by Valerie Tate
She’d call Chris and get him to meet her there so she’d have a witness to what she found.
Her call went straight to voice mail.
“Hi, Chris. I’ve figured out what the murder weapon is. I’m heading over to Saanvi’s office to get the keys to the community centre. If I’m right, and it’s still there, we can take it to Marcus to be tested for traces of blood. And if it isn’t, that’s significant, too. Either way, I know who the murderer is and I’ve been so wrong. Meet me there as soon as you get this.”
Her heart pounding and clutching her bag tightly, Alicia ran to the truck and climbed in. First stop, the town hall to get the key. Then to the community centre to solve a murder.
Chapter 17
The community centre was dark when Alicia drove in. The police hadn’t yet allowed it to reopen for regular activities. Since there was no one around, she decided to park close to the building. Chris would see the truck when he got there.
Saanvi had been overcome with curiosity when asked for the key, but Alicia had told her she’d have to wait until her suspicions were confirmed. She’d promised to call later and tell her everything.
As she let herself in the main entrance, Alicia thought how creepy a dark, empty building was. She left the door unlocked for when Chris arrived and, feeling unusually jumpy, hoped that would be soon.
Thankfully, there was enough light through the windows to see her way to the kitchen since she didn’t want to attract attention to the fact that she was there. While it was true she hadn’t broken in and Saanvi knew she was there, she didn’t think the community centre management or the police would approve. Once she was in the kitchen, she’d be able to turn on the lights because those windows faced the rear of the building and weren’t visible from the road.
Her hands were shaking as she unlocked the door to the kitchen and hurried in. She heaved a sigh of relief as she snapped the lights on, the brilliance momentarily blinding her until her eyes adjusted. Once they had, the eerie feeling disappeared. This was just a large, well-appointed catering kitchen. Feeling rather foolish at how nervous she had been, she dumped her bag and jacket on the counter and set about searching for the meat tenderizer.
A quick glance showed her that the one she’d noticed on the island the first day was missing but she carefully went through each device and gadget to make sure it hadn’t been moved. It wasn’t there.
Next, she started on the drawers. Perhaps it had inadvertently been put away. That would have been easy to do when they cleaned up after the show.
She was quite impressed with how well-equipped the community centre kitchen was. All of the implements she had seen in The Kitchen Cupboard were present along with many the kitchen wares shop hadn’t displayed.
Alicia had never before considered what a lethal place a kitchen could be. Things were chopped, sliced and diced in it on a regular basis and all of the equipment needed for those processes was right there at hand.
She was rummaging through a drawer beside the sink when she heard the door behind her open.
“Looking for this?” a voice asked from the doorway.
Turning slowly, she saw Magnus Wolff standing there with the meet tenderizer clutched in his hand.
“You promised to call me if you learned anything,” he went on reproachfully.
“Must have slipped my mind,” she said, stone-faced.
Magnus stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
Pretending she hadn’t noticed the meat tenderizer in his hand, she asked, “What are you doing here? Have the police given you permission to pack up your equipment?”
“Not yet. But they’ve promised we can go by the end of the week.”
“So why are you here?” she asked again a little more loudly, sounding somewhat officious, even though she wasn’t in a position to chastise him for being in the community centre when it was supposed to be closed to the public. But she wasn’t exactly the ‘public’ in this instance, she told herself, not that it would make any difference in the situation. She had the feeling that Magnus Wolff had never been one to follow the rules and wondered why she hadn’t figured that out before now.
He looked at her intently as he answered. “I noticed you on the main street and I was going to say ‘Hi’ when I saw you go into the kitchen store. I watched you through the window. When you picked up one of these,” he waved the meat tenderizer around, “I knew you’d figured it out.”
She could play dumb and ask what he was talking about but it wouldn’t fool him so she said, “Chris knows I’m here. I called him and told him everything.”
He shook his head with a knowing smile. “No, you didn’t. I was listening from the alley beside the store when you left the message.”
Damn! Why hadn’t she told Chris right then? Ego, a small voice chided her. You wanted to present him with the whole package. Well, you were right but what good will it do if he uses that meat tenderizer on you?
She wasn’t giving up. She definitely didn’t want to get ‘tenderized’. Perhaps she could persuade him to get out of town. “Chris is really smart. He’ll figure it out, just like I did. He’ll know I went to the kitchen shop. He’ll retrace my steps and find what I found and it will lead him right to you, just as it did me. Your best hope is to leave here now and get away before anyone else is the wiser.”
He shook his head, moving slowly towards the island, his hand reflexively squeezing the handle of the tenderizer as if he were preparing to use it. “Not when I’m finally getting everything I want.”
“What do you mean? What are you getting?”
“The show,” he said, as if it should be obvious to anyone. “I just heard from the producers and they’re going to finish the season with me as the chef – The Divine Miss Dove Starring Magnus Wolff. And if it works out, next year they’ll give me my own show.”
