by Annie Knox
Ingrid waved off my concern. “He’s no Johnny Mathis, but I love Paul Anka as much as the next woman.”
“Great! Then we’ll finish up the ceremony with the two of you dancing to Johnny Mathis’s ‘Wonderful, Wonderful.’”
Ingrid grinned, and Harvey reached over to catch hold of her hand. “It sounds perfect,” Ingrid said.
“Any questions?”
“None. It sounds like the perfect day.”
I started collecting the plates and napkins from our morning feast.
“What are you two up to today?” Rena asked. Ingrid had spent the week touring poor Harvey around Merryville so they could relive the memories of their high school romance. Harvey looked like he’d rather just spend some time sipping beers at the VFW, but he indulged Ingrid.
“Today, we’re going down to the bluffs where the Perry River splits off from the Mighty Mississippi. You know there are caverns down there. Bootleggers used to use them to hide their hooch back in Prohibition days. When we were in school, the kids would go down there to neck. Isn’t that right, Harvey?” she asked, giving him a gentle shove on the shoulder.
Harvey flushed bright red, but he nodded.
Rena laughed. “Kids used those caverns for more than necking when we were in school. Isn’t that right, Izzy?”
I shared a commiserating look with Harvey and nodded.
Ingrid and Rena both busted up until tears of mirth were running down their faces. I had a sneaking suspicion they were laughing at Harvey and me.
Ingrid stood, pausing for a moment to get her sea legs. “Are you ready to go, Harvey? I want to see if we can still see the place where you carved our initials into the rock.”
Rena clasped a hand to her heart. We were in agreement that Harvey and Ingrid were the cutest couple in the whole wide world.
When they left, Rena helped me finish up both the dog and human wedding favors. My hands were cramping from all the close work of tying little bows and stitching tiny stitches.
“Are you excited for your date tonight?” Rena asked.
“Yes, I suppose so. More anxious than excited.”
“Why anxious? Jack’s a nice guy.”
“I’m sure he is. But this whole murder investigation thing is going to sit in the booth with us. We don’t precisely see eye to eye on that score. Plus, this will be my first post-Casey date. And since there never was a pre-Casey date . . .”
Rena stopped what she was doing. “Wow. I guess I hadn’t thought about that before. Well, it’s time you got back in the ring, and I think Jack’s a great partner to do it with. He’s generally easy to talk to, laid-back, a gentleman. You don’t have to worry about him judging you.”
“Oh, no. He’s already judged me.”
“And then he asked you on a date. You must have passed muster with him somehow.”
I finished the last stitch on the last black bow tie and tossed it into a box. Next step was to label the boxes with the names of all the four-legged RSVPs so everyone got the right size. I wandered over to the counter to retrieve the guest list.
“I’m not the only one with a big date tonight,” I said.
“Oh? Who else?”
“Taffy,” I said as I sat back down at the table.
“With Ken?” Rena made a face. Rena was sort of an all-or-nothing kind of person. If she didn’t like you, she really didn’t like you. And she really didn’t like Ken.
“Yes. But we have to be supportive of Taffy. She’s really taken with him. Says he’s a romantic, told her she was the center of his galaxy.”
Rena froze. “Wait. What?”
“I know. It’s kind of cheesy, but it made Taffy go all gooey.”
“No, I mean that phrase is ringing a bell.” Rena tapped her front teeth with her fingernail. Then her face lit up. “I’ve got it! That story that Daniel wrote about the personal chef who slept with all those women. He reported that that was his pickup line.”
It took me a minute to catch on, to remember the article I’d read online and tell Sean and Rena. But then it did, and pieces started falling into place.
Before Rena and I could get down to brass tacks, the doorbell jingled and Sean stepped into the store.
“Hi, girls. Just got done talking to the DA. I don’t suppose Dolly is here, is she?”
“No. She went shopping with my mom at the mall in Brainerd.”
“Too bad. I really need to go over her options with her.” Sean wandered over to the table, absently picked up one of the doggy bow ties, and twirled it on his finger.
Rena was practically jumping out of her skin. “Options shmoptions. The best option is for us to clear her name, and we may have done it.”
“Good Lord. What has Hal Olson done this time?”
“Not Hal,” I said. “Ken West.”
Sean pulled back in surprise, then sank into one of the multicolored chairs that surrounded the folk art table. The blue one. He always chose the blue one.
“Walk me through it,” he said.
We explained about Taffy and the phrase Ken had used that pegged him as the Madison “Mystery Chef.”
“But surely Daniel didn’t come all the way out here for a full month because of Ken West.”
I waved my hand. “No, based on everything we’ve learned so far, I think it’s a safe bet that Daniel came here for the story about the owls. But Ken might have been afraid of being identified. Can you imagine what that kind of reputation would do to his business? In a big city, it might make him seem glamorous or intriguing. But in Merryville, it would make him plain old slutty.”
“Especially for someone who isn’t a native son,” Rena added. “Folks around here will forgive our neighbors for a lot, but Ken’s an outsider.”
“Still, how was Daniel going to recognize him when no one in Madison would identify him?”
