The Ides of Matt 2015

by M. L. Buchman

  The Ides of Matt 2015

  a short story collection

  by

  M. L. Buchman

  Introduction

  Welcome to my second annual Ides of Matt collection.

  I lifted The Ides of Matt from something my best friend in high school used to say. It started after we saw the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar together. The soothsayer says to Caesar—shortly before he goes to the Senate and is knifed in the back by his best buddy Brutus—“Beware the ides of March.” (March’s ides land on the 15th.)

  My birthday lands on March 14th so he (my best friend, not the Roman soothsayer) would wander the halls of high school for days every March intoning: “Beware the ides of March minus one.” For some reason I always thought of him being the voice of aging rather than the voice of someone about to stab me in the back. He didn’t—which I appreciate, Jeff—but years later that did set the idea for my monthly short story collection.

  This is my second collection (I might have mentioned that) and I find that to be a very exciting achievement. It wasn’t all that long ago that I was convinced I couldn’t write a short story if my life depended on it.

  I’ve now sold thousands of copies of my stories (occasionally thousands of a single story) and am so grateful for the resulting fan base.

  The first thing that comes to mind on that point?

  To say: Thank You!

  My fans’ support has allowed me to try out ideas. Sometimes these stories are to expand my thinking about one of my worlds or to check in on a set of characters I was particularly missing that day and wanted to spend some time with. Other stories are about characters who insisted they had their own tale to tell. And a special few are tales that will be giving birth to whole new series. I’ll talk more about all of that below.

  For now, let’s plunge in!

  Iced Chef!

  Iced Chef! is a member of my Dead Chef thriller series.

  Thrillers are a particularly interesting challenge to write, some say the very hardest and I’d agree. I’ve written science fiction, fantasy, and romance; I’ve even dabbled in mystery. Thrillers are just plain tough.

  The heart of a thriller is pacing. But it also requires high stakes and a satisfying conclusion after a wild ride which never takes a breath. A fellow thriller writer upped the challenge, “Do all that, but do it in a short story. It’s impossible.”

  I’ve tried twice, this story and April’s Gas Grilled Chef!

  I tried…and I failed.

  The story succeeded. I think that both stories are fun, fast-paced, and are true to the voice of the Dead Chef series in general. But I don’t think that they’re quite thrillers. The hardest part was building truly high stakes. Thrillers are about bombs, toppling governments, saving a city, saving the world. They’re also about the chaotic turns and twists that escalate until there is no way a hero should be able to survive.

  Trying to fit that, believably, into a short story…Wow! but that’s a seriously fun challenge.

  So here is the first of my fun, really fast-paced suspense stories…murder mysteries…kinda thriller but kinda not…

  Okay, here’s a bit of fun on the ice.

  1

  Rikka Albert shouldered the eighty thousand dollar Panasonic Varicam video camera, which then tried to freeze to her cheek. It was stupid. Her beautiful camera was designed to turn the everyday world into television art. Where was “television art” in the middle of a frozen Minnesota lake? Featureless white to the west. And also north, east, and south just to spite her.

  She’d come out a day early to do the pre-shoot planning and all of the B-roll shots before tomorrow’s Annual Lake Winnibigoshish Northland Chowder-Off cooking competition—ice-caught fish only allowed.

  It was another episode of Kate’s Kitchen Raids and Rikka was glad to be here. She really was. And if she kept telling herself that often enough she might actually believe it someday…like in spring maybe.

  “You people really do this for fun?”

  Senator Hamilton Waring, who had nothing to do with blenders but had a lot to do with a massive chunk of iron ore money and the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, looked completely at home in this sub-Arctic world. Tall, blond, and broad-shouldered even before he’d hauled on his parka. He looked down at her five-feet of Asian sass as if she was an alien bug.

  “I’d say that we Minnesotans are a hardier stock than the rest of the country. We’ve had to be.”

