Danger, Deceit and Dark Chocolate Cake

by A. R. Winters

  I rolled my eyes. “I wish she’d do something else to get written up about. Maybe something that’s actually exciting, instead of tailing me and Beth around and trying to get a cut of our glory. If we solve this case, that is.”

  “Why don’t you girls do something exciting?” said Aunt Kira. “Now that you’re back in Santa Verona, you could try out some of the new places that’ve opened. There’s a zip-lining place up in the mountains.”

  I shook my head. “I get all my excitement from the cakes Beth bakes.”

  Aunt Kira smiled. “Well, how about finding someone nice? You need to start dating before you get too old. Or too fat from those cakes.”

  I helped myself to some pasta. “You’re older than me and you still date.”

  “That’s different,” said Aunt Kira. “After I got divorced, I decided I was over men. I’m not looking to get married. But you could.”

  “There are lots of nice men in Santa Verona these days,” said my mom. “I could set you up with someone. My hairdresser said that her friend’s son is moving back to Santa Verona. He’s going to work in an engineering firm.”

  “That’s nice,” I said politely. “But I can find my own men.”

  “Like who?” said Aunt Kira. “Don’t tell me you’re going to get back with one of your old flames?”

  My mother sat up straighter. “You mean like Liam? I heard he’s working for the DA’s office now.”

  I shook my head. Liam and I had dated briefly in college, and once had been enough for me. “No way. You don’t need to worry about my getting back with him.”

  “What about Ethan Macaulay?” said Aunt Kira, watching me closely. “Your high school sweetheart.”

  I shoveled a large forkful of pasta into my mouth and pretended to concentrate on my food.

  Ethan was tall, square-jawed and handsome. It had been hard to break up with him and move away to college, but now that I was back in Santa Verona, I couldn’t help but remember all the good times we’d had. He was as handsome as ever. Except now he was also mature and grown-up.

  “That was a horrible breakup,” Aunt Kira reminded me. “You don’t want to repeat all that, do you? The poor boy. I heard from my friend Sabrina that he was miserable, didn’t date anyone else for a year.”

  “You do go to the police station a lot,” said my mom.

  I finally swallowed my food and said, “We go to the police station for work. You don’t need to worry about me and Ethan.” Trying to change the topic, I quickly said, “What do you know about this new twenty-four-seven jazz restaurant? The Black Cat Jazz Bar.”

  “Why?” said Aunt Kira, forgetting all about Ethan. Mission accomplished.

  “We’re looking into it,” said Beth. “Well, actually we’re looking into a girl who worked there.”

  “I’ve met the man who owns the place,” said Aunt Kira. “Owen Lidcolm. He’s a pretty successful businessman. He also owns a café down near the pier.”

  “So he’s a restaurateur?”

  “He does some real estate too,” said Aunt Kira. “In fact, he used to be pretty successful until this Yarraville venture.”

  “What Yarraville venture?” I asked. Yarraville is an hour’s drive north from the city center, and it’s a burgeoning suburb for commuters who work in Santa Verona but can’t afford to pay the rent here.

  “He did a development there, but the builder declared bankruptcy halfway through, leaving Owen to deal with the banks and all the other people involved.”

  “Ouch,” said Beth. “That must’ve been expensive.”

  Aunt Kira nodded. “He’s probably spent a lot of money on that. I think he’s managed to get another builder now, but it’s still expensive.”

  I didn’t ask Aunt Kira how she knew all this. All the locals seem to know each other in Santa Verona, and I doubted her information was wrong.

  “I guess we should start by talking to Owen,” I said. “He’d know Vanessa, and if anyone at the restaurant wanted to hurt her, he’d probably have an inkling about it.”

  Chapter Six

  The next morning, Beth and I met Owen at the Fat Cat Café, an all-day brunch place near the pier. Beth had called him the previous night and arranged our appointment, so he already knew why we were there.

  “You like cats, don’t you?” I asked Owen, once we’d exchanged pleasantries and sat down.

  “I’ve got three of them,” Owen said. “Why?”

