But there were other origin stories. A chef at a Chicago hotel, the Blackstone, claimed he, not Oscar, had invented it. But why would a Chicago chef name a sauce after the Thousand Islands?
A restaurant owner a couple of towns over claimed he’d found the original recipe in a safe when he bought his building forty years ago.
Angela Wainwright at the River Rock Resort claimed she had found the original recipe hidden in a coffee can on a shelf in her pantry. She was now bottling the dressing on a small scale and selling it at her hotel.
And then there was Sophia LaLonde, the wife of a fishing excursion captain, who was rumored to have invented the sauce to accompany her husband’s shore dinners. When I thought about it—and I’d not ever really given this any thought before, but now it seemed like a no-brainer—Thousand Island dressing was a combination of ketchup-based cocktail sauce and mayonnaise-based tartar sauce, both of which go perfectly with fried fish. Suddenly, Sophia seemed like a pretty good candidate. And Franco’s recipe was attributed to someone named Sophia. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
I went to the small refrigerator and pulled out the bottle I’d bought from Angela the other day after my less-than-memorable breakfast with Sheldon Todd. The label listed a dozen or so ingredients. I compared the label to Franco’s recipe. There were a few differences, but the general idea was the same: ketchup or chili sauce, mixed with mayonnaise and pickle relish. The recipe we served at the Bonaparte House—no idea where that had come from originally—was similar, though we added chopped green olives in addition to the pickle relish. The Bonaparte House was a Greek restaurant, after all.
Franco’s recipe called for lemon juice, which accounted for the brighter, fresher flavor I’d tasted at the pizza restaurant. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait any longer. A taste comparison was definitely in order. I whisked up the ingredients, covered the bowl with plastic wrap, and set it in the fridge. Then I put a couple of eggs in a pan of cold water and turned on the burner.
The eggs would need to cook and cool before they could be peeled and chopped, so I sat back down at the counter and grabbed the last handful of loose papers from the shoe box.
Just as the last clipping went into its stack, a knock sounded at the back door. “Come in,” I called out of habit, then realized when the handle started to jiggle that I’d locked it. I made my way to the door, shutting off the flame under the eggs as I did so. They would sit there for six minutes, no more, no less, then go into an ice water bath, and they’d be perfectly cooked.
Someone began pounding on the back door. “Georgie!” The voice was muffled. The pounding started again.
That wasn’t impatience. Whoever it was, was in trouble.
I made it to the door and looked out the window, my hand on the knob. I could see a crown of red hair that could only belong to Brenda Jones. She looked up, and her face was dead serious. I flung open the door.
Brenda stumbled across the threshold. She wasn’t alone.
Her arm was around a man, who was leaning heavily on her. He was on his feet, but bent at the waist and holding his arm across his middle. I flew to one side of the man and grabbed, relieving Brenda of half his weight. Together we managed to bring him inside and sit him in Sophie’s armchair along one interior wall of the Bonaparte House kitchen.
Panting with the exertion, I ran back to the row of pegs near the back door and grabbed a fleece jacket. The man wasn’t wearing a coat, and he must have been freezing. I covered him. He gave a moan, then looked up. The right side of his face was covered in a bruise the color of the merlot I kept in my desk drawer, and a gash over one eye was covered in crusted blood. A single drop oozed from one end of the cut. The man groaned, then began coughing, which clearly brought on a fresh wave of pain.
Franco.
THIRTEEN
“Have you called an ambulance?” I said over Franco’s head, tucking the coat tighter around him. I got some ice from the freezer and wrapped it in a towel, which I applied to the lump I could see swelling up on his head.
Brenda shook her head. “Not yet. I found him out back of the Casa di Pizza when I was on my rounds. I didn’t know if it was safe to take him back into the restaurant, so I brought him here.”
