Assault and Buttery

by Kristi Abbott

  Janine shook her head. “Nope. I thought the security guard would be watching so I didn’t bother. I was gone longer that time. At least five minutes. Maybe seven.”

  “After that?”

  “Next was Chris. I didn’t actually make it into his office. He was in his car in the parking lot, so I gave him the tin right there.” She paused. “Taylor was with him.”

  “Taylor?”

  She nodded. “They both got out of his car and she walked over to hers and drove away while Chris talked to me.”

  Hmmm. Was there a little collusion going on between the council candidates? Interesting. My phone buzzed. Again. Dan gave me a quizzical look. I shook my head.

  “Okay. After that, then?” he asked.

  “Justin. Except he wouldn’t take his.” Janine tapped the logbook.

  “Why not?” Dan asked, although he already knew.

  “He said he’s allergic to nuts.”

  That still really steamed me. All Allen would have had to do was let me know about someone’s dietary restrictions and I would have been happy to work around them. Nut allergies are no joke. People die. Actually, now that I thought about it, why the hell hadn’t Justin ever mentioned it?

  “He wanted me to take it, but no way was that happening. Even without poison being added that stuff is poison. I mean, seriously, Rebecca, how much butter is in that stuff?” Janine shook her head.

  “Enough.” If by enough you mean a lot.

  “You mean enough to clog a few dozen arteries, right? And the sugar? There’s got to be a lot of that, too. And don’t even get me started on the bacon! Nitrates. Fat. Sodium. I don’t understand why anyone would want to put that stuff in their body!” Janine shuddered.

  “Because it tastes good?” I offered.

  “Nothing tastes as sweet as a five-minute mile, in my humble opinion, and there’s no way I’m going to keep that up eating your Bacon Pecan Popcorn.” She wagged a finger at me.

  “So what did you do with it?” Dan asked.

  “I was going to throw it out.”

  I resisted the urge to hit her with something. Throw it out? Who threw out perfectly good food? This was like Sheri with the rocky-road fudge. What was wrong with people?

  “What stopped you?” Dan asked.

  “I had that one last delivery to make, the documents to drop off at Campos Realty. Carolyn saw it in my basket and asked what it was. I told her and she told me to put it in the break room.”

  My face paled. Poisoned popcorn had been put in a break room where anyone might have eaten it. Anyone. How many people might have gotten sick or died?

  “How did it get from the break room at Campos Realty to Lloyd’s house?” I asked.

  Janine shrugged. “Hell if I know.” She glanced down at her watch. “Are we done here? I need to get going if I’m going to get my run in before it gets dark.”

  “By all means. Thank you for your time.” Dan stood up and motioned for me to follow him out of the house.

  • • •

  We walked down Janine’s sidewalk back to Dan’s cruiser. “What do you think?” I asked.

  “I think I’m going back to the office to check the security camera footage of the bike rack and to see if Brixton Accounting has video footage, too. Can I drop you off somewhere?” he asked.

  “You don’t want help reviewing the footage?” I asked.

  He paused. “That video footage could end up being actual evidence that gets used in a trial. I don’t want to take any chances on a defense attorney getting it thrown out.” He opened the front door for me and the back door for Sprocket.

  “Do you think that would happen?” I slid into the car and waited until Dan came around and got in on his side.

  “I bet Cynthia could make a case for it.” He looked over at me before he started the vehicle. “I promise that I will tell you everything that’s on the tape. Everything. I might even make a copy and bring it home for you to watch tonight. I just don’t want you in the station as I get it.”

  “Good enough.” I thought about what my next move should be. “Could you drop me at the diner?”

  “The diner here in Grand Lake?” he asked.

  “Do you know another one?” I folded my hands in my lap.

  “Rebecca, I know you’re angry with Megan. Please don’t make trouble. Not for you and not for me. We don’t have time for your feud.” He put the car in gear.

  “I promise. I’m not making trouble for you, Megan or me.” I did, however, want to make trouble for someone, and I had a plan to make it work.

  “Well, as long as you promise,” he said with a sarcastic note in his voice.

  • • •

  It was a slow point in the afternoon, around three. Too late for lunch. Too early for dinner. The pie crowd wasn’t there yet. The diner was nearly empty. I plunked myself down at the counter, an area reserved exclusively for Megan’s favorites. She narrowed her eyes at me and squinted. “I heard you were out.”

  “You heard correctly.” Would Megan and I ever talk in a way that didn’t feel like the precursor to a gun battle? I doubted it. “We need to talk.” I turned over the coffee cup at my place setting to indicate that I wanted a pour.

  Megan and I said “okay” in unison, as if we both needed someone to keep an eye on us.

  Her lips tightened. If she squinched anything else up, she was likely to implode. “What could we possibly have to talk about?” She poured the coffee.

  I cringed at its color. Barely tan. “My ex-husband is talking about starting a restaurant here in Grand Lake.”

  She shrugged. “So? Whatever kind of high-end, hoity-toity, snobby, nose-in-the-air place he’d run wouldn’t have anything to do with me. That’s not who eats here.”

