“Boy, am I glad to see you!”
Grace smiled. “Aw, I guess absence really does make the heart grow fonder.” She started to pick up the garbage, but Sarah stopped her.
“I’ll take it, if you don’t mind. It would be better if you stayed here and finished setting up the booth. I don’t know what to do next but this way everything will be ready when Emily gets back.”
“No problem.” Grace glanced at the clock on the wall. “Do you know where she is? We’ve only got about fifteen minutes until the doors open.”
Sarah shrugged and pulled her phone from her pocket. No new texts or missed calls. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”
She bent to double-check the bags were cinched.
“Our food is ready, but there still are some little tasks to be done before service begins.” Grace peered around the room. “It’s not like Emily to leave things to the last minute.”
“No, it isn’t,” Sarah agreed.
Grace dragged the box marked TABLECLOTHS from under the table. Opening it, she rummaged through the box until she found one the right size to cover her prep station area. With a quick flick of her wrist, Grace flipped the clean tablecloth onto the table. As she smoothed it into place, Sarah marveled at how easy the younger woman made everything look.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am you know what to do. You seem like an old pro. How long have you been doing restaurant work?”
“Ever since I can remember. My mother was a waitress in a restaurant that couldn’t hold a candle to Southwind. She worked a split shift.”
“A split shift?”
“Yeah. She came in around eleven for the lunch shift. When the crowd thinned, she hung around to do food prep and set up the salad bar. I came to the restaurant when school was out. Once everything was set up, we went home until she went back for dinner service. She stayed until closing.”
“Those must have been long evenings for you or did you stay home with your father?”
“That’s a laugh. I never knew my dad.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Because Mom’s boss didn’t want kids around during the evenings, I stayed at the apartment. Homework, a bite to eat, TV, and bed. Mom’s hours weren’t great, but the tips were good.”
“But surely you didn’t learn everything I’ve seen you do in the kitchen from being at your mom’s restaurant a few hours a day?”
“Hardly. I’m a student in the junior college’s culinary program, thanks to Harlan.”
“How’s that?”
“I was at a party during high school that Chief Mueller busted. He took everyone in, whether we were doing something or not. I was just there, but it was my word against some of the other kids.”
Now Sarah understood why Grace adored Harlan. “And Harlan was your attorney?”
“Right. Mom and I couldn’t afford an attorney, but I got lucky when the court appointed him to represent me. He dug holes in the other kids’ stories and got me off. Then Harlan convinced Chief Mueller and Mr. Blair to help me go to culinary school as a work-study student. I promised I wouldn’t let him down.” She wiped her cheek and turned her head away from Sarah. “I don’t know where I’d be without him.”
Grace cleared her throat and pointed at the garbage. “Enough. We have work to do. Better go take care of that trash.”
Sarah picked up the two garbage bags and Jacob’s box. “I’ll throw these out and be right back to give you a hand.”
“Okay.” Grace covered the now-cleaned prep area with more cups. “The closest Dumpster is the temporary one on the loading dock. Go through the back door.” She pointed to the room where Sarah and she had worked yesterday. “On your way back, grab a couple of Emily’s spinach pies from the fridge we threw the stuff away from.”
Sarah froze. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t worry. They replaced the cord last night and cooled it down so we could use it today. Emily has the top shelf and the two on the bottom. They’re marked.”
Sarah let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“While you’re gone, I’ll cut these pies up for the first onslaught of visitors. We’ll warm the pies you fetch in the oven. That way, Emily will have a steady flow once the Expo opens.”
Sarah nodded in agreement. That would be Emily’s plan, too, if she was here. Where was she? All Sarah could think was whatever Emily was doing, it had to be important to keep her away from her booth this close to the beginning of the Food Expo. Even though she’d already been named sous chef, Emily had to know that as fast as he gave her the job, Chef Marcus could take it away. Chef Marcus didn’t seem like a person who played around in the kitchen.
