The Gourmet Girl Mysteries, Volume 1

by Jessica Conant-Park

  I had visions from the first-aid class I’d taken when I was working as a toddler teacher in a day care center. I knew we had covered CPR, but the only thing I could remember was what to do if a child had the misfortune to get a pencil stuck in an eye. I remembered that one should not to try to pull the pencil out of the eyeball, but rather should tape a Dixie cup over the protruding object. I had raised a question: since most pencils are much taller than Dixie cups, shouldn’t we stockpile some tall, latte-style cups for such occurences? There had been a memorable photograph of some poor child model forced to demonstrate what a Dixie cup taped over the eye looked like, a photo that had sent my fellow teachers and me into gales of laughter. Not helpful here.

  I also remembered that should one happen upon a compound fracture in which a bone is sticking out of the body, one should not attempt to push the bone back in place. The banned maneuver had struck me as the grossest possible thing ever, and I was sure that if I were to find myself faced with a bone sticking out of a body, the last thing I would do would be to try to push it back in place. Still, if Eric had fallen victim to a sharp stick in the eye and a compound fracture, I might possibly have been of some assistance.

  Eric’s cell phone started to ring, and the electronic rendition of Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City” jerked me out of my daze. What a lame song to set your ringer to. This disgraceful thought made me realize that I had to do something, and since vomiting on what I assumed was a crime scene would not be helpful, I figured I would pass off the problem to somebody else. Before I could instruct my legs to get moving, the restroom door opened, and Timothy burst in.

  “Oh, Jesus.” Timothy, in a show of gallant behavior far exceeding my reminiscences of first-aid photos, practically fell onto Eric’s body and cupped his hand over the bleeding slice in Eric’s neck while yelling, “Oh God! Oh God!” Timothy pulled off his expensive navy shirt and pressed it to Eric’s neck. “Chloe, don’t look! Get out of here! Go!” he shouted at me.

  My feet finally decided to work. I hurried out of the men’s room, came to a halt, and found myself staring numbly at the bustling restaurant, which was full of diners and waitstaff. Looking toward the kitchen, I saw Garrett hacking away at a piece of red meat. I stared at the huge cleaver blade as Garrett repeatedly whacked someone’s dinner.

  I’ve heard people say that when you faint, your vision narrows, like a black circle enlarging to constrict your field of view. Truth. The last thing I clearly saw was the chef’s cleaver cracking through a bone.

  “Chloe? You okay? Come on, wake up.” I opened my eyes to see a shirtless Timothy peering at me with great concern.

  There I was, sprawled out on the floor with a group of restaurants patrons murmuring pitying comments like, “The poor thing!” and “She just absolutely collapsed!”

  When I tried to sit up, Timothy immediately pushed me back down. In my dazed state, I somehow noticed that he’d washed his hands and wasn’t going to leave a bloody print on my arm.

  “No, don’t sit up,” he instructed me. “Just lie still and don’t move.” Ordering a perfectly healthy woman to remain motionless after a minor fainting incident? What kind of stupid first-aid class had he taken?

  First aid! Oh, Christ, when I’d fallen, I’d probably given myself a revolting compound fracture! I looked down. All my limbs were intact. “Seriously, I’m fine. Just let me get up,” I assured the crowd. I rose from the floor and walked to a nearby table, where I sat down and tried to assume an air of normality. Oh God, poor Eric! Then I asked a question so stupid that I can’t believe it left my mouth. “Tim, is Eric okay?” What did I expect to hear? That really, aside from the knife wound that had practically severed his head from his body, he was in great shape?

  “Chloe, I’m so sorry …” Timothy’s voice trailed off. “Eric is dead. The police and the ambulance should be here any second.”

