The Gourmet Girl Mysteries, Volume 1

by Jessica Conant-Park

  “Hi. I’m still here. I’d wave, but I can’t move. I know you can’t see me behind the wraps, but I can hear you.” I felt as if I were in my Group Therapy class again. How had I become everyone’s favorite subject of analysis? “Josh did not set out to poison me, okay? And now he’s never going to talk to me again.”

  “Okay, well, if Josh didn’t kill Eric Rafferty, who did?” asked Heather.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

  When we’d finally been released from our “spa” treatments, I had to admit I did feel pretty good. I said good-bye to Heather and Adrianna and headed to Home Depot. Instead of taking responsibility for my own behavior in the manner advocated at social work school, I’d begun to suspect that it was the unfinished and crooked stripe of paint in my bedroom that was the reason Josh and I hadn’t slept together and were now fighting. Who wanted to have sex in that horrid environment? Just to prove how dedicated I was to reforming my unlucky bedroom, I was going to pay full price for Ralph Lauren paint. Choosing a color would be easy; my friend Ralph, as I thought of him, limited himself to attractive hues.

  I kept the car windows down as I drove; the putrid liquid the evil spa-keepers had poured on my wrappings to detoxify my body was making me queasy. Also, my stomach was empty. I was sorry I’d eaten all of the cookies I’d taken with me last night.

  The cookie batter! Made from scratch: with flour, butter, sugar, chocolate chips … and fresh eggs. Fresh raw eggs.

  I was a complete idiot. Josh hadn’t poisoned me; I had poisoned myself. Frantic, I yanked my cell phone out of my purse. Josh didn’t pick up his cell, and I couldn’t blame him. Like an obsessed stalker, I tried back six times in a row but didn’t leave any messages. I didn’t know what to say or how to apologize for being such a jerk; I just hoped I could make it up to him.

  I took a break from my desperate calling to run into Home Depot. It was crowded, as it always was on Sundays, and to get to the paint aisle, I had to fight my way past a crowd inspecting leaf blowers. I’d almost made it to Ralph’s paint chip display when the Oops paint cart loomed before me, and I succumbed to my usual sympathetic sense of obligation. I was putting a gallon of what I hoped was a sexy blue with aphrodisiac powers into my cart when someone started loading even more cans of rejected paint onto the shelf. I looked up to see Brian standing before me. He was now clad in an orange store apron instead of the white coat he wore at Magellan.

  “Hey, Brian. I didn’t know you worked here,” I said, completely caught off guard. It was like seeing your math teacher at the mall: teachers existed only on school grounds and had no business materializing in places where they had no reality. Similarly, Josh’s sous chef had corporeal form only at Magellan and could have appeared at Home Depot only because of some sort of cosmic accident.

  “Chloe,” Brian said with surprise. “Hey, what’re you doing here?”

  “I come here all the time. I have so many cans of Oops paint at home you wouldn’t believe it.” I paused. It felt uncanny to talk to Brian outside Magellan. “I can’t believe you have the time to work here, too.”

  “Well, I just work a couple days a week to make a little extra money. This is my section, the paint department. Being a sous chef pays the bills and not much else, so …” As his voice trailed off, he shifted from side to side, clearly uncomfortable talking to his chef’s girlfriend except at the restaurant. He looked down at my can of paint. “So, um, I gotta go. I have a couple more hours here, and then I might go in to the restaurant to help Josh. I’ll see you later, Chloe.”

  I watched him walk away, staring dumbly at Josh’s protégé as he made his way awkwardly to the back of the store. I flinched with embarrassment for him as he tripped over his own feet and bumped into a woman pulling rollers off a shelf.

  I pushed my cart with its gallon of paint to the front of the store. Skipping the self-checkout, I went to a human cashier to pay. I was disconcerted and confused and couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about Brian. He certainly was clumsy; no wonder he’d had so many accidents in the kitchen. I handed over a five-dollar bill, took my receipt, and picked up the can—the can with the neon orange splotch of paint on its lid.

  The can marked with the same color as the traces of paint found on Eric’s body.

