by Cam Larson
"Help me," mouthed Steven. He jerked his head around and looked at Daniel before the Detective steered him forward. Daniel told him he would be there for him and not to worry about anything. He then took my arm and we left the restaurant.
"That Police Chief sure grilled him," I said. "Why would they suspect Steven? Do you think they will lock him up when he gets down there?"
"I don't know. But I'm sure Steven had nothing to do with murder. I have to figure a way to help him in case they do keep him. Did you see how he begged me to help him? I think he'll need a good lawyer. On the other hand, if he asks for one right away they may think he really is guilty."
He hesitated as if trying to decide if he should say more to me. I didn't miss his reluctance.
"What are you not saying, Daniel?"
"Steven has been in trouble with the law before," said Daniel. "He served alcohol to two minors. They had fake I.D.s. He later told me he should have known they weren't old enough to drink."
"I'm sure he wasn't the first person to do that, but that doesn't seem to correlate with murder."
"There was more. Steven also got mad at a food critic. He liked to have critics come in on occasion but dreaded those times, too. This critic was all for a competitive restaurant over Steven's. Steven told me he barely tasted the food before he made his assessment."
"What happened?"
"Seems the critic told him his décor was hideous, or something like that. Then he proceeded to tell him his Chef used too much garlic in the garlic potatoes. As if that wasn't bad enough, he told him he had asked for a medium rare steak and he got a well done one. Without warning, Steven turned the table for two over onto the critic. Everything landed in his lap." Daniel chuckled. "It isn't that funny, but it's exactly how I'd picture Steven responding."
"I can't believe he did that," I said. "Didn't he know the newspapers and TV would run with something like that?"
"I don't think he thought ahead. He told the critic that since he didn't like the food anyway, there was no reason for him to continue tasting it. It didn't take long for the critic to press charges for assault. Most of the customers were on Steven's side. They all knew this critic never said anything good about any restaurant. I guess I should say nothing good except the one's that paid him off. Steven ended up paying a hefty fine for that incident."
"That explains why the police may have their doubts about him now," I said.
Daniel nodded. His face was lined with worry. Then he escorted me to my car. "I want you to wait until I get into my car, and I'll follow you home."
I knew any objection on my part would be ignored. When we got home, I invited him in. I gave Thor, my rescued Doberman a good run in the back yard, and then put out some food for him. Then I grabbed some snacks for me and Daniel, as we didn't end up eating much after the incident at the restaurant.
We sat on my couch discussing the events of the night, while Daniel looked online making a list of possible attorneys to call, just in case. Thor joined us when he finished eating and tried to beg a few snacks off me, but I just petted him once in a while as we talked. Excitement over the events of the night raced through my mind. The dead body we saw at the Steakhouse kept Daniel and me talking late into the night. We speculated about who could have killed Steven's dishwasher. We didn't even get close to an answer.
When I yawned, he stood up and said, "It's late and I need to go. I'm on call for the next twenty-four hours and should get a little sleep. You're tired, too, Laila. Let's let this rest until tomorrow."
"It is tomorrow," I said. The clock read one a.m. I hoped my mind would stop racing once I hit the pillow. I followed him to the door. He leaned down and planted a light kiss on me.
"That's my good night kiss. I hope it will help you sleep."
All of his kisses were magic, but I didn't tell him that. I think he already knew it anyway. I locked the door and Thor followed me to the bedroom. He plopped on his bed next to mine. His head rested on the large letters that read "Doberman Luxury Bed." His name was centered under the caption. His soft snore lulled me to sleep.
The next day was Saturday. I didn't have to be at Roasted Love until nine. I pulled out a large cork board after sipping a cup of hot coffee. I hung it on hooks already there. The name Frank Duvall, in block letters on an index card, was the first to be pinned on it in the center. I placed Steven Landers' name in the first column on the left. For now, I had no information or clues to add. That would come later. My mind was already spinning.
