by Gale Deitch
A Fine Line
A Trudie Fine Mystery
Gale Deitch
Rosedale Press
Copyright © 2020 Gale Deitch
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or stored in any database or retrieval system without prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes in this book.
Publisher: Rosedale Press
www.gdeitchblog.com
This is a work of fiction and should be treated as such. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any similarities to persons living or dead, real or imagined, are purely coincidental.
Cover Design: www.earthlycharms.com
Author’s Photo: Holly Callen
To Jackson
She was my first cat ever, and I thought she was marvelous.
Julia Child
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
AcknowledgementS
About The Author
Praise For Author
Books By This Author
Chapter One
When I’m not cooking or watching cooking shows on TV, there is nothing better than reading a good book. A good mystery, to be exact. And not only was my favorite mystery author, Ben Knight, appearing as the keynote speaker at a local mystery writers’ conference, but I, Trudie Fine, had been selected to cater the dinner at the opening session.
I was thrilled. I’d met Ben Knight once before at a bookstore in Charlotte when Allison Schwartz and I were roommates, attending the Johnson and Wales College of Culinary Arts. My student budget had been meager at the time, not one that could handle the purchase of an eighteen-dollar hardback, but I was excited for the chance to get a close-up view of Ben as well as his personal signature. Of course, he’d barely looked up at me as he signed my copy of Hammered Halls, his mystery about the murder of an English lit student at a small-town college. But Allison, Ally for short, who followed me in line, had caught his eye with her long blonde hair and tight, baby-pink tank top. He’d slipped his business card into her book and asked her to coffee that evening so he could “write something more personal.”
“I’m with my friend,” she’d answered, gesturing toward me. “She’ll have to come along, too.”
His glance washed over me, his eyes the color of green sea glass, a stark contrast against his dark hair.
My skin sizzled like frying bacon.
“Sure,” he said, nodding. But I saw the disappointment in his face at the thought of a short, overweight third wheel trailing along with them. That’s the story of my life in a peanut shell.
Always Ally’s wing girl, I was used to stepping aside for her. “Oh, no,” I said. “I’ve got a nutrition exam tomorrow. You two go ahead without me.”
“Are you sure?” Ally asked, narrowing her eyes at me. She knew how much I’d wanted to meet the author. She’d only come with me because she had nothing else to do that evening and because she’d seen Ben’s photo on the back of one of my books and thought he was cute. I was the reader. I was the fan.
I was also Ally’s loyal roommate. I smiled at her. “Really. I’ve got to ace this test if I want a good internship this summer.”
In the dorm room that night, I’d barely slept, awaiting Ally’s return and a report of her coffee date with Ben Knight. When Ally finally returned in the wee hours of the morning, I turned on the light and listened as she gushed about the author, how intelligent and witty he was, how attentive, how gentle and sensitive to her needs. She’d found the love of her life.
The next day, she skipped class, waiting for his call.
It never came.
***
That’s why I was surprised when, a decade later, Ally called to ask if she could help with my catering job at the writers’ conference.
“Why? You have a restaurant to run. Savor is going to be busy on a Friday night.”
For a moment, she was quiet. “I-I just thought I’d like to see Ben after all this time.”
I took my phone off the speaker mode, held it to my ear and spoke quietly. Zach, Ally’s boyfriend and my business partner, was working in the warehouse, but the door to my office was open, and I didn’t want him to hear. “Why would you want to see him again?”
“I don’t know,” Ally said. “He was a jerk back then. Married, in fact. With kids. Although I hear he’s single now. Maybe I want to see if he remembers me.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” I asked.
“Probably not. But it’s been ten years, and I’m curious. Let me help cater the dinner, Trudie,” she pleaded. I pictured Ally pacing back and forth the way she often did when she was on the phone. “Look, the only other way I can get in is to join the local mystery writers’ association, and I don’t even read mysteries, much less write them.”
“Does Zach know what happened with Ben?” I asked, cupping my hand around my mouth. Zach was my best friend and the perfect complement to me in our catering company, A Fine Fix. He, of course, would be working the writers’ conference dinner right alongside me. And Ally, if I agreed to her request.
“Of course not,” Ally said, her voice raised. “Why would I tell him about my past flings? That’s all this was anyway. Nothing serious.”
I hadn’t had as much of a past with men as Ally had, but if the tables were turned, I wondered how much I would divulge to Daniel, my fiancé. Or whether I would want to know about his past with women. Probably not.
“Trudie,” she said, interrupting my thoughts. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“What about your restaurant? Don’t you need to be there?”
“Nah,” Ally said. “I’ve got a great staff and a trustworthy manager to oversee everything. They’ll be fine for one night.”
