Eggsecutive Orders

by Julie Hyzy

  Time for my best defense-deflection. “What makes you believe there was bad blood between them?”

  Her eyes were glazed as though reflecting on old memories. Whatever she found there made her mouth tighten. “Carl wouldn’t tell me. And I knew better than to press.” Blinking again, she stared at the front of the room, where her husband lay in repose. I knew she couldn’t see him through the throng, but her breaths became short and shallow. Looking away, she suppressed a shudder. “If I would have known the SizzleMasters were in the kitchen that day…”

  “You don’t really believe that they could have had anything to do with your husband’s death?”

  Ruth Minkus’s face flushed and I could see how much of a toll this conversation was having on her. Her entire body trembled. “Did they say anything to you? Did they do anything suspicious the day of the dinner?” She put both hands on my forearm. “Please, if you can think of anything that can help me make this go away, please do.”

  My logical brain wanted to tell her that nothing would make this sorrow go away except time, but I knew that victims, and families of victims, sometimes needed closure in order to begin the grieving process. With the suddenness of Minkus’s death, Ruth needed anything she could to help her hold on. That’s what she was searching for. I couldn’t blame her.

  “I’ll do what I can. But right now, you probably have to get back.”

  She nodded. “Thank you for coming, Olivia. May I call you Ollie?”

  “Sure,” I said. Unable to resist my natural impulse, I again took her hand. “If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.”

  We hadn’t gotten a half block away from the funeral home when Nana piped up from the back seat. “Odd,” she said.

  I glanced at her through the rearview mirror to see her staring out the side window, with a look of concentration. Like she was trying to work something out in her head.

  My mom twisted in her seat. “What’s odd?”

  “The photos on that digital whatchamawhoozis.”

  Relieved to be away from the place, and finding her choice of words humorous, I smiled. “What was wrong with them?”

  Nana shook her head. “Not ‘wrong’ exactly.” She made a face. “Just incomplete, somehow.”

  I hadn’t spent much time checking out the digital display, and had only caught that one quick glimpse of Minkus in uniform.

  “I mean,” Nana continued, “when I go to these wakes, I always see pictures from the person’s childhood-and college pictures-and wedding pictures.” She resumed looking out the window. “The only pictures here were recent ones. Or political ones. I mean, I think there were three different shots of him with presidents.”

  “Maybe that’s what Carl Minkus would have wanted,” Mom said.

  I nodded. “I’m sure it is. He was climbing the ladder, no two ways about it.”

  “By making enemies along the way.”

  I glanced again at Nana in the backseat. She was thinking about Joe McCarthy, I could tell.

  “Who was that big military guy with all the medals on his uniform?” she asked.

  There had to have been a dozen well-decorated military types in attendance. “Which one?”

  She described him well enough for me to recognize. “General Brighton. He’s another big hot shot,” I said. “Why?”

  “He was talking with your boyfriend.”

  “What?” I asked. “Tom was there?”

  A half-second later I realized I’d jumped to an erroneous conclusion. Nana tapped Mom on the shoulder. “No,” Nana said to me. “He was talking with Kap. For quite a while.”

  “ Washington is a small place,” I said, trying to process that “boyfriend” comment as it related to my mother. “Almost everyone knows everyone else.”

  “Something about their conversation,” Nana said.

  “You eavesdropped?”

  “Don’t I wish! I couldn’t get close enough to really hear everything they were saying.”

  I was reminded of Tom’s comment about the apple not falling far from the tree.

  “But you heard something?”

  “They both used words like China and classified,” she said, clearly proud of herself.

  She must have caught the look on my face, because she added, “I did hear them say that. They were about the only words I could make out, but they were clear as day. Of course, they also said Minkus’s name. Several times.” She held up a finger. “The thing is-I could tell from their body language that whatever it was, it was really important.”

  When we got home I decided to leave a voicemail for Paul Vasquez, and I was surprised when he personally picked up his phone.

  “Good to hear from you, Ollie. How are you holding up?”

  We talked for a while before I hit him with my big request. “Is there any way at all we can get back into the kitchen?”

  I heard him take a breath, as though preparing to let me down, so I interrupted.

  “This may sound stupid, Paul, but at the Minkus wake tonight nobody really seemed to pay me any mind. I think the big theory suggesting the kitchen staff had anything to do with Minkus’s death has just about died down.”

  “You attended Carl Minkus’s wake?” There was uneasiness in Paul’s voice. “I didn’t realize you knew him.”

  “I didn’t,” I explained hastily. “I met Ruth Minkus for the first time just a few days ago at Arlington, and she insisted I attend.”

  He was silent for a moment. “If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t believe it. Odd things seem to happen around you, Ollie.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m trying to change that.”

  He was silent for a heartbeat. “What about Suzie and Steve?”

  I knew what he wasn’t saying: that even if it hadn’t been any of our staff members, we were-that is, I was-still responsible for every plate that left the kitchen. If Suzie and Steve were guilty of poisoning Minkus, my head wouldn’t just roll. It would bounce down the stairs.

  “I don’t think they had anything to do with it.”

