by Meg Benjamin
“It’ll be all right,” Kit soothed. “They’ve probably heard about it by now, the ones in town anyway. We’ll call them, and you can give them something extra to make up for it once the kitchen is clear again.”
“Clayton and I will get right on it, Allie,” Nando said quickly. “Doesn’t look like there’s much damage in the kitchen. We’ll do our best to get out of there by this afternoon.”
Allie gave him a tremulous smile. “Thanks, Nando, I really appreciate it.”
Nando started to smile back, then stopped. Kit watched him, her lips curving up ever so slightly. He blew out a breath. “That’s okay. I’ll let you know when we’re done.”
The corners of Kit’s mouth moved up a bit farther. “Thanks, Officer.”
Nando licked his lips. “You’re welcome, ma’am.”
He turned toward the kitchen just as the front door opened. Wonder Dentist stepped in, his thinning brown hair slightly windblown, his glasses crooked.
Allie looked up at him, narrowing her eyes dangerously as she wiped her nose with a tissue. “Steve, I swear to god, if you say anything sarcastic, I will brain you with the nearest soup pan.”
Wonder blinked at her, then extended his arms. “Come here, baby, you look like you could use a hug.”
Allie hiccupped another sob, then threw herself into his arms. Kit sniffed. Even Delaney looked a little bright eyed.
Nando sighed. “Come on, kid, let’s see if we can finish going over this place before something else pops up.”
Kit had considered staying home from work so that she could help Allie, but Allie herself had vetoed the idea.
“It’s bad enough the Rose won’t get any bread today,” she reasoned. “I don’t want them to be short a manager too. Besides there’s nothing either of us can do here until Nando finishes. And after that it’ll be mainly clean-up and prep work for tomorrow.”
She managed to get to the hostess desk only a little later than usual, although it was still late enough to get a narrow-eyed look from Mabel. When Joe described the day’s specials, he also explained the bread situation.
“Gee, should we tell the customers?” Elaine asked. “They might like to know.”
“Tell them if they ask, but don’t mention it up front. Allie Maldonado doesn’t need any extra grief over this.” Joe’s eyes flicked to Kit and then back to his scribbled list of specials.
The lunch crowd was robust and largely happy, and apparently unconcerned about the origin of their bread. Kit couldn’t decide whether that was good for Allie or not, but at least it was good for the Rose.
She’d meant to talk to Joe about what was going on at the bakery, but things were too busy in the restaurant for her to break away. She felt a little guilty about the way their “date” had turned out the night before. She wasn’t sure what Deirdre and Clem were up to—or even that they were up to anything specific—but she definitely didn’t want Joe to get caught in some weird situation with her and Nando.
Of course, in reality, there was no situation between her and Nando, weird or otherwise. He’d been good with Allie when she needed someone to reassure her. He’d seen how upset she was and done his best to help.
But she already knew he was a good cop. It was when he wasn’t being a cop that they had problems. She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering.
Nando’s body moving in the twilight shadows, the sound of cicadas in the trees, the scent of honeysuckle somewhere back in the woods.
“Are you sure this is safe?”
His smile flashing in the gathering darkness. “Trust me, babe, nobody comes to this side of the lake. And we’ve got the perfect cover.”
The pattern of the live oak leaves against the darkening night sky as he leaned down, lips against her breast, warm breath on her nipple as it hardened to a tight bud.
Sighing, “Catarina, Catarina, you’ll drive me crazy yet.”
And Kit running her hands across his chest, feeling the smooth swell of muscle and bone beneath her palms, the warmth of his skin as she slid her hands down to cup him. “We’ll go together then.”
A confusion of voices drifted through the dining room door, couples heading her way. Kit jerked herself back to the present. Okay, they’d been hot back when they’d been together. Thinking about it didn’t help her figure out where they were today. Or where she wanted them to be.
For the rest of the lunch rush, she threw herself into being a hostess-sommelier and part-time busboy, pouring water and tea, bringing bottles of wine, helping the ever-leering Gabriel clear tables. She resolutely set Nando Avrogado to the side.
