The Gourmet Girl Mysteries, Volume 1

by Jessica Conant-Park

  “Thanks, I just repainted. I have a bit of a painting disorder, actually. I keep repainting everything and then a few months later change my mind and redo it. It’s a decorating illness, and I expect you to refrain from making fun of me.” I heard Josh laugh in the other room while I rummaged in the fridge for something to drink. “Josh, I have water or milk. I’m sorry, I don’t seem to have anything else.”

  “Any chance you have any coffee? I’m sort of beat from today.”

  “Um, possibly. I’ll give it a try,” I muttered. I set the coffeemaker up and went back to sit next to Josh. I was all tingly again, seated in my place beside this chef. His chef’s coat was full of cooking smells, and although most people would have said that he stank to high heaven, I thought he smelled delicious.

  Josh must have caught me sniffing. Suddenly, he looked embarrassed. “Sorry, I’m sure I reek from being in the kitchen all day. I’m going to go grab a change of clothes from the car and just freshen up.”

  “No, no! I’m sorry. You do smell. I mean, not in a bad way. I like it, really.” Wonderful, now I’ve told him he smells.

  “You’re funny and very nice, but I’m still going to change.”

  Josh left to get a change of clothes, returned, and disappeared into the bathroom. As I was pouring us some coffee, I heard Josh talking. “Hello, how are you?” he said. “You’re cute. You and I are going to be friends.”

  He thinks I’m cute? And we’re going to be friends? Hmm …

  “Are you talking to me?” I called out.

  “No, I’m talking to this cat sleeping in your sink.”

  “Oh, that’s Gato,” I said, relieved that Josh wasn’t defining our relationship as destined to be purely platonic. “He sleeps in the sink all the time. Just push him out of the way.”

  I heard a meow, a long apology from Josh, and then the water running.

  Josh talked from behind the closed bathroom door. “So you and Eric ate at Essence when you went out, huh? What did you think? Aside from the murder, obviously. But what did you think of the food?” He emerged, hair and face slightly wet, wearing worn jeans and a red T-shirt, and looking more scrumptious by the minute.

  “Well,” I said as I walked back to the couch with two mugs, “the menu looked phenomenal, but some of the food wasn’t all that great. I feel bad saying that because Timothy seems like such a nice person, but a couple of the dishes we had were pretty awful.”

  “Really?” he said. “What did you guys order?”

  “Some stuff off the menu, but also food Garrett did as specials for us. So we had some soggy oysters, mealy foie gras ravioli, and a terrible tuna with mustard greens. But the lobster and venison we had were wonderful.”

  “Yeah. Garrett is an all right chef. Great sous chef material, but probably not cut out for an executive chef job yet. Or maybe ever, if you ask me. My own sous chef, Brian, he’s eventually going to be a great executive chef. Right now he isn’t near being ready to handle his own place. I mean, he’s only twenty-one. But he’s hardworking and definitely ambitious. He just needs more experience.” Josh settled himself on the couch and turned his body to face mine.

  “Do you know Garrett well?” I asked.

  “Yeah, actually Garrett and I went to culinary school together, and I wouldn’t exactly say we’re the best of friends. I don’t mind him, but he doesn’t like me much. Not to sound cocky, but we’re both pretty competitive, and I was always a better chef than he was. He’s good, don’t get me wrong, but he pretty much hated me because he knew I could outcook him anytime. There are plenty of other chefs just as good as Garrett, and he knew it. But he knew I was in a different league, and he resented it. And still does.”

  “He did look pretty harried the night I was at Essence, and the food was certainly not spectacular.”

  “He was a strong sous chef, but I don’t think he’s good enough to make Essence anything special. See, my guy, Brian, is different. He can cook. And I show him exactly how to make all the dishes, which is helping him a lot. But he’s still trying to learn all the other parts of being a chef and managing a kitchen. Brian fell to pieces when I was off last Sunday, but I can still tell that he learned from what went wrong and that eventually he’ll be ready. He tends to be sort of accident prone, and when he gets nervous, like when I’m not there, it gets worse. He dropped a vat of veal stock all over the floor and made a mess.”

