Prime Cut

by Diane Mott Davidson

  Tom nodded. “So Sheila’s thinking heart attack?”

  I exhaled. “Can they find out exactly when he had the heart attack?” I asked. “And how he burned himself?” My voice sounded suddenly shrill.

  “I’m sure the department will check it out,” Tom said quietly. Outside, the rain started up again. Mist rolled into our yard and pressed against the dining room windows. Raindrops pattered on the plastic sheeting Tom had put up. “You know the drill,” he went on. “They secure the scene, sweep it to determine what happened. There’ll be an autopsy, toxicology, to see what actually caused his death, whether it was a heart attack or what.” I closed my eyes. “If Sheila said I could call her about it, I will.”

  I said, “You can ask around, can’t you? Please?” It was part statement, part plea.

  “Of course.” His voice was a murmur, like the rain. “I just need to go easy. And so do you, Miss G. You know, if this had happened to someone I didn’t know, I’d say you need a victim advocate. You’re not the victim, but you were close to André, and it was an unexpected death.”

  “You can be my advocate.”

  He smiled at me. “Can’t. I’m your new kitchen contractor.”

  “Don’t joke.” “I’m not.”

  Julian and Arch banged in before he could reply, laden with three bags of carry-out Italian food: ziti with marinara, fettucine alfredo, pizza bianca. I looked at my watch: incredibly, almost half an hour had gone by. The few crackers with cheese had filled me up. But I ached to be with people.

  Arch gave me a brief hug and whispered that I was a good mom, his standard assurance in rough times that things would turn out fine. His cheek was like sandpaper. Although he had no beard yet and his voice only occasionally cracked, he had begun to shave with great hopefulness on his fourteenth birthday. The razor had been a gift from Tom; I would never have thought of it.

  “André was old, wasn’t he?” My son’s voice was anxious, even though he had only met André a few times during my stint at the restaurant. Still, he wanted to put a spin on sudden death. “I mean, he had retired and everything, right?”

  “Yes, hon.”

  Julian dressed a green salad with balsamic vinaigrette, heated some breadsticks I’d made the previous week, and set out all the food. When we said grace, I offered a silent prayer for Pru. Despite the problems besetting our family, at least I had companionship and comfort. Except for her nurse, Pru now had no one, and my heart ached for her.

  As Julian expertly twined fettucine onto a fork, he again brought up the following day’s tasting party. “Thought we could do that fantastic grilled fish, with grilled polenta and a fruit salsa. What do you think, Goldy? I called your meat and seafood supplier, and she had fresh escolar. I had her deliver five pounds of it while you were out at Andre’s place. She said she’d put it on your bill. I hope that’s okay.” He paused, eager but embarrassed. “I mean, does this sound good to you? We do sort of need to discuss stuff.”

  I struggled to remember the menu we’d finally decided on for the postponed tasting party. Oh, yes: I had been planning to roast a pork tenderloin and serve it with Cumberland sauce. Pork is plentiful and inexpensive in the fall, and people enjoy its heartiness when the weather turns colder. But the escolar would be good for dieters, or at least for people who think eating fish entitles them to dessert. “I don’t know about grilling fish at the Homestead,” I told Julian uncertainly. “But it might work. Maybe with an exotic slaw to complement the salsa and polenta.”

  Tom smiled and I knew what he was thinking: At least we weren’t talking about death or remodeling.

  “You can grill at the museum,” Julian said authoritatively. “I know because I went over in the van once your supplier brought the escolar. I had a chat with the curator lady, Sylvia. Took her some truffles left from lunch.”

  “The Soirée committee might see that as cheating,” I pointed out gently.

  “No, it isn’t,” Julian protested. “Besides, Sylvia’s not even one of the people who decides.” He looked at me innocently. “Is she?”

  “No, but she’ll probably be there and influence the decision-makers, who are Mark, Weezie Harrington, and Edna Hardcastle.”

  “Oh, brother,” said Julian.

  “Do we have to talk about this?” Arch piped up.

  “Can’t we have some of the truffles, too?”

