by Nic Saint
“Why did that dog attack me?” she asked plaintively. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s fine, Alfa,” said Vernon. “Everything is fine.”
“He just came up to me and attacked me. You saw that, right?”
“He didn’t attack you,” said Dee. “He was playing a game, and he thought you were the target. Ralph would never attack anyone. He’s very playful and very sweet.”
Alfa’s eyes widened. “He’s your dog? You sicced your dog on me?”
“Professor Tom did not sic his dog on you,” said Vernon, stressing the ‘professor’ part. “Professor Tom would never do that. All he did was conduct a little experiment.”
“Oh,” said Alfa, and nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry. I’m not very good with dogs. They never seem to like me very much. And I’m afraid the feeling’s mutual most of the time. Except when they’re small. My sister has a Chihuahua and she’s fine with me and I’m fine with her. But your dog…” She glanced at Dee. “Your dog is big. I thought he was going to bite me.”
“Ralph would never bite you,” Dee assured the cook. “He just wanted to play with you.”
Alfa grimaced, her round face remorseful. “He picked a bad partner to play with, didn’t he? What kind of experiment were you running, Professor Tom?”
“We’ll explain later,” said Tom.
By now the kitchen was full of people, and they were all listening, eager to know what was going on. This hadn’t escaped Sam Kwiek’s attention, and the chef now clapped his hands. “Back to work, you lazy lot! Dinner will be served, whether you like it or not. Chop, chop and on the double and all that!”
When everyone had returned to work, Dee and Vikki escorted Alfa out of the kitchen and into the dining room, where they sat her down in a quiet corner. Tom and Vernon and Maya joined them.
“I should be in there,” said Alfa, pointing at the kitchen. “Sam will be furious. He doesn’t have a lot of people to help him, you know. It’s just me and a couple of others.”
“You can go back if you feel you’re up to it,” said Vernon, “and not a moment sooner. Sam will just have to improvise. Now there are a few things I would like to ask you, Alfa.”
The woman nodded, her cheeks quivering as she did. “Ask away, boss.”
Vernon held up the Ziploc bag with the knife. “Have you ever seen this knife before?”
She studied the knife for a moment, then understanding seemed to be dawning and she pressed a fist to her mouth, biting down on her knuckles. “Is that what I think it is?”
“If I think what you think is what I think, you’re thinking right,” said Vernon gravely.
Alfa held out a quaking hand in the direction of the knife, as if on the verge of grabbing it, then reeled in the hand again. “This is the knife that killed Hot Gangster, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Dee confirmed. “And what we’d like to know is whether you’ve seen it before.”
“Or handled it, even,” said Vikki, eagerly following the conversation.
“‘Oh. My. God! That’s why that dog attacked me! He thinks I did this! He thinks I killed Hot Gangster!” She turned to Vernon and grabbed his lapels. “I didn’t! I didn’t kill him! I would never do this! I would never kill anyone! You have got to believe me, boss!”
“I do believe you, Alfa,” said Vernon kindly. “For one thing, you had absolutely no reason to kill Mr. Hot Gangster. You didn’t even know him, did you?”
“Only from what I read about him on Facebook. He was hot, wasn’t he? I mean, I know a lot of girls thought he was smug, and of course he was a gangster and gangsters are bad news, but he was hot. I liked his eyes. He had beautiful eyes. I always said with eyes like that he couldn’t have been all bad. I mean you can tell a lot about a person just from looking into his eyes, and when I looked into his eyes—on Facebook, I mean, not in real life. I never met him in real life, even though I would have liked to—before he died, I mean. Now that he’s dead I don’t want to meet him—so when I looked into his eyes I saw he was a kind soul. And a soul like that would never do anything to hurt another human soul—or even another human being if you see what I mean.” She frowned. “What was the question again?”
“Did you ever handle this knife?” Vernon asked, jiggling the little baggie.
She stared at the knife as if mesmerized. “That knife ended the life of a good man. That knife is evil.” Then she seemed to snap out of it. “I would never handle that knife if my life depended on it, boss. That knife is the personal property of Chef Kwiek and he’s made it perfectly clear that anyone who touches that knife will be gutted and scaled.”
