“Oh, that Brian,” she shook her head. “I’m going to sign him up for ballet lessons and try to teach him some grace.”
While Josh chatted with Ade and Owen, I watched Madeline head to the back of the kitchen. I saw her bend down and talk to Brian, and had the impression that she was trying to calm down the upset sous chef. She tousled his hair before standing up and calling another worker for a mop.
I elbowed Adrianna, and she looked up in time to see Brian looking desperately after Madeline. Poor Brian. I knew how much Josh wanted him to do well and wondered whether the clumsy sous chef understood that Josh was eager to have him succeed.
“Ready for dessert?” Josh asked us.
“Always,” Adrianna said.
“Let me go grab Perry. He’s our pastry chef. He’s been downstairs tonight working on some cakes for a party here tomorrow. He’s a little crazy, but he makes the best desserts.”
“What do you mean by ‘crazy’?” I asked Josh.
“You’ll see.”
Josh returned a moment later with a paper-thin guy of about thirty who rushed over to greet us. “Hey, I’m Perry!” he yelled manically. “So desserts, huh? Two ladies and a gent. Let me see what I can come up with!” He dashed off to work on the finale to our meal.
“See what I mean?” Josh said. “He’s a little wired and off the wall. I try to keep him hidden in the basement when I can.”
We had cappuccinos and waited for our mysterious desserts to arrive. Fifteen minutes later, Perry returned with three plates. “For lady number one,” he said to Adrianna, “we have the Chocolate Goddess.” Owen frowned as he looked at a giant chocolate tube that ascended from his girlfriend’s plate. “This,” said Perry, “is filled with lemon sponge cake, chocolate ganache, white chocolate mousse, and fresh raspberries.”
Perry set a plate down in front of me. “And for lady number two, Kahlua crepes with banana pastry cream and Valrhona chocolate.” Two long rolls lay across my plate. Like the Chocolate Goddess, this dessert was distinctly phallic. I couldn’t imagine what Owen was going to have.
“And finally, for the gent, we have a succulent passion fruit and guava tart with fresh whipped cream. Enjoy!” Perry took off faster than I could say “erotic desserts.”
Owen scowled at Ade. “I mean, come on! Look at that! It’s a giant chocolate penis shooting up at you. I’m sitting right here next to you. Didn’t he notice me? With you?”
Adrianna and I got the giggles. The gazillion glasses of wine I’d had did nothing to squelch my laughter. “What do you think it means that I have two smaller ones?” I pointed at my plate.
“I have no idea.” Ade said. “And how about Owen’s succulent fruit tart? A succulent tart?”
Josh passed by with an armful of foccacia. I love that stuff: flattish Italian bread saturated with olive oil and seasoned with wonderful herbs. Ordinarily, I’d have been wondering how to manage a taste of it. Tonight, the only armful I had eyes for was Josh. “So,” he asked, glancing at our plates, “what did Perry do for you? Wow, Adrianna. Perry must really like you!”
My crepes were actually delicious. In some sort of metaphorically group-sex manner, the three of us traded bites. “I don’t know what it means,” Ade said, licking her spoon, “but I love that tart. Call me open-minded.”
As I emptied my wineglass, Josh appeared behind me and put his arms around me cozily. “Listen, I’m going to be out of here in a little while. Do you want to meet up somewhere?”
I looked at my friends, who nodded yes. “Definitely,” I told Josh. “Where do you guys want to go?”
Adrianna mentioned a bar across town, a suggestion that Owen rejected quickly. “No way. If I have to listen to one more idiot play Van Morrison or John Mayer covers again, I’ll puke up this delectable dinner. Either we’re going to be cool and go to a jazz or blues club, or we’re going all out cheesy and heading over to Boylston Street. I’ve got the good suit on, folks, so let’s not waste my look.” He moved his eyebrows up and down dramatically.
Adrianna and I voted for cheesy bars. Josh said he’d be at our chosen bar in about an hour. “I’ll get everything settled here. The good thing about being the chef is that I don’t have to clean up, so once all the food is out, I’m outta here.” He leaned over and kissed me slowly on the mouth. “I’ll see you soon,” he whispered to me.
