Southern Discomfort

by Caroline Fardig

  Delilah came back and asked, “Are you done with your chat already?”

  Tired of waiting, I pulled her with me out the door. “Not enough time. I’ll speak with him later.”

  As we jogged across Barnard and into Pulaski Square, she said, “Good thinking. Maybe later you two could take an evening stroll or something.”

  I cringed. “Yeah, maybe.” Putting Tucker out of my head, I went on. “Anyway, we want to make sure to speak to the manager, Ava Newton, and a waitress, Sasha Chambers. They’re our priority.”

  “You got it, boss,” she replied, giving me a salute as she practically skipped through the park.

  Between our sleuthing adventure and the flowers, I hadn’t seen Delilah this excited in a long time. I hadn’t realized she was feeling so bored with her job at the B&B. I’d have to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn’t become burned out.

  “Oh, I almost forgot…Uncle Frank said the weirdest thing to me when I was in the kitchen looking for a vase for your flowers.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “Um, D, we should probably focus on our task at hand.”

  “This seemed important to him. He said, ‘Hot fish is not what you’re looking for.’ What do you think it means?”

  I thought it meant she was losing it, but I hated to say it out loud. It was one thing to move stuff around as a joke and blame it on a ghost. But claiming to be getting cryptic messages? Maybe she really did need a break from B&B life.

  “No clue.” I changed the subject. “We’re here. Time to put our sleuthing caps on.”

  Through the windows at Green, we could see the staff bustling around inside, cleaning and stripping tables, boxing up loose items, and basically getting ready to shutter the place. I felt a twinge of sadness at the sight. More than a twinge, actually. My heart broke for the Green family. Even if Valerie and Drew had wanted to close the place, I couldn’t imagine they wanted to do it under these circumstances. And Jason never would have wanted this.

  Delilah and I climbed the steps, and I tried to open the front door. It was locked, not surprisingly. I knocked, and one of the waitresses came over and opened the door a crack.

  “Sorry, but Green is closed until further notice. Or…forever. I’m not sure,” she said.

  I gave her my brightest smile. “I know. I’m Quinn, a close friend of Drew’s. I came by to speak with Ava and Sasha. Are they available?”

  The girl cast a glance over her shoulder. “I don’t think we’re supposed to let anyone in here…”

  “Drew asked me to come talk to them for him.”

  She studied me for a moment. “Okay. Ava is in the kitchen.”

  The waitress opened the door all the way for us, and Delilah and I entered the restaurant. It felt so stark and empty and sad. As we approached the door to the kitchen, I had a mild flashback to the last time I’d been here. I reminded myself that if the staff was working in there, then the blood and mess had to have been cleaned up, if for no better reason than it was unsanitary.

  My sister must have felt the nervous vibes rolling off me, because she patted my shoulder and said, “I’m sure it won’t be easy going in there again, but you can do it. You’re strong.”

  This was exactly why I needed a sidekick. My resolve restored, I threw my shoulders back and marched into the kitchen, past the place where Jason had lain, and approached Ava, who was securing a cover on a large stand mixer.

  “Hi, Ava, I’m Quinn Bellandini, and this is my sister, Delilah Bellandini.”

  As we shook hands, Ava replied, “You’re Drew’s friend, right?”

  “Yes. And we’re here to speak with you about some things concerning Drew…and Jason. Can we go somewhere private to talk?”

  She nodded, leading us into the office adjacent to the kitchen. Delilah and I sat across the desk from Ava. My heart was hammering. Delilah, however, looked cool as a cucumber—so cool she actually seemed bored, slouching in her chair. How she was pulling that off, I’d never know.

  Delilah said, “I’m sure it’s difficult for you to coordinate shutting down the restaurant without Jason or Drew around.”

  Ava flicked her eyes down. “It’s been hard, yes. But it’s time.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Surely Drew has told you about Green’s decline in revenue. I’ve been in food service long enough to know that sooner or later our paychecks are going to start bouncing. Better to close now before it gets bad.”

  “But that means you’re out of a job,” I pointed out.

  She shrugged. “Might as well be now as later. There are plenty of other restaurants in Savannah.” She regarded us skeptically. “So what are you here to talk about?”

  My eyes grew wide, and my pulse quickened. We had our game plan, but it had suddenly gone out of my head. I glanced over at Delilah, who was still as calm as ever.

  Noting my internal freak-out, she gave me a wink and said to Ava, “Drew sent us here to speak with all the employees. He’s hoping since many of them were some of the last people to see Jason alive, you all could fill us in on everything that happened that night. And anything else you might know about Jason—who his enemies were, any trouble that he was in…basically anything that might help the police to see that Drew Green didn’t kill his own brother.”

  A look of annoyance crossed her face. “You want to speak to everyone individually? That could take hours.”

  “We’ve got time.”

  Ava stood. “Well, if Drew says so, I suppose I’ll go round some people up for you. He’s still the boss, I guess.”

  When she left, I exhaled, probably for the first time since I’d walked into the office.

  “You okay?” Delilah asked, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

  “Sure. Just a few nerves.”