“Did he now?” asked Vernon, intrigued as he studied the knife.
“So you never touched this knife?” asked Dee, just wanting to get this clear.
Alfa looked sheepish. “Oh, I’ve touched it. It’s only the finest knife in the kitchen. Very sharp. Gets the job done. Perfect for peeling an apple. Or an orange, for that matter.”
“So you’ve touched it,” said Tom, settling back.
“Only me and everyone else. When Chef Kwiek isn’t looking, of course. He’s nasty.”
“Yes, he is,” said Vernon, deflating a little.
“Can I get back to work now, boss?” She gestured at the dining room quickly filling up. “Otherwise there’s gonna be a lot of people angry about dinner being late.”
Vernon nodded. “If you feel up to it, please do, Alfa. And we’re sorry about the dog.”
“Never mind about the dog,” said Alfa, getting up. “It just gave me a big old fright is all.” She locked eyes on the knife for a moment. “Can’t you, I don’t know, check that thing for fingerprints and DNA and whatnot?”
“As soon as the storm blows over and the police get here that’s exactly what we’ll do,” said Vernon, sounding tired. “But for now we’re left to our own devices, I’m afraid.”
Alfa seemed to chew on those words for a moment, then its full import suddenly came home to her and she threw her hands to her face. “Oh. My. God! The killer is in here with us, isn’t he! He’s right here in this here motel with us!”
“Yes, he is,” Vernon confirmed. “So if you have any information you would like to share with us, Alfa—or if you can think of anything that might shed light on what happened to Mr. Hot Gangster, please let us know.”
She nodded ten times in quick succession, stalked off towards the kitchen, then returned, still nodding. “If I know something, I’ll tell you, boss. Only I don’t know nothing.”
And then she was off for real, and Vernon sighed deeply. “I don’t know nothing. If that doesn’t apply to all of us I don’t know what does.”
“At least now we know that Alfa handled that knife,” said Maya.
“And so did everyone else in that kitchen,” Vernon pointed out.
“So why did Ralph single her out?” asked Dee.
They all chewed on that for a moment, until Tom voiced the thought they all shared: “I have absolutely no idea.”
Chapter 29
To say that he was upset was the understatement of the century. Samuel Kwiek, known to his friends, of whom he had very few, as Sam, was feverishly washing his hands. Dinner was over and a minor miracle, too, as far as he was concerned. He didn’t have his usual staff at his disposal, instead having to put up with rank amateurs like Beau Snoop and Alfa Robston, who didn’t merely look and behave like a pair of clueless waiters but who actually were a pair of clueless waiters.
Alfa, after having thrown a hissy fit because some fluffy little pooch put his paws on her, had returned to her station to wreak more havoc, and Beau had very nearly destroyed the pumpkin soup by stirring in too many bell peppers.
At least dessert had been easy: blueberry shortcake sundaes, straight out of the freezer. Speaking of the freezer, he suddenly had a thought. All through dinner prep he’d been ruminating about the loss of his very best carving knife. He missed that knife. It was almost as if he couldn’t function properly without it. Like mi
ssing a limb. And now he couldn’t help but wonder: where was it? Sam had briefly checked the body before and hadn’t seen the knife but that didn’t mean a thing, did it? It was Beau who’d told him the knife should have been lodged into the dead man’s chest but what if he was wrong?
Beau Snoop was a fool and a moron. Could it be he’d simply looked in the wrong place? Could it be, therefore, that his knife—the knife he’d got as a prize after winning the cooking competition Kitchen Heroes at the tender age of fifteen in his hometown of Vught in Holland—was still lodged firmly inside that loser Hot Gangster in some other spot?
He methodically dried his hands and glanced around. The kitchen was emptying out, the only people still present the dishwashers plunging pots into the deep sinks on the other side of the kitchen and operating the industrial-sized commercial dishwashing machine.