“Thank you so much for dinner, Josh,” I said. “This was by far the best meal I’ve ever had.”
Owen and Adrianna jumped in with praise and thanks for the night. I asked if Madeline was around so I could say good-bye. “She’s talking to Brian right now. Probably trying to make him feel better. He tries so hard to impress everybody that whenever he screws something up, he feels awful about it.” Josh shrugged. “I’m not worried about him. He just needs to toughen up a little. He’s too sensitive.”
“Well, please thank her and Brian for us. And, uh, Perry. And I’m sure we’ll be back,” I said, kissing Josh again. “So we’ll see you in a hour or so?”
We left enough money to give our waitress a generous tip and went outside to get Owen’s car from the valet. Adrianna and I had been responsible for most of the wine consumption and tipsily made our way into the car. After we’d tipped the valet, Owen headed toward Boylston Street while Adrianna and I gushed over Josh and his cooking.
Uninterested in girl talk, Owen decided he was going to play his favorite car game, “Taking My Driving Test.” He’d invented this asinine game a few years ago and periodically subjected us to it. The so-called game consisted of driving as though you were in the midst of your driving test, in other words, driving very slowly and law abidingly, thus pissing off every driver around you as you came to full stops at stop signs and drove below the speed limit.
“Owen, cut it out!” shrieked Adrianna as a black car almost rear-ended us at a major intersection. “We don’t have time to waste filling out accident reports!”
“Okay, okay,” agreed Owen, chuckling as he resumed normal Boston driving. “I just like to prove the point that this city is full of driving-impaired citizens. I’m trying to be a role model.”
We continued raving about the food until Owen reminded us of Eric’s murder investigation. Owen and Adrianna agreed that they didn’t see anything at all sinister about Josh, and both felt confident that even though he lacked an alibi for the time of Eric’s murder, he couldn’t be the killer. It occurred to me that I should somehow lure Detective Hurley and his associates to Magellan for dinner. Once they’d tasted Josh’s food, he’d be off the hook.
THIRTEEN
I woke up the next morning and snuggled up to Josh, who was spooning me tightly. My head was throbbing from one too many beers the night before, and it took me a few groggy minutes to recall that I hadn’t committed any cardinal sins. Except attempted sexual assault? The happy thought crossed my mind that if I confessed to Naomi, I might get fired from the Boston Organization Against Sexual and Other Harassment in the Workplace. My bed wasn’t exactly a workplace, of course. Even so.
To the best of my recollection, Adrianna and I had knocked back quite a bit at the bar as our dates had been nursing a few pints of Guinness. After last call, Ade and I had decided that a slumber party was in order and had yanked the boys back to my place to crash. I’m pretty sure I attacked Josh on my bed but was too inebriated to do much more than drunkenly kiss and grope him for a few minutes before falling asleep. At some point I’d apparently put on striped pajama bottoms and an extremely seductive Sponge Bob T-shirt.
I peeked back under the covers to find that Josh was shirtless but still had on jeans. I guess I still hadn’t scared him off.
“What in God’s name is wrong with this coffeemaker?” Owen demanded from the kitchen. I smelled the familiar reek of burning and heard the ghastly burping noise that the stupid machine made when attempting to brew a pot.
I sat up in bed, rubbed my eyes, and hollered, “Just back away and let it finish. Whatever you do, don’t touch it!”
“No, Owen’s trying to make coffee.” I paused while Josh continued kissing my neck and shoulders and … why had I brought Adrianna and Owen over here? I could have been alone with Josh right now.
“Owen, go out and get us some real coffee, okay?” Adrianna moaned from the living room. She sounded as hungover as I was. She and Owen had slept on my pull-out sofa, which had a mattress primarily composed of lumps and springs. Even if she’d gone to bed sober she’d have felt a violent need for caffeine.
“Hey,” Josh called out, “you guys want to go get breakfast? My roommate Stein works at Eagles’ Deli down in Cleveland Circle.”
“Bless that man!” Owen shouted. “I’m starving! Everybody up!”
“I love Eagles’,” I told Josh as I rummaged around my room for clothes. “I didn’t know you had a connection there. I wonder if we’ve ever run into each other before.”
