Steamed

by Conan-Park, Jessica

  Note to self: Cancel Back Bay Dates account immediately upon completion of date!

  Eric’s cell phone rang. He glared at the Caller ID and picked up. “Hello? I told you not call me,” Eric hollered into the receiver.

  God, having lacked the decency to turn off the phone during our date, he went ahead and answered it? And screamed! Oh, what did I care? Dessert would probably be good. I had been eyeing the house speciality, honey-lavender crème brûlée, which I knew would have been made in advance. The sugared top would be seared with a torch just before serving, and even in his befuddled state Garrett probably wouldn’t mess that up.

  “Phil, if I were you, I’d take care of it.” Eric signaled to me that he was leaving to finish the call somewhere else. He headed toward a corridor at the back of the restaurant.

  Cassie brought me a cappuccino, which was delicious. Nothing can kill a good meal like a finale of bad coffee. I

  can never understand why some places serve the worst coffee. How hard can it be to buy a good bean and brew a pot? Okay, myself not included. But if I owned a restaurant, I’d buy a coffeemaker that worked.

  When I’d finished the cappuccino, Eric still hadn’t returned, and I was itching for the crème brûlée. Unfortunately for me, my mother’s training prevented me from ordering while Eric was gone. I looked into the kitchen to see whether Eric had invited himself into the heart of the restaurant to pester poor Garrett. I didn’t see my date and practically threw my hands up in exasperation at the evening’s events. Two cappuccinos later, I said to hell with manners and ordered dessert from Cassie.

  “Have you seen Eric?” I asked her. “He left to finish a call on his cell phone and hasn’t come back.”

  She shook her head but promised to look for him. She wasn’t worried that he’d skipped out; as a guest of the restaurant, he’d hardly have run off to avoid paying a nonexistent bill. I wasn’t worried, either; I was annoyed and insulted. If my date could disappear, I decided, I could do exactly the same thing. It could take me a long, long time to touch up my makeup and fuss with my hair; it could take me long enough for Eric to return to the table, find me gone, and sit there all alone wondering where I was. My crème brûlée would have to wait.

  Essence was not, of course, the sort of restaurant with large, garish signs pointing to the restrooms. Looking around, I couldn’t find so much as a small, tasteful arrow and had to ask Cassie for directions. “Down that little corridor at the back,” she said. “Ladies is the first door on your left. If someone’s in there, use the men’s room. Everyone does. It’s the next door.”

  After making my way around a few tables, I entered the narrow corridor, which led to a door prominently marked Exit. The first door on the left showed a stylish sketch of a figure with long hair and a skirt. The door was locked. I took Cassie’s advice and pushed open the second door, the one with a matching sketch of a debonair figure in a coat and tails. Although the door was unlocked, the men’s room was occupied.

  Sprawled on his stomach on the slate floor was a tall man with curly dirty-blond hair. His legs were bent awkwardly, and one arm was stretched out at a painful-looking angle. The man, however, was beyond pain. His head lay in a pool of blood. The blood led away from the blond curls and toward two objects that lay on the tile. One was a mobile phone. The other was a knife with a black handle and a long, thin, curved, and bloody blade.

  I had found Eric.

  FIVE

  I stood under the fluorescent lights in the men’s room for a good two or three minutes while I tried to take in what I was looking at. I couldn’t look away from the repulsive wound in Eric’s neck. The skin was split open, the cut long and somehow clean despite the bright red, glistening blood. I could feel my heart pound and my whole body shiver, but I just couldn’t move. It felt impossible that Eric, who had just been critiquing food and yelling on his cell phone, was lying here on the floor, dead. I suppose I should have dropped down to the tiles to begin some sort of lifesaving attempt. As it was, I was frozen, in part, I suspect, because no one could have survived that dreadful wound. Also, the thought of stepping into the pool of blood churned my full stomach.

  I had visions from the first-aid class I’d taken when I was working as a toddler teacher in a day care center. I knew we had covered CPR, but the only thing I could remember was what to do if a child had the misfortune to get a pencil stuck in an eye. I remembered that one should not to try to pull the pencil out of the eyeball, but rather should tape a Dixie cup over the protruding object. I had raised a question: since most pencils are much taller than Dixie cups, shouldn’t we stockpile some tall, latte-style cups for such occurences? There had been a memorable photograph of some poor child model forced to demonstrate what a Dixie cup taped over the eye looked like, a photo that had sent my fellow teachers and me into gales of laughter. Not helpful here.

  I also remembered that should one happen upon a compound fracture in which a bone is sticking out of the body, one should not attempt to push the bone back in place. The banned maneuver had struck me as the grossest possible thing ever, and I was sure that if I were to find myself faced with a bone sticking out of a body, the last thing I would do would be to try to push it back in place. Still, if Eric had fallen victim to a sharp stick in the eye and a compound fracture, I might possibly have been of some assistance.

