by Leslie Karst
Dying for a Taste
Dying for a Taste
A Sally Solari Mystery
Leslie Karst
NEW YORK
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Leslie Karst
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-62953-597-5
ISBN (ePub): 978-1-62953-598-2
ISBN (Kindle): 978-1-62953-662-0
ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-62953-673-6
Cover design by Louis Malcangi
Cover illustration by Hiro Kimura
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
2 Park Avenue, 10th Floor
New York, NY 10016
First Edition: May 2016
For my mom, Smiley Karst, who first got me reading mysteries and whose own writing inspired me to try my hand at fiction.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
At least twice a week, I have customers tell me how lucky I must feel, having been born into this family. Bellies tight from their lunches of clam chowder and osso buco, they’ll gesture out Solari’s picture window at the flocks of brown pelicans soaring up the coast, wing tips just grazing the waves.
“I can’t even imagine a better place to work than this,” they’ll exclaim, and pull out their phones to take shots of the fishing boats bobbing up and down in the Monterey Bay.
They truly have no idea.
But then again, they’ve never had to talk down a rabid waitress on the verge of walloping a busboy over the head with a serving tray, which happened to be the delightful task occupying me at our family’s restaurant this Monday lunch shift.
Giulia, a hefty gal in a black skirt and form-fitting white blouse, had cornered Sean in the alcove separating the wait station from the now-busy dining room. Animated voices rose above the clatter of cutlery on ceramic dishes, and the pungent aroma of garlic and fried fish hung in the air.
“Put that down this instant,” I said to Giulia, placing myself strategically between her and the cowering busboy, “and tell me what in God’s name is going on here.”
“It wasn’t my fault!” The teenager emerged from behind a rack of soup bowls and stuck out a chin sporting the beginnings of a fuzzy, blond beard. “The man just stood up all of a sudden and threw his arm out, right as I came up to his table.”
“Sean managed to knock three orders of cannoli onto the guy at table nine,” Giulia retorted, “smearing cream all down the front of his fancy suit. He’s been in before and was a huge tipper. That sure won’t happen today.” She glared at the busboy, and he backed up a step. “What the hell were you doing bringing out the dessert anyway?”
“Mario told me to. He said it had been sitting at the window for like ten minutes, and he wanted it out of the way.” There was a hint of triumph on the boy’s face: one point for his side.
Giulia knew she’d been bested, and her eyes blazed. Raising the tray once more, she started forward, but I blocked her way with my tall, lanky frame.
“Hold your horses, sister. Is the table still here?” She nodded. “Right,” I said. “We’re all three going out there right now to make a formal apology. How much did they order?”
“Three specials is all. And the desserts. Which of course never made it to the table,” Giulia added with another glare in Sean’s direction. “No bar tab.”
“Good. So you, Giulia, are going to inform the man that the entire meal is on the house and that we’ll pay for the dry cleaning for his suit as well. That should appease him a bit. Okay, let’s march.”
I followed Giulia and Sean into the dining room and then immediately ducked back into the alcove. But it was too late; he’d already spotted me.
“Why, Ms. Solari,” a deep voice boomed across the room. “Fancy meeting you here!” I slunk back in and crossed to his table, the table: number nine. It was Jack Saroyan, senior partner of Saroyan, Davies & Lang, one of the biggest law firms in Santa Cruz, California.
And my boss from a past life.
“Uh, hi, Jack,” I said, managing a weak smile. “So sorry about all this.” I nodded at the wet splotches down the front of his pale-gray suit. “Do let me know what the dry cleaning bill is, and we’ll cover it for you.”
I glanced at Giulia, who was clearly taken aback by the fact that I knew the gentleman. But she recovered quickly and launched into her spiel about comping the meal. Ever the suave politician type, Jack just laughed it off and assured us all that his clothes would be fine.
After Giulia and Sean had gone back to their duties, Jack introduced me to his tablemates: a pair of expert witnesses he’d hired for a land-subsidence case. “Sally used to be one of our very best associate attorneys,” he informed the two men. “But sadly she left us a few years ago to return to the family business.” He turned back to me. “You know,” he said with a glance down his front and a wink, “perhaps managing waitstaff isn’t the vocation you were meant for after all. You might want to consider coming back to work for us.”
***
Right, I thought as I headed for the tiny office behind the dry storage room that I shared with my dad. Like that’ll be happening anytime soon. No matter how much I might bitch about being back at Solari’s, the thought of returning to the grind of pumping out endless billable hours was far worse.
I sank into the folding chair and reached across the metal desk for a brown paper bag sitting atop a stack of time sheets. My lunch—a ham and Swiss on Jewish rye with lots of mayo and Dijon mustard—was inside. Yes, I did work at a restaurant, but after a while, you get tired of fried zucchini and spaghetti carbonara every single day. It was past noon, and I’d had no breakfast. I unwrapped the sandwich and took a large bite just as my phone went off: the Hawaii Five-0 theme song, Eric’s ringtone.
