I shot her a warning glance.
She kept going. “No one paid any attention to us.”
“But I will ask them. Fiona, you really shouldn’t be...how do you say that?”
Josey interjected. “Woody says she’s a doormat.”
“Oui. C’est ça.”
“Listen, you two. I am not a doormat. I am merely practical.”
Josey grinned. “I told you it could really work for you, Miz Silk.”
I said, “What if they don’t want to? I mean, it is a bit of a bother to help someone out with their cookbook, isn’t it? Aren’t they all very busy? What would they get out of it?”
Hélène laughed. “That is so sweet, Fiona. They will not do it themselves. That is what sous-chefs are for.”
“You see, Miz Silk.”
“Mais oui,“Hélène said. “Marietta and Rafaël will show up for the photo shoot and whatever promotion is planned around this project.”
Photo shoot? My ears buzzed.
Hélène nodded, her artfully made-up face rapt, her burgundy hair aglow. “You could be at the centre of En feu!”
“Sizzling,” Josey said.
It was past time for me to get moving on this cookbook, but thinking about Jean-Claude fuming triggered a thought. Something about smoke. Something I should have remembered. What? It was only after Josey had headed out for dog walking duties and Hélène had hurried off to a committee meeting that I remembered what. Of course. Danny Dupree’s passenger had tossed a cigarette out the window, and it had landed on the Skylark’s passenger seat. I’d moved it to the ashtray. Now why hadn’t I remembered that useful tidbit when Sarrazin had made his early morning visit?
I hustled out to the car. Sure enough. There it was. A half-smoked cigarette with a lipstick smear on the filter. Perfect. I picked it up and put it in a plastic bag. I mean, it’s not like I’d never seen a crime show on television.
Better late than never.
I settled Tolstoy in his basement retreat, climbed into the Skylark and took off for the village. I was getting pretty familiar with the interior of the Sûreté. Although that wasn’t something that had ever been on my wish list. Sarrazin uttered a small sigh when I was ushered in past the bulletproof glass at the entrance.
“Remember the woman in the Escalade?” I said.
“The woman that wasn’t there?”
“The woman who tossed a cigarette out the window. It flew into my car and landed on the vinyl, still burning. I put it in the ashtray and, well, here it is.” I held up the baggie.
He blinked.
“It proves she existed. I didn’t imagine her.”
“You didn’t mention it before.”
“It was such a small detail, and I was a bit rattled when you said it was murder. The drugs and everything.”
“Maybe Dupree tossed it.”
I passed him the bag. “Look at the lipstick.”
“Are you familiar with the phrase ‘chain of evidence’, madame?”
“I guess I can figure out what it means.”
He handed the bag back to me. “Then you will understand that we can’t use this at all. You could have picked it up off the street.”
“I didn’t do that! Why would I?”
“I’m not really suggesting you did, but you could have. So we can’t use this item in court.”
“Okay, fair enough, I just want you to know that she was there and that she must have had something to do with the crash. You said he’d been drugged. Maybe that accounts for his weird behaviour. Either she’s involved, or she could be a witness. Or she could have—”
He shrugged. “It’s a cigarette butt. That’s all.”
“Fine. But listen to me. I’ve been thinking about this. They went past me at exit 13, and she was still in the car. I drove that route. There was no place for her to go.”
He raised his shoulders in that familiar shrug. “Maybe she hitchhiked.”
“Why would she get out of the Escalade to hitchhike? Unless she knew it was going to crash. That would explain a lot.”
“Maybe she’d been hitchhiking in the first place. Maybe Dupree picked her up.”
“I don’t think so. Just from the glimpse I got, she looked fashionable. Expensive.”
“Hmmm. But you can’t describe her, because you just caught a glimpse.”
“Okay, I admit that sounds goofy, but women have a sense about these things. And if you’d had the same glimpse, you would understand my point.”
“Which is?”
