Do or Diner: A Comfort Food Mystery

by Christine Wenger

“His records show that that wasn’t the case. He hasn’t really failed a restaurant in more than four years. He just sends out ‘fix this’ warning letters.”

  “Yeah, I got one of those.”

  I realized that I really didn’t know anything about Cogswell. I’d never even seen his face.

  Twice I was near him in his deceased state. The first time, he was facedown on a plate full of pork and scalloped potatoes. The second time, I was at the Hal Manning’s Happy Repose Funeral Home where he had a closed casket. The picture of him in his obit was from high school, and it was awfully grainy. The same picture was on his casket.

  “Was Marvin Cogswell a handsome guy?” I asked.

  He looked at me like I had snakes crawling out of my ears.

  “Would you say that he was handsome?” I repeated.

  He drummed his fingers on the table, thinking.

  “Ty, from a purely non–Brokeback Mountain standpoint, would you say that Mr. Cogswell was a good-looking guy?”

  He laughed. I just loved how he bent his head back and laughed from his gut—a deep, manly laugh. “What are you going for, Trixie?”

  “I’m thinking of a love triangle. Maybe he was cheating on Roberta, and Roberta got jealous. Or maybe the other woman got jealous of Roberta. I was wondering if he was a hunk? A stud? A player?”

  “I guess you could say that he looked a little like Bob, your night cook.”

  “I’ve never seen Bob, my night cook! Give me another kickoff point. Let’s use you, Ty. Is he cuter than you?”

  Just as the words spewed out of my mouth, I realized my mistake.

  “How could anyone be cuter than I am?” he said.

  “Forget it!” I said. “I’ll go to the library and look up a clear yearbook picture of Mr. Cogswell. Or maybe his picture is on the Internet somewhere. Maybe Facebook.”

  “It’s not. I searched all that. However, in his personal effects, I have his driver’s license, which is almost four years old, and his twelve-year-old ID badge from the health department. I didn’t look up his old yearbook picture.”

  “Can I see his driver’s license picture?”

  “His personal effects are locked up in the basement of the sheriff’s department, and I don’t know how his looks would point to a murderer.” His tone of voice held a hint of impatience.

  “Yeah, you’re right. Forget it.” Deputy Brisco just wasn’t taking me seriously.

  “If you really want to see his picture, I’ll get it out of the evidence locker.”

  He was throwing me a bone. “No. Don’t bother.”

  I was mad now. Ty had shot down my piece of material evidence that pointed to ACB being by my back door somewhere around the time that Cogswell died, and now he was shooting down my love-triangle theory.

  Granted, a man didn’t have to be handsome to have two women after him, but it certainly would help. Since I was a woman, albeit one with a libido that was paralyzed after my divorce, I could still tell if a man might be worth pursuing.

  Even though I had no intention of running after a man, or even walking at a snail’s pace toward one, I could still tell if they had that certain…uh…animal magnetism.

  Ty had that magnetism, much to my chagrin.

  Then I remembered that I had an appointment with Roberta Cummings on Tuesday—Meat Loaf Special Tuesday. She had to have pictures of Marvin Cogswell in her office, her wallet, or maybe on her phone.

  I didn’t need Ty to go to the trouble of getting me Marvin’s old driver’s license picture. On Tuesday, I was going to meet with Marvin Cogswell’s girlfriend, and have a woman-to-woman conversation. She’d have a recent picture of him.

  And Wyatt Earp didn’t have to know about it.

  In the next three days, I slept, worked, and played with Blondie. I worked on checking things off my notebook lists as I accomplished them. I made more lists. It made me feel better that I was making progress on finally getting things done.

  I cut checks for the payroll, noticing that there was even a little money coming in from the American Legion people. There was more going out, but I still felt optimistic.

  I even did some unpacking and cleaning, when not at the diner, still covering for the elusive Bob.

  I made the meat loaf, the gravy, and the mashed potatoes for the Tuesday special. If I say so myself, it looked fabulous, and I used Uncle Porky’s recipe, but with one exception—I used mild salsa in the burger. I found that it gave it a little something extra.

