Annie was almost ready to finish her Stanley Burke report. As far as I could figure, he might be our last hope. If you could call IDing a killer a hope.
TWENTY-TWO
Willow lived up to her name. Tall, gracefully slender, and lithe, just as I recalled, like the lovely tree that inspired her name. Her ultralong hair served to emphasize the parallel. We did a quick review of what we’d been up to since I’d skipped out of law school, leaving Willow behind, and at the top of her class—not that I’d been competition for that position.
“I went the corporate law route, and it felt good not to be poor for a while,” she told me. “But once I got myself out of student debt, I made a beeline out of there. A friend and I started Adams and Yazzie.”
“From A to Z. And that sounds like diversity in action,” I said.
Willow laughed. “That was the idea. We agreed to set limits on what we’d need to succeed, with an eye toward as much pro bono work as possible.”
“Lucky us,” I said, sincere in my thanks. Willow had helped engineer the best possible outcome for Manny.
We turned our attention to Manny when he exited his quarters, looking like a man who had a new lease on life. “I’ll never take it for granted again,” he said. By which I assumed he meant his freedom. Or maybe just his hot shower.
We headed for the Bear Claw in two cars, on a mission for a decent meal for Manny, who rode with me. He was about as chatty as I’d ever heard him. I could have done without some details of his overnight stay in police custody, however. I had no doubt that Moe and Jack would be treated to the same specifics before Manny could put them to rest.
“Every teenager should have to spend a night in jail,” he said.
I chose silence on that suggestion, though I understood his point.
We arrived to find my diner crowded but operating smoothly. The late lunch crowd included some climbers I recognized and members of Beth’s tour group who had eschewed the Talkeetna zip line tour. I saw that the stacks of Vermont were a favorite today and figured Nina had a way of encouraging that choice. It was always easier to get through a rush hour if you could batch-process a menu item.
I was thrilled to see how well things were going without me. Nina had chosen upbeat country music, and I noticed a lot of fingers tapping to the beat. Maybe I could retire even earlier than Mom had and start my program of seeing the rest of my great state.
Nina immediately offered to set up a special table for us in the kitchen, as she’d done once before for the truckers. Instead, the three of us picked aprons from the stack of clean ones and pitched in.
“This reminds me of summers in college,” Willow said, showing adeptness at carrying the Bear Claw’s heavy plates along her arms. “But it wasn’t as much fun as this is, when you’re BFFs with the boss.”
“Same here,” Manny said. “Like my busboy days until I got my driver’s license.” He hosed off a tub of cutlery, stacked it all into the dishwasher, and prepared the utility cart for the next load.
When the crowd thinned and we took our turn at being served, Victor approached with a question.
“Ready for something new?”
“Sure,” Manny said.
“Of course,” Willow said.
“Maybe,” I said, with a nod to the absent Oliver and his steadfast adherence to what he knew worked.
“Give me a few minutes,” Victor said.
Manny had never gotten the chance to tell us how he tracked down his son, except to tell us that he’d seen Oliver’s photo in an article on classic American diners. But how did a long-haul trucker happen upon an article in a food magazine?
When Chris and I were at his house, Manny had been recounting his failure to find his son through the social work system when Trooper had unceremoniously pulled him away from us. He was never arrested, I reminded myself, mentally sending an angry look toward the Bugle and its staff. I wondered, but would deny it if asked, where Chris was now. Probably talking to Trooper, learning after the fact that Manny had been released.
Poor Chris. Not.
Manny picked up his story now, while we waited for what Victor had promised: something different for lunch.
“I couldn’t get anything from the ER, as I told you before, Charlie, but I knew there were only a few places in the city at that time where an orphan—I hate that word. I hate that I did that to my son—where an orphan would be placed.”
My heart went out to Manny. I couldn’t help thinking that nowadays young Manny’s story would be fodder for a talk show. Or he’d be able to sell it to a tabloid and use the money to hire a private investigator to find his child. Did that make things better? I couldn’t say.
“You were a kid yourself, Manny,” Willow said. “How were you supposed to take care of a baby with no support?”
I was glad Willow confirmed what some of us had been telling Manny since we heard his moving confession of two nights ago.
“One thing I did have going for me was a driver’s license, so I got a job where they weren’t too picky about experience, and it was good for me because I could sleep in my truck, and eventually I graduated to a rig with a sleeper cabin.”
“You mean trucks have sleeper cars, like trains?” Willow asked.
“Sort of. More like an RV. You have blackout curtains for the cab windshield. You’ve got a bunk and a microwave and a small fridge. Let’s see, what else? Lots of storage for food and clothes.”
“Don’t forget the pull-down table and television set,” I said, showing off, thanks to a special tour I was given by Moe when he was assigned a brand-new big rig a few months ago.
“My knowledge of worlds outside of the law is severely limited,” Willow said.
“The rigs saved me during that very bad time. They gave me a home, and driving always calms me down,” Manny said.
