Shoes and Baby: Women Sleuth

by S. Y. Robins

  I held my breath as she chewed and swallowed. She took a second as she nodded, seeming to be considering the taste. "It's a very strong coffee flavor..." she murmured.

  "I put ten shots of espresso in," I explained, pulling a face. "Was it too much? That's how much I usually put in..."

  She shook her head. "No," she said simply. "It works."

  I burst into a bright smile. "Really? So I can make it for the wedding this weekend?"

  She nodded. "As long as you stick to this exact recipe."

  "Oh Lucy, I'm so excited! And I promise, cross my heart and hope to die, nothing, absolutely nothing, will go wrong!"

  That night I was buzzing so much from the excitement of getting the gig, as well as all the coffee and espresso I'd consumed, that I was still wide awake at 2 am.

  I was lazing on my bed, texting back and forth with Ben, considering finally trying to go asleep when my phone started to ring.

  The number flashing up was Mick, our head chef. "Oh, this can't be good," I said out loud. The only other time he'd called me was when I'd left the gas on and almost blown up the kitchen. Why would he be calling me at 2 am in the morning? I knew immediately something was wrong, and I answered the call shakily.

  "Hello?"

  His reply was simply, "Lucy's dead Hannah. Your Tiramisu killed her."

  When I arrived at Lucetta the following morning, expecting to get started on my lunchtime shift as per usual, Mick was standing in the doorway to the kitchen like a grizzly bear guarding its cave.

  "I'm sorry Hannah," he growled. "Actually, I'm not sorry - you're fired."

  "But - but-" I tried to say, but he was already shutting the door on me. I looked down at my chef's uniform that had been shoved into my hands, my mouth hanging open. How could he do this to me? Sure, I'd made my fair share of mistakes in the past, but I had been careful making that recipe. It was my family's famous Tiramisu recipe! The same one I'd been making since my grandma taught me when I was 5 years old. I'd double - no triple - checked - the recipe every step of the way. There was no way I could have been responsible for Lucy's death. My disappointment quickly turned to anger as I realized something.

  Mick had been wanting to get rid of me since the first day I'd stepped into his kitchen and accidentally mixed up the salt with the baking soda, causing an entire day's worth of prep to get thrown into the bin.

  He'd just been waiting for this opportunity to show me the door.

  Maybe he'd even been the one who orchestrated it...

  "Ben!" I said gleefully into the phone. "I'm so glad you picked up. God, I need to tell you what happened. Do you know what Mick did to me?"

  "Yes Hannah," he cut in, his voice stern, not happy to hear from me at all. "Do you know what you did to us?"

  "What - what did I do to you?" I was trying to cross a busy intersection, looking left and right and trying to keep the phone gripped to my ear as Ben icily explained what had happened.

  "The function's been cancelled Hannah - the entire restaurant has been shut down for a couple of days while there's an investigation into what happened. That means no work - no pay - for any of us." He exhaled, sounding really annoyed. "And all our other up-coming functions have been cancelled. I'll be lucky to keep all my shifts. Everyone is furious. What are we all supposed to do now?"

  "Ben, I - you know I didn't do it, don't you?"

  He was silent for a second.

  "Ben? Are you still there?"

  "I'm still here. Look, Hannah," he said, slowly. "I'm not saying you did it on purpose... but... you do have a habit of screwing up recipes."

  "Ben, I was so careful!" I shook my head, feeling frustrated, tears springing to my eyes. "There was nothing in that cake that shouldn't have been there. You were there while I was making it! Did you see me do anything wrong?"

  "Well, no..." he admitted. "But I wasn't watching you the whole time."

  "I SWEAR. I didn't put anything in that recipe that shouldn't have been there."

  "Then how did Lucy end up dead?"

  "I... I don't know," I had to admit. I didn't know. I just knew that I couldn't have been responsible.

  "Bye Hannah." He hung up the phone.

  The train back to my flat seemed to go far too quickly; I was in no hurry to get back home, where I'd have to explain what I was doing there mid-morning. Perhaps I could come up with a lie to tell my flat-mate, Jennifer - tell her I'd accidentally started another fire and the restaurant had needed to shut for a week. That seemed better than the alternative.