  Josh stretched his arms above his head. “But it’s a drag, because now whenever I’m off, I’m worried about what’s going on in the kitchen at Magellan and whether or not Brian’s managing things okay. Most nights he does fine, but like, tonight, since I’m off, I’ll probably call there a few times to check in and see if he’s got questions for me. I’m not usually ever off on a Saturday night, but Maddie wanted me to have a break after working all day for the funeral.”

  “I don’t know why Tim had all that much confidence in Garrett as a chef,” I said. “I mean, enough confidence in him to give him the job. First Tim hired Garrett, then, from what I heard, Tim had you help Garrett with the menu.” I paused. “Oh God! I’m sorry. I just said the food at Essence was terrible! And you helped Garrett—” Now he was going to run away for sure.

  “No, that wasn’t me cooking, so don’t feel bad,” Josh assured me. “But, yeah, I did sit down with him and write up the menu.”

  “Why would Tim hire him if he can’t even write his own menu?”

  “Well, Tim doesn’t have to pay him that much because Garrett doesn’t have much experience. Tim works him seventy hours a week and probably doesn’t even give him health insurance or any other benefits. You get what you pay for sometimes. Garrett’s not a bad guy, though, he’s just a little bitter about the fact that we went to school at the same time and that I’m in the position I’m in, and he’s struggling where he is.”

  “So you helped out Essence? That was generous of you.”

  “Maybe … see, I like Tim, but I was a little irritated about it, because for one thing, I have enough to do at Magellan, but mostly because chefs don’t like sharing their recipes. The detective was right when he asked me about the competition between Magellan and Essence. On the one hand, I like Tim and want him to do well, but on the other hand, I don’t want him to do that well. The truth is that there’s only so much room for top restaurants in one city, and I’m only so interested in helping out the competition.”

  “But the menu at Essence looked great, so you must have helped Garrett out quite a bit?” I didn’t understand how the chef who created today’s food could have been responsible for some of the disasters I’d eaten at Essence.

  “Sort of. He had some okay ideas, but his dishes were very simple. Not the kind of high-end food Tim wanted to serve. I helped him come up with the concept for the dishes, but I let him figure out how to make everything. I’m betting that’s where the problem is—he’s been trying to cook my dishes, and he’s screwing them up because he’s frankly just not that talented.”

  He sighed and continued, “So, like I said, I basically screwed him over.” Josh looked down. “Like, he wanted to do my fennel and orange side, so I basically just gave him the general idea of how to make it. But I didn’t tell him all the ingredients, and I definitely didn’t give him step-by-step instructions. I know for a fact that instead of using fresh orange slices and fresh juice, he uses canned Mandarin oranges, which totally changes the quality of the dish. And I shave my fennel, and Garrett just chops it—which means the fennel doesn’t absorb the flavor in the same way. So,” Josh admitted, “I screwed him over.”

  “It’s like if you told me all the ingredients in a beef stew, but didn’t tell me exactly how to make it? Instead of roughly chopping the vegetables into big chunks, I might finely mince up the carrots and potatoes, which would make for a sort of disgusting stew, right?”

  “Exactly. Tim probably would’ve done better to let Garrett do his own simple food rather than try to cook something beyond him.”

  I was sta
rting to see the detective’s point. “So you intentionally set him up to fail? And is that what Detective Hurley thinks?”

  “I probably did without realizing it. I went in there with good intentions, but Garrett copped such an attitude with me the day I showed up to help him that I guess I wrote up items I knew were mine, items I was the only one who could do just right. He was being such a dirtbag. It was just like we were in school all over again. He kept acting like he didn’t need my help and kept walking away in the middle of talking to me. I know this doesn’t make me sound like the greatest guy in the world, but he pissed me off, and that’s what happened.” He paused. “But if Madeline brought in another chef to help me do my dishes, I’d probably be an asshole, too. Garrett was probably embarrassed and just took it out on me. But it sounds like he pulled off a couple of the dishes, which is better than I thought he could do.” Josh smiled sheepishly.