Midway through the afternoon, Joe strolled through the tables, checking on the diners, smiling as he asked about their meals. Some of them knew him now, and he paused to talk to them.
Kit watched him. Olive skin, dark blue eyes, dark moustache and beard. The shaved head and gold ring in his ear gave him a slightly piratical look, as if he’d be collecting the ladies’ jewelry on his next pass through the dining room.
Good-looking man. Leaking testosterone from every pore. And maybe interested in her, given the smile he had when his eyes followed her around the dining room. He was just what she needed. A fling, nothing serious, no drama.
He glanced up at her briefly, dark blue eyes dancing as he smiled.
She waited for the quick jolt of adrenaline in her belly, the sudden jump in her pulse. All those feelings she should have but didn’t.
All those feelings she’d once had with Nando. Once had? The feelings hadn’t exactly gone away, no matter how much she wanted to pretend otherwise.
Kit sighed. Don’t go there, Catarina, do not go there. Joe LeBlanc was a nice guy, someone she could be interested in who didn’t come with a lot of excess baggage. Now if she could only get her heart and the rest of her body to go along with it, maybe she could even do more than pretend that was the case.
Joe stepped into Clem’s kitchen around two, after her lunch rush and long enough before dinner that he probably wouldn’t seriously interrupt her preparations.
His own lunch rush had been interesting, given they had no bread for sandwiches. After a heads-up from both Allie and Kit, he’d sent Darcy to the nearest HEB to stock up on commercial hard rolls. The lunch crowd hadn’t been happy about the absence of Allie’s ciabatta bread, but it was the best he could do on short notice. At least Allie seemed to think she’d be able to fill the orders for tomorrow. As crises went, it was interesting. He usually had more trouble with his fishmonger than his baker.
He’d left his chef’s coat back at the Rose when he’d decided to drive into Konigsburg, but he hadn’t bothered to change out of the pants and shoes he used in the kitchen, which meant he entered the Faro in running shoes and a pair of loose black canvas pants with New Orleans Saints logos running up the seams. A couple of elderly ladies having chicken salad sandwiches and iced tea goggled slightly, but nobody else seemed to notice. He raised an eyebrow at Tom Ames behind the bar. “Clem back in the kitchen?”
Ames shrugged. “Far as I know.” He went back to loading beer into his cooler.
Clem glanced up as the door swished closed behind him. She stood at her prep table surrounded by piles of chopped carrots, onions and peppers. A round, grey-haired woman stood next to her, while a middle-aged man with a sizeable beer gut loaded the dishwasher behind them. “Hey Joe. Don’t you need to get ready for your lunch crowd tomorrow?”
He shrugged. “That’s why the good lord made prep cooks. Thought I’d come in to talk over a couple of things. Need a hand?”
Clem shrugged. “Sure. You can do lettuce.” She nodded toward a stack of red leaf and romaine on the other prep table, then turned to the gray-haired woman currently putting the finishing touches on a tray of handmade hamburger patties. “Put those into the freezer, then take a break, Margene. Tell Tom to give you some of that blackberry soda from Deirdre’s shop.”
Margene hefted the tray of patties toward the walk-in cooler at the side.
&nbs
p; Clem glanced back at the man loading the dishwasher. “Beat it Leon. You can do the rest later.”
Leon looked like he might protest, then thought better of it. He grabbed a broom from a rack beside the door and headed out into the bar.
Joe took a knife off the magnetic strip above Clem’s table and pulled a head of lettuce onto the chopping board. “So what’s on your menu for tonight?”
“Spaghetti Bolognese, shrimp tacos, and the usual: burgers and fries, salads, enchiladas, bar food. How about you?”
Joe gave her a dry smile. “Special tomorrow’s PEI mussels with fennel cream sauce.”
Clem shrugged. “Not much call for mussels around this place. So why are you here, aside from your crying need to get back into the food prep business?”