I thought about everything that had happened at Steven's Steakhouse. Cassie Johnson's face came to mind. It couldn't be her if I went by the look on her face. I recalled how she stood staring at the iced Santa, unable to move. The whole scenario had definitely made her sick to her stomach. She could have been shocked just realizing what she had done, I thought. Her slender frame and petite height of five feet wasn't one that would have the strength to pull Frank into a freezer. She could have killed him in the freezer, I argued with myself.
I added her name to a card and she was placed to the right of Steven's name. While on my second cup of coffee, I scribbled some questions. The first of which was why did Frank Duvall have his Santa suit on? Did he put it on again and then leave the Steakhouse to play Santa someplace else? If so, why did he come back to the restaurant? I stuck the list over Frank's name and hurried to get ready for work.
When I parked at Roasted Love, I wondered if Steven had been arrested the night before. It hit me that Daniel had never mentioned Steven Landers before he took me to his restaurant for dinner. If they were such good friends, how had that fact not been mentioned to me? I knew other friends of Daniel and he knew all of mine. At least he knew all that lived in West River. I was sure I had mentioned a few who lived in my home state of Tennessee. He had kept Steven Landers' name a secret. Once my workday ended I meant to find out why.
Roasted Love proved busy enough to allow for very few breaks. The Christmas shoppers were out in full force. The expresso machine didn't stop. All of us were on our feet for hours at a time, including my boss, Jacob Weaver. He pitched in, not flaunting his status of owner. Our customers loved him and I was sure it was because he knew how to make his business a personal one with them. Around three in the afternoon, my cell phone buzzed. I had just sat down with Lily, one of the servers, to grab a latte. It was Daniel.
"I'm going to see Steven in a little while. Do you want to come with me?"
"Did they arrest him?"
"No they didn't, but they are watching him and he is nervous. I thought you may have some insight if we talk to him together."
"It will have to be up to you. We're swamped here and I don't see getting out anytime soon."
Disappointment in his voice, Daniel told me he would see me later. In two days, he would leave for Pennsylvania. After that, I wondered who would be there for Steven Landers. The unlocked door to his Steakhouse nagged at me. Either someone came in who knew the code, or it was purposely left unlocked. From what I heard Steven say about his high tech security system, those were the only two answers.
Lily and I hopped up again when more customers came in. Jacob had shed his jacket. Now in short sleeves, beads of perspiration spread across his forehead.
"Jacob, you take a break for a while," I said. "We can handle it." His relief was visible when he took me up on the offer. I made him his favorite straight expresso and handed it to him.
Light snowflakes drifted down lazily from the darkening sky. Street lamps cast a muted glow on the sidewalk. The street reminded me of a Charles Dickens novel. I grabbed a mop and took care of melted snow on the marble square at the entrance. The large mat had shifted to the side and no one bothered to clean their boots on it. Things back in order, I returned to my post at the expresso machine. Eddie carried a tray of finger sandwiches to the front. It was going to be a long evening. We didn't serve a full meal but the sandwiches held patrons over until they could get a real dinner at a restaurant or at home. I wondered why
we had so many more people in the coffee house this time of the day.
I glanced up in time to see Daniel stick his head in and motion to me. My frown should have told him I was too busy. Instead, he came to me.
"Steven's Steakhouse is closed. The cops won't let him reopen yet."
"Maybe that explains why we have more customers than usual this close to the dinner hour," I said. "I'll stop by your apartment when I finish here. Will that be all right with you? I want to hear what Steven and you talked about, but I just can't take time now."
He smiled in agreement and took a cheese scone. "This is my carry-out," he said. "I'll grab a dinner for us."
Lily took his money and he left the shop. I watched him pull his stocking cap over dark hair dotted with snowflakes when he stepped outside. He was more than a little handsome. "You're daydreaming," said Lily. She nudged me, following my eyes.
"You have to agree it's hard not to when Daniel stops by," I said.
