Spoiled Rotten

by Mary Jackman

  Holding my hand in mid-air, I almost rapped Martin on the head when he unexpectedly opened the door and jumped back a foot.

  “Hi Marty,” I said.

  “Oh, my gosh, Liz, you startled me.” He was holding a leash with a tiny ball of white fluff bouncing up and down on the end of it. “I was about to take Sammy to the park. I wasn’t sure you got my message. It’s twenty past two and I have to be at work by three.”

  I held Sammy’s leash while he locked up. The dog jumped at my legs and then tugged me down the steps toward the park. He could probably smell the park through the brick walls, panting by the door until someone got home. Taking the leash back, Martin walked up the street to the pedestrian crosswalk — crosswalks noted for sending out-of-towners into cardiac arrest — pointed with his arm thrust out and crossed with me and the dog trotting closely behind. He turned onto a hardened dirt pathway that led us deep into the interior of the park. We stopped under an aging canopy of rare black oak. Sammy found a bush and I found a bench. Martin refused to sit. He was clearly agitated.

  “Sit down, Marty. You’re making me nervous.”

  “I can’t. Marshall’s mad at me for getting involved. He said I should have called the police.”

  “Martin, you wanted to see me. Your message said it was urgent. If you were worried about me coming out here why didn’t you say what it was about on the phone?”

  “I couldn’t take the risk someone other than you would listen to the message.”

  “You can trust Rick. He’s the only other person with a key to the office.”

  “Daniel told me to be careful. He didn’t want Rick to know I called. I don’t know what kind of trouble Daniel is in, but he was hysterical.”

  “Please, just tell me what he said.”

  “He said that he wanted to talk to you. I was busy waiting on tables so I told him to call you at the restaurant. He said he didn’t have time — he was leaving town in an hour.”

  “Leaving town,” I repeated. “You had already left Walker’s Way by the time he started working there, so how did you know him?”

  “I didn’t, really. Marshall and I bumped into him in a bookstore on Queen Street a month ago and we got into a heated, no pun intended, conversation about which cookbook to buy. You know how chefs are — so opinionated. He must have seen me talking to you at the show and recognized me. Too cute for words, I must say.”

  “Martin, what’s the message?” I was getting impatient.

  “Don’t get tetchy.” He was stalling.

  “I’m sorry. Please continue.”

  “I don’t know what to do, Liz. Maybe I should tell the police.” He was staring at his watch.

  “Okay, Marty, let’s talk about something else for a second. The day I bumped into you at the convention centre, you were starting your shift. You knew your way around the halls pretty good. Did you see something you shouldn’t have? Was it you who called the cops to fish me out of the Dumpster?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about and I don’t know anything about a Dumpster.”

  I pointed meaningfully to the bandage on top of my head.

  “Or, how you got that nasty bump on your head …” He looked at the fraying bandage on my head and added, “That really does look awful.”

  I couldn’t help picking at the gauze netting with my fingernails and some of the edges had turned a yellowish pus-grey.

  He almost begged me, “Would you like me to go back to my place and get you a new bandage?”

  I shook my head and smiled, “Forget about it, Marty. Do you know where Daniel is or not?”

  “I know where he is, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else.”

  I raced home, blew the dust off a canvas travel bag kept in the back of my bedroom closet and packed. A raincoat, a pair of black jeans that made my legs look six feet long, two T-shirts, underwear, socks, and a hooded sweat shirt were all stuffed into the bag. I’d be gone only a day or two, but better safe than sorry. I dropped a few toiletries in a side compartment, kept on the slacks I was wearing, smelled my armpits, and pulled on my long, black leather boots. There were enough points logged onto my credit card to make the round-trip free and since I had nothing better to do except worry, I tucked the address Martin gave me into my coat pocket and left a note for Jon in the hall.

  It takes two days to drive down east, one, if you decide not to eat or sleep on the way. I promised myself I’d never do either again and I buckled up for the short two-hour flight to Halifax. Despite an inordinate fear of flying, I felt relatively calm.