  How odd: an ambulance for a dead person. I mean, the EMTs weren’t miraculously going to revive a cadaver. Shouldn’t EMTs devote themselves to tasks that had a chance of success, such as taping cups over eyes? Although my thoughts felt logical, I must have looked woozy. Timothy went to fetch me a glass of water and instructed Cassie to sit with me, presumably to make sure I didn’t keel over again. It’s a good thing that Cassie became a waitress instead of a nurse. She did nothing except smile politely as we sat uncomfortably together and listened to the sirens approach the restaurant. I looked out the window to see what I guessed to be about six hundred emergency vehicles pull up outside.

  The scene that followed could have been staged for some prime-time cop show. Official-looking people took over the premises, as I imagined the restaurant would now be called, and no one was allowed to leave. After pushing the crowd away from the men’s room, the police sealed off the corridor to the restrooms with neon yellow streamers printed with Do Not Cross. Cassie and I watched as cops and EMTs rushed around. And firefighters. Why were they here? Not to hose down the bloody tiles. To put out Garrett’s flames?

  Looking around, I wondered about all the guests and what they’d do and should do in this freakish situation. Should they keep eating their dinners? Some were doing just that. Would they have to pay for their meals? Should they leave big tips to console the waitstaff? After this ordeal, would they leave no tips at all?

  Garrett and his crew had apparently stopped cooking when news of Eric’s death had reached them. They’d left the kitchen to cluster behind the bar, where they were talking amongst themselves.

  A charred smell wafted our way. “Cassie, I think something is burning in the kitchen,” I said flatly.

  Cassie yelled to Garrett, who bolted across the room to the kitchen to scrape up the remains of what looked like a trout that had seared itself to the cooktop.

  All of my television watching helped me to identify the medical examiner, a tall woman with a severe face and an air of authority. She entered through the front door and immediately barked orders at the men trying to do their jobs. She was escorted to the back corridor by one of the police officers and disappeared into the men’s room. I bet she never fainted.

  Clad in a white chef’s coat, Timothy returned with my water. “God, I’m so sorry, Chloe. You must be devastated about Eric. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. I know you weren’t together that long, but I know you two had a strong connection. Eric just adored you. He did.” Tim shook his head and actually had tears in his eyes. This man truly thought he was comforting a brokenhearted girlfriend. It seemed callous not to play along. What was I going to say? I’m in shock from seeing the gory body of a murder victim. Eric has nothing to do with it!

  Actually, I was in shock. If I’d been myself, I’d probably have poured out the whole story to Tim. Instead, I decided to play it as if I were so grief-stricken that I was unable to discuss my overwhelming feelings for Eric. “I just can’t believe this is happening,” I said truthfully. “Have the police said anything to you yet? Do they know who did this to Eric?”

  “No, nothing yet. The detective—his name’s Hurley—needs to talk to everyone here tonight and get their information so he can contact them later. And obviously he said he wants to talk to you, since you found Eric. Actually, let me go see if he’s ready for you. The sooner you talk to him, the sooner you can get out of here. You must want to go home more than anything.” He stood up and rubbed my back briefly before he took off in search of the detective.

  The strange thing was that I didn’t feel a desperate need to flee—or wouldn’t have, except for the sorrowful glances everybody kept casting my way. Since the consensus seemed to be that I had just lost the love of my life in a grisly crime, the whole restaurant seemed to be staring at me. I didn’t like being the center of attention, especially under false pretenses, but I have to admit that this kind of real-life high drama was new and intriguing to me, mainly because I grew up in the safe, uneventful suburb of Newton. The biggest crime ever to occur there was the discovery of a massage parlor that offered quite a bit m
ore than massages. The establishment was shockingly located above a pediatrician’s office. One female so-called masseuse was quoted as saying that she charged one hundred dollars for her services “unless they think that’s too high.” But the news that really alarmed Newtonites was the discovery that not only was this place servicing its clients sexually but—gasp—some of the employees didn’t even have their massage licenses! The only competition for that story was the exhilarating debate over whether or not Newton schools should become peanut-free zones to protect children with allergies. One mother was interviewed and insisted that her child’s diet required him to have peanut butter for lunch. In typical Newton fashion, her child’s need for peanut butter was greater than another child’s need to avoid anaphylaxis. So the commotion in the restaurant was totally new to me, and once the initial physical shock of finding the body had mostly passed, and even after I began to appreciate how horrible Eric’s death was, my forensic curiosity outweighed my nonexistent relationship with the deceased.

