Out of the Frying Pan

by Robin Allen

  A trip north to the Health Department offices to review their previous violations would have eaten up too much time, so after I pulled into the back parking lot of the restaurant close to 9:00 AM, I called Olive/Genevieve to get a quick report. “Hey Gen, it’s Poppy,” I said when she answered.

  “Who’s Gen?” she asked, biting into something lightly crunchy that sounded exactly like a pork rind.

  “It’s short for Genevieve,” I said. “You said that’s what you wanted me to call you.”

  She grunted. “I didn’t think about nicknames. I don’t like Gen. Let’s go with Vivian next time.” She swallowed loudly. “Who’s Poppy?”

  “Markham,” I said.

  “Oh, right. It’s your day off, isn’t it?”

  “Thanks for remembering,” I said. “I’m at General Chow’s and need to know their last few health scores.”

  “Hang on.” A couple of minutes later, she said, “I can’t find anything for Colonel Chow’s.”

  “It’s General, not Colonel. Never mind. Transfer me to Gavin.”

  I had thought to call my colleague in the first place because he spends Monday mornings in the office filing reports from any weekend inspections he does, but honestly, I wanted to try out Olive’s new name. This was the most interesting thing she had ever done. I wouldn’t say I felt honored that she had asked for my help, but I wanted to make sure she picked a good one. If she chose a name that reflected her real personality—which is the opposite of fun and exotic—I might have to start reporting to Bloodfang.

  “I’m not your secretary, Markham,” she said and hung up.

  I called Gavin myself. “Hey, Poppy,” he said a minute later. “Looks like trouble followed you to Good Earth last night.”

  “Have you written a new ending yet?” I asked. Gavin is a collector of bizarre restaurant news stories and likes to give them new endings.

  “Dana White dying is sad, but not strange,” he said.

  “What if someone poisoned her with food-grade hydrogen peroxide?”

  “That’s not what the news sites are saying. Or Amooze-Boosh.”

  “Jamie has to report what the police report or he’ll lose their cooperation,” I said. “I was there. I saw the peroxide in her cup.”

  “Poor Dana,” Gavin said softly. “That must have been awful for her. Do you know how it happened?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said. “Vis-à-Vis is yours, right? What do you know about her sous, Colin Harris, leaving?”

  “Rumor is Herb fired him, but I don’t know why.”

  “Herb did? I thought he ran the Wolff. What’s he doing in Vis-à-Vis’s business?”

  “I’m sure he had Dana’s blessing.”

  “That’s very helpful,” I said. “Now can you do me a favor? Can you pull up General Chow’s and tell me what’s going on with them?”

  “That’s in Bennett’s area,” he said, implying that I should call the new gal to discuss them. She had transferred from Washington State a couple of months ago.

  I related the anonymous tip we received. “Apparently, she missed a few things,” I concluded.

  “You know tips, Poppy. It’s probably some day spa darling getting even for not being allowed to bring her therapy dog into the dining room.”

  “It’s not dirty fingernails or a dead moth in a Caesar salad,” I said. “Besides, it came from Jerry Potter. He told me last night at the party.”

  “You think Bennett’s on the take?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “That reminds me,” Gavin said, “did you read the story about the girl who got fired from her pizza delivery job and wanted to get even?”

  “She ordered a pizza and then robbed the delivery man, right?”

  “When the police took her mug shot, she said, ‘Hold the cheese.’”

  Gavin has done better, but I laughed anyway. He asked me to hold, then came back on a few minutes later. He told me that General Chow’s scored in the nineties on their most recent inspection four months ago, but in the seventies on the several before that. They had been cited for rodents, insects, improper storage of raw meat, slime in the ice machine, no hair restraints, and smoking in the walk-in. Page two is where inspectors document items that are lacking or gross or strange, but don’t affect the overall health score. Those comments indicated that cooks must wear both shoes at all times.

  “Yet they’ve never been the source of a foodborne illness,” Gavin said.

