by D. J. Lutz
Seeing me attempting to hide in plain sight, and his boss about to end the phone call, Parker asked Larsen to help him process the crime scene. As they left the stage and walked over to the break room, I looked at the camera tech, holding my finger up to my lips.
The camerawoman told me she could play back recordings from any camera. Every feed went directly to the processor, a machine connected by a slew of cables to the large television monitor. This was all possible thanks to the handheld remote controller she used, a state–of–the–art model programmed to sync every piece of equipment she had brought. There were even buttons on the controller that assisted with editing. She called it an essential piece of gear that could “do anything.” With just a few clicks, she had the break room’s video history ready to go.
I asked if I could play with the controller for a minute, just to see how it moved the various cameras. She pointed out everything the controller could do as I watched ceiling–mounted cameras move to the commands of my little fingers. Soon I was recording just like a professional.
Pressing a few more buttons, I changed the monitor’s screen back to the old feed from the break area. The screen again showed an empty room. In the lower right corner was a date and time stamp, showing that this particular recording happened at 12:25 p.m.
Several of the judges had wandered from their jury box to see what I was doing. People tend to do that sort of thing when they think they can help. Many were becoming instant experts at murder investigations, offering their advice and opinion. The uninvited gang became louder as each tried to speak over the opinion of the other. This was just the situation I was trying to avoid, but the judges were there to stay.
Soon enough, instead of commenting on the whereabouts of the contestants at the time of the murder, the ladies were more focused on how their hairstyles appeared on screen. Harmless commentary, I thought. It could have certainly been worse. At least no one mentioned shoes, the one subject that could have elicited physical violence. Clearly, we had already had enough of that for one day.
While the women chatted, moving from hair to the hats last seen in church on Sunday, I asked the technician if the break room’s security camera filmed constantly. She told me the break room’s camera was motion–activated. She had opted to use the automatic camera there so she could focus on personally filming the events on the stage. The break room’s camera sensor allowed for the entire room to be recorded only when someone was taking a break.
I repeated her comment about Grimsby being too cheap to hire a second camera operator. As she gave me a sarcastic expression and a thumbs–up, Drake, who had been standing near enough to watch our little interchange, pointed to his watch. He told his technician she was working for him—not anyone else. He then trotted off to find Captain Larson, I assumed only to confirm in his own mind that he was still in charge. Of something.
Unfortunately, I was still at a loss for what had actually had happened at the time of the murder. The break room camera was in good working order, yet there were a few minutes of video showing no one in the room. With the camera set to be activated by motion, what I had seen did not make sense. I wondered if there was a blind spot the lens couldn’t see, but the motion detector could.
This called for an on–the–spot inspection. Captain Larson and Parker returned from the break room, the senior officer back on his phone. The judges and fellow cooks sat back down to banter various theories about as I took Parker’s arm and pulled him close. I whispered into his ear. “I, ahem, would like permission to visit the powder room, sir. You don’t think there would be any harm in me doing that, do you?”
When I was younger, I had watched my grandmother compete in this competition many times. Previous show producers were much nicer than this Drake person, and they had no problem letting a youngster backstage. I knew full well and good the nearest restroom available was just past the break room. The break room with the dead body.
Parker, being a gentleman, waved me through to the curtained passageway leading to the restroom, and coincidentally near the murder scene. What a nice traffic cop he would make once his boss found out how much he had been helping me. It would be an easy job, especially since Seaview had little traffic. Heck, we didn’t even have a stoplight.
Before I could take another step, the tension in the room elevated as Captain Larson finished writing notes from his phone call. “Dang pencil–pushers, all of them!” Captain Larson looked at his watch, checking it against the time on the clock suspended from one of the towers of scaffolding mounted with banks of stage lights. “Thank goodness this is just a murder, and not a crime or anything. We have doughnut stores, here, too, you know. What a bunch of idiots!”
Parker tried to remind him that Seaview actually did not have a doughnut store, but the words mattered not to the infuriated chief. Ignoring his young officer, Larson told the crowd he had called the VCID back, asking if and when they would arrive to assist in the investigation. I guessed that the delay was the only reason the chefs, judges, and I had been ordered to sit in front of the stage.
The judges started to mumble, saying Larson had no idea what to do next. I suggested that he call his forensics team to process the evidence. The officer could only muster a benign and embarrassing retort, saying Seaview didn’t have a certified forensic technician. At the breaking point of frustration, Captain Larson blew his whistle. With everyone’s full attention, he announced the new goal was to “secure and contain” the area and prevent evidence from becoming further contaminated.
I asked if he wanted to lock the doors since the killer was obviously still in the room. The only reply I received was another short blast from the whistle, and a finger wag telling me to stay away.
Captain Larson’s conundrum was of no matter to me because I had been given official permission to leave the stage by another police officer. So I did. With the Captain back on the phone, he was unable to stop me verbally. As he motioned wildly for Parker to stop me, I wandered to the back side of the cooking stations, past the open–air pantry and found my way to the short, curtained hallway leading to the break room.
