Book Retreat Mystery 07 - Murder in the Cookbook Nook

by Ellery Adams

  “That’s Chef Pierce’s cookbook, A Man and a Pan,” Sterling said. “It had just been released the previous day, and I don’t know how Ms. Fiore got her hands on a copy in Italy unless it was given to Ms. Mallett to review. But doesn’t really matter. What matters is the name of the recipe. Can you read it?”

  It took Jane a second to make out the words. “The Big Daddy Burger,” she said. And then, “Oh.”

  “If that had been the only post featuring Chef Pierce, we could chalk it up to coincidence. But when we looked at the post announcing the names of the chefs competing in this season’s Posh Palate with Mia Mallett, we knew coincidence wasn’t a factor.”

  Sterling clicked on another thumbnail. This photo featured the spines of five cookbooks—all written by this season’s contestants. Only Chef Pierce’s book was splayed open, and Bentley stared down at a cocktail recipe called One-Night Stand. A bottle of tequila and a shot glass were also in the frame.

  “When Ms. Fiore posts about cookbooks, recipes, or eateries, the tone of her captions is upbeat. And she always smiles in her posts.” Sterling said. “Mr. Butterworth, what’s your take on her expression in this post?”

  “Her posture is rigid, and she’s pressing her fingers into the book pages so hard that the skin around her nails has turned red. She’s also clenching her jaw. Anger is practically seeping out of her pores. But the corners of her mouth reveal another emotion. Hurt.”

  “We’ve seen people act out of anger and hurt, and all they do is spread more hurt and anger,” Jane said with a sigh in her voice. “Anything else?”

  Sterling clicked another thumbnail. It was a close-up shot of a chocolate bar.

  “I love chocolate as much as the next woman,” Jane said. “But how is this relevant?”

  After waving at Lachlan to indicate that the floor was now his, Sterling sat down.

  Lachlan looked at his legal pad. “The caption from this photo reads: ‘Chocolate makes everything better—unless you’re a kid working on a cocoa farm in West Africa. They work all day for little or no pay. Break the cycle of child labor and abuse! Only buy fair trade chocolate!’”

  Jane pointed at the screen. “Is that a Cook’s Pride chocolate bar?”

  “It sure is,” said Lachlan.

  Sterling brought up another photo. This one, taken at a farmer’s market, featured baskets of tomatoes. There were a dozen different varieties, including cherry, plum, Better Boy, Tigerella, Cherokee purple, Campari, Black Krim, and Big Beef.

  “The caption for this post says, ‘Who harvests your produce? Are they being paid a living wage? Why do food companies mistreat migrant and seasonal workers? For profit! Do your research before you put any of their products in your shopping cart.’”

  “I assume Cook’s Pride makes tomato sauce.”

  “Pasta sauces, soup, marinades, salsa—you name it,” said Lachlan. “Ms. Fiore didn’t mention Cook’s Pride in the caption, but she does in her hashtags. The company name is sandwiched between the hashtags ‘migrant worker rights’ and ‘migrant workers matter.’”

  Jane frowned. “When were these posted?”

  “Within the past year,” replied Lachlan.

  “That’s pretty brazen, considering Cook’s Pride is sponsoring the show this season. Either Bentley asked Mia’s permission to post this, or Mia doesn’t know about the posts. Does Bentley have a large number of followers?”

  Lachlan consulted his legal pad. “Twelve thousand on Instagram. She has other social media accounts as well, but they don’t have as many followers and aren’t updated as often. She never alludes to Chef Pierce or Cook’s Pride on those accounts.”

  “Are there more posts like the chocolate bar and tomato post?” she asked Sterling.

  “Half a dozen or so,” he said.

  Jane walked over to the wall switch and returned the lights to the brightest setting. She then leaned against the door and thought.

  She’d sat right next to Sheriff Evans when he questioned Bentley in the conference room. Bentley, who’d visited Chef Pierce hours before his death. Bentley, who was privy to every detail of the show, including where and when each challenge would take place, the theme of each challenge, and the equipment required. She probably contacted the vendors, arranged deliveries, and took care of dozens of other things in Mia’s name.

  “Bentley had access to Chef Pierce’s personal information,” she said. “His home address, email address, cell phone number, social security number. And most importantly, his health forms.”