  In all that Josh had said about Brian, he’d never mentioned a second job. I wondered whether the police knew about it. And Josh. Did Josh know? Clutching the gallon of paint, I ran to my car, got in, and tried Josh’s cell phone, which he still refused to answer. Damn! Smelly or not, I had to see Josh.

  Next I dialed Detective Hurley’s number. As I listened to the ring, something else hit me. Last night at Magellan, after Brian had told me about Josh’s fits of temper and the jobs he’d lost, Brian had been sharpening the kitchen knives. I now realized that Brian’s technique had been the reverse of Josh’s. When Josh sharpened a knife, he held it with the blade facing away from him. Brian had done the opposite: instead of safely drawing the sharp blade away from his body, he’d drawn it toward himself. For any chef, even a young sous chef like Brian, it was second nature to sharpen knives all the time. When Josh had made that wonderful dinner for me at my house, he’d brought his own sharp knives, but before using them, what had he done? He’d sharpened them. The practice was ingrained in any chef. If Brian had used Josh’s cimiter, there was good chance that he’d sharpened it, not in the men’s room at Essence, of course, but at Magellan, when he’d first picked it up. The police had the cimiter, which had undoubtedly undergone close forensic examination. A forensics expert would certainly be able to determine whether the blade had been honed by someone who pulled it toward him along a sharpening steel, as Brian did, or by someone who moved the blade away from his body, as Josh did. But had the experts looked for that difference? What did forensics experts and police detectives know about chefs? And about chefs’ all-but-instinctive habit of putting razor edges on the blades of all the knives they touched?

  I finally got the detective’s voice mail and, speaking more quickly than clearly, said that I was on my way to Magellan, that Brian worked in the paint department at Home Depot, that chefs sharpen knives all the time without even thinking about it, and that different chefs sharpen their knives differently! I hung up only to have Detective Hurley call me right back.

  “I couldn’t understand anything you said on the message,” he said with annoying calm.

  I explained my theory as best I could while peeling around corners and beeping at cars to get out of my way. I simply had to warn Josh about his murderous colleague! I told Detective Hurley about the orange paint used to mark Oops paint cans and informed him that Brian worked in the department that sold Oops paint. I asked the detective to find out whether or not the murder weapon had been examined for evidence about how it had been sharpened and who had sharpened it. Maybe differences in sharpening techniques even revealed themselves in wounds? I was willing to bet that the medical examiner could examine photographs taken during the autopsy and confirm that Josh’s sharpening style was inconsistent with Eric’s neck wound. But that Brian’s style was a perfect match.

  “Chloe, I appreciate your desire to help, but you need to go home. You’re done for the day,” Hurley barked at me.

  “Okay, okay. I’m just going to Magellan to find Josh, and then I’ll disappear.”

  “Go home now.”

  “I’m turning the car around as we speak,” I lied before saying good-bye. In fact, I’d pulled into a residents-only spot around the corner from Magellan. I raced out of the car and to the front of the restaurant. Magellan was closed, as I knew it would be, but I tried the locked door anyway. Josh must be hard at work in the kitchen preparing food for the wedding party. I pounded on the door but got no response. Peeking through the window, I saw no one. The lights in the dining area were off, but the kitchen lights were on. Josh had to be around somewhere. Sprawled on the floor with a neck wound identical to Eric’s? Or with a knife sticking out of hi
s chest?

  There had to be another entrance to the restaurant, a delivery entrance at the back. I rushed around the corner and past my car, and came to an alley that ran behind Magellan. My heart was pounding as I entered the alley and tried to determine which door was the restaurant’s. As it turned out, the correct door was easy to identify because someone else was also trying to get into Magellan: Timothy Rock.

  “Chloe! What are you doing here?” he asked. “Oh, that’s right. I heard that you and Josh are an item. That’s great news.” Although Tim smiled at me, he looked harried, probably because Essence was failing. I couldn’t blame its owner for having left a button undone on his flannel shirt or for having missed a patch of whiskers when he’d shaved.

  “I’m looking for Josh. The front door is locked, though, so I thought I’d come around the back.” I banged on the door.

  “Me, too. I tried my old keys in the front, but they didn’t work. I can’t believe Maddie changed the locks. Why would she do that to me?” Tim looked hurt and pitiful.