  He leaned back on the couch and ran his hands through his hair. I noticed his hands were covered with burns and blisters and calluses, signs of battle from the kitchen. Although his beat-up hands might have put off some women, I thought he looked manly and, for some reason, heroic. But I did start to worry about the impression Josh’s self-assurance might have created on the police. To me, Josh seemed justifiably confident about his ability as a chef; he’d probably paid his dues and deserved to gloat a little bit. To me, his attitude wasn’t arrogance; it was pride. But maybe the police had seen him otherwise; maybe his self-confidence had made him a likely suspect.

  “Look,” I started, “I don’t think it was the nicest thing to do, but I can understand where you were coming from. If you two were old rivals, it doesn’t seem to make sense to put you together to work on a menu. And Garrett should’ve known that he was reaching with those dishes and figured out something else.”

  “I do feel bad about it, because I probably could’ve helped him plan dishes he could’ve done well. But I didn’t. And I think that’s made Detective Hurley suspicious.”

  “So you were off last Sunday, the night Eric was murdered, right?” I asked.

  Josh nodded. “Yup, and that detective is still trying to ‘verify my alibi,’ as they say on TV. I’m not that worried. It’ll be fine. I was home alone, though, so he’s having trouble confirming that. My roommate, Stein, was working late that night and didn’t get home until after midnight. And there’s the problem with the knife being mine. But the detective actually seems like a nice guy, and he has to do his job. And it’s not like I’ve been arrested or anything.”

  “Josh, what kind of knife was that? I saw it, unfortunately, when I found Eric in the men’s room. I’ve never seen a knife like that before. Kind of curved.”

  “It’s just a specialty knife called a cimiter.” The word sounded like scimitar: a saber. For someone talking about an object remarkably like a sword, Josh sounded casual when he went on to say, “It’s used for cutting down meat.” He paused and looked right at me. “So, are you ready to kick me out yet?”

  Maybe it was the gin-and-tonic-induced love goggles, but all I could see was a sincere, talented, driven guy, a guy I wasn’t about to kick out of my condo. I shook my head, “Of course not.”

  “Look, for the most part, the culinary and restaurant world is not nice. Everyone’s overworked, usually underpaid, and totally chaotic. We don’t get weekends off, we work nights, it’s tough on families, it’s tough on relationships. And everyone in this business is sort of whacked in one way or another. We’re all kind of manic, which I guess we need to be to keep up with the pace. But I don’t want you to get the impression that I don’t like other chefs and that I think I’m the greatest chef. I have plenty of friends that are chefs, and there are lots of chefs out there that I totally respect. But it’s still, well, pardon the expression, cutthroat.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t think you killed Eric. I’m starting to understand how tough your chef world is, but that doesn’t make you a killer. Now we just have to convince Detective Hurley of that.”

  Josh looked up at me. “We?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “I just met you, and I want to get to know you better, so I’m not about to let you rot in jail.”

  Sometimes it happens: an instant connection. Even my recent disasters with Noah and Eric couldn’t prevent me from putting myself out there. Heather was always warning me that I fall too hard and too fast for men. I didn’t care. I hated playing games, feigning indifference, taking things slow. When I liked someone, I just went for it, and I wasn’t about to start holding back now. If Josh decided he wasn’t interested in me, then I’d survive. Maybe I’d get burned. Maybe I’d find love. In fact, maybe I’d found it.

  “You know what?” I said to Josh. “Let’s not talk about the murder anymore, okay? It’s all going to work out.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been talking your ear off about this and the restaurant and Garrett. You must be bored stiff. I guess I just needed to get some of this off my chest. Thank you for listening.” One week of social work school, and I was already a highly skilled therapist.

  “No, don’t apologize. I love hearing about restaurants. I’m completely obsessed with food, which is probably why I thought Eric would be a good date for me. He was interested in restaurants. But we know how that turned out.” I rolled my eyes.

  “So, I guess this means you’re single, then?” Josh asked adorably.

  “Very single. Yes.” I got that nervous feeling that happens right before you get kissed for the first time … was he going to kiss me?