  Looking at the security screens, she was reminded of the footage showing Bentley making her way to Chef Pierce’s room just shy of midnight.

  “What if we couldn’t find Mia’s note to Chef Pierce because Bentley got rid of it? If so, how did she convince Chef Pierce to meet her in the kitchens at, what, one or two in the morning?”

  Jane didn’t expect the Fins to have an answer. She was thinking out loud while they listened because this process had led them to answers in the past.

  Butterworth filled a glass with water. As he placed it on the table in front of Jane, he said, “When the sheriff interviewed Ms. Fiore, what was her posture like? What did she do with her hands? Did she make eye contact with you? How about Sheriff Evans? Which emotions were on display?”

  Though Jane continued to stare at the monitors, she’d gone back to that moment in the William Faulkner Conference Room. Bentley sat in a chair at one end of the table, picking at a jagged thumbnail. The skin around all of her nails had been red and raw.

  “She was as nervous as anyone would be when called into a room with a sheriff, two deputies, and a hotel manager,” Jane began. “She had a strong reaction when she realized that our security cameras had caught her visiting Chef Pierce’s room. In hindsight, I believe her response was theatrical. Bentley travels with Mia, which means she’s stayed at dozens of high-end hotels. Our use of security cameras wouldn’t come as a surprise. Not at a luxury resort.”

  Jane told the Fins how Bentley hadn’t wanted to leave her comfy bed to run an errand for Mia and how defensive she’d been when Sheriff Evans asked if she knew what Mia’s note to Chef Pierce said. Jane then repeated how Bentley had described Chef Pierce’s appearance.

  “She became more confident as the interview progressed,” Jane said. “Her tone was conversational. She stopped picking at her nails. She also shifted the emotional focus to Mia. Mia was the angry woman. Mia was so upset that Bentley felt compelled to deliver a note in the middle of the night.”

  “Good.” Butterworth nodded in approval. “The revulsion Ms. Fiore expressed toward Chef Pierce was probably genuine. Chef Pierce was an obtuse oaf who seemed to revel in offending everyone he met. The realization that half of her genetic material came from such a man may have evoked a powerful sense of shame and loathing in Ms. Fiore.”

  Jane looked at the three men who, along with Uncle Aloysius, had been like fathers to her. Sinclair, Butterworth, and Sterling were men of principle. They were honest, loyal, and intelligent. They’d taught her how to drive a car, interpret Shakespeare, break a wooden board with her bare hand, embrace the beauty of other cultures, admit her mistakes, apologize gracefully, and so much more.

  “I had the best surrogate fathers in the world,” Jane said softly. “But Bentley? How many times did she wonder what her absent father looked like or what he did for a living? She probably fantasized about meeting him a thousand times. Did she kill him because he was the opposite of everything she’d imagined?”

  Lachlan stirred in his seat. “Chef Pierce rejected her. From the time Bentley was born, he didn’t want her in his life. A parent’s rejection is a wound that never truly heals.”

  Jane and her Fins looked at the white screen. With the lights on, the images were harder to see, but Bentley’s profile photo was clear enough. Was the young, vibrant face smiling out at them the face of a killer?

  “We’re engaging in a great deal of conjecture,” Sterling said. “What evidence points to
Ms. Fiore as the killer? We need to focus on facts.”

  Jane liked facts. She liked organizing them into lists, graphs, and spreadsheets. Facts made her feel safe. They made life, which was often messy and unpredictable, far more manageable.

  Stepping up to the whiteboard screwed into the wall behind her chair, she scooped up a marker and wrote the word EVIDENCE in the center of the board. After underlining it twice, she moved to the left-hand side of the board and added the number one.

  Sterling supplied the first item for Jane’s list. “We have footage of Ms. Fiore knocking on Chef Pierce’s door at midnight. We saw him open the door and admit her.”

  Jane wrote FOOTAGE OF BENTLEY VISITING CHEF PIERCE HOURS BEFORE HIS DEATH on the board.

  “Ms. Fiore had access to Chef Pierce’s medical information,” Butterworth said.

  Sinclair waited for Jane to finish writing before adding, “And she was privy to the inner workings of the show. She probably ordered the pantry items and equipment.”

