Fortune Cookie (Culinary Mystery)

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Pete pulled to the curb and quickly put the boxes in the trunk of the car while Sadie got into the passenger seat. After Pete got back into the driver’s seat, they fastened their seat belts. Pete looked behind him before quickly pulling into traffic; there was no place for meek driving in this city.

  “How did things go with Ji while I was taking out the trash?” Pete asked after a minute of silence. “The two of you seemed to be on better terms when I came back up.”

  Sadie nodded, reliving the relief she’d felt at having cleared the air between them. “He apologized and we talked a little more. He doesn’t seem so angry with me and my family, and I learned a lot about him. I think we made some progress.”

  “I’m really glad,” Pete said, slowing down for a cable car to cross in front of them. Tourists hung off the edges, and a teenage girl had her arm extended to take a picture of herself.

  “The two of you seemed to get along really well,” Sadie said, remembering the pang of jealousy she’d felt when she’d heard the two of them laughing together. “What were you guys talking about?”

  Pete chuckled. “I told him about this situation Pat and I had in Chinatown several years ago involving a cart of squash and these little kids and . . . Anyway, he knew the guy who owned that cart.” Pete smiled, obviously remembering the incident fondly. “I guess he sets up that scenario when business is slow. Pat and I totally fell for it. We ended up buying a bag of squash and a whole pack of postcards by the time we left, feeling terrible about the trouble we thought we’d caused with that cart.”

  Sadie felt another wave of jealously, but this one was toward Pat. She made a bland comment, and they drove in silence for several seconds. Sadie worried Pete suspected the reason for her sudden quiet and so she searched for another topic. Not for the first time, it was food that saved her.

  “Did you know that chicken tetrazzini was invented right here in San Francisco?” Sadie made a really great chicken tetrazzini, but hadn’t known until only five or six years ago that it was invented in the city where her sister lived.

  “I didn’t know that, but I’m not the least bit surprised that you do.”

  Sadie, optimistic at the change of mood her talk of food had inspired, was preparing her next bit of trivia when Pete’s phone rang. She hurried to grab the earpiece of his Bluetooth device from the middle console and hand it to him. Talking on a cell phone while driving in California was illegal, and if the cops here were as dedicated to that law as the cops in Oregon had been when Sadie visited, she didn’t want to take any chances.

  Pete put the Bluetooth over his ear and pushed the button on his phone to answer the call. Luckily traffic was basically at a standstill so the maneuvering didn’t throw off his driving. “This is Pete Cunningham. . . . Hi, Stan, how are you?”

  Sadie perked up. Stan Harlesden was the realtor handling the sales of their homes.

  “Oh, wow, that’s great. . . . Uh-huh . . . right . . . I agree. . . . We’ll talk about it tonight. Can we have forty-eight hours to decide? . . . Great. . . . Yeah, I’ll let you know.”

  Pete said good-bye and reached for the button on his earpiece that would end the call. Sadie was so excited about what she’d ascertained from his side of the conversation that it took her a few moments to realize that Pete’s expression wasn’t reflecting the same exuberance. At best his expression could be described as blank, at worst it was disappointed.

  “Aren’t you excited?” she asked after giving him ample time to explain himself without her prodding.

  “Yeah,” Pete said, giving her a fake smile before looking ahead again.

  “Tell me about the offer. How much?”

  “Full price, but they want me to pay the closing costs.” He spoke flatly despite it being a full-price offer, which was better than they’d hoped for. They’d both listed their homes higher than they’d be willing to sell for, in order to get a feel for the market. Sadie had listened to his tone as much as his words, though, and heard something very different from what he was saying out loud.

  “You don’t seem excited,” Sadie said.

  “No, I am. It’s just so . . . fast, I guess.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “Yes, of course it is.” He still sounded flat. “We’ve got two days to accept or counter or whatever, so there’s no rush. Let’s think about it but not let it distract us too much.”

