Dying for Dinner

by Miranda Bliss

  “You knew the guy?”

  “Not well.” I wished now that I had. “He was quiet and considerate. I can tell you that. He loved to cook. Monsieur said that after Jim, Greg was the best employee he ever had. He was never late for work. He never closed up early, even when the shop wasn’t busy. I remember Monsieur saying that if there was nothing else to do, Greg would refold all the linens or clean off shelves even when they didn’t need to be cleaned. He was that kind of guy.”

  “And his boss, this Lavoie fellow, he kept a lot of cash around?”

  “You think this was a robbery?” My blood ran cold and I hugged my arms around myself. “It’s awful to think that some thug off the street wouldn’t be satisfied with the money. That he thought he had to take Greg’s life, too.”

  For all I knew, Tyler was about to agree with this. He never had the chance. One of the cops studying the crime scene called him over. He never told me to stay out of the way and mind my own business, so, naturally, I followed along.

  “Looks like the cash register hasn’t been touched,” the man told Tyler. “And look here.” He pointed toward Greg’s feet. “What do you make of that?”

  I looked at Greg’s feet, too. I remembered now that he’d once mentioned that he was prone to gout, so I wasn’t surprised to see that he was wearing brand-name sneakers with good arch supports and sturdy laces.

  Or at least he was wearing what was left of them.

  Greg’s feet had been shot. Both of them.

  As far as I could see, there wasn’t another mark on his body.

  “That’s strange,” I said.

  Tyler didn’t have to turn around to know I was right behind him. “What’s strange is that you’re poking your nose into this when it’s none of your business.” He turned my way just so I didn’t miss his sneer of epic proportions. “On second thought, I guess that’s not so strange after all.”

  “But there wasn’t any money taken,” I said, just to remind Tyler we were talking about the crime and not the way I had of getting myself embroiled in these kinds of things. “It wasn’t a robbery. And if somebody shot Greg in the feet, it wasn’t like they wanted to kill him.”

  “They wanted to hurt him.” It was an understatement, but I didn’t point this out to Tyler. “It’s almost as if-”

  “They wanted to make him talk.”

  My comment settled between us and we each in our own way thought it over. I didn’t have to think for long to know what I’d said made perfect sense. Why shoot a man in the foot-and twice? I mean, if you weren’t trying to get something out of him? Tyler, it seemed, was not so easily convinced.

  He snorted. “You can’t possibly know that.”

  “Of course I can’t.” There was no use arguing the point. “But it just doesn’t make sense otherwise, does it? I mean, why just hurt a person like that? Unless you’re trying to make him-”

  “Talk.” This time Tyler didn’t sound so skeptical. He glanced my way. “You know anything about this Greg guy that would make it seem likely someone would want to make him talk?”

  I wished I did. I shrugged. “If you mean did he owe somebody big bucks for gambling or something like that…” Another shrug. “I can’t say.”

  “But we can say this is strange.”

  “I already did say that.”

  Tyler wasn’t talking to me; he was talking to the crime-scene technician. He turned his back to me just so I didn’t think he was. “It must have hurt plenty, sure, but two shots to the feet… that shouldn’t have killed the guy.”

  “Unless he was taking some kind of medication that made him more likely to bleed.”

  My comment worked just as I’d intended it to. Though Tyler was trying his best to turn me off and tune me out, he had no choice but to face me.

  “Greg had a heart problem,” I explained. “I know this for a fact because we were discussing healthy cooking once and he talked about how he was cutting fat from his diet. You know, on account of his heart condition. And I was here just last week when he went out to lunch. I walked to the pharmacy on the corner with him. He went there to pick up a new prescription for Coumadin.”

  “The blood thinner.” The crime-scene examiner was listening as intently as Tyler was, and he nodded. “That would explain why he bled out the way he did. Poor bastard. If it wasn’t for him taking that medication, he might be here to tell us the story.”

  “And let us know who did this.” Tyler looked my way. “Or do you have a theory about that, too?”