  “Your café’s called the Fat Cat, and your restaurant’s called the Black Cat. I figured it wouldn’t be a coincidence.”

  Owen smiled at us. He was a chubby, jovial man with curly brown hair. His dark eyes twinkled when he smiled, which was quite often, since he seemed to be in a perpetually cheerful mood. His light blue polo shirt had a hole near the collar, and he was digging into his poached eggs with gusto.

  “I like my cats,” he said. “And as you can see, I like my breakfast. This place is doing well.”

  I nodded and looked around. Even though it was a Tuesday morning, the café was packed with tourists. The light, Scandinavian-style interior was bustling with waitstaff and people laughing and chatting.

  “It does seem to be doing well,” I agreed.

  A waitress arrived with our breakfast orders—waffles for me, and an omelet for Beth—and I smiled. “I’m sure you deserve the success—the food looks delicious.”

  “It is,” Owen said. “I know how important a restaurant’s reputation is. I opened the Black Cat to provide a fun place with great food. Locals and tourists both love it.”

  “Really?” said Beth. “The Black Cat? When we went there last night, it seemed half-empty.”

  “Potato, poh-tah-toe,” said Owen. “You see half-empty, I see half-full.”

  “But it must be even emptier during the day,” Beth insisted.

  Owen shook his head, looking at us seriously. “It gets very busy sometimes, and if it were a normal restaurant I’d be hugely profitable. Trouble is, I need to hire lots of staff—musicians, kitchen hands. And the rent’s not cheap. And I need to serve expensive food. The revenue’s already there, it’s just that the place is expensive to run. But I’ve got hope,” he added. “Things are just going to get better and better. The place’ll be really profitable. Really soon.”

  “Sure,” I said, trying to placate him. “We don’t even care how well it’s doing, really. We just wanted to ask about Vanessa. You know, the girl who got food poisoning?”

  Owen nodded seriously, the last remnant of his smile draining away. “I can’t believe my luck with that jazz restaurant. It’s been one thing after another. First, there’s this rumor going around that the place is haunted. Thankfully, none of the customers seem to have heard about it. I had a reporter from the Sun come by, but she didn’t seem impressed, so I caught a break on that one. Otherwise, who’d want to have dinner and drinks at a haunted jazz restaurant?”

  “Quite a few people,” I suggested. “It takes all kinds.”

  “Yeah.” Owen nodded. “But I don’t think I could pull that off in this town. People come here for the easy, breezy living and the sunshine. They want happy, they want bright.”

  “Like your café,” Beth suggested.

  Owen nodded. “Everyone likes a Scandinavian theme these days.”

  “And good waffles.” Mine were half-gone, and Owen smiled at me.

  “I’m a huge fan of breakfast food myself,” he said. “But I really thought the restaurant would do well. I could’ve even worked around the rumors that it’s haunted. But the trouble is, the rumor’s that it’s a waitress who died, and that she’s targeting the living waitresses. So it’s been hard to hire any new staff. And I’m short a singer and a waitress now.”

  “What happened to Vanessa?” I asked. “How do you think she got the food poisoning?”

  “Look,” Owen said, “I know her boyfriend thinks someone’s trying to kill her. And I don’t know the girl well enough to know if she’s got a bunch of enemies or not. Maybe she doe
s. Maybe something’s going on in her life.”

  “But it was ceviche made in your restaurant,” Beth said. “It could just be regular food poisoning.”

  “That’s what I thought, at first. But I don’t want rumors going around that you can get food poisoning from the Black Cat.”

  “Has anyone else gotten food poisoning from there?”

  Owen shook his head no. “We run a clean kitchen. We’re careful. And my chef, Xenia, says she’s absolutely sure that she prepared the ceviche correctly. That there’s no way Vanessa could’ve gotten food poisoning from it.”

  “She might be wrong,” said Beth. “All chefs think their cooking’s fantastic.”

  “Four other people ate the ceviche that night,” said Owen. “None of them got sick.”