  “It might have nothing to do with you, Tim,” I tried to reassure him. “Maybe she fired someone who had keys or someone lost the keys or something.” Worried about Josh, I rapped on the door with my knuckles until they hurt.

  “Speaking of firing people,” Tim turned to me. “The reason I’m here is that I’ve been trying to reach Maddie all morning, but she isn’t answering the phone. Home, work, cell. But I’ve got to warn her about one of my waiters. This guy used to work for us at Magellan, and Maddie sent him over to me because she knew I needed someone strong to lead the waitstaff. Turns out, though, he’s been stealing money from me, and he was probably stealing from Magellan, too. I fired him last night, and I want to make sure Maddie doesn’t take him back.”

  “I’m pretty sure she won’t.”

  Tim looked puzzled.

  I mustered all the social worker sensitivity I could. “I hate to tell you this, but Madeline knew about Ian’s scams. That’s why she let him go.”

  Tim stared blankly at me.

  “Josh!” I bellowed. “Josh, open the door!” After again banging it, I said to Tim, “About Madeline and the waiter. I’m so sorry. I’m not sure why she did it. Damn it! Josh! Josh, open up!”

  “No,” Tim said, “you’re wrong. I don’t know how you think you know that, Chloe, but you don’t know Madeline. She would never have knowingly sent me a crook. She was great throughout our divorce, and she’s done nothing but try to help me with Essence. You’ve got your story mixed up on this.”

  “It’s Ian, right? The waiter you’re talking about?”

  Tim nodded in surprise. “Yes,” he started slowly. “But you’re still wrong. And since you seem to know all the restaurant gossip, you probably know that Maddie kept Veronica on as her bookkeeper. So you can see, there were no hard feelings there,” he announced triumphantly.

  Tim and Veronica? He had to be kidding. “Look,” I said, “I have to talk to Josh.” Inspiration struck. “Do you have a key to this door? Maybe she just changed the front locks.”

  “Got it,” Tim said, working his key into the lock. His satisfied look said, See? I told you so. He swung the door open.

  Ahead of us was a dimly lit hall with a flight of stairs running down on the left and, on the right, a corridor that led to Magellan’s lovely open kitchen. This corridor, unlike the corresponding one at Essence, was obviously for employees only; the floor was covered in linoleum, a clipboard with loose papers hung from a nail, and the overall appearance was slightly shabby. I wondered whether it had been Madeline who’d advised Tim to locate Essence’s restrooms almost next to an exit that provided a convenient means of escape for patrons skipping out on their bills—and had allowed Eric’s murderer to vanish, too, of course. As I’d seen when I’d peered in from the main entrance, the kitchen lights were on. It immediately became apparent that Josh was here at Magellan, not in the open kitchen, but somewhere down the flight of stairs. Josh’s voice echoed through the hallway and stairway, as did loud crashes. I followed Tim downstairs to the lower level of Magellan.

  “Josh is in a mood, I guess,” Tim whispered to me. “He can get a little wild sometimes.” Tim grabbed my elbow and stopped me. “Chloe, you need to know something. Josh is a great guy and a great chef.”

  “But?” I prodded.

  Tim let out a big sigh. “He’s got a mean temper. And you can’t expect him to be in a great mood these days. After all, the knife used to kill Eric Rafferty was Josh’s. And he knows how to use it. He has no alibi for the night of the murder.” He paused. “You should think about whether or not this is the kind of person you want to be involved with.”

  “Get out of here, you little bitch!” Josh shouted. There followed a loud clatter of metal.

  Then Madeline’s voice. “Stop it! Get away from me!”

  My heart was pumping ferociously. Josh was attacking Madeline! Tim pushed past me and flung open the door to what proved to be a storage area and lower kitchen with stacks of boxes, a gigantic stainless-steel sink, long counters, a zillion-burner gas range, a walk-in refrigerator, and big pots and pans suspended from hooks.

  Josh stood a few feet away from Madeline, his forehead covered in sweat, a large cast-iron sauté pan raised above his head. Madeline was backed into a corner of the room. She look petrified.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Tim demanded.

