Mousse and Murder

by Elizabeth Logan

  “You’ve been in customer service in a way for many years,” she continued. “You’ll know, sweetie. Just keep your eyes and ears open. I’ll be doing the same. We’re going to find Oliver’s killer.”

  It seemed that roughly half of a cruise ship existence was enough for my mom. I no longer wondered what she was going to do in retirement. I couldn’t wait to see how Trooper, her old friend, would react to her vision of her next career as an amateur sleuth. I surprised myself by picturing me, her only child, as a willing partner.

  FIFTEEN

  For the last couple of miles between the Chapel of Atonement and the Bear Claw Diner, my mom used my phone to play with Benny and the laser. She also accessed the remote robotic mouse and found more features than I had been aware of.

  “These apps will never replace hand-to-paw contact,” she said, “but it’s more fun than I thought it would be. I don’t know about talking to him, though. He might have been a little freaked out, wondering where the human behind the voice is.”

  “We have a very high-tech cat. I’m sure he knows what’s happening.”

  “Here we are,” she said, pivoting. “Remember our mission. To root out Oliver’s killer.”

  “Assuming he’s here. He could be anywhere.”

  “Don’t be discouraged, sweetie. We just have to keep at it.”

  I pulled around to the back lot of our diner. Today the jolly bright neon sign over the front windows seemed inappropriate. But I was ready to cook, to serve, and to be on the lookout, using my eyes and ears as Mom had counseled. It occurred to me that she’d given me more detective training than Trooper had.

  Once again, I was proud of my Bear Claw staff. I’d seen Victor and Nina make a beeline for the exit at the chapel once the invitation was issued for a final tribute to Oliver. I’d counted at least three, if not four, “final” steps to the memorial day already, but Oliver deserved every one of them.

  He would have been pleased at how many turned out to acknowledge his great contribution to Elkview’s diner, especially given the short notice Kendra had given us. I looked around as recommended by Detective Mom and saw almost everyone who’d been at the chapel.

  It seemed easier to let people order from the menu than to try to put together something fancier.

  “They’ve already had ‘fancy’ at the chapel. Let’s give them a real lunch,” said Victor, who was all fired up for the task. I did my best to keep from judging him for being so cheerful. His attitude as well as mine was fodder for tonight’s debriefing with my mom and Benny.

  Nina had put her own spin on things when she asked if it would be okay to close off the booths that lined one side of the Bear Claw. I agreed that booths were restrictive, and it would be better for mingling if only the tables were available for today’s guests. The stools would also be handy for the overflow.

  “I unplugged the jukebox,” she said. “The queue was full of rockabilly, which I thought might be too upbeat. I brought some classical music on my tablet. Okay if I play it?”

  “Good thinking, Nina. Thanks.”

  Sometimes I wondered if the Bear Claw needed me at all. Then a voice in my head—Benny’s?—reminded me of the behind-the-scenes work I spent a significant fraction of every day taking care of. Budgeting, inventory control, ordering supplies, paying the utility bills, and—not my favorite—ensuring our compliance with licenses and health-and- safety legislation and guidelines. The last item seemed to change on the whim of our elected officials. I remembered my mom’s anti-stress advice when she’d symbolically handed me the keys:

  “Just keep the lights on and you’ll be fine.”

  It had taken a little more than that, but for the most part, I was enjoying the learning curve. One of the responsibilities I knew I’d neglected was that of any kind of marketing. Mom told me she hated that, too. The one time she’d managed to get something going along those lines was shortly before I came back. She’d gotten the Bear Claw’s name included on a list of what were deemed “Good Old-Fashioned American Diners.” Maybe that could be my particular contribution to the growth of the business. Chris might be able to help. Hadn’t he said we made a good team? Once we cleared up this police investigation, who knew what else might be in store?