“Who knows?” I said. “Maybe one of the women did tell him the name? Maybe he learned enough about the chef’s reputation to recognize Ken’s food? Put that together with a Madison chef who moves to the middle of nowhere for no obvious reason, and a good reporter might dig deeper.”
Rena jumped in. “Ken had access to the upstairs that no one else at the party had. He could have gotten up there and killed Daniel and slipped right back into the kitchen. No one would have known a thing.”
“And he’s been seeing Taffy Nielson for a few weeks, but he wouldn’t take her out for real until this week. I thought he was just trying to keep their relationship a secret. But what if he was trying to keep a low profile more generally? Trying to hide out from Daniel.”
“Oooh! And then he couldn’t hide from him anymore the night of Ingrid and Harvey’s first wedding. Maybe Daniel came down the back stairs to avoid the party and ran into Ken in the kitchen. One thing led to another and—boom!—Daniel ends up dead.”
Sean shook his head. “I counted an awful lot of maybes in there. And I thought Ken had an alibi.”
“His alibi was a lie,” I said. “He said he’d gone out to have a smoke with Steve Olmstead, but Steve doesn’t smoke. What’s more, Ama said he’s rabidly antitobacco. Apparently he’s told strangers to snuff out their butts. I can’t imagine he’d keep Ken company while he smoked.”
“As theories go,” Sean said, “I still think it’s pretty weak.”
I leaned in, trying to make him understand. “At this point, I’ll take a weak theory over no theory at all.”
CHAPTER
Eighteen
One consequence of the weakness of our theory was that I didn’t feel I could call Jack about it. More important, I didn’t feel I had to call Jack about it. It wasn’t enough for him to act on, probably, and it would just earn me another lecture. I could keep this theory to myself for a while. I decided I’d have a talk with Ken, see if I could get anything more solid, and then tell Jack about
everything that evening on our date.
At my insistence, Sean accompanied me around the block to the storefront that used to be the Grateful Grape. Ken had made serious progress on revamping the space for his new restaurant. The name—Red, White & Bleu—had been stenciled in classic gold on the front window. Inside, he’d kept the Grape’s beautiful bar, but lightened the space with cream walls, amber sconces, and simple wooden tables.
Ken (or, rather, Steve and his crew) had removed all the dark paneling, set the ceiling fans higher in the vaulted ceiling, and generally stripped away all the architectural clutter that had made the Grape cute. Red, White & Bleu wasn’t cute. It was elegant.
We found Ken sitting at the bar taking notes.
“Hi, Ken,” I called as we opened the door and stepped inside.
Ken turned to us with a puzzled look. “Hi. This is unexpected.”
“Just wanted to make sure we were all set for Saturday,” I said.
“Of course. We essentially had a dress rehearsal last weekend, and it went smoothly. Until the dead guy crashed the party. I’ve repeated my food order for Saturday and I’ve been in touch with Ollie Forde to be certain there are enough Norwegian meatballs on hand.”
Sean stood at my side, hands shoved in his pockets, rocking forward on the balls of his feet, restless as a pent-up tiger. “Place looks good,” he said.
“Thanks. Still working on the kitchen, but I’m aiming for a launch in June.”
“Sounds great,” I said.
Ken cocked his head. “I’m getting the feeling there’s something you want to say to me. I’ll be honest—I have some work to do. I’m working on the launch menu right now, and I’m going to be going over it with Hal and Pris Olson in just a couple of hours.”
I shot Sean a look, and he shrugged, indicating that I could start.
“I might as well just come out and ask. Are you the Madison Mystery Chef?”
“What?”
“Come on, you have to at least know about the story. You lived in Madison when it happened and it involved the culinary world. Are you the personal chef who slept with all his clients?”
Ken stared at us for a solid minute, lower teeth biting his upper lip. Finally, his stance relaxed a little.
“I only slept with the women.”
“So you admit it?” I asked, stunned that it had been so easy.
“There’s not much point in denying it. With a little digging, anyone could figure it out. I’m just hoping you won’t go telling everyone in Merryville. It would ruin me, and I don’t see how it helps you at all.”
Sean held up a hand. “Don’t worry. We’re not interested in airing your dirty laundry.”
“Then why did you ask?”
Sean held out his hand, palm up, in my direction, offering me the chance to explain.
“Well, if Daniel Colona knew who you were—”
“Oh, he knew.”
“—then you might . . . Wait. He knew?”
“Yes. The very first week he was in town, Hal and Pris had a little dinner party. They invited George and Tonya Cooperson, Ted Lang from the Gazette, and Daniel. I was hired to cater the party. Daniel enjoyed the filet with truffle compound butter and introduced himself. We made some light chitchat, and before long he’d put the pieces together. Smart man.”
“Weren’t you worried he would spill your secret?”
“Absolutely.”
Sean rocked up on the balls of his feet. “I don’t think you understand where this is going. If you were afraid that Daniel was going to write a follow-up piece and ruin your career, then you had a motive to kill him.”
Ken laughed. “I wasn’t worried Daniel would write another article about the scandalous mystery chef. His career had moved well beyond that sensationalist nonsense. He was doing real reporting and actual news, not tabloid riffs about who was sleeping with whom.”
