Cooking Up Murder

by Miranda Bliss

  “Beyla and John aren’t here.” I don’t know why it hadn’t registered before but now I noticed that their workstation was empty. I threw out the comment to Eve, who was busy working her own dough on the counter beside Jim. “They’ve never missed class before.”

  Jim commented before Eve could. “They called. Each of them. John said he had to work. Some unexpected meeting. And Beyla said she wasn’t feeling well.”

  “I’ll bet.” Eve pursed her lips and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. Her hands were deep inside her dough, and she pushed it, folded it, and flipped it as expertly as if she’d been a bread baker in some past life. “I hear that killing people makes you feel not so good.”

  I shot her a warning glance at the same time Jim turned to her with a glimmer of interest in his eyes. “You think so?” he asked.

  I knew I had to intervene before she did any more damage to our investigation. I dipped my hands in the bowl of flour. “Better get going on this,” I said, my voice as sprightly as anyone’s can be who isn’t actually looking forward to what needs to be done. I sank my hands into the dough. “We don’t have all the time in the world, and…”

  And I forgot that Jim was already kneading the dough.

  We met in a silky, glutinous sort of grasp. Our hands slid across each other’s, then stuck.

  Zen or no Zen, I forgot to breathe.

  Jim was apparently not having the same problem. He settled his hands a little more comfortably under mine and smiled. “You finally seem to be getting the hang of this! Now decide. Hard or soft?”

  “Soft.” The word came out of me on the end of a little gasp, and when I felt Jim’s hands twitch like he was going to pull away, I automatically held on a little tighter. “No, hard,” I said. “Definitely hard.”

  “Hard it is then.” He gave me a wink and slid his hands out from under mine. “You go ahead and give it a try while I see how everyone else is doing.”

  Except that even after he walked away, I couldn’t move a muscle. I was frozen there, my hands in the goo that I knew would never be decent-tasting bread, my breath trapped behind a knot in my throat, my heart ramming against my ribs like the bass line in a heavy metal rock song.

  “Oh, that was good!” Eve practically purred the words, and I wondered if she was making fun of me. But when I looked at her, she was grinning.

  “I didn’t look like a dope?” I asked.

  “Honey, you couldn’t look like a dope if you tried.”

  My spirits were buoyed, but there was only so long they could stay afloat.

  My shoulders drooped. “I looked like a dope. He thinks I’m a dope.”

  She clicked her tongue and flipped her dough. “If he thought you were a dope, he wouldn’t have asked to meet with us tonight.”

  My turn to click my tongue. “You don’t think he wants to see me, do you?”

  Eve raised her eyebrows, but she didn’t have a chance to answer. Jim was back at the front of the room, calling for our attention. He told us to finish up our kneading, and showed us how to grease the container we’d use to let our dough rise. By the time I’d flipped my globe of dough in the container to grease it on all sides and covered the whole thing with plastic wrap, I’d decided the why-did-Jim-really-want-to-talk-to-us thing wasn’t worth discussing. Who was I kidding, anyway? Anytime Eve and I were in a room together, guys only had eyes for her.

  Except for Peter.

  The thought snuck up on me and smacked me like I’d been thwacking my dough ball. Annoyed with myself, I shook my head and tucked the container with the dough in it on the shelf under our workstation.

  “It’s difficult to say how long it will take for your dough to double in size,” Jim told the class. “So we’ll take a break now. Rising time depends on the temperature of the air and of your dough. The amount of yeast you used makes a difference, too. Drafts cause problems: they’ll make your dough rise too slowly and unevenly, so make sure you’ve got it wrapped good and tight.”

  I did all that and washed my hands. I was just about to ask Eve if she wanted to head over to the natural foods store for a yogurt when she informed me that she had other things to do.

  “Tony.” She held up her cell phone. “You remember? The librarian? I’ll run outside and do that and pick you up a sandwich. You want ham or roast beef?” she asked, but before I even had a chance to answer, she was already out the door.