  “That bewilders me, too,” I said. “Thanks, Gavin.”

  With those low health scores, General Chow’s should have closed their doors and cleaned up their operation, but that fence told me they had gotten more dirty. Why do people enter a business with clearly established rules and regulations, and then refuse to follow them? It’s much cheaper and easier in the long run. A chicken carcass can be cleaned and dried as easily inside the kitchen as out by the Dumpster. Unless fly larvae was one of their secret ingredients.

  The chances of them flouting health regulations at 9:00 on a Monday morning were actually pretty good—fresh week, fresh deliveries, fresh food prep. I got out of my Jeep and applied my eye to a space between the slats and saw more wood. A double fence? They really wanted some privacy. I tried the gate, but they had locked it from the inside, so I moved closer and listened. I wanted to stay on the stealth as long as time allowed, so I didn’t ring the delivery bell.

  Sixty seconds later, however, my cover was blown.

  Twenty

  “Poppy! Hey! Poppy!” someone yelled, then punctuated the words with one of those shrill fingers-in-the-mouth whistles that signals the beginning of an illegal dog fight.

  I searched the vicinity, but saw no one in the parking lot or on the street.

  “Up here!”

  Up there was Jerry Potter, standing on the mini balcony of his apartment, dressed only in jeans. Even from that distance, I could tell that he hadn’t bathed or shaved. He motioned with the hand holding a white coffee mug, “You can see better up here.”

  I gave him the okay sign, then put my index finger to my lips to hopefully get him to stop vocally spotlighting me.

  He held up an apologetic hand, “Oh, right, sorry,” he yell whispered. “I’m in number four oh six.”

  A few minutes later, I crossed the threshold into Jerry’s tiny, smelly one-room kennel that also hadn’t been shaved or bathed, like ever. It confined a futon, a new flat-screen TV leaning against the opposite wall, and in between, a wooden coffee table that also served as the dining table as evidenced by all the cardboard containers and plastic utensils collected on, under, and around it.

  “You still get takeout from General Chow’s after you’ve seen their food prep?” I asked.

  “What they’re doing is against health code,” he said, “not common sense.”

  There was some logic that refused to be argued with.

  “Coffee?” he asked, stepping into the galley kitchen, which was strangely debris-free.

  “I’m good,” I said.

  He pulled a pint of cheap bourbon from his jeans pocket and poured it into his cup, then topped it off with coffee. “It’s my day off,” he said, stirring his drink with his finger.

  “So, you can see General Chow’s from up here?” I said.

  He pointed to the open sliding glass door and I walked toward it, but stopped before I stepped onto the balcony. The previous night on the Cornhusker’s staircase had been enough of a vanquish-­my-fear-of-heights exercise. Besides, I had a decent view of the fenced area from where I stood in the apartment. It remained as inactive as a séance.

  “Have they washed the chickens this morning?” I asked.

  “I just got up,” he said. He moved past me and onto the balcony, then turned to face me. He placed both elbows on the railing, putting his scrawny chest and bourbon-for-breakfast
belly on display. “That was a great party, huh?”

  “Are you a Friend of the Farm?” I asked.

  “Friend of Cory’s,” he said.

  I.e., stoner. “What time do they wash the chickens?”

  “Various times,” he said, then sipped his coffee. “Sure you don’t want some?”

  “I’m good. Have you seen them doing anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Come on, Jerry, you’ve worked in restaurants. You know the critical health violations.”

  “I don’t spend all my time snooping over the fence,” he said. “Washing the chickens is the worst I’ve seen, and I reported it. Do I get a reward or something?”

  “Is that what this is about? You want money?”

  “No,” he said, hurt by my assumption, which nine times out of ten would have been spot on. “I was just wondering.”

  “The health department appreciates your tip, but there’s no reward.”

  “You can hang around here if you want and wait for ’em to do something,” he said. “We could watch a movie.”