  Rikka resisted the urge to point out that driving out onto the ice in a tricked out crystal red Cadillac Escalade SUV didn’t exactly constitute hardship. The thing looked like a blot of blood in the middle of the winter wonderland. Try trudging through yet another New York City slush storm and see how you do, blender man. But she kept that thought to herself and looked for something, anything to focus on.

  They were well out on Lake Winnibigoshish. Nearer the shore were numerous fishing shacks set in neat rows. It looked like any small shanty town with street-wide lanes on which SUVs and snowmobiles were parked in equal numbers. A line of dark green pine trees marked the shore, which was close by the lines of shacks.

  But Hamilton Waring had not stopped there. He’d driven almost a mile out onto the ice; ice that shot unnerving snaps and crackles at her like a gun battle in the South Bronx. They’d proceeded north across the sixty-nine thousand acre lake farther and farther from the shore that she kept eyeing longingly in the passenger side rearview mirror. The tiny words written there—Objects may be closer than they appear—made the disappearing shoreline even more achingly distant.

  As they’d driven out, the number of shacks diminished, but their designs became rapidly more elaborate. They passed a lone cute cottage and beyond that, off by themselves, were three ice “shacks” far grander than anything around them. They were arranged in a triangle with perhaps a hundred feet between them.

  He circled most of the way around one of the shacks before parking in front of a mansion on ice. Like Elsa would have built if all of her capital hadn’t been Frozen.

  It was one of those “tiny houses” that were all the rage, looking like a big house that had been shrunken by being run through a couple too many dry cycles on high heat. Waring’s mini-mansion was fake Edwardian, with imitation stone siding, numerous bay windows, and a burnished copper roof. The second-story glassed-in cupola surely offered a commanding view over the vasty nothingness. The thing reeked of money, and of no taste whatsoever.

  They clambered out of the Cadillac blood blot, but he didn’t head for the door. It didn’t take Rikka’s trained eye to see that he’d been careful in positioning both his SUV and himself. The man knew his camera angles.

  What the hell, time to stroke the man’s ego.

  Rikka stepped back, ignoring the gunshot ripple of “ice just adjusting itself a bit” and flipped the camera to record. She started with an opening set-up shot of the distant shacks clustered in the distance, panned across the sparser, and clearly far richer, neighborhood out here on the offshore ice. Slowed as she passed over on of the two equally ostentatious ice “shacks” next to Waring’s—one that boasted Bavarian white walls, dark wood angular trim, and massive porch beams—and finally to the man, his SUV, and his own “humble” shack.

  He wore a deprecating smile, that was probably meant to express an approachable billionaire who welcomed you to his playpen, but instead said, “I could be your next President and there ain’t shit you can do about it.” Man seriously needed an image consultant to kick his ass around the ice a few hundred times. But the election was still a ways off, he had time.

  Bet this clip gets cut. Unless he
lost tomorrow’s Chowder-Off, then maybe she could slip it in as the “before the fall” shot.

  In addition to being handsome, rich, powerful, and totally full of himself, he was also the reigning champion of the Lake Winnibigoshish Annual Northland Chowder-Off for three years running.

  “So, Senator, how are you feeling about your chances in tomorrow’s competition?” Give him a leading question and maybe he’d drop out of smarmy mode and give her a decent image to use.

  “Well, you betcha there are some fine cooks out here on the ice. Congressman Marvin Maxwell is good,” he pointed off-screen toward the Bavarian ice house that showed even less taste than blender-man’s if possible. “He uses too much pepper, but don’t let on.”

  “Scout’s honor,” Rikka prompted him knowing she could edit out her comment later.

  “Over there…” he pointed the other way.

  Rikka would have to remember and shoot some footage of the hideous affair to the east. It was white on white on ice. Fake Corinthian columns under a carved portico complete with naked gods and goddesses, all painted in faux marble.

  “That’s Governor Llewellyn’s place. He’s placed second to my chowder twice now, so I’ve got to watch him close.”

  “Not enough pepper?” Rikka guessed.

  “Manhattan style,” Hamilton said grimly.

