Chocolate Quake

by Nancy Fairbanks

  19

  Pot Stickers with Clients

  Sam

  Having lucked into a parking place for the bike, I arrived extra early. Tourists can usually be counted on to choose a restaurant with high prices and mediocre food, but the clients had chosen a good place. That’s why I planned to get there early enough to order and eat some pot stickers before the Blues could decide on three plates for four people, no appetizers, and, if I was lucky, something alcoholic—not, pray God, plum wine. I ordered beer.

  This didn’t look like my kind of case. An old lady arrested for knifing some woman at a middle-class-women-getting-their-jollies-helping-out-welfare-mothers kind of do-gooder center? I took it as a favor to a bunch of scientists paranoid about industrial espionage and coughing up big bucks for my services. Not too sexy, but it pays my share on a great Victorian in the Castro. Since I got hired by Bay Tech, Inc., even my portfolio going down the toilet with the bear market hasn’t affected my standard of living.

  So here I am, dunking the world’s greatest spicy pork pot stickers into a great hot sauce that looks like berries but isn’t and waiting for my new clients, an old scientist from Chicago, the ex of the alleged knifer; a middle-aged science prof from Texas, who’ll probably want his Mongolian beef cooked to shoe leather; and the Texas guy’s wife. The scientists’ wives at B.T., Inc., cocktail parties aren’t my idea of a jolly bunch. Most of them would faint if I took it into my head to discuss the gay lifestyle.

  I looked up from pot sticker number three and saw a woman who could be the Texas guy’s wife—blonde hair tied back with a scarf that matched her jacket and slacks—chatting politely with the Chinese waitress, who spoke little or no English because she was actually a bus-girl. A real waitress hustled over to point the lady in my direction.

  Bad luck. I’d have to share the last of the pot stickers with her. Maybe she’d be too polite to take one. She looked sort of shocked when she saw me, and I hadn’t even stood up yet, but hell, I’d put on a tie and sport jacket, so what was her problem? Still, she headed gamely in my direction, introduced herself—Carolyn Blue—and held out her hand. By then I’d stood up, prepared to shake it. “Sam Flamboise.”

  Her eyes widened. Well, I’m 6’6” and weigh 280, and since my hair started to recede, I shaved my head. I suppose she thought she’d introduced herself to some pro wrestler by mistake.

  “I’m the P.I.,” I said to ease her mind. I didn’t want her to run off screaming before the paying customers showed up, so I held her chair for her, and she sat down. Then she spotted my pot stickers. Hell! She was going to want a taste, maybe a whole pot sticker.

  “Have you eaten here before, Mr. Framboise?” she asked, whipping out a notebook.

  “That’s Flamboise,” I corrected. “Like a French combination of flamboyant and raspberry, and yeah, I’ve eaten here before. I’m eating my favorite dish right now.”

  “I’m a food writer. Can I have one?”

  I pushed the plate toward her. “Dip it in the sauce if you don’t mind hot.”

  “Not at all,” she replied, dipped, and tasted. “Oh, yummy.” She flipped the notebook open to the middle pages and began to make notes. “What a wonderful sauce! Let’s order another plate.”

  That was fine with me. You can’t ever get enough Eliza pot stickers. I waved the waitress over and reordered. Mrs. Blue devoured her first and reached for another.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” she asked, but not before she’d taken a bite, so what could I say? I grabbed the last one before she could scarf that down too. “I’m really starving. I spent too much time at the center, but a man your size probably requires a lot of food. Maybe I should have waited for the second plate. Are you starving?”

  “Sweetie, I’m always starving.” I grabbed two pot stickers off the new plate, just in case the food writer thought she was supposed to get the whole bunch. She looked pretty surprised to be called sweetie. “So what were you doing at the center? That’s the site of the murder, right?”

  “I was detecting. I didn’t really believe they—my husband and father-in-law—were going to hire anyone. I wonder what’s in this sauce. If I knew, I might try to make it. Do you cook?”

  “Every other day, except when we’re going out to dinner.”

  “Really? Your wife is a lucky woman.”

