boys together to air out their differences and make up was as bad as a left-bank peace treaty. I wasn’t sure Tim would be able to trust me again after tonight.

  Adrian leaned forward and tilted his chair toward the table. “A good manager can teach his line how to get by in his absence.”

  Tim considered Adrian’s challenge and met it with a shot of his own. “My staff is top notch, but if I take a night off, the whole kitchen stays in the weeds. I just don’t have the same kind of leisure time that you obviously have.”

  Sawyer, uncomfortable with the rising tension, tried to calm the conversation by throwing gasoline on the fire. “Were there any classes that you two took together in college?”

  I threw my foot out and kicked her under the table.

  “Ow.” She turned to me and hissed, “What? No good?”

  Adrian’s face broke into a wicked grin. “We took all our classes together. Even the ones we tried to get out of. That’s how I know this guy better than any chef at the shore. He used to be my best friend.”

  Tim threw his hands up in the air. “Dude! Let it go! How long are you going to hold this over my head?!”

  Adrian pointed a tattooed sausage finger in Tim’s face. “Until you admit what you did.”

  “You just had bad luck.”

  “Howz come I was the only one whose ingredients were changed? Huh! Tell me that!”

  “Man, I don’t know. I wasn’t the only one in the class.”

  “I got a D from Chef Santos. That knocked my ranking down from first to second.”

  Thank God it was January, and Brother’s wa
sn’t full of tourists. Two grown men scrapping like bucks while their ladies sit by and calmly eat a panzerotti was just another day in Jersey for the locals.

  Tim jumped to his feet. “You know what your problem is?”

  “What!”

  “You’ve always had a chip on your shoulder because you fold under a little competition.”

  Adrian leaned his chair back. “And you can’t win without cheating. Just like you’re doing this time, trying to get an advantage by flirting with Miss New Jersey.” He turned to me. “How do you put up wit dat?”

  Tim punched his arm through the sleeve of his coat. “You’re impossible. You know, you probably did kill Bess because she said your veal was like eating a shoe. You never could handle criticism. It’s why you were put on academic discipline.”

  Adrian’s chair crashed to the floor. “I was never disciplined.”

  “What do you call those special hospitality management classes you were required to take?” Tim looked at Sawyer and pointed to Adrian. “Oh yeah. And did he tell you about the two-week suspension that he told everyone was a ‘study abroad’ trip after he attacked Chef Santos when he gave him that D? Did he tell you about that?”

  Sawyer looked like a rabbit caught in a net as she turned wide eyes from Tim to Adrian to me.

  Adrian flew out of his seat and flipped the table.

  Panzerotti and root beer went flying. The family sitting nearby picked up their plates and moved two tables over before continuing their conversation about the potato transistor Jimmy was wiring for the upcoming science fair.

  Adrian jabbed at Tim. “You wanna talk about some rage, just wait.” Adrian rolled in a boil out the door and into his red Porsche with the license plate that said #1CHEF. He peeled out of the parking lot and into the night.

  Tim muttered, “Sorry Mack. I can’t do this right now.” He kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll see you in the morning.” And he followed in Adrian’s wake.

  Sawyer and I sat together and quietly finished the panzerotti we’d been holding before the rest was flung around the room.

  I asked Sawyer. “So how do you think that went?”

  She shook her head. “Still not the worse date I’ve ever been on.”

  One of the brothers came over and picked up the table. I paid for the panzerotti with Tim’s money, and put a hefty tip—out of embarrassment—in the apology jar.

  I peeled a glob of cheese off of Sawyer’s coat. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

  We walked out into the brisk night. There was a white halo around the moon. Sawyer sniffed. “It smells like snow.”

  I sniffed. “Snow and cupcakes.”

  We looked in the window of the bakery next door.

  “Isn’t that the weatherman?” Sawyer shielded her eyes from the glare of the streetlight.

  “Why, yes, it is. And that would be Ashlee Pickel that he has wrapped around him.”

  “Huh. I thought he was hooking up with the Latina.”

  “So did I.”

  “I wonder if Ashlee and Tess know he’s seeing both of them.”

  I watched the very public display of loose morals. “Yeah. It looks like they’re all on the same page with their bad decisions.”

  Chapter Twenty

  After a sleepless night and a silent breakfast service, I pulled Gia’s car into a parking space at the culinary wing of the community college. I’d tried to give the keys back to him yesterday, but he insisted we wait until the end of the competition, so I could keep bringing Aunt Ginny with me. There was no arguing with an Italian who had his mind made up.

  There appeared to be a relaxed gathering of students enjoying the chilly morning sunshine on the lawn.

  Aunt Ginny undid her seatbelt and clutched her purse tight against her. “What’s all that ruckus about, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they’re decorating for a dance or something.”

  “All I see is a bunch of posters on sticks.”

  “Maybe posters on sticks is what’s cool today.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  When we approached the sidewalk, the relaxed gathering picked up their posters and charged us. We couldn’t understand them because they were all speaking at once.

  “How could you?”

  “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

  “There’s blood on your hands.”

  These were no students. It was an angry mob of housewives.

  “What the—! Get off me!” Aunt Ginny threw her shoulder into one of the women and knocked her back.

