Murder on the Menu

by Miranda Bliss

  “I am so sorry!” My nose put an indentation in the senator’s tie. Automatically, I reached to smooth it, then realized I was being much too forward. I slapped my hand against my side. “For running into you, Senator. And for trying to act like your mom and fix your tie. Force of habit, I’m afraid.”

  The senator smiled. “That must mean you’re a mom.”

  “No, afraid not. Someday, maybe. But I am a person who likes to fix things. And I’m the business manager here at Bellywasher’s.” I introduced myself, and the senator shook my hand and assured me that the food was excellent and the service above par.

  “I’ll be back for dinner one of these nights,” he said, but I really didn’t believe it. Something told me senators were too busy and way too used to five-star to hang out on the wrong side of the Alexandria tracks. Still, it was nice of him to compliment us, and I told him so. Right before I forced myself into nosy mode.

  “That was a wonderful toast you gave,” I told the senator. “After you were finished, I felt as if I knew Sarah better.”

  “Yes. It’s a shame about Sarah, isn’t it? So much promise. And all of it wasted.”

  “You mean because of her suicide. Or were you talking about the way the quality of her work has declined lately?”

  If the senator was surprised by how blunt I was, he didn’t say anything. He did look at me with renewed interest, though. “You’ve been talking to Jennifer,” he said, and he looked toward the door where Redheaded Woman was just slipping on her coat and getting ready to leave. “She should know better than to air our dirty laundry on an occasion as solemn as this.”

  “She’s bitter, and I can’t blame her. Sounds like thanks to Sarah, she’s been carrying a lot of the office load.”

  “I’ll remember that when it comes time for employee reviews.” The senator backed up a step. I knew he was about to walk away.

  “I found her, you know.” What a ghoulish thing to say! I was embarrassed, but I pressed on. Just like I hoped, the words stopped Douglas Mercy in his tracks.

  “You? And another woman, right? I heard it was that tall blonde.” He glanced around, and I knew he was looking for Eve. Someone must have pointed her out to the senator earlier.

  “Eve DeCateur. That’s right. We were the ones who stopped at Sarah’s apartment the other night.”

  “That must have been horrible.” The senator was honestly upset, and I was sorry I’d brought up the subject.

  “It wasn’t so bad.” OK, so I was getting better at this lying thing. How could I say anything else? I’d already upset one of the most powerful men in the country. And I was a habitual fixer-upper. I couldn’t stand the thought of not trying to make him feel better. “But even so, I can’t help but wonder why. I’m sure you understand. Why would a woman as talented and smart as Sarah—”

  “It was Dylan, of course.” The senator looked toward the door, but Dylan was long gone. “Ever since their relationship ended, Sarah’s been down in the dumps. And yes, Jennifer was right. Sarah’s work had suffered. Terribly. It wasn’t fair to the rest of my staff to make them pick up the slack, but honestly, what was I supposed to do? I wanted to hang in there with Sarah, to give her time and some space so she could put her life back together again. I thought that sooner or later, she’d come around. I never expected this. I should have listened when she wanted to talk. I should have—” His voice broke, and he turned away. When he turned back to me again, there was a sheen of tears in the senator’s eyes.

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” he said. “It’s going to take me a while to get used to the fact that she’s gone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to work.”

  I didn’t remind him that it was a national holiday. Instead, I watched Douglas Mercy say something to his son and daughter-in-law before he put on his coat and left.

  Since Dougy Mercy was the next interviewee on my list, I was grateful when he stopped on his way out. Before he started talking, he looked over his shoulder to see where his wife was. I wondered if it was because he wanted her to hear what he had to tell me. Or because he didn’t.

  “My father tells me you asked about Sarah, about her work.” Dougy was wearing cologne that smelled expensive. He had his father’s charming smile and a bit of a twitch in his left eye. “I can’t help you much. She was a lower-level staffer, and we didn’t work together very often. I must say, though, your sources are right on. Sarah’s work had suffered lately. It’s a shame.” He shook his head. “A terrible shame.”

  He was still shaking his head when he walked away.