  “Eww!” Rikka would have to agree with him there. She was originally from Boston and still cringed every time she saw chowder with a tomato base. It was like pizza with chow mein noodles; she liked both, but together?

  “My pop’s recipe, with a few secret changes of my own, has fended them off so far, and it will again.”

  “So, we have the top three chowder chefs in the Northland who are also three of the top-seeded men for the next Presidential election, all on the same piece of ice. Quite a coincidence.” And if blender-man was elected she was moving to another country.

  “Not at all, little lady. Not at all.”

  She’d little lady him right in the shins if she wasn’t filming this.

  “Minnesota breeds more than hardy stock. It breeds great political leaders. But neither one will beat me on the political or the foodie field.”

  Rikka decided not to point out that “foodie” was a totally passé term. The final tombstone on the word’s grave had been the McDonald’s ad campaign, “Foodies Welcome!”

  “Any non-political combatants?” she asked instead.

  “Combatants? We’re all friends out here braving the deep ice. That’s what we call it out here, farther from shore. The ice is actually thinner, but the water is deeper and the catch better. That’s one of the reasons we’re always the top three in the Chowder-Off.”

  Thinner ice? Rikka suddenly wished she was in Florida, which was really saying something—she hated Florida.

  The noble warrior led her forward to the front door of his humble little ice shack. He unlocked the door and held it open for her to enter first. The blissfully warm air washed over her as she entered.

  Rikka let the camera be the first-time visitor, first taking in the oak paneling, green-shaded lamps, and deep red leather chairs—all more fit for a brandy-and-cigar political meeting than an ice fishing hovel. The floor was mostly covered with a lush oriental rug that Rikka could see was exceptional work.

  Close beside each chair an eighteen-inch hole had been punched through the carpet and was covered with a metal and rubber plate. Each chair had its own private ice-fishing hole. She resisted the urge to smack the man for committing crime against carpet as he pointed to various features of his little “home away from home.”

  There were two rooms on this level. At this end of the great room was a fully equipped kitchen and a spiral staircase leading upward to the glass cupola. The middle of the room was the sitting area, which included the finest whiskey bar she’d seen since the G-8 meeting at Inverlochy Castle Hotel in Scotland. The far wall was mostly covered by a massive television screen that stood as tall as she did—though she wasn’t complaining because at the moment it was playing a recording of a massive log fire which made her feel warmer, at least psychologically.

  Through the open door to one side was a master bedroom, again with fishing-hole hatches cut through the fine Persian throw rugs.

  The hatch cover to the other side of the bed had been raised exposing the hole in the ice and the dark water lapping only inches below.

  Rikka would have felt unnerved all over again that she was standing only a mere foot above forty feet of icy depths, but there was a distraction.

  A woman lay on the carpet to one side of the fishing hole. Her parka at her feet. Her skin-tight slacks and form-hugging silk turtleneck advertised that she was a particularly well-endowed one. She might have been relaxing and watching for a fish to tug on her line.

  Except for one problem.

  Rather than greeting Rikka with a smile of surprise, she had no expression whatsoever.

  The voluptuous form was lacking one key item—its head.

  A few long blond tresses still trailed across the carpet, but the missing body part bobbed in the dark water of the fishing hole.

  Rikka recognized Lulu, the wife of Governor Llewellyn, from the prep file despite her being in pieces. Maybe thoughtful, Rikka considered. Perhaps dismayed. It was hard to read the expression frozen on her face.

  “Well, that’s different,” was all Rikka could think to say before calling for the Senator to see to his unexpected guest.

  2

  “I’ve really got to talk to Kate about sending me out on these bizarre assignments,” Rikka spoke into her phone as she waited for her pizza at Rasley’s Blueberry Bowl—“Voted number one in the Northland, honey!” the overly blond waitress in the blueberry-shaded uniform had insisted on telling her. Apparently this was the hot spot of Deer River, Minnesota.

