Deadly Misconduct

by R. J. Amos

  I decided to change the subject, ‘Nate, we need to hear about Sally. Who was she? What was all that about?’

  ‘Yes, Nate, tell us the whole story – why did you end up rushing in like that? Give us all the gory details.’ Susannah added.

  ‘It’s a bit of a long story ...’

  ‘This is a coffee shop, Nate. We’re all good for drink and food. Just spit it out ...’

  This is the story Nate told:

  ‘The thing is, Alicia, after you came to our house in such a state, I decided to look into this whole thing thoroughly. It’s not that I thought you were right, as such, but you obviously would have needed some pretty strong information to change your mind and let you think that everything was ok. I didn’t really know how to prove to you that there was nothing to worry about, but I was going to have a good try.’

  ‘You know that there’s no such thing as proving a negative?’

  ‘Yes, I know, but you were really concerned and Jan here wanted to be able to calm you down. We were worried for you. So I looked into things a bit more carefully, just to make sure that there was absolutely no chance of foul play.’

  Nate had pored over the post mortem. He had gone back to the restaurant and searched the place high and low. It was Nate who had found the little glass vial in the rubbish and had asked for it to be analysed as soon as possible. It was starting to look like there was evidence of foul play after all.

  He continued his investigation by interviewing the restaurant staff.

  The first on the list was the manager, Malcolm Edwards. Edwards was a small plump man, round body, round head, round glasses, overly aware of his own importance and not necessarily inclined to be too helpful to the police.

  He had pointed out where the VIP table had been set up – right near the open fire. And, yes, the professor had been one of those with a planned and special seat.

  ‘Who knew about the special table? Who knew which people were especially singled out?’

  ‘Well, there was the events manager.’

  Nate waited, his pen poised over his notebook.

  ‘Kate, Kate Stevenson.’

  Nate noted that down and waved for the manager to continue.

  ‘And the staff who helped her set up, they would have had access to the plans. None of it was a secret. We were just doing the normal set up for the job.’

  So that was fairly open then. Anyone could have known. No real help there.

  ‘I’ll need names for all of the staff too. And contact details.’

  ‘You might have to ask Kate who specifically knew, but I’ll give you a list of everyone who worked on the night.’

  ‘Was it a menu service? Or was this meal one of those where person one has the fish and person two, the chicken?’

  ‘It was our conference special: alternate meals, for every table. Forty dollars a head – though the conference organisers tried to talk me down. I don’t know where they thought they’d get a meal this good for cheaper!’

  That made Nate stop and think. He’d been to dinners like that – wedding receptions and things where the meals were served alternately. Everyone always got served the meal that they didn’t want. There was always a lot of swapping going on – especially when the table knew each other well. But it could have happened here too. What if the meals had been swapped? What if the professor had decided he didn’t want the chicken and had swapped it for the steak? What if the poison (whatever it was) had been intended for someone else?

  ‘So was Professor Conneally eating the meal that he was served? Or did he swap his meal for someone else’s?’

  The manager didn’t know the answer to that question and now that he could see where the investigation was headed he started to look intensely nervous. He rubbed his hands on his trousers, and pulled the hanky out of his pocket to give his round glasses an extra clean. Nate could see a muscle twitching just below his right eye.

  ‘You’re not suggesting – you think this has something to do with the food?’

  ‘We are investigating every possibility. That’s all.’

  Edwards wiped his brow. ‘Look,’ he said urgently, ‘this doesn’t have to get out, does it? I mean, it’s just not good for a restaurant’s reputation to be known for poisoning its customers. I hate to think ...’

  ‘Mr Edwards.’ Nate became as solemn and officious as he could (and I know just how solemn and officious he can be), ‘I am asking questions for the coroner’s report. That’s all. The coroner needs to know what happened that night. Now, can you tell me, were there any staff put on for the occasion? New staff? What was the staffing interview and background check process like?’

  ‘Well, yes, it was a big deal this dinner, a large crowd. You always get good alcohol sales from things like this, even when the organisers keep the food expenses as minimal as possible. We had a couple of extra wait staff put on for the night. We just asked our staff who they knew that could do the job. Everyone knows everyone around here, you know how it is. We just asked if anyone knew of experienced wait staff that could help out.’

  ‘So no background checks at all then.’

  ‘Ah,’ Edwards rubbed his hand over his forehead. He was clearly trying to find some way to duck responsibility for this decision that had seemed the easiest way to go at the time and had turned out to be so ill-advised. ‘I’ll make sure you know who the new people were when I write my list.’

  Nate cut him a break, ‘That will be very helpful, thank you. I need to talk to all of them. Anyone here today that was on that night?’

  ‘Yes, yes of course. We have chef here, and a couple of staff. I’m happy for you to talk to anyone. We’re not that busy, it will be fine.’

  Almost bowing, Edwards had led Nate to the kitchens, all the pride had dripped out of him now that he realised the threat to his restaurant’s reputation. Nate didn’t want to ruin the business, but he needed to know the truth, and having the manager behind him would make questioning the staff easier.