“Obvious. Where did she go? She didn’t have much time to stand around. At the speed he was travelling, the accident must have taken place within ten minutes of the time I last saw the Escalade. I came along shortly afterwards. She definitely wasn’t on the side of the road.”
“And...”
“Exactly. Even if she’d been picked up by someone, they would have had to stop for the accident. I saw a police cruiser go by just a minute or two after the Escalade. I was hoping he would have spotted the road rager, but Dupree was already out of sight. He stopped the traffic to make way for the emergency vehicles.”
Sarrazin frowned and nodded. “He was on his way back from court in Hull. Someone had already called the accident in from a cell phone, but he came upon the scene right afterwards.”
“You’re probably thinking maybe he noticed the blonde woman with red lipstick in one of the cars.”
“I’m thinking he had other stuff on his mind beside women.”
“And she might have been smoking.”
“You aren’t going to give up, are you?”
“I probably will. I’m not much of a fighter. But there’s one more weird little bit.”
He sighed. Loudly.
“Right. Well, the strangest one was that I think this woman happened to be in the same ladies room as I was. Hear me out. I didn’t see her there, but she must have seen me and thought that I would recognize her, so she locked me in the toilet stall. Before you ask how, she placed a chair under the door.”
He coughed suddenly.
“Go ahead, laugh. I realize how incredibly silly it sounds, but it did happen. There has to be some reason for it.”
“Forgive me, madame. But forgetting about why anyone over the age of twelve would do that, if you were locked in and you didn’t see this woman, and you don’t know what she looked like in the first place, then where do you think we can go with this?”
“It was up at the Wallingford Estate. Josey spotted a woman with blonde streaky hair. I think it might have been Anabel Huffington-Chabot. My point is she could have locked me in because she knows that I know that she was in that Cadillac with Dupree just before he died. And she doesn’t want that information to get out.”
He scratched his ear and shook his head. He lowered his eyebrows. He sighed for good measure. “Well, madame, if you see her again, you can tell her not to worry. Even if this information, which doesn’t make sense, does get out, I have a reputation to uphold.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. And while I am here, can I hand over this wallet that I found? It belongs to a woman called Harriet Crowder. She’s some kind of producer with En feu! I just can’t track her down.”
“Try the front desk, madame.”
Right.
I would have had a bit more luck with the front desk if two officers hadn’t been wrestling in a pair of belligerent drunks just as I arrived. One of the drunks managed to throw up over quite a wide area. Somehow, it seemed better to just keep going. I tossed the baggie with the butt into the car and drove to the Wallingford Estate.
Bananas Flambé
Contributed by Hélène Lamontagne
2 bananas, split into 3 equal parts (lengthwise along the stem), cut into 2-inch pieces
⅓ cup halved macadamia nuts
⅓ cup rum
1 tablespoon butter
1-2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 martini glasses
French vanilla ice cream
1
fire extinguisher
Heat a medium skillet over high heat. Add the butter and swirl to coat the pan. When the butter shimmers, add the bananas and the macadamias and reduce heat to medium. Sauté, stirring, until golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. Sprinkle brown sugar until just melted. Deglaze the pan with the rum then flambé the bananas and the macadamias. When the flames are extinguished, remove the pan from the heat. Scoop ice cream into martini glasses. Top with flambéed bananas.
Keep fire extinguisher handy. Do not attempt this in other people’s homes.
Nine
Okay, so no luck ditching the pesky wallet at the Sûreté. Plus I couldn’t get near the Wallingford Estate that morning. Cars and pedestrians were being turned away from the driveway of the building. According to the two people I asked, the place was off-limits because they were shooting En feu!, and the previous day, they’d had problems with overzealous fans.
I tried to talk my way in anyway, but Harriet Crowder’s wallet wasn’t enough to get past security. Strike two, and it was barely noon. I arrived home to find an urgent message from Hélène asking me to come over at once. Tolstoy preferred to remain in his cool basement space, so I headed down the road solo.
