Who Glares Wins (Lexi Graves Mysteries)

by Camilla Chafer

  It was easy to find the kitchens. I literally followed my nose as baking scents wafted towards me until I reached a glistening, freshly-scrubbed, large room, where all the people wore white jackets. It was mid-morning, the lull between breakfast and lunch, so instead of sizzling pans, shouts of "Yes, chef!" and yelling, the kitchen seemed calm. I stepped through the swinging doors, lurking awkwardly in the entryway.

  "You! Who are you?"

  I jumped and looked around.

  "Yes. You!" came the voice again.

  "Uh, hello?" I stepped around a piece of equipment that looked like a medieval torture instrument. "Me?"

  "Yes, you by the pasta machine. Who are you?" A tall African-American man stood up, waving a piece of paper at me, his expression thunderous. "Can't you see we're having a meeting?"

  "Uh, yes, sorry. Mr. Killjoy sent me." The man waited and slowly, the table of people turned in their chairs to stare at me. I held still as their eyes roamed over me. Talk about uncomfortable. "I'm looking for Chef Fabien," I squeaked.

  "You found him. You still haven't told me who you are."

  "Uh, right. I'm Lexi Graves. Mr. Killjoy's new assistant. He said to come talk to you."

  "I'm busy. Tell Killjoy to keep his nose out of my kitchen. If I have a problem, I'll come looking for him." Chef Fabien sat down and almost immediately stood up again. "Get out!"

  "Actually, I can't. Mr. Killjoy said I have to talk to you about the kitchens."

  "What about the kitchens? What does he want now?" Chef Fabien scraped his chair back and stomped towards me, his expression moving from annoyed to plain cross. "Out with it, girl."

  "Well, I'm new and he wants me to meet everyone that works in the hotel."

  Chef Fabien muttered something that might have been a swear word. "Amanda, come here," he beckoned to a small, red-haired woman, wearing a white coat. Her name was embroidered across her left breast. She got up and edged past him, giving me an apologetic smile. "Amanda will tell you whatever you need to know."

  "Thanks," I muttered.

  "And don't ever come back in the kitchens unless you're invited. Understood?"

  "Gotcha," I said, but I didn't plan to obey him for a moment. Next time, I might pick a more opportune time, like when everyone was out.

  Chef Fabien stalked back to the table, making Amanda jump out of his way as she came towards me. "Come on," she said softly, taking me by the arm and steering me outside before he could shout again. "Let's get out of his way."

  "Is he always like that?" I asked as the doors swung closed behind us.

  "Chef Fabien? Sure. He's the most obnoxious man I've ever met, but he's a brilliant chef."

  "Isn't The Montgomery kind of out of the way for a brilliant chef?"

  "Yeah. He used to work bigger places but, oh God, I suppose it is common knowledge, but he would kill me for saying it..."

  "What?"

  Amanda mimed tipping a bottle to her mouth.

  "Oh," I said. "He was an alcoholic?"

  "Yeah. Still is, but he doesn't drink."

  I enjoyed her refreshingly candid approach to spreading gossip. I asked, "Doesn't that bother Mr. Killjoy?"

  "You know, I don't think so. He recruited Chef Fabien personally. Fabien sounds like he hates him, but really, they get along fine. He's just meticulous about his kitchen. Chefs," she said, with a shrug. "So you're making introductions? I'm Amanda Michaels, Chef Fabien's right-hand woman."

  "Lexi Graves, Mr. Killjoy's new assistant."

  "What happened to the last girl? She was lovely."

  "I don't know," I said truthfully. "She wasn't here long, right?"

  Amanda thought about it. "Not long," she agreed, "but she was very efficient. I think Mr. Killjoy was going to take her on permanently. He seemed to like her a lot."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "I saw him give her flowers once, and she kissed him on the cheek."

  I grinned. "Really?"

  "Yeah. Oh, please don't repeat that. I shouldn't have said anything. I just thought... they seemed sweet, you know."

  I frowned as a puzzle piece seemed to slip into place. "Were they... dating?"

  "I don't know. Maybe. If they were, they were keeping it secret. Maybe that's why she left?" Amanda mused. "I've said too much. You'll think I'm a gossip!"