He split the head of romaine into quarters. “I want to know what was going on last night. How come my dinner with a good-looking, unattached woman suddenly became a dinner for four and a spirited discussion of appetizers.”
Clem grinned at the onion she was chopping. “We came up with a nice menu, didn’t we? Our advice was helpful.”
“Your advice was fine. It’s the timing I’m interested in.” He gave another lettuce head a solid thump. “Along with the identity of the guy at the bar.”
Clem’s grin turned wry. “Noticed that, did you?”
“Noticed him. Who is he?”
“Nando Avrogado. He’s one of the town cops. A good one.”
“How does he fit into the picture with Kit Maldonado?”
Clem shrugged. “He’s her former squeeze. I don’t know much about it myself, didn’t know either one of them when it was going on. But apparently it was hot and heavy for a while.”
“When?”
“Year or so ago.”
“So you and Deirdre decided they need to be back together?” Joe ripped the current head of romaine into a pile of chunks. “Thus your unexpected presence at the table last night?”
“I haven’t entirely figured out how I feel about the two of them.” She began chopping the onion into a tiny dice. “I think Deirdre would like it see them mend their differences. Nando’s a friend of Tom’s, and Deirdre’s a hopeless romantic. But I sat down with you yesterday because I was curious about what kind of menu you’d come up with. On the other hand…”
“On the other hand,” he prompted.
Clem shrugged again. “I like Nando. He’s a good cop and a decent guy. And he seems hung up on Kit Maldonado. She could do worse.”
Joe gave her a long look. “Does this mean you like him more than me?”
She threw her head back and guffawed. “Geez, just listen to yourself! ‘Mama always liked him best.’ Well, I like you both the same, how’s that? Plus I’d be willing to bet that Nando’s romanesca sauce can’t lay a finger on yours.”
“Damn straight.” Joe grinned as he dismembered another head of red leaf. “I’m getting mixed messages here. Am I supposed to back off from Kit Maldonado?”
Clem shook her head. “Up to you, I guess. Kit’s a big girl. She can make her own decisions. So can Nando, as far as that goes. If they’re going to get together, my guess is you won’t represent much of a hindrance. Might be a little battering for your ego, though.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t rate my chances too high?”
She paused, laying her chef’s knife on the prep table. “I don’t rate your interest too high. Are you honestly telling me you’d fight with Nando over Kit, that you think she’s the one true girl for you?”
Joe started piling lettuce chunks in a large stainless steel bowl. “Maybe not.” He paused for a moment, then shook his head. “Probably not. Nice girl, though. Got a lot going for her.”
“You think she’s your kind of woman?”
He shrugged. “She could be. I might give it a try. Make the cop work for it. What’s the harm?”
Clem narrowed her eyes. “So what happens to Kit while you guys are having your little my dick’s bigger than your dick competition? How do you keep her from getting hurt? Suppose she starts thinking you’re more serious than you are?”
Joe’s smile was dry. “She might, but I’m not betting on it right now. I don’t think either one of us is taking it all that seriously. I think it’s a sort of wait and see kind of thing. How about you, Clemencia. Still seeing the lovely Lucinda?”
Clem gave him a lazy smile of her own. “Someday, Joseph, you’ll find somebody who’ll make you want to stop tomcatting around. At which time, you should only be as half as happy as Lu and me.”
Joe laughed as he slid back onto an even keel again. “From your lips to God’s ear, darlin’, from your lips to God’s ear.”
Brody studied the small china bowl he’d taken from Allie Maldonado’s bakery. He had no idea why he’d picked it up rather than smashing it against the wall. He’d dropped the rest of the loot in the abandoned dump outside Oltdorf, as he’d done with the stuff from the bookstore. He’d never understood the attraction of trophies for criminals, particularly since they made it so much easier for the cops to pin down guilt when they were found.
He didn’t exactly consider himself a criminal anyway. Criminals were losers. He was someone who’d had a run of bad luck.
