by Doug Lutz
Pointing to a framed certificate on the wall, I said, “The fact of the matter is the fire marshal will be the first person in the door. And since we are certified for fifty people, if we have ten people working the event, then we will only have forty people here looking for work at any one time. The more staff we have, the fewer people we can let in. But I can still make this work for everyone.”
Fran smiled, an expression not seen often since she and her partner arrived in town. “What’s your plan, Winnie? Even in college, whenever something needed to get done, you had a plan. And not just any plan. Everyone loved to say the one and only Winnie Kepler always had the best plan.”
With such a glowing introduction, true or not, I had to produce something of a plan. I had been bluffing, just to see what Tricia would say. She had remained silent, trying to out–bluff the bluffer.
Letting the words fly like a general ordering her lieutenants, I said, “Five staff, five interviewers, forty job seekers. The interviewers are stationed at small two–top tables, set up alongside the walls. In the center of the room, I’ll put two long tables for the finger foods and beverages. People come in, they take a number. When their number is called, they go to a small table. In the meantime, they can network to their heart’s content by the food and drink.”
“What if this goes on all day?” Tricia asked. “If you had other plans, cancel them now, Miss Kepler.”
“Oh, I know we’ll have plenty of business. Once forty job seekers are in, the forty–first person will have to wait outside until someone leaves. I can put an ice chest outside with soft drinks for those waiting. No reason for them to suffer in the heat of this summer.”
“You seem to have a grand idea here. Can you pull this off, Miss Kepler?” Tricia was offering one more chance to decline, her snarky tone evident with her continued use of my formal name.
“This won’t take too much work at all,” I said. At last, I felt I was in command of this operation. Remembering the plight of my grandmother, I was thankful I was in command of something.
Tricia added the caveats to her contract, but was still hesitant to slide the agreement across the table for me to sign. After a tense few seconds of indecision, she agreed to go ahead with the arrangement.
I eyed Fran as Tricia signed the contract. I wanted to get a word with Fran in private. I didn’t know Tricia at all, and although Fran could vouch for her, something told me to be a little more careful around her friend. My instinct told me she had secrets.
What was her motivation? Help the unemployed? Get a big fat finder’s fee from some corporate giant? Waste all of my time?
Before the two could steal away, Tricia’s phone rang. It was her client, so I strained my ears trying to listen without being too obvious. The conversation wasn’t sounding too positive.
After a few muffled words spoken into the phone, and more listening than speaking, Tricia pocketed her phone. “Francine, I’m afraid we may have to cancel the job fair. Winnie, my apologies. The client is thinking of backing away from hiring at this point. Apparently, there is local controversy hitting the press and the company wants to keep their distance for now.”
Tricia turned towards me. “Miss Kepler, I am truly sorry. I was certain you could pull it off, without help. At least, I assumed you were alone here.”
“Well,” I said, trying not to lie outright, again. “You have another thirty minutes of my time tomorrow, if you need it. Give me a firm answer then. I can pull off miracles as good as the next girl, but sometimes it takes a little time.” Holding up my copy of the signed contract, I pointed to the signatures. “And I’ll expect certified funds for the guaranteed revenue.”
I offered to shake Tricia’s hand, giving her a look that said in your face, sneaky one. Our eyes met. I knew she understood my power position. When you are talking about Type–A personalities, it takes one to know one, and this time, we both knew. Tricia had not put a cancellation clause in her own contract. She was on the hook for a day’s revenue whether her job fair occurred or not. There was no handshake.
As Fran and Tricia walked to the front door, I tried one more time to reach out to Francine.
“Fran, don’t be a stranger, now. You can call anytime; the door’s always open. Who knows, maybe we can find enough time to stay up all night and catch up on girl talk. You know, like we used to do every Friday night in college.”
Fran gave a slight wave. Not smiling, she moved around to the passenger side of the car, dragging her finger along the vehicle’s pin–striping. Her feet were moving toward the door, but her mind was nowhere near it. I hoped my offer to chat would be accepted.
I also prayed Fran would understand I knew something wasn’t right between her and this Tricia person. In college, Fran and I were bookworms, preferring to haunt the stacks at the library, trying to educate ourselves into better lives. Staying up all night to catch up on girl talk? Hardly. We’d rather improvise a compare–and–contrast analysis of Jane Austen versus Isak Dinesen. Often our almost nonexistent love lives matched one or the other author’s characters. Book nerds we were. Probably still.
Besides, we had early classes every semester, and we never skipped class. The library closed at ten and rare was the occasion we were not both asleep within an hour of returning to our little rectangular prison cell of a dorm room.
As the car took its two occupants down the road and out of sight I wondered what was motivating Tricia; it could have been greed, or maybe it was just that she, too, had to prove herself. The corporate world could be unforgiving to someone with three strikes against them from the start. The first was that becoming an entrepreneur was a challenge, and a very difficult one for women in particular, considering that business had traditionally been a man’s domain. Another strike against her would be the fact she was a young woman. Old men smoking cigars while kicking their cowboy boots up on the desk could handle a young woman as a secretary, but as an equal? I didn’t think so.
