Her menu seemed perfectly fine, but hardly fancy.
He went on. “But then, she call asking. I had some dried morels and frozen berries from last year. I offer her those. What I could do? Morels all gone, hucks not ripe. They ripe now, though.” He gestured at the bucketful of tart purple beauties.
“When, Jimmy? Do you remember when she called you?”
He shook his head. “She not happy, but she buy anyway. Receipt maybe in the van.” He scurried out the back door.
Cheesecake. Huckleberry cobbler. Huckleberry peach pie. Huckleberry filets. My mouth watered.
In a flash, he returned, clutching a grubby, wrinkled receipt. Amber’s handwriting wasn’t easy to decipher, but the date was clear.
Bingo. “Jimmy, can I keep this? I’ll make you a copy, for your records, if you’d like.” As if Jimmy cared about records. His van was his filing cabinet. An open door, a gust of wind—poof.
“Anything for you, Miss Erin. You good to me. Like Chef Drew.”
* * *
By the time I’d rinsed the hucks, packaged them in quart bags, and tucked them in the cooler, most of the morning was gone. Tracy had left for lunch and her dog walk and I had charge of the shop. I made a sign reading FRESH HUCKS—INQUIRE WITHIN and stuck it in the produce cart. Grabbed a cold Pellegrino and sat on the stool behind the front counter, flipping through the latest issue of Entrepreneur. Lots of interesting articles—“Thinking Like a Customer,” “Staying Green,” and a piece on managing difficult employees. I had none at the moment, but advice on dealing with the difficult is always timely. I was deep into it when the front door opened.
But no one entered. “Who’s there?” I said, my tone querulous.
No answer. Just a soft rubbing sound from the other side of the counter.
“Ghost? Is that you?” My voice quivered. Still no response. “Ghost, what do you want?”
“I want a truffle!” Landon jumped up, his cowboy hat bouncing. “I fooled you, Auntie.”
I came out for a hug, then opened the case and withdrew a raspberry chocolate, his favorite. “You did.” He hadn’t—we’d played this game before and I’d spotted Jason outside, but it never got old. “What’s in the bag?”
He struggled to hoist the canvas bag he’d dragged in. “Daddy and I bought school supplies. I’m going to be in kindergarten.”
I didn’t remember needing supplies for kindergarten, other than my nap mat, promptly banished to the orchard tree house when I graduated to the first grade. Crayons, glue sticks, pencils and erasers, scissors. Zip-loc bags and wipes. A pencil box and a notebook, ruled extra-wide. Who doesn’t love the feel and smell of school supplies?
Who doesn’t love a new beginning? I’d made my own—was still making it. Drew’s had ended abruptly, and Stacia’s had been denied.
The door opened again and in walked Chuck the Builder. “Hey, Chuck. Don’t see you in weeks and now twice in three days.”
“Fresca in? She wanted me to look at your faucet, and since I’m early, I thought I’d take a peek.”
“Go ahead,” I said, puzzled. Our faucet worked fine, far as I knew. Chuck headed for the kitchen and I helped Landon pack up his supplies. “You know, you won’t be able to wear your hat in school. And you’ll want to leave your tail and badge at home.”
“I know,” Landon said. “No hats inside—recess only—and cow dogs don’t go to school. But it’s okay, Auntie. It’s part of growing up.”
He was growing up so fast I could hardly stand it.
“Thanks, Erin,” Chuck said a moment later. “I’ll wait for her next door.”
Now what was that about? I took Landon’s hand and we followed Chuck outside. Across the street, Jason emerged from the gallery. Landon looked both ways then dashed across the street and leaped into his father’s arms.
Tracy returned and I headed out the back, ready to resume investigating. Landon might be hanging up his badge, but not me.
* * *
I passed the sheriff’s office on my way out of town. Didn’t stop. Kim might agree that the two crimes were related, but without evidence, Ike would never give me a chance to prove my theory.
No evidence yet, but I was getting closer.
The secret had to be in the recipes. In contrast to hucks, morels follow underground networks that trail through the woods for miles, sprouting to life after the June rains. They can pop up anywhere—we always find a few dozen in the orchard—but are most abundant in forests that have burned in the last year or two.
