Beignets, Brides and Bodies

by J. R. Ripley

She nodded and disappeared.

  Several additional officers pushed through the side door and joined us. One of the cops opened a small soft-sided black case and pulled out a digital camera. He began snapping pictures while Officers Singh and Collins started stringing yellow crime-scene tape around the perimeter.

  Clive and I just stood there looking stupid. And useless. Neither of which was much of a stretch. I smiled at Clive as if to say, ‘Buck up, buddy. Everything is going to be OK!’

  He glowered back at me, as if to say, ‘I could kill you, Maggie Miller!’

  Clive and I have a special relationship too.

  Highsmith borrowed a notepad and pen from one of his colleagues. I noticed it was a Karma Koffee-logoed pen from the coffee-and-pastry shop across the street from my café. I gritted my teeth and bit my tongue. That place and its husband and wife owners, the Gregorys, were getting to be a thorn in my side. A six-inch prickly cactus thorn.

  And to make matters worse, I was addicted to their muffins.

  To make matters their very worst, I’d recently discovered they also own the fourplex where I rent my apartment. I was only a few months into a one-year lease and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it – financially or mentally.

  Come to think of it, if the Gregorys found out I now had Mom staying with me and a cat, what would they do? Evict me? I was going to have to tread carefully.

  ‘You both found the body?’ Highsmith asked, his pen hovering over the pad.

  I turned to Clive.

  ‘I – I found her,’ he answered.

  I nodded and Clive glowered in my direction. He had found her, hadn’t he? It wasn’t like I was throwing him under the bus or anything.

  The detective closed in on Clive. ‘Was she like this when you found her?’ He waved his pen in the direction of the dead woman and cake catastrophe.

  ‘Well—’ Clive began. Sweat pooled at his hairline.

  I interjected: ‘We weren’t sure if she was dead so,’ I mimicked shoveling, ‘we dug her out a little.’ I smiled weakly.

  Highsmith groaned loudly. ‘Why don’t the two of you wait for me in Ethiopia?’

  ‘That sounds a little far away,’ I replied, confused, ‘but sure, we’ll be glad to drive back downtown and get out of your hair.’

  Clive tugged my sleeve. ‘Ethiopia is the name of a restaurant here in the Entronque, Maggie.’

  ‘Oh?’ I flushed red. Thank goodness; I didn’t think I could afford the price of any international airfare at the moment.

  Clive nodded. ‘It’s on the first floor in the main entry. I’ll show you, Maggie.’

  After promising not to go far – at least no further than Ethiopia – Clive and I left the way we had come. Clive led me around to the building’s main entrance. An art gallery was to the left of the double-door entry and Ethiopia filled the space on the right. Clive held the door to the lobby open for me. The first floor was an upscale arts and crafts mini-mall with shops leading back along either side. The floors were paved in old brick. A green, blue and yellow nine-foot-tall Spanish-tiled fountain in the center of the atrium held a larger-than-life bronze roadrunner. Water trickled from its beak.

  Shoppers wandered in and out of the stores. If the cameras around their necks were any indication, the majority of them were tourists. Navajo Junction was a shopping destination for the locals as well, but during the busiest seasons of the year Navajo Junction, like Table Rock itself, swelled up with out-of-town visitors. Resorts in the area included Navajo Junction on their shuttle bus routes.

  It was all very serene. I might have felt serene myself if it wasn’t for the woman lying dead just yards away from where I stood. The only thing remaining to be seen was whether she’d died a violent death or a clumsy one.

  A middle-aged woman in an orange, red and yellow caftan greeted us inside the door to Ethiopia – a cozy place, with teakwood paneling running halfway up the walls and apple-green paint from there to the ceiling. A full bar ran along the left side. An unattended creamy white baby grand piano sat in the corner near the bar. She guided us to a table for four next to the window and laid out two menus atop the thick gold tablecloth.

  Clive sighed heavily. ‘I don’t think I can eat a thing.’ He thumbed the small menu.

  ‘Come on, Clive. It’s important that you keep your strength up.’ I read through the list of drinks. ‘How about a nice glass of tej? It says here it’s sort of like mead, made with honey and is a traditional Ethiopian beverage.’ I unfolded my tented raspberry-colored linen napkin and draped it across my lap.

