Fatal Fried Rice

by Vivien Chien

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  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

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  For Sasha,

  the best little dog there ever was.

  Thank you for 15 years of unconditional love and companionship.

  You’ll always be in my heart.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A world of gratitude goes to my agent, Gail Fortune; my editor, Nettie Finn; to Kayla Janas, Allison Ziegler, Mary Ann Lasher, and all of St. Martin’s Paperbacks.

  Hats off to the Sisters in Crime—both locally and nationally—and to the Crime Writers of Color.

  Much love to my family and friends who always have my back during the good, bad, and the ugly.

  And a very special thanks to my readers, who are some of the finest people an author could ever ask for.

  CHAPTER 1

  “If you tell anyone about this, I’m gonna have to kill you,” I said, staring my best friend squarely in the eye.

  “Okay, geez, Lana. I won’t tell anyone. No need to be so dramatic.” Megan rolled her eyes as theatrically as possible.

  “No one can know what I’m doing or where I’m going. Not even Adam. If they were to find out—” I paused. “Well, I don’t even want to think about what would happen.”

  “I said okay, Lana Lee. Now will you get going? If you don’t leave right now, you’re going to be late.”

  I checked the time on my cell phone. I hated it when she was right. “Fine, I’m leaving. If anyone comes looking for me—”

  “No one is going to come looking for you. Would you relax?” Megan stood from her seat at the kitchen table and waved her hands at me, shooing me out of our apartment.

  I patted my black pug, Kikkoman, on the head and made my way out the door.

  As I hurried through the parking lot, I debated whether I was being dramatic. Perhaps. But if my mother found out that her youngest daughter, and manager of the family restaurant, Ho-Lee Noodle House, was taking a Chinese cooking class—with strangers—her hair would probably light on fire.

  A few weeks ago, my older sister, Anna May, who can be an absolute thorn in my side, had begun giving me an extra-hard time and teasing me persistently on my lack of cooking skills in the Asian cuisine department. Did I love Chinese food? Yes. Did I want to cook it myself? Not really.

  Aside from making rice, the whole thing was an ordeal that I’d rather not get mixed up in. But now that I was in charge of the family business, it was a little odd that I didn’t know how to make eighty-five percent of the items on our menu. Not that there was really a need for me to do much cooking at the noodle house. Our head cook, and one of my very best friends, Peter Huang, was miraculously never sick, and didn’t request many days off. In the instances where he was out for the day, our evening chef and backup, Lou, would pick up the slack. My sister and mother were then next in line for kitchen duty. So, really, was any of this necessary? It was still a question I couldn’t answer.

  But man, did it eat at me that my sister was being this relentless. So here I was on a Tuesday evening, driving out to Parma, a large suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, for an adult course in ethnic cooking. I’d been nonchalantly watching the course listings at a local learning center as each quarter offered classes to the community on cooking for different cultures. The last class had been for Mexican food, but oddly enough I can wrap a burrito like nobody’s business, so I figured I was okay in that department. When I saw that they were featuring Chinese food for the next eight weeks, I signed up for the class posthaste.

  Northeast Ohio in September can be an interesting place. Things either get cold really fast and we’re forced into an early winter, or we’re blessed with random spurts of eighty-degree days that trickle all the way into December. Right now, we were experiencing a warmer than usual beginning to the fall season. And that was perfectly fine with me since I was not a huge fan of chilly weather.

  I took I-480 eastbound toward Brook Park, blasting my stereo and singing along to the Arctic Monkeys. The car is the only place you’ll catch me testing my vocal abilities. All things considered, I was in pretty high spirits. It had been a rough summer at Asia Village, the plaza that houses our family’s restaurant, and it was nice to look forward to doing something regular and mundane. I homed in on the fact that eight weeks from now, I was going to have some impressive Asian culinary skills and would wow my sister and my mom. Of course, my boyfriend, Adam Trudeau, would be amazed too, but he didn’t really seem to care if I could cook Chinese food. I think the man would be happy if we had chicken wings and curly fries every night of the week.

  I merged off the freeway at the Tiedeman Road exit, and turned right heading toward Barton’s Adult Learning Center right across from the local community college. Within ten minutes, I was turning into the parking lot of the two-story, glass building and feeling the excitement of my secret jump around in my belly.

  When I got out of the car, I turned toward the street to look across the way at Cuyahoga Community College. It had been a long time since I’d been on this side of town. Memories of times past flooded my mind as my eyes swept over the length of the Tri-C campus. Though Megan and I had graduated from Cleveland State University, I had spent a little time at the local college. Aside from the community events they held, like music festivals and Fourth of July celebrations, I’d taken a few courses there back in my college days.

