One Taste Too Many

by Debra H. Goldstein

  “Well, it’s not mine.” She pulled the serving dish closer to her and scrutinized the topping on it. “This one doesn’t have a nut topping. I think it’s one of Jane’s.”

  “It shouldn’t be, I got it off a shelf with your name taped to it.”

  “Oh, that’s the problem. When we were setting up on Wednesday afternoon, she complained I had the big top shelf plus two more while she only was assigned three small shelves. Rather than listen to her complain all weekend, I gave her the name tape and told her to assign the shelves any way she wanted. Oh no, I wonder—”

  “—if she didn’t move your crisps when she relabeled the top shelf and Bill made the same mistake Marcus did,” Sarah said, finishing her sister’s sentence.

  The twins stared at each other.

  “It still doesn’t explain why he’d have willingly eaten anything with rhubarb, though.”

  “Love sometimes makes you do things you wouldn’t normally do,” Marcus said.

  “We should call Peter about this right away.” Emily glanced at the clock on the stove. “I didn’t realize it was so late. We need to get back to the Civic Center.” She started clearing the table.

  Sarah took the plate from Emily. “I’ll take care of this. Don’t worry, I’ll clean up and call Peter.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Sarah nodded.

  Emily handed Marcus the empty picnic basket. With a quick good-bye, he hurried out the kitchen door to the car while Emily hesitated by the table and picked up another dish.

  Sarah took it from her and loaded it into the dishwasher. She shooed a still-talking Emily toward the door.

  “I’ll be back when my shift is over. Lock up behind me. I’ve got my key in case you go to bed before I get here.” Emily stopped in the doorway and came back into the middle of the room. “I know I don’t always say it, but I love you.”

  “It’s mutual. Now, get going.”

  “Okay, but thanks again for everything.”

  “No problem.” Sarah gathered the used paper napkins from the table. “Go. Cleaning up is the perfect busy work for me to do while I’m trying to connect the dots. After all, if Bill’s death was an accident, maybe Richard’s murder had nothing to do with Southwind.”

  Emily nodded and gave her sister a hug.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Alone, except for RahRah, Sarah rinsed the dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher. She tried to piece together the information she’d acquired but felt like a juggler throwing balls into the air. Keeping everything balanced in her head wasn’t working. She decided to outline what she’d learned and then call Peter.

  She grabbed a pad and pencil off her mother’s desk and sat at the kitchen table. RahRah came and curled up with his head on her foot. She enjoyed the warmth of his little body.

  Pencil in hand, she said, “Okay, RahRah, we’re going to figure this out.”

  At the top of the page, she wrote Bill’s name and attached her name to his via a line that went to the far right of the paper. Above his name, she wrote “Mother Blair.” She connected “Mother Blair” to Bill with a solid line and to her with a dotted line. Using separate solid lines, she linked Bill to Jacob, Marcus, and Jane, and then used a dotted line to Harlan. She joined Emily to her through a thick line and tied Harlan to Emily and her with stars. Finally, Sarah marked the connections between Jane, Marcus, Emily, and the other Southwind chefs with squiggles.

  She held up her paper. “No wonder I can’t figure out anything. It’s a spiderweb!” Frustrated, she added the cat to the bottom of the page. “Now, let’s see how everyone fits in with you.” When she finished, she chuckled. “Well, that pretty much makes the page unreadable. I don’t think this cleared anything up for me. Maybe I’d do better diagrams if I did the relationships for one question at a time.”

  Sarah put her pencil on the line between Harlan and Jacob. “Okay, RahRah, listen carefully. Unless Harlan is involved in the development scheme, the only reason Harlan wouldn’t have shared the folder materials and development plans with me must be attorney-client privilege. It makes sense because I know Jacob is Harlan’s client.”

  She leaned back, trying to figure out why Harlan told her and everyone else about Bill raising zoning questions with him. Just like he wouldn’t say anything about his dealings with Jacob, either through council confidentiality or attorney-client privilege, Harlan shouldn’t have mentioned the discussion with Bill, either.