  We flew directly into a full-blown Maritime gale. Coastal headwinds turned the plane into a rocketing bronco ride while booming thunder sent me into near epileptic fits. The student pilot, courtesy Air Canada, announced that we would be landing safely in Halifax in a few minutes. A tad optimistic given the plane was in a nosedive, plummeting to the ground at the speed of light.

  “We are making a rapid descent due to the storm,” the flight attendant explained. “Quite routine.”

  “Really,” I said, “because my brain thinks it’s in a pressure cooker.”

  I couldn’t muster enough saliva to swallow and my sinuses felt as if they had been hot-wired with a glue gun. When the flight attendant, alarmed by my frantic gulping, leaned over my seat, I locked my arms around his neck and held on for dear life. The plane shuddered then calmly levelled out.

  “See,” he said, pushing the word out through tiny wolverine-esque teeth.

  I let go quickly before more spittle landed on my sleeve and handed him a twenty for his trouble.

  Grateful to be back on terra firma, I practically skipped over to the car rental office. After requesting the biggest car on the lot, the agency loaned me a roomy sedan complete with leather seats that slid all the way back. I’m five foot nine-and-a-half inches in my bare feet and need plenty of leg room or else I start to cramp. I picked up a complimentary Toronto newspaper off the counter and purchased a map from a revolving metal display unit standing next to it. I estimated I had about seventy miles to drive to Portsmith, a little seaside town where Daniel’s sister Meriel lived, and where, according to Marty Wright, Daniel was hiding. With one shoe kicked off and the other on the accelerator, I eased away from the rental pad under a late afternoon sky.

  I like driving, especially alone. The solitude allows me to replay conversations gone woefully wrong. In my line of business, keeping up an appropriate amount of friendly banter — while remaining tuned in to the operation running at high speed all around me — tends to lead me into conversations where I appear to be a complete idiot. In the car, I imagined how it might have gone, practising future responses for a smarter comeback. I talk out loud and by the time I’ve worked out all the kinks and arrived at my destination, I’m my old self again — completely indifferent.

  Dusk was circling on the horizon, not a night sky yet, but coming fast. The dwindling light played tricks on my eyes and straining to focus on the road, I remembered that few lodgings existed on this wind-swept province. A little-known fact discovered when I was here once before with my son about five years ago. We travelled with a tent and pitched it on a different beach every night to watch the sun set. That was a vacation fondly remembered; this wasn’t.

  Yesterday, I was slinging elegant hash out of a little corner restaurant, now I was searching for answers to a brutal murder my chef may have committed. Having survived recessions, plagues, global terrorists, and a flood, murder was one more, albeit bizarre, obstacle to hurdle. Luckily, the police didn’t think it necessary to give me the cautionary “don’t leave town” spiel.

  I drove to the edge of the ocean shore and turned off the main highway onto an unlit secondary road. I wanted to drive all the way to Portsmith tonight, but I was bushed. The tension from flying in a hurricane and the long trek from the airport had exhausted me more than I realized. The need to rest was increasing.

  The first two motels displayed the cursed NO VACANCY shingle fr
om their welcome sign, a third indicated its establishment was full, too. At this rate, I would be willing to sleep in the backseat. I looked around at the landscape. Grassy fields faded into hilly dimensions on one side, a deepening ocean on the other, and up ahead, the gaping yawn of hell. On second thought, I stepped on the gas, thrusting the car faster through the fog threatening to devour the entire road. A cluster of closed stores popped up suddenly on my left and an old schoolhouse appeared on my right. I stopped the car. A jittery neon sign advertised:

  BROWNS SCHOOLHOUSE

  HOTEL AND TAVERN

  Pulling in, I instantly hit a death-defying pothole cleverly disguised as a puddle. The front end disappeared then bobbed back up with a jolt. I looked around quickly to see if anyone was watching, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. I parked the Lincoln carefully between a delivery van and an old fishing lorry, grabbed a couple of bags off the back seat, and scanned the hunchbacked building. A turn-of-the-century brick schoolhouse sat out front with a 1960s-style, four-storey, wooden-slatted addition.The entire building was painted monotone brown. Two deer, silhouetted by the full moon, were grazing in the field behind it.