  ‘It’s a little early in the day for alcohol, don’t you think?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, ‘but you’ve got to eat something.’

  ‘I’m telling you, Maggie, I have no appetite.’

  I leaned over the table and felt his forehead. ‘You’re not feeling lightheaded or anything, are you?’ His temperature seemed OK to me, not that I knew what to expect. I fell back in my chair. ‘Your blood pressure isn’t acting up again, is it?’ Clive had a bit of a BP issue.

  Clive shook his head in the negative. ‘No, really, I’m fine.’ He fanned his face with his hand. ‘Maybe I will have a drink.’ He turned and looked for our server.

  ‘That’s the spirit.’ I waved to a couple of servers hovering near the register at the bar.

  One of the two waiters stepped over to take our drink orders. ‘I’ll have an iced tea,’ Clive said.

  I ordered the same because it’s no fun drinking alone. ‘So who is this Lisa Willoughby exactly?’ I asked between sips of tea.

  Clive had asked for an extra napkin and was fastidiously wiping cake and icing off his shoes with it. The hostess looked at him with open hostility. No doubt she wasn’t used to her clientele using the restaurant’s expensive linen as shoe rags. ‘One of Markie’s assistants. She is – was – a cake decorator.’

  ‘Did you know her well?’

  Clive hesitated a moment. ‘No, not well at all.’

  I nodded. ‘Still, what a pity. And so young, too.’ My appetizer arrived and I dug in. I’d ordered something called a sambusa – a pastry dough stuffed with beef, minced lentils, green chilies and herbs. Delectable. I wondered if I could make some version of it for the café. I’d been toying with the idea of expanding my menu, possibly including some savory beignets to attract a lunch crowd looking for something more than a sweet treat.

  I offered a bite to Clive but he declined. Our main courses arrived and we ate in nervous silence. I figured Clive was worrying about what was going on back in the stairwell as much as I was. What was taking the police so long? Why hadn’t Detective Highsmith or one of the other Table Rock officers come to tell us we could leave already?

  For the main course, I’d ordered the doro wet, which the menu described as a traditional Ethiopian delicacy: a mixture of chicken simmered in onions and berbere, a blend of spices that I didn’t recognize. Clive had recommended the dish. ‘It’s a delightful, spicy chicken stew,’ he’d explained, urging me to try it.

  Good call. The taste was like nothing I’d ever experienced. Ethiopia was definitely a restaurant worth coming back to. Though remembering the prices in the menu, it would have to be on somebody else’s dime. I wondered, optimistically, if the police would be reimbursing us for the cost of lunch. Highsmith had practically ordered us to come here, after all.

  I’d have to bring Donna, Andy and my nephews. There were several vegetarian options on the menu that I was sure they’d enjoy – like the tikel gomen, made with cabbage, carrots, green beans and potatoes sautéed with olive oil, garlic and ginger. Heck, that even sounded palatable to me, and I was no vegetarian.

  Clive had ordered the gomen besiga, made with beef, boiled collard greens and Ethiopian spices, but left most of his food on the plate.

  I took a sip of tea and sucked in a lungful of spice-scented air through my nostrils. Wow. Not only was the food spicy and delicious, it was good for the sinuses. I should tell Donna about it. She’d probably want
to bottle the stuff and sell it in Mother Earth/Father Sun as an all-natural nasal decongestant.

  A shadow fell over the table. I turned.

  It was Detective Mark Highsmith and his M&Ms were looking C&C – cryptic and critical. He pulled out the empty chair beside me and relocated it to the end of the table. ‘Mr Rothschild, right?’ He focused in on poor Clive. I’d been the subject of that focus before. It wasn’t pleasant.

  Clive swallowed a lump of beef and nodded, then set down his fork.

  ‘Let’s go over your movements this morning, Mr Rothschild.’ Highsmith rested his elbows on the table. I watched his biceps flex.

  With occasional prompting, Clive carefully went over his entire day, what little of it there had been before arriving here at the Entronque. ‘And then when I came back down the stairs,’ Clive waved his hand helplessly, ‘there she was.’ He looked across the table at me. I patted his hand.

  Detective Highsmith scribbled some notes on his borrowed pad and thumped the page with the back of the pen. ‘Let me get this straight, Mr Rothschild. Ms Miller dropped you off at the freight entrance.’