  “Sure.” Inside, however, Sadie was concerned by Pete’s lack of enthusiasm. When they’d listed their homes on the same day, with the same realtor, they’d been excited at the step they were making toward sharing their lives. It had been a promise of sorts, a representation of the commitment they were making and the exciting changes ahead. If Sadie hadn’t been there that day, feeling those feelings right alongside him, the heavy expression on Pete’s face right now would make her question it had ever happened.

  They drove in relative silence for another minute, being passed by multiple bicyclists who were making far better time than they were.

  “Are you ready for dinner?” Pete said, a false lightness in his voice. “They have some of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten at in this city.”

  “Oh, good,” Sadie said with equally false enthusiasm as she tried not to obsess about his change in mood. “I’m ready to be wowed.”

  “Maybe we can find some chicken tetrazzini?” Pete suggested, giving her a more natural smile this time.

  Sadie decided to fully embrace his attempts at changing the subject and the mood. “Well, as I was saying, chicken tetrazzini was named after an opera singer who loved to come and perform in San Francisco in the early 1900s. A chef at the Palace Hotel created the dish in her honor. I wonder if it’s still on the menu?” She turned to him, feeling her excitement rise. “Could we go there for dinner? I’ve heard great things about that hotel.”

  “Sure,” Pete said—flat, again. No excitement at all—not even the fake kind. “Whatever you want.”

  Sadie looked at him another moment, then faced forward. Why the sudden shift in mood again? Had she said something wrong, or was Sadie just paranoid now?

  Chapter 12

  Pete and Sadie decided to check into their hotel before dinner, unload the boxes from the car, and grab jackets. Though the day had been warm enough, it was decidedly cool by the time they reached the hotel. Sadie was glad she’d checked the forecast before she’d come, otherwise she’d have never guessed it would get this cold.

  Sadie set the painted box she’d purchased earlier on the dresser, glad to have a memento of Ji to take home with her. She wondered about the box in Wendy’s apartment. Ji had seemed confused by it being there and said Wendy hadn’t been to the restaurant in years. Had Ji been selling them back then? If not, how had Wendy come to own it? Perhaps Sadie could explore the topic with Ji tomorrow.

  Once they’d freshened up in their respective rooms—Sadie was on the third floor and Pete on the fifth—they walked through the towering buildings and crowded streets of the financial district to the Palace Hotel, a landmark of San Francisco. The hotel featured two famous restaurants: The Garden Court, which served breakfast, lunch, and afternoon tea, and The Pied Piper Bar and Grill, which was open for lunch and dinner.

  Sadie couldn’t deny her disappointment that they wouldn’t get to eat in the elaborate dining room of the Garden Court, though they did peek in at the ornate columns and glass ceiling. Amazing. Pete suggested they try to come back for the breakfast buffet, and Sadie agreed to such a fabulous plan.

  The Pied Piper Bar and Grill was nothing to sneeze at either, however, with its rich wood paneling, dark color palette, and painted mural behind the bar. The overall atmosphere was one of class and elegance, which made Sadie worry they were underdressed. A quick glance at their fellow diners eased her mind, however. Everyone was dressed just like they were—jeans and sweatshirts—with perhaps an occasional skirt or suit mixed in.

  Pete ordered the pork chops without reading through most of the menu, and Sadi
e went with the salmon. She always ordered seafood when she was in coastal locations. As much as she enjoyed the “Fresh Daily” offerings at her local supermarket in landlocked Colorado, fish really did taste better when an ocean was within ten miles. Never mind that salmon wasn’t found in local waters.

  While they waited for their meals, Sadie showed off a bit more of her foodie knowledge by telling Pete about the other recipe invented at the Palace: Green Goddess salad dressing, a tribute to anchovy paste and fresh herbs. She finished off with the riveting history of Lobster Newberg, which had been originally called Lobster Wenberg in tribute to Ben Wenberg, a sea captain at the turn of the twentieth century. When the chef who had created the dish had a falling out with Ben Wenberg, he changed the letters of his signature dish around in retribution.