Add on top of those two challenges the third strike of what many would call an alternative lifestyle, and it may be downright impossible to succeed with your own enterprise.
I recalled how Francine mentioned the room in the Seagull’s Nest. Online travel reviews said the little inn was lovely, especially the rooms, all of which were outfitted with queen–sized beds. Francine had said room, not rooms. I had deduced Francine and Tricia had more going on than just an employment relationship.
With the catering done for the day, it was time to concentrate on the suspect or suspects du jour. The judges would be arriving at the Seagull’s Nest, ready to sample the classic Southern cuisine of Executive Chef George Harrison Windsor.
Hours later, the dining room table would be set up again, that time for the more modern and eclectic cooking of dishwasher Cosmo Finnegan. As long as there wouldn’t be snails on the plate, I’d be fine. Some lines were not for crossing. That’s what napkins were for.
Soft, slippered footsteps descended the stairs and announced Velma’s arrival. A few seconds later, my jaw hitting the floor made more noise.
“Grandma? What did you do to your hair?”
“It’s a wig. What do you think?”
Velma now had jet–black hair, a huge contrast from her normal silver–gray. With a little more face powder, she would look like a cousin.
“Why would you do this?” I asked.
“In case the good old police Captain comes back for dinner, hoping to arrest me on a trumped–up charge of murder, I thought I could fool him into thinking I was still hiding away somewhere. Using this disguise, I could be my long–lost sister, Minnie.”
“Let’s hope you don’t have to resort to such measures.” I also hoped insanity wasn’t hereditary.
“Look,” she said, “just because your boyfriend said he tipped off the VCID about the bogus warrant doesn’t mean the Sheriff of Nottingham won’t stop by to see if I have returned.”
“So you are afraid if he stops by, he would still arrest you? Why don’t
we get a lawyer from the city? They can file harassment charges to keep him away for a while.”
Velma took off the wig and tousled her hair back into a decent shape. “I don’t think we need to waste the money on a lawyer yet. But still, when it comes to J.B. Larson, and his overblown ego, I wouldn’t put it past him to put the cuffs on me in front of everyone. For him, his image is everything. Always has been.”
“Grandma, I think it best if you remain as you are. In the meantime, I’m on my way to the Seagull’s Nest. If there’s a problem, just text me a 9–1–1 and I’ll come running back.”
Make no mistake, I was happy my grandmother was safe. And with Tricia out of the picture for the rest of the day, it looked like I would have the time needed to prove my grandmother innocent.
I had to catch the murderer.
10
It took a block and a half of quick walking before I spotted the Seagull’s Nest. By the time I arrived for George’s cooking demonstration, several of the judges were already standing out in the front yard. The leader of that pack of gossips came forward to meet me.
“My dear, we are so sorry to hear your grandmother had to leave town instead of finishing the competition. So unfortunate. Have you found an attorney that will take her case yet? I have a brother in Virginia Beach; he’s a lawyer, and he’s good. I might even get you a discount? If you’re interested, that is. Not that I’m judging, you understand.”
I smiled at the well–intentioned, yet condescending woman, trying to recall if there was a minimum sentence for first–offense assault and battery.
The news of my grandmother’s escape had traveled fast. I guess the old saying was true. The three fastest ways to communicate in a small town like Seaview was telephone, telegraph, or tell–a–church–lady.
“Why, no, but thank you. As for judging, her turn will be on Wednesday so just make sure you come to the Cat and Fiddle with a big appetite. I know you won’t be disappointed.”
“If you say so, dear, but everyone’s talking about it. Of course we didn’t like that mean old Chef Pierre, the way he treated everyone. So I don’t blame your grandmother at all for killing him.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. What church did these ladies attend, anyway? The Holy High Roller Church of Saint Better–Than–Thou? Regardless, I needed to find out what they knew about Bailey’s mother and Pierre.
“Excuse me? I didn’t realize Pierre knew the Babbitt family.”
“Know them? Why, honey, Pierre was a Babbitt—Peter Babbitt. The whole family was so proud when he went on to culinary school, and then Paris. Once he came back, however, it was as if he didn’t recognize his own kin. The arrogant man had even changed his name, calling himself Pierre St. Pierre. Talk about an ego.”
“How disappointing for his mother,” I said. “Now I understand the rub with Betty, but I still don’t see how a jerk of a son could cause enough trouble to end up on the pointy end of a knife. There must be more to the story here.”
As the other judges walked over to join our two–woman huddle, my conversation partner continued with the flair of a professional busybody, saying, “Well, everyone knows the story. When the stock market crashed a few years back, the Babbitt family lost a lot of money. We all did, but they had put the restaurant up as collateral for some improvement loans. When a local tractor company closed, sales went down even further. A few delinquent loans forced the family to use tax money for rent. The auctioneer’s gavel was the next order up.”
“That’s so sad,” I said. I never liked hearing tales of people who had lost everything. And since the Great Recession, there were a lot of those tales.
“Here’s the bad part. As the Babbitts’ restaurant was going under, they had a long–lost relative die, an aunt or something. Lawyers filed the probate papers to get the Babbitts their share of a large inheritance.”