  I put my arm around Aunt Ginny’s shoulder, and we pushed for the doors. A security guard who had been called in for the day tested us like the troll under the bridge with a riddle. “TV people or protesters?”

  I tried to form an answer out of the gibberish, but I was stuck on the word protesters. Protesting what?

  Aunt Ginny was much quicker thinking. “Do we look like we got nothing better to do than stand in the cold with a bunch of poorly drawn posters? She’s a chef. Team Maxine’s.”

  He nodded, and let us pass.

  “Who are those people? What are they doing out there?”

  Aunt Ginny held my elbow and pulled me along. “Just focus on your basket today. One thing at a time.”

  “But who are they mad at?”

  “Focus, Poppy. This too shall pass.”

  I wasn’t the only one who was stunned. The kitchen arena was a grim sight. There was no excited chatter today. Only a general malaise. While Sawyer and I were ducking flying mozzarella at Brother’s Pizza, a crusade was being launched. An aggressive backlash had been unleashed against the Restaurant Week chefs overnight.

  The South Jersey world of social media had been chewing on each tasty tidbit of scandal revolving around the competition all week, as if Taylor Swift and the Kardashians were involved. Facebook pages were dedicated to the exchange of analysis over whether or not a clever raccoon had tampered with the pantry, or a disgruntled college student had sabotaged the appliances in revenge for failing grades. A new Twitter hashtag, #SJChefFail, was so hot it was being tweeted by one of the Real Housewives.

  But when news hit the airwaves that one of the judges had been poisoned during the event, every soccer mom in the tristate area became an activist with a crusade to boycott Restaurant Week and all the chefs. They had zero evidence, but they’d passed around enough rumors to fuel their ire and had frenzied into an angry mob.

  Hot Sauce Louie walked over and gave me a hug. “How you holding up, hon?”

  “I’m a little shaken. I just don’t understand why everyone is so angry without having any facts. We don’t even know the cause of death yet.”

  “Dude, I passed three restaurants on my way here this morning that got signs in the windows, ‘POISON FREE FOOD.’”

  Philippe was tying an apron around the waist of his starched chef coat, his eyes full of worry. “La Maîtrisse had sixteen reservations cancel since yesterday afternoon. Last night was the slowest dinner service we’ve had in years.”

  Hot Sauce Louie put one hand on Philippe’s shoulder. “Something’s gotta be done. I told the little girl with the pink glasses I want out.”

  “You mean Ivy?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that’s her. I told her the Dawg Houz can’t ride out this wave of negativity. I gotta bail.”

  Philippe adjusted his chef hat. “And she said yes to this? My team would be very interested in leaving zee competition if that is an option. La Maîtrisse has been a landmark in Sea Isle. I will not let her be tainted by this debacle.”

  “I’m sorry, chefs, but it’s just not possible.” Ivy strode purposely across the room, waving a sheaf of papers. “I went to bat for you, I really did, Louie. But you all signed contracts that you would compete to the end, no matter what.”

  “Couldn’t there be an exception?” I asked. “Surely these are extreme circumstances.”

  Ivy shook her head no. “I asked. The executive producer has refused to
let you out of your contracts. I’m so sorry. He says there is too much money invested in the event. The shareholders want their return.”

  “That’s soo harsh, man.” Hot Sauce Louie pounded his fist in his palm. “You know how many burgers I have to sell to pay my rent? I can’t do that if nobody’s getting in line.”

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and a kiss on the top of my head. I instinctively knew who it was without looking.

  “Good morning, Bella.” Gia smiled at me before he turned to Ivy. “Chef Oliva wants to know what it will take to get out of her contract.”

  Louie looked at Ivy but pointed at Gia. “See that. Face it, man, this shindig’s a dud.”

  Ivy handed each of us a copy of the competition waiver. Mine was signed on the bottom by Tim Maxwell, in big letters.

  I read through the fine print, something I’d had to do for many years working as a receptionist in my late husband’s law firm, until I found the clause. “Five thousand dollars? If the chef defaults on his or her commitment they will be fined five thousand dollars? Isn’t that a bit steep? The award is only ten thousand.”

  Ivy shrugged. “They signed. There is a lot more at stake than just the cash.”

  I thought about Tim and knew there was no way he could afford to pay the penalty for dropping out. We would have to just bear our way to the end of the week. Lord willing, we would all have businesses to go back to when it was over.

  “Hey! You!” Chef Adrian hollered at Ivy from across the arena. “I need to talk to yooze about a little smear campaign against Baxter’s on Yelp. I got twenty-seven bad reviews in the last twelve hours. Reviews from people ain’t never been to Baxter’s. I never had a bad review before this disaster of a show, and I wanna know what you gonna do about it.”

  Ivy sighed, and rifled through the pages of waivers until she found Adrian’s and placed it on the top. “Places, everyone. We start in ten.” Ivy clicked on her headset and asked Roger to bring in the cue cards for the hosts, and then she went over to Adrian to deliver the bad news and try to calm him down.

  Tim and Gigi entered the arena together, silent, and timid. I tried to give Tim a smile, but it flopped over halfway to his eyes. “What’s wrong?”