  “Maybe they’ve just got stronger digestive systems,” I suggested.

  Owen shook his head. “No. I know she didn’t get food poisoning from the ceviche.”

  “Why was she eating at the Black Cat?” I asked. “Do all your staff eat at the restaurant?”

  “If they want to,” said Owen. “They get a free meal for each five-hour shift. So that’s about a meal every time they come into work.”

  I nodded. “But they can bring in food from outside, if they’d like to?”

  Owen shook his head. “No. We don’t allow outside food on the premises. If someone wants to eat a meal from outside, they need to go outside to do that.”

  “Perhaps she went outside and got something to eat from the bodega down the road,” suggested Beth.

  Owen said, “You’ll have to check with my manager, Melissa. She’d know about Vanessa going outside. That might’ve happened.”

  “Or any of the other waitresses might’ve noticed,” I said.

  “Sure,” said Owen. “I’ll tell Melissa to tell the girls to talk to you if you need them to.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You haven’t talked to a woman named Neve, have you?”

  Owen looked at me, confused. “No. Why? Should I have?”

  “No,” I said. “But let me know if she gets in touch with you.”

  “Why would she get in touch with me?”

  Beth and I exchanged a glance, uncertain how to explain the situation. In the end, I said, “It’s complicated. She might ask a few questions about Vanessa, but you don’t have to answer them.”

  “Is she working with you two?”

  “No. She’s not meant to be working on this case, but she doesn’t always follow instructions.”

  “Anyway,” said Beth. “Back to Vanessa. How long has she been working for you?”

  Owen said, “It’s been almost two years, actually.”

  “Really?” I said. “I thought the jazz restaurant had only been open about three months now.”

  Owen smiled. “Yeah. But she was a waitress at the Fat Cat before that.”

  I nodded. “It makes sense to take people you already know work well.”

  “Exactly.” Owen finished up the last of his poached eggs before continuing. “Melissa used to be the manager of this place. She found out that Vanessa was a pretty good singer, and we convinced Vanessa to work at the Black Cat.”

  “That’s why she sings for two hours, and waitresses for the rest of her shift.” Her work arrangements made sense now.

  “That’s right,” said Owen. “We get a bit of a breakfast crowd, and that’s when Vanessa sings. Sang. I don’t know when she’ll be back at work.”

  “Bill said they’d take her out of the coma in a few days.”

  Owen twisted his lips from one side to the other. “Sure. But she won’t be well enough to work for a long time. And I don’t have a singer for the morning crowd. The rest of the day, we do ensemble music, so it’s okay. But it’s nice to have someone actually singing the blues when it gets busy.”

  “Right,” I said, not sure about how best to run a jazz restaurant. “Maybe you can hire someone else temporarily.”

  “Maybe,” said Owen. “But it’s expensive to hire someone new. And with the rumor that the place is haunted, it’s even more difficult.”

  “You had a fire in the kitchen a few weeks back, didn’t you?” asked Beth.

  Owen nodded. “Yeah. Faulty wiring. It’s been one thing after the other.” He sighed deeply, and after a moment he smiled brightly again. “Yeah, it’s difficult. But if it was easy, everyone would do it.”

  “You’re doing some developments up in Yarraville, too, aren’t you?” asked Beth.

  Owen looked at her warily. “I am.”

  She said, “How’s that going?”

  Owen’s gaze shifted from Beth to me, and then back to Beth. “Not that great,” he admitted. “I’ve been having a bad run.”

  “Luck comes and goes,” I said, trying to cheer him up. “I’m sure things will pick up soon.”

  He nodded. “I’ve found a new builder, so that’s a start. Anyway, I should actually get over there now, see how things are going. I’ll send a message to Melissa, and she can help you chat with the people you need to.”

  We watched as Owen said goodbye to the barista and headed off.

  “That was interesting,” I said to Beth. “It’s funny how Vanessa’s hobby got her a new job.”

  “It also almost got her killed,” Beth said. “I get the feeling we’ll learn a lot more from the staff at the Black Cat.”