And as with hucks, people go to great lengths to protect their patches. A few years back, a crew of professional mushroom hunters from Oregon invaded the local pickers’ territory and one of Jimmy Vang’s cousins was killed.
Not the hunters who were the problem this time. Reg and Tara had shed some light, but something dark and mysterious still lurked.
Like a good mushroom picker, a good investigator knows when to follow her nose. I swung a hard right onto the road leading to Reg’s place. The big studio doors were shut. Good—no excuses needed—I’d hate to lie to Reg. I followed the lane past the studio and up the driveway to the guesthouse. Happily, the doors on the garage level of the guesthouse were out of sight from both the main house and the studio.
Unhappily, the doors were locked tight.
I circled the building. The garage windows were locked, too. No ladder. I had no way to reach the second-floor deck with the steps still out of commission.
But what about that doggy door?
“Think thin,” I said out loud and rubbed my lucky stars. Drew didn’t have a dog, but Reg had planned for a midsized beast. I wriggled through the heavy rubber curtain and crawled into the garage. The dark, clammy garage. I brushed the dirt off my bright blue skinny jeans. This week was wreaking havoc on my wardrobe.
The garage held Drew’s car, a workbench with a few tools, a garbage can, and stacked recycling bins. I thanked my stars and skirted ’round the car to the door leading upstairs.
“Erin, you are living right,” I said when the knob twisted and the door opened.
Tara and Debra had not made much progress after I left. We’d stacked a few boxes next to the door, but they’d only managed to fill a couple more. The pile of shirts still lay on the dining room table.
An empty bottle and two wine glasses sat on the bar. At least they’d made good use of their time—and of Drew’s wine collection.
His laptop sat in the tiny desk alcove. I dropped onto the wheeled stool and punched it on. No doubt the sheriff’s deputies had already gone over it, but now we—I—knew what to look for.
Drew had used the same password at home as at work. Once again, I scrolled through his e-mail files and the sent e-mails. There it was: an e-mail to Stacia, copied to Gib, with an attachment. I clicked. It opened.
The PC pixies arranged the pixels into words. Drew Baker’s recipe for Filet on Portobellos with Huckleberry-Morel Glaze. “Yes.” I pumped my fist. Drew had tested the recipe on Reg, then sent it in at 8 a.m. two days before it was due. I didn’t recall when Amber had submitted her version.
Didn’t matter. I checked the date the document was last revised. The day before it was sent. When created? Click, click. Four years ago—which explained why it was on his home computer, not the Inn’s. Back then, he’d been the Lodge chef.
No way to tell what the recent modifications were, but no matter. This, and Reg’s testimony, were near proof that Drew had not stolen this recipe from Amber Stone. But how—or if—it related to his murder, I had no idea.
I hit PRINT. Where was the printer? A whirring sound assured me a wireless printer was nearby and working—but where? Not in a kitchen cabinet—we’d emptied most of them. I tilted my ear, listening. Follow the trail.
And found the printer in the pantry, amid shelves crammed with staples, hundreds of cookbooks, and more kitchen eq
uipment. I cackled out loud. Those girls were going to need some serious help packing.
Before shutting everything down, I searched for e-mails to or from Tara and Gib. Nothing pertinent in the in-box, folders, or sent e-mails. The Recycle Bin held a few unrelated documents. Whatever the old tensions were, they had not left an electronic trail.
Drew had reached into his personal archive and pulled out his finest. He may not have held a grudge, and may never have imagined that Gib did. But he knew, when you cook for an old friend, the stakes are high.
Cooking well is the best revenge.
• Twenty-five •
So now I had evidence, I thought as I snuck the Subaru back down the drive, praying that Reg hadn’t returned. But evidence of what?
That Drew had not stolen the huckleberry filet recipe from Amber. But what did that prove?
And what was Gib’s involvement? Drew had seemed to think Gib was behind the so-called snafu, and now I shared his belief.
Why had Gib changed cars? Were my questions related? Those icicle shivers returned.