  “Guy.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “I live with a guy.”

  “And he cooks, too? I wish Jason would get interested. Thirty years of cooking was enough for me. I cooked for my father and then for Jason and the children. Now that I’m writing about food, I’m even less interested in cooking.”

  A food writer who doesn’t cook. Well, why not? “So why were you over there detecting?”

  “Because the police aren’t going to do it. Inspector Yu is quite sure he has the murderer. Of course, his daughter Ginger—whom I met today and whose name is really Dolly Madison Yu—oh, miss, could I have some plum wine?” She’d waved energetically at the waitress. “When his daughter Ginger gets hold of him, the inspector may be very sorry that he arrested the wrong person. Ginger is a great admirer of my mother-in-law. Anyway, I can’t just let Vera rot in jail for a crime she didn’t commit. For one thing, it would be hard on my children. Even my husband might wake up and get serious about this when he realizes Vera could actually be convicted.” She sipped the plum wine, and her face lit up. “Why, this is actually good!” she exclaimed. “I’m not usually a fan of plum wine, at least not what I’ve had in the Southwest, but this has a sharp, fruity flavor. A touch of cherry, but not the cough-syrup kind.” She made a few more notes. “Would you like a sip?”

  “Can’t stand the stuff.” I quickly ordered another beer before she could insist that I try her plum wine. “And did you find the murderer?” I asked, probably sounding sarcastic.

  “In one day? With Mr. Valetti trailing along? He’s Vera’s neighbor. I’m not a professional, after all.” She sounded a little huffy. “But I do have some suspects. Let me just flip over to my investigation notes, and I’ll bring you up to date.”

  She didn’t get a chance because the two men arrived before she could start telling me my business. Her husband looked surprised to see us eating. “We’re not that late,” he said defensively. A short guy who looked to be in good shape for someone in his forties. I just hit the big 4 0 so I don’t consider myself in the forties. More like thirty-nine plus.

  They sat down and did just what I’d expected. Ordered three dishes. The older guy insisted on Scotch, and the younger one asked for hot sake, which didn’t go over well with the Chinese waitress.

  Mrs. Blue, God bless her, refused to share the pot stickers and told them to get their own. I was starting to like the lady. She was funnier and less picky than your average faculty wife—not that I know that many, but I sure as hell remember the wife of a professor I had in college. She used to serve us tea and cookies after seminars at their house. That woman was a real ball-buster. Mrs. Blue, who invited me to call her Carolyn halfway through dinner, seemed a lot less uptight than my old prof’s wife.

  Evidently the two male Blues weren’t really interested in discussing the case. They just wanted Carolyn to approve of me so they could get her off their backs about rescuing the woman in jail. Well, that was OK. One of the things I insisted they order, since they were being so stingy about the number of dishes, was the Mango Beef, which thank God, they didn’t like. She did, and told me I had good taste in food. By that time she seemed to have gotten over her shock at my size. I’m still all muscle and no fat, so I guess I do look intimidating.

  Carolyn and I shared the Mango Beef, and she did more note taking than eating, so I figured I wouldn’t have to cook when I got home. She also tried to introduce the investigation a couple of times, but she didn’t get anywhere. The Blues, father and son, talked science, football, and how the city had changed since they were last here. I made a few suggestions for tourist activities, like the Henry Moore exhibi
tion up at the museum in Lincoln Park, funky places to eat, stuff like that.

  She seemed a lot more interested in those topics than football and science and remarked that San Francisco tourism obviously wasn’t what it once had been since I hadn’t mentioned bullfights, bear and bull fights, or tours of opium dens and Barbary Coast dives, or the half-year performance at the Joss House in Chinatown. Her husband thought she’d enjoy the Henry Moore exhibit more than an opium den and tried to move the conversation back to football. She was shooting him reproachful looks by mid-meal.

  Toward the end, when we’d mopped up every scrap of food in sight and were down to scraping our rice bowls, he told her that he and his dad had to go back to the Stanford Court for some frontier-busting research scheduled to be revealed at nine. “We’ll drop you off on Sacramento Street, and I’ll be back by 10:30 if you don’t mind staying up to let me in.” The husband looked a little nervous about that. “ I ’ m packed. Left my bags with the concierge.”