  "What are you doing back here so early?" Jennifer asked, eyeing me through a pair of thick rimmed glasses, as she took a sip of tea. "You're not sick, are you? If you are, stay away from me. I've got finals next week and I can't afford to come down with a flu or anything."

  I shook my head. "I'm not sick."

  "What's wrong?" She asked, looking concerned. "Han, what's happened?"

  I did quickly consider telling the fire lie, but thought better of it. I slumped down on the old sofa in our living room. "Lucy's dead."

  Jennifer almost dropped her mug of tea. "Your manager?" She exclaimed.

  I nodded.

  "How did that happen?" She shot me a suspicious look. "She didn't try your cooking, did she?" Then she brought a hand up to her mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I should not joke."

  All I could do was shoot her a sad look. "Actually she did try my cooking. My Tiramisu. Everyone at the restaurant thinks that's what killed her. I've been fired."

  Jennifer's eyes were wide through her glasses. "Hannah, you're kidding me?" She sat forward and looked at me like she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Did you really poison her food?"

  I shook my head. "Jen, I swear, I didn't."

  "Not even by accident?"

  I sighed. "Look, I know I don't have a very good track record. And no one's going to believe me. But I've made that recipe a hundred times! More! If there was ever a recipe I couldn't screw up, that was it."

  "Then what killed her?"

  "Well, the Tiramisu..." I had to admit. "But I didn't poison it!"

  Jennifer leant back in her seat. "Well, do you have any alternative theories?"

  "I do actually. The head chef, Mick. He's had it in for me since day one. He set me up, I'm sure of it. And I'm going to prove it."

  "Oi, Ben," I called out in a whisper. I was huddled around a corner near the back entrance of Lucetta. The restaurant was open again, but seemed to be doing a very thin trade. Word had already gotten around the neighborhood about what had happened to Lucy.

  "Hannah, what are you doing here?" He looked around to check no one was watching us before walking over to join me in the ally way.

  "Ben I need you to do something for me."

  He sighed. "Hannah, what? You really shouldn't be here, you know. Not only are you kind of... incredibly unpopular now, I think the police actually want to speak to you."

  "That's why I need your help."

  "With what?" He kept looking around nervously, worried he was going to get caught speaking with me.

  "I need you to get proof for me that Mick did it."

  He stopped glancing around and turned back to stare at me. "What?"

  "I think Mick did it?"

  "Why on Earth would Mick do it?"

  "He hates me. He probably slipped something into the recipe while I had my back turned. Maybe he didn't mean for anyone to die... but I'm sure he meant for me to get fired, at the very least. Ben, you know he's always hated me."

  Ben sighed. "He's always been... frustrated with you. But can you blame him?" He raised his eyebrows. "I can't think of a single shift during the last six months that hasn't been ruined by a Hannah-style disaster."

  "Oh thanks a lot Ben." I was hurt. "I would have thought I could at least count on you to be on my side. So you really think I was so careless that I accidentally killed someone?"

  "Hannah, I don't know... "

  "You know, there was a third person in the kitchen that day
. Alongside Mick and I." I put my hands on my hips.

  He let out a short laugh. "Oh, so now you're accusing me?"

  "It had to have been someone there."

  He shook his head. "Hannah I didn't poison your food... why would I do that?" He was starting to sound angry with me.

  "Well help me prove it was Mick then!"

  "How?"

  "Keep an eye on him. Ask him questions. Try to suss out if he has any poison lying around in his cooking station."

  "Yeah, I'm sure he's just left if lying around."

  I gave him a pleading look. "Ben I would do it myself, but I'm fired, remember? Please, just help me out. I know that Mick did this. And I know that I didn't."

  He shrugged. "I'll try. I can't promise anything." He turned to leave. "I've got to go. My shift's starting."

  My phone rang. It was my grandmother. I really hated to ignore her call but I also couldn't bear to tell her what had happened. What if she knew that not only had I been fired from my job, but that the Tiramisu recipe she'd passed down to me, taught me when I was only five years old, might have killed someone?

