Cooking Up Murder

by Miranda Bliss

  “That doesn’t look like love to me,” I told Eve. “Think we should call the police?”

  “Don’t be silly! And tell them what? That a man we never met and a woman we barely know are having an argument about something we don’t know anything about? The police have better things to do.”

  No doubt, they did. But I couldn’t help but worry. “She said she was going to kill him.”

  “And you know she didn’t mean it. Not like that.”

  “Then maybe we should go into the shop and tell Monsieur Lavoie what’s going on by his back door.” I latched onto Eve’s arm, and when she didn’t budge, I played my trump card. “If we don’t hurry, the store will be locked up, and you won’t be able to get your watch.”

  She recognized the ploy for what it was and made a face. “Party pooper.”

  “No, that would be you if you show up tomorrow at lunch with Clint without your watch,” I reminded her.

  She knew I was right, even if she didn’t like it. Eve took one more look toward the verbal knock-down-drag-out going on by the back door and followed me to the shop.

  There was a light on inside, and we could see Monsieur over near the front counter. But we had to knock twice before he looked our way, and another time to get him to open the door a crack.

  “Yes, yes?” he asked. He peeked around the edge of the door. “What is wrong? What is it you want?”

  I was all set to tell him about Drago and Beyla, but Eve didn’t give me a chance.

  “Well, maybe I just wanted another look at your smiling face, sugar!” Eve slipped inside the store. I had no choice but to follow or end up standing out on the sidewalk by myself. “What we really want is just to pop upstairs.” She displayed her empty wrist. “My watch,” she said with a little pout. “And I was just devastated when I realized it was gone. You wouldn’t make a poor girl spend the whole night without her very favorite piece of jewelry, now would you?”

  Something told me that Monsieur Lavoie was tempted to say he would do just that.

  Except that he seemed to have something else on his mind. He glanced toward the front counter where he had a tall spice jar opened, along with a measuring cup, a funnel, and a few smaller jars.

  “Yes, yes, you must get your watch.” One hand on each of our backs, he hurried us over to the door that led to the cooking school. “Jim is gone. Everything is cleaned up for the night. I must leave soon. But if you hurry…”

  We did. A couple seconds later, we were at the top of the stairs.

  With no light except for the glow of the streetlights outside, the room looked like a negative of itself. The stainless steel stoves still glinted, but all the golden warmth was lost in heavy shadows.

  Automatically, I felt along the wall. “I don’t know where the light switch is.” Don’t ask me why, but I was whispering. Must have had something to do with the after-hours atmosphere and the dark. “How are we going to-”

  “Don’t you worry. I told you I know exactly where I left the watch.” Eve stepped into the classroom. “I’ll just-ow!” I saw her stoop to rub her knee. “Forgot that bench was in the front of the room.”

  “And I forgot this.” I felt around inside my purse for the pint-size flashlight I always carried with me. I flicked it on and arced the beam around the room. “Better?”

  We had our bearings now, and flashlight in hand, I led the way toward the door in the mural of the Café Jacques. On the other side of it was a kitchen that included the sinks where we’d cleaned up our saucepans and soup bowls.

  “You’re amazing, Annie. Honestly.” Eve’s voice came out of the dark behind me. “What else do you have in that purse of yours?”

  “Antacids. Gum. Pain relievers-aspirin and ibuprofen.” I went through the list. I don’t know why. Even though we had Monsieur Lavoie’s permission, something about being in the school alone after closing made me nervous, and reciting the familiar litany calmed my nerves. “Paper and a pen. My address book. A roll of quarters, just in case.” I stopped at the door and Eve caught up.

  Shaking her head, she pushed open the door. “Like I said, amazing. Have I ever mentioned that? Next time I need to pack for a long trip, you’re the first person I’m going to call.”

  It was a threat, not a promise. Every time Eve went out of town-anywhere-she called me to help her pack. It was not a pretty thing, stuffing seven days’ worth of outfits into a bag she was taking for a two-day trip. Still, I always managed to make it work.