She met me at the door. “But, Fiona, I do not understand why you didn’t tell me yourself that you were so worried about this little book.” Hélène Lamontagne looked down her elegantly restructured nose at me.
It wasn’t hard to figure out that she was offended. Not just because of the nose thing, there was also the tapping of the designer shoes. The foot reminded me of the high-heeled blonde who might be undermining both of us. “Because I... Who told you I was worried?”
“Oh, no one.”
“Josey, I suppose.” My first clue was the sight of Josey standing behind Hélène and looking remarkably innocent.
“Josée is just trying to help you.”
“It’s a bit embarrassing.”
“I can see that. You are already blushing.”
“Right. It’s the curse of my life.”
“But why are you embarrassed?”
“I don’t have the vaguest idea of where to begin. I’m reading these piles of cookbooks, and so far I have no idea where to start. Lola can really put on the pressure.”
“I am offering to help you. Sometimes, as Jean-Claude would say, you present quite a challenge.”
“Jean-Claude says that about me?”
“No, no. He says it about situations that present challenges. I would never discuss you with him.”
“For reasons that are obvious to both of us.”
“Malheureusement.”
Unhappily, for sure. “I’m not trying to present any kind of challenge, Hélène. I just really need the money, and I hate the idea of doing a book like this. It’s so not like me. But I have no choice. And I can’t really concentrate. I keep thinking about Marc-André and that accident I saw on Highway 5. The police think I am connected with it in some way. “
Hélène’s face clouded.
I continued. “Maybe that’s just an excuse. I know it’s a matter of getting my head around the fact that some foods are supposed to be sexy or even aphrodisiacs, then getting some recipes that use those foods and linking it all together with a bit of text.”
“That sounds all right, Fiona.”
“No, it’s really not all right. I have to get cracking before the municipality seizes my house or Hydro cuts off the power or my car conks out. Or I need to eat dinner.”
“Mais, voyons donc. You are my friend, and I will be happy to help you. I left some messages today, and I expect to hear from Rafaël and Marietta soon.”
“I appreciate that.”
“She also needs practice cooking,” Josey said, her head held high. “And she doesn’t have any equipment. Or ingredients yet. Plus she needs to, um, ease into the situation. Get her confidence up for when she’s talking to them.”
“I am standing right here while you two are discussing me. Maybe I’d be better off at home in the basement with Tolstoy.”
“Do you have a recipe that would fit in Miz Silk’s cookbook?”
“Oh là là.”
“Come on, Hélène. You’re a gourmet cook. You must have.”
Hélène shrugged modestly. “Well, I have always loved anything flambé.”
“Flambé?” I squeaked. “That sounds really complicated. Don’t you have anything that involves opening two cans?”
Hélène shuddered. “There’s no such thing as a flambé of canned mushroom soup and flaked tuna.”
“Huh. Maybe there should be,” Josey said.
Hélène merely said, “Des bananes!”
Josey’s eyes were like huge blue saucers. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No, I am not kidding, Josée. This is a very elegant dish.”
“But is it sexy?”
“Mais oui! Think of the symbolism.”
Don’t! I thought. Please just don’t.
“What symbolism?” Josey said.
“Never mind,” I said.
“It is very sexy when it is done right, in the proper atmosphere. I used to make these for Jean-Claude, on very very special romantic occasions.”
Josey said, “Ew.” I thought the same but managed to keep it to myself.
Luckily, Hélène missed Josey’s comment because she was checking through the zillion cupboards. I gave Josey a look that was supposed to mean, try to self-censor your comments given where we are.
“I have everything we need,” Hélène said. “Bananas, rum, macadamia nuts, brown sugar. Allons-y!”
This was exciting. I had never witnessed Hélène’s kitchen in use. It was more like something you’d see in a high-end photo shoot. There was the black granite countertops. Then there was the custom glaze finish on the cabinets, subtle and hand-done, a luscious grey-green that defied description. I couldn’t even imagine what that work would cost, or why you would spend that kind of money. It hadn’t occurred to me that Hélène actually prepared food in this dream room.