Still, he placed the china bowl inside his kitchen cabinet, next to the small silver box he’d lifted from Docia Kent’s bookstore. That box had been even more satisfying. The symbolism there was clear—I can take what’s valuable to you and you can’t do a damn thing to stop me.
All in all the break-in at the bookstore had been much more fun than the one at the bakery, but that was how it had to be. Trashing the bookstore had settled some scores, but the bakery had established a pattern, made it all less personal. Now he could go on to hit a few more places, saving the biggest for last. With any luck, no one would make any connections. They’d just think it was some lunatic burglar who got off on breaking things up.
He knew what they’d be thinking now. Kids with too much time on their hands. Or dopers. Somebody out to destroy things for the fun of it or looking for money and too stoned not to realize they were in the wrong place. No one would see it for what it was—a strategy. It would divert attention, and suspicion, until he was long gone.
He’d have to be careful, of course. The new chief wasn’t stupid, although he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. Things would have been much easier if that moron Ham Linklatter had gotten the chief’s job, but you played with the cards you were dealt.
Brody didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d succeed in the end. After all, they owed him. All of them. Every last citizen of Konigsburg owed him big time.
Chapter Ten
Toleffson called a meeting early the next morning so that Ham, who had night duty that week, could be around before he headed home for the day. He’d even brought in the two part-timers, Dawson Kirk and Rollie Martinez, who mostly worked weekends.
Helen passed around some of her more-than-adequate coffee and some cinnamon rolls from the supermarket that didn’t begin to measure up to Allie Maldonado’s scones. Nando felt annoyed all over again since Allie wouldn’t be selling any of those scones for at least another couple of days, given that it was Friday and she’d stay closed for the weekend.
“Okay,” Toleffson began, “let me summarize what we’ve got on this guy.”
The chief’s summaries were always complete and focused, a model for somebody like Ham who tended to ramble off the track. He outlined what little he’d gotten back so far from the forensics lab, the minimal physical evidence they’d been able to find in either the bookstore or the bakery, and the sum total of it all, which was basically squat.
“We sure it’s the same guy both places?” Rollie asked.
Toleffson gave him a grim look. “As sure as we can be without any physical evidence at the bakery.”
Ham snickered. “Too bad the guy didn’t feel like taking another dump.”
The others glanced at Nando a little nervously, but he managed to keep his ex
pression bland.
Toleffson cleared his throat. “You’re right. Too bad he didn’t. It gave us DNA evidence from the first scene. That’s a valuable commodity. If he’d left us some more, we wouldn’t be wondering if it was the same guy.” He gave Ham a long, cool look.
Ham flushed dirty pink, then faded back to his usual pale. “Just seems a little dumb, picking up pieces of shit.”
Toleffson rubbed his eyes. “Ham, what part of DNA evidence don’t you understand? If the guy’s in the system, we can find him now, as soon as the lab gets the DNA report done. From our point of view, that would be a good thing.”
Ham subsided into disgruntled silence.
The chief turned back to the rest of them. “Okay, we’ve got two ways to go with this. First is to start talking to people, see if anybody’s heard anything. Somebody bragging, somebody who wasn’t where they were supposed to be. You know the drill.”
Delaney nodded quickly. The others looked slightly bored. They did indeed know the drill, which didn’t make it any less monotonous. Plus it probably wouldn’t get them much.
“The other thing is to start looking at the stores along Main a lot more closely when you’re on night patrol. So far both places he’s hit have been on Main Street. He may or may not stick with that. But from now on, spend a little more time checking there. He can’t be doing this in total darkness—he’s got to be using a flashlight at least. If you see any lights where you don’t usually see them, find out what’s going on. And don’t forget to drive up the alleys. He’s been going in from the back, so you may not see him if you just stay on Main. If you do see anything, call it in and get backup. For the next couple of weeks, Dawson and Rollie are going to alternate doing night patrol along with whichever one of you full-timers has the duty, so we’ll always have somebody out there. Keep in contact with each other. Make sure you drive up Main at least every thirty minutes or so.”
Helen narrowed her eyes. “You need me to stay on the desk at night?”