  My line of sight traveled over to the southern entrance of the school, and I visualized a younger, more innocent version of myself scurrying to the doors, rushing to get to class. A laugh escaped at the thought of how naïve I had been at the time, and though I’d mostly held on to my idealistic ways, there were parts of me that had changed. I was now more aware of the darkness that hid in society, and for a brief moment I wished for those careless days of thinking that nothing horrible could touch you. At twenty-eight years old, the times of thinking that I’m invincible are long gone.

  Some of that is due to the things I’ve experienced in the past year: a few murders, a boatload of deceptions, and, of course, working with the public.

  I shook the thoughts away and turned to head toward the main entrance of Barton’s. They’d provided a map in their course book, and I pulled it out of my tote bag to find where I needed to go. The adult learning center wasn’t very big and looked like a repurposed office building. The lobby led into an open common area covered in neutral tones with couches, chairs, and dark wooden tables sprinkled throughout. Artwork by local talent adorned the walls and I vaguely remembered reading in the course book that everything was for sale. I thought that was nice of the school to support local artists, and I made a mental note to check out what was available to purchase.

  I found my class at the end of the hall, and watched a variety of people walk into the room, noting that so far, I was the only one of Asian descent. Even though I’m only half Taiwanese, you wouldn’t know it by looking at me. A bit of insecurity slipped in at the idea of what people would think of someone like me taking a class like this. Shouldn’t I already know
how to cook Chinese food? Didn’t I have a family member who could teach me these sorts of things? Should I tell people that I was adopted?

  I shook my head at that last thought. Nonsense, Lana, no one is even going to be thinking about you because they’ll be too concerned with themselves. I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath, and continued on into the room, repeating positive affirmations in my head. This was going to be the best cooking class ever.

  CHAPTER 2

  I walked into the classroom with my chin up, attempting to not recreate the sensations of insecurity and doubt that come along with something like your first day in high school. Legend has it that some people actually looked forward to their first day, and rumors from past generations often said those were the best years of your life. If you’re asking me specifically, that still remains to be seen. I have never actually met anyone in my age bracket that can confirm this supposed truth.

  The room was almost full, and I found myself staring into a gathering of faces that well represented the American melting pot minus the Asian demographic. A mixture of ethnicities and ages sprinkled the eight cooking stations lined up neatly in two rows. A larger, more elaborate cooking island stood at the front of the class.

  While I assessed the room, I hadn’t realized that I’d frozen in place near the door and was staring blankly at everyone in front of me. Suddenly, I was sixteen years old all over again and wondering if I’d forgotten to do something crucial like zip my pants.

  A thin, blonde woman in her mid-fifties who sat at the table closest to the door smiled brightly at me. “Hello, are you the class instructor?”

  A nervous laugh bubbled out at the insinuation and it took me a few seconds to put two and two together as to why she would assume that I was the teacher. “Oh, no.… I’m here to take the class too.”

  She tilted her head in confusion, but said nothing else.

  I smiled awkwardly and headed to the last empty cooking island all the way in the back of the room. Some things never change, I guess. While my mother had always firmly believed that I should be front and center in any class I was taking, so that my teacher would notice me, I didn’t like the attention. Never in my life have I been the person who raises their hand to answer or ask questions. Funny considering that now all I seem to do in my spare time is ask people things.

  I settled my purse on the stainless-steel countertop, and placed my Asia Village tote bag on the available stool next to me. A few people turned to look my way, but I pretended to be preoccupied with putting my phone on SILENT and avoided making eye contact.

  A few minutes later, a middle-aged Asian woman walked into the room carrying a box of supplies in her arms and a few tote bags slung over her shoulder. She was pretty in a simple sort of way with shoulder-length black hair that was smooth and straight and lacked definition. Her eyeliner and eyebrows were tattooed on, a fad that seemed extremely popular with her generation. Aside from that, she had no actual makeup on except for a barely visible neutral gloss.

  A kind smile spread over her lips as she acknowledged the room. “Hello, I’m Margo Han, and I’ll be your cooking teacher for the next eight weeks.” She set the box down on the counter and removed the tote bags from her shoulder.

  Scattered “hellos” floated around the room as we watched her unpack the box of utensils and bags of supplies she’d brought in. When she was finished, she turned to the large, dry erase board behind her and wrote her name in red marker in the top right corner.

  Capping the marker, she turned around to address the group. “The way this class will be structured is one week of demonstration rotated with one week of hands-on learning. We will learn four popular Chinese dishes to prepare in the next eight weeks. Since I’ll spend the first hour of tonight’s class going over the basics of utensils, equipment, and popular ingredients used to prepare Asian meals, we’ll be learning how to make a simple recipe of fried rice for our first dish. It’s the least time consuming of what I have prepared for you to learn. I’ll start with roll call and then we’ll get right into it.”

  The class attendees all nodded along as the teacher spoke, and I found myself relieved that we would be starting out with something easy like fried rice. I basically knew most of the steps for that as I’d watched my mother make it quite a few times in my life. I wasn’t a huge fan of fried rice and preferred white over it any day, but this was a good way to get my feet wet and build some confidence.