"Right." Lily spent her free time teasing me about how often he came into Roasted Love these days. It didn't help that Jacob got a big kick out of doing the same thing.
My thoughts turned to serious. I wanted to hear what Daniel had to say about Steven. More importantly, I wanted to ask him about their relationship and why I had never heard of his friend before now. There was something about Steven Landers that held a lot of questions in my mind.
Most of all, I recalled the way his eyes kept darting from Daniel and me to the form on the floor of his freezer. He was distracted when he talked to us. Obviously, Steven could easily get into the restaurant at any time he wanted to do so. If Frank Duvall didn't get along well with other adults, he and his boss may have had issues between them that weren't so positive either.
Chapter Three
After taking care of Thor, I drove to Daniel's apartment. He lived in a Brownstone in an older part of West River. The surrounding older homes were in the process of being rehabbed and there was no lack of potential renters. I walked up the one flight of stairs, having been rung in by Daniel when I pressed the button on the outside door.
"Come on in and warm up," he said.
I shed my wool coat and stuffed my gloves in the pockets. I rubbed my hands together in front of the small fireplace. The logs burned as a result of a gas line. Daniel could enjoy a fireplace without having to pay a chimney sweep every year to clean out the chimney. And he didn't have to sweep ashes either. I was beginning to think living in a Brownstone would be a great place to settle.
"This feels good," I said. He handed me a large cup of hot chocolate. He didn't forget the marshmallows melted on the top. "Why haven't you told me about Steven before?"
"I guess the subject just never came up," he said. "We were friends in college. In fact, he was the first real friend I met there."
While he talked, I relished in the warmth of the hot chocolate. The foamy topping stuck to my upper lip and I reached for the large dinner napkin he had put on the coffee table. When he stopped talking, I looked at him expecting more. His eyes wandered to the flaming logs. I realized that both times I had asked him about Steven Landers, he acted as if he didn't want to tell me too much. I was beginning to think there were lots of secrets between the two of them. That didn't stop me from prodding.
"What else?" I asked.
"Nothing else, except that was when we first met and became friends."
"Ha," I scoffed. "I can tell there is much more, but if you don't trust me, that's your privilege."
I wasn't even ashamed to use that ploy on him. He should know by now that I could be relentless when I wanted information.
"Okay, I'll tell you more. But, only because I know you won't let up on me." His dark eyes once more laughed at me and he settled back against the back of the easy chair. He ran his fingers over the lines of the brown and red plaid design.
"I decided Steven was a good person and someone I could be around easily when we first met. He had that kind of personality."
"What else?" I repeated.
His face grew sober. There was a pain that shone in his eyes at some memory. "When I met Steven, I was nineteen years old. We had been roommates for a while but I didn't know him well at that point. I mean, I knew him but it took something outside the roommate relationship to really know him." He grew silent for a few seconds. "It was one night when I was coming home from my night job at a local restaurant that I accidentally hit a dog. The animal came from nowhere and I couldn't avoid hitting him."
I thought of Thor and my heart sickened. The thought of him getting hit by a car caused me to be extra vigilant about walking him on a leash.
"Ooh, I'm so sorry," I said. "That must have been awful for you."
"It was. I grew up having two dogs during my childhood. They were like family members. Anyway, Steven was still up when I came in. I told him about the dog and that I had picked him up and wrapped him in an old towel. He was in my car. I asked Steven if he knew where I could get a Vet at that time of the night. It was around eleven."
This time I didn't say anything. I felt right along with Daniel. It must have hit him hard to have harmed an animal. Why else would he be feeling it so strongly after all these years?
"Steven called his girlfriend at the time, who was studying to be a Vet. Her father had his own practice and she told him to bring the dog over. I guess she had to wake her father up, but anyway, we met him at his office which was a short distance from his house."