  I certainly did. "My lips are sealed. I guess it wouldn't do to piss Mr. Killjoy off."

  Amanda nodded. "Right. He's okay, I guess. I don't see him much because he doesn't come into the kitchens. What can I help you with?"

  "I'm just getting to know everyone, so nothing specific really. Between you and me, I think Mr. Killjoy's worried about losing staff members. He heard a rumor that some of the staff wanted to quit," I lied, but it was clearly a plausible one because Amanda bit.

  "Really? I guess it's because of the sabotage. You probably haven't heard about it yet, but there have been some problems at the hotel. Some of the rotas got messed up and people were missing their shifts or turning up to the wrong ones, and had to be called in at short notice. Every penny counts to some."

  "I know that feeling," I agreed, wondering if she included herself in the “some.”

  Amanda carried on. "One of the waiters made a fuss about missing some shifts and said he'd quit. David, I think. Maybe it's him."

  "So... everyone else is happy?"

  "Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's work, you know. Can't be happy all the time. But if Mr. Killjoy thinks Chef Fabien is going anywhere, I'm sure he's wrong," she said emphatically.

  "If Chef Fabien left, wouldn't that put you in charge?"

  "I guess," agreed Amanda. She tugged at the cuffs of her jacket, then shrugged. "But I wouldn't want that kind of responsibility. Sous chef is enough for me. Listen, if I hear any rumblings, I'll let you know, but I think we've smoothed out any issues now that we're hand-delivering every rota."

  I left Amanda to return to her meeting and ruminated on what she told me as I walked back to my office. I couldn't think of a single boss who'd ever given me flowers, and I wondered why Edward gave them to Marissa. Maybe it was her birthday? Or maybe they were from someone else, and he was simply passing them along? Except, Amanda said Marissa kissed him, and that was on the decidedly, over-friendly side. I wondered if there was more to the relationship than a working one. No wonder Edward had seemed so tense when he mentioned she left abruptly. I wondered if he was a spurned lover, or if he had something to do with Marissa's disappearance. Could she have rejected him? Edward didn't seem like he could hurt anyone, but I supposed most murderers appeared to be lovely people. I resolved to keep on my guard around Edward, just in case, and to never go into a basement with him, or help him carry power tools of any description.

  Another thing I wanted to know was if it were a boon or a huge problem to my own pro bono case. I suspected Marissa might have been mixed up in something serious at The Montgomery at the time she apparently went missing.

  When I got back to my office, I shut the door and called my oldest brother, Garrett, at the station. Like Maddox, he also worked homicide, but their paths didn't cross often.

  "Hello," he grunted into the phone.

  "Well, hello to you too."

  "It's been a long night, Lexi. What's up?" I heard him stifle a yawn.

  "Actually, I have a favor."

  "Babysitting-worthy?"

  "Not particularly. I had a missing person case come into the agency that we turned down. Her name's Marissa Widmore. I wondered if you could look into it?"

  "This missing person been reported yet?"

  "Yep, but the police didn't think she was missing. They thought she took off."

  "Any reason why you think she didn't?" My brother was astute, a quick thinker and a good detective. He also thought I'd make a good investigator.

  "Yeah, I'm feeling suspicious."

  He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Got anything more I can go on than that?"

  "I'm thinking," I said, wondering wh
at I could tell him. "Everything so far points to her having no reason to stay, but no reason to go missing either. Nice apartment, close friends, and she had just started a new job. Then one day, boom! She's gone."

  "Happens to lots of folk."

  "There's something off about this one. Someone went through her apartment and her car turned up in the PD impound after being abandoned at Fenway Plaza, around two weeks ago. Her laptop is missing too."

  "I'll get the case file and have a look-through. Best I can do right now."

  "Thanks, Gar'. I appreciate it."

  “Thought you were out of the biz?”

  “Just wrapping up some loose ends. Things are quiet, hence the temping.”

  “Ah, I see. I’ll call you later. Gotta go see the ME about a body first.”

  “Have a terrific time!” I said, hanging up.