Unseen by anyone, therefore, he yanked back the handle of the walk-in freezer and stepped inside. He immediately set foot for the dead gangster. Yanking back the tarp, his sharp eyes raked the man’s frozen body, which now resembled a life-sized popsicle, until he discovered the red spot on the man’s blue pajamas. Darn it. Snoop was right after all.
Sam’s lips formed a thin line when he realized his precious knife was gone. Gone!
And fat chance getting it back from the police once they took charge of this preposterous investigation and retrieved it. And he was just about to draw the tarp back over the man when he spotted something. Something shiny located in the man’s hand.
He bent over and narrowed his eyes. It wasn’t a knife but it was something. His curiosity piqued, he tried to remove it from the frozen gangster’s fingers. It was hard going, as they were closed around the tiny object. Luckily it was small and finally emerged from between the frozen digits. Sam held it in his own hands and studied it for a moment. It was some kind of brooch, he now saw, shaped like a butterfly. Gold and inset with tiny stones that could very well have been diamonds. The eye of the butterfly was a nice little ruby.
Classy. At least for a lowly gangster.
But then the door to the freezer opened and Beau walked in.
“Will you need me for anything else, Sam?” asked the waiter.
“No, that’ll be all,” he said, drawing the tarp back over the dead man.
“Sad business, isn’t it?” Beau remarked.
“There’s a saying in my country, Beau,” said Sam. “Boontje komt om zijn loontje.”
“Sounds… ominous.”
“Freely translated it means ‘What goes around comes around.’ I guess this man got what was coming to him.” And with these harsh words, he walked out after Beau and closed the door to the freezer behind them.
Five minutes later he was entering his room, thinking about this and that, when he suddenly noticed he was holding a tiny little thingamajig in his hand. He stared at the thing, then remembered what it was and grimaced. Vowing to hand it over to Vernon in the morning, he tucked it away in his desk drawer, lay down on the bed, and flicked on the TV.
An episode of Kitchen Nightmares had just started and he settled in for the duration.
Chapter 30
Tom got up. Like Vernon, he was feeling slightly dejected. This thing seemed like one of those giant jigsaw puzzles: the ones you want to lay your hands on as a kid only to discover they’re a lot harder to figure out than you anticipated. He was a pretty smart guy, but this murder had him stumped. He then remembered something and turned to Vikki.
“Christy Cadanet claims she left the hotel this morning to go for a walk. By any chance do you remember seeing her leave?”
But Vikki was already shaking her head before he finished the question. “I wasn’t here this morning, remember, Professor? I only arrived when Daisy’s shift was over. Just in time for the storm,” she added. “Just my luck, I guess. I should have been the one who took the night shift, but Daisy needed the day off so we switched at the last minute. And now I’m stuck here with this murder business while she’s off at home watching the Kardashians.”
Tom wasn’t sure how the Kardashians featured into this story but by now he figured everyone and anyone featured into the story so why not simply go with it? So he nodded. “Thanks, Vikki. The phone lines still work, right? I mean the landline?”
“Sure.”
“Could you perhaps call Daisy on the phone and ask her about Christy?”
Vikki displayed her pleasant smile. “Of course, Professor. I’ll do it right after dinner.”
“I appreciate it.” He saw that Maya and Scott had already taken their seats at their usual table, and that Scott had had the good sense to leave Ralph upstairs in their room.
“Let’s have dinner,” Dee suggested. “I’m starving.”
Jacob produced a soft gurgling sound and in spite of himself Tom had to laugh. “I guess the little guy is hungry, too, huh?”
“We’re all hungry, Tom. So let’s forget about this murder business for a moment and just have dinner as a family.”
“Extended family,” he said as he watched Jim and Eden take their seats, too.
“I like that couple,” said Dee as they walked over. “They’re nice.”
“Yeah, I like them, too. Plus, it’s always handy to have a doctor in the house.”
“Two doctors, no less.”