Willow and I agreed that it was hard to imagine the calming effect of driving an eighteen-wheeler, especially on the wild freeways of the lower forty-eight. I remembered the time a huge semitruck carrying a load of furniture tried to go across the Golden Gate Bridge through a toll lane that was too narrow for its load. The big white truck was stuck, unable to move forward or backward. Eventually, other lanes were opened so vehicles could pass, and San Franciscans hardly paid attention to the odd sight. Just another day of commuting. That was a part of northern California that I didn’t miss.
I wanted Manny to get to the clue that brought him to the Bear Claw and his son. But there was one more interruption to our conversation, when Victor and Nina arrived with our lunch plates.
To call what appeared on the plate a sandwich would be only a fraction of the story. Victor wouldn’t share the recipe until we’d each taken a bite or two.
“Shepherd’s pie?” I asked, hurrying to take another sample.
“Yup. Leftover shepherd’s pie between two pieces of buttered toast and cheese. It’s a grilled cheese extravaganza.”
“That was my idea,” Nina said. “I named it. If you want it on the menu, that is.”
I smacked my lips. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s delicious. And a brilliant way to use up shepherd’s pie leftovers.”
Two thumbs-ups from Manny and Willow sealed the deal; they were too engaged in chewing to comment otherwise.
After polishing off the extravaganza, definitely a Nina word, Manny was back in narrative mode.
“I don’t know why, but a church lady took pity on me one of the times I went back to Anchorage.”
“You kept going back?” Willow asked.
Manny nodded. “Times were changing, rules were changing, and I kept hoping one of those days it would be okay to tell me where my son was. I don’t know if the rule did change or this lady was just sick of seeing me, but she told me she’d see what she could do. Next thing, she calls me and says that she looked through the old files and saw that a few years before, Oliver
went to Paris to study. He needed some kind of papers for his student visa. And he wrote ‘education at a cooking school’ on the form. That was the last thing in his file, and it might have been around twenty years old, give or take, but it was a lead.”
“And that’s why you happened to be looking at cooking magazines,” I said.
“Yeah, anything for a clue. It’s not like I could afford to go to Paris, right? And even if I could have, there was no guarantee he would still be there. Then I saw the article with the little photo and I knew. He had changed his last name, but I could tell.”
“And the rest is history.” I was sorry almost as soon as I said this. Usually the expression refers to a happy ending, and this one was at best mixed, with his son, so recently found, now lost again. But Manny didn’t object.
Willow offered to take Manny home so I could hang around the Bear Claw and help clean up. I felt it was about time.
“So this is what ‘pro bono’ means,” I said, teasing, to Willow.
“I’m just glad it all worked out. They’re not always this easy, you know.”
Willow and I promised to see each other before the next crisis.
I joined my staff in the kitchen until it was picture-perfect, ready for a cooking magazine, like the ones Oliver hated, but had brought his father a measure of joy.
I called in Tammy and Bert, only too happy for the extra time, and sent Victor and Nina home. In between, I called my mom.
“I’m glad Manny is out of the woods,” she said. “He’s been through a lot. It was nice that you could help.”
“It was more Willow’s doing, and Moe’s and Jack’s, but it worked out well.”
“The house is all ready for Dad,” she said.
I imagined Mom had stopped to pick up their mail and newspapers and done grocery shopping and laundry and fluffed his pillow. It would be as if Dad had never left the full-service cruise ship.
“They’ll be taking an early flight, from somewhere,” she continued. “I forget his exact itinerary, but the Russells are taking care of it all. He’ll be here late tomorrow afternoon. I have everything I need to make his favorite blueberry waffles for dinner.”
Was it only diner folk who mixed up breakfast, lunch, and dinner foods? It wasn’t unusual for me or my parents to have leftover moose meatloaf for breakfast, cereal and fruit for lunch, and eggs Benedict for dinner.
Speaking of whom, I needed to pay the living, four-legged Eggs Benedict a visit.
“I’m going to head home. Unless you need me for anything?” I asked my mom.
“Nope. Unless you need to talk?”
“Talk?”
“You know. The thing with Chris today.”
“Not a big thing at all, Mom. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Okay. Let’s both get a good night’s sleep.”
“Works for me. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I was happy the so-called thing with Chris hadn’t ruined the rest of my day. Manny’s release, catching up with Willow, hearing Manny’s story, being back at the Bear Claw in an apron. A lot of pluses.
When Chris didn’t come around to the Bear Claw after finding that Manny had been released from custody, I was pretty sure he knew what was up. Otherwise, he might have been on my case about not waiting for him and avoiding his calls.
He wasn’t dumb. He knew he’d blown it.
He’d been inconsiderate, printing Manny’s name like that. Ambitious, at the cost of someone’s reputation. Untrustworthy. Selfish.
All of those things, and more. But not dumb.
I headed home, eager to see Benny. Playing with him would add one more pleasure to the good things that had happened today.
Unfortunately, one bad thing stood out. We still didn’t know who had killed my friend and chef. I reviewed the list of suspects in my head and mentally crossed off people as I drove along Main Street toward my house.
The only person I couldn’t clear in my head was Oliver’s brother, Stanley. My mom had cleared Kendra with a quick call to her office, where her boss verified that she’d been at work that day without interruption. I trusted Mom to be creative enough to fabricate a good reason for her question.
