Stick a Fork In It

by Robin Allen

  “Was there anyone Troy did get along with?”

  He laughed without mirth. “With the right number of beers in him, he could get along just fine. Ever’body was his buddy then.”

  “What about the protesters?”

  “The prosti—”

  “Tree huggers.”

  “Oh, them. He didn’t like them either.”

  Miles looked like he had more in him, so I stayed still, quietly perspiring. But I had gotten all I was going to get because Rudy whistled to him from the back door.

  “I need to get back to the job, ma’am.”

  It had not been a productive interview. Miles didn’t tell me anything I couldn’t have deduced had I taken time to think about it. I had already seen Troy’s comedy/tragedy act, his love affair with alcoholic beverages that he carried on without shame in front of everyone, and his bumpy relationships with Todd, Danny, and Ginger.

  I had a lot of work ahead of me if I wanted to pursue my scrawny theory about Troy’s death not being what it seemed. Unless I ignored it. That would be easier. But if I had ignored my suspicions that a gourmet sandwich shop had been secretly substituting cheap pork for prime veal in their Better Calf sandwich, who knows how many more kosher Jews would be filling up their bathtubs for a mikveh. It’s not against health code to cheat the public, but it’s wrong. Within hours of Jamie posting his “You’ve Been Porked” exposé on his website, several rabbis had called for a cherem of the deli, and justice had been served.

  No, I couldn’t turn my back on Troy’s murder. Better to keep grinding away at clues until a solution started to percolate. I could let Troy get away with accidentally killing himself, but I wouldn’t let one of his inner circle get away with murder.

  x x x

  I went into the office to return Troy’s hard hat, which had always been available for me to use only because he never wore it. That would make sense if he wanted to end his life and hoped to have his skull crushed by a falling cinder block or a hammer, but that was no guarantee he would die. It could blind him or leave him paralyzed, wearing adult diapers and drooling. If it were me, I would think through the consequences of being that reckless.

  But this was Troy. He seemed to enjoy being careless—negligent, even. And everyone around him put up with it. Why? Todd was an equal partner and had as much say in how things were run as Troy did. I didn’t know if Danny had a money stake in this venture, but he had given up a good job in Dallas. He was the only one with the kind of restaurant experience this place needed, yet Troy had shut him down every time he spoke up.

  I put the hard hat on the desk but didn’t want them to think I had left without finishing the inspection. Not that I didn’t trust Miles, but the hot water not working was another blunder in a long list. It would be easy for him to save face by fixing the water and then claim it was working the whole time.

  I was out of business cards, so I attached a yellow sticky note to the hat: Checked sinks. No hot water. CU Th at 8. My handwriting with my hurt hand had improved a little, but it still looked like a tipsy ten-year-old had written it.

  I seemed to be quite alone in the kitchen, so I decided to do some covert snooping. In case anyone appeared, I pretended to check my backpack while I scanned the desk for anything interesting, like a million-dollar life insurance policy on Troy, dunning notices from suppliers, bank statements with a negative balance, or a suicide note. I saw nothing but restaurant paperwork: order confirmations from meat and produce vendors, a half-finished application for a liquor license, and equipment catalogs.

  I “accidentally” slid my backpack over the top layer of papers and shuffled some of them to the side, revealing handwriting on a legal pad. The pad was upside down, but I could make out the words corpse and last rites.

  Jackpot!

  fourteen

  I couldn’t believe someone would leave something like that laying around for just anyone to see! But I suppose if you’re dumb enough to take notes on a murder, you would be dumb enough to leave them out in the open.

  Sadness immediately replaced my elation at this discovery because a plan meant that Troy’s death was premeditated, and Todd and Danny had ganged up on him one last time.

  I poked my head out the door to make sure I was still alone, then pulled on rubber gloves and walked around the desk so I could read the paper right-side up. They were notes about death, but not Troy’s. I had momentarily forgotten the restaurant’s theme.