  Ah, trouble on straight street. They hadn’t shared a bed last night.

  “Don’t bother,” she said, a cube or two of ice in the voice. “Since you haven’t wanted to talk to Sam about your mother’s situation, I certainly must. I have all kinds of information to pass on. I’ll just call a cab.”

  “Well, Carolyn, I don’t think—”

  “I can give her a ride home,” I offered, being careful not to laugh or give any indication of how I was going to do that. “You’re in an apartment house, Carolyn? You can buzz my cell phone to let me know you got in all right. Or I’ll go up with you and take a look around. If women at this center are being targeted, we shouldn’t take chances.”

  “I can wave to you out the front window,” she suggested, grinning.

  Her husband wasn’t at all amused, but what the hell. This case was turning out to be more fun than I’d expected. “Quarter to nine,” I said, looking at my watch. “You two will be wanting to get to that meeting. Who do I report to when I learn something?”

  “Me,” both men said.

  “I’m paying,” said the old man. “I’m at the Stanford Court.”

  When they’d left, Carolyn said, “You can report to me. I’m the only one who’s really interested.” Then she made a few more food notes while the plates were being cleared. The old man had provided his credit card number before he left so we wouldn’t get stuck with the bill. She said, “Let’s have dessert.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Anything without rice. I hate sweet rice.” She was flipping through to the back of her notebook where she’d evidently recorded all the clues she’d turned up that day. I wish I’d been there to see her at work. It was probably a hoot.

  20

  Networking over Ginger Ice Cream

  Carolyn

  After Sam ordered ginger ice cream, he went off to the men’s room, having drunk four bottles of beer with dinner. I took the opportunity to make notes on the décor of the restaurant. Very modern, glass-topped tables held up by aluminum stands, big pastel blocks on the ceiling and walls, cubist, and an amazing glass triptych featuring huge teal waves with aqua foam. It hid the kitchen from the dining areas. Was that the art glass? I asked the waitress and was directed past the triptych to the back dining room, where I discovered blown glass asparagus sculptures in cases and on high ledges. Or did they represent bamboo? They came in various colors, but I liked the lime-green ones best and was sorry I hadn’t brought a camera. The owner evidently collected them.

  I didn’t see him but couldn’t help picturing the first proprietor of a Chinese restaurant in the United States. He’s reported to have worn a queue and a stovepipe hat and claimed baptism in South Carolina. The gold rush days saw a lot of Chinese restaurants opening after his. They were said to be the best deal in town—clean premises, tasty food, and all you could eat cheap. I wonder what their proprietors and customers would make of Eliza. The food, no doubt, is more various and delicious, but there are no all-you-can-eat dollar dinners.

  Back in the front dining room, Sam stood by our table scowling. “Thought you’d taken off,” he said.

  “Why would I do that? I didn’t spend the day talking to peculiar people at the center for the fun of it.”

  “You must be pretty fond of your mother-in-law.”

  “No more than most people,” I mumbled evasively. “So.” I put my finger on the first name. “Marina Chavez-Timberlite. She’s the director of the center and the wife of the developer Eric Timberlite.” Sam whistled through his teeth. “Mrs. Timberlite tried to keep me from conducting an investigation by insisting that I get permission from the board chairwoman. I did, no thanks to Mrs. Timberlite, who gave me two wrong numbers to call.”

  “Probably doesn’t like people nosing around her operation, particularly amateurs and especially after an embarrassing murder.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, Mr. Flamboise,” I said rather stiffly.

  “Sam.”

  “Yes. Later I discovered that center staffers, my mother-in-law among them, are organizing a protest against Mr. Timberlite’s development company because he’s planning to tear down low-rent housing to put up condominiums. If Denise, the victim, was involved, which Bertha Harley denies, or he thought she was involved, he might have hired a hit person to kill Denise and to frame my mother-in-law.”

