Murder from Scratch

by Leslie Karst

  “Oh, right.” Stan let off scratching the dog and straightened up. “And you are …?”

  “I’m Evelyn’s cousin, Sally. How about you? Are you a friend of Jackie’s from the restaurant business?” This subterfuge game came so very easily when you just let yourself go.

  He shifted his feet, turning to watch a pair of pelicans as they glided up the coast. “Uh, I’m actually Evelyn’s stepdad. Ex-stepdad, I guess you’d say. Jackie and I have been divorced about five years.”

  “Ah. That explains it.”

  “Explains what?” He glanced my way, then returned his attention to the soaring birds.

  “How Evelyn was when you spoke to her at the memorial. She seemed kind of cold, if you ask me.”

  Stan shrugged, as if he really wanted not to be having this conversation. But I wasn’t yet ready to let him go.

  “I think I might know why she’s upset with you,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah?” A flicker of the eyes in my direction. He was interested, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

  “She told me she overheard you and Jackie on the phone arguing. About the money.” Now this, of course, was purely conjecture on my part. But it finally got his attention. He dropped his gaze from the pelicans, then slowly turned back to face me. From the deflation of his upper body, I guessed I’d hit the mark.

  “I saw the spousal support check you’d written to Jackie,” I said. “Was that it? Were you trying to get out of paying her alimony?”

  Harry pulled on his leash, anxious to get moving. “No,” Stan said, telling him to sit and be still. “Okay, look.” This was directed at me, but from the stern tone of voice, he might as well have been speaking to his dog. “Not that it’s any of your business, but you can tell this to Evelyn. I’ve been paying Jackie a hefty sum every single month since the divorce. It’s been five years now, longer than she helped me through school, and money’s been kind of tight for me lately. Since she’d been doing well enough to open her own place and make a go of it, I figured maybe she’d understand and let me off the hook early.”

  His demeanor had gradually changed. Before he’d seemed aloof and slightly bored. Now his foot was tapping rapidly on the asphalt path and he was clenching tightly at the leather leash.

  “I’m guessing she didn’t agree with your way of thinking.”

  Stan snorted. “Not hardly. But there was nothing I could do, so I let it go.” And then his eyes got wide. “Wait. You can’t think that I had anything to do with …”

  I let him trail off, waiting to see where he’d go with this if I said nothing.

  Harry stood and strained on his leash once more, and Stan yanked the dog back to a sitting position. Then, turning his hard gaze on me, he shook his head. “That’s just crazy thinking. I was nowhere near Jackie the night she died. Here, I can prove it.” He pulled out his phone and clicked and swiped a few times, then held it out for my inspection.

  “See?” he said. “I was in Oakland all of last Tuesday and Wednesday, at a continuing ed course. Here’s the proof of my registration.”

  I examined the page, and saw that he had in fact been signed up for the course.

  “And I can show you my hotel confirmation, too, if you want,” he said, taking the phone back and continuing to swipe at its screen in a manner bordering on the frantic.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “No need.” It wouldn’t prove anything, I figured, since he could have easily made the one-and-a-half-hour drive down to Santa Cruz from the Bay Area the night Jackie had died, with no one being the wiser.

  Stan swallowed, his face softening. “Look, I’m really sorry about what happened to Jackie. She was a great gal, and a great mom to Evelyn. She didn’t deserve that. Would you tell Evelyn for me that if she ever needs anything, all she needs to do is call?”

  Not likely that’ll ever happen, I thought, but nodded my agreement.

  “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to finish this walk so I can get home and get ready for work.” At the word walk, the dog jumped up again, and the two of them made their brisk way down the path.

  I let him get a ways ahead of me and then followed behind with Buster. Might as well give him a real walk, since we were out anyway. As we strolled up the coast along with all the joggers, skateboarders, cyclists, and other dog walkers, I wondered how Stan could possibly be hard up for money, given the salary he must make. I’d Googled the pay for nurse anesthetists after Evelyn had told me his job, only to discover they made a whopping $175,000 a year on average.

