Cooking Up Murder

by Miranda Bliss

  “Got it,” Eve said. I would like to say that she took off running but… well, remember those three-inch heels. Eve took off striding gracefully in one direction. In my sensible sneakers, I hurried off in the other.

  Of course,hurried is a relative word.

  The sidewalks were packed, and I sidestepped a lady with a stroller, a man walking a sickly looking poodle, and a Japanese family taking pictures outside the pub and brew house next door to the Angel Emporium. Even before I got swallowed up by the crowd patiently waiting for the light to change at the next cross street, I knew I was getting nowhere fast.

  I stood on tiptoe and craned my neck, attempting to see over the heads of the people all around me. Across the street and three stores up, I thought I saw a flash of black. I didn’t know if it was Beyla’s clothing, Beyla’s hair, or if it was Beyla at all, but I knew that I had to find out. I excused my way through the crowd, looked both ways at the corner, and took off running across the street just steps ahead of a Dash About bus.

  I had no sooner leapt onto the opposite sidewalk than a man stepped out of an alley right in front of me. We were outside a little sidewalk café, and with tables on one side of me, the building on the other, and the man blocking my path, I was trapped like the proverbial dirty rat.

  And Beyla-if it really was Beyla-was putting more distance between us with every second that passed.

  “Excuse me!” The man blocking my way was tall, thin, and bald. His back was to me, and he seemed to be busy looking at something down the street. I raised my voice so he could hear me above the sounds of traffic. “Excuse me,” I said again when he didn’t respond. “I need to get by.”

  Still nothing. I tapped him on the back.

  He turned, startled, and I let out a little gasp. I was face-to-face with Yuri Grul, Drago’s former partner.

  If Yuri was surprised to see me, he didn’t stay that way for long. He took one look over his shoulder, another at me, and one more at the crowd that was coming our way like a wave, now that the light had changed.

  Without a word, he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the alley he’d just stepped out of.

  We were sandwiched between the café and the boutique next door. It was shady and damp, and after the press of the crowd and the summer heat that rippled off the sidewalk, I felt suddenly chilled. I hugged my arms around my chest and wondered if I should listen to the cautious voice inside my head-the one that reminded me that I shouldn’t be alone with a man I barely knew, out of sight of the crowd. The one that whispered the wordmurder and told me not to forget that whether or not I was playing detective, I might be playing with fire.

  But Yuri was blocking the mouth of the alley. And one step in the other direction put me even farther into the shadows.

  I had only one option: I stood my ground and raised my chin. “What are you doing here?” I asked him in my most challenging tone.

  Yuri stared at me, his expression unreadable. He’d been puffing on a long, thin cigarette, and after he took the last drag, he tossed the butt on the ground and crunched it under the sole of his expensive sneaker. When he blew out a long stream of smoke, I leaned downwind.

  “You are Miss Capshaw. From the gallery. You are following her?”

  It took me a couple seconds to figure out what-and who-he was talking about.

  Yuri could obviously read the surprise on my face. A slow smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “You are police?” he asked.

  I knew I had to regain my composure, and fast. I shook my head. “No. Not police. I’m…” What was I? And how could I even begin to explain it to Yuri?

  I decided on the truth. Or at least part of the truth.

  “I’m a bank teller at Pioneer Savings and Loan. But I go to school with Beyla. We take a cooking class together at Très Bonne Cuisine. I was in a store over there…” I poked my thumb over my shoulder roughly in the direction of the Angel Emporium. “And I thought I saw her walk by. I wanted to catch up with her. To say hello.”

  “You do not try to arrest her?”

  OK, so maybe I’m a little slow. Chalk it up to the heat or to the fact that I was a novice when it came to this whole detective game. It took me a while to process what Yuri was saying. When I finally did, it hit me like the smell of the men’s locker room at the gym where Peter and I used to take couples aerobics.