  A salt-studded arrow pointed to the front entrance of the building. Making my way to the battered doors of the old schoolhouse, I could almost hear the recess bell and see the schoolmarm waving me in. The doors suddenly flew open with the strength of a nor’easter. A woman with bright red lips and frizzy blond hair tucked into a chiffon bandana spoke to me in a rapid down-home manner.

  “Geez murphy, don’t be standing there, by’e, get on inside wit ya.”

  The doors clanged shut on my heels. Dusty class portraits covered the walls of an oak-lined hallway stained from years of greasy hands and the linoleum floor felt lumpy under my feet. A set of swinging doors sat motionless at the end of the hall. I sniffed the air. Mouth-watering aromas of sizzling beef patties lured me down the corridor. I peered over the doors and stepped into a murky barroom — yahoo, the tavern.

  On my left, a woman sporting a platinum wig was working the open grill. Five captain bar stools welded to the front of a horseshoe-shaped counter sat empty around her. Dropping my bag to the floor, I climbed aboard. My eyes adjusted to the lacklustre light while I patiently waited for the cook to notice me. I drummed my fingers quietly on the Formica bartop and watched the large, round clock behind her. Evidently she didn’t feel like noticing me. Accustomed to surly cooks, I felt right at home and spoke up smartly, “Hey there, those patties sure smell good. I was wondering who I could see about a room for the night, maybe one of your homemade burgers, too.”

  “ANDY!” she yelled out while flipping a burger. There were maybe six guys in the whole place and none of them looked up.

  “ANDEEE!”

  Like magic, a young man appeared by my side, lifting my bag into his burly arms. About six foot four, he was wearing faded blue jeans with the cuffs turned up, a white T-shirt with the Cleveland Browns logo on it, and well-worn shit-kicker boots, the kind where the heels wear down and the toes point up. His hair was combed up into a rockabilly ducktail. All he needed to complete the picture was a pack of cigarettes stuck in his sleeve and a match behind one ear.

  “The rooms are forty-five big ones a night,” the cook barked, “and if you want something to eat you better tell me now ’cause I close the kitchen early on Monday.” I ordered a burger with fried onions, a side plate of fries, and a beer chaser.

  Andy, mute until now, spoke to me after I finished my order. “Please, if you will follow me, I will show you to your room. I shall bring your dinner when it is ready.”

  He had a deep, baritone voice, which, for his size, didn’t surprise me, but his deliberate elocution did. Maybe he was practising for a butler’s part in the village playhouse theatre.

  We went through a rear side door that led us back outside to the parking lot. I checked the Lincoln, gratefully noting that it hadn’t been vandalized. When we rounded a distant corner of the building, I sensed there was still time.

  The tavern ran the whole length of the first floor. The guest rooms were located above on the upper three floors. Except for the tavern floor, the building looked empty. A second later, a light went on in one of the rooms. Andy noticed it, too, and explained, “We’re having the hotel renovated. That’s the painter’s room. He was having dinner in the bar. He goes to bed early and gets up at dawn so he can get the maximum amount of daylight hours to paint.”

  We climbed a wide expanse of cedar stairs to a large deck on the second-floor level and continued to a smaller platform at the third. Still going, Andy headed for a metal fire escape that led up to the dormered fourth floor or — if you prefer via wild stretch of the imagination — the penthouse.

  “Excuse me. I’m not staying up there, am I?”

  “Only floor that’s not being painted tomorrow.” Andy looked back at me encouragingly. “Don’t worry. It’s quaint up here and very private. Since no one else is booked tonight, you have the whole floor to yourself.”

  The Elvis impersonator drew out a ring loaded with keys, unlocked the door and held it open for me. I passed five closed doors on both sides of the long hall, which led into a large panelled sitting room with a timbered arch ceiling and heavily curtained windows. Two table lamps were turned on, leaving dim shadows huddled in the corners.