I sped up the highway to Pondera. The rental car agencies huddled near each other out by the airport. I parked by the office, a small building with a stone facade, and felt for the ticket, securely hidden in my jeans pocket.
“Hey, I know you.” A stocky fellow in a pink button-down, a dark tie loose at the collar, and pleated-front khakis crossed the parking lot. “You’re—don’t tell me. You were a year behind me in high school, in Jewel Bay.”
Couldn’t have proven it by me.
“You hung out with Kyle Caldwell’s cousin, the one who became a cop. What’s her name?”
“Kim Caldwell. She’s a deputy sheriff. I’m Erin Murphy.”
“That’s it—that’s the name,” he said, as if congratulating me for remembering my own name. He pumped my hand. “Danny Davis. What can I do for you?”
Now the tricky part. “I’m with the organizing committee for the Jewel Bay Summer Fair and Grill-off—”
“Ah, Jewel Bay. Another weekend, another festival. Hot spot of the valley.”
I smiled. “That’s us. You may have heard, we had an EAT-TV crew in to film last weekend, and we’re covering some of the expenses. I just need to straighten out this one thing. I don’t mean to put you in a spot, but—”
He worked the knot of his tie with two fat fingers, his voice a tad less hearty. “Any way I can help, Erica.”
“Well, it’s about the car Gib Knox rented. A Porsche SUV. We’ve got two different bills and we’re confused.”
“Oh, the Cayenne. Nothing to it. Come into the office.” Inside, he went behind the counter and began clicking keys. “He picked it up Wednesday afternoon. He musta come in on that two o’clock flight. Called Friday, said he’d had some trouble. Brought it in, and sure enough, he’d scraped the left front fender. Lucky he bought the extra insurance—it covers minor repairs.”
“Why not wait until he was ready to leave and tell you then?”
Danny cocked his head, giving me a “you’re joking” look. “A guy who rents a Porsche?”
Right. Driving a dented car would not have suited our Gib.
“He wanted it repaired right away, but I said no can do. So then he wanted the same model,” Danny continued, “but we only had the one in black so he chose the jet green metallic. The green’s a sharper look, if you ask me. All kindsa black rigs on the road.”
Bingo, my inner Ned piped up. Gib had traded in the scuffed black car for a clean green machine.
But what reason had he given that hadn’t aroused Danny’s suspicions, or prompted him to call Detective Caldwell? (Other than not remembering her name.) “Did he say what happened?”
“Said he parked too close to the curb out front of Red’s in JB and scraped the fender. Hey, who hasn’t?”
True enough. Parking on Red’s side of the street was diagonal, head-in, and where the street sloped, it left a high curb that was hard to see. A trap for the unsuspecting. Ned, and others, had moaned about it for years, but no one had a fix.
“Any chance I could see the damage, if it’s not repaired yet? Not that I doubt him, but if we’re responsible . . .”
Back to the keyboard. “You’re in luck. Our body guy’s running behind.” He pushed through a door behind the desk and I trotted after him.
The service department and body shop occupied a prefab metal building behind the office. Metallic pounding and whirring competed with urban hip hop on the satellite radio. Danny hit a switch and the music stopped. A mechanic in a blue-gray striped coverall slid out from under a Honda, saw Danny, and slid back.
Danny kept moving, headed outside. And there it was. Gib’s—or Pondera Auto Rental’s—shiny black Porsche SUV. Shiny in all but one spot, the front left fender. I crouched. Had this fender struck Stacia? Tossed her to the side of the road where she’d landed on the rocks and roots and died?
Had Gib known?
“Mind?” I said, holding up my phone for a picture or two. My hand shook and I used both hands to keep the phone steady. I still didn’t remember Danny Davis—I’d have to ask Kim, or Kyle, about him. He shrugged, a go-ahead.
No fibers that I could see. No animal hair or pine pitch. If Gib knew he’d hit her, at least he’d invented a creative excuse for the damage. He hadn’t relied on the usual—and potentially verifiable—dead deer story.
But if he knew he’d hit her, why hadn’t he stopped? Why hadn’t he stayed and called for help?