  Eric’s cell phone started to ring, and the electronic rendition of Guns N’ Roses’ “Paradise City” jerked me out of my daze. What a lame song to set your ringer to. This disgraceful thought made me realize that I had to do something, and since vomiting on what I assumed was a crime scene would not be helpful, I figured I would pass off the problem to somebody else. Before I could instruct my legs to get moving, the restroom door opened, and Timothy burst in.

  “Oh, Jesus.” Timothy, in a show of gallant behavior far exceeding my reminiscences of first-aid photos, practically fell onto Eric’s body and cupped his hand over the bleeding slice in Eric’s neck while yelling, “Oh God! Oh God!” Timothy pulled off his expensive navy shirt and pressed it to Eric’s neck. “Chloe, don’t look! Get out of here! Go!” he shouted at me.

  My feet finally decided to work. I hurried out of the men’s room, came to a halt, and found myself staring numbly at the bustling restaurant, which was full of diners and waitstaff. Looking toward the kitchen, I saw Garrett hacking away at a piece of red meat. I stared at the huge cleaver blade as Garrett repeatedly whacked someone’s dinner.

  I’ve heard people say that when you faint, your vision narrows, like a black circle enlarging to constrict your field of view. Truth. The last thing I clearly saw was the chef ’s cleaver cracking through a bone.

  “Chloe? You okay? Come on, wake up.” I opened my eyes to see a shirtless Timothy peering at me with great concern.

  There I was, sprawled out on the floor with a group of restaurants patrons murmuring pitying comments like, “The poor thing!” and “She just absolutely collapsed!”

  When I tried to sit up, Timothy immediately pushed me back down. In my dazed state, I somehow noticed that he’d washed his hands and wasn’t going to leave a bloody print on my arm.

  “No, don’t sit up,” he instructed me. “Just lie still and don’t move.” Ordering a perfectly healthy woman to remain motionless after a minor fainting incident? What kind of stupid first-aid class had he taken?

  First aid! Oh, Christ, when I’d fallen, I’d probably given myself a revolting compound fracture! I looked down. All my limbs were intact. “Seriously, I’m fine. Just let me get up,” I assured the crowd. I rose from the floor and walked to a nearby table, where I sat down and tried to assume an air of normality. Oh God, poor Eric! Then I asked a question so stupid that I can’t believe it left my mouth. “Tim, is Eric okay?” What did I expect to hear? That really, aside from the knife wound that had practically severed his head from his body, he was in great shape?

  “Chloe, I’m so sorry . . .” Timothy’s voice trailed off. “Eric is dead. The police an
d the ambulance should be here any second.”

  How odd: an ambulance for a dead person. I mean, the EMTs weren’t miraculously going to revive a cadaver. Shouldn’t EMTs devote themselves to tasks that had a chance of success, such as taping cups over eyes? Although my thoughts felt logical, I must have looked woozy. Timothy went to fetch me a glass of water and instructed Cassie to sit with me, presumably to make sure I didn’t keel over again. It’s a good thing that Cassie became a waitress instead of a nurse. She did nothing except smile politely as we sat uncomfortably together and listened to the sirens approach the restaurant. I looked out the window to see what I guessed to be about six hundred emergency vehicles pull up outside.

  The scene that followed could have been staged for some prime-time cop show. Official-looking people took over the premises, as I imagined the restaurant would now be called, and no one was allowed to leave. After pushing the crowd away from the men’s room, the police sealed off the corridor to the restrooms with neon yellow streamers printed with Do Not Cross. Cassie and I watched as cops and EMTs rushed around. And firefighters. Why were they here? Not to hose down the bloody tiles. To put out Garrett’s flames?

  Looking around, I wondered about all the guests and what they’d do and should do in this freakish situation. Should they keep eating their dinners? Some were doing just that. Would they have to pay for their meals? Should they leave big tips to console the waitstaff? After this ordeal, would they leave no tips at all?

  Garrett and his crew had apparently stopped cooking when news of Eric’s death had reached them. They’d left the kitchen to cluster behind the bar, where they were talking amongst themselves.

  A charred smell wafted our way. “Cassie, I think something is burning in the kitchen,” I said flatly.

  Cassie yelled to Garrett, who bolted across the room to the kitchen to scrape up the remains of what looked like a trout that had seared itself to the cooktop.

  All of my television watching helped me to identify the medical examiner, a tall woman with a severe face and an air of authority. She entered through the front door and immediately barked orders at the men trying to do their jobs. She was escorted to the back corridor by one of the police officers and disappeared into the men’s room. I bet she never fainted.

  Clad in a white chef ’s coat, Timothy returned with my water. “God, I’m so sorry, Chloe. You must be devastated about Eric. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. I know you weren’t together that long, but I know you two had a strong connection. Eric just adored you. He did.” Tim shook his head and actually had tears in his eyes. This man truly thought he was comforting a brokenhearted girlfriend. It seemed callous not to play along. What was I going to say? I’m in shock from seeing the gory body of a murder victim. Eric has nothing to do with it!

