Murder in the Pearl District (Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery Series Book 5)

by Dianne Harman

  “Mitch’s secretary and I became very good friends over the years. Even when Mitch and I got divorced, it didn’t change my relationship with Eva. We’re still very close.”

  “That’s not unusual.”

  “No, I suppose not. She called me a little while ago, and that’s really why I’m here. I want to warn you to be careful.”

  “Me? Careful? What are you talking about?”

  “According to Eva, Mitch called Chef Pierre DuBois almost immediately after he found out Donatella had been murdered and offered him the cooking show.”

  “Yes, I heard that last night. Chef DuBois and Mitch ate a celebration dinner here along with the chef’s attorney and three other men.”

  “Well, from what Eva told me, it may have been a premature celebration. Mitch heard about the new chef here, Nico, and that he had developed several new dishes that were going to be offered today. Eva said Mitch decided to hold off signing the papers hiring Chef DuBois until he saw what was going to happen here at Mangia! Mangia! In other words, he wanted to see if he’d made the right choice in hiring Chef DuBois. Eva said he was thinking that if your new menu was a huge success, it might be a better business decision for him to hire Nico.”

  “What? I thought it was a done deal, and even if it’s not, I still don’t see how it affects me other than the restaurant is now owned by a friend of mine, and I’m helping her.”

  “Kelly, and I hope you don’t mind if I call you Kelly, think about it. Everyone knows Chef DuBois has a temper and that he wanted the cooking show, very, very badly. If the show is offered to Nico instead, not only is he going to hate Nico, he’ll probably blame you and the new owner for allowing Nico to put his new dishes on the menu and making him into an instant star. In other words, the success of Mangia! Mangia! may be putting you and your friend in jeopardy.”

  “I can’t believe what you’re telling me. New dishes are put on restaurant menus all the time, and no one threatens anyone over them.”

  “It’s a little different here in the district. Mangia! Mangia! and Le Toque have been rivals for years, even though one specializes in Italian food, and the other specializes in French food. Add the television show into the mix along with the ego of Chef DuBois, and it makes for a situation that could possibly become explosive and dangerous.”

  “That simply amazes me. I know I live in a small town, but I can’t imagine someone would try to harm us over a television show.”

  “Human nature is always interesting and none more so than a thwarted chef with a huge ego.”

  “Tina, thanks for coming here and telling me about this. I’m sure returning to the restaurant after the way you left yesterday was very difficult for you to do, and I want you to know how much I appreciate it. Would you do me a favor? If you hear anything else, please give me a call. I really don’t like to think that any one of the three of us could be in danger, but if you feel we need to be warned, please don’t hesitate.”

  “I’d be happy to, and thanks for taking the time to talk to me. I imagine seeing me again wasn’t real high on your list of things you wanted to do. If you’ll excuse me, I want to go over and apologize to the bartender. Actually, a few apologies over there are probably long overdue.” She stood up and walked over to the bar.

  If what she says is true, I suppose we could be in danger, even though it still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I wonder if Mike found out anything about the five people on the list of possible suspects. I probably should give him a call, but first I need to visit Hank and order the permanent menus.

  CHAPTER 18

  After Tina left, Kelly collected the receipts from the bar and the reception desk and went back to the office to put them in the floor safe she’d found the day before. She knelt down and twirled the dial. Nothing happened. She tried again with no luck.

  Darn. I must have reversed a couple of numbers. Better get that combination from the envelope the lawyer left with Sophie and double check the numbers I’m using.

  She walked over to the desk and sat down, took a key from the key ring, and unlocked the center drawer where she and Sophie had put the envelope for safekeeping the day before. She took out the slip of paper with the combination written on it and studied it for a moment, realizing she had reversed the numbers.

  I probably should check and see what else is in the envelope. Maybe Donatella put something in it that will help me identify the murderer.

  She took the contents out of the envelope and looked at them. The one that caught her attention was a handwritten note that read, “If anything should happen to me, please contact Dirk Lewis, a private investigator I hired to investigate Bill Hossam and Chef DuBois. After I read his report I returned it to him, and he can show it to you. His card is attached.”

  Well that’s interesting. I probably better call him and see if I can find out what was in the report. We wondered if she had a premonition that something might happen to her, and I think this confirms it. Good grief. This guy must be something from the looks of his business card. It’s not very professional looking. I can’t believe someone would put this on a business card, “Dirk The Jerk. The One With The Gun.” Just what I need - one more character to add to the mix.

  She picked up the phone and dialed the number that was on the business card. The phone was answered immediately by a man who said, “This is Dirk the Jerk. Ain’t no job too big or too small. What can I do fer ya?”

  Kelly sat back in her chair and looked at the phone. Donatella hired this guy? I wonder why? “My name is Kelly Reynolds. I’m a friend of the new owner of Mangia! Mangia! restaurant. The former owner, who I believe was a client of yours, Donatella DeLuca, gave an envelope to her attorney with your business card in it and instructions to call you if anything happened to her. Unfortunately Donatella was murdered yesterday. Her attorney gave the envelope to my friend and me. I just discovered your business card attached to Donatella’s note.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been wonderin’ how long it was gonna be before someone called me. Don’t take a whole lot of smarts to figure out that one of them guys I investigated probably offed her.”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. Could you meet with me this afternoon and tell me what this all about?