  Clive nodded.

  ‘But because the elevator was broken, you went to the stairwell door?’ Highsmith’s eyes locked onto Clive’s. Clive nodded once again. ‘Why didn’t you go around to the main entrance?’

  Clive shrugged lightly. ‘I knew the stairs entrance was closer. I didn’t relish the idea of climbing up four flights but it seemed better than walking all the way around to the front of the building.’ Clive glanced across the table to me. ‘Besides, the public elevators may have been down as well.’

  ‘And you didn’t notice anything unusual on your way upstairs?’

  Clive shook his head. ‘Not a thing.’

  I nudged Clive. ‘Tell him about the voices you heard.’

  ‘Voices?’ said Highsmith, coming to attention.

  ‘Yeah, you know,’ I encouraged Clive. ‘The voices you said you heard in the stairwell.’

  Clive licked his lips nervously. ‘Well …’ He tugged his bowtie for the umpteenth time then cleared his throat. ‘I thought I heard voices. Arguing maybe. In the stairwell.’ He gulped his tea.

  ‘Were these voices male or female?’ Highsmith inquired.

  Clive frowned. ‘I’m not certain. I couldn’t tell.’

  ‘And you didn’t see anybody?’

  ‘No,’ Clive admitted after a moment.

  Highsmith nodded thoughtfully while Clive and I shot each other questioning looks. ‘There’s only one thing I don’t understand, Mr Rothschild …’

  Clive chewed at his lower lip and rolled his neck nervously. ‘What’s that, Detective?’

  Highsmith folded his hands on the tabletop. ‘I tried the freight elevator.’ His M&Ms bored into Clive. ‘It works just fine.’

  FOUR

  ‘That’s impossible!’ Clive flew to his feet. His raspberry napkin fluttered in the air like a young purple finch on its maiden voyage and his largely untouched plate shot my way like an out-of-control flying saucer.

  I put out a hand to prevent all that alien-looking gomen besiga from ending up in my lap. ‘Whoa!’ I cried. ‘Are you sure, Detective? I mean, if Clive says the elevator was broken …’

  Clive nodded rapidly. ‘There’s a sign and everything.’

  Highsmith scooted back his chair. ‘You want to show me?’

  ‘Of course, Detective.’ Clive squeezed past Detective Highsmith and started for the exit. I swallowed the rest of my tea, wiped my lips and hurried after them. ‘Hey,’ I shouted as they walked quickly past the hostess station, ‘what about the bill?’

  Clive turned and waved as he yelled over his shoulder, ‘Thanks, Maggie!’

  My jaw sagged. I blinked.

  The hostess held out her palm and I handed over my plastic. At least Detective Highsmith hadn’t ordered anything. He looked like he could shovel it away pretty good. What with all those muscles, he probably required a lot of protein. And protein’s expensive.

  The hostess called to the waiter who stuck the bill under my nose. I nodded then waited impatiently for the hostess to run my credit card.

  I caught up with Clive and the detective at the delivery slash employee entrance. The two men were standing inside the small vestibule just outside the freight elevator doors. The doors were open and Detective Highsmith was playing with the buttons.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Clive said, turning to me. ‘I promise,’ he held up his right hand like he was going to say a pledge, ‘the elevator was broken when we arrived.’ He pointed as the stainless-steel doors closed together with a soft rumble. ‘There was a sign and everything,’ he said for the umpteenth time.

  There was no sign now. I scratched my chin. ‘Could the sign have fallen?’

  ‘We looked inside the elevator. There’s nothing on the floor.’ That was the detective.

  I peered at the crack between the floor and the elevator. ‘Down the shaft?’ It was a microscopic slit, barely a millimeter or two, but still …

  Highsmith’s lips quirked up. ‘It seems pretty unlikely but we’ll put in a call to maintenance and have the shaft checked out.’

  ‘Maybe someone removed the sign?’ Clive suggested. The elevator doors slid shut once again. Clive tapped the steel door. ‘I’m telling you. It was taped right here.’

  ‘Did you try pushing the button?’ Highsmith asked, pointing to the elevator control panel.

  ‘No. I mean, why would I?’ Clive snapped. ‘I simply assumed it was out of order and went around to the stairs.’