  Rikka had considered several sharp ripostes, including a quick left jab, but finally reconsidered. She’d even resisted the verbal right cross of telling the waitress she was from New York where—even if pizza hadn’t originated—it was where it had been perfected. Atypically, she’d kept her mouth shut. Which didn’t sound like her at all.

  She put a hand to her forehead but didn’t feel a fever.

  Rasley’s wasn’t decorated in blue, rather more of a dingy brown. It echoed with the sharp crack of tumbling bowling pins from the ten lanes heating up behind her. The men of Deer River might be out on the ice, but their wives, with one notable exception, were here and they were in league.

  At the other end of the phone call, Sam Fierro didn’t respond. He knew that sometimes Rikka just had to process out loud. She’d caught him at his butcher shop, Fierro Meats, in Brooklyn.

  Kate Stark was a problem though.

  She’d be Rikka’s closest friend, if Rikka believed in friends. The woman was everything Rikka wasn’t and she tried not to let it piss her off too often, but at the moment it most certainly did. Kate was tall with brunette hair brushing her shoulders, had a figure to make men weep, and was the billionaire owner of Cooks Network. She also could out-cook most of the people on her shows, which Rikka totally respected her for, and had a wardrobe to die for…none of which would fit Rikka’s tiny frame. Yet another reason for a grudge.

  “The worst thing Kate is doing to me right now is not being here until tomorrow, and I’m starting to take it personally.” Since when did she care about getting someone else’s help? Which didn’t sound like her either. She checked the lymph nodes under her jaw but they weren’t swollen. Yet oddly, she was coming to rely on Kate, her twin brother Paul, and Sam…especially Sam.

  Sam, being a wise man, didn’t say anything.

  “Well, the situation here is even dumber than I first thought now that Minnesota’s first lady has turned up a foot shorter than usual.” Rikka really shouldn’t be whining, especially not to someone in a whole different time zone, bu
t he was the only one handy; and the one she’d found she could turn to time and again.

  Besides, Kate would be in the middle of the Eric Ripert interview right now, a total fan moment for Kate, and no way was Rikka interrupting that. Gods! And now she was being considerate. Shoot her now and put her out of her misery. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough when Kate was due in the Gopher State as a principal judge for the Northland Chowder-Off, so Rikka was on her own until then.

  “The Governor came right on out,” she told Sam, then sipped her glass of Rasley’s house red. Major mistake! She edged it as far away across the table as she could. Then she thought better of allowing it to remain so close by and carried the glass over to a table that hadn’t been cleared yet. She covered it with a napkin so that it couldn’t see her anymore before retreating to the safety of her own table and continuing.

  Thankfully Sam was one of those great guys who was comfortable with silence in a conversation. Or had grown used to Rikka’s peripatetic conversational style.

  “Governor Llewellyn beat the coroner-police chief—they’re the same person here which tells you how far off the map this place really is—to Waring’s Edwardian mini-palace by ramming his car into the Chief’s bumper and almost skidding her into the front door of his own Greek Palace fishing shack—I’ll send you pictures. First they were all being too damn polite about, ‘I just don’t understand how she got here, Lew,’ and ‘This isn’t going to look good to the voters, Ham,’ that they never thought about what was right in the room with them.”

  Sam allowed her to let the suspense build.

  “I had my camera running the whole time,” Rikka patted it on the recording head, where it perched on the table beside her, because it had been such a good girl. She was sitting quite alone; Rasley’s restaurant had emptied when the bowling league games had begun.

  “If Kate wants to break into the news business, I have every moment in hi-def video. They’re keeping it hush-hush, so we’ve got the scoop if we want it. I know. I’m jumping the gun, but it’s good, Sam. Governor Llewellyn, Police Chief Patrice Smith, Senator Hamilton Waring Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and a headless woman; three of them doing a polite two-step like they just ate a whole bushel of green apples and there’s only one pot to go in. First Lady Lulu Llewellyn didn’t do much, part of her just lay there and the other part sort of watched them.”