BAD PICK

by Linda Lovely

  Paint tipped his head to the side. “Not a bit. All the signs were there. Danny was a goner months ago. Crazy, stupid in love. And, despite Mollye’s outward leanings toward—shall we say the unconventional—I’ve always known she’d be a bride. Just didn’t know if she’d prefer to wear a wedding ring on her finger, in her ear, or through her nose. I’ve watched Moll coo over Andy’s nieces and nephews. She loves the little ones.”

  My fork was half way to my mouth. It slipped back to my plate. The engagement announcement had floored me. How had Paint seen it coming a mile away?

  Sure, he’d grown up in Ardon County. He’d known Danny and Mollye forever. But that didn’t totally explain my obliviousness. Moll and I became summer friends at age eight, spending every minute together when I visited my aunts. When I returned to Iowa, we stayed pen pals, sharing secrets only admitted in teenagers’ locked diaries.

  After I moved to Udderly Kidding Dairy last spring, it was as if we’d never been apart. We talked for hours about our hopes, our dreams. I knew how much she loved children, and hoped to have a passel of kids. I knew she planned to marry someday.

  But I had no idea that someday was like now.

  “The look on your face tells me Mollye’s engagement surprised you,” Paint said. “Moll talks a good game. Paints herself as a butterfly of love out to taste nectar on a vast field of flowers. But it’s all talk. Bet she and Danny don’t even make their first anniversary before they’re baptizing a baby.”

  I toyed with my fork. “I knew she wanted marriage and a family. But she made it sound like a distant dream, not a let’s subscribe to Modern Bride priority.” I laughed. “Of course, I doubt Mollye would seek advice from any bridal magazine on how to plan her wedding.”

  Paint nodded. “She’ll do it up in style. So, in your talks with Mollye, did you admit to any desire for a husband and children?”

  I swallowed. Suddenly I longed to switch the conversation back to Harriett and lawsuits. My feelings were more than a little jumbled. I wanted the kind of marriage my parents had. Mom’s example proved a woman could have a wonderful career and a terrific marriage. She and Dad might be halves of a couple but they were both whole, unique individuals.

  “I’d like to marry someday and have a family.” I admitted it quickly, then paused. “But I won’t rush into something I might come to regret. Been there, done that. My next fiancé has to share my definition of love. He can’t believe affairs are optional. I need someone I can count on. Someone who’ll truly commit and yet let me be me.”

  Paint reached across the table and took my hand. “You can count on me, Brie. I’d ask you to marry me tonight if I thought you’d say yes. But, this time around, you’re the one who needs to commit. You have to choose.”

  His fingers caressed mine as he gently untangled our hands. He smiled. “You will let me know when you’re ready, right? All I need is a hint. Maybe tell me you’d like to see me on one knee. I’m quick on the uptake. Till then, I won’t make you squirm any longer. I’ll put the conversation on pause.”

  There’s an old cliché about feeling your heart in your throat. I know it’s ridiculous, but, if my ticker wasn’t choking me, some other large obstruction seemed determined to prevent me from speaking, or even sucking in air. I was undone.

  I’d been telling myself I loved both Paint and Andy. But was it true? I loved them both as friends. Yet Paint was the magician. His lips, his touch set me on fire. But fire could burn.

  I brought the linen napkin to my face, pretending to cover a cough. I tried to be unobtrusive as I quickly dabbed at the tears pooling in my eyes.

  “I wasn’t expecting—”

  Paint cut me off. “We’re moving on to another topic, remember. I’d rather you think for a while about what I said. No panicked response.” He cleared his throat. “Now when we spoke on the phone earlier, you said you wanted me to do you a favor tonight. What is it?”

  I took a calming breath. Paint was letting me wriggle off the hook. Don’t blurt out words you’ll regret until you corral your feelings.

  “It’s a pretty big favor. Can we drive to Greenville for dessert? I’ll treat. I hear Matt Hill’s restaurant has a menu with more dessert choices than entrées. Do you happen to know Matt?”

  Paint leaned back, tipping his chair on its back legs. “You want to meet Matt, don’t you? Is he somehow tied into your current run of bad luck? You said not to mention Harriett and lawsuits but I suspect you just changed the rules.”

