I nodded. “Good morning, well almost afternoon. And yes, we heard. It’s so awful.”
Mr. Twain said, “I heard you were there.”
“I was, with Andrew. It was a nice date until it happened.”
The author wannabe looked at the ceiling. “I heard a rumor this morning. There seems to be another food critic, a rival of this Emery Rumbold. The story I was told stated there is bad blood between the two of them.”
“Mr. Twain, you wouldn’t happen to know this food critic’s name, would you?”
“Raine, my dear, but of course. He goes by the moniker of Gabriel Dubois. Some sort of fussy Frenchman.”
My mind raced. Was the stranger Gabriel Dubois? “Do you know what their differences involved.”
“My dear lass, some stories omit the best parts. And alas, this is the case for the feud between Mr. Dubois and Mr. Rumbold. But the real question is, would rival food critics harm one another, physically? I have long thought that in order to become a critic of any kind, one must discard all morals and common sense.”
Grandma chuckled. “Such a way with words Mr. Twain. But that is for the police to figure out. In fact, we just had an inspector in here questioning Raine.”
Mr. Twain eyed me with a tilted head. “Is that right, dear?”
“Yep. Got his card right here.” I held up the small piece of heavy weight paper. Daisy imitated me and held up her card, too.
“My, my, the police are moving promptly, while memories are fresh.” Mr. Twain leaned over the counter while he spoke. “By any chance, do you lovely ladies have some of those petit fours left?”
Grandma smiled. “Maybe.”
I glanced over to Mr. Twain. “You know, you’re right. To get the best information, you need to ask people before time passes and their memories fade, or even worse...change.”
Grandma sighed. “Sweetie, I know you better than most. And I can tell when your mind is playing with something.”
“Yeah. I’m wondering if I should call Jaxon, have him come to town and help me think this through. He could help me with the kinds of details that might be important. I was there, and may have seen something significant, but didn’t know it.”
Mr. Twain chuckled. “Jaxon Taylor? The private investigator you have a crush on?”
I leered at the Twain impersonator. “That has nothing to do with it. If I did see something, maybe I can help. I honestly want to make sure I’m not overlooking something.”
Grandma served a few petit fours to Mr. Twain. “Hmmm, I guess you’re right, Raine. This an awful thing and if it was not an accident, we should try to find out who would do such a terrible thing. Plus, maybe Detective Lambert will pay our shop another visit. I wouldn’t mind getting to know him a little better.”
“Grandma! That is so unlike you.” She blushed and I chuckled. Then I sighed and said, “I think I’ll give Jaxon a call, see if he can come and lend a hand.” After removing the phone from my back pocket, I scrolled my contacts to Jaxon Taylor, and pushed the call button.
Mr. Twain popped one of the small pastries into his mouth. “Divine, simply divine. My dear Rose Wilson, you are an artist.”
Grandma waved off the quirky imitator while I heard the phone start to ring.
“Jaxon? Hello. It’s Raine.”
Jaxon cleared his throat. “I’m not surprised to get a call from you. I saw the news this morning and it’s awful something like that could happen in The Gilded Nickle.”
“It was on the news. Holy crap!”
“Yeah, but you were probably working.”
“Of course, as usual. Hey listen. I have a favor to ask. Can you come to town for a while? I was at the restaurant when it happened. And just a few minutes ago, a homicide detective was here asking me questions. It got me thinking, I want to make sure I’m not missing something. You know, what to look for and how to think these things through. Maybe you can help me.”
“Sure, I’m working on a few cases but I could be there this afternoon. I’m only a couple of hours away.”
“That would be great. I really appreciate it. I’ll plan on seeing you at the tea room later today.”
“See you then.” He clicked off. Our last date ended poorly. I decided to address that lingering issue as soon as he arrived before moving on to the new business of potential murder.
Chapter Four
Jaxon arrived just after three o’clock. He wore jeans and a clean, pressed button down shirt, his usual stake out garb. The jeans fit him perfectly highlighting his fit physique. “Hello, Raine. The tea room looks wonderful. And Daisy, you get prettier every time I see you.”
