by Holly Plum
“Earlier," Mari began, "you mentioned something about Dale being sued."
“Oh, right,” Yvette said. “That wasn't a far-fetched comment. He already has been sued multiple times. I suppose now that he's dead I won't get in trouble for speaking the truth."
“For what?”
“What do you think?” Yvette looked at Mari as if the answer were obvious. "Sexual harassment, of course. But the same thing happens every time. Either the woman has no proof, or any witnesses mysteriously decide not to talk."
"Strange," Mari responded.
"Not really." Yvette sniffed, almost completely back to her old self. "He was loaded. Men like that do as they please. Until one day it all comes back to bite them."
"So you don't think what happened to him was an accident?" Mari's eyes went wide as she eagerly waited for answers.
"We'll know soon enough," she replied quietly.
Tabasco barked, and Mari hurriedly changed the subject.
“I wonder what his big announcement was all about,” Mari added. "Any ideas?"
Yvette nodded. “I'm pretty sure he was about to name Andre the new Marketing Director.”
“Really?”
“He mentioned it last week," Yvette admitted, clenching her jaw in frustration." Both Andre and I were up for the position, and Dale told me he was giving it to Andre. No surprise there. Like he ever would have given that sort of promotion to a woman.”
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't be sorry," Yvette insisted. "The game just changed." She stared out the window again. "Oh, look. More policemen are here."
CHAPTER THREE
Each guest hung around the building as the police questioned everyone. It was clear that Dale Roberts had made a few enemies. Mari wondered if the guy had any redeeming traits because what she had learned about him so far wasn't promising. Any number of his employees, including Yvette, had a motive for wanting Dale out of the picture.
Mari turned to the one employee she had yet to speak to. One that actually had positive things to say about the deceased the last time she had spoken to him. Mari found Andre leaning against a wall in a secluded corner of the conference room. He was eyeing his drink uneasily as if hoping that it would magically turn into a way for him to leave.
“I'm sorry for your loss,” Mari said, not knowing how else to broach the subject. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother and her Abuela deep in conversation. No doubt they were worried about being blamed for adding nuts to a nut-free recipe.
“This wasn’t how I expected this meeting to end,” Andre responded.
“I take it you and Dale were really close.”
“Yeah, if you can ever really be close to your employer," Dale answered. "I wouldn’t say we were best friends, exactly. I wanted to be his friend. I hope that’s how he saw me, as a friend.”
"Well, you must have known him outside of work, right? That would count as a friendship I would think." Mari couldn’t help feeling that she was pushing her luck with the questions, but if she didn’t ask she would never know.
“We did, on occasion.” Andre took a sip of his drink. The pained look on his face suggested that he found it distasteful. “We went golfing together sometimes. He was an excellent golfer, although, honestly, not as good as he thought he was. He was much better at drinking.”
There was more than a touch of sadness in Andre’s laughter.
“He did seem to have a high opinion of himself,” Mari said. Her gaze darted to the window as a red Cadillac pulled into the parking lot.
Andre glanced at Mari suspiciously. Mari thought he was going to scold her for speaking so callously of his former boss, but to her surprise, he nodded in agreement.
“That was one of the delightful things about him, I thought. It grated on some of the others, the women especially. They just didn’t understand him like I did.”
“Understand what?” Mari asked.
“That was just his style." Andre grinned. "Dale wasn’t conceited or narcissistic, just self-promoting. He had a healthy view of himself. It was one of the qualities that made him such a successful businessman. A lot of people complained about it, but none of those people were as driven or motivated as he was. None of them shared his success.”
Andre launched into a short speech about the envy that those without ambition always feel toward successful people. Mari pretended to listen patiently, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw her Abuela exiting the room. Mari's mother followed her.
“I get it.” Mari tried to cut her conversation with Andre short. "He was successful."
“Oh, no question,” Andre responded without hesitation. “He had an incredible talent stack.”
“Talent stack?”
“You know how some people are insanely good at doing one thing?” Andre explained. “Dale wasn’t one of those people. He was decently good at four or five different things. He was effortlessly charismatic, had a good head for business, knew how to handle the press; he knew how to promote his brand. If you put all that together, you have an unstoppable businessman. He was brilliant.”
Mari had long been able to hide her true feelings when interviewing potential suspects, but she couldn’t help being impressed by Andre’s fervor for his ex-boss. He spoke of him the way a man might toast a beloved friend at a wedding reception. Mari had spent several years working for her father, but even she would have been hard-pressed to muster that level of enthusiasm for a guy like Dale Roberts.
“You are the first person to say such nice things about him." Mari took a deep breath and glanced down at Tabasco.
Andre gripped his cup tightly. “Yeah, he was just—so great. He was my mentor in a way.”
“He must have thought highly of you, too," Mari added. "I heard you were due for a promotion.”
Andre couldn't conceal the disappointment on his face as Mari brought up the subject.
“I was, actually," he admitted. "That’s what this whole meeting was about. He promoted me to Marketing Director. A huge honor.”