  Actually, I was in shock. If I’d been myself, I’d probably have poured out the whole story to Tim. Instead, I decided to play it as if I were so grief-stricken that I was unable to discuss my overwhelming feelings for Eric. “I just can’t believe this is happening,” I said truthfully. “Have the police said anything to you yet? Do they know who did this to Eric?”

  “No, nothing yet. The detective—his name’s Hurley—needs to talk to everyone here tonight and get their information so he can contact them later. And obviously he said he wants to talk to you, since you found Eric. Actually, let me go see if he’s ready for you. The sooner you talk to him, the sooner you can get out of here. You must want to go home more than anything.” He stood up and rubbed my back briefly before he took off in search of the detective.

  The strange thing was that I didn’t feel a desperate need to flee—or wouldn’t have, except for the sorrowful glances everybody kept casting my way. Since the consensus seemed to be that I had just lost the love of my life in a grisly crime, the whole restaurant seemed to be staring at me. I didn’t like being the center of attention, especially under false pretenses, but I have to admit that this kind of real-life high drama was new and intriguing to me, mainly because I grew up in the safe, uneventful suburb of Newton. The biggest crime ever to occur there was the discovery of a massage parlor that offered quite a bit more than massages. The establishment was shockingly located above a pediatrician’s office. One female so-called masseuse was quoted as saying that she charged one hundred dollars for her services “unless they think that’s too high.” But the news that really alarmed Newtonites was the discovery that not only was this place servicing its clients sexually but—gasp—some of the employees didn’t even have their massage licenses! The only competition for that story was the exhilarating debate over whether or not Newton schools should become peanut-free zones to protect children with allergies. One mother was interviewed and insisted that her child’s diet required him to have peanut butter for lunch. In typical Newton fashion, her child’s need for peanut butter was greater than another child’s need to avoid anaphylaxis. So the commotion in the restaurant was totally new to me, and once the initial physical shock of finding the body had mostly passed, and even after I began to appreciate how horrible Eric’s death was, my forensic curiosity outweighed my nonexistent relationship with the deceased.

  Timothy returned with a skinny man in his late forties or so with incredibly mussed-up black hair. “Hey there, Chloe,” Tim said somberly. “This is Detective Scott Hurley. He’s got to ask you about tonight. I told him how distraught you are, but he says it can’t wait. Are you going to be okay talking to him?”

  “I think I’ll be fine. But thank you for your concern,” I told Tim, who then left with Cassie.

  Detective Hurley looked exhausted, as if he’d been working nonstop all day or maybe even all week. He seated himself across from me at the table, ran his hands through his hair, and looked right at me. “Ma’am, I’m very sorry for your loss. You’re the girlfriend, huh? And you found the body?” he asked, jumping right to the point. “Name?” he continued, pulling a pen from behind his ear.

  “Eric Rafferty,” I answered.

  “Not the victim’s name. Your name.” He glared at me.

  “Oh, sorry. I’m Chloe Carter,” I answered. He took my address and phone number, and asked me to describe my relationship with the victim.

  I leaned in conspiratorially. “Well, to be honest, I didn’t have a relationship with him. I just met Eric tonight. We were on a blind date. Well, an Internet date. I met him through Back Bay Dates, one of those online dating services, and this was our first date.”

  “You’re not his girlfriend? Timothy and a couple of the waitstaff here said you two were pretty involved. Said you’d only been together less than a month, but that things were hot and heavy.”

  “No, I’m definitely not Eric’s girlfriend. Wasn’t. I just saw him for the first time tonight. Maybe he’d been dating someone else. You know, he did say that he used to go out with the woman who does the books for Essence and for Timothy’s old restaurant, Magellan. Veronica, he said her name was. I think that’s right.”

  “Last name?”

  “Sorry, I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Timothy. I don’t know much about Eric, except that he was thinking about investing in Essence. He wanted to eat here tonight to check it out again. He said he used to eat at Magellan a lot, and so he knew Timothy through there. I don’t even know exactly what he does, well, did, for a living. Something to do with financial planning and having clients.”

  The detective leaned back in his chair and adjusted his wrinkled gray suit. “So I don’t suppose you’d have any idea why your date is dead in the restaurant’s restroom, then, huh?” He actually smiled a little.

  I shook my head apologetically.

  “Since I’m assuming this man didn’t slit his own throat, we’re treating this as a homicide. And I’ve got to find out everything I can about what went on tonight. So, tell me exactly how you met him. About this Internet dating thing. And take me through everything that happened tonight.” Hurley sighed as if expecting my description of my time with Eric to be as borin
g as it actually—and, in retrospect, sadly—had been.

  I ran through the events of the past day. Hurley asked questions. In particular, he wanted to hear about exboyfriends of mine. Trying not to portray myself as a total idiot, I reluctantly told him the whole story about Noah and concluded by saying, “Noah is sort of a jerk. You know, one of those fear-of-commitment guys? Definitely a mistake on my part. But if you think he had anything to do with this, you’re totally wrong. I guarantee you that there is no possibility that Noah would ever be jealous that I was going on a date.”