  He likely had a mortgage that, given the price of real estate in Santa Cruz, would be considerable. But that couldn’t solely account for his financial straits. A new Ferrari, perhaps? Or a wife with an expensive shopping habit?

  Or could he have an expensive drug habit? I thought, remembering how agitated Stan had become during our discussion. I stopped in my tracks, startling both Buster and the jogger coming up behind us. The health care profession was known for its high instances of addiction—especially among doctors and nurses. And although in the past they might have had access to controlled drugs, especially in anesthesia practice, that was becoming much more difficult, what with all the protections that had been implemented in response to the country’s opioid crisis.

  Which meant that someone like a nurse who’d become addicted back when the drugs were easy to come by would now find himself having to acquire them elsewhere. And on the street, prices could be very high indeed.

  If Stan were in that situation, Jackie’s death would have provided an enormous financial boon to him. But how could I find out if that was in fact the case? If only I could get inside his house to snoop around. I watched the figure ahead of me as he stopped to let the big black poodle smell a patch of scraggly grass and then lift its leg to add a new mark to the spot. Stan had said he was going home to change for work. Which meant he’d be leaving soon thereafter. Maybe I could do some snooping around after he leaves.

  But I’d need to follow him home, to find out where he lived.

  My car was parked near the corner of the next cross street. I hurried to it, unlocked the door, and got Buster settled onto his cushion. Then, creeping along West Cliff Drive at a dog’s pace, I followed Stan and Harry. We were at the lighthouse now, so I figured they had to be near the end of their walk.

  They crossed the street at the public restrooms, and I pulled into the far side of the parking area, ducking down so Stan couldn’t see my face if he happened to glance over at the bright-yellow convertible that had followed him into the lot. If I ever started tailing people on a regular basis, I’d need to invest in a less conspicuous car.

  Stan let the big dog jump up into the back of his SUV, then got in and started his engine. Once he’d turned left onto the road, I pulled out of my spot and followed after, letting two cars get ahead of me. Unlike my T-Bird, Stan’s dull-gray SUV looked like just about every other vehicle out on the road, so I had my work cut out for me. Keep far enough back so he didn’t notice me following, but not lose him in the process.

  The good news, though, is that unless someone has a reason to think they’re being tailed, they generally don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the cars behind them. I just had to hope Stan wasn’t a vintage car aficionado.

  I followed him all the way to the freeway and to the off-ramp at Soquel Avenue, at which point it became trickier, as the traffic was light and I had to keep a lot farther back from him to avoid detection. When he turned off 17th Avenue onto a small side street, I waited at the corner to see where he’d go. He pulled into a driveway about a block down the street, opened the tailgate to let the dog out, and walked toward the house.

  Ditching my car, I headed down the street on foot, taking Buster along as my cover for skulking around the neighborhood. A pair of gopher mounds in a yard across the street and two doors down from Stan attracted the dog’s attention, and while he poked his snout into the holes, I studied the place.

  It was ranch-style bungalow with a broad
driveway leading to a two-car garage. Several ancient fruit trees—much older than the 1970s-era home—stood in the front yard, suggesting the land had been part of an orchard before being subdivided into a housing tract.

  The sound of a powerful engine made me jump, and I looked up to see a shiny red pickup truck pass by. Two bales of hay sat in its bed, and on its bumper was a sticker proclaiming, MY OTHER RIDE IS AN ANDALUSIAN.

  The truck slowed, and when I realized it was pulling into Stan’s driveway, I ducked behind a tree. After a moment the passenger door opened, and a woman climbed down bearing a bag of groceries. His wife.

  So much for my idea of snooping around the house after he left for work.

  I was trying to decide what to do when the door opened once more and Stan reemerged with a small, gym-style bag slung over his shoulder. As he unlocked his SUV and set the bag in the back seat, it occurred to me that I could follow him to at least find out exactly where he worked.