  Eve headed into the kitchen. I aimed the light in the right direction, and soon after, I heard her satisfied purr. “Ah, here it is! Right where I thought I left it.” In the glow of the flashlight, I saw Eve slip the watch on her arm. She checked the time. “Nine twenty-five already. Can you believe it? The evening went so fast.”

  One person’sfast is another’sinterminable. I tried not to think about it or the fact that I had to show up here tomorrow and risk embarrassing myself again. Jim had promised to send us an e-mail tonight for tomorrow’s class: appetizers. I wondered if chips and dip counted.

  “Ready?” Eve was already back at the door, and we made our way across the classroom. “We can stop for coffee if you’re in the mood.”

  I remembered what she’d said about the time and shook my head. “This late? I’ll never sleep. And I have to get to work early tomorrow.”

  There was just enough light coming through the front window for me to see Eve grin. “How did I know you were going to say that?”

  We weren’t upstairs that long, but when we got back downstairs to the shop, all but the front window lights were off, and there was no sign of Monsieur Lavoie. For one panicked moment, I thought we’d been locked in. I was already formulating what I’d say to my head teller the next morning to explain why I was late when we heard a noise near the back door.

  I peeked outside. Beyla and the man she called Drago were gone. The only one around was Monsieur Lavoie. I was just in time to see him toss something in the Dumpster near the door.

  He saw me and just about jumped out of his skin. “Oh! You are done. Already!” He tried for a smile that wasn’t exactly convincing, then waved us outside. “We will lock the door behind you, yes? You have what you were looking for?”

  Eve held up her arm, displaying the watch.

  “Very good. Then we are ready to say good night, no?” He backed away from the Dumpster, distancing himself from whatever he’d been doing. “I will see you both tomorrow, yes?”

  Even before we had a chance to answer, he locked the door and scampered into the shadows.

  “Well, that was odd.” I peered into the dark, but the chef had disappeared around the side of the building. In fact, the only sound I heard was that of a car door slamming and an engine starting up. I had no doubt it was Monsieur Lavoie hightailing it out of there.

  “Maybe he’s got a hot date.” Eve laughed. “Wish I did. We could head over to that bar on Wilson and see who’s there tonight.”

  “Or not.” We stepped out of the circle of light thrown by the security lamp near the back door and into the shadows, heading in the opposite direction from Monsieur Lavoie. “Early morning tomorrow, remember? We’re getting ready for the yearly audit and-”

  The rest of my words dissolved in a little squeal of surprise when I tripped over something.

  Something big.

  I regained my footing and looked over to where Eve had stopped to see what was wrong. She’d been walking on my right, and whatever I stumbled over, she skirted without incident.

  I spun around, squinting through the darkness to make out what I had run into. But all that I could see was something that look like a black garbage bag lying right in what had been my path.

  “Except it’s too big to be a garbage bag,” I mumbled.

  “Huh?” Eve came a couple steps closer. “What are you talking about, Annie? Of course it’s a garbage bag. What else could it-”

  My flashlight was still at the top of my bag. I dragged it out and flicked
it on.

  I slid the beam along the hulking shape and saw that what I’d mistaken for a black trash bag was really a black coat. Leather.

  Drago was still inside it. He was sprawled on the pavement, one hand clutching at his chest. His face was pale, covered with sweat, and contorted with pain.

  Four

  “ANNIE?” EVE LATCHED ONTO MY ARM SO TIGHT, I knew I’d have bruises by morning. Her breathing was fast and shallow, her eyes wide. “Is that what I think it is? Is it who I think it is? Is he-”

  I swallowed hard and reminded myself not to go bonkers. That wouldn’t help anybody. Besides, it looked like Eve was on the edge of bonkers herself. And that was plenty for both of us.

  I skimmed the light over the body on the pavement. “It’s what you think it is,” I told Eve. “It’s who you think it is. I don’t know if he’s-”

  Once upon a very long time ago, I had thought about being a nurse, and I’d done some volunteer work at a hospital. It was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. Like I said, a long time ago. But some things you learn you never forget.