  “Where shall I put your luggage, miss?”

  “Ah, you tell me. I don’t know which room is mine.”

  “You can have any room you like, but they’re all basically the same, not locked, either, so look them over.”

  Looking around, I wished I had kept driving. My nerves were on edge enough and this place would have given me the willies even in broad daylight.

  “Ah, Andy, is it? How much farther is the town of Portsmith from here? On the map it looks like it might only be about one more hour along the major highway. I was getting tired, but maybe I should have kept going?”

  “No, you did the right thing. Eventually you have to get off the highway and follow the coastal road. It’s a dangerous drive at this time of night — lots of twists and turns. Besides, the fog makes it a blind drive. Things just pop up out of nowhere.”

  I recalled the deer behind the parking lot; a flash of hooves on the windshield.

  “There’s not much in Portsmith. Are you visiting relatives? ” he asked.

  “Something along those lines,” I answered vaguely. I wasn’t telling a complete stranger that my chef was a suspect in a homicide and was thought to be holed up there.

  “Your food should be ready by now. I shall return presently.”

  I chose a room with an ocean view beyond the treetops and a washroom next door. I was unpacking my nightgown and storing my toothbrush in a glass by the bathroom sink when Andy returned wielding a tray of high-cholesterol delights and placed it on a coffee table in the main room. The food smelled so good I became light-headed and began fumbling around in my purse for a tip, but before I could fish it out Andy handed me a key from the ring.

  “Lock the door after me,” he said, scurrying back down the hall. The fire escape door closed behind him with pneumatic hesitation.

  With a burger in one hand and a beer in the other, I looked around the large brooding room. I calculated this must be the attic of the old school, used formerly either as a dormitory or a teacher’s residence. Some of the furniture was authentically antique, the musty brocaded drapes certainly hinted at it. The tiny bedrooms located in the attached wing must be used for spillover in the summer when the roads are busy again with whale-watching tourists.

  I wandered over to a bamboo screen, similar to one I bought years ago in Toronto’s Chinatown, standing at the far end of the room. It was weathered with mouse-eaten edges and a faded floral motif that hinted at pink lotus blossoms. A metal door was concealed behind the screen. Knowing I wouldn’t sleep unless I checked that it was locked, I turned the handle. The door opened easily onto a well-lit landing with stairs leading down to the lower floors. I l
ooked over the railing and started down. Curiosity was going to be the death of me yet.

  The third- and second-floor landings also had metal doors with small inset windows. Both doors were locked and the windows were dark. The tavern floor had two sets of regulation double-hung fire doors on either side of the ground-level foyer. One set flush without handles, no doubt leading to the tavern were sealed tight, and when I pushed down the bar handle on the opposite doors marked EXIT, moist salt air hit my face. I pulled it shut again.

  Well, all floors had a fire escape. That was good. The doors opened in an emergency, but locked automatically from behind to prevent access. That was good, too. I didn’t need any drunken sailors visiting the penthouse after last call in the tavern. Glad now that I had the wherewithal to jam the empty beer can in the door jamb, I headed back up.

  My skin prickled at the second landing. I had an uneasy feeling someone was watching me and glanced toward the window in the door. A figure flitted by on the other side. I raced back up to the fourth floor two steps at a time, kicked out the can, slammed the door, and pushed a chair against the door handle. Couldn’t be too sure, I’ve seen horror movies.

  I poured myself a stiff one from the bottle of Scotch I brought in from the car and belted it down. My resolve was crumbling and I sincerely hoped Daniel was worth all this trouble. I spread out the newspaper on the coffee table. The headlines on the second page were hard to miss.

  POLICE CONTINUE SEARCH FOR MISSING CHEF

  Wanted in Connection with the Brutal Death of Anthony Vieira:

  Daniel Chapin, rising star of well known eatery, Walker’s Way Bistro, disappeared without a trace. Police are asking anyone with information regarding his whereabouts to call the Hotline number — 416-391-HELP.