“Sal, thank God I got you.”
“This better be good,” I said, mouth full. “I’m in the middle of lunch, and I have not had a great morning.”
“Oh, Sally . . .” There was a pause and labored breathing on the other end of the line.
“What?” I finished chewing and sat up. Eric’s my ex-boyfriend, so I know the guy pretty darn well. It wasn’t like him to be short on words.
“It’s your Aunt Letta.” Another pause. “She’s dead.”
“Wha—?”
“I�
��m down here at her restaurant. That’s where it happened.”
“What? A heart attack or something?”
There were loud voices in the background. Eric spoke briefly to someone else—I couldn’t make out the words—and then came back on the line. “She was stabbed, Sally. It looks like a murder.”
“Oh my God.” I jumped up out of my chair and just missed knocking over a mug of yesterday’s coffee.
“That’s why I’m here. One of the cops on the scene is a friend of mine, and when he realized who the victim was, he gave me a call.”
“Oh my God,” I said again, sliding back into my chair and slumping over the desk. “Does my dad know?”
“Not yet. You’re the first person I’ve told.”
“I better get down there with you.”
“I dunno, Sal; it’s pretty . . . grisly. And they’re not going to let you in anyway. It’s a crime scene. They even kicked me out of the building, and I’m a DA.”
“I don’t care. I’m coming.” I shut off the phone and took a few deep breaths, trying to slow my rapid heartbeat. Then I ran out into the hall and grabbed the first person I saw—Emilio, one of the line cooks—by the arm. “Where’s my dad?” I shouted.
“He ran out for some polenta. They shorted our delivery yesterday, and we don’t have enough for tonight. What’s the big deal?”
“Tell ya later.” Retrieving my purse from the office, I hurried outside to my beat-up, green Accord, slammed the door, and backed up, nearly colliding with a Stagnaro Bros. seafood delivery truck in the process. The driver hurled some choice words in my direction and then continued on.
Okay, girl, calm down. I waited a moment, made sure no one was in my rearview mirror, and then finished backing out into the road—more cautiously this time.
As I made my way down the length of the wharf, I tried to wrap my mind around what Eric had told me: Aunt Letta’s life, which had always seemed so exotic and glamorous to me, was over. Finished. Gunning the accelerator, I cruised through the roundabout and headed downtown. No, it simply didn’t make any sense.
In order to make a left off of Pacific Avenue, I had to wait while a gaggle of pedestrians streamed through the crosswalk. This street, which bisects the Eastside and Westside of Santa Cruz from the ocean almost to the hills, is lined with shops, movie theaters, and restaurants and is a magnet for all aspects of our community: university students, moms with strollers, aging hippies, suit-clad professionals, and grizzled men with backpacks and bedrolls.
I finally managed to dart across the road between a pair of adolescent skate punks and an elderly gentleman walking an even more elderly looking chocolate lab and then cut over to Cedar Street, turned left, and drove past my aunt’s restaurant, Gauguin. A half-dozen squad cars occupied all the spots in front of the place, but I was able to find parking around the corner on a street lined with brightly painted Victorian homes and trees just beginning to leaf out.
Buttoning up my blazer to ward off the brisk April wind, I walked down the sidewalk with a growing sense of dread. It was easy enough to act all brave and cavalier with Eric on the phone, but was I really up for this?
I mean, even though my dad’s sister had left town when I was only a kid, we’d actually ended up fairly close. Violetta, who’d always been known simply as Letta, had returned to Santa Cruz to open Gauguin right when I was starting law school and had been my strongest ally when my dad was so furious about my leaving Solari’s—just as she had done, turning her back on the family business, years earlier.
Once back in her hometown, Letta did her best to keep an emotional distance from the rest of the family, rarely even making it to my grandmother’s house for Sunday dinner—the only one of us who didn’t religiously attend Nonna’s weekly ritual. But the two of us had forged a special bond: that of outcast sister and daughter. And even after I’d caved and quit practicing law to return to the family restaurant, she’d still supported me.
But now she was gone.
As I rounded the corner, I looked up to see a swarm of gawkers in front of the restaurant being restrained behind yellow crime tape, and suppressed a shudder. Even if she hadn’t been my aunt, the prospect of seeing the actual scene where anyone had been stabbed to death would have been exceedingly unsettling.
Well, I wasn’t going to turn back now. Pushing my way through the crowd, I tried to get the attention of the policewoman standing guard at Gauguin’s intricately carved front door. It was made of koa (Letta had made sure everyone knew this), and as I waited for the cop to shoo off two young men trying to peer through the restaurant window, I studied its Polynesian designs. The swirls and geometric shapes had always reminded me of exotic tattoos, but carved into reddish-brown wood rather than inked into flesh.