In response, Daisy smiled at him and curtsied, as well as a monkey can. I chuckled, “Hello, Jaxon. You sure know how to make her happy. And thank you for coming on short notice. This whole thing is just awful and I appreciate your help. I really don’t want to miss something I may have witnessed that can help resolve what happened.”
Jaxon took the menu that Daisy insisted on giving him. “Thank you, Daisy. You are so sweet. But I haven’t even been seated yet.” He handed the menu back to Daisy and turned to me. “Well, the first thing you need to do is stop assuming. And you are presuming it was an accident. If a detective came to ask you questions, the police are keeping an open mind, and so should we.”
“That is good advice. But first, I want to address something else.”
Jaxon laughed. “Let me guess, the end of our last date?”
I smiled back, “Of course.”
“It’s water over the dike. No big deal.”
“But it is. I don’t want you to think the wrong things. I like you, really. But I just want to take things slow, not rush into anything.”
He put his hands in his pockets. “I get it. It’s understandable, especially with how your mom and dad split up. By the way, how is your mom’s tour of Europe going?”
“It’s going fine, thanks for asking. And thank you for understanding. I was afraid that if you had lingering doubt, or hard feelings, after out last date it might interfere and prevent us focusing on the serious matter of this poor woman’s death.”
His face went blank. “You underestimate my professional morals. I wouldn’t want a murderer to go unpunished anymore than you.”
“You took an oath for that as a P.I.?” I eyed him sideways.
He laughed. “You got me. Nope, of course not. But I am serious about making sure justice is served.”
“So how do we start?”
He shrugged. “Well, let’s begin with the basic story of what you saw last night.”
So we took a seat at an empty table and I told him, but I left out the part about how nice Andrew looked and the pleasant conversation. When I got to the part where Holly panicked, I paused. “It was weird, we didn’t pay too close attention to those two until then. Then it was all we saw. She was so scared and fighting for air. Emery was frantic and just kept looking in her purse. And yelling for an Epipen or doctor.”
Jaxon sighed. “Did anyone help him?”
“Not really. No one knew what to do I suppose. Everyone was waiting until the medics arrived.”
“I know this is obvious, but did you see anyone do something unusual, not in character for the moment.”
“No. Well, not in The Gilded Nickle. But an odd thing happened here in the tea room yesterday. A strange man confronted Emery and Holly right here.”
“Do you know the stranger’s name?”
“No.”
He took a small notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. “So suspect number one, and we need to learn his name.”
Mr. Twain spoke. “Don’t forget Gariel Dubois!”
Jaxon asked, “Who is that?”
“A rival food critic.” Mr. Twain added, “There’s a rumor he feuded with Mr. Rumbold.”
Jaxon wrote the name down. “Suspect number two.”
“But we don’t know if he was even there!” My eyebrows hiked and my jaw hung.
Jaxon furrowed his
brow. “Don’t look at me like that. You don’t know where he was. Assume nothing. Remember?”
“Alright, I remember.”
Jaxon continued, “And of course, we have the obvious list of suspects, The Gilded Nickle and any jilted lover of Holly’s.”
My eyes narrowed, “I get the jilted lovers, if there are any. But why the restaurant?”
“They were under review from a famous critic. That’s a lot of high-stakes pressure so we can’t overlook them.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Daisy inspected Jaxon’s notes . He smiled at her. “Did I miss anyone?” Daisy nodded yes. “So who did I miss?” Daisy patted her chest. “No sweetie, this is not a list you want to be on.”
Grandma cut in, “Let the man work, Daisy. You’re being a pest.” Daisy screeched and disagreed with a robust head shake no.
Jessica entered the tea room and interrupted Daisy’s stubborn spell. Our primate hostess moved over to my best friend and inspected for children. “No, sorry, sweetie. The kids didn’t come today. They are working with their father.”
