Murder for the Halibut

by Liz Lipperman

  Maybe this guy was as good as he said, Jordan thought, watching him take one more bite before setting down his fork.

  In a flash, the smile on his face disappeared and his eyes bulged open. Doubling over the table as though in severe pain, he grabbed his throat and terror flashed across his face. It took a few seconds for Jordan’s brain to register that he might be in serious trouble, but then she jumped up and ran toward him.

  Before she could reach him, Stefano’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell face-first into his signature halibut dish.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Get the doctor!” Jordan screamed. Running behind the table, she reached Stefano at the same time as Michael. After lifting the chef’s face out of the plate and gently lowering him to the floor, Michael checked his neck for a pulse.

  “Nothing.” On his knees beside Stefano, he began giving him chest compressions.

  The nearly two thousand people in the audience were eerily silent, watching as Michael attempted to revive the fallen chef. The other contestants quietly huddled in a corner, the meals they’d been preparing still cooking at their stations.

  Jordan watched Beau Lincoln meander over to where Marsha stood silently with her competitors. Apparently, the dramatic attempt to save a man’s life playing out in front of him was the last thing on his mind. Talking Marsha into a cozy, after-dinner chocolate fest in his room was probably right up there at the top, though.

  Disgusted, Jordan’s attention reverted back to Stefano just as the ship’s doctor rushed onto the stage, medical bag in hand and stethoscope around his neck. He bent down and motioned for Michael to stop CPR while he checked to see if the heartbeat had returned.

  “Continue,” he commanded before reaching into his black bag for a prefilled syringe. Quickly, he tied a tourniquet around Stefano’s arm, found a vein, and injected the medicine directly into it.

  A steward appeared with a defibrillator, and after charging it, the doctor administered the first shock to Stefano’s chest. His lifeless body briefly jumped off the floor with the jolt, then stilled. When the steward knelt down on the other side of the dying chef and took over the chest compressions, Michael rose and joined Jordan on the sidelines.

  The look in his eyes told her all she needed to know.

  “He’s not going to make it, is he?” she asked.

  “Don’t know,” Michael responded, clearly shaken. “It doesn’t look too good for him right now.”

  A vivid image from a few months back flashed across her mind. The night of the Cattleman’s Ball in Fort Worth when her date died in her arms wasn’t something she would soon forget. Though Stefano wasn’t her date tonight, Jordan didn’t like the way she was beginning to feel. Was it possible she was turning into a female version of the Grim Reaper?

  Quickly chasing that thought out of her head, she concentrated on what was going on with Stefano. After two more injections and another hit with the defibrillator, the doctor reached over and covered the steward’s hand with his own, stopping CPR. A few seconds later, he stood and stepped toward Emily. Jordan noticed for the first time that the highly successful businesswoman appeared to be close to losing it. The apprehension in her eyes was hard to miss.

  “He’s dead.” Although the doctor spoke softly, his voice echoed across the stage, causing a collective gasp from the other contestants.

  Finally finding her composure, Emily took a deep breath and nodded. “Was it a heart attack?”

  The doctor shrugged. “That would be my best guess, but we’ll have to wait on an autopsy to know for sure.”

  Emily looked defeated, realizing she had lost control of the situation. “Now what?”

  “We’ll keep him in the morgue until we reach San Juan the day after tomorrow. From there, they’ll fly the body back to Miami for an autopsy.” Shaking his head, the doctor motioned to his two assistants, who were waiting on stage with a gurney.

  The chilling silence that had overtaken the room for the last ten minutes gave way to a low rumbling that quickly increased to a crescendo. By the time Stefano’s body was loaded onto the stretcher and wheeled off the stage through the back door of the theater, the smell of burning fish permeated the massive room. But nobody seemed to care.