  Still, I picked up and said a cherry hello.

  "Hannah!" She said warmly. "How's my favorite granddaughter? Are you keeping warm? Are you safe?"

  "Nona, its 100 degrees outside. I'm definitely keeping warm."

  "You can't keep too warm."

  "Hmm, I don't think that's true."

  "How's work my dear? Are those bosses of yours treating you kindly?"

  Well, one is dead and the other has fired me and is trying to frame me for murder, I thought. But I just said. "Yes, everything is fine. Wonderful, actually."

  I looked around the ally way I was still standing in and tried to keep a smile on my face. You can hear smiles, even over the phone. She started telling me about something my aunt had been up to when something caught my attention.

  Ben was heading out the back entrance, an armful of pizza boxes in his arms. Nothing too unusual about that - we often hand delivered pizzas during the quieter times to residents who lived in the neighboring apartment blocks. And Ben often got lumped with the task, seeing as he was the lowest on the hierarchy scale. It was where he was heading that was usual.

  "Nona, I've got to go," I said, "I'll see you for dinner this Thursday!"

  "You better!" She said.

  "Love you," I replied, quickly ending the phone call. I crept behind where Ben was heading, careful to keep a bit of distance between us. He would have assumed I'd left ages ago though, not that I'd still be creeping around the back entrance. He was heading straight to the ground floor apartment of a guy called Eric Robinson. I knew it because Eric and I had been on several dates. Recently too.

  A funny feeling started dancing in my stomach. I guess it could have been a coincidence that Ben was delivering food to him. But I had this weird feeling something was off. I followed behind and saw Ben knock on Eric's door.

  I wasn't close enough to hear what either of them were saying, but I could see from Ben's body language that he was angry. He even seemed to be yelling at Eric, before he tossed the pizzas at Eric and took the money off him, storming away angrily. I pressed myself tight against a wall, keeping out of sight as Ben walked back past me.

  What had all that been about?

  My mind was racing as I headed back to the train station. How did Ben know Eric? And why was he so angry with him? Did he... did he know that Eric and I had been dating? Was he jealous? That seemed insane. First of all, Ben was so chilled out. Secondly, nothing had really happened between me and Ben. At least, not yet. Just drinks a couple of times, some text messages.

  But the way Ben had spoken to Eric. That did not seem 'chilled out'. In fact, that did not seem like the Ben I knew at all. At least, not the Ben I thought I knew.

  I thought back to what I'd said to Ben earlier. I'd almost been joking at the time. But now I had to seriously consider the possibility. There had been three of us in that kitchen when the Tiramisu was tampered with. Mick, me, and Ben.

  Jennifer made me a tea and patted me on the head. "You know what, maybe you're better off away from that place."

  "Jen, Lucetta is the number one ranked Italian restaurant in the city. I was lucky to work there! It was my shot to become a real chef."

  "Yeah, but, they were kind of jerks to you, weren't they?"

  "Only because I was always stuffing up."

  "I can hardly blame you for poisoning your manager. She was always having a go at you." Jen always had a sort of black humor. I shot a look at her, telling her she was crossing a line. She held her hands up. "Alright, alright, I'm just joking. I'm sorry."

  She sat beside me on the sofa. "So what now? You prove that Mick did it?"

  "Not exactly..." I murmured, absentmindedly sipping my tea. "I'm waiting to hear back from Ben." I picked my phone up and checked it. No new messages. "Not that I totally trust him now... "

  "I thought you two were hitting it off! You kept saying how cute he was, how nice... "

  "Now, I'm not so sure." I frowned and looked up at Jen. "I saw him acting really weird today."

  "What do you mean? When did you see him?"

  "While I was sneaking around out the back of the restaurant... spying on him." I had to admit.

  She put her tea down and gave me a look. "Girl, you've got to get it together. You're fired. They think you killed your boss. Stay away from the place."

  I sighed. "Maybe you're right."

  "I'm definitely right. And if this Ben guy is acting shady, you're better off away from him."

  "I guess."

  "Leave it Hannah."

  "I will. I will."