  Lorraine Mercy followed him out of the restaurant, but she didn’t stop or say a word. She did give me a long, assessing look when she came by, though, and when Eve scrambled out of my office and stood at my side, Lorraine looked her over, too.

  Eve gave her a look back.

  “Can you believe a woman of her stature doesn’t pay more attention to how she dresses?”

  I could, because as far as I could see, Lorraine was as impeccably dressed and as well turned out as any woman I’d ever seen.

  Of course, I didn’t have Eve’s eye for fashion. She clicked her tongue. “Annie, didn’t you notice? Maybe not. I didn’t. Not when she came in. But the light, it’s a little different now. It shows off the colors better.”

  Curious, I gave Lorraine Mercy another once-over.

  And finally saw what Eve was talking about.

  “Her skirt and her jacket…” Eve’s words echoed my thoughts. “They’re both navy blue, but not the same shade of navy blue. It’s a fashion faux pas of the first order.” She shivered. “Think she realizes it?”

  I didn’t, and I wondered what it meant.

  It was possible that Mrs. Mercy was upset about attending a funeral and hadn’t dressed with her usual care.

  It was possible she was in a hurry and hadn’t looked carefully to make sure that the jacket she grabbed matched the skirt she was wearing.

  It was possible she just didn’t care all that much about colors, which made me think about our visit to Sarah’s apartment.

  And the mixed-up red and green jackets in Sarah’s closet.

  Nine

  WHEN I GOT TO BELLYWASHER’S THE NEXT EVENING, I thought somebody had died. Somebody other than Sarah, that is.

  That’s how quiet the place was.

  I had come in through the back door and directly into the kitchen, and I shrugged out of my coat, pulled off my scarf, and stopped cold. What happened to all the usual noises? The slap of knives against cutting boards? The clink of the metal spatula against the grill? Running water? People talking?

  Curious, I looked around and found our cooks, Marc and Damien, standing side by side near the walk-in cooler. Damien was far taller than Marc, and he craned his neck and looked out the window in the door that led into the restaurant. Like the folks who provided the play-by-play on the all-golf channel, his voice was a reverent whisper. “He’s chewing. He’s swallowing. Now he’s picking up his wineglass to take a sip of the wine. No, wait. He’s putting down the wineglass. He’s taking a forkful of the confit and another bite of chicken.”

  “He who?”

  I spoke in a normal tone, but in the quiet, my words came out like thunder.

  “Shhhhh!” Marc was a heavyset, easygoing kid who had the bewildering habit of coloring his hair whenever the mood struck him. Which was usually a couple times a week. At the funeral luncheon, it was neon orange. That night, his hair was the color of eggplant. It took me a moment to orient myself to the change.

  He silenced me, one finger to his lips. “We’re waiting to see what’s going to happen,” he whispered.

  “With who?” I had learned my lesson—I kept my voice down. I was shorter than both Damien and Marc, and when I went to stand next to them, I couldn’t see a thing. “Come on, guys. Don’t keep me in suspense. What’s going on here?”

  Damien was a young man with dark hair that he wore in a ponytail. He had a ring in his nose, another one in his ey
ebrow, and a series of tattoos up each arm that I found compelling and creepy all at the same time. I knew from his initial job interview that he had an encyclopedic knowledge of food and dreams of someday becoming as skilled a chef as Jim. Thanks to a series of stupid mistakes as a teenager, he also had a prison record.

  He slanted me a look that was akin to coming right out and saying that if I had cooking oil in my veins like he and Marc and Jim did, I wouldn’t have had to ask stupid questions.

  Damien pointed toward the door and the restaurant beyond. He mouthed the words, “Michael O’Keefe.”

  “Oh?” Awareness flooded through me, hot one second, icy cold the next. “Oh!” I stood on tiptoe, hoping for a glimpse of the famous and influential food critic. Maybe it was the change of altitude that triggered my thought process. In one moment of blinding, panic-filled epiphany, I realized that our future as a restaurant hung in the balance and in every bite that went into Michael O’Keefe’s mouth.