  It was the beginnings of a menu. It looked like Troy had started it because End Zone: Food to Die For! was written at the top, but the paper had the handwriting of three or four people. They listed their “visiting hours” as 24/7 365, then wrote menu headings, but with death-related words substituted for traditional ones, like First Offenses instead of appetizers, Main Corpses instead of entrées, and Last Rites instead of desserts.

  Then it appeared they had scrapped those headings because actual last meals include a little bit of everything and don’t lend themselves to separation into categories. The names of executed inmates were listed, followed by their entire last meal request.

  Dieters or vegetarians could order the Harry Charles Moore and get two green apples, two red apples, a tray of fresh fruit, and two 2-liter bottles of Coke, or the Karla Faye Tucker and get a salad with ranch dressing, a banana, and a peach.

  If you were in the mood for seafood, the Allen Lee Davis got you one lobster tail, a half-pound of fried shrimp, six ounces of fried clams, fried potatoes, half a loaf of garlic bread, and 32 ounces of A&W root beer.

  If you wanted breakfast, you could order the Mark Dean Schwab and get fried eggs over easy, bacon, sausage links, hash browns, buttered toast, and a quart of chocolate milk, or the Frank Coppola and get a cheese-and-egg sandwich.

  Really hungry and in the mood for Mexican? Ask for the David Castillo and get twenty-four tacos, six enchiladas, six tostadas, two cheeseburgers, two whole onions, five jalapeño peppers, a quart of milk, and a chocolate milkshake.

  If you wanted a little bit of everything, you could get the Dennis Wayne Bagwell: a medium-rare steak with A1 Steak Sauce, fried chicken breasts and thighs, barbeque ribs, French fries, onion rings, bacon, scrambled eggs with onions, fried potatoes with onions, sliced tomatoes, salad with ranch dressing, two hamburgers, peach pie, milk, coffee, and iced tea with real sugar, or the Robert Smith: steak, lobster, shrimp cocktail, chicken livers, meatballs, fried eggplant, a salad with blue cheese dressing, a small loaf of bread, a whole Boston cream pie, and three cans of Trevor’s favorite, Dr. Pepper.

  For the kids, there was the Margie Velma Barfield: Cheez Doodles and a Coke. Olive would enjoy that one. Or the Roger Dale Stafford: six foot-long hot dogs with chili and cheese, a large order of French fries, and two chocolate milkshakes. The Timothy McVeigh was two pints of mint chocolate-chip ice cream.

  Death row inmates have years to plan their last meals, which, I imagine, accounts for the culinarily incongruous combinations. They probably keep a running list of foods they’re dying to eat and when the time comes, ask for everything on it. I would still like to have rice, beans, and tater tots, and maybe a chocolate soy milkshake. I had heard of some death row inmates refusing to order a last meal. They were either in denial about their future or very hopeful for a last-minute stay of execution.

  Under the heading Name Your Poison, the guys had started a list of bar drinks. Their “signatory” cocktail, the Lethal Injection, was two shots of any liquor served in a syringe; Ol’ Sparky was a vodka martini with Tabasco sauce and jalapeño garnish; Contraband was a shot of Jack Daniels bourbon, neat; Executioner’s Song had a question mark after it, as did Guilty As Charged and Solitary Confinement. It reminded me that I still needed to come up with a drink to honor Trevor. Maybe call it Non Coupable?

  I stood by the opinion I had given Danny earlier: their concept was sick and twisted. A
ustin would love it.

  I heard a whump as the door leading in from the dining room flew open. “Todd?” Ginger called.

  I had two seconds to strip off my gloves and dart around to the front of the desk before Ginger appeared in the doorway looking like she had finished running four laps around Town Lake, a tight black tank top and matching shorts the only indication that she might be in mourning.

  “You again,” she said. “How long does an inspection take?”

