Beat Until Stiff

by Claire M Johnson

  I started blubbering again.

  Amos spent the next fifteen miles apologizing and tried to stop my hysterics so I wouldn’t kill myself on the bridge. I pulled off at Fremont Street. The B of A clock loomed over my car as I tried to negotiate the curve, hold my cell phone, and blow my nose—all at the same time.

  “Are you off the freeway, yet?” Like he was coaching a seven-year-old trying to land a 747 jet, Amos spoke slowly and succinctly, his southern drawl in abeyance.

  “Y…e…s…ssss,” I sobbed.

  “Park and get yourself together. You’ve been doing way too much boo-hooing. After you’ve calmed down, you drive over to my place. Just whipped up a batch of vanilla ice cream. I got bananas and macadamia nuts, I’ll make the caramel right now.”

  The thought of a gooey, sweet banana split dried up my tears like magic.

  “Sounds great. I’m just a couple minutes away from the restaurant. I’ll swing by—those Boscs that came in last week are terrific—and I’ll pick up some chocolate, too.” Chocolate, pears, and freshly made ice cream. That should sublimate a few sexual urges. “I’ll be over in twenty minutes.”

  The restaurant was deserted. I grabbed a bowl, threw in a few hunks of chocolate and went to the walk-in to get the pears. Coming out I noticed the crime-scene tape missing from the laundry closet. Juan must have gotten clearance from the police. The closet was full of fresh laundry in anticipation of our reopening.

  My eyes darted from the gleaming white jackets and crisply pressed checked pants to the laundry bags piled on the floor filled with clean towels. Clean clothes versus total terror. In slow motion, my mind went over once again pulling down the sides of the laundry bag and flinching in horror at the sight of Carlos’ beaten face.

  I’d rather have eaten rotten eggs than go in there, but I really wanted some clean clothes.

  I went to the bar, grabbed a bottle of Remy V.S.O.P., and downed a couple of gigantic swigs. I ran into the laundry closet, and wedging my feet between the laundry bags, I lurched my way across the room. Not wanting to spend one more second than I needed to, I didn’t bother to hunt for my size but snatched a jacket and pants from the far end of the closet where the bigger sizes were, and fled upstairs to the office to change.

  Thom’s computer equipment and file cabinets were gone. They’d even hauled away his desk. It was like the Bermuda Office Triangle had swallowed up all traces of his existence.

  I called Amos’s number and put him on the speakerphone so I could talk and change clothes at the same time.

  “It’s me. I’m still at the restaurant. All Thom’s equipment is gone, computer, file cabinets, even his desk. O’Connor told me he’s their number one suspect.”

  I peeled off the sweats. The pants smelled like stale sex, all my pheromones riled up and no place to go.

  Memo to self: wash sweats in scalding water, twice, before returning to Moira.

  Amos snorted in disbelief. “They must be mighty desperate to think Thom had anything to do with either of those murders, especially Brent’s. Brent was his bread and butter. Carlos? I don’t think I saw Thom say two words to Carlos the entire two years he worked here.”

  Both the pants and jacket were way too big. The jacket I could live with. The pants? I grabbed a stapler from Juan’s desk and stapled the waistband in a couple of places so they’d stay on my hips.

  “That’s what I told O’Connor. He told me Thom’s bought a new car and moved to Nob Hill, all in the space of six months. Where’s he getting all this money? He’s paid well, but not that well.”

  “Not from his family, that’s for sure. You asked me a couple of days ago why I don’t come down on Thom. He and I are cut from the same cloth. His father’s a Hasidic rabbi back in New York. Just like my papa, he disowned Thom’s gay ass. His name used to be Wodinsky. His father made him change it, said he was a disgrace to his race and his religion. Felt like old home week when Thom told me that.”

  “He also has a jerky father, so what? That doesn’t explain the car or the apartment,” I reminded him. “Maybe Thom was embezzling. Brent found out so Thom killed him.”

  “Didn’t happen, baby.”

  “What do you mean?” I picked up the receiver and turned off the speakerphone. Amos’ voice lost that long-ago-far-away quality and became crystal clear.