The walkway was just wide enough for an average–sized man to ease through without ruffling the dark red velour bordering each side. The heat of banks upon banks of stage lights was a distant memory once I felt the cold breeze blowing from the overhead vents. It was actually kind of chilly. I had a quick thought about Parker, and how he and I could spend a few minutes hidden away here, far from the crowd. That would warm me up!
Entering the break room, I had to step carefully. There were little splatters of blood everywhere. Ironically, the break room was not really built for comfort. No carpet, no mood lighting, no scenic photography by Ansel Adams on the wall. Nothing that would say relax. But it did have a coffee table and one overstuffed sofa, a thrift store reject covered with a dark floral pattern that was probably popular back in 1970.
Then there was the body. Chef Pierre St. Pierre was indeed dead. His stiffened body rested in peace on the sofa. The remainder of the area was far from peaceful. The man’s long white chef’s coat gleamed in the brightness of the lights. In dark, morbid contrast, his stovepipe of a white toque had taken a tumble to the floor and soaked up drips and drabs of the poor man’s blood. A white hat rimmed with red blood would appeal to no chef, ever.
Aside from the sofa’s tacky slip cover, I took mental note of its position, pacing eleven steps from the doorway to the sofa across the room. I reached my objective, then turned around to face the video camera mounted high on the wall above the door. The little red light on top of the camera blinked. The motion detector had worked, causing the camera to record my every move.
As I walked back to the door, I took out my phone and snapped a few photos of the blood. The red dots on the floor were evenly spaced, perfectly round circles. Had the victim been running away from the killer, there should have been more space between drops, and the circles would have been more like ovals or teardrops. This chef eith
er did not know he had been stabbed, or had resigned himself to his fate. There was no evidence of Chef Pierre running anywhere.
In my care to avoid stepping in a crimson biohazard, I brushed against the coffee table. There were a few hand–drawn maps of the stage setup sitting on top of the table. Pencil lines pointed to certain areas of the pantry, with dotted lines leading back to each of the workstations on the main stage. The chefs had made an action plan in an attempt to not get in each other’s way during the prep time.
The sound of clinking glass caused me to stop. I had not seen anything except paper on top of the wooden table, but something somewhere must have made the telltale sound. Sure enough, on the shelf underneath the table were five wine glasses, probably moved to make room for the invasion plans.
Four glasses had the sticky goo of old purple–red wine in the bottom; one glass had fire–engine red lipstick prints gracing the rim. The shade looked very close to the gloss adorning one or two of the competitors, and I didn’t mean my grandma. She always used some sort of homemade beeswax concoction. Grandma Velma wasn’t old, really, but she was definitely old school.
After taking a few more photos, I continued my short journey to the door. Once again, I was stopped—this time by my own brain telling me something was missing. If there were wine glasses, where was the wine bottle? I had spent my time looking down. Had I missed a key bit of evidence?
There was nothing else in the room. Had the room been cleaned? Grimsby would not have hired a janitor, especially since the money could have been better spent on a second camera technician. Plus, there was no time to clean. I took one more look around, even squatting down and lunging into a poor excuse for an upward–facing dog yoga position, just to see if I had walked by a bottle or two.
Fortunately, the missing bottle mystery was solved when I noticed an overturned, almost empty bottle of wine protruding from under Pierre’s stiff leg. Judging from the scant amount left in the bottle, I assumed four contestants had each consumed one glass.
“Well, at least you had one last good meal, chef.” I didn’t really know the guy, but I felt sorry he had passed away virtually alone, save his liquid lunch companion—a last glass of vino to numb the pain he must have experienced.
It was time to return to the seating area. I had been gone far too long for a normal visit to the ladies’ room. I thoroughly anticipated a solid scolding from Captain Larson, who would now have to include my shoe prints in the evidence package, since his own officer had let me accidentally wander into the crime scene.
The red velour curtains forming the passageway felt soft and inviting as I walked back. The peacefulness of the cool, lush hallway contrasted with the cold, impersonal feeling I had in the break room. Seeing the corpse made me want to do more than prove my grandmother’s innocence. Now I had to find the killer. Indeed, I was an acorn falling from my parents’ tree.
I returned to the stage; there was work to do.
4
Captain Larson loudly cleared his throat and announced that the boys from the VCID would be delayed for a few more hours. “Apparently there is a higher–priority case in a rather well–to–do neighborhood in Norfolk,” he said. “They told us to take a few photos and then lock the place up once the funeral home takes the body away. Well, in my opinion, no one leaves until I give the authorization. This is my crime scene!”
My grandmother started to interject, but Grimsby beat her to the punch when he stood up and asked, “What about the contest? Can’t the judges at least taste the food? We need to declare a winner. There’s a lot of prize money at stake here.”
“Everything here is evidence, sir. For all we know, the killer poisoned every fruit and vegetable. We may have a single victim now, but we can’t assume Pierre St. Pierre was destined to be the only corpse.” The Captain looked over at the adjudicators sitting back in their seats. After hearing the police chief’s theory, none wanted to take the chance.