  “Sure, doll, happy to. Let’s make it at 4:00. Donatella paid me some major dinero to get the goods on those two guys. I’ll bring my report with me. Gotta sign off now. Got a hot little chick in the other room who wants me to get the goods on her husband. Thinks he’s seein’ some blonde bimbo stripper who works in a ber-le-q on the south side of town, but lookin’ at her, he’d have to be crazy to be lookin’ fer it elsewhere. See ya’ later.”

  Donatella and this guy? From what I’ve heard about Donatella I would have thought she would have hired the most sophisticated private investigator available. Well, I’ve got other things to do at the moment, like get the receipts in the safe now that I have the right combination.

  She walked back to the kitchen. “Nico, Sophie, these new dishes have turned out to be so successful I’m going to order permanent new menus from Hank. How many do you think I should get?”

  “Ask Carlotta. She’s probably a better judge of that than either one of us,” Nico said.

  “By the way, Kelly,” Sophie said, “I just made Nico the chef of Mangia! Mangia! He’s going to make a decision in the next day or two about who he wants to have as his sous chef. I think people will automatically assume he is the chef after they eat the new dishes. Just decided to beat them to it.”

  “I couldn’t agree more with your decision. Nico, congratulations. You deserve it.”

  “Thanks. I feel like I’ve stepped into some type of a surreal world. Sophie, I haven’t even had a chance to tell you. While you were in the office a little while ago, I had a call from Mitch Ramos. He wants to talk to me about possibly starring in a cooking show for his television station. Please pinch me and tell me all of this is really happening.”

  That’s exactly what
Tina predicted was going to happen, Kelly thought. Wonder if Chef DuBois knows?

  “By the way, Nico, I scheduled an interview for you with the television station at 10:00 tomorrow morning here at the restaurant. Did you set up a time to meet with Mitch?”

  “Yes, he’s going to come to the restaurant tonight around 9:30. I told him I could probably take some time to talk to him because it usually slows way down by then, particularly on a weeknight.”

  “That’s great. I’ll be curious to see what happens. Have you ever thought about doing a television show?”

  “In my dreams! Like I said, I need to be pinched and have someone tell me I’m not dreaming. He’s even come up with a name for the show – The Best of Chef Bassi. What do you think?”

  “I like it. Okay, I’ll ask Carlotta how many menus I should order, and then we’re off to Hanks’s. I’ll be back shortly. Rebel, come.”

  On their way to Hank’s, Rebel stopped at the dog park and looked pleadingly at Kelly. “Sorry, boy. Not this time. I’ve got a lot to do today, and Hank’s Print Shop is a high priority. Please try not to make me feel so guilty.”

  As if he understood her, he nuzzled her knee and started walking towards Hank’s. When Kelly opened the door of the print shop, she stood and spent several minutes once again admiring the art on the walls and the beautiful rugs on the floors. A few minutes later Hank walked out from the back room.

  “Good afternoon, Kelly. There’s quite a buzz going on in the district about the new menu being served at Mangia! Mangia! and the sous chef, Nico.”

  “Actually he was just promoted to chef based on the reports we got from the diners who sampled his debut dishes at lunch. It’s was quite exciting. Who knows? We may just be able to pull this off and save Donatella’s restaurant. Don’t you think that will be wonderful?”

  Kelly noticed that Hank seemed somewhat nervous and was avoiding eye contact with her. He kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other while she was speaking to him. “Hank, is something wrong? Your body language is telling me you don’t quite seem like the man I talked to yesterday.”

  He looked up, took a deep breath, and began to speak. “Kelly, I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, and I’ve been struggling with whether or not I should tell you something, but there are a couple of things I think you need to know. Why don’t you have a seat on the couch? I’ll get us some iced tea, and we can talk.”

  Kelly sat down on the brown suede couch, thinking that this had to be the only print shop in the world that had a suede couch in the reception area. A moment later, Hank walked back into the room with two glasses of iced tea.

  “Hank, you certainly have a good eye for decorating. I told you this yesterday, but this reception area really is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.”

  “Thanks. Not too many people know I majored in art in college, but I just didn’t have the fire in my belly to make it in the art world. I guess you could say I’m compensating by surrounding myself with art.”

  “Actually, it seems to me the printing business and the things you design are a form of art, maybe just not what you had in mind years ago.”

  “I’d never thought about it like that. You may be right.”

  “So what do you want to talk to me about? You’ve really aroused my curiosity.”

  “Like I said, I really don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but Donatella was not quite the person the paper and some of her fans might think she was. She and I had a good relationship, as I told you yesterday, but over time I learned she had a controlling dark side she kept hidden from most people. Let me tell you a little story.”

  “I’m all ears. Please, tell me everything. The more I learn the more I can help Sophie make a go of the restaurant.”