Emily wasn’t stupid. So where was she?
Chapter Twenty
Sarah carried the trash into the back room. Out of sight, she checked her phone again. Where was Emily? For a moment, Sarah listened to the purr of the repaired refrigerator. Its hushed whisper comforted her because it made her think of RahRah when he was in one of his deep sleep cycles. She couldn’t believe how attached she had become to that cat or how upset she was at the possibility of RahRah living with Jane. Jane might not harm or starve RahRah, but she didn’t impress Sarah as someone who could share love with a human, let alone an animal.
It made her wonder what kind of relationship Bill and Jane had really had. She wasn’t being catty, Sarah convinced herself, as she dropped the box with the bag of garbage and unlatched the Civic Center’s rear door. Unless Bill’s tastes had changed greatly after their divorce, Jane was the antithesis of the willowy long-haired brunettes Bill typically fell for.
Sarah stepped onto the loading dock. She twisted backward to drag Jacob’s box and the bags over the threshold. It wasn’t only that Jane was different from Bill’s normal type, Sarah thought as she inched backward. Jane was such a mean, manipulative, and unpleasant person, Sarah couldn’t imagine what Bill saw in her.
“Aah!” Sarah screamed as she tripped. Arms flailing, she slammed onto the ground, right on top of one of the garbage bags, which split, its contents spewing. Looking up, she realized the culprit behind her fall was her own sister’s leg.
“Emily?”
Emily sat spread-eagle on the ground, shaking. Tomato sauce and other trash mixed with tears on Emily’s face.
“What are you doing, Emily? I could have broken my neck!”
Her twin didn’t move.
“Em?” Sarah put her hands down for balance as she inched toward Emily. Her hand touched something damp underneath her. Instinctively, she wiped it on her jeans and reached out toward her sister.
“Stay away from me!” Emily backed farther away from Sarah, alternating a high-pitched mixture of sobs and the word “No!”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Sarah craned her neck from her shrieking sister to look over her shoulder. Eyes bulging, she twisted around and rose on her knees, trying to comprehend what she saw. Not three feet away, Richard lay on his side. A pool of blood surrounded him, a knife protruded from his back.
For a moment, Sarah’s brain detached itself from its present reality as she wondered if the tip of the knife might have simply pierced one of his many tattoos, resulting in red ink running to the ground. But that wasn’t the case. This was far worse.
Sarah raised her hand to her forehead and gagged. The sticky wetness she’d wiped on her jeans hadn’t come out of the broken trash bag. She’d put her hand into the puddle of Richard’s blood. It took everything she had to not be sick. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to turn away from Richard and focus on Emily. Her twin, now silent, sat hugging her knees to her body.
Between the light casting shadows on the loading dock and how tightly Emily had her knees drawn to her chest, Sarah couldn’t discern if there was blood on Emily’s black clothing, but she saw stains she was certain weren’t rhubarb on Emily’s exposed hands. “Emily, what happened?”
Emily shook her head.
Trying to penetrate her s
ister’s silence was useless. Frustrated and frightened, Sarah turned back to help Richard. His mottled pallor and the amount of blood on the ground told her it was too late. She forced herself not to touch him, knowing it would only annoy the police if she disturbed anything else. As it was, she doubted Peter would be too pleased with her garbage shower over his crime scene.
Avoiding Richard, she crawled to Emily and embraced her. With a sob, Emily collapsed against Sarah.
Sarah forced herself to ask, “Did you?”
“No.” Emily held on tightly to her twin.
“Did you touch the knife?”
Emily nodded. “He wasn’t moving. I tried to help him.”
“Hush.” Keeping one arm around Emily, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She punched the icon for recent calls and hit the number she hadn’t recognized the other day.