  “Oh, Ollie,” he said with resignation. “I wish I could make the decision this minute to bring you and your team back, but my hands are tied. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you know if there has been any progress at all?” I asked, wanting to prolong the call. It was my only tie to the White House right now, and it seemed a lifeline. The longer we talked, I reasoned, the better the chance that an aide would rush in and tell Paul the ban had been lifted. “Are we expecting any news soon?”

  Another resigned sigh. “You know I would tell you if I could.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I’m working to get you back here,” he said with the first glimmer of cheer I’d heard all night. “But I hope you’re not planning to stir anything up.”

  I thought about my promise to Tom. “Don’t worry. I’m behaving myself.”

  But I wondered if Tom realized how much that was killing me.

  CHAPTER 17

  BACK AT MY APARTMENT, OVER MILK AND COFFEE cake, I called everyone to order. “Listen,” I said, “remember when those kids bullied me when I was little?”

  Mom and Nana nodded.

  “And remember how you told me that by giving in to my fears, I was allowing them power over me?”

  Again, they nodded.

  “Well, isn’t that what Liss is doing?” I asked.

  Mom nodded. “That’s exactly right.”

  “Let’s promise ourselves not to read his articles anymore,” I said. “Let’s refuse to let him have power over us.”

  “I like that attitude, Ollie,” Mom said.

  Nana yawned. “Me, too. As of right now-no more Liss.”

  ***

  In the morning, when Mom asked, “Anything new in the headlines?” her tone was light, but her eyes asked if I’d cheated and peeked at what Liss had to say.

  “More unrest in China,” I said, not rising to the bait. “Can you believe this?” I pointed. “The Chinese government is
now claiming that the United States is responsible for the double-assassination.”

  Her interest was piqued. She leaned over my shoulder as Nana came in, freshly showered and dressed to go out. We both looked up. “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “I have a very good feeling about today,” she said, patting her fanny pack. “I want to be ready.”

  “Good,” I said. “Maybe I can take you to see more of Washington.”

  “Wow,” Mom said, scanning the article. “According to this, the two men who were killed had been wanted for questioning by the United States. The Chinese government is now saying it was the Americans who assassinated them instead.”

  “That doesn’t sound right.”

  “Read it yourself.”

  I did. The story was written by a U.S. correspondent clearly attempting to distance himself from any factual inaccuracies. He repeatedly talked about his sources and suggested, more than once, that presented facts should not be taken as true until proven. But, he also discussed the wild claims of the Chinese government and what it might mean to the United States if their allegations were true.

  “So,” I said, slowly, trying to distill the information down to its key points. “They’re saying that they sent spies here and once we discovered them, we went over there to kill them? That seems so wrong.” I shook my head. “That can’t be the whole story.”

  Mom and Nana looked at me.

  “Think about it. If they have two spies who have given them information on the United States -and God help us if they got anything important-why would there be any need to kill them? The two men were back in China, for some time. I’m sure they had been debriefed. What possible motive would the United States have to kill them at that point?”

  “You know as well as I do that our government does plenty of things in secret,” Mom said.

  “True,” I acknowledged. “But this seems pretty far-fetched. Now, if those Chinese spies gave their government bad information”-I shrugged-“There might be repercussions from above. But they shouldn’t blame us for it. The United States gets enough bad-mouthing as it is.”

  “Other countries are just jealous,” Nana said.

  We both smiled at her.

  “You two seem pretty chipper this morning,” she continued. “I take it that means neither of you read that Liss Is More filth.”

  “You would be right,” I said.

  A knock at my front door. Being on the thirteenth floor in a building that required a buzz-up limited the possibilities of who it could be.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, and wasn’t surprised to see Mrs. Wentworth.

  She held today’s newspaper aloft, her arthritic right hand clamped around its edge, her other hand gripping her cane. “How come you’re still here?”

  I was about to ask what she meant when she pulled her cane up and used it to move me out of the way. “Looks like your friend Liss scooped everybody this time.”

  Before I could stop her, she’d tottered into the kitchen. “Good morning, ladies,” she said. Then, catching sight of the newspaper on the table, she turned to me with a glare of impatience. “How come you didn’t tell me you already saw it?”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “Liss? No way we’re reading him anymore. The lies he prints-”

  She made an impatient face. “The guy is good.” Waving away my protestations to the contrary, she said, “Yes, yes, I know what he’s been saying lately. And I know he’s been taking pokes at you. But if you don’t look at his conjecture-if you just look at his facts-he’s been pretty damned accurate so far.”

  “Accurate?” I started to protest. “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, you better hope he is this time.”

  She splayed the newspaper out before us. Standing back, she smiled at us expectantly. “Nice to be the bearer of good news for once,” she said.

  Curiosity got the better of me, as it usually does, and I leaned forward. I scanned quickly, looking for what might have spurred Mrs. Wentworth to come knocking at my door. And then I found it:

  And You Read It Here First

  We join the White House in saying, “Welcome back!”

