Stick a Fork In It

by Robin Allen

  “So this—”

  “Compromises several of my theories. Yes, I know.”

  “No, I was going to say this narrows down your suspects.”

  “Pardon?” I said. “Did Jamie Skepticwood eat some Credence Crunch for breakfast?”

  “I’m not the governor,” he said, “and I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

  “If it’s not Todd and Ginger, then it’s Miles or Danny, and I can’t think of a good reason for either of them, so I think we can stick a fork in it because it’s done.”

  “That doesn’t mean a good reason doesn’t exist. If you had to pick one of them, who would you arrest right now?”

  “Aren’t theorizing and postulating against the rules?”

  “Not when you have facts on which to base them,” he said. “Now we know that Troy wrote hot checks, he hired a lawyer who advised him to go cash-only with his vendors, and he may or may not have known that his twin brother and wife were having an affair.”

  “Troy hadn’t seen the picture of Todd and Ginger.”

  “Troy may have hired John Without in the first place because he suspected something was going on between them.”

  “That could have been why he hired Philip!” I said, excited again. “He wanted to track Todd’s and Ginger’s movements.”

  “Where is Troy’s notebook? Did you ever see it?”

  “No, but the first day I was there, Troy claimed someone knocked him out behind the restaurant.”

  “What?”

  “He went out back for a snack, and one of the workers found him. Danny and Ginger both thought he passed out because he’d been drinking. When Ginger asked what his attacker took, he felt his back pockets. I had assumed he was checking for his wallet, but it could have been the notebook.”

  “Was it missing?”

  “I don’t think so. He didn’t seem distressed.”

  “If Troy thought someone was after his notebook, he might have thought he was in danger. Where were your suspects when Troy was knocked out?”

  I took a moment to place everyone. “I was at the bar with Todd, Troy, and Danny when I named the restaurant, then—”

  “You named the restaurant?”

  “You’re not the only wordsmith in this relationship.”

  “What is it?”

  Was the name I came up with subject to the confidentiality agreement? I didn’t want to risk it. “I can’t tell you the whole name, but it has capital in it.”

  “Oh, that’s really clever,” he said. “Austin is the capital of Texas. Everything has capital in the name.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “Getting back to their whereabouts, I stayed inspecting the bar alone for about fifteen minutes, then caught up with Todd and Danny in the office. After Troy went down, I went back inside to get some water for him and ran into Ginger coming into the kitchen from the dining room. And Miles had gone to CapTex for a sink but was there when Philip and the protesters showed up.”

  “Where were they?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know they existed until later.”

  “And John Without?”

  “Ditto.”

  “Any one of them could have knocked out Troy,” Jamie said.

  “Yes, but if they didn’t take the notebook, why?”

  “Figure that out and you’ll have your motive.”

  “Brilliant, Jamie.”

  “I wish I could give you more.”

  “Who do you think did it?” I asked.

  “Brad Pitt and Brian Cox.”

  Troy. “So you were just humoring me?”

  “That’s what the facts point to.”

  “The facts can kiss my hind end! Troy Sharpe did not kill himself.”

  “So figure it out, Poppycakes.”

  “Okay, I’ll keep working,” I said. “I forgot to tell you at the Cove that the Johns invited us to a picnic at their house tomorrow.”

  “Did they plant a new rose bush?” he asked. The Johns use every little excuse to throw a party.

  “Liza’s debut.”

  “Oh, brother. What time?”

  “Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly.”

  “High Noon,” Jamie said. “I’ll be there.”

  I hung up and saw Drew walking through the dining room, smiling. He looked handsome in a brown shirt and starched khaki pants. “Trevor told me you were here,” he said when he got to the bar.

  I took my espresso cup around to the sink. “I’m almost done.”

  “He also told me what you said about Ursula.”

  See? It takes no time for word to get around in a restaurant. “Sorry,” I said, “but it’s true.”

  “I knew what she was up to.”