  “You suspect right.” I hesitated. “Mollye believes Matt Hill could be Harriett’s killer. The gossip suggests she had something on him that could ruin his franchise plans. As a chef, Matt would know how to hide the taste of any bitter-tasting medicine or poison.”

  “Matt, a killer?” Paint’s lips quirked up, then he started laughing. “Sure let’s head to Greenville for dessert. But, I’ll give you a hundred-to-one odds, Matt isn’t your villain. Just wait till you meet him.”

  Paint quit laughing, but he couldn’t hide the smile or the twinkle in his eyes.

  Why did he think the idea of Matt Hill as killer so preposterous?

  TWENTY-NINE

  Paint circled the parking lot twice before he found a space big enough for his oversized truck. Matt Hill’s restaurant was packed. Paint jumped from the cab and circled around the truck’s hood to give me a hand down. Big trucks and short women have compatibility issues.

  “Time to meet our murder suspect.” Paint grinned. “Let’s go in the kitchen entrance. That’s how I usually enter. I do believe you have some familiarity with commercial kitchens. Most likely that’s where we’ll find Matt—unless he’s doing a magic act for customers. He’s an amateur magician.”

  I awarded Paint a puzzled look. “Sounds like you know Matt pretty well.”

  He grinned and grabbed my hand, leading me toward the restaurant’s back entrance. The door was located between two giant and quite odiferous trash bins. Not how you want first-time diners to enter your restaurant.

  Why hadn’t I googled the restaurant and its owner? Given the discrepancy between Moll’s suggestion that the owner was a prime murder suspect and Paint’s dismissive smirk, I had no idea what I’d encounter inside. I didn’t even know what type of cuisine the restaurant served. The fact that Matt Hill had lent an All-American name to the establishment suggested meat-and-potato fare with maybe a few nods to French and Italian dishes.

  Though we only had to cover about thirty feet to reach the back of the restaurant, the biting February wind made it seem a race against hypothermia. I couldn’t stop shivering, even after Paint cracked the door blasting us with a wave of kitchen heat. Felt like I was trading a refrigerator for a furnace.

  “¿Matias Colina, tú estás aquí?” Paint called out. “Tu cervecera favorita ha llegado. Tengo una hermosa mujer conmigo, pero debes mantener tus manos alejadas. Ella es mía.”

  What the Feta?

  Why was Paint suddenly speaking in foreign tongues? Definitely Spanish. I’d taken four years of high school French. Since Spanish and French were both Romance languages, many words were close cousins. Too bad not enough of them were relatives for me to grasp the gist of Paint’s rapid fire Spanish.

  Hmmm. I was pretty sure the word “mujer” meant woman. Surely Paint wasn’t joking with Matt, telling him he’d brought along a woman who suspected him of being a murdering psychopath.

  The huge kitchen appeared to be in total chaos as most commercial kitchens do to the uninitiated. Pots clanged. Waiters yelled orders. Lids on large kettles rattled from rising steam. The heavy metal door of a walk-in freezer banged shut as a woman in a white apron nudged it with her hip. She was one of four white-aproned workers scurrying hither and yon.

  It was the kind of controlled chaos I understood. I’d learned a few things as a sous chef.

  Somewhere within the pot-banging din, I heard laughter. It almos
t sounded like uncontrolled giggles coming from a spot to my left. When I looked in that direction, all I could see was an empty counter. Had the giggler bent down to pick something off the floor?

  A second later I saw a blur of red and white rush Paint’s legs. One minute Paint was standing, the next he’d executed a controlled tumble and was writhing on the floor.

  “Tu alto saco de caca. ¿Por qué no me dijiste que vendrías?” Paint’s petite wrestling partner laughed. The little man’s inflection suggested he was peppering Paint with questions.

  Stunned, I didn’t move a muscle, utter a word.

  A minute passed and the men ended their floorshow. Paint panted as he untangled himself from the chuckling little person, who wore a bright red shirt, black britches, and a white apron. “Brie, I’d like you to meet Matt Hill.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Matt struggled to a standing position and lifted his very short arm for a handshake. Though he’d just spoken rapid Spanish, only a hint of an accent flavored his English. His sparkling black eyes quickly checked me out from head to toe. But the roving gaze seemed inoffensive, like he was admiring his friend’s taste in women.