It sounded good, but I wasn’t sure I believed him.
“Then why were you afraid he’d expose you?” I asked.
“I wasn’t worried he’d tell the world. I was worried he’d tell Taffy. That sort of information, so early in a relationship, would surely kill it. Especially with someone as pure of heart as Taffy Nielson.”
Pure of heart? Holy cow. Taffy was right. Ken really did care for her.
“Is that why you haven’t been taking her on real dates?”
Ken’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “Yes. I kept expecting an ultimatum from her, that I had to take her out on the town or she would dump me. But she never complained. I was terrified that the two of us might run into Daniel and he might say something about the old scandal. But now that Daniel’s gone, I can take Taffy out and show her off like I want to.”
I was still reeling, trying to reconcile this romantic Ken West with the slightly unctuous cynic I knew.
“And before you ask, I had no motive to kill Daniel. He wasn’t going to stay in town forever, so I just had to keep Taffy and Daniel away from each other for a few more days. I could swing that with just a little effort on my part. I’m not a monster, you know.
“Now, if you don’t mind,” Ken said. “I’d really like to get back to my menu so I’m not late for my very first real date with Taffy.”
* * *
Sean and I cut through the alley and grabbed Packer and his leash so we could take him on an early walk.
“That was something else,” Sean said.
“I know. He sounded like he’s totally gaga for Taffy. Not that it’s surprising someone should care for Taffy, but it’s surprising that Ken cares for anyone other than Ken.”
“Maybe he’s a changed man.”
Packer tugged on the leash. He was particularly fired up that day, anxious to get out and be a part of the world. I took a couple of hopping steps to keep up with him.
“You gonna let that little dog push you around?” Sean teased.
“Ha! I’d like to see you do better.” I offered the leash to him.
He held up both hands, declining the leash. “I know when I’m licked. Blackstone and Romeo are both way more relaxed than your fella. He’s quite a handful.”
“You know,” I said, “he’s not technically my dog.”
“Really.”
“Really. Casey is the one who wanted a dog and brought Packer home from the pound. That’s why he’s named after a football team. But then Casey got Rachel the nutritionist, and I got the dog.”
“I think you got the better end of the deal.”
“Absolutely. What would I have done with a perky little nutritionist?”
Sean tipped his head back and laughed. It was a beautiful sound, both clear and rich. I hadn’t heard it nearly enough in the past fifteen years.
“Izzy, I swear I always forget how funny you are. You’ve been so much more reserved since we hung out in high school.”
I smirked. “I don’t consider making four murder accusations in a week ‘reserved.’”
“Ha! No, you’re braver than you used to be, more fearless, but your spirit has grown more quiet. You don’t joke around and laugh and goof off like you used to.”
I pulled gently on Packer’s leash to slow him down. “Mostly that’s because I became an adult.”
He sighed. “I miss the teenage Izzy.”
“And I miss the teenage Sean, the one I could talk to about everything. But that’s the problem, Sean. We all grow up.”
“Point taken.” Sean stepped away from me to get around a fire hydrant and then moved back to my side as though I were his gravity.
“For what it’s worth, I like the grown-up Izzy a lot, too. Frankly, I wish I knew her a little better.”
I felt my breath catch.
“Don’t tease, Sean.”
“I’m not teasing, Izzy. I’d like for us to get reacquainted. If only so we can be
better friends again.”
He wasn’t making any promises, of course. But I was willing to take whatever he had to offer. If we only became better friends, that might be okay. I hadn’t lied when I said I missed being able to tell him anything. If I could start to tear down this sterile wall that separated us, it would feel like a win.
“How about we grab dinner tonight?” he said. “No Rena or Lucy or Xander—just the two of us.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, and Packer fell back when the slack went out of the leash.
Sean stopped and turned to me, a quizzical look on his face. “Not hungry?”
“No, it’s not that. I would love to have dinner with you. But not tonight.”
“What do you have going on tonight?”
I stood silent, debating what I should say. He’d thrown me a line, and I didn’t want him to pull it back. But, on the other hand, we couldn’t have any kind of relationship at all if we weren’t honest with each other. No point in a friend you had to lie to.
“I’ve got a date.”
His expression fell perfectly flat for an instant before he mustered a smile. “Good for you. Who with?”
I knelt down and snapped my fingers for Packer to heel. I scratched his velvety dog ears, and they gave me courage.
“Jack Collins.”
“Really? You and Jack Collins?”
I squinted up at Sean. “Why not me and Jack Collins?”
“He’s just so . . . thick.”
“Thick as in stupid? I don’t think so.”
“No, he’s not stupid. He just lacks subtlety. He’s a hammer and everything around him is a nail.”
I cocked my head. “I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with that. Sometimes simple and uncomplicated is good. You know where you stand with a man like that.”
Sean frowned and blew out a breath of air. “I didn’t know you were looking for simple.”
I stood back up and gave Packer his head.
“I’m not necessarily. Look, he asked, and I said yes. I didn’t see the harm in it. When he asked, I didn’t see any reason it would matter.”