  After a hushed discussion at the back of the stage with Michael’s boss, Emily came forward and was handed a mic to address the crowd once again. “We are deeply saddened by the death of Stefano Mancini. Because of this unthinkable tragedy, we are cancelling tonight’s Greased Lightning Elimination Round. After consulting with the doctor, Wayne Francis and I will make a final decision on whether or not to cancel the entire competition.”

  When the crowd didn’t react, she continued. “We’ll let you know as soon as we can. Whatever the decision, if any of you feel you can no longer participate in this event, we will attempt to refund your money, although ultimately, that will be decided by the people at Carnation Queen. If they agree, you can return to Miami on the first available flight after we dock in Puerto Rico.”

  She was interrupted when Phillip walked up from his station in the back, his face as white as the table linen.

  “Stefano is really dead?”

  Emily nodded. “Like the doctor said, only an autopsy can tell us why but it could have been a heart attack, perhaps brought on by some underlying heart arrhythmia. It’s possible that the intensity of the competition and the rushing to finish may have brought on a sudden reaction that stopped his heart.”

  “Stefano didn’t have heart problems,” Phillip said, his voice cracking. “I would’ve known about it. It has to be something else.”

  “Stefano probably didn’t know about it himself.” Emily put her arm around the chef, who was at least two inches shorter than her. “What else could it have been, Phillip? We’ve all heard about athletes who drop dead on the football field for no apparent reason, and it isn’t until they do an autopsy that they discover there was an undetected genetic problem. Or maybe it had something to do with his injury yesterday.”

  With tears running freely down his face, Phillip turned to Casey. “You did this to him. Everyone knows how much you hated him. Does winning this competition mean so much to you that you’d kill for it?”

  Without changing her expression, Casey said, “Yes, I hated Stefano and don’t care who knows it. The man was a slimy little weasel, and if everyone here is being honest, they’ll agree. But I can assure you that as much as I’d like to take the credit, I had nothing to do with Stefano’s death.”

  Before Phillip could respond, Michael approached and put his hand on the distraught man’s shoulder. “I know you and Stefano were good friends, Phillip. I can only imagine how much you’ll miss him, but blaming someone isn’t going to help. We’ll have to wait a few days to find out the actual cause of death. In the meantime, let’s try to remember all the good things about Stefano.”

  “He was allergic to nuts.”

  Everyone turned in the direction of the voice. Although Jordan hadn’t been formally introduced to him, she knew the man was Thomas Collingsworth. He was the contestant who had stayed in Texas an extra day to make sure his wife and firstborn child were settled in on their first day home from the hospital.

  About five ten, Thomas looked as if he’d just crawled out of bed, slapped on an old shirt, and wandered onto the stage. Even the newly starched chef’s apron didn’t hide the wrinkled pants he wore beneath.

  Emily was the first to react. “How do you know Stefano was allergic to nuts, Thomas?”

  The man stared at her before blowing out a noisy breath. “He had a reaction at my apartment about eight or nine months ago.”

  Suddenly, Phillip raced to Stefano’s workstation and held up the bottle with exotic spices. It was one of the mandatory ingredients for the elimination round. After twisting off the top, he dipped his finger in and then popped it into his mouth.

  “Oh my God! Someone call the doctor and tell him Stefano is having an allergic reaction.” When no one moved, he scr
eamed, “Dammit. Someone call the doctor.”

  Marsha rushed over and wrapped her arms around him. “It’s too late. He’s gone, Phillip.”

  “No,” Phillip shouted, wrestling out of her embrace. “If Stefano’s allergic to peanuts, the doctor can fix it with a shot or something.”

  “He’s been without oxygen too long,” Marsha said in a soothing voice. “I’m so sorry.”

  At the mention of peanuts, the executive chef made eye contact with Emily. “I thought you said none of the tasters for this competition had any food allergies.” His English was heavily laced with a Brazilian dialect.

