“Whatever you made for Thanksgiving. Make that.”
“The whole Thanksgiving menu?”
“Did I stutter?”
He strode out of the kitchen with Felix on his heels without waiting for my response, which was a good thing because once they were out of earshot I let loose a string of invective that would have made George Carlin roll over in his grave. I was still standing there in shock, trying to figure out how the devil I was supposed to pull off this switch on such short notice, when Alayna hurried by with a stack of freshly pressed linens in her arms.
She stopped and gaped at me in amazement. “Was that you I heard cursing?”
“Uh, yeah, sorry about that.” I gave an embarrassed half-laugh and tried to arrange my face into a serene and spiritual expression befitting a holistic chef. I apparently failed because her concern only increased.
“Are you okay?” She scanned the counter, probably looking for a detached finger or a spider crawling in the fruit bowl. Something to explain the meltdown.
“Amber decided to make some last-minute adjustments to the menu,” I explained, adopting the breeziest tone I could muster. “As in, she scrapped the whole thing, and I’m starting over with a new one.”
Her eyes widened and she looked down in horror at the mountain of celadon green tablecloths and napkins she’d spent her morning ironing. “Oh, for the love of … Please tell me she didn’t change her color scheme.”
I wish I could ease her mind, but this was our nightmare to share. “I have no idea. I’m sorry. You should ask her.”
Alayna threw me a look that said ‘yeah, I’ll get right on that’ and raced off in the direction of the dining room, clutching the linens to her chest and muttering in rapid-fire Spanish. I guess her plan was to hurry up and get the tables set, as if that would prevent Amber from changing her mind.
I really couldn’t believe what Amber had done. Who goes from a tapas-based menu to a formal sit-down meal for forty people on the morning of the event? A vapid, self-absorbed twit, that’s who. I had half a mind to track her down and try to convince her to stick with the original menu, but a glance at the iPad displaying her schedule revealed she had a busy day of primping ahead.
Besides, I really didn’t have time to corner her between her facial and her manicure to plead what I knew would be a futile case. Amber wanted what Amber wanted. And she always got it. It was as simple as that. I set aside the eggplant, returned to the iPad to pull up the shopping list I’d used for the Patricks’ Thanksgiving dinner, and started multiplying all the quantities by ten. My stomach growled to let me know it was time to sneak out for my fast food fix.
Forget the burger. I needed one of Pat’s gin rickeys.
3
It was well after midnight when I tiptoed out of the kitchen with the last armload of picked-at food and eased the door shut with my hip. I waited until I heard the soft beep of the security system arming itself and then carefully made my way through the darkness to my car.
I was bent over the trunk, nesting the tray of stuffed squash into a spot next to the row of thermoses full of gravy when I heard gravel crunching behind me. I almost screamed but stopped myself in time. I slowly stood up, squeezed my eyes shut, and waited for the serial killer who was obviously skulking around behind me to strike.
When I was still alive a moment later, I forced myself to open my eyes and turn around. I found myself staring straight into the shining eyes of Antonio Santos, reputed Italian playboy, professional racecar driver, and next-door neighbor to the Patricks. By next-door neighbor, I mean owner of the distant mansion further down the private canyon drive, but you get the idea.
I’d seen him zooming by in his Bugatti Veyron every so often, usually with a dark-haired beauty in the passenger seat, but it’s not like he ever knocked on the door to borrow a cup of sugar or the weed whacker or anything. So it wasn’t immediately clear to me why he was standing in the driveway with a finger to his lips.
“You scared me,” I said.
“My apologies.” He gave me a smoldering look, which I immediately recognized from his photograph plastered all over the billboards hawking his macho body spray, Speed Demon.
“Uh, no problem. Can I help you with something?” I looked around but didn’t see a car. Had he walked up the winding canyon road?
“No, no. I just … I’m meeting someone,” he said in a hushed, confidential tone.
Good for Alayna.
I tried to hide my smirk. “Okay, well I have to go.”