  Liss Is More has learned that the White House kitchen staff has been officially cleared of suspicion in Carl Minkus’s unexpected death. Word is that the staff will be notified shortly and will be expected to return to work immediately. Liss Is More also has it on good authority that the president and First Lady have had their fill of food prepared by well-intentioned but ill-trained Secret Service personnel. I know my good friend Executive Chef Olivia Paras will be delighted by this new turn of events, both for herself and for her staff.

  Side note to Ollie: See? You can stop blaming me for the cloud of suspicion that hung over your head. I just report the facts. I don’t invent them.

  “ ‘My good friend’?” I asked, fuming. “How does he come up with this stuff?”

  Mrs. Wentworth tapped the words. “It sells papers, kiddo.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll cancel my delivery.” As angry as I was at Liss in general, I was mostly furious at his assertion that my staff and I had been welcomed back to the White House. “Accurate? I don’t think so. If he were accurate, wouldn’t I have heard from our chief usher by now?”

  At that moment, a phone rang. The sound was faint and the tune wasn’t the one I used for my cell phone, but I instinctively turned toward the little device and picked it up. “Not me,” I said.

  My mom got a split-second quizzical look on her face, then jumped up. “That’s mine,” she said, clearly surprised. “I don’t get many phone calls, so I didn’t…”

  We missed the rest of her words as she turned into the bedroom. We heard soft scuffling sounds, then the tune ended and my mom said, “Hello.”

  Two seconds later, she shut the bedroom door.

  “A gentleman caller?” Mrs. Wentworth asked.

  Nana snorted. “And I think I know exactly who that gentleman caller is.”

  “Kap,” I said. I had forgotten about their “date” today.

  “Now don’t get all worked up, honey,” Nana said, patting my arm like I was a four-year-old. “Your mom is allowed a little bit of fun while she’s out here.”

  Her words hit their mark. I had wanted to make this trip the best Mom and Nana had experienced. I’d wanted to make them love Washington, D.C., as much as I did-by showing them the White House from the inside. By letting them walk the halls-not like tourists, but like insiders. Instead, the vacation had been sliced to ribbons by Minkus’s untimely death, and my obsession with getting back into the kitchen.

  I had to face facts: The only real highlight this entire trip for my mom was her flirtation with Kap. In less than a week, Mom and Nana would be back in Chicago and Kap would still be here. Why was I behaving like an overprotective mother, trying to thwart my mom’s happiness? If she wanted to spend time with a man her age, a man who was clearly interested in her, then why shouldn’t she?

  I argued both sides in my mind even as Nana and Mrs. Wentworth carried on a separate conversation. I had just about convinced myself that Kap’s phone call was a good thing for my mom’s ego when she emerged from the bedroom, her face flushed.

  “Mom,” she said to Nana in a voice that held slight urgency, “you won’t mind if I take some time this afternoon, will you?” Almost as an afterthought, she turned to me. “You don’t mind either, right?”

  Nana spoke before I could. “ ‘Course not, Corinne.” She slapped the back of her hand against my forearm. “Right, Ollie?”

  Mrs. Wentworth asked the question. “Kap taking you out?”

  In that instance, I felt a resurgence of fear. All the arguing I’d done with myself went out the window. There was something not right about Kap. I sensed he was not all he appeared to be, and if there was one thing I knew, it was to trust my gut. I couldn’t let my mother go out with him. Not alone. It was all too convenient that he’d popped into our lives just at this time. What was he
really after?

  “Yes,” Mom said. “He and I are going to dinner. But we plan to tour more of the National Mall first.”

  “I thought we were all going to do that today,” I said, petulance creeping into my voice. “I thought we were all going to go together.”

  Mom smiled. “I know how busy you are, Ollie…”

  “Why isn’t he at the funeral?” I asked. “Shouldn’t he be with the family today?”

  “I asked him that, actually.”

  “And?”

  “He said that Ruth and Joel preferred to keep the interment private. Family only.”

  A teensy bit of spite from me. “I thought he was as close as family.”

  Mom gave me a chastising glare.

  “Hey,” I said. “Why don’t we go with you? Nana and I.” I turned. “And you, too, Mrs. Wentworth, if you want.”

  Mom’s eyes widened.

  “I’m not up for that today,” Nana said. “In fact, I think it might be just a little too cool outside for these old bones. Thanks anyway, honey.”

  Mrs. Wentworth pierced me with a shrewd look that, in one second both berated me and mocked my attempt. “Sorry, dear. Stanley ’s coming by later. We have plans.”

  The idea of my tagging along with Mom and Kap by myself was unappealing, to say the least.

  The phone rang-my house phone this time-preventing me from making that suggestion. “Hang on,” I said, reaching for the receiver. “Before you give him an answer-”

  “I’m going with him, Ollie.” Mom said. “I already told him he can pick me up at two.”

  A thousand thoughts flew through my brain as I picked up the phone without checking Caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Ollie, it’s Paul.”

  Like a rerun of Monday morning, our chief usher was calling me at home-what could have happened now?

  “Yes?” I said dumbly.

  “I take it you’ve seen the Liss article?”

  “Just a minute ago.”

  Paul sounded angry and resigned at the same time. “I don’t know who leaked the story to him. It’s a pretty sad day when our staff learns that they’re back to work through the newspaper rather than through official channels.”