“I know. You want to help. Good. Let’s leave it at that. Before I let you go, tell me if you’re still at the same address.”
“The same place where you came to dinner with Dolce and Nick and his aunt, yes.” It wouldn’t hurt to remind him that he owed me a dinner.
“And your work address is the same?”
Thinking of Dolce’s reminded me of bumping into Meera. Where had she been tonight? She wasn’t at work. She didn’t want me to take classes from Guido. She wasn’t fond of him, to put it mildly. She didn’t do it, did she?
“Rita?” he said. “Are you still there?”
“Of course I’m here. And I still work at Dolce’s. I’m just thinking. This murder is very upsetting.”
“They usually are,” he said dryly.
“I mean to me personally. I knew the chef.”
“How well?”
“I took one class from him, and tonight I went there to sign up with him for another.”
“Is that the reason you were at the scene of the murder?”
“Yes, it was. If you like, I’ll make you a timeline of my whereabouts tonight. How would that be?” I asked sweetly.
“I look forward to it. Just for the record. Tell me, how did Mr. Torcelli seem tonight?”
“Distracted. Definitely not himself. I had the feeling he was trying to get rid of me.”
“And this upset you, am I right? Made you angry?”
“No, not at all,” I protested. “Well, maybe a little. But not enough to shoot him.”
“How do you know he was shot?”
“I heard it on the news.” There, Jack. I had an answer for all his questions. So far. “I was thinking that maybe he was expecting someone else or the someone else was in the shop already…Are you taking this down?”
“Not now, but I will tomorrow.”
“Are you going to make me take a lie-detector test again?” I asked.
“Do you have any objection?”
“Of course not. Only a criminal would object. By the way, how did you know I was there?” As if I didn’t know.
“Your phone number was written on a menu and lying on the table at the cooking school. Care to explain that?”
“Yes, I care very much. I gave it to him so he could notify me when the next class came up. Is that a crime?”
“Let it go for now. We’ll talk further tomorrow when you can fill me in on your activities before and after your visit to the cooking school. Is nine o’clock in my office convenient for you?”
“I’ll have to check with Dolce, but I’ll plan on it.”
He hung up, then I called Dolce to fill her in and tell her I was going to be late the next day.
“All you have to do is tell the truth,” she said.
Oh, if only it was that simple.
After I talked to her, I tried calling Meera but got a recorded message advertising her walking tours of San Francisco. She was probably asleep, so I left her a message to give me a call. When she did tomorrow, I’d wait to see if she’d tell me anything, and if she didn’t, I’d tell her I wanted to take her up on the cooking class offer. Now that Guido was dead, it was time to find a new class. But I wouldn’t say a word to her about Guido. Let her bring him up if she wanted to. I sure didn’t. Then I called her nephew Nick Petrescu and left him a message that went like this:
“Hi, Nick. Rita here. Long time no see, as we say in America. How are you? If you are in town, give me a call. I understand we’ll be taking cooking classes together from Meera. I hope your Olympic hopefuls are doing well.”
The next day I dressed carefully as I always do for an investigation. I had what they call an “office-ready” gray pin-striped suit with a slim pencil skirt that hit just above the knee and a no-nonsense jacket that hugged my curves; I’d bought it on sale at Ann Taylor. Most of my clothes come straight from Dolce’s, but not all of them. She understands that sometimes I shop at the mall. With the suit I wore a pair of black Sam Edelman medium stacked heels I’d picked up at Neiman Marcus. I’d have to change when I got to work so the customers wouldn’t think I was in mourning, which I wasn’t; even though I was an admirer of the chef, we really hadn’t been close enough for me to mourn his demise.
Although I would certainly go to his funeral. I have found that a funeral brings out the best and the worst in people. People cry or they laugh or they say something inappropriate that they shouldn’t, which is helpful when you’re looking for a murderer. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be looking for a murderer, but how could I help it?