I glanced at my watch. I had until one a.m. to get the food to the Loving Hands shelter before they lock the doors for the night. If I timed it right, I could hit the In-N-Out Burger on my way home. The thought of a greasy sack of fries and a burger got my mouth watering and put a spring in my tired step.
I left the Latin lover standing in the driveway and peeled out like I was driving one of his cars and not a nine-year-old Saab.
* * *
I groaned and smashed my pillow over my head in an attempt to block out the incessant hammering coming from the hallway. It was no use, though. The dull thud, thud, thud had penetrated my brain. I was fully awake now—and not too happy about it.
I threw off my light blanket and stomped toward the door to confront whomever had decided to embark on a home improvement project at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning. I caught a glimpse of myself in the foyer mirror, and let’s just say I looked like a woman who’d spent the night in a homeless shelter.
Instead of dropping off the party leftovers and making a run for my long-delayed fast food, I’d somehow been suckered by Deb, the pink-haired angel who ran Loving Hands’ perpetually understaffed kitchen, into peeling potatoes and making breakfast casseroles until the sun came up. Which had been about ninety minutes ago.
It wasn’t until I was wrenching open my apartment door, that I realize the hammering sound was actually some jackass pounding on my door. My planned diatribe was cut short when I saw the trio on my doorstep. I could feel my mouth hanging open, so I clamped it shut and passed a hand through my wild bedhead. A young guy in a dark suit, my apologetic-looking building super, Mr. Rizzo, and an intense, middle-aged women buzzing with aggression looked back at me. The woman stepped forward.
“Are you Rosemary Field?” She asked in a clipped voice that matched her all-business pantsuit.
“Yes.”
“I’m Detective Sullivan. This is Detective Drummond. May we come in?” She flashed her badge and was already halfway through the doorway when she asked the question. Her demeanor left no doubt that she was in charge.
My parents, card-carrying members of the ACLU that they were, had always taught my sisters and me not to invite law enforcement personnel into our private space. But then they turned out to have questionable judgment.
“Uh, sure, I guess.”
Mr. Rizzo backed away and drifted down the hallway, while the male detective followed Detective Sullivan through the doorway and closed the door behind him. I glanced down at my filmy nightgown and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Sorry to have woken you, ma’am,” Detective Drummond said. He gave me a boyish smile that I chose to believe was encouraging and not leering.
“It’s okay. Can I throw on some clothes?” I asked. My mind raced as I tried to figure out what would bring these two to my door. I sincerely hoped it was to personally inform me that my deadbeat parents had been apprehended by the taxing authorities in some jurisdiction that still had debtors’ prisons.
“That’s a good idea, Ms. Field,” Detective Sullivan said. “You don’t mind if we have a look around while you get dressed, do you?”
“What’s this about?” I didn’t have anything to hide—except that jar of chocolate frosting with the spoon stuck in it, which comprised the sole contents of my refrigerator—but I didn’t want anyone poking through my stuff, let alone the cops.
Detective Sullivan frowned, and I half-expected her to shout, ‘I’ll ask the questions here!’ as if we were on the
set of a crime drama.
Young Detective Drummond must have been assigned the role of good cop because he glanced at her then said in a mild tone, “We have some questions about a crime that occurred last night.”
A crime?
“Did something happen at Loving Hands?” I asked.
He cocked his head at me. “The shelter on Inglewood?”
“That’s the one.”
“Why would you think we’re here to ask you questions about a homeless shelter?” He screwed up his face in confusion.
“Well, that’s where I was last night. I thought maybe someone broke into Deb’s car or something. I mean, I don’t know—you’re the police.” I looked pointedly at the little notebook he’d whipped out of his pocket.
“That’s right. We are,” Detective Sullivan said, seizing the opportunity to jump in and wrest back control of the conversation. “So go get decent and we can talk about what you know about the murder of Amber Patrick.”