As far as I’d heard, no one knew where Stanley worked, if he did. He looked older than Kendra, who was almost sixty, closing in on retirement age. Maybe he had all the time in the world to murder his brother.
Thinking this way wasn’t healthy, I realized, let alone while driving. I admired the law enforcement community, who had to entertain these thoughts day after day and still live a normal life. I was glad this was a one-off project for me.
I waved to Lucas on his porch as I passed his shop. When things got back to normal for me, I’d have to visit him and tell him how his chest with its secret drawer had led to clues that helped solve a murder. If and when it did.
Back to Stanley. What was his alibi? I repeated the question to myself so I wouldn’t forget to follow up.
Another important question: what could Stanley’s motive be? In the fleeting moment I’d had with him at the memorial service, I picked up that he was aware Oliver had been in some kind of trouble. He may have known that Oliver was preparing to leave the area because of it.
Stanley wasn’t mentioned in Oliver’s attempt at a will. Another possible motive to fight and ultimately kill his brother?
Mom was occupied with getting ready for Dad’s return, and Annie, her deputy partner, was busy getting ready for Pierre’s trip to the lights, maybe to join him, so I doubted that team had followed up on Stanley, my last, best hope for a killer.
I’d have to take care of that myself.
* * *
* * *
I stopped at the grocer’s close to home to replenish staples that had been depleted by the extra mouths to feed this week. I picked up extra tuna treats for Benny and a bag of popcorn kernels for Annie and me in case Pierre left without her and we needed to stream a feel-good movie. I carried two bulging paper sacks up my front steps, always a challenge since, until June came along, there were bound to be pieces of ice in random spots. I set the bags down in an ice-free zone and unlocked the heavy oak door.
I was surprised to find I had to push the door open against a mess on the floor inside the house. A basket near the recliner that held sewing, catalogs, paperbacks, and other odds and ends had been tipped over, its contents strewn everywhere. A scatter rug had been pushed to the side, not neatly.
Benny? It wasn’t like him, even though he had been left to his own devices a lot this week. Maybe something like a loud noise, a bird hitting a window or a vehicle backfiring, had rattled him and he’d done this in an agitated state.
But no, of course not. A dining room chair had been knocked over. Benny couldn’t do that.
I left my groceries on the table and walked through the rooms, nearly breathless, finding pockets of upset everywhere. Drawers had been opened, contents thrown around. A favorite vase had been dropped or tossed to the hardwood floor in the hallway, where it had shattered.
Someone was looking for . . . what?
Then I panicked. Benny! Why hadn’t he come to greet me?
“Benny!” I called out.
I hurried forward, looking in all the corners, calling his name. I could finally breathe when I found him in the back bedroom where Mom had slept, hiding inside his tree house. He peeked out now and hurried down when he saw me. I picked him up, held him against my shoulder, close to my heart, and ran my hand gently down his back.
“Benny. Who did this? Who came in here and scared you? Who messed up our house?” I stroked his chin, his neck, rubbed behind his ears.
Then I panicked again. What if the person were still in the house? No, I reasoned, there was no car out front. Or yes, I reasoned, that’s why Benny had been hiding.
I kept Benny on my s
houlder and took my smartphone from my pocket. He wouldn’t stop growling. Not a frightening growl, but a frightened growl.
I hit nine-one-one, but what good was that going to do? There was never an officer of the law closer than a half hour away. I left a message with the dispatcher anyway and walked around the house again, alert for a foreign sound or smell. It was deathly quiet until the ice maker in my fridge released a batch of noisy new ice. I jumped, scaring Benny. He leapt out of my arms and raced back to the bedroom, where I found him on the highest level of his tree.
I was convinced there was no one in the house now.
Then I panicked again, for the third time? The fourth? I’d lost count. What if Benny was hurt? I could feel my heartbeat pulsing in my throat. No wonder Benny hadn’t calmed down yet. I reached for him, still in the guest room that housed his tree, and held him away from me, looking for bruises, blood. I laid him on the bed. When did he ever allow me to do that? He stayed there obediently while I felt all over his body, running my fingers through his fur, inspecting every inch.
I couldn’t feel any bruising and he wasn’t flinching at all, but I couldn’t take any chances. Fortunately, I had Doc Sherman, our family doctor, part-time coroner-elect, and emergency vet on speed dial.
I explained what I’d found in my house, how I was worried that Benny might be hurt in a way that I couldn’t detect.
“Leave the house, Charlie,” he said. His tone was serious, no-nonsense.
“I called nine-one-one.”
“Listen to me. Put Benny in his carrier and leave the house. Use one of the pills I gave you for Benny if he resists. I’ll meet you at my office.”
I grabbed my tote-cum-purse and fished Benny’s carrier out of the hall closet. I knelt down and had set about unzipping the carrier when something in my peripheral vision caught my eye. I’d missed it in my initial inspection of the house, but now I saw a piece of cloth out of place. One of my dish towels had been thrown over the Bennycam.
Mousse and Murder Page 21