  “Absolutely,” Julian replied. He retrieved a foil-covered platter, and uncovered his special dark truffles dipped in white chocolate.

  “You are too good,” I said to Julian as I bit into the exquisitely smooth, densely creamy ganache.

  “Sylvia Bevans loved them. Had a couple while she told me her problems.” He measured out coffee for espresso. He pulled the shots, then dumped them over glasses half-filled with ice and whole milk. “Oh, by the way, she said they found one of the missing cookbooks.”

  “What?” I demanded. “When? Which one?”

  “A piece of evidence was returned?” Tom asked sharply. “The department found it at the site, or Sylvia had it all along?”

  “That Watkins Cookbook she kept complaining had been swiped, remember?” He handed the iced coffees to Tom and me, fixed one for himself and dosed it with sugar, then sank into a chair. “The cops told her they found it in the back of Mr. Burr’s truck. But they finished their search of the house and guest house, and never found the last one. They told her it’s probably gone for good, tossed out in the road or something.”

  “Thrown out of the truck?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Gosh, Goldy, I’m sorry. Mrs. Bevans doesn’t believe someone could have tossed her beloved copy of The Practical Cook Book out on the road, but if the killer was that stupid, she said to ask Tom if he could search for it. She wants everything back the way it was. The woman was a wreck. Remember all that complaining she was doing to André? Since the cops think the museum theft was just an attempt to cover up the murder, they’re sticking with their the-last-cookbook-got-chucked-away theory. Sylvia doesn’t care about their theory. She says she has to have The Practical Cook Book, because some old handwriting of Charlie Smith is scrawled across one of the recipes. Who’s Charlie Smith?”

  “Smythe. Grandfather of Leah Smythe and Weezie Smythe Harrington,” I supplied. “He built the Merciful Migrations cabin.” Where André died.

  “Oh,” said Julian. “According to Sylvia, Charlie Smythe’s handwriting could make the cookbook real valuable, like a collector’s item, at least in Aspen Meadow. And here’s something else: Sylvia said André called her up this past weekend, after we catered together at the Homestead? He said he was interested in some recipes.”

  “Some recipes?” I echoed.

  “Yep. André asked if Sylvia had photocopies of their historic cookbooks in the museum files, and if so, could he have his own photocopy of The Practical Cook Book.”

  “You’re kidding. A copy of the entire cookbook?”

  “Nope, I’m not kidding, and yep, the whole cookbook. Sylvia told him sure, she’d make a copy for him. But he never showed up to get it.” He gave me a wide eyed look. “I’m really sorry I brought this up. You probably don’t want to be reminded of your teacher right now.”

  “Why would André want a photocopy of The Practical Cook Book?” I asked, but of course none of them had a clue. Nor did I, since I knew that André never gave two turkey drumsticks about American cooking. Plus he prided himself on being a chef of great stature. I could not imagine why he would want photocopied recipes for dishes he would have scoffed at: white bread, brown sauce, yellow cake. “This doesn’t make sense,” I said to Tom.

  “It’s strange,” he agreed. “Four cookbooks are stolen. Eliot is killed. All but one cookbook are retrieved. A chef who asks for a photocopy of the last missing cookbook—which is almost a hundred years old—turns up dead before he can get it.”

  Tom dialed the sheriff’s department. I used my business line to try to track down Sylvia Bevans.

  Chapter 13


  While we were on the phone, Julian insisted on doing the dishes. I tapped the counter impatiently. Sylvia now claims The Practical Cook Book is a collector’s item … and André wanted a photocopy of it … Could André really have cared about early twentieth-century American cookery? An answering machine picked up at the Homestead Museum. I hung up and dialed Sylvia’s home. The phone rang and rang. The curator, apparently, did not embrace telecommunications technology.