He continued slowly edging towards the island. She glanced unobtrusively to each side, trying to decide which way she should go if he made his move. The door to the rotunda seemed like the best bet.
“This was all Davina’s fault,” he explained with a killer’s blinkered vision. “I had the chance at my own show on another network. I’d finally heard that it was going ahead and they wanted me to star but I had a contract with DMD and I needed to get out of it. It was possible, if she’d agree. But when I told her about it, she refused to release me.” For a moment the robotic mask fell and the frustration and anger he had felt was revealed. He said earnestly, “There was no reason for her to refuse. Any other competent chef could do what I did on the show. She just wanted to keep me under her thumb. She was ruining everything!” He slammed the meat tenderizer down on the island, denting the stainless steel surface the way he had dented Davina’s skull, the way he would dent hers if she couldn’t stop him.
“So you did have a motive.” Marcus had been right all along.
He smirked derisively. “Of course I did. But nobody knew because unlike most people these days, I don’t put all of my business on social media – just the carefully expurgated stuff the fans lap up. Only Davina and I knew about the offer and I’d only told her that last day.
“I’d asked her to meet me here, in the kitchen, at nine o’clock so we could talk it over privately. There are always too many people around during the day.”
She had to keep him talking. Chris would be coming soon. She side-stepped a little, away from him and his lethal weapon, as she asked, “How did you get in?”
“I put tape on the lock of the delivery door and then made sure I was the last one out.” He noticed she’d moved along the island towards the door to the rotunda and followed slowly in the same direction, never taking his eyes off of her.
“And when she arrived you told her about the new show.”
“Yes, she should have been happy to get rid of me. She was constantly harping on how incompetent I was as a chef, that I never did anything right.”
The anger he’d felt but had to hide bubbled to the s
urface and she finally saw the man behind the mask as it contorted the handsome face.
It seemed he was unable to stop talking. The floodgates had opened and he continued, his voice harsh, “But she refused. She said I had an iron-clad contract for the run of the show and she was going to keep me there ‘til the bitter end. I actually begged her to release me but she just told me to ‘be a man’ and ‘suck it up’.”
Alicia jumped as he slammed the meat tenderizer on the island again.
“Then she just turned and walked off, as if I was of no consequence whatsoever. I saw red. I reached out and grabbed the first thing that came to hand.”
“The meat tenderizer.”
“Right.”
Puzzled, she said, “The police searched your hotel room and car looking for the murder weapon.”
“True, but they couldn’t search the whole town. If I hadn’t needed it again, they’d never have found it.”
He was enjoying showing how much smarter he was than everyone else. That was good. She could use it to her advantage. Keep him talking.
“So what happened next?”
“I ran after her and caught up to her just as she was walking out the door. She turned and I struck her with it.”
Alicia could see him reliving it in his mind. There was a gleam in his eyes that made her skin crawl.
“She looked so surprised as she fell. She was dead when she hit the ground. At that point I realized what I’d done. I needed to hide her so I grabbed a pair of gloves from the kitchen and dragged her into the big gingerbread house. At the last minute I took that dove cookie out of her pocket and shoved it into her mouth. It seemed fitting. She’d said it was gingerbread to die for.”
Alicia remembered her mom using those words to describe her gingerbread and felt sick.
He seemed to be winding down but she had to keep him talking; give herself time; give Chris time.
“So Marcus Samuel was right. He suspected you from the start.”
She’d been edging little by little towards the door to the rotunda, always keeping the island workspace between them. She thought that if she could get in there she could get out to the main doors to her truck. If she could just distract him long enough… So she waited, coiled, ready to spring if he gave her the opening.
“Until the evidence of the key card finally convinced him he had the wrong man.” He smiled smugly.
Marcus had never believed that, she thought. And he’d never fallen for the sous chef’s innocent act. She was the one who’d been fooled.
“How did you get around the key card?”
“I did exactly what they thought I’d done,” he gloated, still happy to brag about how smart he’d been. “After the show was packed up, I returned to my room using the key card but I left again later using the patio door to the outdoor pool. There’s no key for that door, just a bolt. I left it open. Then I left the hotel by a side door. I wore a jacket with a hood to hide this mop of hair.” He tossed his red-gold locks back with a disgusted gesture. “It’s such a nuisance but it’s part of the Magnus Wolff ‘look’ so I’m stuck with it. Besides, the ladies love it.” He looked at her with a knowing expression.
She hadn’t realized she’d been that obvious. She could feel hot colour flooding her face and her body burned with embarrassment and humiliation. If she got out of this alive, she’d never look at another pretty face again, except Chris’, of course.
He grinned at her all too obvious mortification, then went on, “Anyway, no one saw me leave or return an hour later.”
There was one thing she didn’t understand in all of this. “Why did you ask Chris and me to prove your innocence when you knew you were guilty? Why take the risk?”
“I wanted to see if I’d slipped up anywhere. Besides, it added to my credibility as a falsely accused man to have the local Tommy and Tuppence trying to prove my innocence. The fans just lapped it up.”