I could only hope that no one at Dolce’s would have any reason to bring up the subject of Chef Guido’s murder. At least when I got to work I could escape from the cloud of suspicion that Jack would try to hang over my head. After a grilling by the police, it would be a relief to concentrate on clothes and accessories. Just yesterday I’d been sick of them. Not today.
But first I had to get through my meeting at the police station. I’d made notes and I was as prepared as I could be. Jack would be civil, but I didn’t expect him to talk about anything other than Guido’s murder. Would I have to take an oath? Would I have to tell him what Meera said? Did he really think I’d kill anyone no matter what they did to me, like turning me away from the cooking school? Or had Jack called me down there to get me to finger someone else? He should know better after what we’d been through together when he’d wanted me to turn in my boss Dolce.
Satisfied with my clothing choice, which I thought made me look serious and sincere and most of all honest, I pulled my hair back into a chignon to complete the businesswoman look and took a taxi to the Central Police Station. I couldn’t face another bus, not today in my totally tailored designer suit.
When I told the clerk who I was, she made a call and in a few minutes Jack came out to meet me. He looked me up and down, and I couldn’t tell if he was pleased, shocked, amused or puzzled by my appearance. I knew I looked and felt different from the style-setting fashionista he knew who wore cutting-edge clothes everywhere, including at home. Except when being questioned by a homicide detective.
I knew I didn’t look like most of the suspects who came down to the station. Just a glance around the waiting room and I saw poorly dressed vagrants, slick drug dealers in shiny suits and a woman in a tight metallic skirt who looked like she might be a prostitute. On the other hand, if she had a tweed or leather jacket to pair it with, she could even go to lunch at the Garden Court. Jack escorted me through the bulletproof glass doors leading to his office.
Today he was wearing a three-button charcoal Burberry blazer with a striped button-down Moschino shirt open at the collar and a pocket square that matched perfectly. He always managed to look like he was comfortable in his clothes, which were top of the line and more expensive than anyone in public service had a right to wear. The story was he’d made a fortune before he became a cop. How else could he afford to live the way he did, with a sailboat and a pied-à-terre with a bay view and a closet full of designer rags?
And why had he decided to devote himself to catching criminals instead of lying on the beach in Barbados sipping piña coladas surrounded by lonely bikini-clad women on the prowl? I’d heard stories, but who knew what was true? Maybe even Jack had forgotten how he’d gotten where he was. Where he was today was in a windowless office with a wall full of pictures of himself receiving various awards. I didn’t doubt for a minute that he deserved them. He was a hard worker. But even hard workers need help. I like to think that was why I was there.
“Sit down,” he said, waving toward a straight-back chair that faced his desk.
I looked around. “No lie-detector test?”
A faint smile played across his face. His iron jaw was as firm as ever, his gaze steady. “Not today.” He took out a small voice recorder from his desk drawer. “Do you mind?”
I shrugged as if I didn’t have a care in the world. Tape me, film me, depose me, I have nothing to hide. That was the vibe I hoped I was transmitting.
“Let’s start with your relationship with the chef.”
“I didn’t have one,” I protested. “I took a class from him. One class. I thought he was charming. A fine teacher. So did everyone else in the world, obviously, or he wouldn’t have risen in the ranks of celebrity chefs.”
“Everyone else in the world,” he repeated. “Who do you mean exactly?”
“Specifically I mean the other people in the class and in general, everywhere. Don’t ask me to name names, I have no idea. My class was months ago.”
Jack picked up his phone and told someone to get him a list of all the cooking school students from the past year.
“Just last year?” I asked.
“The past years,” he said to the person on the phone. His assistant? His deputy? He hung up and turned to me.
“You said you took one class from him, but that wasn’t the only time you’d seen the chef. Why did you choose to go to see Mr. Torcelli yesterday?”
“I’d only had one lesson from him, although I enjoyed it very much. That’s why I went back last night to sign up for a refresher class. I realized cooking was probably something I needed to work on.”