  I wanted to wait, and I would have even done so in Jerry’s apartment, but it seemed like I was the first female he had ever had in his personal space. People who don’t know what to do in social situations can be counted on to do inappropriate things, like giggle in church or take more than one drink at a time at an open bar. Or throw a girl down on a futon and exhale whiskey-scented coffee breath in her face.

  “That’s a nice offer, Jerry,” I said, “but my other restaurants aren’t going to inspect themselves.” I made for the door, then remembered I had another reason for talking to him. “What did you tell Jamie Sherwood last night?”

  He smiled, showing coffee- and cannabis-stained teeth. “I guess you guys didn’t do much pillow talk, huh?”

  “We’re not … no, we didn’t.”

  “Sure you don’t want some coffee?” he asked.

  “Did you roast it yourself or something? Yes, I’m sure. Now tell me what you told Jamie.”

  “I told him what I knew in relation to some nefarious acts,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes. “This is Austin, Jerry. Nefarious acts are a requirement for residency.”

  He pulled out his pint and splashed another shot into his coffee mug. “This one’s of particular interest to the food community,” he said, obviously trying to be cryptic and enticing.

  I found it tedious and repellant.

  “Fine,” I said, backing up. “I’ll ask Jamie.”

  Jerry bolted off the railing and into the apartment. “Hold up, hold up. I’ll tell you.” He indicated his futon covered with a pilly beige blanket and drool-stained pillow. “Have a seat.”

  Not even discovering that they were serving Soylent Green at the Governor’s Mansion could be worth sitting there, but I did. On the very edge. He sat next to me and I scooted over a little. I wasn’t scared of Jerry, just grossed out. “So tell,” I said. “Quickly.”

  “That farm is using pesticide.”

  “On their crops?” I asked. “Their legal crops, I mean.”

  He nodded.

  “How do you know this?”

  “Cory told me last night after him and Brandon washed the vegetables. We went to the barn and, uh, chilled.”

  Using pesticide was more dishonorable than nefarious, but wait, “I thought Cory went to help his uncle mend a fence.”

  “Maybe after,” he said, “but we were inside awhile.”

  “Did you see anyone else in the barn while y’all were chilling?”

  “Kevin came in looking for Cory, but we hid behind some hay.”

  I stood. “Thanks, Jerry.” If he had been smoking pot with Cory, I was lucky he remembered that much.

  “Then Mike came in,” he said.

  “Mike Glass? Was he looking for Cory, too?”

  Jerry shook his head. “He was with that bartender guy.”

  “Randy Dove?”

  “I think that’s his name. He was all ticked off at Chef and the dinner, yelling that she wouldn’t get away with it and he wanted a recount.”

  So that’s where those two went after Randy choked. But why go all the way to the barn? “What else did they talk about?” I asked.

  “Nothing really. Mostly Mike listened, then he gave Randy something that settled him down.”

  “Like a sedative?”

  Jerry laughed. “No, something bigger. It was in a plastic bag.”

  “A bottle of something?”

  “I didn’t see what it was,” he said. He leaned back against his pillow and grinned up at me. “If you give me your number, I can call you when I see ’em doing the chickens.”

  I pulled a business card from my backpack and gave it to him. “I’d appreciate that.”

  I took one last look through the sliding glass door at General Chow’s before I left, but saw no one. Thanks to Jerry’s Broadway show earlier, they knew I was in the area, so they were probably waiting for my Jeep to leave. Normally, I would have done exactly that, then driven down the street and hoofed it back to the restaurant, but Chef Dana’s murder trumped General Chow’s chickens.

  I left the apartment and descended the four flights of stairs slowly, mulling Jerry’s new item of intel. It had to be Randy’s VP and treasurer, Mike Glass—not someone at the farm—who gave Randy the money. But before I went all Marcia Clark on Randy and accused him of killing Dana, I needed to build a stronger case against him. Randy could have been telling me the truth when he said he won a bet. I doubted the money had relevance to Dana’s death, but Mike had given it to him in secret and Randy had tried to hide it, and I could use it as leverage when I questioned him about Dana. I hadn’t eliminated Mike as a suspect, so I could use that same leverage against him, too. I practically skipped to my car, excited that I finally had something solid to work with.