When Peter answered, she didn’t identify herself. In a monotone, she said, “There’s been a murder on the loading dock of the Civic Center. I think you’d better come over here.” She hung up and speed-dialed Harlan. He probably wouldn’t be very happy to hear Emily had been a Good Samaritan again.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Civic Center’s security chief arrived first, followed by Peter. The damp collar of Peter’s shirt and the slick hair protruding from his cap made Sarah think he had probably just jumped out of a shower and into his uniform. It wasn’t a bad look for him. She pushed that thought from her mind.
Ignoring Sarah and Emily huddled together in the corner of the loading dock, Peter pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and joined the Civic Center security chief closer to where Richard lay. Since the security chief’s arrival, he’d stood a few feet from Sarah and Emily, keeping an eye on them, as if worried they might make a break for it. Watching Peter now, Sarah sat silently while holding her still-shaking sister.
“Chief Mueller, I came out here as soon as you called.” The security chief pointed to the twins. “Other than telling those two to sit over there until you got here, I’ve limited access to the loading dock and preserved the scene beyond what they already disturbed. I thought about locking down the Expo, but it didn’t seem necessary. Besides, I was afraid of what kind of crowd problem we might have.”
Peter frowned. He squatted near Richard. “Is this the way you found the body?”
The security chief didn’t even turn to look at the unnatural way Richard lay, his legs and head twisted as if he had been running in the hope of jumping into the Dumpster. “Yes. Everything’s just as I found it. I figured you’d want your techs and the coroner to see him exactly as I found him. Only problem is, it looks to me as if those two touched everything and moved him around a bit.”
“What else can you tell me?” Peter stood and brushed his pants off.
The security chief pulled a notebook from his pocket but didn’t open it. “His name was Richard Brown.”
Peter shot a look at the security chief, who fumbled with his notebook.
“Richard was in high school at the same time as my boy. That makes him about twenty-five or so. He ran track with my kid until about midway through his junior year, when he quit the team after failing a drug test. I know he’s in the junior college’s culinary program and did odd jobs for Mr. Blair. He must have been a decent cook or I doubt Chef Marcus would have hired him.”
“Thanks.” Peter motioned for his techs to begin photographing the scene. “You’d better get back into the exhibition hall.”
The security chief nodded and shoved his notebook back into his pocket while Peter again knelt by the body, careful to avoid the pooled blood. He didn’t say anything as he gazed at the torso.
Sarah bent forward, trying to ascertain if Peter was seeing more than what was apparent to her. Other than the knife sticking out of Richard’s back and a partially smoked cigarette dropped next to him, she hadn’t observed anything that seemed out of place. There were no apparent pulled-off buttons or tears other than the one made by the knife.
Peter stood and headed in the direction of the Dumpster. He peered at the ground as he walked slowly backward from the body. Sarah, with Emily’s head still pressed into her chest, watched him.
A few feet from the doorway, almost at the point where Sarah landed after her fall, he bent and stared at the ground.
“Did you find something?” Sarah called out to him.
He ignored her but waved a tech over to join him. Sarah could see him point at something the tech took a few pictures of before Peter carefully picked up and bagged whatever it was Sarah couldn’t make out.
Leaving the bag with the tech, Peter walked over to the twins. Sarah met his gaze, but Emily kept her head tucked against her sister.
“Did you find something, Peter?”
“Another cigarette butt. Probably not important.” He didn’t try to sit or kneel near them. “Tell me, what were the two of you doing out here?”
“I was doing a garbage run.”
Emily didn’t answer. Sarah prodded her with her hand.
“My job,” Emily finally said. “Richard said he was going out for a smoke. It was getting close to the Expo’s starting time and he wasn’t back, so I came out here. . . .”
A commotion at the loading dock distracted her from continuing. It was Harlan and one of the police technicians.
“You can’t come in here.”
“Those are my clients.” Harlan tried to push his way past the taller man.
The tech easily held the smaller man at bay.
“Don’t say another word!” Harlan squirmed against the man’s grasp of his sweat suit.