  I pushed all that to the back of my mind and focused on today. With soft piano music and the aroma of melting cheese in the background, I tried to talk my mom into sitting on a high chair in front of the register and handing people menus, telling them what on the menu was available this afternoon.

  “You mean you want me to be a greeter? I don’t think so.” She’d pointed to her flat-soled leather boots. “I’m ready to work.”

  She lived up to her promise, working the kitchen and the dining area. And working the room. Now and then, she’d find me and ask how I was doing. I wished there were more to tell, some clue I’d uncovered, an aha moment when the killer slipped up right in front of my eyes.

  Not surprisingly, Oliver’s siblings didn’t show up. Chris told me he’d overheard Kendra tell a couple she couldn’t join them at the diner because she had to be at work early tomorrow morning.

  Trooper was also among the missing, but I expected him to stop in when he had a break in his exacting schedule. That was my hope, that he would consider Oliver’s case as important as any other he might be called to.

  On the plus side, Annie picked up Pierre and two other members of Beth’s tour group who’d offered to help us out. The three of them made decent servers despite their lack of training. Pierre failed miserably, however, when it came to American diner jargon. He didn’t buy the usual rationale—that the lingo was a shorthand means of communication between the waitstaff and the kitchen staff.

  “How is ‘keep off the grass’ shorter than ‘no lettuce’?” he asked.

  He had a point. Victor’s justification was reduced to “It’s more fun.”

  Chris spent some time talking to a woman who seemed to be alone otherwise, both at the service and now in the diner. They each maintained a somewhat serious expression, except for the occasional smile. It was hard to tell her age since she kept bundled up the whole time in a winter coat with a spectacular hat and matching scarf, though the diner was at its usual comfortable temperature. I noticed Chris making two trips to their table, with coffees and two plates of cherry cheesecake mousse.

  My mom came up to me as they started in on the dessert. “Don’t worry, sweetie. He’s with Lana Bickford, Oliver’s ex-girlfriend. Getting some intel.”

  I’d never admit it to Mom, but I was relieved. A little. At the same time, I remembered that Lana was a first-class knitter and sold her craft through her blog. Thus the amazing red bargello hat-and-scarf set she wore today. “Why would I worry?” I asked my mom.

  “No reason,” she said, as she danced off with a tray of water glasses to serve the row of tables.

  Lana stood as soon as Gert Marcus entered the diner. Lana shook Chris’s hand and approached me.

  “Thank you for inviting me,” she said. “It was all very nice.”

  “I’d love to talk to you some—”

  “Have a good day.” She turned so quickly that her scarf almost hit me. She left without looking back.

  Lana and Gert were following a time-honored rule: only one girlfriend or ex-girlfriend at a time in any confined space.

  Mom and I took a turn at loading the dishwasher. We decided not to run it lest it drown out the lovely music Nina had chosen, this time from a chamber orchestra. If she ever wanted to quit the diner, she could apply for a position at the Chapel of Atonement, running their piped-in music department.

  “I assume you planned to absorb the cost of this?” Mom asked when the sink was ready for another round from the cooks.

  “Of course. You might want to mention that in your toast.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to make the toast yourself?”


  “It’s just math, Mom. My one year versus your twenty with Oliver. I’ll stand next to you, how’s that?”

  “Okay.” She cleared her throat. “Just so you know, I moved the tip jar a little, so they’ll see it as they pass.” She cocked her head toward the ovens and stove. “The staff really came through, didn’t they?”

  I couldn’t have agreed more.

  A few minutes later, Chris cornered me in the back hallway.

  “That was Lana, Oliver’s ex, I was talking to. I have a lead on why they broke up, and it fits with what we’re thinking.”

  It was a lively day for information flow in the Bear Claw. Chris related what I already knew about Lana’s crafts and the Alaska State Fair. But the rest was enlightening.