  Before getting ready for my meeting with Roberta Cummings, I’d made an apple pie and packed up two meat loaf specials in a take-out box. She could have it for lunch or dinner.

  On the way, I stopped at the Gas and Grab and picked up a bouquet of flowers. At the Dollar-O-Rama, I bought a box of chamomile tea.

  Perhaps I could charm her into talking to me about Marvin.

  The office of the Sandy Harbor Lure was on Main Street next to the combination dry cleaner and Laundromat. I pulled up right in front of the newspaper office, fed the meter, and walked inside. An older woman—June!—greeted me.

  “Hello, Trixie.”

  “Why, hello, June. How long have you worked here?”

  “Since I retired from teaching. It’ll be five years this August.”

  “And May works at the library.”

  She nodded. “And you’re here to see Roberta. She’s expecting you.” On the last sentence, she rolled her eyes, as if Roberta didn’t want to see me at all.

  No surprise there.

  June reached for her phone and punched in a number; I could hear a buzz.

  “Trixie’s here,” she said into the phone. “I’ll let her know.” Putting down the receiver, she smiled at me and said, “She’ll be right out.”

  “Thanks.”

  Roberta kept me waiting for ten minutes, but June filled in the time by talking to me about the Sandy Harbor Guest Cottages in “the old days when Porky and Stella used to own the point.” There were tales of fish bakes and bonfires on the shore of the lake.

  “Good, clean, family fun times,” June said, remembering the past. “And dancing every Friday outside under the moonlight.” She closed her eyes. “It was one of those Fridays when I met my Walter, God rest his soul.”

  I remembered their parties, too. There were fireworks and Uncle Porky would get out his harmonica and we’d sing around the campfire. Aunt Stella would play the accordion, believe it or not, and she could rock those polkas. And they’d always end up singing a few songs in Polish, joined by their relatives and friends.

  I just loved to watch them sing. Their faces would light up, and they’d be grinning from ear to ear.

  Hey, I could throw a fish bake this summer, along with dancing and a bonfire! It might not be the caliber of what Porky and Stella had hosted, but it might come close. I jotted down the idea in my notebook.

  Finally, Roberta appeared, acting harried and checking her watch. That was her nonverbal signal that this meeting was going to be held in record time.

  “Please, come into my office,” she said, holding the door open.

  “Nice talking to you, June,” I said as I walked past her desk.

  June’s phone rang and she reached for it, giving me a brief wave.

  Roberta motioned for me to walk into her office. She followed. The first thing I noticed was that it was naked. There were no trinkets or other memorabilia gracing the faux-paneled walls or bookcases. I scanned her desk for something in a frame, anything. Finally, I noticed one plastic-type frame to the left of her computer.

  “Let’s get right to work,” Roberta said. “What do you have in mind?”

  I handed her the gas station flowers, a nice mix of daisies and yellow mums. “These are for you, Roberta.” I felt sorry for her, losing someone that she loved. I knew how she felt.

  Her mouth tried to form some kind of words, but nothing came out. She leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath.

  “What are these for?” she asked, her ice-blue eyes
narrowing.

  “Just because I’ve been thinking about you, and Mr. Cogswell, and everything. It has to be tough on you.”

  She put the bouquet to her nose and took a deep breath. It seemed to relax her a bit.

  “You have no idea,” she said.

  I remained silent, letting her enjoy the flowers.

  “Well, let’s get to work,” she said. “When we’ve finished our business, I’ll put these in water.”

  That was another indication that this meeting would be brief.

  I pulled a couple of sheets of bond paper from my purse and spread them out in front of her. “I played on the computer, and this is what I came up with. One sheet lists the Silver Bullet’s daily specials. The other is a ‘buy one, get one free’ coupon.”

  “I like it when a customer is organized,” she said.

  This was about the first positive thing that Roberta ever said to me. Maybe I’d softened her up. There was more to come.