She had a sudden realization. Chris’ cynical observation had been right. “You gave the story to the media!”
“Of course I did. I know how to work the press.”
Alicia looked at the smirking face and couldn’t believe she had ever been taken in by the illusion. Davina Dove and Magnus Wolff – both facades they’d adopted, both of them paper tigers. She’d never watch a television show or movie in the same way again, that is if she lived to see one.
“If killing Davina was such a spur of the moment thing, why did you make sure you left the hotel without using the key card.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them.
“You know, you’re too smart for your own good. All right, I’d talked to her about the new show in the afternoon. That was the fight everyone heard. She said under no circumstances would she release me from my contract. But I decided to ask her again, give her one more chance to let me go. She should have done it. She could have found another sous chef. But she liked having power. And she liked rubbing it in that she had beaten me on Mighty Chef.
“I’d worked too hard and waited too long for my big break to let her take it away from me. And I’m not letting you take it away either.” He saw her look at the weapon in his hand. “No, I think a second head injury might be a little too much. You’re going to be found in the freezer,” he said, indicating the large, walk-in one, “tragically frozen to death, a victim of your desire to solve Davina’s murder.”
While he’d been explaining Davina’s sins against him, she’d managed to slide slowly along the island towards the corner closest to the rotunda door. She had to continue to keep him talking while she waited for the right moment. She knew what to do if he gave her the chance. She just needed a distraction. The element of surprise would be in her favour. He was agitated, sweating. If he would just take his eyes off her for a moment, but he was like a cobra, watching, waiting, poised to strike.
Her mind raced as she calculated the odds ˗ flight or fight? She knew she could beat him if she could just catch him off-guard. But could she outrun him? He was taller than her with longer legs and looked muscular and fit. The odds of outrunning him were against her. Fight it was.
“You should have minded your own business,” he went on. “I did some investigating of my own. You had a nice life with your husband and your farm.”
His use of the past tense wasn’t lost on Alicia and she had no intention of letting him take everything away. So, he knew about her. The question was, how much did he know?
As if reading her mind, he said, “People in this town talk.”
“That’s because they trusted you,” she said bitterly, thinking she had been one of them. “They thought they knew you because of the show.”
“Yeah, well there’s nothing real in reality television. And if you think you’re getting near me with those lethal hands of yours, forget it.”
Magnus was breathing hard, the sound raspy in the quiet room, and she realized with surprise that it was fear that was the cause of his agitation. This wasn’t like the first time – the surprise blow that caught his victim off-guard. This time he faced an opponent who not only knew his intent but had the skills to stop him, given the chance.
She could feel her own heart pounding and the adrenalin pumping through her veins. Unlike Magnus, she had trained for this. If she could just get that heavy metal tool out of his hand…
As she thought, she’d shifted further along the island and had reached the end but he’d finally noticed and moved to cut off her avenue of escape. It was now or never.
Chapter 18
As he drove up the community centre driveway, Chris could see Alicia’s truck parked near the entrance. He pulled his SUV up beside it, hopped out and ran up to the main door, only to find it locked. There weren’t any lights on inside but he could see a light under the kitchen door. Assuming she’d been nervous of leaving the door unlocked, he knocked on the glass and called her name but there was no reply. He figured she probably couldn’t hear him with the kitchen doors closed.
“I don�
��t know how she thought I was going to get in,” he grumbled. “She should have waited inside the door for me.”
He set off to go around to the back to the kitchen delivery doors. She’d hear him if he knocked there. Automatically trying the emergency exits as he passed them, he wasn’t surprised to find them all locked as well.
Reaching the back, he noticed a car he recognized parked by the wall. Magnus Wolff’s car. Suddenly, Alicia’s short phone message made perfect sense. She’d said she’d been wrong because she’d discovered that the murder weapon was something from the kitchen and who better to have access to that but the sous chef? Magnus Wolff was the killer and he was in the kitchen with Alicia! Chris pulled out his phone, frantically punching in Marcus Samuel’s number, before carefully trying the door handle. Locked. And at ceiling level, the windows were too high for him to reach.
He took off at a run, explaining to the detective as he went, while continuing his attempts to find an unlocked door. When that proved futile, he found himself back by the rotunda, breath coming in agonizing gasps as he scoured the area for something he could use to get him in the building. A large, landscaping rock in the garden gave him an idea. Without giving it a second thought, he picked up the rock and heaved it through the plate glass window.
*****
The sound of shattering glass in the next room distracted Magnus momentarily. It was the opportunity Alicia had been waiting for. She sprang up, turning in an arc and, using a flying side kick, lashed out with her foot, catching the arm that held the weapon and sending the heavy utensil flying to the floor by the rotunda door. Magnus dove for it, landing on the tile, the momentum sending him sliding towards it. His hand had almost reached the weapon when Chris burst through the door and kicked it into the rotunda. Chris then pounced and pinned Magnus down as sirens were heard, approaching fast.