  I felt a little bit better now that I knew fresh eyes at MPD would review Marissa's case. If nothing else, at least she might sound familiar if her name came up. Or her body.

  The other employees were equally pleasant, and Louisa was chatty at lunch, over sandwiches supplied by the kitchen. We ate on the benches in the rear garden, as she told me about the hotel and the kind of events that they held. I thought she was lonely, and maybe got bored working in her quiet office all day, far from other people. Maybe being the HR manager didn’t make her the other employees’ best friend.

  Lily picked me up from the employee parking lot at six, sliding over so I could take the driver's seat.

  "Want to have dinner with me?" she asked. “My shift just got canceled.”

  I thought about the microwave meal at home, awaiting me. "Yep. Want to go investigating with me?"

  "You bet. Are we tailing Ted's girlfriend again?"

  "Not tonight. This time, we're looking into a missing person."

  "Awesome. Where is the missing person?"

  "That's what I want to know." I told Lily about how Elisabeth Fong came to see me at the agency and after getting her case declined, how I decided to look into it myself.

  "That's so badass," said Lily, grinning. "You're like a renegade. A rebel with a cause!"

  More like, renegade without a clue, but I kept that to myself. A brief moment of badassery felt kind of nice.

  "There's one more thing," I said. "You'll never guess where Marissa worked when she went missing."

  "Probably won't," Lily agreed as we sped away. "Tell me. It'll be quicker."

  "She was Edward Killjoy's assistant. As in the same Edward Killjoy who is now my boss. Sort of."

  "No way!"

  "Way, dude."

  "You think the cases are connected?"

  I nodded. "It's too much of a coincidence otherwise."

  "Have you told Solomon you're looking into Marissa's disappearance?"

  "No, not yet."

  "You're so badass," she reiterated with unbridled approval.

  "Not really. I just don't want to look like a dumbass if I got it wrong. Besides, he refused to take the case, and I don't want to piss him off."

  "You could just tell him, then kiss him, slip him a little tongue, or something."

  "Lily!"

  "What? I bet he would forget all about telling you not to take the case if he thought he was going to get some." I doubted that. I figured Solomon would probably take some, then get pissed off. After all, he was smart enough to get what he wanted first. Plus, I liked my job, most of the time, so getting overly friendly with the boss wasn't going to happen. Not to mention the small problem of my colleagues already thinking he was boning me. I still hadn't worked out how I was going to rectify that.

  As we stopped in a line of traffic at a red light, Lily popped her hips and wiggled her arms like a humping possum, only stopping when the passengers in the Camry next to us turned to gawk. Lily stuck her tongue out, and the bespectacled woman driver gasped.

  “Don’t do stuff like that, they might shoot us.”

  “People who drive Camrys do not carry guns.”

  “Do too.”

  Lily snuck a glance at the Camry again and snorted as she turned back to me. Okay, I had to agree that particular driver probably didn’t, but who knew? “Do not. Hey, look, you went from badass to scaredy-cat in zero to sixty. So, anyway, Solomon, tongue… You’re just going to have to take one for the team.”

  "I'm with Maddox," I reminded Lily. "And I'm not slipping Solomon anything."

  "Shame. Bet he's got some smooth moves."

  Solomon did indeed have some smooth moves, but I didn't know if they extended to the bedroom, seeing as I hadn't gotten that far. I hadn't tried either. Solomon kissed like he was on a mission to redefine the word “passion,” but Maddox was enough man for me, even if he did play dirty during pillow fights. To keep Solomon's moves out of my head, I concentrated on Maddox's gym-hard body and the way his hands always knew exactly where I wanted to be touched.

  "You've gone red."

  "I haven't."

  "You have. This is how you look after Anton’s spin class, but without all the sweat."

  "It must be the heater in this car." I made a show of turning the dial down a notch and Lily snickered.

  "Whom are we investigating?" she asked, mercifully changing the subject.

  "First, I want to pay a visit to Marissa's apartment block and ask her neighbors if they saw anything around the time of her disappearance; then I've got a couple of friends of hers to visit." Primarily, I wanted to know two things: one, if Marissa ever mentioned Edward Killjoy to anyone, and if they had anything more than a professional relationship; and two, if they noticed anything unusual in her behavior, anything that might have indicated she could be in trouble. Someone who might’ve been a witness to a kidnapping.