  “A hit person?” Sam grinned. “OK, Timberlite. I can nose around. Money and power are motives for murder. Maybe this business manager was trying to blackmail him. She’d call off the protesters if he’d give a bundle to the center.”

  “What an interesting idea! Everyone says Denise was having trouble making ends meet and having to deny various department heads project money. She made enemies, but I doubt they’d kill her over budget problems.” I scooped up some ginger ice cream, which was actually quite good and certainly deserved a note in my food section.

  “Next is the security guard, Mr. Alexi Timatovich. He claims to have been an engineer in Siberia before immigrating. He also claims to always be at his post, but he wasn’t when Mr. Valetti and I arrived, and I discovered that several people were in the building who hadn’t signed in. Of course, that could be because the Crone Cohort insisted on a ramp entrance to the middle section to save seniors from the front stairs.”

  “The Crone Cohort? OK, I believe you. The place is full of nut cases. But just because Timatovich is a lousy security guard doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  “No, it doesn’t, but he is claiming overtime for night shifts that his son actually works, and someone or other said Denise was going to tell the director about his fraudulent overtime claims and get him fired.”

  Sam nodded and made another note. “I’ll find out about Timatovich. Was he there the night of the murder?”

  “Yes. Also he needs money to send his math genius son to Cal Tech, and he wouldn’t let me take the sign-in book away to photocopy the pages for the day of the crime. Mrs. Rovere at Nutrition Central made him give it to us. Maybe his son was in on the murder too.”

  “I doubt that overtime at the center would pay the kid’s way through Cal Tech, but it’s still a lead. They could have other scams going.”

  “And there’s Freddie Piñon. He’s a wife abuser on parole who came to the center that night, drunk, angry, and wanting to know where his wife was. Denise, who was head of the Battered Women’s Advocacy before she took over the business office, had gotten the man’s wife into shelters. Twice. The guard said he sent Piñon away, but Piñon could have slipped in the side door and killed Denise when she wouldn’t tell him where to find his wife. He just got out on parole for attacking the director of his wife’s first shelter. Oh, and he sneaked into the center the night before and threatened to kill Penny Widdister, present head of the Battered Women’s Advocacy. She hit him with a telephone, locked herself in the bathroom, and someone called the police, but he was gone by the time they arrived.”

  “Now, there’s a good prospect.” Sam wrote down Piñon’s name and th
e other material I had on him, particularly pleased to know who the parole officer was.

  “Now, this woman,” I said, flipping a page, “was in the center that night but not the day I was there, so I need to interview her. Kebra Zenawi.”

  “Sure, I know Kebra. I’ll talk to her. Good chance to eat Ethiopian.”

  “I’ll go with you. Ethiopian food would make an interesting column.”

  “Listen, Carolyn, I don’t know about your hanging with me. Whoever did the job on Mrs. Faulk is obviously dangerous. This Piñon. You don’t want to go interview him, do you?”

  “Of course I wouldn’t go on all your investigations. I have some of my own people to question. I’m meeting one lady at Zaré in the financial district, and another at the Legion of Honor. I wouldn’t expect you to go on those interviews with me, anymore than I’d expect to go with you to—”

  “Gotcha. So I’ll take you to the Ethiopian place. We can both eat on your father-in-law’s dime, but fair warning. Lots of people get the trots because the food is really hot. I mean really—”

  “I live in El Paso where the best restaurants are Mexican.” Back to my list. “Patrick Baker O’Finn, pro bono lawyer. He was there but had no reason to kill Denise. I can call him and let you know what he says.”

  Sam nodded.

  “Maria Fortuni. She had a quarrel with Denise about money, but she’s about eighty years old, very frail, and walks with a cane. I don’t think she could have done it.”

  “I’ll get the crime scene photos from Harry Yu. I take it you talked to her?”

  “Yes. I got O’Finn’s number from her. Next. Marcus Croker.”

  Sam glanced up, surprised.

  “You know him? He’s a policeman who teaches self-defense. He and Denise had words because he wasn’t allowing women in his classes who’d reported spousal abuse and then refused to testify against their husbands.”

  “I’ll do Croker.”