Everything slowed down, way down, it was like a super slow-mo scene from a cartoon. Her words echoed distortedly. My hand made its way up to cover my mouth as if it were cutting through pounds of molasses. “Amber’s … Dead? What happened?” My legs were trembling, so I leaned against the wall to avoid giving the authorities a real show by falling over on my ass clad in nothing but my short nightie.
“She ate your cooking,” the detective cracked.
My eyes flew to the junior detective. “What’s she talking about?”
“Mrs. Patrick died from anaphylactic shock,” he said gently.
“What? She was fine when I left.”
I mean, I assume she was fine. She’d taken a bottle of wine from the server, said good night, and made her way up the stairs to her bedroom while Alayna and I were cleaning up the kitchen. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been a little unsteady on her feet but definitely alive.
“The autopsy hasn’t been completed, but the preliminary report is that she showed symptoms consistent with anaphylaxis at approximately oh one hundred hours and collapsed before Mr. Patrick could administer epinephrine,” Detective Drummond explained.
I shook my head. Everything in my field of vision became wavy, like I was looking through water. “I don’t understand.”
“Let me make it simple, then. You were advised when you began working for Mrs. Patrick that she has an allergy to tree nuts and shellfish, were you not?” Detective Sullivan snapped.
“Of course.” I answered numbly. I vaguely realized that I shouldn’t even be talking to her but I didn’t seem to be able to stop myself.
“And last night, you served your so-called famous vegan gravy, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“A search of the recipe database on the iPad in the Patricks’ kitchen showed that one of the ingredients in that gravy is cashews.”
“It is,” I agreed. “But I omit the nuts when I make it for Amber.”
“Apparently you didn’t this time,” she countered.
“I did so. I doubled the oatmeal and added some extra mushrooms,” I insisted.
Detective Drummond gave me a kind, almost apologetic, look. “We found the container of cashews in the trash in the kitchen, Ms. Field. You should put some clothes on. We’re going to take a ride downtown.”
4
I was counting the cracks in the pea-soup green paint that coated the walls of the interview room in an effort to stave off a panic attack when the heavy metal door swung open.
I hoped against hope that Amber herself would come sashaying into the room, babbling an explanation about trying out a method acting technique or starring in an episode of some show like “Punk’d,” but no such luck. Detective Drummond stood in the doorway and looked at me with sad, downcast eyes.
“I hope you’re here to tell me that my lawyer’s arrived,” I said with bravado that I certainly didn’t feel.
He didn’t answer right away, just kept staring at me with an unreadable expression. I caught myself about to squirm in my seat and stilled my body. Was this some sort of interview technique intended to leverage the discomfort so many people seem to have with silence? If so, Detective Drummond was in for a surprise. I’d attended at least a half dozen silent meditation retreats at monasteries and yoga centers growing up. I mean, I’d gone ten days without speaking to my fellow spiritual pilgrims as a thirteen-year-old girl. I wasn’t about to crack under the pressure of an uncomfortable pause. I pasted a beatific smile on my face and stared back at him.
After about ninety seconds, he blinked and then answered. “No, no lawyer. But your boyfriend’s out front kicking up a fuss, throwing his weight around.”
I opened my mouth to inform him that I didn’t have a boyfriend but then thought the better of it. Maybe Deb hadn’t been able to get a hold of the legal aid attorney who helped out at the shelter. Maybe she’d sent the janitor or one of the regulars down to pose as my boyfriend and ... and do exactly what, I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t been charged with anything (yet), so it wasn’t like anyone could bail me out—at least, I didn’t think so, based solely on my steady diet of police dramas on Netflix.
The police officer kept talking. “Sullivan sent me back here to cut you loose before the kid makes good on his promise to call the mayor at home on a Saturday morning.” He shook his head. “Must be some kind of hot and heavy relationship if he’s down here springing you instead of home mourning the loss of his stepmother.”
My overwhelmed brain struggled to make sense of the words he was saying. Felix had come to rescue me? In my confusion, I forgot that I wasn’t volunteering any information and said, “Felix and Amber weren’t what you’d call close.” As soon as the words popped out of my mouth, I wished I could grab them and shove them back in. But it was too late.