  I staggered back against the brick wall behind me. “You sound like you expect the police to be following her. That means you think she’s guilty. Are you saying…” Eve and I discussing our theory of the crime was one thing. But hearing our theory echoed by an almost stranger… well, I suddenly knew how Chris Columbus must have felt the first time someone slapped him on the back and told him that he’d been right about that whole the-world-is-round thing all along.

  I sucked in a breath to steady my voice. “Are you telling me you think she’s guilty? You are, aren’t you? You think Beyla killed Drago. Or do you know it for a fact?”

  This time, Yuri’s smile was quicker. And grimmer.

  “So, this is why you follow her.” He nodded, and somehow that one gesture said it all. Yuri and I were in agreement: he thought Beyla was guilty, too.

  Yuri’s thin fingers fidgeted with the big metal buckle on his belt. “What is it you see?” he asked.

  “See? Nothing.” That was the truth, too. Listening to myself say it, I realized how totally lame it sounded. I decided to stick with my original half truth. “She walked by the store where I was shopping,” I said. “I told you, I just wanted to say hello. But she saw me and she ran away.”

  “This is so?” But he didn’t wait for me to respond. He lit another cigarette and took two long, slow drags. His eyes narrowed as if he was thinking very hard. “You saw from where she came?” he asked.

  I hadn’t. At least I didn’t need to lie about that part of the story.

  “You know where she is going?”

  I didn’t, except for the Angel Emporium part of the equation. But right about now, that didn’t seem to matter as much as the fact that Yuri had put the kibosh on this part of my investigation. “How was I supposed to figure out where she’s going when you stopped me from following her?” I asked him. “And what are you doing here, anyway? Why are you following Beyla? Are you investigating, too?”

  Yuri’s eyes were small and dark. His gaze darted away from me as if he was uncomfortable with what he had to say. “Drago Kravic, he was like a brother to me. And you said it, yes? You said that Beyla killed him.”

  “You know this for certain? For real?” I took a step closer to him, intrigued and eager to know more. “Can you prove it? Should we go to the police?”

  “No, no. No police. Not yet. It might be… how would you say this… bad luck, yes? It would ruin everything. First, we must have proof.”

  “We do. Or at least a little bit of proof.” I reached in my purse and pulled out the vial. “It’s foxglove. It belongs to Beyla. I even know where she bought it.”

  I swear, at that moment, Yuri looked as beatific as one of the angels over in the Emporium. When he reached toward the vial, his hand quivered. “And this, it is Beyla’s? You are certain of this?”

  I nodded, but when I tried to give the vial to him, he pulled his hand back to his side.

  “You must keep it safe,” he said. “If the police are looking for evidence, this is perfect, yes? With this and the disc-” As if he was afraid he’d said too much, he stopped abruptly and gave me another long, careful look. If we were in the bank, and I was on one side of the teller station and he was on the other, I might have thought he was going to rob the place. That’s how intense that look was. He must have known it, too, because he erased the expression and gave me what was almost a smile of apology.

  “I am sorry. My mind is busy. Preoccupied. I am thinking, perhaps, that you might be able to help me.”

  “Help you prove Beyla is the killer? It’s exactly what Eve and I have been trying to do all along. Or at least what Eve’s been trying to
do. I haven’t been so sure-until now. Now that I know this is foxglove…” Suddenly, the herb in the vial made me queasier than ever. I tucked it back in my purse. “I’ll have to turn it over to the police,” I told Yuri and reminded myself. “I suppose it’s pretty compelling evidence.”

  This time, Yuri’s smile was wide and broad. He breathed a sigh of relief. “I am so glad. So glad you have found such a thing. And so glad that I do not have to search for the truth by myself any longer. I have an ally, yes? And a pretty one at that.”

  I was so ingrained with the Eve-is-gorgeous-and-then-there’s-Annie frame of mind, I almost didn’t realize Yuri was talking about me. Until I realized he was looking at my chest.

  He took a step forward.

  I took a step back and smiled in a way that was friendly. But not too friendly. “An ally when it comes to investigating and nothing else,” I said. It was best to get that straight right there and then. “Tell me, how do you know Beyla is guilty? And what’s this about a disc?”