  She had just lost her husband, and I thought I should be delicate with her, so instead of saying “It takes as long as it takes,” which is the answer an attitude like that always deserves, I said, “Usually not this long. They’ve had some construction delays.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Thanks to Miles Archer. Why Troy let those guys talk him into using a home remodeler to build this place, I’ll never know. And now they’re weeks behind.” She looked around the empty kitchen. “What did he muck up this time?”

  “There’s no hot water.”

  “Does Todd know?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “His car is out front.”

  “He and Danny left about thirty minutes ago.”

  Ginger smoothed her ponytail. “Do you happen to know where they went?”

  I waited for her to look at me before I answered. I didn’t want to miss the tiniest nonverbal reaction. “Todd mentioned an appointment with Suzi Grimm.”

  Nothing. Not even a twitch of an eyebrow or an involuntary intake of breath. Either she didn’t recognize the name or she was a better poker player than Johnny Chan. Or I was wrong about Suzi’s area of expertise.

  “Did he say when he would be back?” Ginger asked.

  I had been so sure Suzi’s name would break through her icy scaffold that I didn’t have a plan B. So I answered her question. “Nope.” And then I had a whole bunch of questions for one of my prime suspects. “Ginger, did you and Troy—”

  A phone rang, and she put hers to her ear before I could determine if it was her phone or mine. “Hello, Ginger Sharpe,” she said. She listened to her caller, then waved me out of the office and shut the door behind me.

  I stood on the other side and listened with all my auditory nerves, but she kept her voice low. A couple of workers came into the kitchen with paint buckets. They turned on a radio, blowing any chance of me overhearing anything through the office door. I waited for about five minutes, but Ginger never raised her voice or emerged, so I went out to my car, frustrated by yet another blockade.

  I knew that my murder theory was based on conjecture rather than facts, but so was the accidental death theory Danny and Todd believed. Both theories relied on Troy’s behavior and what the theorist believed about that behavior. I saw Troy as a hot dog who had probably never spent time alone except to go to the bathroom, and even that may have happened in front of an audience on a few occasions. Everyone else saw him as a hot dog who drank too much.

  I needed a new plan. But first I needed food.

  I called Mitch to see if he wanted to have a very late lunch or a very early dinner. Now that Drew had the restaurant under control, Mitch had his free time back. It would have happened regardless of who Mitch hired as general manager, but it happened a little faster with Drew, which was the only good thing, as far as I could tell, about Drew coming back.

  I wanted to apologize to my father for my earlier behavior, and I missed dining out with him. Nina believed she had permanent dibs on what little time he had away from the restaurant and kept him busy with needless shopping trips, boring country club parties, and inane complaints about her masseuse making her lie on 300-thread-count sheets rather than 600-count.

  “I’d love to, honey,” my father said, “but it’ll be awhile. I’m about to tee off at the back nine with Ari and Ira.” Mitch’s attorneys, the Gross brothers, were the only two seasoned golfers in Texas with enough patience to play with a man who thought they were talking about lettuce the first time they offered to split the greens fees.

  “That reminds me,” I said. “Is Suzi Grimm still the Grimm part of Grimm, Grimes, and Gross?”

  “She is, but let’s talk about this at dinner, okay?”

  “Okay, but just tell me if she’s still doing criminal defense.”

  “Vis-à-Vis at six o’clock,” he said.

  Overpriced and high-hat, Vis-à-Vis sounded like something Nina would choose, but I had to take my father where I could get him. “I hope you’re buying,” I said.

  x x x

  I had a couple of hours until dinner, but I didn’t have any work to do, and I had never developed any hobbies because growing up in a restaurant and working breakfast, lunch, and dinner doesn’t leave a person with much time for anything other than sleeping and eating and worrying themselves sick about labor costs and customer satisfaction. I needed groceries, clothes, and housewares, but I didn’t have a house to put them in. So I called Jamie to see if he wanted to meet for coffee.

  “I’m tied to my desk finalizing a proposal for Deliciousness Magazine,” he said. “But if you’ll bring me some pan dulce from La Tita Blanca, I’ll break away for a few minutes.”