  “You’ll be fine. As a matter of fact, it might be a good idea for us to split up and each take half of the employees. Work smarter, right? Save some time for our next adventure?”

  My face fell. “You mean go at it alone?”

  She put her hand on my arm. “You can do this. Use our list of questions. Take notes. You’ll do great. But if you need my help, just yell.”

  Delilah left me and went to find Ava and another place to speak privately with the staff. A young woman, probably not quite out of her teens yet, came in and sat in Delilah’s vacated chair, her eyes wary.

  She cleared her throat. “Ava said you wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yes, I’m Quinn Bellandini, one of Drew’s friends. And you are?”

  She shrank back from me. Surely I could take on this meek little mouse. “Jen. Jen Halpert.”

  “Hi, Jen. I’m here to help Drew. As you probably know, he’s in jail for Jason’s murder, and he’s innocent. What I’m trying to do is find out if there’s someone else out there who would have had a reason to hurt Jason. Were you working Monday night?”

  “No.”

  Fiddlesticks. Well, there went about two-thirds of the questions on my list. “Okay, then. Um…have you seen Jason have heated arguments with anyone on a regular basis?”

  Jen stared back at me with her huge green eyes. I could probably guess the answer to that—yes, only all the time.

  “Jen,” I began gently, “it’s not like any names you give me are automatically going to the police as suspects. I’ll speak with everyone involved and try to find the truth. That’s all I’m interested in.”

  Jen cleared her throat again. “Well, he does yell at Sasha a lot. And she yells back. But they never seemed that mad at each other.”

  I nodded. “Okay, that’s great. Anyone else?”

  “Well, of course Jason and Drew fight. Because they’re brothers.”

  “Sure.”

  “And…I’ve seen him and Ava go at it pretty bad.” Her face crumpled. “Plea
se don’t tell Ava I said that. She’s still my manager as long as I work here—”

  I held up a hand. “It’s fine. I already knew that, but it’s nice to have confirmation.”

  She seemed relieved. “Okay. Then I guess that you know that Jason never got along that great with Ava’s boyfriend, either.”

  I tried to keep my face impassive. Another lead! To Jen, I said nonchalantly, “Oh, right. I forget his name…”

  “Brock is all I know.”

  “Brock, right.” I hoped I could get Brock’s last name from Drew.

  “Anyone else come to mind?”

  “No, I mean, Jason yelled at everyone. But Ava and Sasha and Drew were the only ones I’ve ever seen yell back. I’m new, though. I’ve just been here a few weeks.”

  “Okay, fair enough. Anything else go on around here where Jason is concerned that you find odd?”

  She shook her head.

  “That’s all I have. Thanks so much, Jen.”

  Nodding, she skittered away without another word.

  That wasn’t half bad. If more people we talked to were like Jen, this investigation might work out after all. Next at the door was a beautiful blonde, college-aged by my guess, but with the confidence of a woman beyond her years. She strode in and draped herself over the chair like a model.

  “Well, what do you want?” she demanded.

  “Uh…I…” I gulped. “I wanted to…”

  She rolled her eyes. “Get on with it. I have work to do.”

  “Right…so I’m…Quinn. And you are?”

  “Sasha. This feels like a waste of time to talk about Jason. He’s gone.”

  So this was the infamous Sasha who openly sparred with Jason. As I studied her beautiful face, I could tell by the set of her jaw and something in her eyes that she was trying to rein in some kind of emotion.

  “I know, and I’m sorry to have to bring up a painful subject for you, but Drew—”

  “Painful?” Sasha cleared her throat. “He was only my boss. It wasn’t like we were…like we were close or anything.”

  There it was. I’d found a chink in her armor. “I’d heard that the two of you fought quite a lot…but that maybe you didn’t really seem angry with each other. Was that your way of joking around?”

  Averting her strained eyes from me, she shrugged.

  I followed her gaze and noticed that she’d begun to stare at a photo of Drew, Jason, and Valerie cutting a ribbon across the front door of Green. It must have been from their grand opening a few years ago. A tear slid down Sasha’s cheek, and she angrily brushed it away.

  I knew that look anywhere. Delilah didn’t have such a great track record where romance was concerned, not that I had any room to talk. More often than not, my sister would manage to pick the absolute worst guy for her and fall hard for him. When she inevitably got dumped, I’d be there to offer a shoulder to cry on and a tub of ice cream to share.

  I reached over and touched Sasha’s arm lightly. “You had more than just an employee-employer relationship with him, didn’t you?”

  Sasha snapped her head toward me, eyes wide.

  “It’s okay, Sasha. I’m not here to judge you. I only want to know what really happened to Jason so that Drew doesn’t get locked up for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  Her bottom lip trembling, she nodded.

  “Based on your reaction, I take it you didn’t kill him.”

  “Of course not,” she whispered.

  “Were you working Monday night?”

  She shook her head. “I was at a study group at SCAD.” She was referring to the Savannah College of Art and Design.

  “Oh, so you’re a student there?”

  Nodding, she said, “Art major.”

  “Sounds like a fun course of study. But back to Jason. So if you two were…close, why did you fight all the time at the restaurant?”