  She left to go study in her room and I quickly grabbed for my phone. There was finally a text from Ben. I eagerly opened it to see what he had to say.

  "You're right -" his text read. "There might be something more going on with Mick."

  I sat up straight and shot a text back. "What did you find out?"

  There was the "..." message for several minutes while I waited anxiously for his next text.

  "Did you know that he and Lucy were seeing each other?" His text finally came through.

  My jaw dropped.

  No. No I had not known that.

  3

  We met up at a bar in the city, near enough to Lucetta that it was easy for Ben to get to, but far enough away that hopefully no one from the restaurant would turn up.

  "So how did you find out about Mick and Lucy?" I asked, as soon as we sat down on our bar stools. I ordered a house white and Ben ordered a scotch and coke.

  He shrugged. "Didn't take too much digging, actually. I was wondering why Mick was so upset for. Didn't realize the two of them were so close."

  I took a sip of my wine. "But they really were close, huh?"

  Ben nodded. "Emma told me that she'd caught the two of them out in the storage room one night, going for it amongst all the bottles of red."

  I pulled a face. "Ew. I honestly thought that Lucy had better taste than that." I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to 'go at it' with Mick, let alone Lucy, who could have gotten any man she wanted. "I guess that's why they kept it a secret though... thank God for Emma always having all the goss, huh?"

  "Yeah." He took a mouthful of scotch and leaned in closer to me. "She reckons that Lucy broke things off with him last week."

  "Huh..." I pondered that. "That would explain why he was so grumpy. I mean, grumpier than usual, that is."

  Ben was quiet for a second. "So what are you thinking?"

  I had to consider it all for a minute. "Do you think that Mick could have been so upset that he killed her though?"

  "We've all seen the temper he has in the kitchen."

  "That's certainly true."

  Ben looked at me for a moment, considering. "You almost seem disappointed?"

  I let out a small laugh. "Not disappointed. It's just - okay this is gonna sound stupid..." I trailed off.

  "Go on, spit it out." He too
k a last swig of scotch and put his empty glass down on the bar.

  "Well, I thought Mick did it to get at ME. To get me fired."

  Ben let out a laugh, despite himself. "Right - I get it now. You're disappointed that this wasn't all about you." He was teasing, but acting like he was serious. "Wow. And people say you're not a great chef. You've certainly got the ego of one."

  I gave him a playful shove. "It's not like that."

  "It is a little."

  "Okay, it is a little. It's just that I really thought Mick hated me enough to try and set me up like that. Turns out all along he just hated Lucy."

  Ben exhaled. "So what now? Do we give this info to the cops?"

  I finished off my wine. "We don't exactly have much to go on, Ben. Come on - it's just a rumor from Emma."

  He seemed to agree. "I'll try to get more info from him tomorrow. See if he can confirm it himself."

  "So you're working tomorrow?" I asked. "You're still getting work?"

  "No thanks to your Tiramisu," he said, then stopped himself. "Sorry."

  I turned away from him. "So you do still think I might be to blame. Even after this thing about Mick and Lucy?"

  "Hannah - I - I don't think." He ran a hand through his hair. "It's just, you were right when you said all we have to go on is Emma's story."

  I stood up and put ten dollars down on the bar. "I need to go."

  "Eat up," my grandma said, shoveling more and more lasagna onto my plate. Truthfully I was starving, but I needed to be careful. It was a bit of a tightrope, eating Nona's food. Not enough and it was a great insult; too much and she'd start thinking you were in danger of starving to death. And if she thought I wasn't eating properly, she might start wondering why. The 'why' was that I no longer had a job, or access to free food - one of the main perks of being a chef.

  So I took it easy, taking modest mouthfuls as she watched carefully. "Good?" She asked, knowing there was only one acceptable answer.

  "Delicious. The best lasagna in the world."

  "Better than that place you work," she muttered, nodding at me. "They say it's real Italian food at that place, but it's not real Italian."

  The last thing I wanted to talk about was work - or the lack of work - so I quickly changed the subject. "How are you getting along these days Nona? Are you still getting up and down that staircase?"