  Of course he did. Drew is scary good at reading people. “So you’re not interested in her?” I asked.

  He held my eyes. “I prefer smart, quiet blonds.”

  I looked away. “Drew—”

  “I wasn’t entirely honest with you earlier about why I came back to Austin.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I came back for you,” he said.

  “Coop!” Trevor called from the wait station.

  Drew crossed his first two fingers and put them over his heart. “I’ll wait as long as it takes,” he said, then stood and walked off.

  Poppycakes didn’t want to hear that, but Sugar Pop? She thrilled a little at Drew’s words. But why? I’m a one-guy girl, and Jamie is my guy.

  Yes, Jamie is my guy.

  x x x

  I spent the rest of the day at the Palatine inspecting restaurants, working into the early evening inspecting bars to make up for the couple of hours I had spent at Markham’s. It’s the strangest thing that upscale establishments think that by virtue of catering to a wealthier clientele, they are somehow immune to surprise inspections. How dare the health department check up on them!

  The Johns were out when I arrived at their house around 9:00 pm, which meant I could take a shower before I went to bed without feeling guilty about making noise. Too bad you can’t bathe your brain and wash away the thoughts you no longer want in your head.

  I would expunge my thoughts that Daisy was right about me feeling differently about Drew now that my emotions had caught up to my reason. I would scrub away my suspicions about Troy’s death so I could relieve myself of the self-imposed responsibility to right that wrong. And I would stop thinking that I was probably going to accept Nina’s imminent offer to decorate my remodeled house.

  x x x

  The next morning, the Johns rose early to make final preparations for the party. They wouldn’t let me help, so I offered to fetch breakfast. After we ate, I went back to my room and stayed out of their way, finishing up my inspection paperwork from the night before. I planned to stay at the picnic for a couple of hours, then head over to Capital Punishment.

  I heard snatches of the Johns’s conversations as they walked in and out of the house. “We should have made more bones.” “Do we have enough pink balloons?” “I think Liza is getting excited.” “Yes, baby girl, this party is for you! For you! For you!” Each “you” punctuated with a kiss.

  I also heard their end of phone conversations. “No, you can’t bring your cat.” “We’re not Baptists. Of course we’re drinking!” “John loves your fried gizzards.” “You’re allergic to dogs?”

  For some reason, the Johns’s friends are never late to their parties, not even fashionably, and the first guests started arriving at 11:45. Jamie called me at noon to tell me he was finishing up a story and to ask what everyone was wearing.

  “Apparently it’s a Cuban-themed picnic,” I said, “so they’re mostly wearing shorts and guayaberas.”

  “I don’t have one of those shirts.”

&nbs
p; “Wear your blue linen and the dressiest shorts you have, and you’ll be fine.”

  “What about shoes?”

  “Yes, wear shoes,” I said. Since when did he care about looking good for a bunch of gay men? “And you’ll have to park down the street.”

  By noon:15, about fifty mammals had pranced through the back gate, some carrying their dogs, some leading their owners on leashes. I saw the Johns’s friends I had met the other night at the gallery. Sean and Jason introduced me to their white standard poodle, Winston, then I met Rob and Emmanuel’s boxer, Ricky. As the beer and Cosmopolitans flowed and the tiny back yard filled with Shih Tzus, Chihuahuas, Dalmatians, and dogs of unknown pedigree, it became difficult to distinguish the canine yapping from the human yapping.

  Jamie finally arrived to appraising stares and a few growls. “Woof,” I said as he walked up to me.

  “So I look okay?”

  “Like a model.”

  “Not the look I was going for today, but thanks.”

  “Did you finish your story?” I asked.

  “Yes, but I need you to help me with the title before I post it.” A wicked little smile revealed his left dimple. “It’s about last meals at Capital Punishment.”

  I nodded, then heard what he said. “What?”

  He laughed. “It’s what I do for a living, babe.”

  “How long have you known?”