  I dropped my bombshell. “He’s talking about serving comfort food.”

  She sat down heavily on the stool next to me. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. It’s not a joking matter, Megan. Not one little bit.”

  “I don’t suppose comfort food is some fancy phrase from your snobby culinary school that means something different from what the rest of the world means when they say it?” She poured herself a cup of coffee.

  My back went up instantly. It was like Megan’s superpower. “That’s about the twenty-seventh time you’ve brought up culinary school, Megan. You got a problem with education?”

  Her face flushed. “No. I don’t. I just seem to know that not everyone has those kinds of opportunities and that you seem to take that opportunity for granted.”

  Now my face flushed. She had a point. If it hadn’t been for Coco, I probably never would have applied to culinary school and I definitely wouldn’t have been able to afford it. I gritted my teeth and said, “You’re right. I do take it for granted that I got to go to culinary school. Don’t sell what you’ve learned here in the kitchen short, though.”

  Megan swiveled on her stool to look at me. “What?”

  “Nothing I learned in the classroom really sank in until I did it in an actual kitchen. Until I put it into practice, it was all a bunch of ideas and thoughts. What counts is what ends up on the plate.”

  “Truth,” Megan said.

  I knew what really bugged me about the diner. Well, I did if I was actually being honest with myself, which is one of my least favorite things to do. I owed it to Megan, though. “Here’s why I’m so hard on your food. It could be really excellent. A few tweaks. Use fewer things from cans or the freezer. Shorten the menu a little. This place would be off-the-charts amazing. People’s tongues would be slapping their brains out, the food would be so good.”

  “Tweaks? That’s it? Tweaks?” She made a face at me. “You’ve been busting my balls over tweaks?”

  “Yeah. Tweaks.” I reached my hand out across the counter and put it on her fo
rearm, praying she wouldn’t pick up a steak knife and stab me with it. “I could show you.”

  The eyes narrowed again. “Why would you do that?”

  I shrugged. “For grins. To show I could.”

  “Aren’t you afraid we’ll steal business back from POPS?” Her chin went up as if she was expecting a blow to it.

  I shrugged. “POPS will be fine, but I’m hoping we fill the niche that Antoine’s looking to settle himself into before he gets a chance. Plus, I want credit.”

  “What kind of credit?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Something that says I had a hand in it. Something that tells everyone that we’re working on it together.” An idea percolated in my head. “Megan, have you ever heard of popcorn soup?”

  Thirteen

  Megan and I talked for quite a while. “Do you think you can do it?” I asked.

  “I think so,” she said. “Shall we go over the menu one more time?”

  “Absolutely.” She pushed the pad across the counter to me. “So we’re starting with the popcorn soup? What supplies do I need to buy and when do we intend to launch this thing?”

  “I say sooner rather than later.” I gestured toward the kitchen with my chin. “Do we have enough help back there?”

  She shrugged. “We could maybe use one more set of hands.”

  I dialed a familiar number and a lovely deep voice answered. “This is Dario.”

  “Do you want to work a little?”

  “Sure. You got too many special orders to handle on your own?”

  “I wish. No. This is something entirely different. Megan and I are talking about collaborating.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought you said you were collaborating with Megan. I clearly need to get my hearing checked.”

  “You heard right.” I glanced over at her, wondering if she could hear. Based on her facial expression, she could.

  “Your sworn enemy? Your nemesis?” Dario asked.

  I blushed. “Megan’s not my nemesis.”

  “Well, she’s not your friend.” He chuckled.

  “We’re trying to change that.”

  “Interesting. How many hours per week?”

  “Fifteen. Twenty at the most.”

  “Front counter or kitchen?” he asked.

  “Probably a little of both.”

  “Count me in.”

  I hung up and turned to Megan. “We’ve got that extra set of hands. Now, what else do we need?” I looked down at my coffee mug. “A decent coffeemaker, for one.”

  “Some people like my coffee,” Megan said, arms crossed over her pink bosom.

  “Which people?”

  “Freddie Stokes, Christopher Mitchell and Clifton McBrike all like my coffee. They come here every morning for eggs, toast, hash browns and coffee.” She sat up a little taller.

  I knew those men. Those men had worn the same brand of blue jeans and bought the same color of plaid flannel shirts for decades. Their trucks were always Fords and they took baths on Saturday nights whether they needed them or not. “The comfort of ritual doesn’t mean they actually like it.”

  “Yours is too strong. I’ve heard people say it’s a little bitter.” She pressed her lips together, which made her face look even more featureless than usual.

  I resisted the urge to say it was because I liked my coffee like I liked my men. “We can have both. They can choose.”

  “Will we keep a tally?” She waited with her pen poised over her notes.

  “A what?”

  “A tally of who orders what.”

  “Why on earth would we do that?”

  “To see who wins.” She shrugged.

  I let my head loll back on my shoulders. “Megan, the whole point of this situation is for both of us to be winners. The only loser we want around here is Antoine.”

  “So you do want me around here?” A deeply accented voice said.

  I whipped around. Of course. Antoine. He’d been stalking me all day and now he’d caught up with me. “How much have you heard?”