  I sat in my Jeep and called Olive/Vivian. Where did she come up with these names?

  No answer, so I left a message. “Hey, Viv. I’m at General Chow’s right now. It looks like the chickens have the day off, too. I’ll try again tomorrow when I’m at work.”

  Before I drove thirty plus miles to Waterloo Linen, I called to make sure that Mike Glass hadn’t taken the day off and would be somewhere I could find him. Like health inspectors, he travels around the city talking to restaurant owners, managers, and chefs, but unlike inspectors, he isn’t avoided, glared at, and lied to. Or at least not as often.

  The receptionist, Tina, told me he was due in at 10:00 AM, so I headed for the far north side of town. I made good time and arrived at ten till. Mike had not yet arrived, so I waited inside by the front desk, reading framed newspaper articles hung on the walls lauding Waterloo Linen as the greatest linen supply company in all the land, and, of course, bragging that they were voted #1 in the Austin Chronicle reader’s poll. I have yet to be in a service establishment that hasn’t won first place in that poll.

  Five minutes later, Mike came through the front doors, wearing pressed jeans and a burnt orange polo shirt, his shaved head shiny with sweat. “Is Sammy here yet?” he asked. “Where’s Sammy?”

  Tina smiled at him, then picked up a microphone attached to a coil. “Base to Sammy,” she said. “What’s your ETA?”

  “Twenty minutes,” came the reply. “We’re leaving Good Earth now.”

  “Thanks,” Mike said to Tina, then looked where she pointed, which was at me.

  “Hi, Mike,” I said. “Problem with the party’s napkins?”

  “No, no,” he said. “Everything is fine. The party was good. Everything is good.”

  “Do you have a few minutes?” I asked. “I’d like to ask you about some things that happened at the dinner last night.”

  “No time right now. Make an appointment, okay? I don’t have time.”

  Linen suppliers
aren’t under the jurisdiction of the health department, so I had to encourage his cooperation in a different way. “Shall we meet at Markham’s? I believe it’s that time of year when Drew Cooper decides whether we keep using our current vendors.”

  He squinched up his face as a prelude to a protest, but when he correctly inferred my implication, he said to Tina, “Give her a visitor’s badge.”

  Mike waited at the double doors leading to the back as Tina handed me a black badge with a big red V on it, then asked me to sign in.

  He opened the doors and the sound of several powerful industrial washers and dryers hit me so hard, I felt a little dizzy. Mike pointed to the right, and I followed him into a large break room filled with picnic tables. The place wasn’t entirely soundproof, but we could talk.

  He went over to a counter and lifted a brown ceramic cup from a tray. “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said, trying to sound agreeable and friendly to put him at ease. “Why are you waiting for Sammy to return from Good Earth?”

  “We, uh, used our better linens for the party. I want to make sure we get them all back.”

  “They’re not coming back today.”

  “Sammy said he was bringing them.”

  “Sammy said he was on his way back,” I said. “I was there earlier. The police aren’t letting anyone onsite.”

  Mike stopped shaking powdered creamer into his cup. “Police?”

  “Dana White died last night, Mike.”

  He looked up at me. “Died?”

  He sure was answering a lot of questions with questions—a billboard of guilt, in my experience. “They think it’s foul play,” I said. Actually, I didn’t know what the police thought, but lying to Mike wasn’t a crime.

  “Someone did it to her? They think someone killed her?”

  “How did you feel when Dana kicked you and Waterloo out of her restaurants?”

  He shrugged. “Accounts come and go.”

  As a health inspector, I never forget that the element of surprise is my constant sidekick, so I round-housed him with, “Why did you give Randy all that money last night?”