  “There are competitive food exhibits at the fair—I’ve covered them, actually—and Lana was always after Oliver to participate. There were ribbons and pretty sweet cash prizes, but Oliver never wanted any part of it. She apparently oversold it, pushed him too far. He claimed she talked about it all the time since she won prizes every year. One day he just called it off, said she was obsessed with exhibits and prizes, and he didn’t need that kind of approval, et cetera.” Chris threw his shoulders back. “How about that?”

  “Another check mark in the ‘Stay out of the Limelight’ column,” I said.

  “Hey, have you ever thought of entering your bear claws at the state fair?” he asked me. “Or anything else from your kitchen? That incredible cherry cheesecake mousse, for example?” Here he rubbed his stomach.

  “What? No. I have enough to do.” I waved my hand around my diner, now being managed beautifully without me. “I could never compete with the sixty-five-pound cantaloupe that won last year.” It was the best excuse I could come up with for not showing off at the fair.

  He laughed. “Or the thirty-five-pound broccoli the year before?”

  Something that had been bothering me finally surfaced. “Why here? Why come back here if he wanted to hide? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Okay, I won’t nag you like Lana did to Oliver. Are we back to the theory that he was hiding?”

  “He was born here, or close to here. He grew up in Anchorage, at least from when he was eight years old or younger in the group home. He graduated from high school in Anchorage. If he wanted to disappear, why wouldn’t he go to Florida?”

  Chris shrugged. “He likes the cold?”

  I snickered. “Someplace in Maine, then. Or North Dakota. There are plenty of cold cities, if he wanted to remain in the States. One of my college roommates lives in Minnesota, about ten miles north of the Twin Cities. She told me it was minus forty-eight degrees there on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Okay, I hear you. We need to figure out why he came back. It wasn’t for a woman, that’s for sure.”

  “What’s not for a woman?” Annie came to the back of the diner looking for my mom, to tell her that people were making moves to leave and she might want to make her toast soon. She shook her finger at Chris and me, smiling all the while. No one would ever believe that Annie had a strict and scolding bone in her body. “While you’re enjoying yourselves, I’ve been trying to gather intel like your mom told me to, Charlie.”

  “We’re all ears,” Chris said, while I cupped my hands to mine.

  “Don’t get excited. I found Oliver’s girlfriend, Gert Marcus, and bombed. I tried the ‘Where were you when you heard that Oliver had been found dead?’ trick, but she was onto me and said she went shopping in Palmer with a friend all day, then they had dinner together.”

  I told Annie that what she’d reported actually was exciting, since it was the third alibi Gert had offered. Two alibis might be blamed on poor memory. Three alibis means you’re out.

  “I ended up just talking to her about the new theater since she worked for the construction company,” Annie said. “I asked her when it might be open, because we have a plan for a movie a week. Right, Charlie?”

  “Right.” Something like that.

  “Well, much to my dismay, Gert said she didn’t know. She’d quit last week, thinking she might be moving out of the area, maybe to the lower forty-eight, but now she’s up in the air and doesn’t know what she’s going to do. So we’ll have to find another contact at that construction company.”

  “Oliver and Gert were planning a getaway,” I said.

  “How do you know that?” said the small group, in one form or another.

  I opened my mouth to explain, then realized I had no proof. It had been a random thought that wouldn’t have left my mouth if I’d given it any thought. I was glad when the back door opened and Alaska State Trooper Cody Graham entered the already crowded hallway. We all fell silent, as if the teacher had caught us talking during quiet hour.

  When my mom joined the group, it was time to make a move. I broke the silence.

  “It’s time for the toast, Mom.”

  * * *

  * * *

  After a little scrambling to fill everyone’s glass with sparkling water or the soda of their choice, Mom gave a brief but beautiful and heartfelt tribute to her chef and friend, ending with one of his favorite quotes: “A diner is live theater, where the diners are the most important members of the cast.”

  I watched as people reached for their coats and a line started to form for them to say goodbye to my mom and me.

  The sound of silverware clinking on glass broke through the chatter and the music, and one by one, we stopped what we were doing or saying.