“Hello, Jessica, nice to see you.” Grandma cleaned a table as she spoke.
Jessica sighed. “Always nice to see you, too, Rose. But to be honest, I needed a break. You won’t believe what happened yesterday when we left Dennis and Susan to run the shop. The kids thought they would rearrange the displays and broke half the merchandise.”
I laughed. “At least they didn’t burn the place down.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that, Raine. Listen, I came over to see if everything was alright after the dreadful events of last night. But I see you already have some help.” Jessica scrutinized Jaxon.
Jaxon replied, “We are doing some sleuthing. I'm making a list of suspects, motives, means and opportunity.”
I interrupted. “We were just talking about suspects.”
Jaxon said matter-of-fact, “Obviously, we have more to discuss.”
Jessica bubbled, “Ooo, I want to be part of the discussion. So juicy.”
Jaxon continued, “So we have our suspects. The Gilded Nickle; a stranger, name to be determined; Gabriel Dubois; and jilted lovers. On to motive.”
Jessica offered, “Well, that is obvious for jilted lovers. Don’t the police always look to spouses or lovers first?”
Jaxon nodded. “Yes. But the motive can vary from jealousy to revenge. So we need to identify a specific jilted lover to get more detailed with the motive.”
I mentioned, “The restaurant still confuses me. What was their motive?”
Jessica replied, “Fear. Of a bad review or maybe worse.”
I asked, “What could be worse?”
Jessica noted, “Well you saw that with your own two eyes. An incident like that is going to hurt business.”
Jaxon gasped. “How did I miss that? Good work, Jessica. A rival restaurant or business could be a suspect. We need to add that to the list.”
Jessica squealed then said, “This is so exciting, and fun!”
I pointed out, “This is not a game. Someone died!”
Jessica bowed her head. “I’m sorry. I know. It’s just I don’t get that much excitement in my life.”
Jaxon remarked, “Your best friend owns a tea shop with a chimpanzee hostess. That’s not boring.”
She laughed, “Good point. When did you get so wise?”
The front door opened and Andrew entered. He saw us sitting at the table and came over, taking the last seat. “Hello, Raine. I finished fixing Mrs. Lewis’ bathroom and thought I would come by and see how you are doing today.”
Jaxon eyed Andrew and asked, “Who is this?”
Jessica blurted out, “Andrew is our new handyman. Raine had a date last...ooo sorry.”
Jaxon glared at me. “You seem to have left out that part of the story. And I was stupid to not ask who you went to dinner with last night.”
Andrew growled, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I reflexively cut in. “Now this is a civil discussion.”
Andrew continued despite my effort to call a truce. “You mean to tell me you dated this?” He pointed at Jaxon.
Jaxon chuckled. “At least I’m not making my living with my head stuck in a toilet.”
To my surprise, Jessica intervened. “This may be uncomfortable, but Raine can date whoever she wants. And right now we have more important matters to deal with. Remember, someone died last night?”
I added, “Jessica is right. We need to focus on how Holly was served a salad with a deadly sesame oil dressing.”
Jaxon huffed, turned a faint red, and continued. “So we have a list of suspects. But the mean, motives, and opportunity need to be flushed out. And we can't forget that it may not be a murderer. It could have been a simple accident in the kitchen.”
I asked, “So what do we do now?”
Jaxon held up his notes. “Followup on the list. Fill in the blanks. I think we should start with learning this stranger’s name. Do you know anything else about him?”
“Yeah, Holly was a judge on a TV show he was on. She didn’t like his dessert and gave him an earful on national TV.”
Jaxon pinched his lips, glared at Andrew, then locked eyes with me. “Sounds like a good place to start. Let’s get cracking. You and me need to dig in and get some research done. And he can leave.” He flicked his head at Andrew, refusing to look at him as he finished the sentence.
Chapter Five
It took some doing, but Andrew calmed down and agreed a private eye might be able to help us. After that, Andrew and Jessica left for home, leaving Jaxon and me in the tea room to work on our suspect list.
