Biscuits and Slashed Browns

by Maddie Day

  “My impression, too.”

  “Obviously his wife and son know him a lot better than we do. Maybe it was so wildly out of character they dismissed it out of hand to even imagine him hiding in a dirty, rough, drafty place.”

  “Could be. To me, because I don’t know him, the shed seemed like a logical place to look, and I wasn’t sure why they said he’d never go there, despite how run-down it is.” I pictured the derelict building. “A shelter on your own property? No-brainer.”

  “Plus, he may not be a citizen.” Abe stood and cleared our plates. “Running if you’re a foreign national, even if you have a green card, can have serious consequences. So he might not have wanted to risk having his car traced, or plane travel linked back to him.”

  “I hadn’t thought of his immigration status. I imagine if he were found outside the country, he might never be able to come back. As it is, I wonder if he’s at risk of being deported. Even though he says he never meant to push Connolly hard enough to injure him, injury is exactly what happened.” I pushed my chair back. “Can we sit on the couch? I need to relax more than this lovely wooden chair allows.”

  Abe took me by the hand and led me to the couch in my small living room, switching on a lamp as we went. “I did bring dessert.” He flashed me a wicked grin. “Besides myself, that is.”

  “How did I get so lucky?” I smiled as I shook my head. Birdy strolled into the room, too. He coiled himself and leapt up onto the back of the couch in one smooth move.

  “How about vanilla bean ice cream with a homemade gingersnap?” The dimple punctuated his own smile. “And how does a tiny chaser of Abe’s finest cognac sound?”

  “Are you kidding? What does heaven sound like?”

  He grinned again and made off for the kitchen. Birdy hopped down to nestle between the corner of the couch and my hip. I watched Abe’s cute tight butt leave the room, amazed at the fact that, in four months together, we’d never argued. Conflict just didn’t seem to come up between us. Maybe I was in denial, but I planned to enjoy this ride as long as I could. Possibly for the rest of my life.

  In a minute he was back, juggling two sweets-laden dishes with spoons tucked under the dessert, a squat dark-green bottle, and two tiny glasses. Good thing I had a coffee table. He plopped down beside me.

  “You know,” Abe said a minute later between bites, “I’ve been in that outbuilding, where you found Turner’s dad.”

  “You have?”

  “Yeah. The Raos bought the maple farm maybe ten years ago. But before that, my buddy’s granddad owned it. We used that old hunting shack as a get-high getaway in high school. And as boys we played soldiers-and-Indians and cops-and-robbers in those woods.”

  “I bet you practiced walking like an Indian. And not a Hindi-speaking one, either.” I gently hip-butted him. He’d told me the story of how he’d practiced for hours to walk in silence without crunching a dry leaf or cracking a branch.

  “We all did.” He twisted his head to look down at me, eyebrows raised. “You didn’t?”

  I laughed. “I was more interested in swimming like a dolphin, or designing puzzles like Will Shortz. Those were my ambitions as a kid.”

  “Who’s Will Shortz?”

  I twisted right back. “You’re kidding me, right?” He couldn’t be serious. Who hadn’t heard of Will Shortz?

  “Uh-uh.” Abe widened his eyes, shaking his head. “Who the heck is he?”

  “He’s only the editor of the New York Times puzzle division. You can’t be serious.”

  Abe started laughing so hard he almost sloshed his brandy, then he leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Sweet Robbie. Don’t you think I know by now who your rock stars are? Mr. Shortz and Ms. Guarnier.”

  “Yeah, one of the best female American cyclists in the last decade.” I laughed. “Okay, you got me.”

  When he stopped chuckling, Abe went on in a more serious vein. “I wish I’d gotten your text earlier. I could have led you straight to the shack.”

  I sipped my cognac and drew my eyebrows together. “At least I let you know where I was going. I wasn’t sure—I’m still not, frankly—if Dr. Rao was innocent or if he lied about his role in Connolly’s death.”

  “I might suggest it was just a little bit risky to go out there alone.” Abe squeezed my knee.