  Pete tried to trump her trivia with the fact that fortune cookies weren’t really Chinese, but rather a gimmick created as a draw for tourists to come to Chinatown when the neighborhood was trying to lose their red-light district reputation.

  “Everyone knows that,” Sadie said with a wave of her hand, dismissing his attempts to best her and glad that the mood had improved since the call from the realtor.

  “I’d visited this city three times before I learned that,” Pete said with a slight whine in his voice. “I was quite disappointed to learn it hadn’t been an ancient Chinese secret.”

  Their meals arrived, and for a few minutes they enjoyed their food and only said things like “Pass the salt” and “This is really great.”

  Halfway through her meal, Sadie noticed that Pete was eating a little slower than usual. She glanced at Pete’s face and after a couple more glances admitted that it wasn’t her imagination that he seemed a little subdued. Something was wrong, and with all the other stress and pressure going on around them, she didn’t want to add to her own anxieties by ignoring it.

  She took a delectable bite of her salmon to prepare herself, then set her fork down on the edge of her plate. “Are you okay, Pete?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, concentrating on cutting another bite of his pork.

  “Can I propose a theory on why you’re not ‘fine’?”

  He looked up at her but said nothing. She took it as an agreement to hear her out.

  “I’m guessing that being here in San Francisco has brought a lot of memories of Pat to the surface and—”

  Pete put down his fork as well. “Sadie—”

  “I’m not done,” she cut in, though she smiled so he would know she wasn’t angry. “And then you learn that there’s someone interested in buying the house you shared with your wife. All of that piled together has got to be a lot to process.”

  Pete looked down at his food and said nothing.

  “Did I get it about right?”

  He took a breath. “Pretty much.” He smiled at her, but it was a sad one, apologetic.

  Sadie picked up her fork and took another bite in order to avoid looking into his face. His expression was making it harder and harder for her to retain her objective stance. She spoke without looking at him. “Mourning doesn’t happen in a week or a month, Pete. I understand that as well as anyone. Did you and Pat eat here?” He’d known exactly where to find the restaurant upon entering the front doors of the hotel, and he’d been familiar with the menu. It wasn’t rocket science.

  He went back to his meal as well. Now they were both avoiding looking at one another. “Yeah, we ate here a few times.”

  “Is it hard for you to be here with me?”

  He didn’t answer for a few seconds, and Sadie looked up at him. “I’m asking as a friend, not your fiancée.” Even as she said it, though, she wondered if it were true. Could she separate those roles enough to truly be objective? She hoped so. Pete needed a friend right now. She would put everything she had toward filling that role and hope it would be enough.

  He cut another bite. “I didn’t think it would be this hard, but there’s just so many memories of her in this city—of experiencing new things together and enjoying old favorites. We stayed here at the Palace a few different times, including the last time we came.”

  Sadie tightened her grip on her fork. “I didn’t know.”

  “I know that.”

  She allowed another silence for as long as she could stand it, which was about thirteen seconds. It was rather masochistic to continue this conversation, but maybe talking about it would help her work through her complicated feelings as well as help him make peace with his thoughts, too. “When did you guys last visit?”

  Pete took a sip of his water and cast a quick glance in Sadie’s direction before scanning the room as though looking for a distraction. There was plenty of distraction amid the décor, but he eventually looked back at his plate and cut a sliver of meat from the edge of his pork chop.

  “We came for our thirtieth wedding anniversary. She was diagnosed a couple of months later.”

  Sadie’s heart hitched in her chest. She didn’t know what to say. No wonder the memories were so heavy for him now. She already knew that Pat had died less than a year after her cancer had been discovered. It had been too far advanced for anything other than treatments to postpone the inevitable.