  “This is what I had in mind, but they need help. Some kind of picture or graphic.” I handed her a copy of the Silver Bullet’s menu with a line drawing of the diner. “I’d like to feature this picture in both items.”

  “Should be easy. I’ll mock something up for you, using your content, and will get it to you for your approval.”

  This was going way too fast. I needed to look at that picture on her desk.

  “Roberta, can I show you what I have in mind?”

  I stood and walked around her desk to where she sat. I pointed to the paper with the coupon. “About here is where I’d like the sketch of the diner to appear.”

  “I understand.” She rose to escort me out.

  I pulled the other piece of paper in front of her, bending over to get a good look at the three-by-five photo. It was of Roberta with a very attractive man. They were both in casual clothes in front of an evergreen tree and smiling for the camera.

  Picking up the picture, I asked, “Is this you and Marvin?”

  She snatched it away from me and returned it to its place. “Yes.”

  “It’s a fabulous picture. You two look so happy. It must be hard for you to have someone you love so much taken away so abruptly.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “I brought us some chamomile tea, Roberta. And some comfort food—meat loaf and an apple pie. Can I make us some tea? I’d love to hear about Marvin. I mean it, truly.”

  Talking about someone you have lost is hard, but it’s a good way to start healing. I thought about Uncle Porky and how he’d reminisce about his old army buddies and other friends he’d lost. He always got a little misty but ended up grinning.

  I looked around for some hot water, anything, and found a water dispenser with a spout in both blue and red. I assumed the red was the hot water.

  “I’ll get the water for tea,” Roberta said, getting up.

  She returned with two steaming cups of hot water. I had the tea bags at the ready.

  “Cream and sugar?” she asked.

  “Plain for me.”

  I sliced us two pieces of pie. I’d brought paper plates, plastic forks, and napkins. Like a good Girl Scout, I was always prepared whenever food was concerned.

  She seemed overwhelmed and, believe it or not, at a loss for words. This was a side of Roberta that I never thought I’d see.

  “This is very nice of you, Trixie,” she said as I handed her the piece of pie. “I’ve been hard on you.”

  I waved away her concern. “Don’t worry about it.”

  She took a bite of pie and closed her eyes. “This is heavenly.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Did you make it?”

  “Yes, but I’m a better cook than a baker. You’ll have to tell me if you like the meat loaf.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be delicious.” She took the container and slipped it into a small refrigerator behind her desk. “Thank you again.”

  I smiled. “Did I hear that you and Mr. Cogswell were engaged?”

  “We’d been living together for the past five years, but we were talking about marriage.” She gave a half smile. “Marvin has…had…cold feet, but I thought that I was wearing him down.”

  Roberta laughed. It sounded rusty, like a car trying to turn over with a bad battery, but she was getting there.

  I was trying to like Roberta, since we did have something in common. A divorce is like a death—the death of a marriage.

  “Can you think of anyone who’d want to kill Marvin?” I leaned forward, not wanting to miss a word.

  “That hunk of a deputy asked me the same thing. I told him that I couldn’t think of anyone. Marvin loved his job and the fact that he could eat at the places he inspected. I never had to cook for him, not that I can cook anyway.”

  “Would you like another piece of pie?” I thought I’d remind her of the delightful carbs that I’d brought. She could use some weight on her slight bones.

  “I couldn’t eat another bite. But it was delicious,” she said. “Um…uh…I want to apologize to you for being so…horrible to you.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. She’d really ruined my business, but I was trying to get over it. I decided to ask the big question that had been on my mind.

  “Did you ever suspect that Mr. Cogswell might have been cheating on you?”

  She didn’t speak, and it was so quiet that I could hear June in the outer office talking to her sister on the phone.

  Roberta stared at the picture on her desk, her eyes half closed and unblinking.

  “I’m sorry I asked.” Actually, I had my answer.

  After a moment, she spoke. “All the signs were there, but I didn’t want to believe it: the sudden late-night hours and the out-of-town travel that he never had to do before, the smell of perfume on his clothes. The hush-hush phone calls.”