  “As you probably know by now, those of us who live and work in the Pearl District are part of a pretty tight knit community. We all try to watch out for each other and help each other’s businesses. Donatella didn’t like to play that way. About a year ago a young Mexican couple moved here from Tucson and opened a gourmet taco shop a few doors down the street. It was take-out food only, and there wasn’t any seating. They were two of the nicest people I’ve ever met and were so proud of their little shop. In a short time it became quite popular – kind of a ‘go-to’ place for the shop owners and people who wanted a really authentic taco. They specialized in seafood and fish tacos and they were delicious. Many people who are on the go all the time don’t want to spend the time or the money to eat in a restaurant, so lots of people started eating there.

  “Everything was fine for the first couple of months, but when the shop became more and more popular Donatella became obsessed with the thought that it was providing unwanted competition for her restaurant. It really wasn’t competition for Mangia! Mangia!, it was simply a little upscale taco shop where you could get a quick bite to eat. Donatella hired a private investigator and found out the husband was in the United States illegally. She threatened to go to the immigration authorities if they didn’t close the shop and leave town. She told them she would pay them some money, a great deal of money given their limited resources, if they would close the shop. The reason I know this is the young couple and I had become friends. One day they unexpectedly came to say goodbye to me. I couldn’t understand why they would close the shop and leave, because it was really doing well. That’s when they told me about Donatella’s threat. I told them there was nothing I could do to help them, but I remember them saying that Donatella was giving them a large financial gift. Personally, I’d call it blackmail or a bribe, not a gift.”

  “Yes, you’re right, Hank. That’s a side of Donatella I haven’t heard about. What happened?”

  “They took the money, closed the shop, and moved back to Tucson. They were from families who were very poor, and I’m sure the money was a big help to them. I get an email from them once in a while, but that’s it. The whole experience left a bitter taste in my mouth. I don’t think Donatella ever knew that I knew why they’d closed their taco shop. She told everyone that they hadn’t been able to make it because Mangia! Mangia! was so much better.”

  Kelly sat back on the couch. “Wow! That’s about one of the saddest stories I’ve ever heard. What are they doing now?”

  “In their last email Maria told me she was a waitress in a Mexican restaurant, and her husband was working there as a dishwasher. So much for the American dream.”

  She was silent for several minutes, lost in thought. “Hank, why did you decide to tell me about the young couple?”

  “I called the restaurant this morning and spoke with Sophie. As you know, I’ve worked with her several times when she’s hosted dinner parties in her home. I wanted to wish her good luck with the new menu. She told me you were visiting and had agreed to stay on for a few days after Donatella’s murder. She said you had been successful in solving several murder cases in Cedar Bay, and that she had asked you to see if you could find out who murdered Donatella.”

  “Yes, but since the young couple is now in Tucson, clearly, they aren’t suspects.”

  He got up and walked over to the window where he stood silently for several long moments, and then in a halting voice he said, “There’s someone else who hated Donatella.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Hank continued to stare out the window at the never-ending line of people walking by his shop. Finally, after several minutes he turned towards Kelly and said, “I do the menus for all of the restaurants in the district and know all of the people in the local restaurant business. Are you aware of the long-standing feud between Chef DuBois and Donatella?”

  “I didn’t know there was a feud,” Kelly said. “I heard that he wanted to have a television cooking show and was not happy when Donatella was chosen instead of him.”

  “That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the reasons for the feud. It goes quite a ways back. As fate would have it, they both opened their restaurants here in the Pearl District about the same time. Donate
lla opened a high-end Italian restaurant, Mangia! Mangia!, and Chef DuBois opened a high-end French restaurant, Le Toque. He told people he was French and had trained extensively as a French chef, although I have some doubts about that.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean. He is the owner of Le Toque, correct?”

  “Yes, but that’s not what I’m referring to. Mind you, I have nothing to base this on, but I’ve often wondered if he really is French. I spent a year backpacking around Europe after I finished college. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. A lot of young people were doing the same thing at the time, and it appealed to me. Anyway, I fell in love with France and the French people. I have a very good ear for languages, and soon I was speaking French like I’d been born there and lived there all my life. I’ve heard Chef DuBois speak French, and I’ve noticed that the accents he puts on certain words are completely wrong. I’ve often wondered if he learned French from some computer online course, like the Rosetta Stone, or some such thing. I know that sounds really farfetched, but something doesn’t ring true with him.”

  “I don’t know if you’re right about that, but my built-in smarmy detector or woman’s intuition or whatever you want to call it, went on high alert when I met him for the first time last night. I thought the way he made a big show of kissing my hand was a little over the top, but then again I’ve never been around a French chef.”

  “The restaurant people don’t like him. One day he sent one of his kitchen staff over to my shop to pick up some new menus I’d prepared for Le Toque. The young man and I got to talking about what it’s like to work in a kitchen of a busy high-end restaurant like Le Toque. He said something that has always stayed with me. He told me Chef DuBois was so angry when one of the vegetable deliverymen brought the wrong order he threatened him with his chef’s knife. The young man went on to tell me that while the chef was all smiles to customers, he was always yelling at the staff and had a horrible temper. The staff was terrified of him.”