  He started with the chef, Anton Mossier.

  Mossier was quite upset that anyone could blame him. His food was always good, his staff, always trustworthy. He didn’t let anyone choose his staff except himself, Monsieur Edwards knew that. The kitchen was sacrosanct. All his staff had worked for him for years. He knew their families, they were a family. How dare any measly detective even try to insinuate that one of them could be involved in doing anyone harm. Food was about nourishment, nurture and an artistic experience. Not death and destruction. Never.

  He would concede to give Nate the names and numbers of his staff that might be able to say something they had noticed out of the ordinary. But Nate could be sure, if he talked to them, he would see, they had done nothing wrong. Nothing!

  That was a full on interview, but it gave the impression that the chef ran a tight ship. He would have noticed something going on in his kitchen and he would have spoken up about it straight away.

  The kitchen staff that were around for the morning shift were quick to back up the chef.

  ‘Chef is on our backs all the time. You have to be gold to get a job here – he doesn’t just put a random on for the night.’

  ‘He’s everywhere in the kitchen. Once I tried to vac the meat, you know, to tenderise it, I nearly lost my job. We do what he tells us – he notices everything.’

  Jan piped up, ‘I could have told you that. The reputation of The Bay is excellent in food circles.’

  Nate threw his hands in the air. ‘Next time I’ll just ask you to solve it then,’ he said, and when Jan laughed and shook her head he continued with his story.

  Nate pocketed the list of the off duty kitchen staff to chat to later and turned his attention to the wait staff. Edwards had called in the events manager, Kate, to help with the questioning. Kate was all attention, having been worded up by Edwards to give her full cooperation. She sat at a table with Nate near the front door of the restaurant where they could see the whole room, she made sure they were given coffee and s
he pulled out her diary with notes from the night so that she could get all the answers correct. Nate wondered whether she was more than just events manager – she was so much more on top of the situation than Edwards. He wondered if the restaurant would be successful without her input. But that really had nothing to do with the situation at hand. He focussed again on imagining the evening as it occurred.

  ‘Yes, the professor was right there on the VIP table and his wife beside him. They were having a good night, really enjoying the evening. It’s so unbelievable what happened.’

  ‘Did the Professor swap meals with anyone? Who was sitting on his other side?’

  ‘I think it was, let me check my table plan, yes, it was the lady professor from the USA. Professor Starly." There was another name for Nate’s list, "I was watching the table from my position near the door here – I was supervising everything, making sure the staff were doing their job. I love watching people enjoy the meal here. They usually have a great time and it’s fun to watch. I’m a real people watcher, you know? I usually expect husband and wife to swap meals – it happens all the time – or they swap half way through, you know, but not the Conneallys. He was too busy eating drinking and talking. He was one of the loudest on the table. So full of life ...’ she shook her head sadly.

  ‘Do you have a list of your wait staff? Can you talk me through it?’

  ‘Sure, well the regulars were there – Charlie, Eliza, Yoriko, they are all the normal evening wait staff – they’ve worked here for years, most of them are uni students, Eliza’s not, but the rest are. Then there was Noah and Sally – we put them on for the night. Charlie is finishing up his uni studies soon and he’s thinking of leaving us when he gets a teaching position so I was actually giving Noah and Sally a chance to show us what they could do. Sally in particular was a great girl but she’s just not reliable, it’s such a shame, I would have recommended her to Malcolm for a regular position. I know she needed the work.’

  ‘In what way is she not reliable?’ Nate asked.

  ‘Well, as I said, she was great on the night, she called the ambulance and looked after everyone she could once the accident happened but you know, afterwards, she seemed pretty shaken up. I have tried to call her to see how she is, and, incidentally, to offer her a position here, but she hasn’t answered her phone. I have left a few messages but she hasn’t replied. Such a shame! You know, sometimes they seem great but then –’

  ‘Do you have an address for her?’ Nate interrupted.

  ‘Sure – here it is. And here’s her number, but like I said, not answering.’

  Something was definitely strange there. Nate put a star next to Sally’s name and went on with the rest of the interview. Once he’d got all the names and numbers of staff to interview later, and a complete view of the night from all the staff who were present, he decided to wrap it up and head back to his office.

  Back at his office, Nate knew that he would need to interview all the remaining staff from the restaurant, and a few more conference delegates, and that meant he needed to get started. And that meant giving a contact list to Beverly, the secretary, and asking her to make the phone calls inviting people to the station. And you have no idea how much Nate liked telling us about this part.

  Beverly is the bane of Nate’s existence. She, he tells us, is the hardest part of his job – she’s tougher than the toughest criminals he’s had to interview. And he hated having to ask her to do anything.

  Yes, it was her job to contact the people on his list. In fact, he never asked her to do anything that wasn’t part of her job – he wouldn’t dare! And it wasn’t that she didn’t work hard, she just seemed to have an aversion to doing anything he asked. He knew that he would be barked at as soon as he placed his request.