  Suddenly back in the spotlight, Emily answered with renewed confidence. “That was one of the questions on the forms I sent to all the contestants as well as the twenty-five tasters. I made sure we specifically asked about food allergies.” She paused for a moment. “I can’t remember for sure without consulting the consent forms, but I know I went over every one of them with my assistant. Stefano had to have checked the no-allergy box, or we would have spotted it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Wayne asked Thomas, more than a little annoyed. “We might have been able to save him if we’d known.”

  Displeased at Wayne’s accusatory tone, Thomas nailed him with a glare. “Stefano swore my wife and me to secrecy—thought it might cost him a chance to work at certain high-level jobs if word got out. It happened so long ago, I’d totally forgotten about it. Besides, he never ate anything he didn’t cook himself or hadn’t watched while it was being prepared.”

  He moved closer to Wayne, obviously still angry over the last remark. “I didn’t even think about his problem with peanuts until just now. I have a good nose for spices, and I’m pretty sure there were no nuts of any kind in my bottle.”

  Emily stepped between the two men, who were dangerously close to swinging fists. “I gave specific instructions that although no one listed food allergies of any type, there would be no nuts of any kind in the baskets.” She turned to the head chef. “Antonio?”

  The head chef, in turn, glared at his assistant, whose high white baker’s hat resembled a big white cupcake, making Jordan wish she was off somewhere eating one right now instead of watching this scene unfold in front of her. It was hard to wrap her head around the fact that Stefano was actually dead. She’d never been able to come up with the right thing to say in a situation like this, and today was no different.

  The assistant threw both hands in the air, causing his hat to bobble precariously on his head. “I prepared the spices myself. There are no peanuts in there. It’s simply a mixture of fresh cinnamon, sugar, and cloves, with a little orange and lemon zest.”

  Phillip once again unscrewed the bottle and dipped his finger into the jar. After popping his finger into his mouth, he shoved the opened container toward the chef. “Taste this, and then tell me there are no nuts in it.”

  The chef did exactly as Phillip had only moments before. After a few seconds, he licked his lips and looked up, bewildered. “I’m absolutely positive I didn’t put ground nuts in any of these spice bottles.” He made eye contact with his boss, silently pleading with the executive chef to believe him. “But there definitely are ground nuts in this one.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, the head chef went to Casey’s station where he picked up her spice bottle and tasted the contents. Without speaking, he moved from table to table, repeating the process. When he’d sampled all of them, he came back to Emily.

  “I swear I don’t know how the nuts got in the dead man’s bottle.”

  “Was it in any of the others?”

  He hung his head. “No.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “For God’s sake, how could you let something like this happen?” Beau bellowed, standing now with angry eyes leveled on Wayne Francis. “There are over three million people in the United States who are allergic to nuts, and a lot more who don’t have a clue a peanut could kill them. Any one of us could be affected by it. Why in the hell would you even take a chance with it here?”

  He started toward Michael’s boss before George Christakis interceded with a hand to the angry man’s chest. The famous chef was a good two inches taller than Beau and looked like he worked out regularly, too.

  “Calm down, Lincoln,” George warned. “Let’s not start blaming anyone before we even find out what killed the man. It could have been something as unrelated as a brain aneurysm or something.”

  Beau’s face was now bright red, and his breath came in loud short bursts as he continued his tirade against Wayne. “You’re still the same dumb-ass you always were, even in high school, Francis. I worked hard to get where I am today, and in one short day, you may have screwed up everything if the dead guy’s family decides to sue.”

  At that moment, Wayne Francis looked about ready to kill Beau with his bare hands, but to his credit, he took a deep breath and said, “Everyone signed a waiver, Lincoln. There will be no lawsuits over this, I guarantee. At least not one naming you. So why don’t you calm down and quit thinking only about yourself.”

  The two men glared at each other for a few more seconds before Beau looked away. “Good to know.” He turned slightly and whispered into Marsha’s ear.

  As if on cue, Emily reached for the mic and stepped to the center of the stage to address the crowd once again. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions until we get an official cause of death from the medical examiner in Miami. For now, all we can do is wait. An announcement about whether or not we go forward with the competition will come as early as tomorrow morning over the intercom.”