  Jane swung around, her eyes shining with excitement. “Including the gas grills.” A thought occurred to her. “But why would she set those fires?”

  “For the same reason she’d vandalize the Berry Jubilee’s mascot. To draw attention to Cook’s Pride,” answered Lachlan.

  “A patricidal activist?” Jane chewed her lip as she mulled this over. “It’s hard for me to believe that Bentley would sabotage Mia’s show. Her admiration for Mia seems sincere.”

  Sterling shrugged. “Even if Posh Palate was canceled, Ms. Mallett would still have her pick of new projects. She’s the girl with the Midas touch, and I’m sure she’d find a way to spin her time in Storyton to her advantage.”

  What Sterling said made perfect sense, but Jane was convinced that Bentley would go out of her way to protect Mia’s interests.

  Butterworth said, “Here’s an addition for the board. I overheard two of the deputies talking about the matchbook found on Chef Pierce’s body. As it happens, that matchbook is from the Brooklyn bar where Chef Pierce met a cocktail waitress named Cindy Fiore.”

  Jane wrote MATCHBOOK LINKING CHEF PIERCE AND BENTLEY’S MOM.

  “Anything else?” she asked her Fins.

  “Ms. Fiore’s advanced training in martial arts might be worth noting,” said Sinclair. “Her discipline is Muay Thai, a combat-oriented discipline involving stand-up strikes and clinching. Skilled Muay Thai fighters can take out an opponent with a well-aimed elbow strike or kick.”

  Picturing Bentley’s compact, muscular frame, Jane wondered what it would be like to fight her. Jane and her sons practiced Tae Kwon Do, and while sparring was part of their training, clinching wasn’t. Clinching was the act of tying up an opponent’s arms, a move requiring both strength and aggression.

  MARTIAL ARTS TRAINING (COMBAT-STYLE), Jane wrote on the board.

  She turned back to Sinclair. “Mia told the sheriff that Bentley was a black belt, so she must be highly skilled.”

  “Muay Thai doesn’t use belts,” Sinclair said. “However, when I saw a photo on Ms. Fiore’s Twitter page of a black armband tied around an impressive bicep, I researched her gym. Their students can earn armbands, which means Ms. Fiore’s skills are most impressive.”

  Jane remembered how Sheriff Evans had used a pen to demonstrate how the jagged shard of porcelain had penetrated Chef Pierce’s flesh.

  “The bruise around Chef Pierce’s wound indicated that he was stabbed with force,” she reminded the Fins. “Bentley’s strong enough to apply that kind of force.”

  The Fins agreed with her, so Jane added BRUISE AROUND ABDOMINAL WOUND to the board.

  She surveyed what she’d written so far. “Can an arrest be made based on this list?”

  “If I were Sheriff Evans, I’d want more,” said Lachlan.

  Butterworth held up a finger. “The question is, does Ms. Fiore want more? If her goal was to punish an absentee parent, she succeeded. If she wanted to draw attention to Cook’s Pride, she has. Does this young woman have an endgame?”

  A wry smile appeared on Sterling’s face. “There’s only one way of knowing if her agenda’s complete.”

  “Are you suggesting we allow the finale to proceed?” Butterworth’s eyes gleamed with interest.

  Jane’s impulse was to shoot down the idea, but she bit her tongue. The items listed on the whiteboard might place Bentley under suspicion, but the sheriff couldn’t make a murder charge stick without more proof or a confession.

  “Catching a criminal in the act is risky,” she said. “The Posh Palate finale is a live show. Our guests have paid quite a bit for the privilege of attending the two-hour event. Uncle Aloysius, Aunt Octavia, and half the Cover Girls will be there. Can we entrap Bentley while keeping anyone else from getting hurt?”

  “Unless we have a better understanding of her motivation, I don’t think so.”

  As always, Lachlan had spoken in his quiet, reserved manner. And as always, his words had a big impact.

  Sinclair, who never seemed to be without a book, suddenly produced one. “Anaïs Nin, the French-born writer, was a fatherless child. In her view, a child could grow older but never die until it finds its father. Also, an absent father tends to be glorified and deified.” He put his hand on the cover of the worn paperback. “According to Ms. Nin, the father had to be confronted, and, I quote, ‘recognized as human, as man who created and then, by his absence, left the child fatherless and then Godless.’”