  “RahRah, the only thing I can come up with is that, in Harlan’s mind, with Bill dead, the random zoning question didn’t outweigh Peter’s need to know anything that might solve Bill’s murder.”

  RahRah stirred. He strolled across the kitchen and pushed his nose into his dish but didn’t eat.

  “You still have cat food.”

  RahRah hit his dish with his nose again.

  “Don’t look for more tuna. You ate all of it. Unless you find a bit mixed in with your food, that’s it for now. I’m not giving you any more.” She stared at the dish and RahRah and then jumped up and gave RahRah as much of a big hug as she knew he would tolerate. With Sarah holding RahRah’s right paw with one hand and the other bracing him around his midsection, they did a few “dance steps” around the kitchen.

  “You’re a genius, RahRah! Harlan couldn’t tell me anything about Jacob and the entertainment district, but he purposely provided Peter and me enough of a tidbit to entice us to poke around until we found out the details ourselves.”

  Sarah set RahRah back on the floor. He immediately tucked his paws beneath his body and assumed a relaxed sphinxlike pose, ignoring his food bowl as if he had never intended to imply he wanted more tuna fish.

  “Don’t pull a Peter on me. That’s what he’s been doing. Not digging in to find the facts.”

  With his head erect, RahRah meowed at Sarah as she sat at the table again.

  “Do you want to dance more? No? Are you telling me I should keep investigating and trying to figure this out instead of dancing?” She rested her face on her hand and bit her lip.

  When RahRah let out another string of sounds, Sarah saluted him and turned to the task of clearing her phone back to the first screen of the search engine.

  She was about to hit go when she heard a text coming in and saw it flash at the top of the screen. It faded so fast she barely saw the message was from Emily. More interested in continuing her investigative efforts on this screen rather than backing out of it immediately to read Emily’s message, she ignored the text. This time, she typed “William Blair and Jacob Hightower” into the search engine and concentrated on reading the different results.

  Thirty minutes later, Sarah pushed back from the table. RahRah, who had curled back up on her, rolled a few inches off her foot, turned on his side, and struck at the air with a paw. “I haven’t found anything new, RahRah. We’re stuck here at Mom’s until Peter or Harlan come up with a solution. You’ve been so good. Do you want to play?”

  She picked up the corkscrew that she’d left on the counter and then rummaged in her mother’s kitchen catch-all drawer. “This will do.” She took a ball of string and a six-inch ruler from the drawer.

  Sarah dangled the makeshift toy, the ruler hanging by a long piece of string from the corkscrew, in front of RahRah. When he swatted at it, she inched the ruler just out of his reach. He turned over and positioned himself to pounce when the ruler was dragged in front of him. For a few tries, Sarah kept the ruler away from him, but then she let him catch it. “Very good.” She waited a few seconds before beginning the game again.

  After a few more rounds, RahRah figured out that he could maintain possession of the ruler by keeping a paw on it.

  Sarah laughed. “Guess we’ve had enough of this game for a while.” She eased the makeshift toy away from him and undid the string from the ruler and corkscrew. “We’ll play again later.” She dropped the game pieces into the drawer.

  Behind her, RahRah hissed. Turning, she saw he stood with his back arched,
his body pointed in the direction of the kitchen’s back door.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “RahRah, what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t think he appreciates there won’t be time for the two of you to play again,” Jane said from the doorway.

  Sarah whipped around to face her. “How did you get in here?”

  “You left the door unlocked.”

  Sarah groaned inwardly. Emily’s reminder today and in the past to make sure she locked her door came to mind. Harlan’s, too. She promised herself, if things ended well today, she’d always lock and double-lock her doors in the future.

  “Did you think you could hide my cat from me for long?”

  “This isn’t your cat.” Sarah swallowed, thinking of how to add to her bluff. “It’s a stray I picked up.”

  Jane walked nearer to the hissing cat. She stared at him. “A stray that just happens to be named RahRah?”

  “I told you, this isn’t RahRah.” She blurted out the first cat name that came to her, which belonged to a friend’s Siamese cat. “It’s Siri.”