“I got the sense that some of your co-workers weren’t too happy about it.”
“Well, they can get over it,” Andre said. "And by they I mean Yvette."
***
After the police were through, Mari returned home for the evening. She brewed herself a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table trying to figure out who had the best reason to kill Dale Roberts.
Although she had found his remarks toward her unprofessional and off-putting, Mari had been moved by the admiration he seemed to inspire even in those who disliked him. While she thought it unlikely that Andre would have killed him, she had an equally hard time believing that Jemina might have done it. The grief she had demonstrated over his death was genuine, and she seemed to have been as surprised as anyone else when he sank to the floor for the last time.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Mari said to Tabasco, who was seated a few feet away tearing into a package of Woofles dog treats. “This guy seemed to have pissed a lot of people off, but I don't have many leads. And I know that I didn't do it. We've got to figure something out before the police decide to blame this all on the family restaurant.”
Of course, she still didn’t know for sure whether or not Dale had really been murdered. Perhaps she was jumping to conclusions and the events of the day were just one big freak accident. Or maybe Jemina had fed her the idea of murder. Mari had seen many murder mystery shows in which the culprit had killed one person and then framed another. Was Jemina, Yvette, Andre, or someone else from the office trying to frame a coworker for the murder of Dale Roberts? Might his death have been a tragic accident that one of his employees was now using to enact some kind of revenge?
There was no way to tell. Mari stayed up half the night trying to figure it out with little success. In the meantime, Tabasco had great success as he finished off his package of maple bacon flavored dog treats.
CHAPTER FOUR
The next morning was chilli
er than usual for the quiet Texas town that Mari called home. When she arrived at work a few minutes before opening with her bulldog Tabasco, her jacket was covered in raindrops. She hung her jacket up to dry on the coat rack next to the front entrance when a figure appeared right behind her. Tabasco barked, and Mari jumped. She was relieved to see that it was a familiar face.
But she was worried by the fact that it was Detective Price.
As usual, the town's detective was wearing a dress shirt and tie that didn't match too well. The detective nodded, knowing the Ramirez family for their breakfast burritos, which he ordered regularly, and their penchant for attracting trouble. The detective smiled at Tabasco, and the dog trotted off to his usual spot in the back office of the restaurant.
“We’ve still got a few minutes before we open for lunch,” Mari said. “How can I help you this morning, Detective?”
“I want to talk to you about the death of Dale Roberts,” he responded, following her to a booth near the kitchen where they both sat down. “As you may have already guessed, his death is extremely suspicious. I haven’t spoken to the press yet, so this stays between you and me, but at the moment we’re treating this as a murder investigation.”
Mari nodded as if she had been expecting this. “May I ask why?”
“A number of reasons,” the detective explained. “Many of which I intend to keep private for now."
“You're here to ask me about the food,” Mari guessed.
Yes, of course." He pulled a notebook from his pocket and began jotting things down.
Mari proceeded to explain how Jemina had asked her to cater the food for the event but had asked her to prepare a menu without nuts.
“Did she explain why?” Detective Price asked.
Mari shook her head. “Just that someone in the office had an allergy. She didn’t say who, and I honestly didn’t know it was Dale until he went into shock. I swear there were no nuts on the buffet table.”
“What was on the final menu?”
“Oh, the works," Mari replied. "Rice, beans, chips and salsa made with our secret family recipe, guacamole, a burrito bar, my bite-sized chimichangas—”
“And did you happen to notice what Mr. Roberts was eating before he died?”
“I caught a glimpse of his plate," Mari admitted. "It was stacked with chimichangas, which isn’t unusual. They are a huge crowd-pleaser. If he ate anything else, I didn’t notice it.”
“Who made the food?” he continued to question her.
Mari scratched her head. She was beginning to feel anxious, as she always did whenever Detective Price served up a rapid-fire serving of questions. She took a deep breath, hoping that the murder investigation wouldn't go on for long.
She could only hope.
“Mom and I cooked all of it." Mari cleared her throat. The truth didn't make her look less guilty. "And my Abuela made the tortillas for the burrito bar. She makes them better than anyone else, and she insisted on it.”
“And you’re one-hundred percent sure none of the food contained nuts.” The detective raised his eyebrows.
Mari nodded. “I double … no, I triple checked. We take special orders very seriously around here."
At that moment Mari heard the familiar chime indicating that a customer had entered the restaurant.
"I can wait while you tend to customers," the detective said.
A second later Mari’s mother and grandmother came into the dining room, both bundled up in their thickest white coats and looking oddly like marshmallows. Her Abuela went straight into the kitchen while Mrs. Ramirez joined Mari and the detective in the booth. She rubbed her hands vigorously as if the cool weather outside were a brisk snowstorm.
“You wouldn’t believe how cold it’s getting out there,” Paula Ramirez commented. “I don't know how they do it in the Midwest.”
“They are used to it,” Mari responded. The last time it had come close to snowing was ten years ago. In Mari's tiny hometown, drivers had panicked and left their cars sitting in the middle of the street. Every school and business had also shut down in the ensuing chaos.