Jaxon went to his car and returned with a computer bag. He took out the laptop and set it up on a table. I slid my chair over to view the screen and Jaxon pecked at the keyboard and punched in “Holly Triste judging food competition.” The search returned a long list of hits...seems she was a busy girl. He tried again, fine-tuning the search to include the words television and dessert. This search produced a few Youtube videos.
“Looks like the one.” Jaxon pointed to the screen to indicate the right video, then hit play.
An elaborate scene started. The stage held four cooking stations and a table populated with a panel of four judges. Holly was one of them. Two white clad cooks labored at each cook station and they produced fancy plates for tasting.
The finished dishes were sampled by the judges one by one. Finally, the stranger from the tea room stood in front of the judges as they tried his dessert course. Pointing at the screen, I said, “That’s him.” I read the screen. “So his name is Oliver Reid. He was the executive chef at The Atlantic Crown Resort. Wow! That’s that hoity-toity place on the east coast.”
Jaxon raised both eyebrows. “You said he ‘was’ the executive chef.”
“Well, from what I can tell after seeing him yesterday, he’s not working much these days.”
We watched a little more of the video. Then Holly spit out a mouthful of a splendid looking dessert. I snorted, “I guess that is where she thought it was too sweet.”
Jaxon laughed. “You think? So this is what the stranger told you about then. Wait, the other judges like the dessert. They are disagreeing with Holly. Now that is odd. She makes a scene but everybody else likes his dish. There may be some friction between Holly and Mr. Reid.”
“You have a point. Even if you did think it was too sweet, why would you spit it out and make such a big deal about it?”
Jaxon glanced at his notebook, scanning the list. “This Mr. Reid here has a motive...and if we assume he lost his job over this, and he was there at the restaurant when it happened, we have opportunity, as confirmed by you. So did he have the means?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. If he knew about Holly’s allergy, maybe.”
Andrew picked up his notebook. “He’s becoming the most interesting of the bunch.”
“So what are you saying?”
Jaxon shrugged, “Simple! We should talk
to him. Do you know where he is?”
“No. But if he was in town, maybe he is staying at the inn.”
Jaxon chuckled. “Let’s hope. We should take a ride over and check if he’s registered.” Jaxon stood and stretched.
“I need to make sure Grandma will be alright on her own.”
Jaxon jingled his car keys. “Alright. Let’s move. No sense wasting time.”
With a quick glance over to Grandma, I asked,“Will you be alright, alone, for a while?”
“Of course, dear, go see what you can find. I think I will call Mabel and ask her to help me the next couple of days. I have an inkling that you will be busy with other things and missing some work.” Grandma smiled at me to show her support, then added, “Why don’t you just call the inn first, before going over there?”
Jaxon snorted. “I’m used to hitting the road and doing things in person, but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to check if he’s there first.” He picked up his phone and dialed.
Daisy headed for the front door. Grandma snickered, then said, “Seems you don’t have to call.”
Through the big storefront windows I saw the stranger. He now had a name, Oliver Reid, and approached the tea room entrance.
Jaxon put his phone down and shook his head. “Are you kidding me? Well, I guess a business with a monkey mascot is a draw.”
He entered and Daisy greeted him at the door. Oliver Reid smiled at her in return. “The tea here is good, but I wanted to come and spend more time with you, Ms. Daisy.”
Daisy grinned and nodded yes. Then she showed Mr. Reid to a table. He sat, and to his surprise, so did Daisy. He folded his hands on the table. “So we are having tea party, I see.”
Daisy nodded yes and pushed the menu across the table to him. Grandma saw the scene and went to take his order.
I laughed and asked Jaxon, “Is being a private investigator always this easy? We better talk to him before he decides to leave.”
He nodded, “Let me do the talking.”
We rose from our table, leaving the computer and other belongings, to move over to Daisy and Mr. Reid.
A Tiny Bite of Murder Page 3