  Anyway, it had to be done. He needed to be interviewing and sorting and working on the case. She needed to be making the phone calls. He took a deep breath and headed to her desk.

  ‘Beverly, can you –’

  ‘Hang on.’ she barked, holding up one hand in a stop sign and then turning back to the computer.

  Nate waited a few minutes. ‘I really need –’

  ‘Stop, wait!’

  Nate waited a few more minutes. Beverly stared at her screen, it looked like she might be filling in a form. She was clicking her mouse incredibly slowly, typing in a few letters at a time. Nate wondered what she was doing but he knew that if he manoeuvred himself to see the screen he would, in Beverly’s eyes, be committing a crime worse than murder.

  He waited.

  Eventually she stopped and looked up, ‘What do you want?’ The clipped syllables were forced out.

  ‘Could you please bring these people in to the station for an interview?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You haven’t given me a print out of your calendar. How can I make interview times without knowing when you’re free?’

  ‘Can’t you look it up online?’ As far as Nate knew, all their calendars were online for a reason, and the reason was that Beverly could look them up and use them to make interview times.

  ‘Didn’t you see the email last week? No interview requests without a print out of the calendar for that week. That’s the way it’s done. Come back when you’ve got it.’

  And that’s the way things went with Beverly.

  Nate headed back to his office to print out his schedule for the week, a broken man. He usually got on well with office people, talked to them like human beings, gave them gifts and made them coffee. They usually warmed to him and gave him special treatment. But none of his normal tricks had worked with Beverly.

  After he’d given her the list and the print out of his schedule, he opened his notebook to Sally’s name and number. She seemed to be the strongest lead yet. He would try ringing her himself. If he was honest, the fact that she wasn’t answering the phone for the restaurant manager made him reluctant to give her number to Beverly anyway. She would try, put Sally on the bottom of the list and not try again for days. He felt this one was important somehow. He tried the number.

  ‘Hi, you’ve reached Sally. I’m not here right now but you can leave a message after the beep.’

  The chirpy voice recording had come instantly – no ringing at all. That meant the phone was turned off. And what did ‘I’m not here’ mean? It was a mobile phone number – here is everywhere you’re holding the phone. But that was irrelevant. The meaninglessness of her message bank recording had nothing to do with the case.

  He looked through the evidence again. What did he have against Sally? What did he know about her? She was new to the restaurant, but so was Dan. She seemed to have cared a lot when the guy died, which didn’t make sense if she was the murderer. All that he had, really, was the emotional state that she was in afterwards (which was not really that strange) and the fact that she wasn’t answering her phone.

  He tried the phone again. ‘Hi, you’ve reached –’ he hung up.

  So no real evidence of any wrong doing, but a really strong gut feeling that he was on the right track. Well, he trusted his gut, it was worth following.

  He called the crime car and gave them Sally’s address. He would see what happened when they brought her in.

  Nate got the call. The crime car had picked up Sally at home without much trouble at all and she was waiting for him in the interview room. Well, this was where he found out whether his gut was spot-on this time or whether he had a lot more work to do. He grabbed his notes and headed down the corridor.

  As he opened the door a sweet, fragile blonde girl in her late twenties looked up at him from her seat at the table.

  ‘Oh, that’s who she was,’ I said.

  ‘Who she was?’

  ‘I saw Joshua with her at the conference. During Brasindon’s talk. Joshua brought her into the lecture theatre and pointed out someone to her – it must have been Conneally. I wondered what that was about. He must have been setting things up then. Wow.’

  ‘Wow
, if only you could have stepped in then,’ said Jan. ‘You could have stopped a murder.’

  ‘There was no way of knowing,’ Nate said. ‘Some things are just too well hidden.’

  We all agreed and let him get on with his story.

  Sally sat slumped at the interview table. She didn’t look like she’d been sleeping much, and was obviously upset, but she didn’t look like a bad person. But then, life’s so much more complicated than that. The world isn’t divided into ‘bad’ and ‘good’ people. In fact, was there ever a truly good person? Being a good person took a lot more effort than people seemed to think.

  ‘Sally Brelow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My name is Detective Nathan Fitzgerald, I’m here to ask you a few questions about Professor Conneally.’

  Sally started visibly shaking and unsuccessfully tried to hold back her tears as Nate walked in and sat down. He gave a curt nod to the police woman sitting at the table and prepared himself for the questioning.

  Nate tried to balance the feelings of success (his gut was definitely right about something) and sympathy (the young girl was a wreck) that were rising in him. He wondered exactly what she had to do with this situation.

  He’d had a chat with the crime car guys on the way down to the interview room. They told him that Sally’s place of residence was a small unit in the slightly poorer end of town. But she (and whoever else lived there) took care of it – it seemed quite comfortably furnished. A couple of couches and a coffee table sat in front of the large screen TV in the corner. There was a large collection of DVDs on shelving on one wall and they could see some console gaming gear stacked up nearby. There were no books to be seen anywhere – it looked like entertainment was more important to this household than education. They said that there was evidence of a male occupant too-large shoes by the door and a couple of bicycles around the side of the house.