  “He was confronted, all right,” murmured Sterling.

  Jane kept her eyes on Sinclair. “Killing Chef Pierce may have given Bentley a sense of empowerment? Like she might be deluded into believing she can do away with anyone she sees as an enemy?”

  Sinclair rubbed the cover of his book. “It’s my working theory.”

  “Okay. I want to share what we’ve got with Sheriff Evans,” said Jane. “After dealing with Ty and the corporate attorneys, he’s probably fit to be tied. Hopefully, your excellent research will help him close this case.”

  “No need to call him.” Lachlan pointed at the monitor showing the loading dock. An SUV with the sheriff’s department seal pulled into a space allocated for delivery trucks.

  Butterworth stood up. “I’ll make fresh coffee and a plate of nibbles.” Catching sight of the sheriff’s cantankerous expression, he murmured, “Forget the plate. I’ll bring a whole trolley.”

  Chapter 16

  Jane met Sheriff Evans in the lobby.

  “The coffee urns have been put away, but a fresh pot will be delivered to the surveillance room.”

  The sheriff gave her a wan smile. “As my wife says, it feels like wine o’clock.” He pointed at two wing chairs near the grandfather clock. “Can we talk there?”

  Jane was about to say that she had things to show him in the surveillance room when she realized that he’d probably just come from a similar room and could use a change of scenery. The chairs he’d selected were set apart from the other conversation areas, which meant they’d have privacy while still allowing Sheriff Evans to observe the guests.

  To that end, the sheriff touched the chair facing the east wing and said, “Mr. Scott is going to stroll through the front door any second now. You can avoid his smug grin by sitting here.”

  The sheriff made no effort to hide his feelings, but Jane’s contempt for the director was much stronger. She hated the idea of Ty Scott walking around Storyton Hall with his mirrored sunglasses, gelled hair, and fake Hollywood smile while Mr. Gilmore was in a hospital bed.

  “I guess the lawyers earned their money today,” she grumbled.

  The sheriff leaned his head back and sighed. “Oh, yes. They threatened to put my department through hell if we didn’t drop the charges against Mr. Scott. They seemed surprised when I refused.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I was surprised that Mr. Scott expected to be rescued. He told me that these attorneys have gotten him out of hot water before. I couldn’t understand it. Why would a corporat
e legal team bail out a TV director more than once?”

  It didn’t make sense to Jane either. “Sounds like Ty Scott has a fairy godmother.”

  The sheriff snorted. “More like a doting uncle. Ty Scott is Fox Watterson’s nephew, and he’s spent a small fortune making his nephew’s problems disappear.”

  Jane was still absorbing this news when the sheriff’s eyes darkened and his lips compressed into a thin line. Pivoting in her seat, she saw Ty and Fox strut through the main doorway, followed by the stone-faced lawyers.

  Fox paused in the threshold and turned to the bellhop holding the door. Fox mimed a drinking gesture and cast a searching glance around the lobby.

  “Ty probably told his uncle that all guests receive a glass of champagne at check-in. Too bad Fox isn’t a guest,” Jane said, taking pleasure in the look of disappointment on Fox Watterson’s face. “He can trot into the Ian Fleming Lounge and buy his own drink.”

  “He’s rich enough to buy all the drinks,” muttered the sheriff.

  Across the room, Fox threw up his arms in exasperation while Ty checked his hair in the massive gilt-framed mirror next to the bellhop’s station. When he was done preening, Ty turned and spotted Jane and Sheriff Evans. He smiled, said something to his uncle, and pointed at Jane.

  Fox dismissed his attorneys with a few words and the flick of a wrist. Jane felt sorry for them. She’d heard people tell their dogs to “sit” or “stay” with more warmth than Fox had just shown to the human beings in his employ.

  I bet they’d trade places with Captain Haviland in a heartbeat, Jane thought.

  Olivia Limoges was wealthy, but she didn’t treat people like dirt. What was Fox Watterson’s excuse?

  “Ms. Steward? Fox Watterson of Cook’s Pride.” He held out his hand. “Nice place. My nephew’s show is going to make it very popular.”

  Ignoring Fox’s hand, Jane said, “We’re having a private conversation, so if you—”