  Sadie imagined Pete sitting across from the auburn-haired and elegant woman Sadie had only seen in photographs, reflecting on three decades of marriage, memories, trials, children, grandchildren. Sadie suddenly felt like an intruder and wished she’d never brought it up. How had she chosen this restaurant amid the hundreds, perhaps thousands, that existed in this city? What lousy luck. Though if Pete had communicated the significance, she’d have gladly made another suggestion. Even without having traveled here before, she was aware of two or three other acclaimed restaurants in this city which could have offered not only a great meal, but far less discomfort than had come included with this one.

  “Did you and Neil travel?” Pete asked when Sadie said nothing in response.

  She sensed he was trying to even the score somehow by bringing Neil into the conversation, but she was game to try it. “Not a lot. We always said we’d travel later, when the kids were grown.” The pall that had been cast by talking about Pat only got heavier thanks to Sadie’s answer. Neil had died when their children were little. They never had the freedom they’d planned on when their kids grew up. Prior to adopting their two children, they’d been focused on having that family to the point where there was little time or money for extras. “I traveled with the kids quite a bit though,” Sadie added, hoping to shift the focus from their dead spouses.

  “Where was your favorite place to go?” Pete asked.

  They talked for a few minutes about different places Sadie had visited with her kids. San Diego and Yellowstone were at the top of her list. “How about you? Did you travel a lot when your family was young?”

  “Actually, other than camping trips, we didn’t do a lot of family vacations. We went back to New Mexico a fair amount, I guess. We both had family there.” The tension fell like another blanket over the table. So San Francisco was really the only destination place he’d visited? And, from what he’d said earlier, he’d only gone with his family one time. Every other trip had been just him and Pat. “We used to talk about retiring on a sailboat and anchoring it at one of the piers.”

  Fabulous. Sadie cut another bite and wondered if Pete regretted having encouraged her to come to this city. He was obviously taken by surprise by the impact his memories were making on the trip.

  “I’m really excited for Costa Rica, though,” Pete said, referring to their chosen honeymoon destination and pasting a smile on his face. “I’ve heard great things about it.”

  “Me too,” Sadie agreed, glad they’d chosen a place neither of them had been to before. The mood, however, was not saved entirely, and they both returned to their dinner.

  The streets were as packed as ever on their way back to their hotel, but Sadie admired the way the people and traffic seemed to respect each other, ebbing and flowing appropriately and always re
specting the road signs. Without such cooperation this city could never work.

  “So, what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?” Pete asked.

  Sadie turned her thoughts to the next day and all that it might hold. “We’ll meet Ji at the apartment in the morning and finish packing. Then Ji’s friend is coming in the afternoon to pick everything up for his organization, though I’m not sure what time.”

  “Are you going to give them the painting from Wendy’s room?”

  “Oh, gosh,” Sadie said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what to do about that. It should probably go into the Dumpster, but what if someone finds it? The idea of anyone seeing it again horrifies me.”

  Pete genuinely laughed, and Sadie smiled at the sound. She pulled one hand out of her pocket in order to loop it through his arm. “How are you doing with all of this?” he asked after his laughter had died out. “Was it hard to talk about the forensics and the investigation earlier?”

  “No,” Sadie said with a shake of her head as she watched the sidewalk at their feet. “I’m glad to know more about what happened, and it makes me want to fill in the rest of the blanks.”

  “Detective Lopez said he’d check in with me sometime tomorrow,” Pete said. “He’d sent some questions back to the medical examiner about things he wanted clarified, and he’s hoping to get their response in the morning.” They stopped at another light, and a dozen people quickly lined up behind them. “He also mentioned that with the autopsy complete, we need to choose a funeral home. I wasn’t sure if you or Ji would want to head that up, which is why I didn’t mention it when Ji was there.”

  “A funeral home,” Sadie said, feeling the finality of that step and yet finding irony in it as well. The light turned green, and the crowd surged across the intersection. Sadie raised her voice a little to be heard. “No one even noticed she was gone. No one thought to check on her or see what was wrong. Who would come to a funeral?”