“Oh, I would’ve remembered you, baby,” he teased. He looked around my room in the light of day, and I cringed. My unfinished paint job was now tragically highlighted by the sun glaring through the windows. “What’s going on with that stripe there?” Josh asked innocently.
“I’ll tell you later,” I muttered with embarrassment.
Ade and I met up in the bathroom and gossiped for about thirty seconds while we threw on clothes. I barely got to whisper to her about mauling Josh before Owen thumped the door with his hand.
“Move it! We’re not going to Spago.”
We hurried up, and I didn’t notice until later that I hadn’t even bothered to put on makeup or worry about my hair. Josh, my self-image therapist. I could practically hear the outraged reaction of my feminist classmates at social work school to that idea. Dependent on a man for—Still, I wasn’t worried about my appearance, and that had to count for something, didn’t it?
When we emerged, Josh and Owen were talking.
“So, Stein’s your roommate?” Owen asked. “Was he around the night this Eric dude got killed?”
“No, he was working the night Eric was murdered. He can’t give me an alibi. But”—he smiled at us—“he makes a mean omelette.”
“Don’t worry, man.” Owen patted Josh’s back. “I have a feeling Chloe’s not going to let you go off and rot in jail.”
“Good. A conjugal visit isn’t exactly what I had in mind.” He winked at me. “The good news is that I haven’t heard from the detective in a few days. I’m not sure how strongly he suspects me. I mean, he’s actually been pretty nice to me this past week. You know, polite and formal, but I get the feeling he’s just trying to do his job. I don’t think he’s out to get me just to pin the murder on someone. I’m the easiest suspect right now. All right, that’s enough. No more murder talk today.”
“Yes, sir.” Adrianna saluted Josh. “We’re ready to go!”
As we were heading out the back door, the phone rang. “Let me just grab that before we go, okay?” I rushed back inside and picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Chloe? It’s Sheryl Rafferty, dear.” Dammit. I hadn’t heard from her since the funeral and thought I was free.
“Oh, um, hi. How are you?”
“As well as can be expected, I guess,” Sheryl’s shrill voice ripped through my hangover headache. “Phil and I would like to have you over for dinner tonight. We’d like to talk to you about some things. Can you come? Around six?”
Now, the last thing I wanted to do was have dinner with the Raffertys. The only reason I even thought about accepting the invitation was the possibility of learning something about Eric that would point to a suspect other than Josh. I agreed to dinner, but said I wouldn’t be able to stay long. School work and all that, I lied.
“Who was that?” Adrianna asked.
“Actually,” I hesitated, not wanting to freak out Josh, “it was Eric’s mother, Sheryl. She and Phil want me to come over for dinner to discuss something. I said I’d go.”
“Are you nuts?” Ade yelled. “I thought you’d gotten rid of them.”
“I haven’t gotten around to it. Yet. I haven’t even talked to them since the funeral. I’ll tell them tonight that I wasn’t Eric’s fiancée. But I was thinking that if I talk to them and find out more about Eric, maybe I can find a good suspect to pass on to Detective Hurley. With luck, maybe the real murderer.”
Josh looked at me. “Chloe, you don’t have to do that. Please. I’ll be fine. Call her back and tell her no. Just explain everything over the phone. You don’t have to suffer through dinner with them for my sake.”
“I want to. We all know you’re not the murderer, but somebody is. Maybe the Raffertys are. Both of them. Or one of them. And maybe I can get some useful information. Besides, they’re still mourning their son’s death. At least I guess they are,” I said, thinking about my Group Therapy class’s hypotheses. “All right, we said no more murder talk. So let’s get out of here.”
We walked down the back stairs and ran smack into Noah.
With the trashy blonde.
I hadn’t noticed her car outside, but I’d been too focused on half-naked Josh to see much of anything else.
“Noah,” I said cooly, grabbing Josh’s hand.
“Veronica?” Josh said. Owen, Ade, and I whipped around to stare at Josh.
Noah spoke first. “You two know each other?” he asked the skank.
“Yeah,” she bubbled. “I do the books for Magellan, right, Josh?”