  TWENTY

  My heart broke as I stared at Josh, who stood poised with the heavy cast-iron pan, ready to attack the terrified Madeline. I’d been wrong about Brian. It was Josh who had killed Eric.

  “Josh,” Tim ordered, “drop the pan and move away from Maddie. Now!”

  Frozen with a look of utter confusion on his face, Josh stared numbly at Tim and me. “Hey, guys. What are you two doing here?”

  With no warning, Tim lunged at Josh and, with a mock-Samurai howl, collided with him so fiercely that he and Josh crashed to the floor.

  “Tim, what in God’s name are you doing? Have you lost your mind?” Madeline rushed over to her ex-husband and her chef, who were now tangled in a heap. “Good Lord, get off him!” She pulled Tim’s shoulders and managed to haul him off Josh.

  Bewildered and relieved, I had no idea what was going on but realized that Madeline had not been the intended victim of an assault. I went over to a stunned Josh and helped him to sit up. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Pissed off”—he glared at Tim—“but fine.”

  The ex-spouses were now facing off. Madeline went first. “Could you please explain what the hell you were doing hurling yourself at my chef?”

  “Protecting you! I walk in here, and he’s about to bash you over the head with that pan.” Tim defended himself.

  Madeline rolled her eyes and snorted in disgust. “Rats. We have rats.”

  “Oh,” Tim said sheepishly.

  “You know how I hate those filthy creatures! And I just saw two of them running toward me when you walked in here and jumped on Josh like some sort of kung fu asshole.” She bent over, grabbed the pan that had fallen to the floor, and waved it at Tim. “He just happened to have this sauté pan in his hand, and he started yelling at the little vermin. What the hell is wrong with you!”

  “Well, what about the mess in here?” Tim asked.

  I hadn’t noticed when we’d first walked in, but there were pans everywhere, stainless-steel bowls on the floor, cooking utensils scattered around. I looked at Josh, who admitted, “It’s my fault. I was pissed off about the health code violations we were cited for and everything else going on, and I just started throwing crap around. That must’ve been what scared the rats out from hiding. I was ready to fling a pan at one of them when you walked in.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Probably not the best way to exterminate, but I was going to give it a shot,” he said grumpily.

  So, the stories about Josh’s bad temper were more than unfounded gossip.

  “Josh,” Madeline said firmly, “I told you that the pro
blems in the kitchen are not your fault. You have got to calm down. I hate rats more than anyone, but I’m not blaming you. You are a phenomenal chef, okay? So relax.”

  “If I’m such a phenomenal chef, why did you tell Brian he was getting my job? Can you explain that to me?”

  I had no idea why Josh had picked this moment to make good on his promise to me to have an open and honest talk with Madeline. His timing was dreadful; everyone was too heated to have a rational discussion about anything.

  Maddie looked taken aback by Josh’s words, but I couldn’t tell whether she was surprised at his knowledge of her plan or shocked at the lunacy of such a possibility.

  But Tim wasn’t done with his ex. “Speaking of explanations, why did you send Ian over to Essence? I just found out that you knew he’d been stealing from us at Magellan. And you recommended him to me anyway. What have I ever done to deserve this kind of treatment from you?” Poor Tim looked sad and confused.

  More interested in Josh’s question, I spoke up. “Madeline, what about what Josh just asked you? Are you really going to make Brian the executive chef?” As a good clinician should, I was trying to refocus the discussion on the relevant issues and help the group make sense of a convoluted situation. Mainly, I was on Josh’s side and didn’t want him to get fired.

  Maddie looked directly at Josh. “Why would I ever fire you, Josh? You’re one of the best chefs in Boston. I’m not about to lose you. Why would you even think that?”

  From the doorway came a new voice, a loud and angry one. “Because that’s what you told me.”

  Josh, Madeline, Tim, and I all turned to see an enraged Brian facing us. In cold, menacing tones, he said, “You told me the job was mine.”

  Madeline took a few steps toward Brian and spoke vehemently, “Brian, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m beginning to think that you’re the cause of all the accidents and the health code violations here. You left those dead mice. And all the rest. Is that right?”