  I smiled as I leaned down. “I gather you are well acquainted with Mr. Paynter. Former teammates on a wrestling team perhaps?”

  Matt grinned. “Not quite. Known each other since college. Became friends freshman year when we went to El Salvador to help with earthquake recovery. I had cousins there, and, in a way, Paint had relatives, too. He’d spent a summer in San Salvador as part of a high school exchange program.”

  Aha. That’s why Paint’s Spanish was so fluent.

  Even on tip toes, I figured Paint’s college buddy was less than four feet tall. The shiny black hair atop his head didn’t quite reach my midriff.

  I recalled Paint’s initial reaction when he tumbled on to my reason for wanting to meet Matt. Naturally, Paint couldn’t conceive of his old friend being a killer. But one didn’t need great height to stir some drug into a chocolate mousse. I had to believe little people were as capable of murder as big people.

  “I saw a green VW Beetle outside,” Paint said. “You still driving that beat-up old cucaracho? Thought by now you’d own something grander than a bug, you know, like my fine truck.”

  Matt shook his head. “You kidding? It cost a fortune to tailor what you call my bug to my fine body.” He put a hand on his head and did a little pirouette. “If I owned a truck, I’d need mountaineering gear every time I climbed in or out. Besides the ladies love my bug.”

  Paint cast a told-you-so smirk my way. Okay, I got it. Matt couldn’t have driven the truck that parked in front of Summer Place the night my mousse was spiked with some poison. Of course, he could have had an accomplice. An accomplice certainly would have made it easier for him to work in my kitchen with its normal height counters.

  Huh? How did he manage here? I gave the large kitchen another visual scan.

  “You two are gonna stay till closing, right?” Matt asked. “Can’t really talk until then. It’s winding down but still busy. Ten o’clock brings in the after-theater crowd for drinks and dessert. Couple of employees called in sick—a waiter and our dessert chef.”

  Matt quirked an eyebrow as he assessed Paint. “Too bad you don’t know how to make Bananas Foster. It’s tonight’s advertised special. We printed the menus before Francine called in sick with the flu. All the other desserts are premade, but I’m going crazy finishing entrées and making batches of Bananas Foster.”

  I grabbed an apron off a row of hooks on the wall. “Bananas Foster? Easy peasy. Point me in the right direction.”

  Paint laughed. “Yes, she’s a chef.”

  “You’re an angel.” Matt kissed my hand.

  He then turned to Paint and made another comment I couldn’t follow in rapid Spanish. However, I understood Paint’s reply. “Yes, she is, and hands off. She’s taken.”

  Matt gave me a quick kitchen tour and showed me where to find the ingredients I needed—bananas, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, dark rum, and banana liqueur. Of course, the vanilla ice cream was in the freezer.

  The restauranteur announced to his kitchen crew that I was the new Francine. “All Bananas Foster orders go to Brie.”

  When I turned around, Paint had disappeared. I figured he’d taken a load off and was sitting out front at a good table, probably placing a double order for Bananas Foster and flirting with the waitresses.

  Five minutes later I discovered how wrong I’d been when Paint burst through the swinging doors separating the kitchen and dining room. He had a pencil tucked behind his ear and an order pad in his hand. “I need one lasagna and one fried chicken-all white meat.”

  He looked my way, waved, and picked up a tray filled with glasses of ice water. And he was gone, vanishing once more through the swinging doors.

  Son of a salami. Paint was waiting tables.

  I smiled. Seemed only fair that he’d been put to work, too. When I wasn’t whipping up orders of Bananas Foster, I made chocolate and caramel sauce designs to decorate the chilled plates used to serve the premade desserts. Had to admit it was fun to be back in the hurly burly of a commercial kitchen. On a busy night it was a lot like theater. Only in the kitchen, it was orders that were forgotten instead of dialogue and ingredients that disappeared instead of stage props.

  To keep customers happy, a great restauranteur knew how to improvise. Matt was a great restauranteur.