  Manny, of Manny, Moe, and Jack, stood on a chair. I smiled, remembering how Moe and Jack, who I just noticed had left early, teased him about his height, or lack thereof, and his age, which was close to retirement status. I thought how nice it was that he wanted to add his own tribute to his friend. He raised his glass and began, in a strained voice that sounded like tears might flow at any minute.

  “I just want to say thank you to everyone. Thank you all for filling in for me. For being there for him when I couldn’t be. Wouldn’t be.” He stopped to catch his breath. “I’m so proud of what he became. Oliver was my son.”

  What? Whoa.

  SIXTEEN

  At least I thought that’s what Manny said. He was too choked up to be really clear.

  Then there was another duh moment. An I-should-have-known moment.

  Manny’s real name was Arnold Quinlan. Quinlan, as in eight-year-old Oliver Quinlan. The boy who was adopted by the Burke family after the terrible fire that leveled the group home where he’d been living.

  Chris and I were in Anchorage waiting for our second session with Kendra, the one that she bugged out on, when we learned Oliver’s birth name. His surname had seemed familiar to me at the time, but I hadn’t been able to make the connection with Manny’s given name. I excused myself on the grounds that Quinlan was a little more common than, say, Rumpelstiltskin, in which case I would have figured it out immediately.

  Oliver had been dead only three days, and so many secrets had surfaced. Who knew how many more were yet to be revealed?

  I became aware that my mom, standing next to me, was talking, in a soft voice, as if to herself.

  “I thought it was a huge surprise when I learned that Oliver was adopted,” my mom said. “I’ve known him for two decades.” She sighed, then continued. “Then again today when Stanley told us he was Oliver’s brother.” She was fanning herself with a menu—because all the ovens were still sending heat our way, or because she’d had too much excitement in the last twenty-four hours, or however many it had been since she left Vienna? “Now I’m hearing that one of my trusty regulars is my departed chef’s father?”

  I stayed close to her, worried she might fall over from exhaustion or shock.

  Manny maneuvered his stocky body down from the chair. He stood still for a moment, as if he didn’t know where he was or in which direction to proceed. Before he could take two
steps, Trooper and Chris were on him, my mom and I not far behind. We removed the rope from a booth, guided Manny to one side, and squeezed in around him. I cleared the way for my mom to sit by the window and slid in beside her. Chris, Manny, and Trooper sat opposite us. My mom reached across the table and took Manny’s hands in hers. No words were exchanged, but the connection was obvious.

  My mom had recovered and resumed her role as healer.

  The other guests, untraumatized by Manny’s innocuous-sounding announcement, wandered out the door, some waving to us as they passed. We were finally alone in the dining area.

  Was it fair to leave all the cleanup to my staff? I thought so, once I scribbled a note and handed it to Nina. We’d close the diner all day tomorrow, Friday, a paid vacation day for any one of them who’d shown up today. Even Tammy and Bert, who’d pitched in. Tammy had served as the perfect greeter, the job my mom had shunned. But then, Tammy wasn’t playing detective. Bert claimed to love the busboy role, which gave him a chance to hoist loaded trays above his shoulder.

  I’d figure out the budget for all this later, as well as whether to include Annie (yes, even though she eventually joined us in the booth) and the three volunteers from Annie’s inn (maybe, unless I learned that they were wealthy tourists). Annie had leaned in to Pierre, both of them in the kitchen when Manny made his announcement. She must have been as surprised as Mom and I were.

  Nina read the note I’d given her to the crew, all of whom gave me a big thumbs-up and seemed to work even faster.

  By the time I turned my attention back to my booth mates, poor Manny was being plied with questions.

  “Did Oliver know you were his father?”

  “Or maybe suspect?”

  “How about Kendra and Stanley?”

  “How old were you when Oliver was born?”

  “Who’s his mother? Did Oliver know her?”