  "Okay. Sounds easy."

  "Hope so."

  Traffic took longer than I estimated, due to the rush hour slowing to a mournful ten miles an hour, but we soon pulled onto Marissa's street with hardly any uncited traffic violations to our names. The street parking was chock full, so I pulled into Marissa's lot and picked a parking space. I figured Marissa didn't need it right now, and seeing as I was looking for her, she wouldn't mind sharing.

  There weren't any lights on in the apartment block, but it was still daylight out, so people might still be home. Lily and I got out and walked over to the buzzers at the front doors and I hit the first one.

  "Hello?" A disembodied female voice answered.

  I leaned into the sound piece. "Hi. I'm a friend of Marissa's. Is that Mrs. Maloney? I wonder if you've seen her?"

  "Who? Mrs. Maloney? That’s me!"

  "No. Marissa. 2A."

  "Oh, her. No, haven't seen her today."

  "I'm worried about her. May I come in and talk to you for a minute?"

  “Are you selling anything?”

  “No.”

  "I guess so." The door clicked open and we stepped through, just as the door to 1A opened and an elderly woman emerged, looking us over. Her hand lingered inside her door and I was fairly certain she was holding a baseball bat out of our sight. I hoped she wouldn't get antsy. Given her age, I couldn’t in all good conscience retaliate, although if she happened to trip over my foot…

  "Hi, Mrs. Maloney, I'm Lexi. This is my friend, Lily. We haven't seen Marissa in a while and she's not answering her phone. I wondered if you've seen her?"

  "You were here before," said the old woman, narrowing her eyes at me. "With that Chinese woman."

  I was fairly certain Elisabeth had never been to China, and was probably second generation, if not more, but I didn't like to argue and put the elderly woman on the defensive. Not with the potential baseball bat situation. "That's right. Elisabeth. We checked Marissa's apartment and she hadn't been there in a couple of weeks."

  "Huh. Well, let's see. She's pretty quiet so I don't notice her much. I saw her a couple weeks ago. A Sunday. I remember because that's when my daughter comes over and takes me to lunch at her place; and she was late."

  "Was Marissa
with anyone? Did she seem okay?"

  "Now you mention it, she seemed upset."

  "Did she say what about?"

  The elderly lady shook her head. "No. We only say hello. We're not chatty. You could try the man on the third floor. I think they were friends, though I hope they weren’t having extra-marital sex because I don’t approve of that. Get married before you suck the boiled sweets, that’s what I say."

  Lily and I exchanged bemused glances. "Okay. Thanks for your time. If she comes back, could you give me a call?" I passed the woman my card and she studied it.

  "A private investigator? She in some kind of trouble?" she asked, then hopefully, “Is Marissa a criminal?”

  "No, we're just worried about her." I learned already that it was no good telling people someone was in trouble. Either their minds made stuff up, or they put more weight on inconsequential things. It was better to just keep things as benign as possible.

  "Alrighty then." Mrs. Maloney shuffled back into her apartment and closed the door while we went to knock on 1B opposite. There was no answer, so we left, taking the stairs to 2B, where Elisabeth told me a couple lived. I got the woman. She was around my age and wore trendy, skinny jeans and a billowing, cotton shirt that looked like it might have been her husband's, around which was wrapped a tan leather belt. Her fingertips were splotched with paint.

  I introduced us, repeating my spiel about being Marissa's friends and worrying about her.

  "I'm Meg. She's really sweet," said the woman. "We hung out a few times, but not enough to be really good friends. She wouldn't confide in me, ya know? Anyway, let's see, I guess the last time I saw her was a Saturday. Some guy dropped her off outside, just as Marcus, that’s my husband, and I were heading out."

  "You sure this was a Saturday?"

  "Yeah. We have date night every Saturday. We went to Alessandro's. Have you been?"

  "The lasagna’s to die for," I told her.

  "I know, right? We don't go often. It was our anniversary."