  The other members of the class scattered. Jim disappeared into the kitchen area where we washed up our pots and pans, and I didn’t want to risk going after him and looking pathetic.

  I drummed my fingers against the countertop, considering my options. I decided I might as well keep playing detective.

  I took a deep breath and strolled over to Beyla and John’s workstation. It was as clean as a whistle. I checked out Jim’s workstation at the front of the classroom, too. I suppose if I really wanted to find something, I would have given it more than a quick once-over. But I wasn’t a real detective, and as I mentioned before, I didn’t want Jim to be a bad guy. Besides, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing suspicious.

  That took care of our suspects here at Très Bonne Cuisine-all except one.

  I gathered up my purse and went off in search of Monsieur Lavoie.

  HE WASN’T DOWNSTAIRS IN THE SHOP. HE WASN’T IN the back storeroom, either, or in the tiny, neat-as-a-pin office I could see through a doorway behind the front counter where jars of Vavoom! were lined up in tidy, come-and-get-me rows.

  In fact, Monsieur Lavoie was nowhere to be found.

  A real detective would have been suspicious. After all, it was Saturday afternoon, and though the store was empty at the moment, the streets outside were chock-full of summer tourists. The man had a business to run. How could he do that when he wasn’t even in the store?

  Of course, I wasn’t a real detective, even though I was pretending to be one. Though Monsieur’s absence offended my sense of order and challenged my concept of customer service, I didn’t see how it affected our case.

  I was just about to chalk the whole thing up as a big ol’ nothing and head out for that yogurt when I heard a noise outside the back door.

  Like the sound of glass breaking.

  Maybe I was getting into the whole girl-detective schtick after all, because before I even realized it, I was heading to the back door, curious to know exactly what was going on.

  Don’t get me wrong: I still wasn’t a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants sort of person like Eve. Before I got to the door, I grabbed one of the wooden meat tenderizing mallets on display with the other cooking utensils. After all, Drago had been murdered in that parking lot. I wasn’t going to take any chances.

  I leaned my ear to the door and heard another piece of glass shatter. Carefully, I turned the knob and just as cautiously, I opened the door just a crack. Nothing could have surprised me more than what I saw: Monsieur Lavoie. He was standing at least fifteen feet away from the Dumpster. One by one, he was chucking glass bottles into it. Just like he’d been doing the night Drago died.

  “Monsieur?”

  He spun around when he heard my voice and tucked his hands behind his back. Though he tried for a smile, his complexion was ashen.

  “So, you are… how do you say it? Breaking, yes?” Monsieur shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. He looked over my shoulder toward the door. “Your classmates, they are coming out here, too?”

  “No. Just me.” Before the little Frenchman could see that I was using his stock as a potential weapon, I set the meat tenderizer down on the nearest counter and stepped into the parking lot. I closed the door behind me. “Speaking of breaking, I heard some noise. I thought maybe something was wrong.”

  “Wrong?” He laughed in that Gallic way that made me think of Pepe LePew. “What could be wrong on a day like today? It is beautiful, yes?”

  It was, and I wasn’t about to argue the fact. I stepped toward the street, poking my thumb over my shoulder in the g
eneral direction of the whole foods store. “I’m just heading out for a yogurt. Can I bring you back something?”

  “No, no.” Monsieur’s smile jiggled around the edges like a poorly set Jell-O mold. “I am fine. Really. You can just run along, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Well… good-bye.” I set off across the parking lot and over to the sidewalk where just a few days before, Eve and I had stood and watched Beyla and Drago have a knock-down-drag-out. As I did, I noticed Monsieur Lavoie turned completely around to watch me leave. It might have been the most natural thing in the world, but I couldn’t help but notice that by doing so, he made sure I couldn’t get a look at what he was holding behind his back.

  Was I finally thinking like a detective?

  Maybe, because as I walked away, I had already decided I knew two things.

  Number one: He didn’t want me to see whatever he was holding.

  And number two?