  I bent and felt for a pulse the way I’d seen the nurses on the floor do it. “It’s weak, but it’s there,” I told Eve. I looked over my shoulder at her, my own panic forgotten in light of the fact that now I knew that we had to act, and fast. “Call 911.”

  “Call?” In the gloom, I saw the whites of Eve’s eyes. She blinked, stunned and afraid. “Maybe we should just get out of here, huh? Beyla said she was going to kill him, Annie. And it sure looks like she tried.” She darted a look around the dark back lot. “What if she comes after us?”

  It would have been easy to buy into the argument and the panic. Except that we didn’t have time for theories, especially ones as goofy as that one.

  I made sure to keep my voice level and my words neutral. What Eve needed right now was reassurance. Like it or not, the only place she was going to get it was from me.

  “Nobody’s coming after anybody,” I told her. “No matter what she said, Beyla didn’t do this.” I glanced over to where Drago lay. “I’m no expert, but I’d say that it looks like he’s having a heart attack. And she couldn’t have caused a heart attack, could she? We can’t run off and leave him, Eve. We need to help him. Give me your phone.”

  My words didn’t penetrate, and I cursed Eve for being hypersensitive and myself for leaving my own cell phone at home. Except for my mom and dad down in Florida and my brother, Larry, out in Colorado, no one ever called. The way I’d figured it, there was no way I’d need my phone at cooking class.

  I’d figured wrong.

  “Phone,” I said again, slower this time so she’d get the message. “He’s still alive, Eve. But he’s not going to be if we don’t do something and do it fast. We’ve got to call an ambulance. He needs help. Now.”

  “Help. Right. Gotcha!” Eve shook herself out of her daze. Her hands trembling, she patted down the side pockets of her khaki skirt. “Not here,” she said. “Left my phone in the car.”

  “Then maybe you should go get it?”

  “Get it? Yeah.”

  But Eve was rooted to the spot.

  “Eve!” I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t have a lot of choice. I raised my voice. “Eve, go to your car. Get your phone. Call 911.”

  “Call. Yeah.” She nodded. But she didn’t move.

  “All right. Give me the keys.” I held out my hand. “I’ll get the phone and make the call. You stay with the dying guy.”

  “Dying?” When she turned them on me, Eve’s eyes were filled with tears, and her face was as ashen as Drago’s. “You mean, you think he’s gonna…” She swallowed hard. “I couldn’t stay here. I mean… I would but… but what if you’re not back and… what if he… I mean… I couldn’t. I-”

  “Right.” I grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face the street where we’d parked. “Then go get your phone.”

  “Phone. Yeah. Right.” She took off toward the car.

  With that taken care of, I concentrated on Drago. And Drago… well, he wasn’t doing well.

  “Drago?” I knelt on the pavement, afraid to get too close to a stranger, but reluctant not to offer what comfort I could to a fellow human being in need. With one finger, I gave him a little nudge. He groaned, and I figured it was a good sign.

  “Drago, my name is Annie. My friend Eve went for her phone. We’re going to get somebody here to help you.”

  His eyes flickered open. His gaze wandered aimlessly, to the building where Très Bonne Cuisine was housed, to the stars that twinkled in the navy blue sky above our heads, and finally to a tree just over my left shoulder, near where Eve and I had taken cover so that Beyla and Drago wouldn’t see us as we watched them argue.

  Just thinking back to everything we heard and saw made a chill race up my spine.

  It turned to ice when Drago’s gaze fastened on me.

  He groped for my hand, and when he found it, he hung on like there was no tomorrow. For all I knew, for Drago, there wouldn’t be.

  “Al… bas… tru.” His voice was no more than a breath, and it was even more heavily accented than Beyla’s.

  “Alabaster?” I wondered if it was the name of his favorite dog. Or his wife. Or if he had some weird lapidary thing going on. “Is that what you said? Alabaster?”

  “Alba… stru.” He didn’t so much speak the words as they leaked out of him on the end of a sigh. He reached up and touched my cheek.

  His hands were icy. I jerked back, startled.

