Crops and Robbers
Page 9
“What are you doing here?” Betsy said quietly as she stopped at the table. She glanced back and forth between me and Ian.
“Having dinner,” I said.
“Why here? Why tonight?”
“I guess I wanted to see what kind of place stayed open the night after their owner was killed.” A pang of regret bit at my stomach. That sounded nasty and no matter the confrontation that morning, I had no right to be nasty.
Betsy’s face fell. “You don’t know anything about this business. And, this is none of your business.”
“Really? You accused me of killing Joan. You made it my business,” I said, the pang of regret dissipating.
“I see I was wrong. It was your mother instead.”
It was rare that I wanted to hit someone, but I had an unladylike urge to throw my fist at her face.
“Okay, I think we should be going. Come on, Becca.” Ian’s voice was calm but tight. Of the two of us, I’d be more likely to cause a scene, but he wasn’t happy about the direction this seemed to be headed.
But then, much to my surprise, Betsy changed. Her face softened and she took a deep breath as she held her hands out in a truce. She looked at Ian and offered him a quick smile.
“Whoa, I’m so sorry,” she said.
Ian and I were silent.
“This has been rough,” she continued. “Originally, I stopped by Bailey’s this morning to tell the manager that I’d be handling things with the restaurant association, but when she wasn’t in her office, something came over me and I lashed out—at you, unfairly, and I apologize. And I know your mother’s been arrested but not convicted. I’m so sorry.”
At least that answered why she was at Bailey’s.
“Okay,” I said, trying not to sound too cautious or rude, considering she was apologizing. “I get it.” I looked at Ian, who looked just as dubious as I felt.
“I see you’re done with your dinner. Would the two of you come back to my office for a minute? We can talk better there, and I can give you the information I meant to give the market manager, who I believe is your sister?” I nodded. “I’ll have some dessert brought back, on the house.”
“Sure,” I said too eagerly.
Ian’s eyebrows rose.
“This way.” Betsy turned and made her way to the door again.
Ian stood and extended a hand to help me out of the booth.
“Thanks.” I took his hand. “See, I won’t have to sneak anywhere.”
“Let’s be cautious,” he muttered in my ear.
“Always.”
There was a hallway behind the door. It wasn’t long or well lit. There were two more doors on one side of the hall and two on the other. The first one on the right was the only one open; a flood of light pushing through it beckoned us in.
“Come on in. Sit down,” Betsy said from behind her desk. The office was very bright, especially compared to the hallway and even the restaurant. Betsy’s desk was covered in stacks of paper, but the rest of the office, the file drawers, and a credenza were neat and clean except for a varied collection of ceramic cat figurines.
Ian and I both took chairs opposite Betsy. Neither of us knew what to say, so we remained silent as she looked through one of the stacks of paper and muttered to herself.
“Here we go,” she said as she pulled out a single piece of paper as well as a stack that was about a quarter of an inch thick. “Here’s a list of those who attended yesterday and who was interested in what. And this”—she waved the stack—“is a full listing of the association members. Their phone numbers are there, too. I would recommend that you have someone call them all. I know there’s interest even from those who couldn’t attend, but restaurant owners sometimes need a little push to place an order with someone new. Besides, before we can supply any trucks for deliveries, we need a minimum amount—it’s there at the bottom of that page—or it won’t be worth our whiles. They know this. They know they need to place an order, but like I said, sometimes they need a little push.”
I glanced quickly over the single sheet and then thumbed through the stack. The restaurant owners were listed alphabetically with their names, addresses, and phone numbers. I also noticed something else. Written in pencil next to each listing was one of three words: yes, no, or maybe.
“What’re the yes, no, maybe comments?” I asked.
Betsy’s eyes widened and for an instant she looked surprised.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “Here, I gave you the wrong copy. Trade me.” She reached for a different stack and held it forward.
We traded, and my new stack didn’t have the penciled comments.
I couldn’t have memorized the handwritten notes even on the first page of the stack in the short amount of time it had been in my hands.
“What were the yes, no, and maybe’s?” I asked again.
“I, uh, oh, some sort of notes Joan made. I’m not sure.”
Ian and I shared a silent glance.
“Okay. Thanks. I’ll make sure Allison gets this,” I said as my eyes angled to the marked list now sitting safely on Betsy’s desk.
“Terrific. Thank you. And, I’d like to address your question about why the restaurant is open this evening.” She cleared her throat. “It was my call. Business is business. Maybe it was disrespectful, I don’t know. But we have customers who rely on us to be open, so here we are. It’s what Joan would have wanted.”
“I see,” I said. “What about her son. Nobel? Is he here?”
“No. And, I suppose that with the possible exceptions of her own or Nobel’s death, Joan would have been here, too.”
“Was she pretty involved in the day-to-day operations?”
Betsy shrugged. “No, not involved as much as keenly curious. When she was here, she was usually in her own office, not out with the customers. But she had a sharp eye for everything. She’d spy a dirty spot on the floor from across the room. She watched the numbers, too, like a hawk. She evaluated the cooks constantly. She critiqued the waitstaff constantly. She was good, very good, at her business. It’ll be difficult to fill her shoes.”