  After she finished calling names, Margo began talking about cooking utensils and popular Asian ingredients. Within five minutes my mind and thoughts started to drift over to people-watching mode. I will be the first to admit that my attention span is not the greatest. And when left to my own devices, I tend to phase off into la-la land.

  The majority of people in the class were women, but there were a handful of men too. Most of the women were older than me, but there were two who seemed to be close to my age. I took some time evaluating each person and what their purposes behind taking this class might be, wondering if I was the only one doing this to show up a family member.

  At the front of the class, I noticed a rather irate-looking woman sitting next to the blonde who’d questioned me earlier. Maybe it was just her face, but she appeared to be scowling at our instructor. Her body language also seemed rigid and her hands were clenching the edge of the cooking island. I couldn’t imagine what her issue would be—Margo was explaining Chinese Five Spice powder, a popular blend of seasonings that was used in a lot of Asian meat dishes.

  The mixture traditionally included cinnamon, fennel seeds, anise, ground cloves, and Szechuan pepper, but different variations existed, some substituting licorice root for anise, for example. But a few potential substitutions weren’t anything to get worked up over.

  I decided to pay attention to Margo for a few minutes, and realized she was making eye contact with everyone in the room except for the angry woman. The speculative side of me couldn’t help but wonder what that was all about. Maybe this woman had taken a class instructed by Margo in the past and didn’t like her methods. Or maybe she thought she knew more than the teacher. There was always at least one know-it-all in every class.

  At the end of our explanatory hour, Margo gave us a fifteen-minute bathroom break and the opportunity to stretch our legs. She would set up her station while we were gone, and the actual cooking lesson would begin when we returned.

  On my way back from the restroom, I ran into one of the younger women in my class. She was considerably taller than me, and I put her at a solid five foot eleven compared to my meager five foot four. If I had to guess, I’d say she was either my age or slightly younger.

  Dazzling a sparkling white smile, she approached me as I neared the brick pillar she’d been leaning against outside our classroom. “Hi, you’re Lana, aren’t you?”

  I returned her smile and stepped to the side, getting out of the way of others returning to the room. “Yes, that’s me.”

  “I’m Bridget. I absolutely love your hair and wanted to ask where you get it done.” Her hand lifted to her own chestnut brown hair, and she ran her fingers through the loose curls that framed her face. “I am so bored with mine and I really want to do something drastically different. You know … make a statement.” Her eyes widened with excitement as if she were sharing a conspiracy theory with me. “But I’ll be honest, I’m kind of afraid to have it done.”

  “Oh, well, thank you,” I replied. My hair was currently recovering from a bout of attempts to dye my bleached peekaboo highlights with a metallic gray that didn’t go over so well. Frustrated with the results, my stylist and I were now adding in a cobalt blue color to help bring out the appearance of tinted silver. “I go to a place called Asian Accents.”

  Her eyes lit up and she gasped. “I knew you seemed familiar. I thought I saw you in the newspaper a while back. There was that article with you and that P.I. lady … Lydia something?”

  I blushed. My hopes of not being recognized by anyone in the class
were shot down. Although I hadn’t thought it would be from the newspaper. I was more worried about running into a Ho-Lee Noodle House customer. “Yeah, that was me.” She was referring to when I’d teamed up with Lydia Shepard, a local private investigator, who helped me handle a tricky situation for Donna Feng, the property owner of Asia Village.

  “So, wait … that means you’re the manager of that noodle restaurant, right? The one that’s over there in Fairview Park?”

  “Yeah…” My face continued to warm; the redness of my cheeks was going to start producing heat waves any minute now. “That’s where the salon is located, in that same plaza.”

  “Oh, okay. Then how come you’re in this class?” she asked, pointing toward the classroom door. “I’d think if anything you’d be able to teach it yourself.”

  “You’d think,” was my reply.

  Laughing, she nudged my arm. “Don’t worry, I won’t judge. I’m a disaster in the kitchen. Before I started taking cooking classes, I was lucky I could even boil an egg. A few months ago, I started dating this guy and he totally made fun of me because I didn’t know how to make French toast. That’s why I started taking all these courses … to hopefully impress him with my newfound culinary skills.”

  I laugh good-naturedly remembering the first time I’d cooked for Adam. He’d been quite surprised that I’d known how to do anything in the kitchen at all. “I can relate. How many classes have you taken so far?”

  “This will be my third course at Barton’s. I took one on general cooking basics, and then a Mexican food class.”

  “That’s great, I hope it’s working out for you. You must really like him to go through all this.”

  “Well, everyone always talks about how the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I didn’t think I’d care about that sort of thing, but yet here I am.” She ended the sentence with a shrug.