  I snuck occasional glances at him as he worked, marveling at his ingenuity. While all the kitchen counters were normal height, attached rolling ladders put every work space within Matt’s reach. The ladders resembled the wheeled affairs librarians relied on to reach top shelf books. However, Matt’s stainless steel numbers snapped out to become stepstools once they were rolled into position. When he finished, the ladder/stepstools folded flat and were neatly tucked back under the counters out of the way of taller kitchen workers.

  Just before midnight the barrage of new orders dwindled to a trickle. Matt rolled one of his ladders to a stop beside me. “Let’s call it a night. Only a few hangers on. If they order Bananas Foster, I’ll have the waitstaff say a monkey absconded with the last bunch of bananas. Can’t begin to thank you. Come join me in the dining room for a nightcap. Seems only fair for you to see what the front half of the restaurant looks like.”

  I untied my apron. “It’s a deal.”

  As Paint swung through the door into the kitchen, Matt took my hand. “Sorry, Paint, I know you said hands off, but she’s too perfect. I’m proposing marriage.”

  Paint laughed. “Get in line. I asked first.”

  Matt’s eyebrows shot up as he searched my face. “So did you say yes? Do I need to open champagne?”

  I could feel the blush. How to answer? “Well, Paint’s exaggerating—as usual. He didn’t actually propose. He implied he might ask if he knew the answer would be yes.”

  “Ah ha.” Matt chuckled. “I knew a lady would eventually steal Paint’s heart. I hope you say yes sooner rather than later. That would improve dating possibilities for the rest of us bachelors.”

  After settling us at a table, Matt went to get our drinks and I toed off my shoes. It was good to sit down.

  Matt returned in a flash with Paint’s beer and my wine. “Wish I could talk you two into coming to work here,” he said. “Paint, you’d make a fair waiter with a little more training, and Brie, you’re a marvel in the kitchen. Where are you working as a chef? I’ll pay more.”

  I told him I’d worked as a sous chef in Asheville and planned to open a B&B that catered to vegetarians and vegans. Had to give Matt credit. He didn’t scoff or snicker, even though his restaurant’s menu was definitely “beefy”.

  When I mentioned the name of my hoped-for B&B, Summer Place, Matt’s eyes went wide. “Oh no, I read about Harriett Quinn’s death. The Greenville paper reported a severe case
of food poisoning was believed to be the cause. The story also mentioned Bert, the paper’s food critique, was among the luncheon guests who took ill. Bert’s reviews can be pretty snarky. Hate to have him write one from his sick bed.”

  Paint interrupted. “We believe someone intentionally poisoned the food to kill Harriett. Apparently she had a bad habit of extorting restaurant owners, farmers, and other businesses. We thought you might know some of the folks who had a grudge.”

  “Besides me, you mean?” Matt shook his head. “Don’t kid a kidder, Paint. You heard I was one of her victims. You heard right. But I wanted her in jail, not dead. I went to the cops. I was cooperating in a sting operation.”

  Kidney pie with suet crust!

  For a little person, Matt could deliver one whopper of a surprise.

  I polished off two glasses of chardonnay as Matt told his story. Harriett had learned Matt, born Matias Colina—Colina means hill in Spanish—had been brought into the country illegally as a child.

  She assumed Matt Hill’s identity was stolen, and he was using fake documents to claim citizenship. The blogger threatened he’d lose his business and be deported if he didn’t pay up.

  “Harriett didn’t know the other half of the story,” he said. “My folks brought me to the States because they knew I needed expensive operations, an impossibility in El Salvador. They took me to an Atlanta doctor who specialized in treating dwarfism. The doctor’s brother is a dwarf. The doc managed to get me Special Juvenile Immigrant Status, in other words a green card. My folks had to return to El Salvador but I stayed in Atlanta with cousins. I’m not illegal.

  “So, no, I had no reason to kill Harriett,” he concluded. “But I’m sure there were others who wished her dead. I’m so sorry for the trouble this has brought you, Brie.”

  THIRTY

  Paint stayed on my bumper all the way to Udderly. I’d met him at Summer Place, and he didn’t want me driving home without an escort. It was almost two a.m. Even though it was super late and dawn would come early, I didn’t bolt for the cabin when Paint cut his engine and climbed down out of his truck.