Sarah noted the damp marks his wet hair made where his head hit the tech’s shirt.
“Peter! You know better than this.”
Peter signaled with his hand for Harlan’s release. The tech let him go so quickly Harlan stumbled, almost falling. The tech caught and steadied him before releasing his grip.
Harlan glared at the tech but transferred his attention to Peter and his clients as he stormed over to them. “Anything my clients might have said can’t be used against them.” He stuck his balding head upward, almost butting Peter’s chin. “I don’t know what they’ve said, but I bet you didn’t read them their rights.”
“Harlan, relax. There hasn’t been a need for Miranda rights. I haven’t focused on anyone as a suspect.” Peter took off his cap and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
Sarah made a choking sound, suppressing a giggle. Harlan and Peter both looked at her. She didn’t know why but, under the circumstances, Harlan’s sports casual and Peter’s uniform and hat hair struck her as out of sync.
Although she didn’t say anything, Peter’s gaze lingered on her for a few extra seconds. “Harlan, my guys will finish up here. I think the four of us should continue this discussion at the station house.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The interrogation room looked the same as it had earlier in the week, except extra chairs had been pulled into it. Peter stood behind a chair placed directly across from the twins and Harlan, who had angled his chair on the corner next to Emily. Peter held a thick manila folder. Sarah wondered if it was the same one from the other night being recycled for effect.
“Coffee anyone?”
Harlan shook his head. “This isn’t a social visit.”
Peter slammed the folder over a dent in the table. “For Pete’s sake, Harlan, I’m only asking if anyone would like a cup of coffee.”
While the two men stared at each other, Sarah leaned forward. Watching them having their mini-standoff, she honed in on Peter’s offer of coffee. “I’d love a cup.”
She peeked over at Emily, who was shaking her head. Cold as Sarah was from having been on the loading dock, she was surprised Emily, who had been on the dock far longer, was turning down a hot drink. Sarah’s mind raced, trying to sort out the deeper meanings of everything going on in the interrogation room. Maybe Emily’s refusal was tied to the fear that, like
in a bad TV show, Peter’s kind offer was a ruse to get her fingerprints from the cup. Maybe . . . it didn’t matter. Sarah was too cold and upset about Richard to care. A cup of coffee wouldn’t take away the image of Richard’s body, but it might physically warm her.
When it was placed in front of her, the coffee smelled divine. She immediately wrapped her hands around the hot cup, absorbing its warmth.
Peter took a long sip from his mug. “Look, I’m simply trying to figure out what happened and how, once again, the two of you seem to be in the middle of finding another body.”
He ran his hand through his hair, causing it to stand up in a few odd places. “Believe me, I’d much rather be tasting food at the Expo.”
“Me too, and we should all be able to do that soon because, Peter, there isn’t much to tell.”
Harlan cleared this throat.
“I was taking the garbage out to the Dumpster when I tripped and fell.”
“Over me,” Emily said.
Sarah nodded.
“I couldn’t help him,” Emily’s voice quavered. “I tried.”
Harlan put his hand over Emily’s. She looked at it and stopped talking.
“Was he moving or talking when you tried to help him?” Peter asked.
“No. He was just lying there. I tried to help him, but there was the knife and so much blood.” She covered her face with her hands.
Sarah immediately put her arm around Emily, almost knocking her coffee over in the process. “Peter, that’s enough. Emily has had it. She told you she went outside looking for a coworker, who was supposed to be taking a smoke break and found him smoked. Instead of interrogating us, you need to figure out who beat Emily to Richard.”
“Sarah—”
Sarah ignored Peter. “I think it’s safe to say neither Emily nor I stuck that knife into him anymore than Emily force-fed Bill something he would never willingly eat. It’s time you leave us alone and look for the real killer or killers.”
Harlan stood. “It doesn’t seem like we’re getting anywhere here. I think that, unless you want to charge my clients, it’s time for them to leave.”
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