  Walking quickly back toward my car, I kept my face averted till he’d driven by, then watched to see if he appeared to notice the T-Bird parked at the end of the street. No reaction. After he’d turned the corner, I ran the rest of the way down the block, loaded Buster into the car, and took off after him.

  I figured he was headed for one of the medical centers just a few minutes away on the other side of the freeway, and I was right. Telling Buster I’d be right back, I followed him into the clinic lobby, where he greeted a man in pale-blue scrubs and long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, who’d been speaking with the receptionist. I hid behind a large placard encouraging people to get their flu vaccine and watched as Stan and the guy in scrubs laughed about something, then pushed through a pair of swinging doors into an area marked MEDICAL PERSONNEL ONLY.

  And so ended my tailing escapade. It hadn’t been terribly productive, but it had provided a couple of good reasons for Stan to be in need of ready cash.

  Now, how could I find out if he truly had been in Oakland the night of Jackie’s death?

  Chapter 14

  I’d just gotten back home when my cell rang. “Javier. What are you doing up so early? Is everything okay?” It was only a little after nine, far earlier than the chef usually started his day.

  “Yeah, everything’s fine. Great, actually. I just checked online, and it shows that the purchase money’s finally been deposited into your account.”

  “All right! Here, let me see if it shows up on my end.” I switched the phone to speaker mode, then pulled up my online bank account. “Hold on … Yes, there it is. Huzzah! Okay, so I’ll bring the contract to Gauguin to sign this afternoon after the restaurant association luncheon. We’ll need a notary there too, but I’ve got a friend from my old law firm I bet would be willing to come in exchange for a free drink or two. And then we can celebrate our new partnership!”

  Evelyn came into the kitchen while I was talking and flashed a thumbs-up as I told Javier to make sure to bring his driver’s license for the notary public.

  “Yay!” she said as soon as I finished the call, then gave me a congratulatory hug. “Can I be there for the official ceremony?”

  “Sure,” I said with a laugh. “Not that it will be terribly exciting, two people signing a bunch of documents, and then the notary signing and stamping the papers afterwards.”

  “But it’ll be a celebration.”

  “Yes, it will,” I agreed. “And we can talk to Javier about you teaching him how to make pasta as well.”

  “Great!” Evelyn took a slice of bread from the loaf in the freezer, dropped it into the toaster, and poured herself a cup of coffee, all the while humming a tune sotto voce.

  “You seem to be in a better mood today,” I said.

  “Yeah. Sorry about that, yesterday. It’s no fun being around someone as morose as I was being.”

  “Well, it’s no fun losing your mom like that, either. I think you’ve been amazing, actually.”

  Evelyn fetched the butter from the refrigerator, then ran her fingers over the various jars crammed into the shelf on the door. “Apricot jam?” she asked, selecting one and holding it up.

  “Right,” I said.

  At the sound of the toast popping up, she set to work slathering the condiments on the bread, then returned them to the fridge. “So did you learn anything last night?” she asked, bringing her coffee and plate to the table. “You know, about the case?”

  “I did, in fact. That guy Max was there, and he talked to Eric and me for quite a while.”

  “What’d you find out?”

  I recounted what he’d said about Al and Jackie collaborating on the recipes, and how Max thought Al had been jealous of his cook, and furious when she left to start her own place. “And check this out,” I said, jumping up. I returned with my laptop, pulled up the review I’d discovered the night before, and read her the relevant parts. “And just a month later, the gal gave Tamarind a review that was a full star less than for The Curry Leaf.”

  “I bet Al didn’t like that.” Evelyn set down her toast with a frown. “You think there’s any chance he’s the one who killed my mom?” she asked in a soft voice.

  I shrugged, then caught myself giving a nonverbal response. “It’s possible, I guess, but it’s not really that strong of a motive. Plus, how could he have even been there that night? I don’t exactly see him and Jackie hanging out together listening to music and drinking, do you?”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh, and I ran into Sarah from the pop-up downtown yesterday before dinner, and she told me that Rachel is planning to reopen the pop-up. According to Sarah, she’s using a different name, but it’s going to be at the same place and have basically the same menu as The Curry Leaf. And she’s doing it right away. It’s supposed to open tomorrow.”