  “Only that you want me around here.” He smiled.

  I shook my head. “You’re taking me out of context.”

  He slipped onto the stool next to mine. “I will take wherever and however I can, ma chérie.”

  Megan looked like she was going to swoon.

  So, of course, that was the exact moment Garrett showed up to pick me up.

  The door banged behind him in the empty diner. Antoine twirled on his stool to face him.

  “You,” Garrett said.

  “Oui,” Antoine replied. “C’est moi.”

  “Gentlemen,” I said.

  Garrett turned to me. “What is he doing here?”

  “It is a free country,” Antoine said. “At least, that is what I hear.”

  “Well, you’re free to leave. Anytime.” Garrett held the door open.

  Antoine glanced at me. I shook my head. He sighed and got up and sauntered—very slowly—out the door.

  “How did you know I was here?” I asked Garrett. “Did you LoJack my phone?” Haley had done that when she was expecting Emily so she would always know where I was. Garrett didn’t have any excuse like that.

  “No. Dan told me where to find you. He, at least, is sensitive to the fact that I made a promise to the court.” He sat down next to me at the counter.

  “Coffee?” Megan offered.

  He shook his head. “No. We should be going.”

  “Going where?” I asked.

  “My office. I still have work to do.” He motioned for me to follow him.

  I grabbed my jacket and waved good-bye to Megan. “And what am I supposed to do there?”

  “Do what everyone else on the planet does. Go on Facebook. Play a game on your phone.” He opened the door for me. A swoosh of cold air swirled in. Outside an eddy of autumn leaves scurried in the street. Clouds lowered in the sky. It looked like a storm was coming in.

  I shot him a look and stopped in my tracks.

  He’d already gone a few steps ahead before he realized I wasn’t walking with him. He stopped, turned and sighed. “What would you like to do?”

  I thought about it. “I’d like to go over the diary again. Barbara thought she recognized some more of the people in it. I think I might be on the verge of breaking Esther’s code.”

  “Great. How much trouble can you get in looking at an old diary?” he said, as we started walking again.

  “Virtually none. Except . . .” My words trailed off because what I was about to say seemed so far-fetched.

  “Except what?” Garrett’s tone got sharp.

  “Except someone stole the diary from my apartment while I was in jail.”

  “It’s probably just tucked away in a drawer or something. You’ll find it.”

  “It’s not tucked away in a drawer. You know how small my place is. There are only so many drawers and I’ve looked in all of them.” Twice. Plus under my bed and in the closet and in the couch cushions.

  “Why would anyone steal an old diary?” he asked, holding the door to his office open for me.

  Why indeed?

  “So what were you and Megan talking about? You looked like you were hatching plans for a bank job.” He sounded suspicious.

  “Better than a bank job.” I couldn’t keep myself from smiling.

  “Hopefully more legal as well.”

  “Absolutely.” I hesitated. Megan had been the only person I’d really talked to about our plan, but we were going to be going public really soon. It was time to let people know. “Megan and I are going to have a joint venture.”

  Pearl snorted. “You and Megan? You’ve got to be kidding me. What brought this on?”

  I glanced over at Garrett, hoping I’d get through the explanation before he got mad.
“Antoine visited me in jail.”

  Garrett’s jaw clenched a bit. “I’m aware.”

  “When he was there, he told me he was considering opening a new restaurant, a sort of L’Oiseau Gris East. He thought Grand Lake would be a great place for it. He thought Coco’s old shop would be the perfect spot. He wants to serve comfort food cooked in a gourmet style.”

  Garrett sank down into one of the armchairs. “No,” was all he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s exactly what I thought. No no no. It would give him a reason to be here in Grand Lake all the time if it took off. So I thought I would see what I could do to make sure it didn’t take off. I figured Megan would be invested in making sure he didn’t open a place that would so directly compete with her diner, too. I asked her if we could collaborate. We’re going to try out a new menu and see how it goes.”

  Pearl’s eyes glistened. “Does anyone know about this yet?” Pearl was pretty much Stop Number One on the Gossip Train of Grand Lake, but it was a spot that she had to regularly defend. A scoop like this would be just the thing to keep her on top for a while. It wasn’t a mistake that I told Garrett about my venture with Megan in front of her.

  “We haven’t announced it yet, but we need to get the word out.” I smiled at her.

  “Consider it done.”

  • • •

  Pearl found a table and a chair for me to set up in the corner of Garrett’s office and got me a pad of paper and some pens. I started making lists of the nicknames that Esther had used and who Barbara thought went with each one, working from the copy that Barbara had made for me. A lot of them were straight-up nicknames, like my grandmother being Bubbles. Twinkletoes was probably Lola Buchanan, who had been taking ballet since she was three and apparently had a brief career as a Rockette later on. Barbara was pretty sure Dixie was Glenda Sanders who had moved to Grand Lake from Alabama.

  Then there were the initials. Once I’d lined them up on the pad of paper, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

  ET = Dana Sharp

  CX = Bertha Warren

  FB = Eugene Allison