I wasn’t so convinced. Ally had been burned once before by a manager in a previous restaurant who’d run it into the ground and run off with the profits. I sighed. “All right. I guess we could use an extra hand. They expect a hundred fifty guests at the opening night dinner.”
I knew the real reason Ally wanted to be at the gig. Sure enough, when she showed up wearing a black fitted, low-cut dress, I worried she would do whatever she could to dangle herself in front of Ben like a French pastry in a bakery window. I just didn’t want Zach to get hurt. I handed her an apron and plastic gloves and put her to work.
The conference dinner took place at a college venue in Washington, DC. Ally, Zach, and I worked side-by-side in the catering kitchen, plating dishes and handing them off to our wait staff to deliver to the tables. It was mid-March, and Zach and I had planned a spring menu that
included an arugula salad with feta, figs, and pine nuts and an entrée of chicken piccata with lemon slices and capers, along with a pea, leek and fennel risotto. Once the main course was finished, the program would begin, giving us ample time to plate the desserts, plum tarts prepared that morning by our baker.
Ally drifted over to the kitchen door periodically to peer into the dining room. From our vantage point in the back, I doubted she could see Ben clearly since he sat at the VIP table in front of the stage.
“You seem restless tonight,” Zach said to her. “Is everything okay?”
Uh-oh, I thought. He senses something already.
Ally reddened. “Sure. Just trying to cool off at the door. This kitchen gets pretty hot.”
“You should be used to that,” Zach said. “You do this almost every night.”
“Yes, but I keep the kitchen at Savor ventilated a little better than this one.” She glanced around the room. “They can definitely use an upgrade in their equipment.”
One of our wait staff entered the kitchen holding a large tray of dirty dishes. Behind him, laden with his own tray, was Gordon who was supervising the servers. We’d been requesting Gordon, an eighteen-year-old high school senior, from the staffing agency since he had first been assigned to an event we’d catered last fall at a private art gallery. His traumatizing discovery of the gallery owner’s dead body had elicited my maternal instincts. He was just a kid trying to make extra money for college. Zach and I both recognized the boy’s potential and had taken it upon ourselves to train Gordon in all aspects of the catering business, hoping one day we could afford to hire him on a permanent basis.
“They’re starting the program, Trudie,” Gordon grunted as he set down his heavy tray. “Tables almost cleared.”
“Thanks.” I beamed with pride as he directed some of the staff to begin washing dishes then enlisted the help of a girl about his age to fill carafes with coffee and hot water to be served during the program. He’d been watching her off and on during prep that afternoon, blushing when she glanced his way. I couldn’t remember her name, even though Gordon had introduced the staff to me and Zach when they arrived—one other young man and two women. With her curly, light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, her warm, chocolate eyes and wide smile lent her face a charisma that drew you in. I could understand Gordon’s interest in her and hoped she’d appreciate his take-charge attitude and honesty enough to overlook his unfortunate case of acne.
As Zach and I began plating the plum tarts, Ally pulled him closer and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be right outside the door. You two will be fine without me for now, right?” Without waiting for an answer, she removed her apron and gloves and exited the kitchen door into the dining room.
“I guess she really is hot,” Zach said, wrinkling his forehead and adding dollops of crème fraiche and sprigs of mint to the desserts.
That’s one way of putting it, I thought. “I’m going to join her once we get these desserts ready. I’d like to hear Ben Knight speak. He’s going to read from his new book, and there are rumors that he’s ending his series.”
Zach laughed and shook his head, his dark curls dancing like rigatoni in boiling water. “Let’s get to the truth about this. It’s not about his books. Ally doesn’t even read them. It’s all about the man, tall, dark and handsome. An author, no less, with the persona of a dashing world traveler. All you have to do is peer into that room. Most of the attendees are women---all wanting to get a close look at him. You and Ally included.”
“Well, you got me there,” I said. He didn’t realize how correct he was about Ally, though. The fact that her being here tonight put me in the position of keeping secrets from Zach stunk like rotten fish. I regretted I’d ever agreed to her request.
Branding was important to our company, so tonight Ally and I sported purple aprons with the logo, A Fine Fix, embroidered in fancy orange script on the chest. Zach wore all black with the logo in purple on his breast pocket and a purple silk tie. The hired staff had been instructed to wear black shirts and pants, and we’d brought a tie that matched Zach’s for Gordon to distinguish himself as someone of authority.
Leaving my apron on, I stepped into the dining room. The room was spacious, easily incorporating the fifteen round tables, but with its gold-flocked wallpaper and Corinthian-style columns, was badly in need of a renovation. I joined Ally, who stood outside the kitchen door, her eyes riveted to the stage where Ben sat accompanied by three women.
“You all right?” I touched her arm.
She snapped her head toward me as if startled out of a trance. “Trudie. I didn’t see you.”