  “For a while. You dropped enough hints about the menu. Then you almost said the name on the way to Daisy’s, and Philip Anthony told me it was based on a prison. It was easy to figure out from there.”

  “You’re amazing,” I said, and kissed him. “How about ‘Capital Comfort Food’?”

  “Keep thinking, little Miss Wordsmith.”

  As we ate and drank and chatted with acquaintances from gallery openings and other parties, Jamie either held my hand or wrapped his arm around my waist. It would have been nice to believe it to be an expression of his devotion to me and how inseparable we are, but we aren’t the types to hang all over each other in public. He wanted there to be no doubts about his straightness.

  When the Johns started walking around with silver trays, handing out homemade dog bones imprinted with Liza’s name, Jamie said, “I need to talk to you about something. Can we go over to your house?”

  As we reached the back gate, two girls who had dressed to get the attention of straight men came through it. One of them said, “Jamie?”

  I recognized his hairdresser, Tara, her short red hair moussed into spikes, the tips dyed electric pink. She looked like something from a Dr. Seuss cartoon.

  “I was hoping you’d be here,” she said, fingering his curls. “It’s been forever! I thought you had switched salons, but you’ve been letting your hair grow. It looks good long.”

  “Thanks,” Jamie said. His hand tightened around mine.

  “Don’t you think so, Poppy?” Tara hugged me. “I miss seeing both of you.”

  And then I smelled it. The sweet, flowery stench that had curdled my happiness seven months ago.

  I looked at Jamie, his face as white as sour cream. He gripped my hand tighter. “Poppy.”

  “Tara?” Disbelief heated my face, and I threw his hand out of mine. “Tara?”

  thirty-one

  Tara was all my mind would process. That’s why he hadn’t had his hair cut. That’s why he wouldn’t tell me who she was. Tara the party girl. The tall, skinny party girl who is half his age.

  Conversations near us softened to murmurs as I backed away from Jamie, rage retarding my motor skills. I stumbled into dogs, trampled sandaled toes, spilled expensive beer.

  John With saw the commotion and rushed over to me as I reached the back door to the house. “What? What?” he asked, distressed at my distress.

  “Tara,” I choked out. “It was Tara.”

  John opened the back door and walked me inside. He let me fume for a few seconds, then said, “I’m so sorry, Poppy Markham. I didn’t know.”

  John Without came through the back door. “What happened? Did a dog bite you?”

  John With said, “Tara is who Jamie cheated with.”

  “Her?” John Without said. “She’s such a skank.”

  “What do you want to do?” John With asked me. “I can ask her to leave.”

  I shook my head. “I’m leaving. I have to do an inspection. Go on back to the party.”

  John With sat down at the table, sweetly having no intention of abandoning me, which forced John Without into a decision between strutting around the back yard among his guests or leaving his boyfriend alone with me in a vulnerable state. His ego won and he made a huffy turn, then flew out the door.

  “I’ll be okay,” I said to John With. “It’s a shock, and I need some time to process everything. I thought we were mended, but this is a new breach.” A huge one. “Get back to your guests.”

  John stood and hugged me, then opened the back door, letting in sounds of happiness. He turned back to me. “I know you don’t want to hear this right now,” he said, “but Jamie Sherwood is a good guy, in spite of his bad judgment one night. Believe me, I know. Straight or gay, most of those guys out there aren’t any better than their dogs.”

  “You’re right, John. I don’t want to hear that, but thank you.”

  I changed clothes, then hurried outside to my Jeep to make a triumphant getaway. Except I had parked under my carport, and the Johns had told their friends they could park in my driveway, which they did. I had the time to wait for the cars to be moved, but it wasn’t a good idea to hang around. I had controlled myself fairly well, considering, but now that my hurt and disbelief had festered into disgust, the likelihood of a scene being caused if I saw the booze-crossed lovers was quite high. And John Without would never forgive me if the post-party gossip focused on the drink I would have thrown in Tara’s face instead of how adorable he and Liza looked in their matching rhinestone collars.

