If You Can't Stand the Heat

by Robin Allen

  I had just found my jar of honey on a top shelf behind some ancient sacks of dried peas when I heard voices. A man’s and a woman’s. The man had to be Will. Had he brought his artist wife to work? I really wanted to see what she looked like.

  Their voices got louder as they walked toward the kitchen. The man’s voice definitely belonged to Will, but the woman wasn’t his wife. It sounded like Belize Medina had come to the restaurant to continue her harangue from the night before. Will spoke calmly, but not as softly as he had spoken to her the previous night when people were around. They had come in through the front door, so they didn’t see my Jeep. They were, as far as they knew, in an empty restaurant.

  My instincts told me to stay hidden. Truths are told when people are emotional. But if they saw my snack on the prep table, they would know they had company. I decided to let them find me, but I wouldn’t show myself.

  “This sucks!” Belize screamed as they walked through the swinging doors into the kitchen. “This restaurant sucks. Your partners suck. And you can go to hell!”

  Unbelievable. Even Belize knew about the partnership.

  “Belize,” Will said, “get control of yourself.”

  “Or what?” she said. “The puppet master will start pulling strings?”

  I heard Will’s voice followed by something that sounded a lot like when BonBon slapped Évariste across the face. Then Belize said something I couldn’t make out and the word “strike” or maybe “spite.” It took every milligram of self-control not to sneak a peek at them, but I didn’t know exactly where they stood in the kitchen or if they would see me as soon as I poked my nose out of the dry storage room. I stayed put and stood as close to the doorway as I could so I wouldn’t miss anything else.

  “I’m not waiting on them anymore,” Belize said

  “You will if you want to keep your job,” Will said, unruffled by her violence. “I have work to do. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Maybe,” she said. Then I heard the kitchen doors swing open.

  My brain has always needed a logical answer to every question. Even if the answer was as simple as they were having an affair, I had to know. Will seemed too self-contained to blabber about anything, so I had a better chance with Belize. I looked around the doorway to make sure Will had left, then snuck out the back door.

  I sprinted around to the front of the restaurant and saw Belize sitting in her car, talking on the phone, waving her free hand around, then slamming it onto the dashboard. As I approached, I saw tears slipping down her cheeks. When she looked up at me, I motioned for her to let me in the passenger door. She rolled her eyes, but leaned over and pulled up the lock. She hung up the phone before I closed the door.

  “What do you want?” she asked, wiping her eyes on a linen napkin embroidered with the new Markham’s logo, an extravagant script M enclosed in a circle.

  There was something about Belize. The way she carried herself, a certain confidence. It wasn’t Trevor’s kind of confidence that came from being a twenty-five-year-old talented Adonis in a position of power. It came from either being something no one else was, like a Michelin-rated chef, or knowing something nobody else knew, like a well-guarded secret.

  “What’s going on with you and Will?” I asked. “I heard you just now, arguing in the kitchen.”

  She squinted into the distance and I could almost see her brain shuffling through the timeline, trying to remember what she had said and when, and what I could figure out from what I had overheard. She must have assumed that I had heard everything because she dropped her forehead to the steering wheel and started bawling. “I can’t do this anymore,” she said, punctuating each word with a head bang against the steering wheel.

  I had two options. I could ask her what she meant, but that might shut her up and I would lose this relatively weak moment with her. Or I could pretend I knew what was going on, using what I did know to make her think I knew more. The tactic had served me well during health inspections. “It’ll be over soon,” I said. “Will’s partners will go back to where they came from.”

  “Hell won’t take them back,” she said, regaining an air of composed anger at the mention of them. This was good. I sat still, waiting for her to say more. With the doors and windows shut, the heat index in her car rose at least ten degrees. Perspiration pasted my shirt to the plastic seat. She craned her neck to look at her face in the rearview mirror, then adjusted the mirror down and began wiping the mascara from under her eyes with the napkin.

  “Belize,” I said. She turned toward me and looked ready to shove me out of her car. Instead, she reached behind her to the back seat for her purse. She pulled out a tube of mascara, pumped the wand a few times, then began applying it to her swollen eyes.

  She was so young, not even in her mid-twenties. It didn’t seem possible that she could be involved with Will, his partners, Évariste’s death, and Ursula’s frame-up. But not everyone lived the sheltered life I had. Belize seemed like she had more street smarts than most homeless people and would see any manipulation coming. She had probably already figured out that I bluffed her. “You’ll feel better if you tell me what’s going on.”

  She started her car and I had a disturbing thought that she was going to take us down Loop 360 and drive us both off the Lake Austin Bridge. I wrapped my fingers around the door handle, ready to dive out if she touched the gear shift, but relaxed when she turned on the air conditioner and moved her sweaty face closer to the vent.

  “That night, he was sitting right where you are,” she said. “Looking so smug.”

  I tensed, but said nothing. Most people would just blurt it out to get it over with, but she was taking her time, setting it up, making me wait. I don’t like waiting.