Interest sparked in Detective Drummond’s eyes. “Oh, really? How ‘not close’ were they?”
‘Not close’ enough that he called her a whore yesterday, I thought. What I said was, “I really don’t know.”
He shook his head as if he were disappointed in me. He dropped the subject, though, and made a motion to usher me toward the door. As I walked past him, he asked in an offhand manner, “Hey, what made you decide to plan a formal sit-down dinner for last night’s meal? Vegan turkey with all the trimmings? Seems like an odd choice, considering Thanksgiving was months ago.”
I turned back to meet his eye. I was willing to stay silent about Felix’s simmering hatred for his stepmother, but I couldn’t let this guy impugn my professional reputation—or what was left of it in the aftermath of my client dying, apparently as a result of my cooking. He was looking at me with what appeared to be mild curiosity and genuine interest.
“I didn’t. Yesterday morning, Amber changed my seasonal tapas menu to Thanksgiving dinner for forty.”
His eyebrows crawled up his forehead and the skin around his eyes crinkled as he considered this information. He morphed from casual foodie into intense police officer instantly. “Really? Did she say why?”
I thought back to the previous day. With all my prep work for the party and Amber’s prep work for her body, there hadn’t been an opportunity for me to speak to her before her guests began to arrive. In fact, I realized, she hadn’t said a word to me until just before she’d tripped her way up the stairs at the end of the night. “No,” I said slowly. “Actually, she didn’t even tell me herself. She sent her husband to tell me.”
I looked meaningfully toward the door. I could tell he was just itching to ask me all sorts of questions, but I wanted to get out there before Felix got bored waiting and left me to my own devices. The detective’s cheek muscle twitched, and I could also tell that he was remembering the fact that Felix was throwing some sort of fit in his boss’ office. He sighed then nodded his head in a short, serious motion and pushed the door open for me. He led me through the maze of dingy, narrow corridors until we reached the front reception area.
As we rounded the corner into the lobby, Felix must have heard the sha
rp clacking as Detective Drummond’s dress shoes struck the scuffed-up tile because his head jerked up from his iPhone as if someone had pulled an invisible string. I found myself wondering if the highly polished shoes were standard issue. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to chase a perp in them. But then I readily admit the best thing about being a chef is having a bulletproof excuse for wearing Crocs.
Felix pocketed the phone and rushed toward us. “Rosemary, are you okay?” he asked with a surprising amount of concern.
He grabbed me by my shoulders and hugged me close to his solid chest, and I noticed the following things: one, he smelled like bourbon; and two, Detective Drummond was shuffling his feet and staring fixedly at the wall.
“I’m fine,” I said. I pulled back and searched his face. “I want you to know I didn’t kill Amber. There weren’t any nuts in that gravy.”
He waved away the subject of his stepmother’s death. “We can talk about it someplace else. Let’s get you out of here.”
He didn’t need to ask me twice. Without so much as another glance at Detective Drummond, I started for the door.
As Felix pulled open the door, the detective called after us, “We’ll be talking to you again soon, Ms. Field. In the meantime, don’t make any plans to leave town.”
* * *
Felix didn’t say anything as we walked through the parking lot toward his Porsche Boxster convertible, which I couldn’t help but note was parked illegally in a fire zone.
“Really? At the police station?” I asked.
He just laughed at my disbelief and beeped his key fob to open the door. As we neared the car I noticed a parking ticket tucked under the driver’s side windshield wiper. He saw it, too, and plucked it away. He stared right at me while he rolled the slip of paper into a ball and tossed it to the ground.
“Add littering to my list of heinous crimes, Rosemary.” He gave me a big grin.
Despite myself, I had to laugh. After the miserable morning I’d spent dealing with the cops, his trust fund baby antics amused rather than irritated me. My mood improved even further when he hurried around to the passenger side of the car and held open the door for me.
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