  Lucky for me, Yuri knew when to back off. He refocused his eyes on mine. “Drago and Beyla…” He shook his head, like he was trying to find the right words. “There has been bad blood between them for many years. They were lovers once, you know. Back in Romania. Now, they feel nothing but hate for each other. As only former lovers can.”

  Yeah, I understood that.

  “But why kill him?” I asked. “Why now?”

  Yuri scraped a hand over his head. “It is complicated. And I, I am not certain. Otherwise I would have gone to the police with this story. But I think that Beyla, she has stolen money from Drago. From the gallery. I think Drago had proof that she took the money. The day he died, he told me there was something we needed to talk about. Something serious. I believe…” He paused. Though he wasn’t an attractive man, there was a sort of straightforwardness about Yuri, a frankness that made me feel sorry for him. He had to relay all this painful information, and in a language he wasn’t comfortable with.

  “You think the disc contains proof that Beyla took Drago’s money and killed him because of it.”

  Yuri smiled, relieved that I’d helped him out. “That is it. Just so. It is a disc. You know, like for computer. Like for DVD. It was Drago’s. Ours. It was in the gallery.”

  “And now you can’t find it.” One by one, every fact Eve and I had discovered was falling into place. I smiled, pretty pleased with myself. “Beyla’s the one who trashed the office at the gallery. She was looking for the disc. And you think she found it.”

  Yuri nodded. “This is why I follow her, thinking she will lead me to it. Hoping she will show me where she has hidden it. This is why we must keep our eyes on her. We must find the disc. Maybe she has already destroyed it. I do not know. But I know I must try to find it. You will help me? You will make sure that Drago’s killer is brought to justice?”

  I nodded, and he smiled. As we prepared to part ways, Yuri and I exchanged phone numbers and promised to keep in touch. He slipped out of the alley into the street; after he was out of sight, I turned the corner in the other direction.

  A thought struck me when I reached the crosswalk: today’s trip to Old Town Alexandria had been a lot more successful than I ever expected. We knew that the herb in Beyla’s vial was foxglove. We knew she had a connection to the Angel Emporium and that she was plenty worried that Eve and I were closing in on her-otherwise, she never would have run when she saw us. And now, we had Yuri’s input and support.

  Most importantly, we knew about the disc. We now had something concrete to focus on and search for.

  All in all, things were looking good. Our investigation was cooking along just right.

  OUR INVESTIGATION WAS GOING ALL WRONG.

  I knew this for a fact because no sooner did we walk into class that night than Eve insisted we confront Beyla.

  And no sooner did we confront Beyla about her relationship with Drago and her attendance at the opening of Arta and her quick trip into and out of the Angel Emporium than she gave us a blank look and an elegant little shrug that pretty much told us we were being absurd.

  “You are mixed up. Crazy in the head.” Apparently, Beyla wasn’t very worried about either our mental states or our accusations. She went right on getting set up for class as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “You say you see me at Alexandria yesterday, but I tell you, I have never been there.”

  “Then you have a twin sister.” Eve tossed out the comment, then slapped the counter with one hand. “Hey, that’s it! Do you have a twin sister? That’s something we never thought about. If you do-”

  “Eve.” I knew I had to keep Eve in check. Better me than Beyla-I could just about see the words that were about to leave her lips. They weren’t going to be any prettier than the fierce glare that hardened her beautiful, exotic features. “I don’t think Beyla has a twin sister. Do you?”

  The rumbling noise Beyla made from deep in her throat was all the answer we needed.

  “Look, we’ve got proof,” I told Beyla, keeping my voice down and my stance casual so that our fellow students wouldn’t think we were talking about anything more important than tonight’s Poultry and Game menu. “We’ve got an old newspaper picture that shows you at Drago’s gallery.”

  Beyla’s hands stilled over her grocery sack. Her hesitation lasted only the blink of an eye, then she went right on emptying her bag. She pulled out a container of cream and set it on the counter.