  “Oh.” My knees wobbled enough for Marc to see me stagger. He grabbed on to my arm, ushered me over to a chair in the corner, and plopped me down.

  “Breathe, Annie,” he said. It would have been a caring gesture if not for the fact that the whole time he rubbed my back, he was still trying to see what was happening out in the restaurant.

  I pulled in a breath. “How long as he been here?”

  Marc didn’t need to look at the clock. “Long enough to order dinner,” he said. “Celery root soup with bacon and green apple. Then the chicken with black pepper maple sauce, grilled asparagus, and polenta with red pepper confit.”

  “And?”

  He knew what I meant. “The dude’s like a robot. Bites and chews and swallows and doesn’t say a word.” Marc shrugged. “No expression on his face, either. Ain’t no way we can figure out what he thinks of the food.”

  Of course I couldn’t see anything from where I was sitting, but I still burned with interest. I had to try again. I sat up tall and stretched even taller (which, let’s face it, wasn’t very tall). Even so, my view was limited to a square of the restaurant’s ceiling. I gave up with a sigh, and my spine accordioned back into place. “How’s Jim holding out?” I asked.

  Marc and Damien exchanged looks.

  “What?” I was out of my chair in an instant. “He didn’t say anything to offend O’Keefe, did he?” I asked, even though I knew there was no way possible. Jim was a born restaurateur. He was friendly, warm, and charming, as at home behind the bar regaling the likes of Larry, Hank, and Charlie with stories about Scotland as he was going from table to table to chat up the more tony clients and make sure everything met their expectations. I had never seen Jim angry (well, except for the time Doc barfed all over the restaurant), and I’d never heard him speak a rude word.

  I knew this in my head and in my heart.

  None of which calmed my fears or stifled my imagination. In my mind’s eye, I pictured every disaster possible. I even checked the corner near the linen storage shelves for the purse Eve used to carry Doc. It wasn’t there—thank goodness—and for this bit of luck, I was grateful.

  “All right. I know.” I got hold of myself and stemmed Damien and Marc’s comments, which I was pretty sure were going to be in the ballpark of Are you crazy? “Jim has been the perfect host. So why the strange looks between you two?”

  “It’s nothing. Really.” Damien poked his hands under his white apron and into the pockets of his jeans. “We was just talking, is all. About Jim. When we heard O’Keefe was here, me and Marc, we just about freaked. But Jim, he’s as cool as a frozen margarita. Didn’t even want to cook the dude’s stuff. Not even when I begged him and told him I was too nervous to do it. Said we were capable and we should just do our jobs. Now he’s out at the bar and—”

  “And he’s acting like it’s no big deal,” Marc chimed in. “He hasn’t even been over to the table to talk to the guy.”

  None of this came as much of a surprise. Like I said, Jim was a born restaurateur. He knew better than to push or to pry. He didn’t care who a customer was, he wasn’t going to suck up.

  I knew this was wise. It was also professional and logical. But I was afraid that in the case of the most influential restaurant critic in D.C. wise, professional, and logical might be a mistake. It couldn’t hurt to suck up. Just a little.

  I pulled my brown blazer into place, picked a piece of lint off my khakis, lifted my chin, and headed for the bar.

  “Annie! Good to see you.” Jim was pouring a beer for Larry who, for reasons I could not fathom, was actually there without Charlie and Hank. Larry waved, and I smiled a hello.

  “How was your day at the bank?” Jim asked me.

  I darted a look toward the table where Michael O’Keefe was finishing up the last of his polenta. He wasn’t smiling. But he wasn’t frowning, either. In fact, there was no expression at all on his face. I wondered what was going on inside his head and how he was rating the food and the service. Terror filled me head-to-toe along with an image of a sign on the front door that said, Closed Due to Critical Ennui.

  Just in case O’Keefe happened to notice me, I put a smile on my face. “How can you think about my day at the bank at a time like this?” I asked Jim.

  “A time like…what?” There was a clock on the wall behind the bar, and Jim looked at it. “A time like six forty-five? I always wonder about your day around this time. It’s when you leave the bank and come here. And I always look forward to seeing you.”