  “Siri? I don’t think so.”

  “I know they’re both Siamese cats, but anyone can see the difference between the two.”

  Jane kept her distance but scrutinized the agitated cat. “You’re lying. I heard you call this cat RahRah.”

  Sarah moved closer to RahRah to put a hand on his back in the hope of calming him before he pounced at Jane. “I’m so used to talking to RahRah, I may have accidentally used his name, but you’re a cat person. Surely the differences are obvious to you.”

  While Jane stared at RahRah, Sarah warmed to her argument.

  “This cat is a tortie point. RahRah is a chocolate point. As you know, a chocolate point is far lighter in color than a tortie point. From the time RahRah lived with you, I’m sure you can easily see this cat is darker than RahRah. More importantly, look at the behavior of this cat. RahRah was warm, friendly, and playful.”

  Jane frowned and dropped her purse into the chair across from where Sarah had left her cell phone on the kitchen table. “You were playing with this cat.”

  “That’s my point. Unlike RahRah, Siri needs to be entertained. RahRah loved to play with me, but he could play by himself. Think how he jumped on your curtain rods, played hide-and-seek, and made nice to you. Look at Siri’s body posture. He’s defensive. If you come anywhere near him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t leap at you and grab that hideous green scarf off your neck.”

  Jane’s hand went to the thin scarf loosely looped around her neck. She pursed her lips into a pout. “Enough of your games already. I overheard Marcus explaining to Jacob that Emily and he were late for their shift because they’d had dinner with RahRah and you at Emily’s mom’s house. That reminded me Emily lived with your mother, not you. One quick search of our employee records yielded her address.”

  Sarah tried to keep her features calm. She didn’t know who to kill first—Marcus for his loose lips or Emily for bringing him with her to RahRah’s safe house.

  Jane planted her feet solidly on the floor in front of Sarah and RahRah, her hands on her hips. Her red hair and the color of her face blended together. RahRah growled from deep within his throat.

  “If you’re going to be like this,” Jane said, “I’m going to have to call Chief Mueller.”

  “Why don’t we do that?” Hoping RahRah would only stay on alert, instead of pouncing, Sarah stepped in front of him and retrieved her cell phone from the table. She tapped her recents icon and speed-dialed Peter’s personal cell phone number by hitting the number she hadn’t deleted since their last phone discussion. His voice mail picked up.

  Crap. Sarah waited for the beep but talked into the phone as if Peter had answered. She wrapped up with a “Thanks. Please come as quickly as you can. Jane is trespassing on my mother’s property and making crazy allegations about catnapping. She doesn’t seem to realize she’s the only catnapper here.”

  Sarah slipped her cell phone into her pocket. “He’ll be here soon. Don’t you think it would be better if you left now, before Peter gets here? You can make your false accusations that I’ve got your cat wherever he interviews you, but if you stay here, you’ll be the one charged with breaking the law.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No, I work in a law office. You’re trespassing. You also came in here uninvited and you’ve threatened and frightened me so you’ve committed assault. I bet you’re the one who broke into my apartment the other day to steal RahRah. You’re the crazy one.”

  Jane stepped closer to Sarah. She raised her arm.

  Sarah held her hands up in front of her body, while staying close to RahRah. “Don’t touch me.” Her voice was low and measured, without an inkling of the fear she was feeling.

  Jane blinked and put her hand down. She didn’t move. Slowly, Sarah lowered her hands so her palms faced Jane in a more open fashion. “If you leave now, all of this can be worked out. Surely you don’t want to serve jail time because of a misunderstanding about a cat. Go now, before something else happens.” She held her breath.

  For a moment, Jane did nothing. Then, the tight lines of her face crumbled and tears welled from her eyes. “I don’t know what to do. Before he died, Bill swore that cat was our golden ticket.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, but since the day Bill died, I haven’t wanted to live in that house or take care of your darn cat, but he said the only way I could keep cooking at Southwind was to follow through with the plan Bill and he had.”