  “Thom was with me all day Monday.”

  I couldn’t be hearing this right. “What do you mean, with you?”

  “How graphic do you want it?”

  I sat down on the edge of the nearest desk and tried to digest what Amos was telling me. On the one hand I felt vindicated. Eat rocks, O’Connor. On the other, here’s my best friend telling me he’s having some sort of relationship with a man whose character I assassinate on a daily basis.

  “Amos, I’m having a hard time with this one.”

  “Yeah, I thought you might. Give me O’Connor’s pager number. I gotta save Thom’s hide. You still coming over?”

  “In a little while. I’ve got some errands to run. I don’t have any clothes, my house is still wrapped up in crime-scene tape.”

  “We’ve been friends too long to let this shit interfere. You going to be here sometime soon?”

  “I promise. First, I need to go to Mervyn’s and pick up some underwear,” I lied.

  If Thom didn’t kill Brent, and, by default, Carlos, then who did? I needed to talk to Sharon and find out what was behind their office visit. The determination and vitriol in Sharon’s voice when she insisted on removing anything incriminating from the office was proof enough for me that she had some knowledge about the financial shenanigans going on, who was cooking the books—and why. I might get some answers if I made noise about her being accessory after the fact, but then placate her by claiming I’d use my influence with S.F.P.D. on her behalf if she told me everything.

  Before I left for Sharon’s I went down to the kitchen and swiped a steak knife from the cutlery station. Using some first aid tape, I lashed it to my forearm and rolled my sleeve down to cover it. Just in case. I couldn’t imagine Sharon hurting me, but the last few days had shown me that things were seldom what they seemed. I closed up the restaurant and drove to St. Francis Woods. Halfway there I realized I’d left the pears and chocolate back at the restaurant. Damn.

  Chapter 19

  All the way to St. Francis Woods, I went over everything I knew about the wine setup: how we added wines to the cellar, the delivery schedule, and the cellar itself. We choose wines based on staff tastings and recommendations. Once every couple of months, Brent, Juan, me, the sous chefs, and the top waiters sit around a table, taste a wine by itself, and then try it paired with food. Needless to say, on wine-tasting days, a jolly time is had by all. By the time I get to the dessert wines, I certainly am not feeling any pain.

  The delivery is standard. Tuesdays and Thursdays for the liquor distributors. I often sign for the deliveries because most foodstuffs come early in the morning. We start baking for the lunch service around seven in the morning. Nothing out of the ordinary there. I couldn’t come up with a single link between Carlos and Brent that made sense.

  I didn’t arrive at Sharon’s house until four. She answered the door, her shirt dirty and the knees of her white leggings green from grass stains. She obviously didn’t check the peephole, because the second it registered who I was she started yelling.

  “What in the hell are you doing at my house? The one woman at that restaurant I trusted, and I find you were just another one of his fucks.” She spat out the “k” with such force that a fine mist of spittle blanketed my face.

  Never, for one minute, had it occurred to me that Sharon would think I’d slept with Brent. She glared at me with such pure venom that if she’d had a gun in her hand, she’d have killed me.

  “Sharon, I was not having an affair with your husband. He and I respected each other in the kitchen, we worked well together, but that’s it,” I stressed. “I can’t explain
why he was killed in my house. Our relationship was strictly professional. Please believe me.”

  She stood there glowering at me, her arms wrapped tightly around her body, not willing to acknowledge anything I said.

  I tried again. “I never would have gotten involved with him. Anyway, the bottom line is Brent wouldn’t have been interested in me. I’m too old. He liked them…younger,” I finished lamely, bringing a bitter smile to her face. Sharon knew that only too well.

  “If you weren’t having an affair with him, why was he in your bed?” she threw back at me. I guess the police had filled her in on the gory details.

  “I don’t know why, the police don’t know why.” In my final bid for forgiveness, I blurted out, “Sharon, for God’s sake, my own marriage was destroyed because my husband fell in love with another woman. Do you think I’d in good conscience do that to someone else?”