I knew Velma would always be a competitor, even under such unusual and risky circumstances. I had to say something before she challenged police authority, an unwise move for someone considered a murder suspect.
“You know what you could do?” I said. “Why not have everyone prepare their picnic meal again, at their own place of business? The judges would visit each restaurant, maybe one place per day. You’d have your winner by Friday. Plus, think of all the extra video your camera will get. It could end up being a weeklong miniseries on television. And you, Mr. Grimsby, you would be the host for the entire thing. This could get picked up by a major food network. Plus, if someone doesn’t show up, you will know who the killer is. You will be the town hero!”
Playing to the man’s ego, my impromptu plan worked better than I expected. In no time, Drake had his clipboard out and was scribbling down production orders and tearing the pages off, throwing them at the frazzled girl behind the camera. I began to think she was his personal assistant, too. Poor woman.
Grimsby finished a skeletal first draft as the judge’s grumbling increasing in frequency and volume. The ladies demanded to know when and where each meal would be, and a few rattled off the order of restaurants they wanted to visit. Grimsby was being usurped.
This boldness frustrated the producer. After a while, the scratch–outs covered more of the paper than the original bullet points. He put the clipboard down on the desk, where upon closer inspection I decided free–range chickens made more legible scratches.
Regardless of the hubbub, all I really wanted to do was get my grandmother back to the Cat and Fiddle. The scene was madness. Drake Grimsby was about to explode. Then there was Parker Williams. His rookie–ness prevented him from taking any sort of initiative to steer the investigation toward another suspect. Any other suspect.
I would have to channel both Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes to solve this case on my own. Will Parker be my Watson or my Ned? Could he be both?
Velma and I stood and started toward the exit. Captain Larson, tired of raising his voice, blew his whistle like a traffic cop during rush hour. We stopped, but did not turn around.
“And where do you think you two are going?”
“Well, we aren’t leaving town. You already put the kibosh on that plan,” I said, my words interspersed with giggles. “We figured we would go back to the Cat and Fiddle and wait for the judges to arrive. Our food is good every day.” Nothing like throwing a little smack talk around.
The Captain pointed his finger for us to take our seats again. I had seen my grandmother use the same unspoken commands. I had pushed about as far as I could, so in an effort to keep myself, Velma, and Parker out of more trouble, I slipped back onto the cold metal folding chair. Velma adjusted her chef’s jacket, and then joined me. At least he didn’t have a wooden spoon to shake at me. That would have brought on flashbacks to my childhood.
Suspects. All murders had them, and this would be no exception. The people who were physically closest to the deceased during the competition were still sitting with us. On one side, a well–dressed gentleman sat mumbling about how he needed to get back to work. His Southern drawl made him sound like he walked right in from the set of Gone With the Wind.
Next to him was a young chef attired in black leather, silver chains, and tattoos. He kept quiet, instead glancing at a younger woman sitting at the opposite end of the row. She reciprocated, mouthing “I love you,” and flashing the same in sign language. This bunch, while appearing to be a strange lot, hardly looked like a lineup of hardened felons.
But unlike the leader of the Seaview police force, I considered them all suspect, every single one of them. Except my grandmother, of course. My new goal was to see how these other people acted in their own environment, a place where they would be more relaxed, less defensive, and with luck, might let a clue or two slip out.
Drake Grimsby walked the line of chefs like a general inspecting his troops. He stroked an imaginary goatee as he confirmed how the contest would now conclude. As he reached each contestan
t, he presented them with the news. Then Drake Grimsby walked to the center of the stage, conveniently under the main spotlight, and after ensuring the camera was focused on him alone, he announced that everyone associated with the contest would be given Sunday off as a day of rest. The church ladies gave him a polite clap, saying the Lord must have heard their prayers. On Monday, he continued, the judging would move to the individual restaurants of the contestants.
The Seagull’s Nest Bed and Breakfast would be first location, since two of the contestants worked there. George Harrison Windsor, our Southern gentleman, was the B and B’s executive chef. He addressed everyone as sir or ma’am, except for the early–twenties couple, whom he referred to as son and young lady.
I found his idioms charming at first, and condescending soon after. However, many people considered George the contest favorite to beat Velma this year, especially since his skill in the kitchen was supposedly superior to the late Pierre’s.
Velma whispered in my ear, “He has formal training as a chef. None of the rest of us do. I still think I can take him, though.”
I slid my finger across my phone’s glass screen, tapped on the little gallery icon, and scrolled through a variety of photos. I found a shot of our café with shiny statuettes lining the shelf behind the cash register and held it up for Velma to see.
“Grandma, how many of these Saucy Skillet trophies have you won? More than any trained chef, that’s for sure.”
Velma, a perennial winner, had no such formal culinary school education. Yet, the long line of awards testified to her ability to produce quality food. I had been working in the café for over a year and had not heard a single negative comment about Velma from a customer.
My skill? Hit or miss. Apparently you have to stab potatoes with a fork before you bake them in the oven. That was a definite miss.