“You realized it last night? What time was that?”
“What time did I go there or what time did I realize it?”
He didn’t roll his eyes, but I was sure he wanted to. He just waited, so I continued.
“It all happened after work. I went to have a drink across the street at the bar.”
“By yourself?”
“Yes. I mean, I went in by myself but I met someone there.”
He looked faintly disapproving, I thought. Did that mean he disapproved of singles’ bars or my drinking or my picking up men at singles’ bars? Or did it mean he was disappointed I wouldn’t confess I’d shot Guido so he could wrap this up and get on with the rest of his workload?
“Name of the person you met?”
“Meera. I don’t know her last name. I mean, I must have known it but I can’t remember it. It’s Romanian and it could be Petrescu because that’s her nephew’s name, but I’m not sure.”
He looked at me as if waiting for me to continue. So I did. “We had a drink and then we left,” I said.
“Together?”
“We walked out together, then I took the bus and she left on foot.”
“You took the bus directly to the cooking school?”
“Yes.” I was sorry Guido died, but I had nothing to add to the investigation besides what I’d already said. Nothing, zip, nada. Except for the part about his allegedly stealing other chef’s recipes. But Meera was not a reliable source of information, so I felt fine about leaving out what she’d told me. I wracked my brain to try to change the subject before he could come up with another question.
“Tell me,” I said, “are you policemen sponsoring that youth fishing program again this year?”
“What?” Startled, he looked up from his notes.
“The one that enables city children to enjoy the natural beauty of the ocean and the Bay outdoors. For some kids I understand it’s their first trip to go under the Golden Gate Bridge.”
“Where did you hear about that?” he asked with a puzzled frown on his face.
“I don’t know. I read it somewhere. Why, is it a secret? Ever since I participated in solving that homicide—you know the one—I’ve been following the police news. Your department does lots of good work, which you should be proud of.”
“Thank you, Rita,” he said with only a touch of sarcasm dripping from his voice. “And now if you don’t mind, I have a few more questions for you.”
I crossed my legs, smoothed the lapels of my suit jacket and told him to fire away. Maybe not a good choice of words.
“Tell me again why you went to the cooking school last night without an appointment, without an invitation and without knowing if it was open. Why not call ahead?”
“Ah,” I said, stalling for time. Why had I gone there like that? In retrospect it was a dumb idea. “I was hoping I might join a class on the spot. Frankly, I was hungry. After class is over, we all sit down and eat the food we made. Or rather, what the chef made. It’s part of the experience, to talk about the recipes, the techniques and how everything turned out.”
“Last night it didn’t turn out very well, did it?” he asked, staring at me.
“I don’t know. Oh, you mean because of Guido’s murder. I thought you meant the food. You’d have to ask the class about that. You do have a class list, I suppose?”
“Yes, we do. Thanks for the suggestion. We’ll be talking to everyone who was there last night.”
I nodded my approval.
“You said you were hungry,” Jack said. “So you thought you’d take a cooking lesson instead of buying food.”
“It may sound strange, but even though I often buy food, I don’t know what to do with it unless it’s already cooked. Then I eat it. Oh, I know, you’re thinking of the dinner you crashed at my house, aren’t you? And you wondered, as did everyone there, how did Rita pull this off when she doesn’t know how to cook?”
He managed to look slightly contrite, which is unusual for Jack. Not just unusual but unheard of.
“Someone invited me to stay to eat that night. I appreciated it, and I assumed you knew how to cook. Everything was very good.”
“It was Meera who invited you. She’s the one I was in the bar with last night. She will verify my story.”
But who would verify Meera’s whereabouts after we parted? She hadn’t gone to work, so where had she gone?
“And will you verify hers?” he asked as if he’d read my mind.
“Of course I will if you want me to.” But I couldn’t verify where she’d gone after I saw her. That’s what worried me.