  ‘Where you proceeded to climb four flights of steps without managing to see Lisa Willoughby lying at the bottom of the stairwell?’ Highsmith sounded a wee bit skeptical.

  ‘I’m telling you, Detective, she simply wasn’t there. Not until I came back down. I saw cake all over the steps and Lisa at the bottom of them.’

  ‘So, I’ll ask you again: how did your swatch of dress fabric end up underneath the victim’s body?’

  Clive opened his mouth. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I—’

  I cut my friend off. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said to the detective, ‘why are you calling her a victim all of a sudden? So far, all we know for sure is that Lisa Willoughby is dead. The only thing she may be a victim of is clumsiness.’

  Officer Singh stuck his head in the door. ‘Detective, I think you’re going to want to see this.’

  ‘What is it?’ Highsmith asked.

  ‘I was upstairs canvassing the tenants to see if anyone saw or heard anything and I noticed something.’

  ‘Well?’

  You really should see it for yourself, sir. Make up your own mind,’ Officer Singh replied rather sheepishly, dropping his gaze to the floor. ‘It may be nothing.’ He looked up at Clive and me. ‘Or it may be something.’

  ‘OK,’ Highsmith said. ‘Wait.’ He pulled back Officer Singh’s hand as the patrolman went to push the button for the freight elevator. ‘Let’s get this thing dusted for prints. Just in case.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’ Officer Singh’s cheeks reddened. He called for Officer Collins on his radio and asked her to secure the vestibule.

  ‘What about us?’ I asked.

  ‘Come with me,’ ordered Detective Highsmith.

  We dutifully followed the detective back around the building to the main entrance. From there we rode the passenger elevator to the top floor. Stepping off, I spotted the sign for Markie’s Masterpieces at the opposite end of the hall. The logo matched the one on the vehicle I’d seen parked out back. The freight elevator was on our left further down.

  ‘Where to?’ Highsmith said.

  ‘This way.’ Officer Singh waved us forward.

  ‘Hang on!’ Clive stopped beside the freight elevator. His index finger lightly touched the steel door.

  ‘What is it?’ demanded Highsmith.

  ‘There was a sign here, too.’ He turned to the detective. ‘An out-of-order sign.’ He looked nonplussed. ‘It looked just like the one d
ownstairs.’

  ‘Well, it’s not here now,’ Detective Highsmith said.

  A clatter at the end of the hall caught our collective attention. A stooped Hispanic man in his fifties wearing a navy-blue jumper pushed a mop bucket out of a door marked Restroom.

  Highsmith waved him over.

  The little man looked back at us curiously. He leaned one hand against his mop and ran his free hand through the other mop of long gray hair on his head.

  ‘You work here?’ Highsmith asked.

  The little man nodded. ‘Yes. I clean.’ I caught a whiff of lemon and ammonia. The white patch over his heart bore the name Aronez in red block letters.

  Highsmith pointed to the freight elevator. ‘Was this thing out of order earlier? Broken?’ He mimed snapping something with his hands.

  Before Highsmith could stop him, the little man thumbed the controls and the door rattled open. ‘No, is not broken. You see?’ He motioned with his hand that we were free to enter.

  Highsmith nodded. ‘Yeah.’ He scratched the underside of his chiseled chin thoughtfully. ‘I see. Thanks. You can go now.’

  The little man nodded and proceeded to enter the jeweler’s shop on the right.

  I tapped Highsmith on the shoulder. ‘You forgot to ask him to look for the sign in the elevator shaft.’

  The corner of the detective’s mouth quirked up. ‘You mean the out-of-order sign that wasn’t there?’

  ‘We don’t know—’

  He held up his hand. ‘For the elevator that was never broken?’

  I bit my lip. If Clive said there was a sign, there was a sign. ‘Are you sure you saw an out-of-order sign, Clive?’

  ‘Maggie!’ Clive scolded me with his eyes.

  ‘I mean,’ I recovered quickly and turned to Officer Singh, then the detective, ‘why would Clive lie about there being a sign?’ I planted my hands on my hips. ‘Maybe the janitor is lying about there not being a sign.’ I stabbed the air with my chin to put an accent to my point.

  Highsmith’s eyes danced with amusement. ‘So now you fry pastry and solve crimes?’

  I felt my ears grow hot. ‘We don’t know there’s been a crime, Detective.’