What the hell is going on? Eric’s ex-girlfriend is dating my ex? Is everyone part of a conspiracy, some freakish plot centered on Eric’s murder? Is every guy I get involved with connected to this idiot Veronica? And most of all, God, I hope Josh hasn’t slept with her, too.
“Yes, you do a lot of things at the restaurant,” Josh responded. The condescension in his voice told me that he hadn’t been with her. Huge relief.
“Oh my God! Did you hear about Eric Rafferty? I couldn’t believe it.”
We ignored her.
“Let’s go.” I started down the stairs again.
“Hi, I’m Noah.” The jerk extended his hand to Josh while ignoring Owen. I stopped and eyed Adrianna, silently begging her to help move us along. But she looked pretty interested in checking out the male dynamics going on here. Consequently, I was stuck standing there waiting to see which guy would be the next one to try symbolically marking me as his turf.
Josh shook Noah’s hand but looked far from pleased about it. “So, how do you two know each other?” he gestured to Veronica.
“Oh, she’s Tyler’s bookkeeper,” Noah answered. “He’s a chiropractor who lives downstairs,” he explained to Josh. “I met her when she came by to drop some papers off for him.”
“Brilliant,” I said. “Now we all know each other. Let’s get going.”
We started the five-minute walk to Cleveland Circle. “That was weird,” mumbled Josh. “Veronica sure gets around. She and Eric had something going … and now this kid? And before that she and—”
I cut him off. “Wait! Josh, hold on.”
Veronica was a link between Eric and Noah. According to Adrianna, Noah had a violent attitude. So … Veronica could have wanted Eric dead for some ex-girlfriend reason, and she could have convinced Noah to murder him. Maybe. But what would have been in it for Noah? Veronica’s undying love and devotion? I highly doubted that. The promise of unconditional sex with no desire whatsoever for a relationship? Still not likely. But Noah was a sneaky, untrustworthy person. A person with the makings of a murderer?
Or Veronica did it herself. When Noah had asked how she and Josh knew each other, she’d mentioned Magellan and hadn’t said a word about working at Essence, too. Of course, Magellan was the place she and Josh had in common. Even so.
My question was how to run the possibility of Veronica’s guilt by Josh while conveying a minimum
of uncomfortable details about my past with Noah. So far, I’d managed to omit any information about my ex downstairs. I gave a quick summary and actually ended up enjoying the spark of jealousy in Josh’s eyes. When I’d finished, Josh quickly grabbed my hand, thus claiming his position as my new (and improved) man.
“I didn’t like that kid.” Josh shook his head. “I don’t know what it was, but I just didn’t like him.”
“Turns out I didn’t like him much either,” I agreed.
“Yeah. He’s an asshole,” Ade said. “But … so what do you think he was doing with Veronica?” She paused for a second. “Okay, I know what he was doing with her. But Chloe’s right. It’s a creepy connection. With this whole Eric-getting-chopped-up situation.”
“Could you not say ‘chopped up’?” I pleaded.
“I don’t know,” Josh said. “I’ll have to think about that. Small world? It might just be a coincidence.” He pulled me in close to him as we walked, his arm securely over my shoulders. “Let’s just forget about it for now.” Josh kissed the top of my head as we strolled toward the Circle.
“You two are ridiculous. Aren’t they, Owen?” Adrianna said. “Any more ogling each other, and I’m going to puke.”
“Ew! Kissing? Girls?” screeched Owen. “Yick!” He gave Adrianna an impressive, slobbery kiss.
“Owen, stop! I’m hungover and all smelly!” Adrianna protested, laughing.
Josh and I walked ahead while my two friends acted like fifth-graders in the playground, chasing each other and squealing.
When we got to Eagles’ Deli, there was a long line just to get to the front entrance. Ade and Owen caught up with us, still giggling.
“Oh God. Look at that line,” Ade moaned. “It’s going to take forever to get in today.”
“Ah, don’t worry about it. Come on,” Josh said, leading the way past the college students lined up along Beacon Street and into the deli. “Hey, Fatty, what’s up?”
The Gourmet Girl Mysteries, Volume 1 Page 15