“Are you okay?” I asked again.
She smiled and nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
I recognized Belinda Scott, the conference chairwoman, standing at the microphone announcing the winners of the mystery book contest. I had met with her and the association president when they had come to our office for a tasting and to finalize the menu. Tonight, Belinda wore a royal blue dress adorned with an oversized peacock brooch, an obvious marketing nod to her Miss Peacock Mystery Series. Tall and broad, everything about Belinda seemed larger than life, including her perfectly coiffed silver blonde hair.
Alongside the one and only Ben Knight was Myra Keating, an unassuming middle-aged woman, who was the association president. She kept her hands folded in her lap and her feet crossed at the ankles.
Sitting on the other side of Ben was an attractive Asian woman in a tight red dress with long, sleek black hair swept over her right shoulder. Wondering who she was, I plucked one of the printed programs from a table centerpiece, a cleverly assembled basket of items that included bookmarks with cover art from Ben’s newest book, Hammer’s End, pens resembling hammers, and an actual hammer. I scanned through the speakers’ names. This had to be Gwendolyn Chong, president of the DC area Ben Knight Fan Club. In fact, it was her turn to speak. She stood and then bent toward Ben to whisper into his ear, her hair draping down to conceal the intimate gesture. As she rose, he smiled broadly and crossed his ankle over his knee, exposing his cowboy boot. Of course, I remembered. The boots were part of Ben Knight’s signature look at speaking engagements.
Gwendolyn approached the microphone and adjusted it down to her height. Even with high heels on, it was obvious how petite she was, her shining hair reaching almost to the waist of her scarlet dress.
“In case you think I was telling Ben a secret,” she purred, “I told him that if he ever chose to end his Luke Hammer series, like we’ve been reading in the news, he’d have a riot on his hands, starting right here in this room.”
That elicited spurts of anxious laughter from the audience. I crossed my fingers behind my back hoping the rumors weren’t true.
“I also told him,” she continued, “that if he just said the word, every woman in this room would be willing to run off with him, at least in our dreams.” She giggled and waved to a man sitting at the front table. “Only kidding, honey.”
Everyone laughed again, and I joined in, thinking about Zach’s accurate statement about the women in the audience.
“Anyway, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce the man of the hour, the person we all came to see--and hopefully run away with.” She blew a kiss toward the man I assumed was her husband. “Just kidding, babe.”
I stood on my tiptoes to see if I could get a look at his reaction, but I only got a glimpse of his broad back and thinning blond hair as he nodded back at her.
Gwendolyn turned and gestured toward Ben. “It is sincerely an honor to share the stage with one of the most prolific and popular writers of the day. He has just published his twelfth book, Hammer’s End, which was released today. He’s going to speak to us about the book and read a passage. Then you’ll have a chance to ask questions and buy your signed copy, hot off the press. So, without further ado, I present Ben Knight.”
Ben stood and walked to the mic with the swagger of an award-winning Michelin star chef. He knew, of course, that
he held these people in the palm of his hand, that they would hang on his every word.
I leaned back against the wall and studied him. He looked much like the Ben Knight I had met ten years before except for the steel gray that had crept into his temples and the bit of middle-aged belly that strained against his belt. Most likely, a close-up look at him would reveal creases around his eyes and mouth. But in his gray blazer, black turtleneck, and dark jeans, he exuded a confidence that comes with knowing he would be well received by his audience.
Everyone stood to applaud.
He slid the mic up to his level and surveyed the room, waiting for the applause to end. “Thank you, Gwen.” The microphone screeched. “Whoa,” he said, stepping back. “Sorry about that. Let’s try this again. Gwen,” he said, grinning back at her. “You’ve been an amazing presence as fan club president here in DC. In fact, if your husband wasn’t in the picture, I’d whisk you away in my Town Car.” He paused. “It’s waiting outside.”
He turned back to the audience and gestured to the front table. “Just kidding, Albert.”
The remark prompted a couple of titters from the room, but Ben’s attempt at humor fell flat. Amid the hush, someone cleared his throat.
“But seriously,” he continued, scanning the audience, “thank you all for that wonderful welcome and for taking the time to listen to me prattle on about another book.”
Objections rang out from pockets of the audience and a woman shouted, “Tell us about it, Ben.”
He waved a hand as if batting the comments away. “Well, you’ve seen about every scenario imaginable for my hero. Luke Hammer has been in every type of danger, blown up a lot of buildings, broken many necks, and killed a slew of bad guys either in self-defense or to save another’s life. You’ve seen him make love to women, lose them, fall in love, marry and have children. In this book, Hammer’s End, there’s a kidnapping that strikes close to home, and Luke goes on the rampage of his life. He’s got to find out who the kidnappers are, and there’s no option but to win. But in the process, he loses someone.”