  “I know. I also called Phil, and he said he’d come. Except on the way over he got into a minor accident and had to wait around to resolve it with the other driver. But thank you for not berating me about going it by myself.” One of the reasons we didn’t have conflict was that he never told me what to do. I didn’t mind—and appreciated—his expressions of concern. But legislating what I did would change the game entirely. One which he had never once tried to play.

  I savored the last bite of the cold creamy treat featuring flecks of the dark tropical bean and a deep, rich flavor. A good vanilla was way underrated. “You grew up here, Abe. Did you know Sonia Genest?”

  “She’s older than me. She was a senior at South Lick High School when I was a freshman. Sonia was president of the science club as well as in the modern dance club, as I recall. I didn’t really know her. But I had a major crush on her.”

  “The older woman.” I elbowed him gently.

  “I know. And I did bum around with Glen, her little brother, for a few years. Why?”

  “She didn’t like Warren Connolly. At all. They were in the same field, and she said in public more than once he was dishonest and he was cheating other more deserving candidates out of grant money.”

  Once again he twisted to meet my eyes. “And you believe she might have killed him?”

  “I have no idea. But she was hanging out with . . . No, coming on to”—I lifted my eyebrows as I continued—“Nick Mendes at Hoosier Hollow last night. I went looking for Christina and instead found a flirt fest at the restaurant’s new bar.”

  “And,” Abe drew out the syllable, “that’s illegal how?”

  “It’s not. But when we talked, she hedged and danced around the answer of where she was the night Connolly was killed. I couldn’t figure out why. If you’re innocent, why not say where you were, even if you were alone?” I spread my hands, palms up.

  “Maybe she figured it was none of your business.”

  “I guess.” And it wasn’t really, except figuring out this crime was something I needed to do. I stared at the painting on the opposite wall. It was an evocative water color of a sailboat on a lake painted by Richard Gruelle. Mom had inherited it from her—and Adele’s—grandfather. He’d known the painter, one of the Hoosier Group of nineteenth-century impressionist painters. It made me wish my only cares were if the sails were trimmed and a wind blew in the right direction.

  “Is Nick somehow involved?” Abe asked.

  “I don’t know.” I tapped my spoon on the edge of the bowl. “Dr. Rao said he pushed Professor Connolly when they stood behind the dumpster outside the kitchen of the Nashville Inn. I was the chef at the inn. I know Nick had to have taken the evening’s trash out to the container after the restaurant closed. How could he have missed seeing Connolly lying there?”

  Chapter 20

  I pedaled in a low gear uphill to the Nashville Inn the next morning at somewhere near ten o’clock. The clouds had remained overnight and the temps hovered around fifty, but nothing was falling from the sky. I didn’t mind. Cool temperatures were great for a long ride. I needed a good workout to exorcise my mental demons and exercise my muscles, including the heart. I’d been riding since nine o’clock and my every nerve and muscle fiber felt alert and alive.

  Nashville being the midpoint of the loop I’d designed, I decided stop there for a quick breather. Riding hills was not for the wimpy. And my curiosity about the dumpster hadn’t simply vanished overnight. Abe’s dinner and the pleasure of our slumber party after dessert last night might well have made me forget the murder, but my brain didn’t work that way. Before he’d left just as the sun was rising, he’d cautioned me to be careful in
my digging, and I’d promised I would.

  I glanced down a side street I was about to cross, a street filled with cottages and the occasional basketball hoop. Instead I slammed on the brakes, touching down one foot for balance. Speak of the devil. A county electric company truck with its signature green stripe was parked down the street a ways. Abe, in his green uniform shirt, leaned against the side of the truck talking to a woman. His back was to me but hers wasn’t. She was a blonde about my age but several inches taller. I shrugged mentally, figuring she was a customer talking to the lineman about whatever problem she’d called in. I was about to ride on when she, smiling, reached out a hand and laid it on his forearm. I froze. She kept her hand there. He did nothing to shirk it off.

  My inner country singer rose up. Who was this female laying claim to my man? Maybe I was about to lose Abe, too. Maybe loss was my karma, as the shrill little voice inside kept telling me. I kept staring. The energy of my gaze must have penetrated the woman’s awareness, because she returned my look for a second.