I nodded. “Good thinking.” She couldn’t very well have left him outside while she waited for an ambulance, not in this weather, and there were no other businesses open between here and the Casa. I just hoped Franco hadn’t done any further damage by moving. Still, he’d managed to help get himself here, and that had to be a good sign. I didn’t go through 911 this time. Honestly, if I had to listen to Cindy Dumont one more time, I might scream. So I dialed the Bonaparte Bay Volunteer Fire Department directly.
When I was assured that help was on the way, I turned back to my temporary patient.
“Franco? The ambulance will be here soon. Do you remember what happened?”
“I . . . I was in the kitchen. Someone . . . came up behind me and hit me on the head.” He winced, as if remembering the blow. “I must have blacked out. I fell. Or was pushed. Because when I came to, I had this cut on my forehead, and there was blood on the corner of the prep counter. And I think—” He winced again, then took a deep breath. “I think my arm is broken.”
“Why would anyone do this to you?” I said. “Was anything taken? It’s the wrong time of year for a robbery. No tourists in town spending money, so it’s only locals coming in for lunch or dinner, right?”
Franco shifted in the chair. I removed the ice pack until he found what appeared to be a more or less comfortable position, then reapplied it. “I just about break even, sometimes operate at a loss, by staying open all winter. So no, there aren’t huge bundles of cash lying around. I don’t keep anything valuable at the restaurant.” I thought of my mother-in-law, Sophie, who kept large amounts of cash hidden under a floorboard under her bed during the tourist season. But whatever she’d had stashed away, she’d taken with her when she went back to Greece. Franco had just denied keeping money at the Casa, but then again he was hardly likely to admit it if he did, even to me.
Sirens sounded from the parking lot behind the Bonaparte House. “I’ll go get them,” Brenda said, heading for the door.
“We should call the police,” I said. I would do some more bypassing of 911 by directly calling Deputy Tim Arquette, who had quite a bit more on the ball than our illustrious village police chief. “I’m sure the person who did this is long gone, but we should have the Casa checked out.”
Franco nodded. My hand holding the ice mirrored his movement. “Can you call my daughter too? Send her over to the ER. If she hears about this on the scanner first, I’ll never hear the end of it.”
The back door opened and the same set of EMTs who had taken Jim MacNamara’s body away came in. They headed straight for Franco and began their initial assessment. I took the towel over to the sink and shook out the ice, then laid the towel over the rim of the sink to dry until I could do laundry. Brenda came to stand by me.
“Any theories?” I said.
“Can’t be personal, otherwise they would have hurt him worse.”
I was inclined to agree. Which meant whoever had done this wanted something. If it was money, the thief was going to be disappointed. If Franco was bringing in a couple hundred dollars a day this time of year, he’d be lucky. What else was there? Ten pairs of matching salt and pepper shakers? A few pounds of premade pizza dough?
My thoughts were interrupted by the EMTs, who were helping Franco to a standing position. They had placed a sling over his arm, then wrapped a blanket around his shoulders.
“I’ll call Marielle and the police,” I said.
“Thanks,” he ground out, breathing heavily with the effort of movement. The door caught on a gust of wind that blew into the kitchen.
After I saw Franco loaded into the ambulance, I dialed the Bonaparte Bay police station and asked to speak to
Tim Arquette. While I was on hold, I said to Brenda, “You want a drink? There’s soda in the fridge. Could you grab me a Diet Coke?” When Tim came on the line, I told him what had happened. Brenda popped the top and handed me a can.
“So you need to go over to the Casa and check it out. See if it looks like anything’s been taken. Franco doesn’t know much. He was mobile, but dazed, when Brenda brought him here.” I took a sip of the soda. “No, Tim, I’m not telling you how to do your job.” Well, maybe I was, just a little. It wasn’t like the BBPD had been much help to me over the last couple months. I clicked off.
I turned to Brenda. “You wouldn’t happen to know Marielle’s number, would you?” It was going to be difficult to call Franco’s daughter. Was her last name even the same as her father’s?
“Naw. But doesn’t she own that exercise studio over by Fort Drum?”