  Timothy returned with a skinny man in his late forties or so with incredibly mussed-up black hair. “Hey there, Chloe,” Tim said somberly. “This is Detective Scott Hurley. He’s got to ask you about tonight. I told him how distraught you are, but he says it can’t wait. Are you going to be okay talking to him?”

  “I think I’ll be fine. But thank you for your concern,” I told Tim, who then left with Cassie.

  Detective Hurley looked exhausted, as if he’d been working nonstop all day or maybe even all week. He seated himself across from me at the table, ran his hands through his hair, and looked right at me. “Ma’am, I’m very sorry for your loss. You’re the girlfriend, huh? And you found the body?” he asked, jumping right to the point. “Name?” he continued, pulling a pen from behind his ear.

  “Eric Rafferty,” I answered.

  “Not the victim’s name. Your name.” He glared at me.

  “Oh, sorry. I’m Chloe Carter,” I answered. He took my address and phone number, and asked me to describe my relationship with the victim.

  I leaned in conspiratorially. “Well, to be honest, I didn’t have a relationship with him. I just met Eric tonight. We were on a blind date. Well, an Internet date. I met him through Back Bay Dates, one of those online dating services, and this was our first date.”

  “You’re not his girlfriend? Timothy and a couple of the waitstaff here said you two were pretty involved. Said you’d only been together less than a month, but that things were hot and heavy.”

  “No, I’m definitely not Eric’s girlfriend. Wasn’t. I just saw him for the first time tonight. Maybe he’d been dating someone else. You know, he did say that he used to go out with the woman who does the books for Essence and for Timothy’s old restaurant, Magellan. Veronica, he said her name was. I think that’s right.”

  “Last name?”

  “Sorry, I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Timothy. I don’t know much about Eric, except that he was thinking about investing in Essence. He wanted to eat here tonight to check it out again. He said he used to eat at Magellan a lot, and so he knew Timothy through there. I don’t even know exactly what he does, well, did, for a living. Something to do with financial planning and having clients.”

  The detective leaned back in his chair and adjusted his wrinkled gray suit. “So I don’t suppose you’d have any idea why your date is dead in the restaurant’s restroom, then, huh?” He actually smiled a little.

  I shook my head apologetically.

  “Since I’m assuming this man didn’t slit his own throat, we’re treating this as a homicide. And I’ve got to find out everything I can about what went on tonight. So, tell me exactly how you met him. About this Internet dating thing. And take me through everything that happened tonight.” Hurley sighed as if expecting my description of my time with Eric to be as boring as it actually—and, in retrospect, sadly—had been.

  I ran through the events of the past day. Hurley asked questions. In particular, he wanted to hear about ex-boyfriends of mine. Trying not to portray myself as a total idiot, I reluctantly told him the whole story about Noah and concluded by saying, “Noah is sort of a jerk. You know, one of those fear-of-commitment guys? Definitely a mistake on my part. But if you think he had anything to do with this, you’re totally wrong. I guarantee you that there is no possibility that Noah would ever be jealous that I was going on a date.”

  “All right, give me his last name, address, and phone number.” The detective had a pen and notebook ready. Oh, great, like I really needed the police questioning Noah about Eric’s murder! Now Noah would definitely know that my date had been a miserable failure. And be totally pissed at me for siccing the police on him.

  “No, no, please don’t talk to him! He didn’t even know where I was going tonight,” I pleaded.

  “We just have to cover all the bases here.”

  I reluctantly reeled off Noah’s info.