  It was considerate and sweet—in a way that made me think Jim was having some sort of panic-induced psychotic break.

  I knew it was my duty to bring him back to reality. “Have you been over to talk to him yet?” I asked with another look at O’Keefe.

  “Not yet.” Jim smiled. Before I knew it was coming, he latched onto my hand and pulled me out from behind the bar. “I’ve been waiting for you. Come on, let’s go over and say hello.”

  “Oh, no. Not me. You’re the owner. You’re the host. You’re the one who should do all the PR.” I locked my knees and refused to budge a step, but there really was no question about me going along with Jim. A lifetime of chopping vegetables, boning chicken, and fileting fish had apparently developed muscles nonchefs never dreamed existed. When Jim tugged, I followed.

  He waited until O’Keefe paid his bill before he introduced himself and me.

  The critic nodded, but he didn’t smile. He was a middle-aged man with saggy cheeks and a paunch that suggested he spent a lot of his time in restaurants.

  “I hope you found everything satisfactory,” Jim said.

  O’Keefe didn’t smile. But he nodded.

  “We’re so glad you made time in your schedule to stop in.” Was that my voice? I sounded as breathy as an American Idol contestant. I turned my smile up a notch. “You picked the most popular items on the menu. Jim’s celery root soup is famous.”

  O’Keefe grunted. He pushed back from the table and stood. “Familiar without being trite,” he said, and without another word, he walked out.

  The sound of the door closing behind him was apparently the signal everyone had been waiting for.

  Marc and Damien were out of the kitchen in a flash. They were both talking at once while they checked O’Keefe’s plate to see what he’d finished completely and what he left behind. They didn’t have to worry in that department. He’d eaten every last bite.

  Heidi beamed over the twenty dollar tip the critic left her. Eve had apparently been hiding out in my office watching O’Keefe’s every move, and she came running, mumbling something about his taste in clothes. Larry joined the group. He sipped his beer and shook his head sadly, looking at the front door. “Seen livelier folks in funeral parlors,” he said.

  And Jim?

  Through it all, he didn’t say a thing, which was unfortunate. I was a banker, and banks and restaurants didn’t speak the same language. I needed someone to translate what had just happened into words I could understand.

  Instead, Jim just p
icked up O’Keefe’s plates and carried them back into the kitchen.

  Which left me standing in the middle of Bellywasher’s, more mystified than ever by the restaurant business. My too-wide-to-be-real smile faded. “Familiar without being trite?” I asked no one in particular. “Would someone please tell me what the hell that means!”

  I FOUND OUT SOON ENOUGH.

  In the world of restaurant reviews, “familiar without being trite” is apparently a good thing. O’Keefe’s review (which included those exact words) ran the following Friday. By that night, we had a waiting list and a line out the door.

  In a kind of an I-dream-of-profits euphoria, I watched the crowds come and go. They were a well-dressed bunch who asked intelligent questions about the wine list, knew how to pronounce words like arugula, and spoke in hushed and refined tones about things like watercress vichyssoise and poached salmon.

  This was all good, I told myself. It was all very good.

  That night, I finished up the paperwork that was waiting for me when I arrived from the bank, waved a quick goodbye to Jim (who was too busy hobnobbing with a congressman from Arizona to do any more than wave back), and by the time I drifted off to sleep that night, I was still smiling. The next day, I had a rare Saturday off from the bank and a million things on my to-do list. But believe it or not—and I hardly believed it myself—when Eve called and asked me to come with her when she dropped Doc off at the groomer, I didn’t say a word about the cleaning and laundry I had to take care of or about the personal bills that were stacking up now that I spent so many hours at the restaurant I didn’t have time to pay, much less file them.

  I guess for the first time, I realized how much the extra responsibilities of my job and worries about Bellywasher’s profitability had weighed me down. Not to mention the nagging questions about Sarah’s death. But now that I saw that all our hard work at the restaurant was finally starting to pay off, I felt as light as a feather and as happy as the proverbial clam (though what clams have to be happy about is a mystery to me).