  “Nope. No theories.” Just to prove that I wasn’t about to start a crime-scene investigation of my own, I clasped my hands together behind my back. “I can only assume that the person who shot Greg never meant to kill him. He couldn’t have known Greg was on the medication. He must have been stunned when Greg collapsed. How did you know, anyway?”

  “About the medication?” Tyler looked at me as if I’d suddenly started spouting Chinese. “I didn’t. Not until you told me.”

  “Not about the medication. About the shooting.” I glanced around. Except for the swarms of police officers in the place, there was no one else around. Nobody who looked like a customer, anyway. “If there was nobody here but Greg and the shooter, how did you know about the shooting? Theoretically…” This was a new thought, and it caused my stomach to swoop. “I should have been the one who walked in and found the body. But you were already here. Was there someone else in the shop when all this happened? Is that how you knew?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It certainly must matter to you. If someone else was here, that means you’ve got a witness. It also explains how you knew about the shooting. I mean, if someone called you…”

  I could tell when Tyler surrendered. That would be when he grabbed my arm again and tugged me back toward the Vavoom! display.

  “I don’t need your help solving this case,” he said.

  “I never said you did.”

  “Then why are you asking so many questions?”

  “I care. Is that some kind of crime? I liked Greg. I’m sorry he’s dead. And Monsieur is a friend of mine. If Greg is dead, maybe he’s in some kind of trouble, too.”

  “He’s the one who made the call.”

  I wasn’t expecting this, and it brought me up short. But only for a moment. I heard the undertone in Tyler ’s voice and I didn’t like it. Not one little bit.

  “You’re nuts,” I told him, and believe me, I wasn’t worried about being politically correct or about keeping my relationship with Tyler on an even keel. Thanks to what he did to Eve and how much he’d hurt her and how she was my best friend, Tyler and I didn’t have a relationship, so I didn’t have anything to worry about. “You can’t possibly think that-”

  “Why not? You said it yourself. You said that whoever shot Greg didn’t mean to kill him. You said that he must have been plenty surprised when he saw the way Greg bled out. That would explain the panicked, muffled call we got from your friend Lavoie. If he wanted Greg to talk-”

  “If Monsieur wanted Greg to talk, he would have baked him a flourless chocolate cake. Or opened up a pricey bottle of wine and poured a couple glasses. He wouldn’t have shot Greg in the feet, that’s for sure.”

  “Is it?”

  “Damned straight.” I didn’t back down from my position, not even when Tyler turned the full force of his icy glare my way. I raised my chin. “Besides,” I said, “Monsieur knew that Greg was taking Coumadin. He’s the one who referred Greg to the doctor who prescribed it. I heard them talking a couple times about the right way to take the medication and how Greg had to be careful about eating green, leafy vegetables while he was on it. Monsieur Lavoie would know that an injury might kill Greg.”

  “Maybe that was his intention the whole time.”

  I was so incensed by his stupid theory as well as his refusal to listen to reason, I couldn’t face Tyler. My anger choking me, I whirled around, then spun back to him just as fast. “In case you didn’t hear me the first tim
e, you’re nuts,” I said, and I poked a finger at his expensive silk tie just to emphasize my point. “Jacques Lavoie is a food lover, not a killer. And I’m sure he has an ironclad alibi to cover what happened here tonight. He’s the one who called you. That’s what you said, right? Did he call and say Greg needed help?”

  “He called and said someone was in the store and he thought Greg was in trouble.”

  “See.” I was so pleased that Tyler had finally divulged this important part of the story, I practically crowed. “Maybe Monsieur had just walked in. Or maybe he was in the storeroom or something. Maybe that’s why he didn’t know what was going on. As soon as he saw that Greg was in trouble, he called the cops. That just about proves he didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Greg.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought.”

  Tyler had been toying with me and when I realized it, my mouth dropped open. I propped my fists on my hips.