  I pushed all thoughts of that torrid scene with O’Connor aside.

  Her voice lost its edge. “Brent never told me you and Jim split up.”

  “Couple of years ago. The divorce was final last year.”

  Typical of Brent. Here we’d worked together for more than seven years and it barely even registered with him that my world was falling apart.

  “God, Brent was such a self-centered asshole. He never said a thing to me about you getting a divorce.” Her body language relaxed. She rubbed her hands vigorously over her face and tied her long hair in a knot at the back of her neck.

  “Come in, but I can’t talk long. I need to make funeral arrangements before the kids get home from my mom’s.”

  I followed her into the living room. It was gorgeous, just like I remembered from the magazine photo spread.

  I knew Brent had used an interior designer, but obviously Sharon had made all the decisions. If Brent had had his heavy hand in it, the house would have been decorated in the most avant-garde Italy offered that year. Turquoise leather couches with cement slab coffee tables, that sort of thing.

  Damask-covered couches, leather club chairs, and mahogany tables were placed artfully around the room. A baby grand, polished so black that I could see my face in it, graced one corner. This was the kind of room that begged for a fire, a good book, and a big snifter of brandy. She had capitulated on the artwork, it was outré and avant-garde. But the rest of the room was so inviting that the art was merely a minor irritation.

  As I walked across the room, my shoes disappeared into an enormous Turkish rug that spanned the length and width of the room. I sat down in a leather club chair that swallowed me up; the nap of the leather caressed my back and neck, making me feel as if I were encased in a giant glove. I laid my arm flat against the arm of the chair so that the steak knife wouldn’t prick the crook of my elbow.

  Sharon parked herself across from me on a sofa that looked equally snug. Whatever skullduggery Brent was involved in, it certainly paid well. I thought about the furniture in my own house, mostly hand-me-downs from my parents. Why is honesty always either cheap or ugly?

  “I’m very sorry. I…I know your marriage wasn’t the best, but Brent’s death must be very hard on your kids.”

  “Yes, it is.” she closed her eyes briefly, exhaustion evident from the black circles under her eyes. “They’re the only reason why I stayed with that two-timing bastard. They loved him and he loved them.” She glanced at a montage of family photos on the wall next to the fireplace. Picture after picture cataloguing their life together, everyone smiling. One big happy family.

  “Inspector O’Connor asked me if I was ever in the restaurant. I hated that goddamn restaurant. Every time I went in there I’d run into some beautiful twenty-year-old with a knowing smirk on her face. She’d look at me and gloat over my post-partum body. I was beautiful and slim at that age, too. I was such a lovely bride.”

  We automatically looked at their wedding pictures. Her face softened for a split second and I saw the girl she must have been without all that disappointment and anger carved deep into her features. “I believed in all that crap they feed you in the magazines. I actually thought that when we got married, he’d stop. Then I told myself once we had the kids he’d stop. It was all bullshit. I should have left. But when the kids were born and then they loved him so much, I couldn’t leave. I thought that if you loved someone enough that everything would be okay.” She looked at me with such longing that I knew she still wanted to believe it.

  “It doesn’t work that way,” I said, thinking of my own photo album, now relegated to the box in the back of my hall closet.

  “Why are you here, Mary?” Sharon asked, her voice back to its normal caustic tone. “I take it you didn’t come here to discuss my lousy marriage.”

  “I think Brent and Carlos’ murders are linked and that the restaurant is integral to the case.”

  She braced her hands against the seat like she was getting ready to stand up.

  “You know I never interfered in the running of the restaurant. That was Brent’s thing. I can’t help you.”

  She was about to hoist herself up when I dropped the bombshell.

  “Sharon, I was at the restaurant the night you and Brent went to the office.”

  Her hands went slack, her body retreated back into the folds of the couch. Her eyes jumped to the doorway and her butt wriggled in her seat, as if she were planning an escape route. Then her face smoothed over, confident and sure. She was going to call my bluff. “There wasn’t anyone there, we checked,” she challenged.