  “Do you know who the other woman is?”

  She hesitated. “I called the number that kept appearing on his cell phone.”

  I found myself holding my breath. “And?”

  “And the number belongs to Antoinette Chloe Brown.”

  I just sat in my car, stunned.

  Antoinette Chloe Brown? There was that name again.

  She seemed too flashy to have an affair with Marvin Cogswell, civil servant. And if she was having an affair, why would she poison him?

  If she poisoned anyone, it would have been Roberta to get rid of the competition. Right?

  But Roberta and Cogswell weren’t married. He was actually free to leave her for Antoinette.

  I headed for the library. I wanted to see if I could find anything about Cogswell. Since he was a local, I assumed he went to Sandy Harbor High. You could tell a lot from a yearbook—interests, sports, clubs. Who knew what I might find?

  May was at the library, and—surprise, surprise, surprise—she knew that I’d had an appointment with Roberta and that it was going to be windy and rainy tomorrow.

  I asked her where the yearbooks from Sandy Harbor High School were. She pointed to a low shelf near the travel section.

  “There’s at least thirty years’ worth of yearbooks on the shelf, and some of the older ones are on microfiche,” she said.

  “Thanks, May.”

  I knew Mr. Cogswell’s age from his obituary. I could guess when he graduated from SHHS.

  Ty probably never thought of looking at yearbooks.

  Maybe I was being too hard on Ty. He was investigating, researching, running record checks and the like, but I was just impatient that things were taking too long.

  When God passed out patience, I jumped out of line because I couldn’t stand waiting.

  I pulled out five yearbooks, and I settled on the year right in the middle. No Marvin Cogswell was listed.

  Then I looked through the following year. There he was. Under his picture was MARVIN “MARV” COGSWELL. “Voted class flirt.”

  That was interesting.

  His interests included fishing, water skiing, and chasing women.

  Oh, puh-leeze. I h
ad to admit that he was quite handsome back then. He had smoldering black eyes, a square jaw, and a semi-spiked haircut. At least from the waist up, he looked fit and buff and wore his suit comfortably. He had on a conservatively striped tie with light blue hues.

  I remembered the picture of Mr. Cogswell in Roberta’s office. Over the years, he’d only gotten better-looking.

  In my opinion, Marv was probably a player.

  I leafed through the yearbook, specifically looking for Antoinette Chloe.

  There she was. She was Antoinette Chloe Switzer back then. She was much thinner—who wasn’t thinner in high school?—and quite beautiful. She wore flashy clothes even in high school and went heavy on the makeup. In her picture, she was wearing a gauzy peasant blouse with horizontal stripes of bright primary colors. She wore it off her shoulders with a chunky turquoise necklace. Behind her right ear was a red rose in full bloom.

  That was an interesting look for a yearbook picture.

  Under her name was “Voted the most interesting fashion maven of the senior class.”

  I could understand that. She probably had an interesting outfit every day to keep the class entertained.

  Wondering by chance if her husband, Sal Brown, attended the same high school, I paged through the pictures. There he was, Salvatore Antonio Brownelli. “Most likely to lead Hells Angels.” His interests included “My hog” and “botany.”

  I could see Sal as a biker, but botany? That seemed out of place for Sal. To me, he should have been more interested in mechanics or that kind of thing.

  Botany was the study of plants, like mushrooms for instance.

  Now, that was interesting!

  Had Sal Brown kept up his interest in botany over the years?

  Did he know about local poisonous mushrooms?

  Stunned, I continued to leaf through the yearbooks. Then I came across a picture of Marvin Cogswell kissing Antoinette Chloe Switzer. The caption said, “There they go again! Get a room!”

  Hmm…so Marvin Cogswell and Antoinette Chloe were a couple back then.

  Wow.

  Closing up all the yearbooks, I put them back in order on the shelf.

  With a heavy heart, I knew I had to tell Ty about Sal Brown’s interest in botany.