Right. Now I remembered. I’d heard Marielle was some kind of health nut, which was ironic considering the amount of cheese and fried food that her father’s restaurant served. I used my phone to Google local gyms. Brenda leaned over the screen.
“Try that one,” she said, pointing. “Buff and Ready, over by Evans Mills.”
I looked at the address. Same plaza where my almost-ex-husband’s partner, Inky LaFontaine, had a tattoo shop. I tapped in the number.
“May I speak to Marielle?” I asked when someone picked up.
“She’s just centering herself for her next yoga class. Can I help you?”
“This is Georgie Nikolopatos, from Bonaparte Bay. Her father asked me to call. It’s important.”
There was a silence on the other end of the line, as if the receptionist was making a decision. Finally, she said, “Okay. Just a minute.”
It was not more than that minute before Marielle spoke. “He’s had a heart attack, hasn’t he? All that cheese, all that half-and-half in his coffee. I should have tried harder to make him exercise and eat better.”
Franco was a big boy and could presumably make his own health choices, but her concern was nice, just the same. She clearly loved her dad. “No, it’s not that. But he is at the emergency room in Bonaparte Bay.”
“What happened?”
I told her what I knew.
“I’ll get someone to take my classes and be right over. Thanks for letting me know.”
When the call ended, I turned to Brenda. “You busy? You want to take a walk up Theresa Street and see if any other businesses have been broken into?”
Brenda smiled. “Sounds like our civic duty. And as it happens, I didn’t finish my rounds this morning. You could help.”
That was easy enough to agree to. There weren’t any tourists in town, which meant that any bottle and can retrieval Brenda would be doing would be minimal. And frankly, I didn’t want to hang out here by myself, waiting to get hit on the head by some unknown assailant who was targeting the shops of Bonaparte Bay.
Brenda rinsed out the two cans we’d been drinking from and put them inside a bright orange plastic bag she’d produced from her canvas purse, which I hadn’t noticed she’d had strapped across her ample chest when she came in with Franco. “Seeds,” she said, and dropped the cans inside the larger bag.
We bundled up and headed out.
Brenda and I were the only people on the street, which was hardly surprising. Brenda scanned for cans, which I don’t think she really expected to find, and I looked into each business window as we passed. No broken glass. No open doors. We gave special scrutiny to Spinky’s and Tat-L-Tails, the closed-up tattoo shop. All seemed to be in order, so I didn’t need to bother Spiro or Inky on their vacation.
Finally, we reached the Casa di Pizza and went around back. One of Bonaparte Bay’s two police cruisers was parked there, idling and emitting a plume of blue smoke into the cold air. Deputy Tim Arquette sat in the driver’s seat, taking notes. He rolled down his window when he saw me.
“Why are you here?” he said. He looked around. “Is your mother with you?”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Another Bonaparte Bay male with a crush on my daytime-drama-star mom.
“Uh, no. I’m just helping Brenda with her rounds.” I nodded toward my companion, who was pulling a half-full bag out of a trash can. Franco must have let her set up a collection station back here. “Did you find anything?”
Tim shook his head. “Whoever it was, was probably looking for money. They jimmied open the cash drawer and cleaned it out. He was gone before I got here.”
Franco didn’t know how long he’d been blacked out, so Tim was probably right. “I don’t like this,” I said. The off-season was usually quiet in Bonaparte Bay.
“I wouldn’t worry. I’ll patrol downtown when I get done here. But my guess it was just a quick hit by someone from out of town.”
That made some sense. Why would someone local take the chance that Franco would recognize and remember him? At least we knew it wasn’t Russ Riley. He was in jail, so he was off the hook for this.
I glanced at my watch. It was nearly four o’clock and the sky was beginning to darken. In fact, it looked like more snow might be coming in. Brenda came toward me. Her collection bag wasn’t much bigger than when I’d seen it a few minutes ago.