  “Now, you also said Eric got a phone call. He had an argument on the phone. Do you know who he was talking to? Or what they were arguing about?”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea. Just someone named Phil. Can’t you trace the call? And it wasn’t exactly an argument. It sounded more like Eric was irritated with whomever he was talking to. Like he’d already had the same conversation before. He just said something like, ‘I told you to take care of it.’ And that’s when he left to finish the call. And that was the last time I saw him. Well, saw him alive. His phone was on the floor next to him in the men’s room. And it rang while I was in there.”

  “Let’s go back to just before you left for the ladies’ room. See if you can tell me who you saw.”

  “Just people at their tables. And Garrett. The chef. And Cassie. Our waitress. She showed me where the restrooms were,” I said.

  “So you didn’t see Timothy or any other staff members?” the detective questioned me.

  “I don’t know. Um, well, no, not that I remember.”

  “Okay, and this waiter? Ian? What exactly did Eric say to him when he was walking away with him?” The detective leaned over the table and looked right at me.

  “Um, I think he said, ‘Remember what we talked about.’ That’s all I heard. Eric didn’t say anything about it when he came back to our table. I don’t know what he meant. But it was a statement. A reminder. Not a question.”

  Detective Hurly asked me to point out the couple who had had the dispute with Ian, but they were nowhere in sight. “They must have left soon after that,” I said. “They were getting dessert, so they must have left while Eric and I were still eating.”

  “All right. That should do it for now. I’ll get in touch if I have any more questions for you, but you might as well get home. And, hey. Chloe? I’m sorry you had to find his body. It’s not pleasant stuff. I’ve been doing this job for almost twenty years, and it’s not easy.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Um, can I ask you a question?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, when I found Eric, I didn’t do anything. I mean, do you think … was there anything I could’ve done? What if, you know, he was still alive?” I started to tear up.

  “No. From what I know, there wasn’t a thing you could’ve done. Except contaminate the crime scene. That’s what Timothy did, trying to help. Did more harm than good.”

  “I saw the knife. In there. It was a strange knife. With that curved handle?” Now I could feel a few tears run down my cheeks. My disbelief and shock were wearing off, and I was scared and confused.

  Without saying anything about the knife, Detective Hurley reached over and patted my hand. “Here’s my card, Chloe. Call me if you think of anything else. Now, why don’t you go home and get some rest.”

  So I left Essence without saying good-bye to anyone.

  SIX

  I slept deeply that Sunday night, almost as if my blind date’s murder had put me in a protective coma. I woke up late on Monday morning and flicked on the television only to be bombarded with news updates detailin
g Eric Rafferty’s murder. Tim Rock appeared on an interview. Looking haggard, he kept repeating that he was so sorry this had happened and that the entire staff sent their condolences to Eric’s friends and family.

  I’d left a message for Adrianna the night before, and when the phone rang at eleven that morning, caller ID informed me that she was getting back to me. Finally. I picked up the phone and started crying.

  “I’m coming over,” she promised. “Just hold on. I’ll pick up supplies and be there soon.”

  For once, I was glad that she worked unusual hours and could drop everything to rescue me. While I waited for her, I made a pitiful attempt to continue painting my living room but found myself too distracted to get anything done. An hour after we’d talked, Ade burst into my apartment, her arms full of bags that she dropped to the floor when she saw me frozen on the couch clutching a dripping paint roller, my leftover mascara smeared down my face and paint splatters everywhere.

  I looked up at my best friend, stunning as always. Today’s outfit consisted of shiny lavender pants, a sleeveless ivory top, and strappy sandals. By comparison with her usual wild style, the look was tame. Adrianna was seriously beautiful: piles of blonde hair, chocolate brown eyes, perfect skin, knockout body. Most women would hate her, and, in fact, she was not very popular among other females. I’d never been threatened by her good looks or her assertive, even aggressive, nature. One of the few women in her life, I couldn’t have been more grateful for her friendship.