  “We might even learn something at the police station,” I said. “If Bill tried to file a report, the cops might know something about what happened.”

  Chapter Seven

  Ethan Macaulay was sitting at his desk in the bullpen, and he looked up and smiled when he saw us.

  “Why am I not surprised to see you two?” he said.

  His right cheek dimpled when he smiled, and his dark eyes glittered.

  “It’s good to see you, too,” I said. “Where’s Matt?”

  Matt Alvarez was Ethan’s partner. His desk was next to Ethan’s, and right now it was conspicuously empty.

  “He’s off interviewing someone,” Ethan said. “I’ll let him know you two stopped by.”

  Beside me, Beth tried not to look too disappointed. The last few times we’d stopped by the station, we hadn’t seen Matt.

  The bullpen in the Santa Verona Police Department was crammed with at least twenty desks, and detectives and lieutenants typed away and dug up information. Phones rang, and busy voices filled the air.

  The Santa Verona Police Department was housed in an old, historic Spanish-style building. Half the building consisted of the police station, and the other half contained the courthouse. Outside, the building was white stucco with a red-tiled roof. Inside, it was painted a cheery light yellow, and hallway arches were tiled with artistic blue mosaic. Potted palms dotted the space, and “Wanted” posters hung on the walls. It was a far cry from most of the bland offices that filled the rest of the country.

  “We’re trying to find information about Vanessa Vail,” I said.

  “Ah,” said Ethan, leaning back in his chair and smirking. “I knew this wasn’t a purely social visit.”

  I smiled. “It’s too early in the morning for social visits.”

  “I agree,” said Ethan. “Socializing is all about dimly lit restaurants and good food and wine.”

  I fiddled with my hair and wondered if Ethan was trying to ask me out again. We’d gone out on two dinner dates so far, and I had been waiting for him to ask me again. Although I wouldn’t admit it to my mom or Aunt Kira, there was definitely something between us. I just wasn’t sure how real it was—or if it was just nostalgia for our high school days.

  “Vanessa Vail had food poisoning,” Beth said, before I could say anything to Ethan. “Her boyfriend thinks she was poisoned intentionally.”

  Ethan clicked a few buttons and scrolled through something on his screen. “I’ve got the report here. Unfortunately, serving bad seafood isn’t a crime.”

  “No one else got sick from the ceviche,” I said.

  Ethan raised
one shoulder in a shrug. “Maybe there was just one bad batch. There’s really nothing to indicate it was a crime.”

  “What about her stalker?” I said.

  “Bill said she had a stalker,” Ethan said, “but Vanessa hadn’t reported it before. So we’re not really sure this was a crime. The police department’s got enough actual crime to deal with as is.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I know. That’s why they need to hire two new consultants.”

  Ethan glanced down at his keyboard and smiled. “Maybe we’re not that swamped.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. “In the meantime, the two future consultants need to find out if this girl was poisoned or not.”

  “I think you’re wasting your time,” Ethan said. “Food poisoning happens.”

  I shrugged. “It might not be a waste of time.”

  “You know what really wouldn’t be a waste of time?” Ethan said. “Having dinner with me. Why don’t you stop by the station after your sleuthing today, and we can go somewhere for food?”

  I smiled and tried not to blush. “That sounds fun,” I said. “Maybe I’ll even have found out who poisoned Vanessa by then.”

  Chapter Eight

  Beth and I drove straight to the Black Cat, and when we stepped inside, it was hard to tell that the sun was shining brightly outside. The place was dimly lit, and a jazz trio played onstage. There were only a few patrons at this hour, and Beth and I headed over to find Melissa.

  Melissa turned out to be a tall, slender woman with long, curly red hair.

  “I’m the manager here,” she told us. “I’ve been manager since the place opened.” She stood behind the bar and poured out a glass of red wine for the waitress to take over to a table. “I do double duty as the bartender during the day, when most people just want juice or soda. We have a barista in the morning, and another bartender comes in for the evenings, when I take off.”

  I nodded, and then I noticed a motion out of the corner of my eye.