  Yes.

  Josh leaned forward and gently placed one hand on the back of my head as he moved in for the sweetest kiss ever. What a relief that he kissed as well as he cooked. It was always such a disappointment when a first kiss was seriously flawed: a monstrous tongue darting in and out, saliva everywhere. Nauseating. Unfortunately, common. I’d dumped people after the first bad kiss. If the kissing is bad, you’re pretty much guaranteed that any other physical pursuits will be a letdown.

  Josh eventually pulled back and whispered in my ear. “You know what, Chloe?”

  “What?” I asked, a little too breathlessly.

  “I’m starving.” Josh said. “I’m sorry, it’s just I haven’t eaten much today.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I should have offered you something. I’m a rotten host,” I apologized.

  “You,” he said as he kissed me again, “are a wonderful host. It’s just that I don’t usually get to eat when I’m working.”

  “I’m not sure what I have. Probably leftovers and scraps. If I’d known I was having a chef over, I’d have stocked up,” I teased him. We went into my tiny kitchen and peered into the fridge. I was dismayed to find nothing I’d consider offering to a man of such gourmet taste. “I don’t have much.” I pushed a wilted head of lettuce out of the way to reveal a one-inch cube of cheddar.

  “Here, I’ll find something for us to snack on.” Josh placed his hands on my waist and moved me gently aside. “Can you grab a plate for us?” he asked as he busied himself pulling jars and Saran-wrapped items from the depths of the refrigerator. Within minutes he had created an antipasto-like appetizer of three cheeses, pickled vegetables, stuffed peperoncini, sliced apples, crackers, a few raspberries, and some stray deli slices. Now, if I’d arranged exactly the same ingredients on the platter, it would’ve been nothing more than a group of mangled food bits; Josh, however, performed magic.

  “Here we go, my lovely one,” Josh said, placing the platter on the kitchen table.

  “I don’t know how you put this together. I didn’t know I had half this stuff left in the fridge.” We sat down together and talked while we ate.

  “So, Ms. Chloe Carter, tell me about yourself,” Josh said with a look of sincere interest.

  And I did. We talked for over two hours. After debating whether or not to portray myself as a pulled-together social work student with a clear plan for my future, I decided to put the truth out there and see where it led. I confessed th
at I was a bit muddled. Josh was slightly amused but supportive; he didn’t show the slightest hint of disapproval.

  Of course, we talked food. I would’ve assumed that Josh had grown up eating like royalty or at least like ordinary French people, same difference, but he’d existed on frozen dinners and canned vegetables until he’d left home to go to culinary school on a scholarship. He’d lived in a pretty rough section of South Boston with his parents and a sister, Angela, who was eight years older than he was. Josh used to bake with his grandfather quite a bit, but making pies and cakes was the extent of his cooking experience until he announced his intention to become a chef. “I’m not even sure how I decided that’s what I wanted to do. I just knew it. No one in my family got it … well, except my grandfather, who said, ‘You’re gonna cook your ass off, kid.’” After graduation, he worked his way up at a number of Boston restaurants until he eventually got the job at Magellan.

  “All of your girlfriends must’ve loved the fact that you’re a chef?” I had to broach the subject of women. How many ghosts or exes were still hanging around?

  “Actually, no. Most girls don’t want to put up with a chef’s hours. I work holidays, weekends, and I’m not usually done until anywhere between ten at night and one in the morning. I’ve had a couple of people break up with me because they resented how much I work.” Josh shrugged. “But what are you gonna do? I just love being a chef.”

  “Well, I think that’s horrible. If you want to be with somebody, then you work it out, bad schedule or not.” I’d wait up until three in the morning every night just to catch a glimpse of Josh. “Well, they must have loved your cooking, though. Didn’t that make the hours worth it?”

  “I dated one girl for two years, and her favorite food was a well-done turkey burger on a roll.” Josh rolled his eyes. “So I can’t say she was a big fan of my cooking. God, I never want to see another turkey burger as long as I live. And she couldn’t deal with my hours, so she dumped me.”