“You’ll do just fine,” I said. “It will be you, right? You’ll be filling her shoes? Or will it be Nobel?”
Betsy sighed. “Nobel’s a cook. He’s a recipe guy. I doubt he’ll want to be in the middle of the restaurant operations. I’m sure it’ll be me, but I know what you’re thinking—could I have possibly killed Joan to gain control of the restaurant? Trust me, what I will do after her death won’t be much different than what I did when she was alive. Nobel’s the owner, but I will run the operations. He won’t pay attention to the details like his mother did, so I suppose my job will expand, but I certainly won’t become more powerful or much richer.”
“I understand,” I said as if I really did. In fact, there were lots of things I didn’t understand—like, why was she making such an effort to explain herself to us?
The cell phone on her desk vibrated. She glanced at it and said, “Excuse me. It’s the kitchen. They need to see me. I’ll be right back. I’ll bring back the dessert I mentioned.” She stood and hurried out of the office.
I turned and craned my neck to watch her leave. I waited until I heard the outer hallway door open and close again, and then I smiled at Ian.
“We’re going to steal the other list, aren’t we?” he asked.
“No, we’re . . . no you’re going to find a way to make a copy of it. I’m going to see if I can find Joan’s office.”
“It might not mean anything, Becca.”
“It might, though.”
I was out of the chair and peering out the door before Ian could protest. Being the good sport that he was, he stood and grabbed the other list. There was no copy machine, but an all-in-one fax-copier-printer sat on the back credenza.
“Damn,” he muttered.
“What?”
“It’s got to warm up.”
“Okay, I’ll be back as quickly as I can. Just put the copies in my bag. Wh
oever gets done first needs to watch for Betsy’s return.”
“Go,” he said, shooing me out.
Ian might not have liked my snooping ways, but he knew this investigation was more important than most. He’d do whatever he could to help. I was invigorated by his team-player mentality.
The door across the hall was locked, which almost stopped me from trying the other two—almost, but not quite. One was locked, but the last one wasn’t.
I opened that door and then reached in, my hand groping the wall for a switch that was lower than expected. I flipped it up.
I wasn’t sure whether or not this was Joan’s office. The couch against the wall and the desk chair were light-colored matching leather, both of them poofy with enough stuffing to remind me of the Three Bears’ “too soft.”
The color of wood on the desk matched the leather. With all the light neutral tones, the only thing that stood out was a red glass apple paperweight that was on top of one of the tall stacks of papers on the desk. I’d thought Betsy’s desk was covered in paper; that was nothing compared to this one.
There were no personal items, like ceramic cats, photographs, or stationery, to be seen. The room felt only slightly more feminine than masculine.
I really didn’t know what to look for, but if this was Joan’s office, I wanted to learn something about her, something that told me some secret. Someone wanted her dead. Why? I suspected it wasn’t for insulting my preserves, so there had to be something else.
The papers were spreadsheets and numbers and charts. Ian would know, at a glance, what they were about. He was the numbers person, but to me it seemed foreign and overwhelming. I hurried to the other side of the desk and opened the two side file drawers. I flipped my fingers over the tabs but didn’t see anything that made me think secrets were buried inside. I pulled open the wide short drawer in the front. There were three sharpened pencils and a small leather-bound notebook, the color of which matched the desk and the furniture. I hurriedly thumbed through the notebook, but there was only writing on one page—the first one. And all it said was, “Jake: No; Manny: Yes.” I’d check if they matched the comments on the big list.
“Becca, come on. She’ll be back any minute,” Ian said from the door. “I got the copy made. Let’s get back to her office.”
Though it wasn’t a difficult amount of information to memorize, I tore the first page out of the notebook and put it in my pocket as we scurried back to Betsy’s office. I also wanted to compare the handwriting to that on the bigger list. Just as we sat down, the outer door squeaked open. I did what I could to calm my heavy breathing, but if Betsy was paying the least bit of attention, she’d notice.
“Hello,” a different voice announced from the doorway.
We turned to see the young man who had seated us, with two large pieces of cake—cake with red preserves in between the layers.
“Betsy said she’d be right back, but she wanted you to enjoy our most popular dessert. Strawberry White Chocolate Cake.” He placed the pieces of cake on the desk in front of us and then excused himself.
I relaxed and let my breathing fall into a normal rhythm.
Ian smiled and lifted the fork on his plate.
“Cheers,” he said.
We wouldn’t dare talk about our exploits until we were out of the restaurant.
For a moment I thought I wouldn’t eat the cake. It was the cake after all; the one Joan had talked about needing a new filling for, the one that had, in a way, ruined my day before her murder had really ruined it. But then I realized the only person my stubbornness was hurting was me. Why would I ever turn down a piece of Strawberry White Chocolate Cake?
It was phenomenal. Rich, moist, delicious, with a frosting like I’d never tasted—it seemed to be a cross between white chocolate and whipped cream. The strawberry preserves were really good, too. I didn’t understand why Joan had wanted to try something different, and I really didn’t understand why mine hadn’t been up to par, but that was just my hurt feelings talking.
I didn’t dwell on it long but instead ate the cake and focused on enjoying it.