  That was pretty much a no-brainer. Monsieur Lavoie could have disposed of the whatever-it-was simply by tossing it over the side of the Dumpster. But he didn’t.

  Whatever he was getting rid of, Monsieur wanted to make sure it was gone for good. As in smashed to smithereens.

  Apparently whatever it was, he wanted to make sure no one else found it, either.

  “I’VE GOT SOMETHING FOR YOU.”

  Eve was waiting for me at our cooking station when I got back from our lunch break. I half laughed, wondering how a roast beef or a ham sandwich could cause the shimmer of excitement in her eyes. But then I noticed that she wasn’t holding either. Suddenly, I was glad that I’d had that yogurt after all.

  “Bread dough?” I put away my purse and pulled out my own bowl. The dough inside was as flat as a pancake. “Looks like I could use some.”

  “No, silly.” Eve made a face and looked around to make sure no one was listening.

  I looked around, too, and just like my dough, my spirits fell. All around us, our fellow students were returning from lunch and checking on their creations. I could hear their murmurs of amazement when they saw how what had been heavy, dense balls of water and flour had magically transformed into light and airy clouds of yeasty-smelling wonder.

  “I’ve got something better than bread dough.”

  Eve’s word yanked me away from my thoughts, and I remembered that she wasn’t the only one who’d accomplished something on our lunch hour.

  “I’ve got something, too,” I told her. “Information. About Monsieur Lavoie. He’s up to something. He was out in the back parking lot smashing glass.”

  Eve dismissed my findings with a shake of her shoulders. “This is better,” she said.

  “But it could mean something. Whatever he was breaking into a million little pieces, it was obvious he didn’t want anyone to find it. Or identify it. What if it was-”

  “Foxglove?” Eve stuck something so close to my nose, I had to back up so that my eyes could focus and see what it was. It was a thin glass vial stopped with a cork, filled with what looked like a dried herb.

  “Foxglove?” I parroted the word and automatically grabbed for the vial. Not that I knew what I was looking for, but I turned it in my fingers, studying the dark green leaves from every angle. “How do you know?”

  “Well, what else could it be?” Eve rolled her eyes. “That’s what Drago died from, wasn’t it? Foxglove poisoning.”

  “And you’re thinking of using it yourself now?”

  Eve wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “She left it here,” she said, with a meaningful look at Beyla’s empty workstation. “That’s where I found it.”

  “You did?” I thought back to the inspection I’d done before I headed downstairs. “No way. I looked.”

  “In the drawers?”

  Of course not. I never would have dared.

  I didn’t need to explain that to Eve. That’s the thing with a best friend-she knew more about me than I did about myself. Including that I’d never do anything that rash, that sneaky, or that borderline dishonest.

  Now she also knew that I could have cracked our case wide open and didn’t. Because I was too cautious to take a chance.

  My gaze traveled to Beyla’s station. Like ours, it was complete with a cupboard for pots and pans, a shelf (where we’d left our bread dough to rise), and two drawers. I knew one of my drawers had knives and graters and meat thermometers and such in it. I kept my purse in the other. “You mean-”

  “Did I snoop? You betcha!” Eve grinned. “It was worth it, too, wasn’t it? Look at it, Annie. Isn’t it amazing?”

  I took another gander at the vial of dried herbs in my hand.

  “But how do you know-”

  “Come on, what else could it be? I’d bet anything this is the stuff she used to try to poison you in class last night.”

  The very thought made my stomach a little queasy. I pushed the vial back into Eve’s hands. “No way.”

  “Why not?”

  “She wouldn’t be so dumb as to leave it here.”

  “She didn’t think anyone would find it. I mean, not without a warrant or subpoena or whatever. Besides, Beyla didn’t know she wasn’t going to be here today-she couldn’t have known she was going to get sick. She was probably going to take another shot at killing you.”

  “Oh, that’s a pleasant thought!” I angled a look at the vial before Eve tucked it in her purse. “How are we going to find out for sure?”