  “Don’t take it so hard.” He boffed me on the arm. “I just wanted to see what kind of response I’d get from you. You know, see if my gut reaction and your gut reaction matched up. You’ll be happy to know they do.”

  “And you should be happy I don’t take a poke at that smug expression on your face.” I glared at him, just for good measure.

  But Tyler was already past that. He looked over to where a team of paramedics was putting Greg’s body into a bag and hoisting it onto a stretcher. “We’re right back where we started from,” he said.

  I thought about everything he’d said. “Maybe not. Why not just ask Monsieur Lavoie? If he knew Greg was in trouble, he must have seen what was happening. He’ll tell you. Just ask him.”

  “I’d love to. If I could find him.”

  That jumpy feeling in my stomach solidified into a block of ice. I looked at Tyler hard. “You mean…”

  “He’s nowhere in the store, that’s for sure. In fact, the back door was wide open. Like maybe he left that way and didn’t bother to close it behind him. He called from his cell phone, but there’s no answer on it now.”

  “Yeah.” Thinking, I worked over my lower lip with my teeth. “That’s what happened when I called him. You’ve tried-”

  “His home? Right before you walked in, we heard from the team of officers we sent over there. There’s no sign of Lavoie there, either.”

  “That means-”

  “Yep.” Tyler didn’t look any happier saying it than I did hearing it. “Your friend Jacques Lavoie has disappeared.”

  Three

  HAVE I MENTIONED THAT JIM IS A CONSUMMATE professional?

  I suppose I have. I mean, it’s impossible for me to talk about Jim and not sing his praises to the high heavens. Yeah, he’s that terrific. On the personal side, he’s always been there for me. Professionally, I’ve seen him come through in a cooking pinch so many times, I’m pretty much convinced he’s a bona fide kitchen superhero.

  But if I needed more proof, it came the day after Greg’s murder.

  In spite of the fact that he’d soldiered through with the rest of the cooking class even after I called him to tell him what had happened at Très Bonne Cuisine and that we’d been up half the night in an effort to find Monsieur Lavoie, Jim was at Bellywasher’s at his usual early hour. When lunchtime rolled around, he directed the kitchen staff like a conductor in front of his orchestra.

  No missteps.

  No miscues.

  No sour notes.

  Me? Well, after calling Monsieur’s cell phone a couple of dozen times an hour the night before, going along with Jim when he visited every one of the haunts he knew Monsieur frequented, and just basically pacing my apartment as we wracked our brains to try to figure out what had happened to our friend, I was a little less perky.

  The latest batch of supplier invoices was on my desk in front of me, but the numbers swam in front of my bleary eyes.

  When my office door snapped open and Jim stuck his head in, I was grateful for the break. “Anything?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No answer,” I said, with a look toward the phone on my desk. “I’ve been calling every half hour or so. But there’s no answer at his house. No answer on his cell, either.”

  Jim’s white apron was a stark contrast to the smudges of exhaustion under his eyes. He looked over his shoulder, quickly checking to be sure that for the moment, everything was under control out in the restaurant. Only when he was sure did he step into my office and close the door behind him.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked.

  In all the hours we’d worked on the problem, I’d never heard Jim sound this discouraged. Or this worried. I rose from my chair and crossed the room (it didn’t take long; my office is lilliputian). I would have given Jim a hug if there wasn’t a smear of marinara across the front of his apron and I wasn’t wearing a white sweater.

  I put a hand on Jim’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “We’re going to find him,” I said, and honestly, I believed it. “Monsieur can’t have just disappeared off the face of the earth. He has to be somewhere.” I was grateful that Jim was listed as the emergency contact on the note that hung over the cash register at Très Bonne Cuisine. That meant the cops had contacted him directly the night before. He was in the loop, and he wasn’t getting all his information about the murder and Monsieur’s disappearance secondhand from me. “You heard what Tyler said when he called you last night,” I reminded him.