  I had to get out of here before Abe turned around and looked, too. I pedaled on, with the more reasonable part of my brain trying desperately to take charge. “She was just a really forward customer. It meant nothing. She’s not a threat.” I repeated the last like a mantra until I reached the inn.

  Putting my food down again, I took a few deep breaths in and out to calm myself. I dismounted and leaned the cycle against a lamp post at the back of the inn, hanging my helmet on the handlebars. Nobody used the rear door except employees. I didn’t plan to be here so long anyone would have a chance to snatch my prized steed even if they were so inclined, which I doubted. Most people were awfully nice in this part of the world. It’s not to say we didn’t have problems—like murders, for example—but petty theft of a two-wheeler, even a nice one, was pretty rare.

  The big green dumpster on the other side of the ramp to the back door was enclosed by a wooden stockade fence. The fence had seen better days. Or the dumpster would have been enclosed if the wide gate to the enclosure hadn’t stood open. Maybe the container had been emptied by the refuse company this morning and no one bothered to close the gate.

  I crossed over to the tall rickety fence someone had painted black in the distant past. I shook my head. The inn prided itself on its cuisine and its well-deserved reputation as a high-end lodging and conference destination. You’d think they’d give a little more care to what sat out back. Half the wood making up the fence was rotting, and a few of the slats had been pulled away. The owners might as well have left the dumpster out in the open.

  When I cooked here, after I closed down the kitchen at night, all I cared about was getting the trash out and heading home. I didn’t know if I’d ever walked all the way around the enclosure. But I did now. Despite the gunmetal gray sky, it was still full morning, and the sky held plenty of light for me to see clearly as I moved slowly around to the far side of the fence. Dr. Rao had told me he pushed Connolly behind the dumpster. If this was where it had happened, the professor couldn’t have been knocked unconscious by the enclosure. I reached out my hand. The corner post wobbled when I pressed on it and it was rounded, with no sharp, injuring edges. The thick steel dumpster itself would have been another story, but I knew the container fit closely into the enclosure, with only a foot to spare on each side.

  I walked as slowly as I could, examining the ground. Even if blood from Connolly’s head wound—if he’d suffered one—had splashed onto the fence, I wouldn’t be able to see it on the black paint. At least it hadn’t rained since the murder. I turned the last corner.

  And pulled up short. A waist-high hunk of cut rock sat a foot away from the fence, a hunk as big as the massive limestone blocks the Indiana University founders had used for the original campus buildings. The builders of the South Lick Public Library in 1917 had used them, too. And everybody else, from those who constructed the Empire State Building to the builders of modest, long-lasting homes throughout the state. Southern Indiana was rich in quarries and had shipped stone around the world in its heyday. I’d almost lost my father to the cool but treacherous water of an abandoned quarry before I was born.

  This particular block of rock had not been worn smooth by water running over it. It hadn’t had its edges worn down by decades of feet treading its surface. This one featured sharp edges at right angles. And a dark stain right about where a man’s head might have hit as he fell backward.

  Chapter 21

  I didn’t go any closer, in case this was a crime scene, but I kept staring at the stain.

  “Lose somethin’?”

  “Eesh!” A decidedly girlish shriek popped out of me at hearing a man’s deep voice at close range and I nearly face planted onto the stone. I turned to see Nick Mendes standing behind me. “Whoa. You startled me, Nick.”

  He threw back his head and roared. “I guess. That was wicked funny.” When his laughter calmed, he folded his arms on his chest and leaned against the nearest corner of the enclosure. The wood creaked and shifted. Nick, today clad in a black chef’s tunic and the ubiquitous black and white checked pants of the profession, frowned as he straightened.

  “Jeez.” My voice squeaked and I cleared my throat, patting my sternum. I’d been so absorbed in my prowling and my thoughts I hadn’t heard a thing. “Do you make a habit of sneaking up on people?”