“I was just talking to Mari about yesterday,” Detective Price informed her. “I understand you ladies did the catering."
“We double … no, triple checked that there were not nuts in the buffet,” Mrs. Ramirez stated, anticipating his question. Abuela came walking out of the kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate and sat down next to Mari.
“And when did you arrive at the party?” Detective Price asked.
“We got there at a quarter to five?” Paula looked to Mari, who nodded. Mari’s grandmother spoke some words in Spanish, which Mrs. Ramirez translated. Policemen made Abuela nervous. “Abuela didn’t show up until a little later.”
“Why is that?”
Mari shrugged
“Abuela came with a friend from her sewing club,” Paula answered for her mother.
Detective Price paused and ruffled his hair in agitation. It was clear he didn’t want to ask his next question. Mari froze, suspecting that she wouldn’t want to answer it.
“I’ve already told Mari,” he said, “and please keep this between us, that I’m working under the assumption that Dale Roberts was murdered. Now I need to know if either of you left the food unattended at the party.”
Mari thought hard about it.
“I wasn’t at the buffet table the entire time,” she admitted. “There was a moment when I stepped outside with Tabasco. I didn’t want him making a mess on the carpet. Jemina was using him as a taste-tester, and he had way too many treats.”
“How long were you gone?” the detective asked.
“Five to ten minutes," Mari guessed.
Detective Price turned to Mrs. Ramirez. “And did you step away from the food, Mrs. Ramirez?”
Paula nodded. “I was supposed to be supervising, but I did leave once … or twice."
“Where did you go?”
“I took a few phone calls in the hallway," Paula answered.
“Mamá,” Mari muttered.
"What?" Paula shrugged. "You how your father gets when I don't return his calls." She turned to Detective Price. "I got my husband one of those new touch screen phones for Christmas, and now my inbox is overloaded with emojis."
"So there was a window of opportunity," Mari said quietly as she thought of Dale's seemingly well-known nut allergy.
Paula's phone began buzzing, and she held up a finger. "Excuse me for a minute," she said as she left the table.
Detective Price returned the pencil and notepad to his coat pocket. “I suspect the food could have been tampered with while either you were outside, Mari, or your mother was on the phone.”
“But how is that possible? There were always people around. Surely someone would have noticed.” Mari shook her head.
“Do you always notice what’s happening around you?” the detective asked. He turned and pointed to a table on the opposite end of the room. “You didn’t even notice when that woman came in.”
For the first time, Mari saw that there was a woman seated at the table near the window. It was the woman her grandmother had driven home with the night before. Mari’s jaw fell as she realized how little she had been paying attention. Abuela looked at the woman and waved at her to join them.
“Good day to you both,” the detective said, putting on his hat and walking toward the front door.
Tabasco came running through the restaurant. Mari’s father, José Ramirez, followed with a look of concern on his face. Without bothering to acknowledge the departing detective, Mr. Ramirez walked straight to the booth where Mari and her grandmother were sitting.
“Family meeting in my office in three minutes,” he said by way of greeting. “We have an extremely serious issue to discuss.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Mari, her mother, and her grandmother gathered in the back office of the family's restaurant. Mrs. Ramirez made a pot of coffee while Mr. Ramirez tried to stop Tabasco from pulling up a stray
piece of carpet.
“What did you want to see us about?” Mari asked, intervening to rescue her dog before her father ushered him out of the room with his foot.
Mr. Ramirez straightened up, took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket, and placed it in his mouth without lighting it. His wife knocked it out of his hand with a scowl. She had been trying to get him to quit for years.
"Oh no you don't, José," Paula scolded him. "You have enough health problems as it is."
José took a deep breath and cleared his throat as he handed his wife the carton of cigarettes.
“What I’m about to say doesn’t leave this room,” Mr. Ramirez said. Mari felt an immediate sense of déjà vu. “I need to know if any of you has been taking money from the register.”
There was a swift and collective gasp among them.
“Of course not,” Mrs. Ramirez replied, nearly rising out of her seat. “That you would even suggest such a thing—”
Mr. Ramirez motioned for her to sit down. “Okay, I didn’t think so. That’s all I needed to hear.”
But Mari wasn’t willing to let it go at this. “You’re saying that someone has been stealing money from the till,” she asked. “What makes you so sure?”
She quickly thought about everyone she knew who worked at the restaurant and might have had access to the register. There were her two brothers, Alex and David. Although they had gotten into their fair share of trouble, Mari didn't think they were dumb enough to take money from right under their dad's nose. Chrissy, the waitress, was an equally unlikely suspect. She had been working at the restaurant for years.
“For the last week, the register has been short twenty dollars at closing,” Mr. Ramirez replied. “It can't be a coincidence. A crime has been committed.”
None of the women spoke for a moment. The fiery look on her father’s face worried Mari. He was often grumpy, but seldom upset like this. The fact that he had been able to remain relatively calm and composed until now somehow unnerved her even more.