I was about to explain who I was to the policewoman when Eric came striding up from behind. “She’s with me,” he said and, gripping me by the arm, steered me under the crime tape and around the walkway to the side of the restaurant. As always when I was with Eric, I found myself immediately tending to slouch, ever conscious of the several inches in height I had over him, even in flats.
We stopped near the side door. Letta’s ’57 Thunderbird was parked next to the building, its creamy yellow paint job glaring in the midday sun. Eric unbuttoned his suit jacket and leaned his wiry frame against the stucco wall. Once again, my brain focused on the minutiae—how his pale-blond hair and starched, white shirt took on the hues of the bright-orange wall and the pale-violet trim around the windows. “Mango” and “orchid,” Letta had called the colors. Was this some kind of defense my mind was constructing, obsessing over the details to avoid having to concentrate on the big picture?
“They won’t let you in,” Eric said. “The body’s been taken away, but they’re still doing their investigation. My guess is, it’ll be the better part of the day before they’re done.”
Through the partly opened door, I could see people milling about inside. Most of the activity seemed to be going on in the garde manger, the cold-food-prep area. “Is that where it happened?”
“Yeah. She was discovered on the floor there, near the sink. It was one of the waiters, Brandon, who found her. He’d come in to pick up some books he left here last night. I guess he’s a student up at the university?”
“Right. I’ve actually worked with him a few times. You know, when Letta needed someone to sub at the last minute.”
“Musta been pretty horrible for the guy,” Eric went on, “finding her like that. Hey, you okay?”
“No,” I said, fists and jaw clenched, trying to control the wave of fever that had swept over me. I wiped away a bead of sweat that had formed on my forehead. “I’m not.”
“Hot flash?” Eric knew all about this recent phenomenon, which had a habit of plaguing me at inopportune moments.
I nodded, though I knew it was more than just that. “But go on,” I said, focusing my attention on a man I could see through the window taking photographs. “I want to know what happened—how she was found.”
Eric removed his horn-rimmed glasses to clean them on his silk tie, held them up to the light, and then replaced them. “Okay. So here’s what my cop friend told me. She was lying on the floor, like I said, on her side.” He paused and glanced at me. “Fully clothed, in case you were wondering.”
I hadn’t been. Having spent five years as an attorney working for a civil firm, my experience with the criminal side of the law was limited to the classes Eric and I had taken together in law school. So my mind didn’t tend to jump to the gruesome as might that of a district attorney like Eric. But even though his tact might be lacking, I did appreciate his frankness. Biting my lip, I motioned for him to continue.
“Anyway, there was a lot of blood—on the ground around her and on her body and clothes. And stab wounds—three or four is what they’re saying. It looks like it happened where they found her, that the body wasn’t moved.”
“Did they find the . . . uh . . . weapon?” Christ, how clichéd t
hat sounded.
“They found a knife next to her. It had some blood on it but had been wiped clean of any prints.”
“What kind of knife?”
“I dunno. A big one. One of those, what’d-ya-call-ems, chef’s knives? Oh, and the cabinet in that prep room, the one that holds the knives—it was open. Looks like it came from there.”
The man with the camera came out the door at this moment, and we stepped aside to allow him to pass. “Afternoon, Stu,” said Eric. “You off already?”
“I’m just heading back to the station to get these downloaded, but the other guys will probably be here the rest of the day. See ya later.” He nodded to me and headed for his car.
I watched him walk down the path. “You know,” I said after a moment, “I think only a few people have keys to that knife cabinet: Aunt Letta and the sous-chef, Javier, and maybe one of the other cooks.”
“Yeah. That’s what the waiter, Brandon, said. Just those first two, in fact. No one else has a key. He said the cabinet is always locked up as soon as all the food prep is done. I guess the knives in there are pretty valuable. And he identified the one they found by the body as being Javier’s and said Javier won’t let anyone else touch it.”
“You don’t think—” I whirled around to face Eric. “No, it couldn’t be Javier; he adores Letta. Well . . . adored.” I knew Javier as being soft-spoken and even-tempered and couldn’t imagine him raising even his voice, much less a chef’s knife, against anyone.
“I don’t think anything, at this point,” Eric said. “But I can tell you that Detective Vargas—the lead investigator on the case—is thinking he’s our man as of right now.”
“Just ’cause he had a key and it was his knife? That seems awful simplistic to me. I mean, how can they be sure the cabinet was even locked? Letta could have opened it for some reason. Maybe when she was attacked, she tried to get a knife to defend herself.”
Eric shook his head. “They found her key to the knife cabinet on her key chain in her purse. So unless Letta unlocked the cabinet and then put the key back into her purse while she was being attacked, that theory doesn’t fly.”