“You all set?” she said. “I’m gonna head home. I’ve gotta get up early tomorrow. Going to the boat show in Syracuse if the weather’s okay.”
“I’m fine.” Brenda was brave. I could be too. But a feeling of unease continued to creep over me. Russ was in jail for murder, but I wasn’t all that sure he’d done it, despite the fact that my gyro spit was the murder weapon. Which meant a killer could still be out there. And now this break-in at Franco’s. I couldn’t see any possible connection between these two crimes, yet the fact remained that they’d happened, close in time, in my little town.
“Then I’ll see you around,” she said, and headed back toward her apartment over Margie’s T-Shirt Emporium.
Movement inside the squad car caught my eye. Tim must have finished his notes, because he said, “You want me to come check out your restaurant?”
I thought of the Bonaparte House—a big, drafty pile of rocks with a lot of rooms. I thought about saying no. But common sense got the better of me. “Yes. Yes, I guess I do.”
Tim smiled. “No problem. I’ll cruise by there as soon as I get a hot cup of coffee from the Bean.”
“I could make you some,” I offered.
“Naw. I want one of those blueberry muffins. Hope they’ve got one left, this time of day.” He rolled up his window, then picked up his radio, probably calling Dispatch to give them an update.
As if in sympathy, my own cell phone gave two short vibrations in my coat pocket. Before I looked at the display, I assumed it was Liza texting to give me an update on herself, Melanie, and Caitlyn. But the caller ID read Kim Galbraith.
Call me. We need to talk.
FOURTEEN
An icy wind chose that moment to gust up and slice through me. I shivered, then glanced at Tim, who appeared to be waiting for me to leave the parking lot before he did. Which I appreciated, on the off chance that whoever had broken in was still around. I walked back out onto the street and into the relative shelter of the doorway of Inky’s tattoo parlor. I could have waited until I got back to the Bonaparte House, but I wanted to give Tim a chance to get there first.
I pulled off my glove and dialed Kim, then switched the phone to my other hand and shoved the bare one deep into my coat pocket. “Galbraith Accounting,” Kim said.
“Hey, Kim. It’s Georgie. What’s up?” My teeth chattered between the words.
“I’ve taken a quick glance at those documents you e-mailed me.”
“Pathetic, aren’t they? I’m no accountant but even I could see the bottom line.” I felt a fresh stab of disgust at the dead Jim MacNamara, then hunched down as another gust of icy wind swirled around inside
my three-sided shelter.
“Are you at the Bonaparte House? I’d like to come over.”
“No, but I’m headed there now.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” she said.
Tim’s cruiser pulled out of its spot in front of the Express-o Bean, then headed toward my home and restaurant. By the time I traversed the block and a half, Tim was already walking the octagonal perimeter of the building. He held a flashlight and shone its beam into the shrubs out front, then in a broader arc around the small front lawn. I met him at the emergency exit on the side, and we walked together around to the employee parking lot.
I unlocked the door and it swung open. Tim entered in front of me. He made a perfunctory visual sweep of the kitchen, checked the walk-in, then headed for the dining rooms.
I hung up my coat and exchanged my boots for a pair of slippers I kept by the back door. Now that I was in the warmth of the building, the shivers came back, probably an involuntary attempt by my body to regulate its temperature. My eyes fell on the gas burner. A saucepan sat there. It wasn’t like me to leave a dirty pot on the stove, even in the off-season.
Right. Before Brenda had brought Franco in, I’d put a couple of eggs on to boil. They were still sitting there. The water was ice cold now—at least I’d remembered to shut off the flame—but the eggs were no good. Aside from the fact that they had sat out, unrefrigerated, for a few hours, they had not gone into their ice bath at the proper time, so would have developed an ugly green—and not so tasty—ring around the yolk. I emptied the water into the sink and tossed the eggs into the trash. I washed out the pot, refilled it, added two fresh eggs, and started the process again. This time I filled up a bowl with ice and set it on the counter to be ready.
A Killer Kebab Page 11