  “Wow,” Evelyn said. “That’s quick. Almost as if she’d already planned it.”

  “Maybe. But before you go off on Rachel as a suspect, you need to hear what I did this morning.” I told her about tracking down Stan during his dog walk, and about his being at the conference up in Oakland the days before and after Jackie’s death.

  “Oh,” she said, shoulders sagging.

  “But it’s not an iron-clad alibi,” I went on, “because he could easily have driven back down to Santa Cruz that Tuesday night she died. And I found out some other things, too.”

  “What?” she asked.

  I stood up to pour myself a second cup of coffee. “Okay, so I originally suspected Stan might be using drugs, based on how agitated he seemed this morning when we talked, and given how common addiction is among medical workers. I figured that would certainly give him reason to be needing extra money. But then I followed him to his house afterwards, and not only is it a pretty nice-looking place, but it turns out his wife has a big ol’ truck that looks brand new. And, get this: I think they might own a horse, too.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, the wife’s truck has a bumper sticker that says MY OTHER RIDE IS AN ANDALUSIAN, and I doubt you’d put that on if it weren’t true. Plus, there were a couple bales of hay in the truck.”

  “Huh,” Evelyn said.

  “I was one of those horse-crazy girls growing up,” I went on, “who read practically every book ever published on the equine species, so I can tell you for certain that owning any horse would cost a bundle, what with boarding and food, not to mention vet bills. And if she has an Andalusian, they’re super expensive, and it probably means she’s into dressage or something. I imagine that even with Stan’s high salary, that whole horse show scene could quickly eat up any money he makes—and give him good reason to be in need of a rapid infusion of some big-time cash.”

  “Which Mom’s death certainly provided.” Evelyn took a bite of jam-and-butter toast, her brow creased in thought as she chewed.

  “Yep,” I agreed.

  * * *

  Four times a year, the Santa Cruz County Restaurant Owners Association hosts a luncheon meeting where we listen to guest speakers,
discuss matters such as which state and local initiatives and candidates to support, and gossip with fellow restaurateurs about who’s going out of business and who’s getting rave reviews on Yelp.

  This was my third SCCROA meeting since inheriting Gauguin, so I was prepared for the monotone PowerPoint presentations concerning marketing techniques and the endless recitation of last meeting’s minutes and issues pending for discussion. I’d snagged a table near the back of the room with my father, who claimed to detest these events but attended them without fail.

  “It’s important to be a part of the community,” he always said. And that was clearly his primary purpose in coming. Right now he was table-hopping, schmoozing with all the other Italian restaurant owners who, like us, traced their ancestry back to the original “Sixty Families,” the fishermen who’d sailed from Liguria to Santa Cruz more than a century ago.

  The president called the meeting to order with an official clinking of fork against water glass, and Dad scurried back to our table to take his seat. As she droned on about an upcoming seminar in San Francisco, I scanned the room to see whom I might recognize.

  Several of Dad’s cronies were at a table near the front, talking among themselves and paying no attention to the announcements being made. The owner of Kalo’s was two tables down from them, peering at his phone while the woman next to him took copious notes of everything the president said. Or perhaps she was simply scribbling down a shopping list.

  I swiveled in my chair and spotted the sushi chef/owner of Genki Desu, one of Eric’s and my favorite dinner spots in town. Catching my eye, Ichirou bowed his head, and I waved back. And then, at the table to his right, I noticed someone who looked familiar. At the sight of the straw hat on the table next to his place—a fancy, Panama-style fedora with a black-and-white-striped hatband—I realized who he was. Al, the owner of Tamarind.

  He caught me watching, and I shifted my eyes, pretending to stare at someone behind him. I think he must have bought it, because he immediately turned his attention back to the president, who was finally concluding her opening remarks.