  “You and Évariste were sitting in your car, and …”

  “Not Évariste,” she said, looking into my eyes. “Trevor.”

  Banging on the driver’s side window startled both of us out of our game of truth or dare. Belize turned quickly to push down the lock on her door, but wasn’t fast enough. Will flung it open and bent down to look at both of us. “Hello ladies,” he said. How did he even know to find us out here? He must have been who Belize was talking to on the phone.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting along, Belize?” he said. “You’re first on tonight.”

  “Not any more.” Belize looked at Will. “You and those jerk partners of yours can kiss my apron.” Will looked as stunned as I felt. “You,” she said to me. “Out! You.” She pointed at Will. “Off.” I got out of her car and she slammed her door as soon as Will let go of it, then she threw the car into reverse and roared out of the parking lot.

  “What did you say to her?” Will asked, watching the dust settle.

  “What did I say to her? When I came out here, I found her crying because of you.”

  He turned to me. “So, you were the little mouse who left food on the counter. Kawasaki might show up and cite us for improper storage of fresh produce.”

  “I might cite you myself,” I said.

  Will turned and went back inside the restaurant. Darn it! He did it again. He changed the subject, got me off track, and left without answering me. No wonder he made such a good general manager.

  I sat on a marble bench beneath the shade of a new cobalt awning. Somehow all of these bits and pieces of information added up to the real murderer, but the more I learned, it seemed, the further away I moved from the truth. At least during an inspection, the food can’t hide what’s wrong with it. If it’s spoiled, it smells bad. If the temperature is too low, the numbers on the thermometer don’t go high enough. And it doesn’t try to give me excuses about why it’s been allowed to reach room temperature. How did police detectives stop themselves from going mad as a March hare from all the dead ends and answers to questions that only seemed to generate more questions?

  I went back inside the restaurant, but couldn’t find Will anywhere. I even checked the men’s room and called the restaurant’s number, but got no ans
wer. The pears and mint were where I had left them on the counter, but I had lost interest in making the effort, so I took them back to the walk-in and returned the honey to its hiding place.

  I had killed the two hours I needed to and took off for the jail. At least Ursula couldn’t run away.

  _____

  On the weekends, the jail split the alphabet in half, so instead of waiting with one fifth of Austin’s criminal’s loved ones as I had done the night before, I waited with half of them. A nice woman traded time slots with me, and thirty minutes later, I sat across from Ursula. The last time I had seen her, she looked tired and scared. Now she looked tired and ticked off.

  “I am so sick of this place,” she said when she picked up the receiver. “Someone’s always crying or screaming or banging on the bars. I never sleep. I stink. I think I have fleas. And have I mentioned that the food is unconscionable?”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  During my wait, I had decided to test her. All of the information I had uncovered clearly showed that there was as good a chance that she had killed Évariste as that she hadn’t. At this point, her only defense had been that she didn’t have time. I didn’t like it, but I had to know if I was wasting my time trying to prove her innocence. I decided to fire facts at her and gauge her reaction. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but knew I would find something.

  “Will opened the restaurant last night,” I said.

  “Yeah? How’d it go?”

  “They were slammed. Trevor took over the kitchen.”

  Ursula sat up and looked at me. I could tell she hadn’t gotten that far in her thought process. “Chef Trevor.” She grimaced. “I’ll bet he just loves that.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Now he knows what it’s like,” she said. “He used to tell me he could run that kitchen with his face, that he didn’t need words, just the look on his face that told everyone he meant business.”

  “Well, he is twenty-five,” I said. “He’s chronologically predisposed to bravado.”

  She laughed and I had the feeling she had recalled a memory of him in some other context. Whatever it was, it released her from jail for a moment.

  “The guys must have been reacting to the scowl on his face,” I said. “They stayed in the weeds most of the night. But they got through it.”

  “We always get through it,” she said. “The clock ticks, time passes, customers have to go home whether they’re satisfied or not.”

  “Did you know that Will Denton is an investor in Markham’s?” I asked.

  “Will Denton? No, I already told you. Mitch wanted to partner with Évariste.”

  “That’s not what’s happening.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Did you know that Évariste already owned two percent of Markham’s?”

  The look in her eyes told me she was hearing that for the first time. I took a childish satisfaction in finally knowing something she didn’t. I waited while Évariste’s behavior started to make sense for her as it had for me—acting as if he owned the kitchen and treating Ursula and her staff as if they existed to be commanded by him. Finally she said, “Why would Mitch tell me he was in negotiations with Évariste?”

  “Maybe to get you used to the idea before he told you the real story.” That was something Mitch would do to ease the pain. “Why would Mitch need investors?”

  “How should I know?” she asked. “I’m obviously not esteemed enough for him to confide in me.”

  “I know exactly how you feel.” Betrayed and unimportant. Exponentially compounded by the fact that she was behind bars, isolated from any familiarity or stability. “I know you’re hurt, but I need you to help me help you. Why would Mitch need investors?”

  “Any of the usual reasons, I guess. He wants to buy another restaurant or he’s in debt from this renovation and needs a way out.”