  The only plan Sarah could think of that linked Bill and Southwind together was Jacob and Bill’s Main Street redevelopment project. “I don’t understand. Has Jacob been making you live in the carriage house with RahRah in order for Bill’s property to be the linchpin of the new entertainment district?”

  “No, Jacob’s one of the good guys. He even offered to help me move, if that’s what I wanted.”

  Then who . . . “You said you had to stay in the house to keep cooking at Southwind. Marcus controls the kitchen at Southwind. Is he behind the redevelopment project?”

  “No. How did I end up in this mess? All I’ve ever wanted to do is cook. He told me that if I stayed in the carriage house and took care of RahRah, there’d be legal documents that made certain no one could force me out of Southwind.”

  Clearly, Jane didn’t understand that once Bill’s will was probated, she’d own Southwind, no matter where she lived. Whoever was the mastermind apparently was more familiar with the legalities and the documents than Jane was. This wasn’t the time to explain everything to her.

  “So, who is he? This person telling you what to do?”

  Jane pursed her lips tightly together, as if afraid to say more.

  Sarah tried coaxing the answer out of her in another way. “Why are you so determined to work at Southwind? There are plenty of more established restaurants in the Birmingham area.”

  “Not willing to hire me.” She sat at the kitchen table. “I don’t have any formal training, but I’ve improved, thanks to Chef Marcus. Look at me, I’m no kid. For me, Southwind is my last chance to dance this dance.”

  Sarah slid onto the end of the other chair, avoiding Jane’s pocketbook. “You’re underestimating yourself. You’ve got me beat by a mile in the kitchen.”

  A faint smile crossed Jane’s features. “No offense, but that doesn’t take much.”

  “True.” Sarah pointed at Jane’s face. “But the idea made you smile.”

  As if understanding the tension between the women had changed, RahRah sauntered away from them toward the laundry room.

  Jane used her fingers to wipe her tear-stained face. She swallowed. “I know Bill wasn’t perfect.”

  Sarah refrained from nodding in agreement.

  “But I miss him. Everything is so different without him.”

  “I understand.” And she did. A part of Sarah wanted to comfort Jane, but there wasn’t time for that. She needed to refocus Jane
, whose gaze had wandered beyond Sarah, back to talking about the house, RahRah, and Main Street. “If it’s not Jacob and it’s not Marcus, who is involved with Bill and you on the development plan?”

  “It’s . . . Jacob’s former brother-in-law.” Jane averted her eyes as if she wanted to come clean but was too afraid to say the man’s name.

  Sarah quickly thought through everything Emily had told her about Jacob. She had no idea if he’d been married or if he had a divorced sister. “Jane, you have to tell me. Who is Jacob’s ex-brother-in-law?”

  Chapter Fifty

  “Peter!”

  Sarah gasped. “Who?”

  Jane stared over Sarah’s shoulder and jumped up. “P-Peter,” she stuttered. “I was just leaving.”

  Sarah flipped her head around. Peter stood inside the kitchen doorway. This time she was glad the door had been unlocked. Considering he was off duty, she was surprised he was in full uniform. “You came.” She knew from the shake of his head he’d heard her, but he kept his attention on Jane.

  Peter crossed his arms across his chest. “Jane, it would have been smarter if you’d never come here.”

  Jane thrust herself near Sarah, her temper blazing as vividly as her fiery red hair. She poked a finger toward Sarah, who marveled at this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde transformation. “She kidnapped my cat. I want you to arrest her.”

  Peter gave the room a cursory examination. “I don’t see any cat here.” He moved toe-to-toe to Jane. “Even if RahRah is here, it seems there may be some question as to whether RahRah belongs to you. In fact, it appears the claims you’ve made about RahRah, Bill’s homes, the jewelry, and Southwind may not be credible.”

  The color drained from Jane’s face. “What are you saying? You, of all people, knew Bill’s plans for me. You have copies of all the documents Bill prepared.”

  He shrugged. “They’ve been challenged. It looks like you may have falsified them.”

  “What?”

  “I’m considering the accusations. In the meantime, you’d do well to go home and stay away from Sarah and RahRah.” He reached behind Sarah for Jane’s pocketbook.