  John Without, on the other hand, had the foresight to park on the street. I called John With’s cell phone. “I need to borrow John’s car,” I said when he answered. “Mine’s blocked in.”

  “The extra keys are hanging by the front door,” he said. “Bring it back today and he’ll never know.”

  Jamie knew that coming after me would only make things worse, but he called my cell phone several times, hanging up without leaving a message. What could he say? “Of all the girls at all the clubs who buy me drinks and slip me their phone number, of all the girls in Austin who could have turned my head away from you, I picked Tara.”

  Tall, skinny party girl Tara, who is half his age.

  When I first discovered that Jamie had cheated, and then figured out that it was someone we both knew, I examined every possibility: the regular waitresses we had at our favorite restaurants, the checkers at the grocery store near his house, the bartenders at clubs where he played, the freelancers he shared an office with, Ursula. I had never even considered Tara.

  She flirted with him during his hair appointments, but she flirted with everyone. And she dated everyone. Seriously. Everyone. Jamie would return from the salon making fun of Tara’s latest drama with her boyfriend of the week. She usually dated club bouncers, personal trainers, and bartenders, so Jamie Sherwood, the famous food writer, was dozens of steps up.

  I didn’t want to think about that, about them. Together. They were probably still together, doing Zeus knows what, and I didn’t care. If that’s who Jamie wanted, then I wouldn’t stand in his way. I hoped they would be very happy together, actually. Him with her nice haircuts and her with his movie-naming game. Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. The movie based on Tara’s life.

  One of my greatest assets is my ability to switch mental gears quickly, but not today. I had to fight to keep Jamie and Tara ou
t of my thoughts, but they kept fighting their way back in. At first I had resented having to finish Capital Punishment’s inspection on a Saturday, but now I could think of nothing I would rather do. Funny how fate paves the way for what you need.

  x x x

  Capital Punishment looked like it had most every other time I had been there—on the verge of completion. Several workers trudged in and out of the double doors ferrying construction supplies to the cage in the back corner. Maybe they were finally wrapping up. What could Jamie possibly see in her? The fact that she is the literal opposite of me: a health-conscious, law-abiding, faithful girlfriend who is his age? Could it be her smoker’s cough? Her boney elbows?

  As usual, I parked near the back door, taking care that John’s car stayed on the blacktop and I didn’t get grass stains on the tires or dirt in the wheel wells. I didn’t see Danny’s or Todd’s cars and hoped they had told Miles to let me onsite. But Miles’s pickup wasn’t there either, so it didn’t matter. I had been around so often the past week, the construction workers probably assumed I worked there, so they paid no attention to me as I walked through the back door.

  I didn’t trust that nothing else had been broken while something else had been fixed, so I started my inspection from scratch. To my dismay, everything worked as it was supposed to in the kitchen. Water flowed into the three-compartment sink, and the mop sink had a back-flow valve. The hot water and the vents worked. All of the refrigerators were cooling to 41 degrees or below, the freezers to freezing. Same thing in the wait station and bar. Jamie had said that Crown Royal was on special that night, but he doesn’t usually drink hard liquor. Why did he that night? Why Tara? Because of her hedgehog hair? Her man hands?

  Before any of the guys, or the gal, showed up, I went upstairs to see if I could figure out anything about Troy’s murder while I had the time—something I should have done when I first got there, had I been thinking clearly. Had Jamie said he couldn’t make the party, had Tara not worn that revolting perfume, had I not spoiled the Johns’s anniversary party in the first place so Liza’s apology debut picnic wouldn’t have been necessary.

  Even the light in the stairwell worked when I flipped the switch. Would we be in this situation if Jamie had told me who she was at the time? I would have broken up with him regardless, but would I have mended things with him as I had? Probably. And now I was back in the fifth circle of hell, anger, and we were starting all over. Or ending all over.