Daniel's frame relaxed as he told the story. "The whole time we were waiting for the Vet to take care of the dog, Steven spent his time telling joke after joke. Some were funny and some not so much but he kept my mind off the dog. The dog didn't have a chip in him or a collar on either. We didn't know who he belonged to. When I hit him, I was on a stretch of road with no buildings on either side. We figured him for a stray."
"And you kept him, didn't you?"
"He wasn't hurt too badly and yes, we kept him. We rented a house with a couple of other guys until our senior year. We all adopted the dog and named him Benji."
"Who got him when all of you graduated?"
"None of us. One evening when the weather started warming up Benji was nowhere around. It was early May. We looked everywhere and he was just gone. We never saw him again."
We sat in silence. "Maybe he decided to go home again. I mean back to where he lived when you hit him that night."
"That's what we finally convinced ourselves of. My point is that I remember the way Steven took that dog under his wing and got so attached to him. I've never forgotten his empathy with that stray. There is no way he could murder a person. It just isn't in him to do something like that."
I sipped the last of my now lukewarm chocolate. I thought Daniel could have told me that story long ago if he wanted to.
"That doesn't explain to me why I never heard the name Steven Landers before. You aren't off the hook yet."
"I saw the good in Steven, but Laila, he was a runaway womanizer. That part of him didn't always set well with me. I mean he tried to get every woman on campus to go out with him. He usually succeeded. They didn't stay with him long, though. Even when he was on a date, he made eyes at any woman who caught his attention."
"That wouldn't set well with me for sure. It sounds like he could relate to animals better than he could to women. Or, at least he knew how to treat a dog. That explains why he flirted with me. I guess he hasn't outgrown that habit."
I had felt uncomfortable when he winked at me in the restaurant dining room. I doubted Steven was thinking much about women right now with a murder suspicion over his head. The sadness over the long-ago incident of Benji remained in Daniel's eyes. I knew it was time to change the subject.
"Have you thought any more about who could have murdered Frank Duvall?" I asked.
"The first thing to figure out is why was the back door unlocked and who left it that way to begin with," said Daniel. "If I don't find out who really killed the man, I'm sure the police won't hesitate to
try to pin it on Steven. I wish I had a few more days to spend on this before leaving town."
"Do you want some help? I'll do what I can if you want me to get involved."
Daniel looked at me with relief. "I really do want your help, Laila. I'm sure Steven is not guilty of this. Let's get our heads together and go through each employee we saw in the kitchen."
"Don't rule out the repairman."
"I doubt he was involved in any way."
I looked at Daniel. "The cops won't rule anyone out, even us. We need to think like them."
Daniel got a notebook and tore a sheet out for me and one for him. He handed me a pen. "Let's start with the repairman. I don't even know his name, do you?"
"I don't know except his name tag had Neb on it. So we'll just use Neb for now," I said.
We listed observations about Neb including his nervousness. He had willingly given his name and address to the cops. He was in a hurry to get out. Who wouldn't be after discovering a dead Santa in a freezer?
"I think we can rule him out for now, Laila," said Daniel. "Let's move on to others who may have done it."
I agreed with him. Most likely Neb was innocent. We then talked about Cassie Johnson. Daniel wanted to rule her out, too, because of her reaction to the discovery. I disagreed with him on that and told him she may have been involved since she worked there.
"We can't rule everyone out," I said. "That would leave only Steven."
"You are right. The police will question all the employees again, so let's act like we are looking at it as they would." I tried not to roll my eyes.
I pointed out that Cassie could have lured him into the freezer for some reason and then murdered him. "Maybe she asked him to help pull out something heavy. I heard Steven tell one of the detectives that large pieces of frozen meat were often brought out to the refrigerator in the kitchen to thaw for the next day. That would be a reason for her to ask Frank to go into the freezer with her."
"Why would a server take that upon herself? I would think the Chef would be responsible for that job," said Daniel. "Besides, Cassie probably finishes her shift of serving and leaves. She wouldn't have a reason to spend much time in the kitchen."