  Charlie Smythe’s handwriting across one of the recipes makes it valuable … so what? To the best of my knowledge, André had never been in the Homestead before Friday. He’d never seen the cookbook, or any recipes therein, had he? Who would know about this? Someone in the Furman County Historical Society? Marla. But I got her machine, too. Was the IRS holding her hostage? I stared glumly at the hole in our back wall as I listened to my yet about the incriminating evidence retrieved from his pickup. There was no way Cameron would have staged the museum burglary and then left the old cookbook in his truck. So where was the fourth cookbook? And who on earth had reason to steal it? I left a message on Marla’s machine asking her to call, and hung up.

  Arch announced he and Julian were taking Jake on an evening walk. Did I want to go? The rain had vanished, leaving the air cool and moist. I declined, anxious to hear what Tom was learning from the department. Realistically, what could they tell him? So they found another of the stolen cookbooks? So what? I fidgeted with my iced coffee glass.

  “Okay, there’s not much but here it is,” Tom said after twenty minutes of conversation with his departmental cohorts. “Fuller’s guys did find the Watkins Cookbook. No sign of the other cookbook, although they have the photocopies of all four from the Homestead files, and this is the first they’ve heard about the cookbook possibly being a collector’s item. As far as they know, it’s worth less than a hundred bucks. But here’s something more interesting: The department got the tip about Eliot’s body being at Burr’s house just a little more than three hours after my team answered Sylvia’s call about the robbery at the Homestead. So in Fuller’s mind, the whole thing looked like a homicide-masquerading-as-burglary pretty quickly. See what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, I think so … that once he decided it was a homicide, you couldn’t think of it as anything else?”

  Tom nodded and poured us two cognacs. Well, why not? We’d already splurged on the last of the shrimp, carry-out food, and a loan for a new kitchen. We might as well finish off the Courvoisier. Tom placed a crystal liqueur glass in front of me and continued: “Andy Fuller ordered Burr arrested without taking the time to hear his story, and without a lot of evidence. Burr didn’t have any alibi for that night beyond being drunk. He had brawled with Eliot earlier in the evening, and Eliot’s body was found on Burr’s property. Q.E.D., according to Fuller, who claimed Burr knew when Eliot would be working at the museum, killed him there, then faked the burglary as an inebriated afterthought.”

  I sipped the cognac: It was sweet, smoky, and soothing. “Didn’t they ever investigate it as a robbery? Especially with what Sylvia is saying now about the last cookbook being a potentially valuable collector’s item?”

  “They don’t put much stock in Sylvia, Miss G.” Tom shook his head. “Fuller had his homicide-not-burglary theory. The department had already recovered the first two cookbooks, and those weren’t very valuable. I mean, we’re not talking the Gutenberg Bible or anything, right? Plus, Sylvia’s original report didn’t even mention all the stolen cookbooks, so they’re reluctant to change their theory now.”

  “I hope this is Sylvia’s last term as curator.”

  “Patience, Miss G. Her position pays less than fifteen thousand a year. She’s dedicated, but she’s not super-woman. Most of the collection was donated from old-timers in Furman County. The missing cookbook was donated by Leah Smythe, and apparently she’s been completely disinterested in whether it’s found or not.”

  “So are you telling me a stolen collector’s item doesn’t hold any weight with the department? It couldn’t be a motive for murder?” I offered Tom another truffle and he bit into it thoughtfully.

  “I told Boyd to run a burglary-gone-bad theory by Fuller. But you know the golden boy won’t want his original theory being questioned by a cop on suspension.” Tom went on: “The department is sending somebody up to the museum to talk to Sylvia tomorrow about her call from André regarding that cookbook. Maybe Boyd can get us some inside information.”

  “I want to know why he wanted that book,” I insisted. “We’re talking about a French chef who couldn’t have given a flipped pancake for historic American cooking.”

  “It may have been his … nosiness, Goldy. Wanting to see what had been stolen.”

  “But this is like the burns on his hands,” I objected. “It doesn’t fit. It isn’t the way he was.” I hesitated. “Look, Tom, I need to know what happened to André. If I went up to the cabin, I could poke around a little—”

  “You’re not serious,” my husband interrupted gently. Then, knowing me far too well, he added, “Don’t even think about doing that.”