Betsy never rejoined us in the office, so we finished our desserts and carried the plates out to the dining room. Betsy was at the front podium and sent someone to meet us halfway and take the plates. We wove our way toward her.
“I’m so sorry. It became one thing after another and I couldn’t get back to you. I hope you enjoyed the cake,” she said.
We said that we did and thanked her.
She was intense. She was probably one of the most valuable assets to the restaurant. If nothing else, I thought Joan would have been pleased to know that things would be well taken care of.
“So we’re good?” Betsy asked.
“Sure.” I hadn’t meant to sound so unconvincing, but it was the best I could do.
Before we left, there was one more thing I needed to address. Something had been at the back of my mind since Sam found the piece of glass behind the barn.
Before we said our good-byes, I said, “Betsy, where are your glasses?”
The mellow noise of the restaurant buzzed around us. There was a steady hum of conversation and laughter, but it still wasn’t loud. I focused on Betsy’s perplexed look, and I imagined the noises quieting as I waited for her to speak.
“Uh, right here I think,” she said as she reached under the podium. “They help me read. Do you need to look at something?” She held them out to me.
“No, thanks. Why haven’t I seen you wearing them tonight? You’ve been looking at the seating chart, menus, the papers in your office. Why haven’t you been wearing them?”
Betsy glanced at Ian and then back at me. “That’s an odd question. Why do you ask?”
“Long story. I’m just curious.” I tried to look at the glasses as she held them. Were they the same ones she’d worn yesterday? They looked the same, but she could have more than one pair. For some reason, the second Sam found the piece of glass, the images of Betsy, glasses on and glasses off, came to my mind. Violence had occurred at my house. It was conceivable that glasses could be broken in a scuffle. Maybe Betsy had been there and she’d been part of the violence, even though she looked no worse for the wear.
“I’m wearing my contacts. I don’t need my glasses when I wear them,” she said, though impatience lined her voice.
“Why are they here then?”
“My eyes get tired and I take my contacts out sometimes.”
“Why weren’t you wearing contacts when you visited the market yesterday morning?”
Betsy sighed. “My eyes were tired. We were up early. I stay up late—working and then winding down. Anything else?”
She probably wished she hadn’t given us cake.
I looked at Ian, who smiled uncomfortably. It was time to go.
“No, thank you again, Betsy.”
We turned to leave.
It was too bad we didn’t watch Betsy as she beelined it back to her office. We might have been able to guess that it took her approximately thirty seconds to know what Ian and I had been up to.
We should have known that we’d have to eventually answer for our curiosity and thievery.
As it was, we briefly discussed both the small piece of paper and the list but couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation for either. The comments and the handwriting from the note matched those on the main list, but knowing that didn’t help.
We were tired and our minds were too busy processing the events of the past couple days. We decided to look at the papers later, after we both were better rested and not so full of cake.
Eleven
“Oh, no, I would rather you washed the tomatoes before you eat them,” Viola Gardner said to a young man named Max. Max was twelve, brilliant, and loved tomatoes. His short blond hair was stick-straight and highlighted his intelligent green eyes and big smile. I liked him even if he did sneak tomatoes.
The morning was perfect. The temperature was still low enough to be
able to breathe, and the garden was glorious in greens, reds, and some yellows. There were a total of six kids this morning, ranging from twelve down to nine years old. It was a good group and the perfect size. Jake was busy working in his restaurant, so that left me, Bo, and Viola to work with the kids. We could have handled more than six, but I liked the smaller number.
There was always work to do on my crops, but they were mostly in a holding pattern at the moment. My sanity was strongly tied to the work I did with my plants and in my kitchen. The community garden had provided a perfect supplement to my peaceful outside time.
I got to play in the dirt; I learned about other plants, specifically onions; I got to interact with kids who were developing a love of farming or at least gardening; I got to know the softer parental side of Bo; and I got to hang out with Viola, who could take over the world, if she wanted to.
“Becca Robins,” she said after gently scolding Max, “come over here and talk to me right this minute.”
“Sure,” I said as I stood. I wiped my knees and then took off my gloves as I followed her to the corner of the garden.
The space was probably thirty feet wide by a hundred feet long and extended back from Jake’s own garden. He used every product he grew, but there was never enough of anything to totally sustain the restaurant. He didn’t have the time to make his own garden bigger, so he had to buy produce from other farmers. He never used anything from the community garden. Those items were strictly for the food bank or the kids’ families.
Viola, Jake’s aunt, walked slowly but with purpose. She was a small woman, but she’d yet to meet a deeply rooted weed she couldn’t yank out of the ground with one big tug.
She always wore baby blue polyester pants that she insisted were the most comfortable thing she owned. She topped off the ensemble with frilly pastel-colored blouses and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Most of the time, the hat folded down on the sides, but sometimes, and usually when she was in the middle of a conversation, the front would flop down and completely cover her wrinkled and quirky face. Viola never smiled, but she was always happy. Her mouth never turned up at the corners, but it was in a perpetual state of slant. Her nose was long and crooked, but never unattractive. And her eyes were two different colors, though there was always debate as to which two colors they were on any given day.