“What are macadamia nuts?” Josey said, seizing the moment.
“Think expensive,” I muttered.
Of course, Hélène had to give Josey a sample of macadamia nuts. Hélène is as kind as she is elegant. She makes up for the fact that Jean-Claude reacts to Josey like he found a scorpion in his shoe. Jean-Claude is the only person I’ve ever met who could take such a dislike to a young girl. Especially one like Josey, industrious, cheerful, loyal and honest in the things that really matter.
Perhaps that is why Hélène bends over backwards for her. She never refers to Josey’s impoverished background or criminal relatives. Packages appear for Josey from time to time. Clothing that Marie-Eve, the Lamontagne daughter, has outgrown. Food that might go to waste. Sporting gear. Even Josey’s now-rickety bicycle had come from Hélène at one time.
I’ve tried to get Josey to stop calling Jean-Claude “his lordship”, but she still automatically curls her lip when she spots him. But Hélène had said Jean-Claude was off at a shareholders meeting, so the mood was light.
Josey and Hélène got the ingredients assembled as I stood there, useless as a garden gnome. Still, it was fun to watch them, and possibly even educational.
“Can I do anything?” I said.
“Better not,” Josey said.
“I feel a bit guilty, since this is all to help me.”
“Oh là là. Just sit over there. Perhaps you can take notes.”
Taking notes sounded good to me. Hélène extracted a nonstick pan from a drawer that held dozens of pots and pans. She measured out the brown sugar into one designer measure and the rum into another. Josey poured the macadamia nuts into a third one.
“Voyons. What can we serve this in? Oh, I know!” Hélène selected four long-stemmed martini glasses from a glass-fronted cupboard. “This will be elegant.”
“Are you sure I can’t do something?” I said plaintively.
“We’re sure,” Josey said.
“Can you get two tablespoons of butter, Josée?”
Josey scrambled over to the French-door fridge and opened it. She picked out a pound of butter, unwrapped it and flipped two tablespoons into the non-stick pan. Absolutely nothing went wrong.
I sulked. I could have fetched the butter.
“Don’t look like that, Miz Silk,” Josey said. “You said yourself that cooking is not your best thing.”
“True, but I can’t believe the two of you don’t trust me to get the butter. I have to start small.”
Hélène glanced up. “Did you write everything down?”
I hesitated. I hadn’t, of course. “I’ll remember.”
She reeled off the few ingredients this recipe required. “You might not. What if you forgot the rum? It won’t flambé without that.”
Josey shook her head. If her expression was anything to go by, this flambé experience was a big hit with her. “Are we really putting it in those fancy glasses, Miz Lamontagne?”
“As soon as it’s ready. We have to flame it first.”
“Right.”
“And because this is supposed to be romantic, we will put it on a tray with something pretty.” She bent down and opened a drawer filled with table linens. She pulled out a piece of sheer, sparkly fabric.
“C’est beau,” she said, arranging the fabric on a black lacquered tray. She set the martini glasses amid the folds, pulling them here and there to make a pleasing backdrop. A trip across the room, and three crystal candle holders with votives were added to the tray.
“That’s neat,” Josey said. I imagined she was working out a plan for using that sort ofthing in THE THRING TO DO. Romantic desserts on request. “Do we put the glasses on that too?”
“And before that, we have to put the ice cream into the martini glasses. Here’s the ice cream scoop. I have wonderful French vanilla ice cream, and this scoop makes a nice shape.”
“I can do that,” Josey said, racing back to the refrigerator and opening the lower freezer.
“Hang on,” I said, “are you telling me that you two don’t trust me to carry a container of ice cream?”
“Take good notes!” Josey said. I did my best not to roll my eyes. She added, “Really good notes. I want to be able to do this again.”
Fiona Silk Mysteries 2-Book Bundle Page 12