  “And we’re not the only ones who saw you in Old Town,” I added without mentioning Yuri’s name. There was no use tipping our hand that much. “You can deny it all you want, but we know that you were there.”

  “And that’s not all.” Eve moved in close. “We’ve got the foxglove.”

  “What?” Beyla’s face turned as white as the flour she was just pulling out of the bag. She dropped it back into the sack and yanked open the top drawer in her workstation. It was empty. Of course it was. I still had the vial of foxglove in my purse.

  “You!” As if she knew which one of us was holding onto the purloined herb, Beyla’s gaze shifted from me to Eve and back to me, and I couldn’t help but think of that expression that starts out, “If looks could kill…”

  Because if looks could kill, I would have fallen down dead right then and there.

  Her temper so close to snapping that her entire body quivered, Beyla slammed the empty drawer closed and leaned in close, her voice low, her eyes on me. They were as steely as the blade of the knife that lay near her right hand. “You have no idea what you are dealing with,” she whispered. “Who you are dealing with. There are dangers, ones you do not understand. If you are not careful…”

  When she grabbed for the knife, I automatically jumped back.

  Beyla’s smile was sleek. She raised the blade to only an inch or so from her neck and made a slashing movement. “If you are not careful,” she said, “you might get hurt.”

  I’m pretty sure I didn’t answer her. What can you say when somebody just about comes right out and threatens to slit your throat? I don’t remember walking away, either. That’s probably because I was frozen on the spot. Too scared to move.

  The next thing I knew, Eve’s hand was on my arm and she was tugging me back across the room to our cooking station. When we got there, she let go of me, drew in a breath, and smiled.

  “I think that went really well,” she said. “We got a rise out of her. That means we’re making real progress.”

  WERE WE?

  Making progress, that is.

  It sure didn’t feel like it to me.

  I knew that I, for one, was definitely not making progress when it came to my cooking. Maybe it was because every time Jim came around, gave me a smile, and asked how I was doing, my stomach got fluttery, my temperature shot up, and my mind wandered about as far from cooking as it was possible to get.

  Maybe it was because every time I chanced a look her way, Beyla was glaring back at me, fingering that big ol’ knife with the big ol’ blade
.

  Good excuses?

  Not really, but I liked to think that if I wasn’t so distracted-both by Jim and by the thought of a gruesome act of violence being committed on me-I might have produced something better than the dry-as-dust Cornish hen I pulled out of the oven. And the duck with orange sauce… well, it’s best not to even go there.

  Of course, the whole time I was busy with the poultry from hell, my mind was racing.

  “Maybe she really is innocent.” I halfheartedly made the comment to Eve as she was finishing the last bits of her duck. She’d given me a taste, and it was as delicious as it looked. “Maybe she’s just pissed because we keep bothering her.”

  “Beyla?” As if I could be talking about anyone else. Eve shook her head. “No way. And besides, it’s not like we have any other suspects.”

  I set down the fork I was using to poke my duck to see if there was any scrap of meat on its bones that wasn’t shriveled. “Except that we do,” I murmured. Before she could say what I knew she was going to say-that we still had one more recipe to try, and that I was literally throwing in the towel by not sticking around for the venison stew-I threw in my pot holder, took off my apron, and headed downstairs to find Monsieur Lavoie.

  This time, I promised myself, I wasn’t going to let him weasel out of a heart-to-heart talk.

  “You’re hiding something.”

  Even I was surprised at the words that popped out of my mouth when I got downstairs and found him behind the front counter. But my instincts told me I was on the right track when Monsieur took one look at me and went as white as a ghost.

  He forced out a laugh. Below the counter, his hands moved nervously. Even his smile was anxious-it came and went, limp around the edges. “You are talking crazy.”

  It was the second time that night that I’d been called crazy. For all I knew, both Beyla and Monsieur Lavoie were right. But that wasn’t enough to stop me.