  “You mean about Jacques making that phone call. The one that alerted the police to the trouble.” Jim nodded. A lock of hair fell onto his forehead, but he didn’t move to brush it back. The curl of hair made him look younger. And more vulnerable.

  I’d heard people talk about heartstrings, and at that moment, I knew for certain they were real because mine tugged in sympathy.

  “ Tyler said that phone call means Jacques is as right as rain,” Jim said. He didn’t have to; I remembered the call as well as he did. But I let him talk. He was bolstering his own spirits, and trying to buck up mine, too. “Jacques was able to make the phone call, so he must not have been hurt. Tyler said it means we shouldn’t worry that he might be… you know.”

  I couldn’t blame Jim. I didn’t want to say it, either. I didn’t even want to think about what he was thinking about, so I didn’t. I concentrated on the facts instead.

  “When I was at the shop, Tyler told me the back door of Très Bonne Cuisine was open when the police arrived. I think that means that when the killer came into the store, Monsieur must have been loading his car with the stuff he was supposed to bring over here for your class. Of course, I didn’t get a chance to look around the store. If I could have gone back there, maybe I’d know for sure.” A stab of embarrassment reminded me that after Tyler had given me more time than he probably should have at an active crime scene, he unceremoniously escorted me from the premises and told me to mind my own business.

  Which was exactly what I was doing, I reminded myself.

  Monsieur was our friend. This was our business.

  With that in mind, I went right on. “He didn’t come right out and say it-you know how Tyler can be-but I got the feeling he thinks that Monsieur walked back in and realized something was wrong. I’ll bet Monsieur was all set to help. You know he wouldn’t just turn tail and run. Not when a friend is in trouble. He’s not that kind of person. But then he must have heard the shots, and that’s when he called 911 and got himself out of there. It was the smart thing to do and it also means that he’s safe. He’s just-”

  “Missing? Disappeared into thin air? Hiding? That makes the least sense of all. Why would he want to hide? Why would he need to?”

  These were the same questions that we’d been over the night before-again and again, until our heads spun and our brains were as fried as the ravioli on the day’s menu. Before I could try to drum up some answers that sounded new, different, and even vaguely plausible, there was a rap on my door.

  Heidi, our waitress, opened it and came inside. In my office, three is
the proverbial crowd and when Jim stepped closer, I stepped back to keep my sweater from getting ruined. Heidi, smart girl that she is, didn’t waste any time.

  “The party at table four is ready for their birthday cake,” she told Jim, and he assured her he’d be right there. I knew the Tennessee whiskey cake Jim had made the day before was a special order for a group of regulars and that he was proud of his recipe. There was no way he wasn’t going to serve it himself.

  Before he stepped back into the restaurant, he looked toward my phone. “You’ll try again?”

  I didn’t have to answer. He knew I would.

  Before he closed my door, though, he turned to me one more time.

  “He was the one who gave me my first real job when I came to this country, you know.” Jim’s smile was brief. “I was barbacking here for Uncle Angus, but there’s only so much of that a young fellow can do, especially one who’s itching to cook. Jacques’ shop was brand new and when I stopped in to look around, he saw that I was interested, and knowledgeable. I’d taken a few cookery courses back in Scotland, but I’d never seen anything like that shop of his. I started out unpacking boxes, stocking shelves. I learned a lot there, and Jacques gave me a chance to cook, and to teach.”

  I knew the story, of course, but I didn’t bother to point this out to Jim. As I’d seen in so many investigations, those left behind to deal with the aftermath of a tragedy needed space to explore their feelings and a chance to talk.

  “But this isn’t a tragedy,” I told myself the instant Jim was out the door. And then I felt guilty. Because of course Greg’s death was exactly that. Monsieur’s disappearance, on the other hand?

  Right now, that was a mystery.

  As always, my mind and Eve’s were apparently moving in the same direction. That would explain why the moment I was back at my desk and staring at those endless columns of blurred numbers again, she slipped into my office and plunked into the chair next to my desk.