  “Don’t play poker with me.” I wagged a finger at her. “I hold all the cards. You didn’t check under Juan’s desk. Want me to repeat verbatim your conversation? How did you say it? ‘Your pride and joy? Spare me. You sure as hell didn’t mind spending eighty hours here last week.’”

  Sharon sat there stunned, many emotions playing across her face: surprise, fear, speculation, and lastly a grim determination. She didn’t say anything for the longest time.

  “You left the light on.”

  I nodded.

  “I knew someone was there. Brent is an idiot.” She slapped the arm of the couch in frustration; her voice berated Brent as if he weren’t stiff and lifeless on an autopsy table. “Have you told the police?”

  “Yes, I did. I’m sorry, Sharon,” I apologized, “but I had no choice. Come clean with them. Right now Thom Woods is the prime suspect, but Thom has an alibi for Brent’s murder. Once they find that out they’ll be back to question you about the missing files. Play the long-suffering wife, the mother of his children. I think they’ll go easy on you.”

  She leaned forward and put two surprisingly delicate hands on two rather fat knees.

  “What’s in this for you, Mary?”

  The question surprised me. I didn’t know the answer. Maybe I had to prove to O’Connor that I was as smart as I boasted I was or that we were equals. The answer I gave to Sharon acknowledged none of that.

  “Someone tried to jimmy open the door to my motel room. He’s killed two out of three. I don’t want to make the third time a charm.”

  Her mouth fell open.

  “Someone tried to kill you, too?”

  “Yeah. I think these murders have something to do with the wine. Was Brent getting kickbacks?”

  “I don’t know.” She leaned back into the couch. The damask crinkled as it adjusted to her weight.

  “Sharon, it’s a little too late in the game for this bullshit.” I sounded angrier than I knew was wise, but I wanted answers and I wanted them now.

  “I don’t know the details. Really,” she insisted. “Brent came home immediately after the police questioned him at the restaurant. He was hysterical. He kept repeating over and over again, ‘The police are in the restaurant. They’re searching everywhere.’ Finally, it dawned on me that he wasn’t hysterical, he was terrified.”

  “I picked up on that, too. His reaction to Carlos’ murder was way over the top.”

  “We had the most awful figh
t of our whole marriage. And that’s saying something. After I begged him for over an hour to tell me what was going on, he finally admitted that he and Juan were running an extremely lucrative scheme involving the wine. I went nuts, screaming how could he jeopardize our future with some stupid scam. I demanded some answers. He refused to say anything other than it involved wine. When I continued pressing him for details, it really got ugly.”

  She paused, closing her eyes in painful memory and her shoulders slumped further into the chair. I knew she was going to tell me everything. The air of confession was so strong I could eat it for dinner.

  I prodded her. “What happened next, Sharon?”

  “He started taunting me. How did I think we paid for this house, for the interior decorator and the expensive rugs on the floor and the kids’ tuition at a fancy private school and the thousands of dollars a year I spent on plants. He began sneering about how I liked living the high life just as much as he did and I should shut up. When he told me to shut up, I grabbed a lamp and was about to throw it at him when you showed up. I probably would have killed him myself that night if you hadn’t pounded on the window.”

  “That’s the impression I got,” I admitted.

  “I love this house,” she sighed and glanced around at the room, her eyes taking in every elegant curve, every tasteful artifact. “It will break my heart if we have to move, but right then and there I knew I couldn’t live here on the proceeds of something illegal. The kids would adjust. I insisted we go to the restaurant and double-check that any incriminating paperwork had been destroyed. I got him to swear to me that he’d stop whatever he was doing. No more. Regardless of the financial outcome, it was going to stop.”

  Her face softened slightly.

  “You have to understand, he grew up very poor. His father drank most of his paycheck. Sometimes Brent went to bed hungry. He started working in restaurants to get meals. Then he discovered that he had real talent, that he could actually make money cooking. And once he made money he had to buy expensive things to prove he wasn’t poor. I’ve lost count of how many Italian leather jackets he bought himself. He was a weak man,” she concluded.