  “My father has never been in debt,” I said. “What about Nina?”

  Ursula’s glare could have melted the Plexiglas between us. “You’ll try to blame my mother for everything, won’t you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you refuse to believe this, but my mother loves Mitch.”

  “Along with the status of being married to a successful restaurateur.”

  “My mother isn’t perfect, but she’s not the monster you make her out to be, Poppy. Who’s been with Mitch at the hospital around the clock? Who got him to finally see a doctor about his dizzy spells? Who’s been trying to get him to do something besides work? You think Mitch playing golf is amusing, but he’s finally exercising, and he’s having fun. And it’s because of my mother.”

  “What I see is your mother bending my father to her will. She wasn’t satisfied after cutting off Mitch’s ponytail and gutting their house. Oh, no. She had to ram her schnoz into the restaurant. Make Mitch spend thousands on fine Corinthian leather chairs and fancy white tablecloths. She hired a lighting consultant, for Pete’s sake!”

  “Mitch agreed to all of that.”

  “What needed a makeover was the kitchen. That stove is older than me. But no one sees the kitchen, so Nina ignored it.” I snorted. “Except for all the new uniforms Mitch had to buy because she changed the logo, too.”

  I felt my heart rate speed up, but not from anger. I had finally jogged loose what had been bothering me about the crime scene. “The new Markham’s logo. Évariste had it on his chef’s coat that night.”

  “So?”

  “It wasn’t on any of his other coats. I saw them in BonBon’s room. And they were white.”

  She looked at me impatiently. Or was it guiltily?

  “He wore his red coat special that night,” I said. “To send you a message.”

  “What? That he needed a lot of attention? I got that message the minute he waddled through the door.”

  “That he was now in charge of your kitchen.” I didn’t want to ask her, but I had to. “Did you kill Évariste?”

  Ursula’s face crumbled into a mixture of fury and disbelief before she hung up. And then she stood up and, without a glance back at me, walked through the door that led back to her cell.

  I had heard of prisoners preferring incarceration to the outside world, but Ursula hadn’t been inside long enough to associate bars with hard time rather than happy hour. Her bizarre behavior left me with two assumptions. Either she couldn’t believe I thought such a thing or the police had arrested the right person. And how could I not think such a thing when faced with such overwhelming evidence?

  But I couldn’t stop now. I had to know without a doubt whether Ursula killed Évariste. My murder investigation was on hold, however, until I could track down Belize or talk to Trevor later when he arrived for work.

  Even if I couldn’t solve this murder, the mystery of the partnership with Évariste needed to be resolved. I could have waited for Mitch to get out of the hospital, but I don’t like not having all the answers, and it’s not in my nature to wait around for them.

  _____

  I parked in the public lot next to the Driskill and called BonBon’s room from my car. My sneakiness last time may have made me as welcome to her as a run in her stocking, so I asked the hotel operator to connect me with her room. When she answered, I told her my name and asked if she would meet me.

  “For what?” she asked, sounding bored.

  “I want to talk to you about Évariste.” I heard her exhale and imagined smoke swirling around her lipsticked lips. I almost sneezed. “Please?” I said before she could say no. “We can meet in the bar.”

  “I will give you ten meenoots.”

  The bar at the Driskill is the kind of place that encourages a native Texan to indulge her fantasy of being the favored daughter of a wealthy cattle baron. The drinks are pricey, but I love the rough-hewn elegance of the cowhide chairs, leather sofas, and wooden tables. Take out the furnishings and remove the interior walls, and you could exercise a few stud horses around the perimeter.
/>   I entered the bar from the street and waved to the bartender, Brian, who was speaking with two sunburned tourists. Brian is a drummer in the band The Tenders, and sometimes Jamie sits in for him.

  I found BonBon tucked away in the alcove near the elevators and restrooms. It looked like she had tripped off the elevator and plopped into the first chair she came to.

  As soon as I sat down, Brian arrived to take our order. It was much too early for cocktails, but people who drink take notice of people who don’t, so when BonBon ordered a vodka martini, I ordered a gin and tonic. I loathe gin, which is why I order it when I am expected to drink but don’t want to.

  In her red suit tailored to make the most of every curve, BonBon looked more like a party girl ready for a night of gambling at the casinos in Monte Carlo than a young widow grieving her murdered husband. She couldn’t be older than thirty.

  “BonBon,” I said. “I want to tell you how sorry I am about Évariste. All of us are. Mitch and Nina are very troubled by all of this.”

  She looked at her watch and then at me. “And your sister? Is she also very troubled?”

  “Stepsister. She’s sorry that he died, of course, but Ursula did not kill your husband.” Probably.

  Brian arrived with our drinks and BonBon recited her room number in French, then shook her head at her error and repeated the number in English. She motioned for him to bring her another drink before she had even touched the first. She appeared calmer than she had been the first two times I had seen her. Perhaps serenity was her natural state and I had caught her in some bad moments right before and right after Évariste’s death.