  Sasha smiled through her tears. “It was a little game we played. At first, there was some actual tension between the two of us. I was new and didn’t yet know his expectations, and Jason always screamed first and asked questions later. What started out as a personality conflict turned into…something amazing. We decided it was a good cover to pretend we didn’t get along at work.” She closed her eyes. “All that play arguing got us hot and bothered—”

  “Okay, that’s probably all the specifics I need.” I did not want to hear any more than I had to about Jason’s extramarital affair. “Did Jason tell you if there was someone out to get him or someone with a grudge against him…or maybe if there was someone he owed money to?”

  Her face darkened. “His wife. She looks like a horse.”

  I had to bite down hard on my lip to keep from laughing out loud. Valerie wasn’t as pretty as Sasha—not many women were—but she wasn’t necessarily what I’d call horselike in appearance.

  I cleared my throat. “Did she threaten him or…?”

  Sasha rolled her eyes. “She threatened him all the time. She threatened to sell the restaurant out from under him. She threatened to cut him out of the spice shop. She threatened to fire me. She was always going on about something. Drama queen.” She wasn’t wrong with the drama queen comment. I’d seen that firsthand.

  “Weren’t those empty threats, though? She couldn’t sell the restaurant without his approval, right?”

  “If Drew would have gone along with it, she would have already sold the place to Mark Potter.”

  “What? The chef who owns Abercorn Bistro?”

  “Yes.” Odd. Drew hadn’t mentioned that. After a pause, she added, “You know she was cheating on him, right?”

  Drew hadn’t mentioned that, either. But if Jason and Valerie had both been cheating on each other, then did it really matter? Either way, their marriage was over, no matter who was unfaithful or at fault.

  “No, I didn’t know that. Do you think Jason felt like either Valerie or Mark would harm him to get their hands on the restaurant?”

  “He’d been really preoccupied lately with finding a way to buy Valerie and Drew out so he could have control of the restaurant. He tried everything from looking for new partners and new investors to trying to raise the money himself. When he found out Valerie was cheating on him, that was the last straw. He felt like Green was all he had left, and he didn’t want to lose that, too.”

  I wrinkled my forehead. “He still had Drew, though, right?”

  “Drew wanted to sell just as much as Valerie did. It felt like a betrayal.”

  I hadn’t thought of it that way. Maybe that was why Jason and Drew had ended up coming to blows the night Jason was murdered.

  “Thanks for being so candid with me, Sasha. I know it wasn’t easy. So you’re sure there’s no one else Jason mentioned that would want to hurt him? For any reason—business, money…Anything you could think of would help.”

  “He did have a black eye last week that his bookie gave him. And he did mention that some business partner of his was really putting the screws to him lately.”

  My insides fluttered with excitement. This sounded promising! “Do you have names for the bookie or the business partner?”

  Sasha shook her head sadly. “No. I know nothing about either of them. Jason didn’t give me many specifics. He wanted our relationship to be uncomplicated. No strings.” Her voice broke, and she coughed to cover it up. It seemed like their “no strings” relationship had meant quite a lot to her.

  “Thank you again.” I gave her one of the B&B’s business cards. “If you think of anything, no matter how insignificant, give me a call.”

  Sasha took the card from me as she stood. “I hope you’ll keep this to yourself. Without Jason, I’m afraid Valerie will decide to come after me. If she wanted to, she could make it so I’d never work in this town again.”

  I smiled. “She’ll hear nothing fr
om me.”

  Chapter 15

  After Sasha left, I quickly scribbled down some notes in my notebook. I needed to find Jason’s bookie, ask Drew about selling out to Mark Potter and if he knew Valerie was cheating on Jason, and find out the name of Jason’s business partner. One thing I was starting to notice was that the more information I got from people, the more questions were raised about the case. That was a good thing, but at the same time, my work was mounting. It would add hours to my investigation, meanwhile Drew was still sitting in jail.

  I spoke to three more employees, but none of them had anything to add. Once I was finished, I texted Delilah, and a few minutes later she came bounding into the office and shut the door.

  “Guess who was having an affair?” my sister asked breathlessly.

  “Jason and Sasha?”

  She deflated right before my eyes. “How did you know?”

  “I talked to Sasha.”

  She conked herself on the head. “Oh, right.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “One of the other employees…” She took out her phone and scrolled through her notes. “Terence. He caught them together in the storeroom. And they weren’t taking inventory, if you know what I mean.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me.

  “Ew. That’s definitely a health code violation.”

  “You think? Anyway, Terence also said—”

  Ava came back in at that point, and we halted our conversation. She said, “Well, I guess that’s everyone. So you can leave now.”

  Lovely girl, this one. It hadn’t escaped me that she didn’t seem happy about allowing us to speak with the employees.

  Delilah replied, “Well, we haven’t spoken with you yet.”

  Ava sat down at the desk, her face stuck in a frown. I didn’t know what her problem was, but I was glad Delilah and I were going to speak to her together.

  I said, “Can you walk us through what happened here on Monday night after Jason got here?”