And then the shaking worsened. What if he’d hit her on purpose?
For Pete’s sake, Erin. Now you’re making things up. There is no reason . . .
“April, are you okay?” Danny’s voice pierced my anxious reverie. I stood, ignoring his outstretched hand.
“It’s Erin. And I’m fine. Do we owe you for this? Not that the committee has any extra money.”
“No. Like I said, he bought the added coverage—it’s inexpensive. And with a car like that . . . ”
I had to get out of here. I had to tell Kim. Even if she wasn’t on the case anymore, it had been her case. She still cared. She could help me convince Ike Hoover that something was terribly wrong.
* * *
Driving while hyperventilating is not recommended. I pulled into a gas station and sat, head back, eyes closed. When my heartbeat left the danger zone, I popped inside and bought a Coke. Drank half of it down before coming up for air. The combination of caffeine, bubbles, and high-fructose corn syrup was downright revitalizing.
I reached for my bag and slid out the iPad and the printouts from Drew’s computer. The answer had to be here.
I scrolled down my inventory of Stacia’s papers and compared the date of Amber’s submission to Drew’s. I’d bet a mess of s’more cookies and a case of Lake Monster Root Beer that Amber’s original submission had not been a huckleberry-mushroom filet, but one of the steaks on her menu. Something “fancier.” Perhaps the hazelnut-Gorgonzola recipe she’d offered as her substitute.
So how had she gotten Drew’s recipe? Someone had given it to her. But besides Drew, only two people had it: Gib and Stacia.
That was it. One of them had given the recipe to Amber, intending to put Drew in hot water.
Stacia would never have undermined one contestant to give another a leg up. Besides, she had no motive for harming Drew.
And Gib Knox had motive up the wazoo.
I studied the spreadsheet. Had Stacia known, last Thursday morning when Gib accused Drew of theft, who the real thief had been? And why he’d gone to such lengths to smite an old friend?
Seemed Gib Knox had three victims: Stacia, Drew, and Amber.
And I had to stop him before he left Jewel Bay.
Before he killed again.
* * *
I took the scenic route back to town, giving myself time to ponder. Ike had made cle
ar he needed hard evidence before he’d consider probing a link between the deaths. But the evidence I’d found didn’t lead to the conclusion I’d expected. Nothing tied Gib and his grudge to Drew’s murder. Even the link to Stacia’s death was speculative—Gib’s explanation for the damage to his rental car made some sense, as did his insistence on a new car.
And what about the recipes?
Near the Old Steel Bridge, I turned off the highway onto a dirt and gravel road that followed the Eagle River. Had the Eagle Lake Monster ever been sighted this far upstream? Sturgeon were powerful swimmers, so it was a possibility. I’d have to ask my brother.
This stretch of the river twists and meanders, making for thick groves of red willows and cottonwoods along the banks. The road meanders, too. I hadn’t realized how badly rutted and eroded it was.
A movement in the tallgrass meadow between me and the river caught my eye and I slowed. Nothing. I had imaginary monsters—cryptids—on the brain.
A moment later, it was there again. Something keeping pace with me. My throat tightened and my hands gripped the wheel. The grasses parted, and in an instant, a reddish-gold streak burst into view and darted onto the road. I slammed my brakes.
Duke? What was he doing here? We had to be a good mile north of Amber’s place.
The big wet dog leaped at the passenger side of the car, his muddy paws almost at the top of the window. I put the car in park and opened my door, then remembered Tracy’s dog cookies. I grabbed the cellophane bag, jumped out, and threw open the hatchback, still fumbling with the treat bag.
“Get in, boy!”
He danced back and forth frantically, sending me a message I didn’t understand.
A loud crashing drew my attention back to the meadow. The grasses wove and heaved with the movement. A herd of—what? A powerful bass bellow shattered the air.
Not imaginary at all.
A figure broke through the tallgrass and stumbled onto the road—a slight figure in tan pants, a fishing vest, and muddy waders.
Amber.
And I knew what was behind her.
Crime Rib (Food Lovers' Village) Page 21