  I sipped the last of my cognac and didn’t reply. The boys returned and took Jake up to their room, unaware of Scout stealthily scampering after them up the stairs. Typically, the cat refused to be left out of anything.

  A pearly twilight suffused the sky. Swamped with exhaustion, I decided to go to bed. But first I called Lutheran Hospital: How was Barbara Burr? I asked. Stable. And unable to talk, I was told, for the umpteenth time. I hung up and phoned to check on Pru Hibbard. Wanda Cooney said Pru had taken a sedative and was asleep. So much for asking about André’s reasons for wanting a photocopy of a historic cookbook. Wanda added softly that the memorial service for André would be held at St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church this Thursday at four o’clock.

  The scent of baking bread woke me just before seven the next morning. I checked the thermometer outside our window: sixty degrees. Despite a stiff breeze lashing the trees, Tom slumbered on. I stood at the window and watched shiny puffs of cumulus race across a delft-blue sky. Pools of shadow swiftly followed the clouds’ path on the far mountains. The sound of barking dogs mingled with the hesitant chug of a school bus on a practice round.

  I tried to ignore that stunned, painful hope that threatens to drown your common sense the day after a tragedy. Had this really happened? Had I seen Andre’s body at the morgue the previous day? Was he really gone? Yes.

  I stretched and breathed through my yoga routine, trying hard to empty my mind and let energy flow in. This was the day of the Soiree tasting competition. I couldn’t have been less in the mood.

  While dressing, I wondered if there was anything I could do for Pru today. I’d call her later from the Homestead, where I also wanted to find out about Andre’s request for photocopied recipes. Sylvia and I needed to have a little heart-to-heart … Wait a minute. Heart-to-heart. Need money? Have a heart-to-heart with Leland. With a sinking feeling, I realized I’d completely forgotten to call John Richard’s lawyer-accountant, Hugh Leland, about Arch’s tuition payment at Elk Park Prep. Several rounds of phone tag were corning up on that score, I knew.

  I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, put on a minimum of makeup, and attempted to focus on the tasting party. You can worry about your work or you can do your work, André used to lecture. A chef doesn’t have time for both.

  The kitchen was chilly because of the missing walls. But this apparently put no damper on Julian, who was up already, zipping energetically from the cluttered counter to the cluttered table and back to the counter. Smiling brightly, his hair neady combed, his young face scrubbed and enthusiastic, he wore a rumply-soft white shirt, dark pants, and a spotless white apron. He gestured for me to sit. With a mischievous look, he set a plate with a single cupcake in front of me. It had an uneven top and a small scoop of frosting for garnish. The eager, approval-seeking expression on his perspiration-filmed face surely mirrored my own, when I’d first offered poppy seed muffins to André.


  “What’s wrong?” Julian demanded in a rush. “They’re right from the oven. Miniature bread puddings with hard sauce.”

  I cut a mouthful of the crusty, moist cake and spooned up a judicious amount of the hard sauce frosting along with it. The crunchy, caramelized pudding mingled with the smooth, creamy rum sauce. “Delicious,” I pronounced. And it was.

  “I even came up with a name,” Julian went on. “Because they’re for Merciful Migrations’ fund-raising? Big Bucks Bread Puddings.” His eyes glowed with pleasure.

  “Great.” I glanced around to check Julian’s preparations, resolved to get going cooking. But how on earth could I do that? This was no longer a kitchen; this was a ruin littered with bowls, pans, and foodstuffs. Only half of the upper cabinets remained. The back wall was now utterly gone. Tom had widened the gap over the sink. The place looked like a solarium in ruins. “Lord,” I murmured. “If the health inspector shows up, I’ll be deader than week-old aspic.”

  Big Bucks Bread Puddings with Hard Sauce

  5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

  ½ cup Demerara sugar (sometimes sold as raw sugar or Hawaiian washed sugar) or granulated sugar

  2 eggs

  1 cup milk

  ½ cup whipping cream

  ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  8 slices white bread, torn up (9½ ounces)

  ⅓ cup raisins