  Just as quickly, I felt as guilty as hell.

  Human being in need, remember?

  I told myself to get a grip and pressed Drago’s clammy hand between both of mine. “Alba Stru? Is it someone’s name? I don’t know any Alba Stru, but I’ll tell you one thing, Drago, I’ll find her if that’s what you want. When you’re better. Right now, though, you don’t need to worry about that. We’re getting help. You just hang on-you’re going to be all right.”

  Drago gasped from the pain. His breaths came quicker, each one a little more shallow than the last.

  Where he found the strength, I don’t know, but he pulled his hand from mine. He groped for the breast pocket of his coat, and when he brought his hand out again, he had a piece of paper clutched in his fingers.

  “This… important. You will see.” He pressed the paper into my hand, and I glanced at it. It was a receipt from a restaurant calledBucharest. Important? It didn’t seem likely, not unless Drago was counting calories and wanted to prove he had a sensible diet.

  I turned the receipt over. Scrawled on the back side was what looked to be an address. But what did it mean?

  I was just about to ask when Drago moaned. His body convulsed. I shoved the paper into my jacket pocket so that I could hold his hand again. I squeezed his fingers, and he took a sharp breath, holding it in a long time. Then, with a sound that reminded me of the murmur of wind through the trees, he slowly let it out.

  It disappeared into the night air, and on the end of it, Drago went still.

  “Drago?” I rubbed his hand between mine.

  No response.

  “Drago, can you hear me?”

  I was talking pretty loud, but he didn’t respond.

  “Drago, you’ve got to hang on for just a couple more minutes.”

  I looked into the eyes that were open and staring right through me, but there was nothing happening behind them.

  “Drago?”

  I don’t know how long I knelt there beside his body. I don’t even know if I cried. I do know that I felt helpless.

  It wasn’t until I heard Eve come huffing and puffing into the lot that I leaned back on my heels.

  “Too late,” I said, glancing up at her.

  Eve’s expression fell. “What do you mean, too late? I called 911. They’re on their way.”

  As if on cue, we heard the distant sounds of sirens. They got closer, and before we knew it, the area behind Très Bonne Cuisine was awash in pulsing re
d light.

  The paramedics were gems. They moved in and moved us back so they could get to work administering CPR. When that didn’t work, they shocked Drago with one of those portable defibrillators. But the whole thing went on too long. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. I knew it wasn’t a good sign, even before I heard one of them say something about “no use.”

  At some point, I realized Eve was crying. I put an arm around her shoulders and together, we watched the flurry of activity and the expressions of the paramedics that started out with so much intensity melt into despair and then resignation. Through it all, I felt drained and strangely ghoulish.

  Was it right for us to stand there and watch?

  Should we have minded our own business and gotten on with our lives and left these men to their work?

  Was there anything we could have done? Anything that would have changed the outcome? Anything that could have kept poor Drago from…

  “I’m calling it.” Wiping one hand across his forehead, the paramedic in charge backed away from the body.

  I gave Eve’s shoulders a squeeze. “You’re shivering.”

  She sniffed and scrubbed a finger under her nose. “I’ve never seen anybody die before.”

  “No. Me, neither.” Technically, of course, Eve hadn’t seen Drago die, but I wasn’t about to argue. In this case, close definitely counted. “It’s so sad. Dying in a parking lot with nobody around but strangers.”

  “Beyla probably planned it that way,” Eve murmured.

  I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t be too hard on Eve. Though she tried for a tough-girl exterior, I knew that right below the surface, Eve was as soft as a marshmallow. Wild theories or no wild theories, just being this close to death-even the death of a man we knew only in passing-was bound to throw her for a loop.

  “Beyla had nothing to do with this,” I reminded her. As they laid a white sheet over Drago’s face, I remembered his last, labored words.

  A couple of the paramedics went back to the ambulance to get a stretcher and I hurried over to the head paramedic, whose nametag identified him as Sean. He was a muscular guy with a serious face and buzz cut. He had a clipboard in his hand, and was filling out a report.