  Thirty minutes later, after a quick trip to the east side, Jamie and I were the only warm bodies in the downtown office he shares with two freelance writers and a graphic designer. He took a bite of the Mexican pastry. “This sure is comforting,” he said. “Is it a panadería?”

  “Yep, you guessed it. Troy Sharpe was about to fulfill his life’s dream of opening a gigantic two-story bakery.”

  “Have you solved the Mysterious Case of the Dangling Dude?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I’m starting to think that maybe there isn’t a mystery.”

  He widened his eyes in mock shock. “You don’t say.”

  “Starting to think. I’m not ready to give up. I know you think I’m trying to stay busy, and maybe I am, but you know how you know something even though you don’t know?”

  “Like how I knew something was wrong when I heard about all those dishwashers at chain restaurants quitting their jobs.”

  “Exactly. This whole thing doesn’t feel right to me. I mean, if your twin brother or business partner or husband had died suddenly and tragically, would you be back at work or keeping up with your exercise program the next day?”

  “People handle grief in different ways.”

  “I guess,” I said, frustrated that he didn’t give me an answer. “If you thought I killed myself yesterday, would you be sitting here today working on this proposal?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Really? You wouldn’t be wondering why my life was so bad that I didn’t want to live it anymore? You wouldn’t be asking yourself if there were signs you missed, if there was something you could have done?”

  “They think it’s an accident.”

  “I’m making a point, Jamie. If I had died yesterday, wouldn’t you be devastated?”

  “Yes, I would be devastated to lose you.” I heard genuine sorrow in his voice. He wasn’t talking about my fictional death. He almost did lose me. We almost lost each other.

  “Have you heard anything about a suicide note?” I asked.

  “No, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. If Troy’s family asked the police to keep details about the case private, they wouldn’t mention it. Or if he wrote something incriminating in the note, the police might keep it quiet.”

  “Incriminating how?”

  “If Troy confessed to being involved in a crime or accused someone else.”

  “Oh, that’s good, like maybe Todd or Danny…” I stopped. “No, if there’s a suicide note, that would mean Troy killed himself.”

  “Unless the note was faked.”

  “Oh, good idea! So we need to know if there was a note.” My eyes landed o
n the police scanner Jamie kept at his desk, which gave me an idea. “Will you do me a favor?”

  He broke off a piece of pastry and handed it to me. “If I can.”

  “I’m not sure it’s possible,” I said, which turned it into a challenge and guaranteed he would help me.

  “Anything is possible.”

  “I want to look at the crime scene photos.”

  He didn’t say anything, and I knew he was either deciding whether he should encourage my investigation by getting the photos or trying to figure out if it really was possible. I needed him to at least try.

  “Think about it, Jamie. Pictures of the inside of the restaurant.”

  He sighed, then said, “I’ll see what I can do. Anything else? Tickets to the Super Bowl? A signed first edition of Gone with the Wind ? The Hope diamond?”

  “You couldn’t get the Hope diamond.”

  “For you, I would try.” He tapped my nose with the tip of his finger. “After I finish this proposal.”

  fifteen

  I went to my office to do drudge work—check email, restock my inspector’s backpack, report to Olive in person.

  My coworker, Gavin Kawasaki, had emailed me a link to a news report. He collects restaurant stories that have an odd twist and likes to give them a new ending. I read about a chef in Iowa who not only kissed, licked, and stuffed a couple of live toads into his mouth in his restaurant kitchen, but committed the act to video and then posted the file on the Internet so all the toad lovers out there could live frogcariously through him. Local health inspectors found his behavior unsavory and squeezed a $335 fine out of him.

  Gavin had written, When asked about their time inside the chef’s oral cavity, the toads croaked about poor dental work and halitosis.

  My cell phone rang with a call from Olive. “Den of Delights,” I answered as I walked to her closed office door. “What’s your pleasure?”

  “Fast-track me on the Sharpe place, Markham.”