  “What it is?” Eve wrinkled her nose. In her mind, she’d already made up her mind that the vial was filled with foxglove. She wasn’t anticipating my scepticism. “We can’t taste it.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “Somebody here might know.”

  “And we can’t take the chance of asking.”

  Eve’s golden brows dipped low over her eyes like they always did when she was thinking hard. “I know!” Her eyes lit. “I’ve got just the person who can help us. We’ll go see her tonight. After class.”

  “Not tonight we can’t,” I reminded her, just as Jim stepped out of the kitchen and toward the front of the room.

  Eve took a look at him, and her excited expression melted. “I forgot.”

  Honestly, I didn’t know how it was possible.

  I’d been trying to forget. And between playing detective, trying to deduce what Monsieur Lavoie was up to, going to get that yogurt for lunch, and stopping for that double scoop of chocolate raspberry from the ice cream place I passed on my way back from the whole foods store-just to settle my nerves-I’d nearly done it, too.

  Nearly.

  Because just thinking of spending time with Jim after class made me feel as light as a cloud and as airy as my bread dough wasn’t. And just thinking that I’d been invited along only because he was being polite…

  I imagined myself smiling and waving good-bye as he headed up the river.

  “Get a grip, Annie,” I muttered to myself. I had to keep it together long enough to find out how much Jim knew. He was getting uncomfortably interested in our investigation, and Eve and I couldn’t afford to take any chances.

  Besides, it was just a couple of drinks.

  I glanced over at Eve, who was busy applying a fresh coat of lip gloss.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Ten

  “SIT STILL! RELAX! YOU’RE DOING FINE.”

  I wasn’t.

  For the umpteenth time since we arrived at Whitlow’s On Wilson, I shifted my position in the vinyl booth. “I just can’t get comfortable,” I told Eve.

  She glanced over to the bar where Jim had gone to get our drinks. “Stop worrying, will you. He’s not looking at you under a microscope.”

  “No, he’s looking atyou under a microscope.” I sighed.

  Eve stuck out her tongue.

  I did the Zen thing again, drawing in a breath through my nose and letting it out through my mouth. By the time Jim sidestepped his way through the crowd between the bar and our table and showed up with Eve’s lite beer and a glass of Char
donnay for me, I was almost human again.

  Almost.

  He went back to the bar for his own drink, and I leaned over to Eve.

  “What if he wants to talk about cooking?”

  I cringed at the memory of the loaf of bread I’d produced earlier that day. If NASA ever needed a substitute for moon rocks, something told me they’d give me a call.

  “Don’t worry about it!” Eve laughed. She could afford to; her bread was light and airy and delicious. “You heard what Jim said back in class. He said good bread takes practice. I was just lucky, that’s all.”

  “And I’m a disaster.” I pretended to sip my Chardonnay, but I was really watching Jim over the rim of my glass.

  “Honestly, Annie, Peter needs to be drawn and quartered. No, that’s too good a fate for that no-good, lying cheat.” Eve’s lips thinned, her eyes narrowed. I’d seen that look before, and I knew she was imagining some kind of bizarre revenge that she’d talk about with glee but never carry out. “What that man did to your self-esteem is criminal.”

  The word snapped me back to reality.

  “Speaking of criminal…” It wasn’t easy to see past the groups of people standing between us and the bar-I had to sit up and crane my neck. If I leaned just the right way, I could look between a tall, bald guy with his back to me and a woman in a red sequined top and too-big hair to see Jim paying for the drinks. I needed a moment to talk to Eve before he got back to the table. “You don’t think he’s involved, do you?”

  “Jim?” Eve’s eyebrows shot up. It was clear this was one piece of the puzzle she hadn’t considered before. “No.” She shook her head, convinced. “He’s too much of a hottie.”

  “Hot has nothing to do with it.”

  “He’s too friendly.”

  “Maybe because he wants to find out how much we know.”

  “He’s too-”

  “Talking about cooking, are you?”

  The way Jim saidcooking made my knees weak. He pronounced it likekook.

  Kooking.

  It was adorable.