They joined the rest of the company and as Tom glanced around, he saw Christy Cadanet arrive for dinner, her baby on her arm, and take a seat on the other side of the dining room. The Halls were also there, father and daughter, and he noticed how Tracy Hall studiously ignored Christy, even as Christy intently studied the woman who’d stolen her husband. There was obviously no love lost between those two. Good thing there was a wide swath of other tables and guests between them.
Ernie ‘Marco’ Saddling also walked in—and wouldn’t you know it? He took a seat at the same table as Wilfred Dobosh. Tom wondered what they would talk about, since Ernie didn’t know Mr. Dobosh was the guy he’d tried to swindle, and Mr. Dobosh didn’t know he was sharing dinner with his swindler’s associate and would-be fence.
Christy knew, though, for Tom watched as she stared daggers at Marco.
“Where are you, honey?” suddenly asked Dee. “You seem miles away.”
She’d placed her hand on the back of his head and was lacing her fingers through his hair. He smiled and looked down at his plate. “It’s all these people. Marco and Mr. Dobosh and Christy and Tracy. All brought here because of Donny Towns. And even now, when he’s dead, they’re still locked in here, at daggers drawn, even if some of them don’t even know it. It’s just that… that man, resting in that freezer, created a lot of trouble for a lot of people.”
“You’re still on that investigation then, are you?” asked Jim.
“Yeah, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for,” Tom confirmed.
“Dad, that song is ancient,” said Scott, rolling his eyes.
Alfa and Beau were doing double duty tonight, as they’d both been enlisted to help dole out dinner, and even Vernon was sticking around, overseeing the proceedings. And as Tom tasted his pumpkin soup, he thought it tasted a little funny. Then again, it just might be his mood that affected his taste buds.
“Maybe you need to step back and try and look at the big picture,” said Eden.
“What do you mean?” asked Tom.
“Well, you’ve been puzzling together all these clues and stuff, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So maybe now it’s time you put it all together, if you see what I mean.”
“Have a family meeting!” Scott cried, excited. Then his face sagged. “We don’t have a whiteboard, though.”
“Who needs a whiteboard?” asked Maya.
“That’s how the cops do it,” said her brother. “They put all the pictures of all the suspects on a big whiteboard and then they connect them with squiggly lines and stuff. I’ve seen it on Castle.”
“You watch Castle?” asked his sister dubiously.
“Hey
, that Beckett is hot!”
“You don’t need a whiteboard, son,” said Jim, tapping his temple. “All you need is this.”
Scott frowned at him. “Your finger?”
“Look where my finger’s pointing!”
“Your… liver spot?”
“My head! All you need is that noggin of yours to figure this out. And you’ve got four noggins between the four of you.”
“Five, if you count Jacob,” said Dee, feeding the baby a piece of broccoli. He didn’t seem to like it for immediately he spat it out again. The broccoli described a perfect arc through the air and landed on Eden’s plate. Dee, mortified, said, “I’m so sorry, Eden!”
But Eden was laughing. “That’s all right, Dee. I’ve handled my share of babies.”
“You have babies?” asked Scott, wrinkling his nose. “But you’re so old!”
“Scott!” Dee snapped.
“He’s right,” said Eden. “I am pretty old. But once upon a time I was young, Scottie. And I raised five boys just like you—hell-raisers, every single one of them.”
“You raised five boys?” asked Dee. “I admire you, Eden. I really do.”
“I admire her,” said Jim, with a crusty smile. “I still don’t know how she did it.”
“How we did it,” said Eden, leaning into her husband and patting his arm. “It wasn’t always easy, but we managed pretty well, didn’t we?”
“They’re fine boys,” Jim confirmed. “All grown up now, of course, with families of their own. In fact that’s the reason we came down to Ohio in the first place. Our eldest lives near here. We were just coming back from visiting him and his newborn when we got stuck in that blasted storm. Good thing we found this motel.” He smiled at them. “And some very nice people to be riding out this storm with, too.”
“That’s very kind of you to say, Jim,” said Tom. “We’re glad we met you guys, too.”
“Even if we’re a couple of ancients,” said Eden, with a wink at Scott, who shrugged.