The other women all agreed with the story so far, adding tsk, tsk here and there. They were shaking their heads. I knew this story would not end well.
Another lady took up the narrative. “Betty tried to get the auction postponed for a month or two, until the probate court could allow the release of the cash, but someone had bribed the clerk’s office to push the auction to the top of the pile—in less than a week. The Babbitt restaurant had a new owner. What a shame.”
I put the pieces together. “And let me guess. Pete, now known as Pierre, was the one able to buy the business on the cheap at the auction before his brother’s family could get their finances straightened out.”
“He had to buy it when the price was the cheapest,” another judge said. “The boys in front of the hardware store told me that Pierre had spent most of his extra cash paying off the county clerk. The only way he could steal the restaurant out from under his own relatives without too much suspicion was to use the name of his investor’s group. Once people learned who had bought the place, the family’s morale plummeted.” Several women nodded in agreement, augmenting with a few more tsks.
As I was about to ask the judges a few more questions, Chef George came out of the house to greet his guests. In a slow Virginian drawl, he announced the start of the morning’s activities.
“Ladies. I am so glad you all could make it here today. And don’t those dresses look so pretty? And, oh, I like your hat, ma’am. Brings out the sparkle in your eyes.”
Ignoring their polite responses to his flattery, George waved his hand toward the front door, saying, “I have prepared a sumptuous picnic meal for you to sample, if you would be kind enough to step this way, into my establishment.”
We walked up the old wooden planks of the front steps, the boards creaking and clacking as set after set of leather heels hit each board. The smell of a ham baked with a brown sugar and honey crust filled the air as did the sweet smell of sweet potatoes itching for cinnamon. I was certain everyone could hear my stomach grumble; contest or not, I hoped George’s cooking was on point. Some vegetables wouldn’t hurt, either.
Drake Grimsby was waiting in the entryway; next to him was his one–woman camera crew at the ready. Like a creepy robot, he turned on his toothy smile as we approached.
“Ladies, I, too, would like to say thank you for coming today. I know the contest has taken on a different dimension from what we had planned, but I am confident this will end up even better!” Drake was always the showman, it seemed.
A judge raised her hand. “Mr. Grillsby, I have a question.”
Drake grimaced. “You mean, Grimsby.”
“Yes, Mr. Grillsby. I have a question. How can you be sure the chefs are using the same ingredients available at the fairgrounds?”
“That is an excellent question, ma’am. And it’s Grimsby.” He let out a sigh.
Drake turned away from the woman, relit his electric–white toothy grin, and addressed his own camera. “But to answer your great question, we contacted the sponsor, the amazing MegaFood, Incorporated, and asked them to deliver an identical assortment of food items to each location. And I have been here since before sunrise to make sure Chef George has played by the rules. And believe me, everything is on the up and up. No question about . . .”
He stopped his derailing monolog, lowered his head and laced his fingers in front of him, as if he were about to pray. “In light of the tragic event earlier this week, we wanted to make sure the contest itself was above reproach. It’s the least we can do to honor the memory of such a fine chef as Pierre St. Pierre. I know we all miss him and extend our deepest sympathies to his family, wherever they are.”
Drake’s self–serving drivel was almost too much for me to take. I couldn’t help but interrupt his monologue. “You are right, Mr. Grimesly, but what about having two competitors in the same kitchen at the same time? Wouldn’t that cause a potential conflict?”
My new mission in life was to help as many people as possible mangle Drake’s last name. The woman behind the lens didn’t seem to mind it, either, being on the receiving end of much of Drake’s impatience
and immaturity. I could hear her giggle every time someone said Drake’s last name in a new fashion.
“Miss Kepler, I didn’t realize you would be here today. Shouldn’t you be tending to your poor grandmother and her legal problems? Begging the truck drivers at your little slop chute—I mean café—for bail money, perhaps?” Drake held out the vowel sound when he said the word bail in two syllables.
Some of the church ladies started a subtle Gregorian chant of Fight! Fight!
“I wasn’t aware she had any such problems,” I mocked. “And why would she need ‘bay–yell’ money? Only someone under arrest would need bail money. My grandmother is a free woman, as you will see on Wednesday, Mr. Grimesly, when you come to the Cat and Fiddle to judge her cooking.”
Seeing an opportunity to raise Drake’s blood pressure further, and raise the competition bar even higher, I added, “Velma also mentioned she would invite all the local pastors. It will be a most pious event, to be sure.”
The judges took the bait. Each pulled out their phone, texting, tweeting, and Facebooking the news that their own pastors would have lunch with them. This brought the event up to a whole new level in their eyes. One lady whispered this would be a grand idea and her pastor would be certain to be arriving first since he was the better clergyman. I decided against questioning such logic. It wouldn’t have mattered.
Everyone knew the church ladies were friendly on the outside, but on the inside, they were just as competitive as a bunch of freshman football players trying to earn a spot on the varsity team. Second place was not acceptable.
With just a few carefully chosen words, I turned the Wednesday edition of the Culinary Challenge into the highest point of the week. And now there was nothing Drake Grimsby could do to stop the contest.