  “Only when they’re sneaking around behind dumpsters. Seriously, did you lose somethin’? What are you doing here?” He pronounced the last word as “heah.”

  “No, I didn’t lose anything.” I kept my tone as light as I could, and gestured toward my cycle. “I was out for a long ride and thought I’d stop by the inn for old times’ sake. See what’s new and all, ask how you’re doing.” I smiled.

  He blinked long dark lashes. They were the kind Mom used to say a girl would die for, a comment I always found more than a bit sexist.

  “You know I cooked here for three years, right?” I asked. “Before Christina took over?”

  “You did? I’m not sure I knew that.”

  I was sure Christina had said she told Nick who had preceded her in the kitchen. And I knew my framed picture hung in the hall, the penultimate in the two-century-long lineage of inn chefs.

  “And you were nostalgic for the dumpster?” He tilted his head, no longer smiling.

  My laugh came out short and nervous. “No, I was just stretching my legs.”

  “Come in.” Nick turned. “I’ll show you around, and you can tell me what’s changed.”

  I needed to use the facilities and drink water. Why shouldn’t I take the kitchen tour? I’d love to learn more about what brought Nick to Brown County, and how he envisioned his future. Working as head chef even for the best inn in the area was still pretty small potatoes compared to being part of the crew in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, or, the ultimate, New York. Me? I was happy to be a small-potatoes entrepreneur. But not all cooks were.

  As I followed him toward the back door, I cast a final look at the huge block of stone. Sooner or later, I—or better yet, Detective Thompson—needed to check out that dark stain. It didn’t appear native to the stone itself.

  Inside, I excused myself to the restroom. My bike shoes clunked along the polished poplar floor. The wood’s greenish tinge echoed the green toile wallpaper depicting idyllic and idealized scenes in the French countryside. Such flourishes weren’t my style, but I had to admit it fit the late nineteenth-century era when the inn was built. If it had been constructed by the aristocracy, that is, and if the inn had served the American elite. Instead, framed news accounts proved the original inhabitants had been rowdy post-Civil-War veterans turned pioneers and their saloon keepers.

  Before I left the restroom, I pulled out my phone. Darn. I didn’t have the card Thompson had given me with his number on it. I should have entered his number in my phone on the spot. I had Buck’s cell number, so I thumbed a message to him, instead.

  Pls tell Det Thompson to check stain on big stone
block behind Nashville Inn dumpster. Rao told me he pushed prof there, who hit his head. Thx.

  I assumed—hoped, really—that Sajit had in fact turned himself in last night, and told the detective all about pushing Connolly, which was why I hadn’t called in the information myself. This stain looked like confirmation of the story.

  Back in the kitchen, Nick was busy chopping carrots, wielding what looked like a Wusthof knife with his left hand. A tall stainless steel pot simmered on the stove, and in a wide cast-iron skillet minced onions and sliced mushrooms bubbled slowly in butter. The mouthwatering fragrance of the combination made me want to spoon a taste directly into my mouth.

  Instead I asked, “Mind if I grab a glass of water?”

  “Help yourself. I assume you know where things are.”

  I filled a tumbler and wandered around the space as I sipped. The owners had retained the antique bead board on the walls when they’d modernized the fixtures and added institutional appliances, and the room was painted the same creamy shade of yellow it had always been. I didn’t see many changes from when I worked there, except for a framed photograph of the Red Sox on the wall. I pointed to it.

  “You’re a fan?”

  He turned and stared at me. “What Bostonian isn’t?” Disdain dripped from his words. “Missing Sox games is the major downside of working in Indiana. I’ll have to fly home for a game or two this summer.”

  “How did you land in Brown County, anyway?” He’d started here this winter when Christina moved to Hoosier Hollow

  He turned back to his chopping. “Saw the ad the inn posted online.” He sniffed midsentence. “And it was time for a change of scenery.”

  “And how do you like it here? The pace of life must be pretty different from Boston, not that I’ve ever been there.”

  “True. Nothing moves too fast around here. Not like at home.” He carried the cutting board to the stove and slid the carrots into the skillet. “You’re a long way from home, too, aren’t you?”