“Right now I need her full name and her contact number.”
I told him what I knew, which wasn’t much: that she worked at Azerbyjohnnie’s but I didn’t know her schedule. Also that she was house-sitting at a San Francisco B and B. I didn’t say anything about her relationship with Chef Guido. Jack hadn’t asked me, and I wasn’t going to tell him how she hated the chef. He’d jump to the wrong conclusion. Or would he? Maybe he’d jump to the right conclusion, that she had something to do with this murder. “I have to warn you that she will say she’s a vampire.”
He nodded as if that was no big surprise. I guess that was why he was such a good detective, because of his calm demeanor. While others were falling apart and running around in circles, Jack never seemed rattled.
“That’s all, Rita,” he said, switching off his machine. “I hope you’ll let me know if you hear anything pertaining to the case.”
“Of course. I’m as eager to get this mystery solved as you are. Well, maybe not that eager, but you know how badly I want to put this behind us. For me, I will find another cooking class, but it won’t be the same. Nobody else had Guido’s charm and charisma.”
“Nobody? You mean he had no rivals?”
“I…I don’t know,” I stammered. “I think all great chefs have rivals. Most of them are temperamental with huge egos. But don’t ask me. He’s the only chef I know personally, and I met the man only once. I was one of many in his class.”
“Once? I thought you went there last night.”
“Yes, but that was not a meeting, that was an encounter. It’s different. We spoke for maybe two minutes. He said I was too late, he said he was closing. He didn’t let me in. He looked nervous.”
“Why was that?” Jack asked, twisting his pen in his fingers.
“How should I know?”
“Your best guess,” he prompted.
“Maybe he wasn’t alone. Or maybe he was expecting someone and he wanted to get rid of me. Maybe he was just tired. Or he had something in the oven and he heard the timer go off. Maybe sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” I sighed loudly, indicating my nearing the end of my patience.
Jack looked at me as if I’d lost a few brain cells. Why hadn’t I kept my mouth sh
ut? Why hadn’t I just walked out when he turned off his machine? Because I’m a big blabbermouth, that’s why. I love to talk, almost as much as I love wearing the season’s hottest fashions.
“Wait a minute. You like to solve mysteries. Who in your opinion had reason to kill the chef?”
I couldn’t say Meera. I didn’t want to finger her any more than she would point at me. “No one, that’s why I wonder, have you considered suicide?” I asked.
Jack’s eyes opened wide. At my perception? Or at my audacity?
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “He seemed depressed last night when I saw him. Maybe something went wrong. His soufflé fell or his students cancelled or his chateau was foreclosed on or he got news that his Barbaresco sheep escaped from their pasture. So he took out his gun and shot himself.”
“Then where is it?” Jack asked. “Did you see it?”
“The gun or the chateau?”
“The gun,” he snapped.
“No, I didn’t. Here’s my theory. Maybe he didn’t die right away. Maybe he threw the gun in the garbage or out the window or he hid it in the Cuisinart before he expired.”
“Why would he do that?” Jack asked.
I had the feeling he was humoring me, trying to get me to make a fool of myself, which wasn’t that hard. “He was ashamed of committing suicide, or he wanted to blame someone else for his death.”
“Who would that be?” Jack asked, coming out from behind his desk.
I shook my head and stood up to leave. “I have no idea,” I said. I really didn’t believe Meera was his rival even though she wanted to think so. She was a good cook, but she was not a professional as far as I knew. “Maybe some of the other students will know. I didn’t do my homework. I just went to his class because someone recommended it, and I have to say it was wonderful. That’s all I have to say. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that he was well liked. Not just by me but by most or all of his students and all of his televiewers. At least that was my impression.” I looked at my watch. “I’m late for work.”
“If you think of anything else you’ve neglected to tell me…”
“Yes, yes,” I said impatiently. “I’ll give you a call.”
Murder After a Fashion Page 4