  With shaking hands she handed the mic to the young steward and ambled toward Jordan and Michael, who were standing in the back with Wayne. When she reached them, she closed her eyes and blew out a long breath. Although her voice just moments before had seemed calm and in control, her eyes told a different tale.

  By the time the crowd finally began to disperse, a few of the other contestants had joined them.

  “I don’t know about you, but I could really use a drink right now,” Emily finally said. “I’d love some company at the Starlight Lounge. It’s quiet there, and we can decide how to proceed with the contest—if we do decide to proceed.”

  Everyone nodded. A drink after what had just happened seemed appropriate. Maybe even two or three.

  Emily checked her watch. “Let’s meet in twenty minutes. That’ll give all of us time to go back to our rooms and freshen up.”

  “Sounds good,” Jordan said. “Whoever gets there first can get a table big enough for all of—”

  “Where are we going?” Beau interrupted.

  The look that passed between Jordan and Emily confirmed they were in agreement. Neither wanted to spend any more time than they absolutely had to with the obnoxious entrepreneur, but there was no way they could say that without causing a scene.

  “The Starlight Lounge on deck ten,” Wayne finally admitted, probably thinking it might be a good idea to diffuse the guy after his earlier blowup. “We’re meeting there in twenty minutes.”

  Beau turned ninety degrees and looked directly at Marsha. “You going?”

  When she nodded, he flashed a grin. “Okay, then, count me in. Tossing back a drink or two with y’all is the perfect way for us to get acquainted.”

  Yeah, right. The only one he wanted to get acquainted with was the one who had given him a peek down her blouse earlier. How blatant could the man get?

  “Isn’t it awful the way that poor man died?”

  They all turned to see Beau’s wife wobble up the steps and sashay across the stage in ridiculously high spiky heels.

  Beau had the decency to take his eyes off Marsha’s chest, although he did look a little annoyed at having his wife interrupt the fantasy that must’ve been playing out in his head.

  “Honey, some of us are meeting to discuss what’s going to happen next. Why don’t you go back to the room and get into your comfy clothes? I’ll have the concierge send up a bottle of the
ir finest champagne.”

  Charlese Lincoln narrowed her eyes as if she could see directly into her husband’s mind. In all probability, this wasn’t her first rodeo with the man and his roving ways. Chances were pretty good she’d been a player in his womanizing game before. Jordan’s money was on Charlese having once been the one waiting to get cozy with Beau while wife number one got sent to the room with booze.

  After a moment, Charlese shrugged. “Okay. I’ll see you later. Don’t stay up too late, darling. You promised to get up early and lay by the pool with me.”

  She stood on tiptoes to kiss him, then turned and walked off the stage. It was almost comical the way every man present ogled her backside and perfectly shaped, seemingly endless legs as she and her jersey mini dress headed toward the exit.

  Even Michael.

  Emily was the first to react. “After you guys pull your tongues back into your mouths, I’ll see you all at the Starlight Lounge.”

  Jordan stepped off the stage and found Rosie. Together they made their way out of the empty theater.

  “Did you see the way Beau came on to Marsha right in front of his wife? No way I’d let my husband go drinking alone with a sex kitten like that.”

  Rosie laughed. “Sweetie, think about it. Charlese put up with Beau’s crap the entire time she was chasing him. Now it’s obvious she doesn’t give a rat’s patootie. More likely, the man had his last around-the-world ride with her the night before she walked down the aisle. My guess is that Mrs. Beau Lincoln is in love with his money, and she’s just biding her time until she and her lawyer can sit across the table from the man and negotiate a seven-figure alimony settlement.”

  Jordan made a face. “Yuck. But when you put it that way, I’d say Charlese has earned every penny she’ll get. Just imagining him in the bedroom is enough to nauseate me.”

  “Ha! Maybe it’s time you changed that patch behind your ear.” Rosie opened the door to the room and allowed Jordan to enter.