Out of the Frying Pan

by Robin Allen

  “Honey, there are two kinds of people in this world. Those who Monday-morning quarterback, and those who accept the final score.”

  “I’m not trying to change last night, Daddy. I just want to know why you didn’t show up.”

  Mitch picked up his signed Babe Ruth baseball. “My heart meds are affecting my eyesight.”

  My father is not above telling a white lie to get me off a topic he doesn’t want to discuss, but he had already tried to deflect me once, so that may have been the truth. I would check later when I cross-referenced his medications with their side effects. “You can always get glasses,” I said.

  Mitch snorted. My old hippie of a father doesn’t have many vanities, but ever since Nina made him cut his ponytail and shape his bushy white beard into a goatee, he has become strangely concerned with keeping up the appearance of vital youth.

  “You’d look good in some trendy black ones with rectangle frames,” I said.

  “Not my style,” he said, squaring some invoices into a neat pile.

  “Glasses might improve your golf game.”

  He stopped rustling papers while he considered that, then said, “Still not my style.” Then, because he’s so good at changing the subject, “Jamie Sherwood is back in town, I see.”

  Mitch’s interest in my personal relationship wasn’t a father’s for his daughter. Whether I chose the general manager or an influential food writer, Markham’s would thrive regardless, so I had decided to leave the restaurant out of the equation as a tactical necessity. And because I’m equally as good at changing the subject, “Did he tell you I tried to save Dana White last night?”

  “He did, and I’m proud of you, honey.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.”

  “Ironic that it happened at Good Earth,” he said.

  “Ironic how?”

  “Dana was one of the founding members.”

  I scooched to the edge of the chair. “Of the farm? When was this?”

  “Late seventies or so. Perry and Dana started the farm with Ian and Tanya.”

  “Dana was Perry’s wife?”

  “Girlfriend.”

  “How did Perry end up with Megan?” I asked.

  “Ian brought his little sister to the farm a few months into their venture. Perry and Dana had a fight. Dana left and Perry eventually married Megan.”

  “Do you know why Perry and Dana fought?”

  “That was a very long time ago,” Mitch said. “It’s all water under the bridge.”

  Trevor filled the doorway and rapped twice on the jamb. “Excuse me, sir. Mindy’s askin’ for you.”

  “Coming,” Mitch said, standing up, then to me, “I expect you to support the restaurant, Penelope Jane. Ursula, too.”

  Penelope Jane is not the name on my birth certificate, but my father made it up when I was a kid to show that he meant business, and I should straighten up and fly right. I got called Penelope Jane for everything from forgetting to empty the cat’s litter box at home to getting drunk on gin at Good Earth Preserves to quitting the restaurant and becoming a health inspector.

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said.

  Mitch raised an eyebrow at me, then went back through the dining room.

  “Has the morning been as fun as I think it has?” I asked Trevor.

  “Oh, yeah. Jamie’s interviewin’ Ursula about the restaurant and her cookbook, but what’s goin’ on off-camera is much more entertainin’.” He grinned and lowered his voice. “Duelin’ dames.”

  “Ursula versus Mindy?”

  “Better,” he said. “Ursula versus Nina.”

  “What’s the glitch? Ursula always rolls over when her mom enters a room.”

  “Nina thinks Mindy’s assistant, Tiffany, is simply perfect for me. Ursula’s been huffin’ and puffin’ a lot, and I think she’s aimin’ to blow down the house.”

  “Ursula cooks better when she’s mad,” I said.

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t smile, and there will be a television audience as Mindy keeps remindin’ her.”

  “I suppose you’re already taking bets on the winner,” I said.

  “For a small wager of five dollars, you can choose whether Ursula leaves or she makes Nina leave. Winners split the pot.”

  “I’m in,” I said. I fished an emergency $5 bill from my backpack and handed it to him. “Nina stays.”

  Trevor put the money in his pants pocket.

  “Aren’t you going to mark down my bet?” I asked.

  He laughed. “You and Mitch are the only ones bettin’ on Nina.”

  He turned to leave, but I caught the sleeve of his chef’s coat. “Promise you won’t try to influence the outcome.”

  “Like how?”

  “Like flirt with Tiffany or tell Nina that you and Ursula are in-

  volved.”

  “Too late on the first one,” he said. “And as far as Nina, I don’t know what the big deal is. People date.”

  I squinted up at him. “You really don’t know why Ursula doesn’t want Nina to know you two are seeing each other?”

  “I suppose she’s ashamed of me.” He displayed both tattooed forearms. “I’m not exactly country club material.”

  “That’s not it,” I said. “Nina’s grandmaternal clock is ticking.”

  “So?” he said, then his blue eyes widened. “Oh!”

  “Act accordingly.”

  We walked through the dining rooms, and I said goodbye to Trevor in the wait station. He slipped into the kitchen, and I knocked softly on the office door then let myself in. Drew was sitting behind the desk, dressed casually in a black short-sleeved shirt that showed off his fading summer tan. “Sugar Pop!” he said with a grin.

  Even though the manager’s office had been completely redone during the upgrade a few months ago, and even though Drew had been away from the restaurant for several years, it was as if no time had passed when I opened the door and saw him pondering a pile of paperwork. Some of my happiest times traced back to when he managed Markham’s and I cooked. It felt familiar and comfortable.

  “Hey,” I said. He stood and came around the desk to hug me, then we sat in brown leather club chairs so shiny and taut they chirped. “How’s the accounting going?” I asked.

  “Close to done,” he said, rubbing his left thigh. “We’ll be making a few changes. How are you coming on your side work? You still think Dana was murdered?”

  “Yes, and I need your help.” I told him about my day so far, starting with being denied entry to the farm, then I described my visit with Jerry Potter, which led to Mike Glass’s admission that Randy had embezzled thousands of dollars from the Friends. “I think Randy’s better idea was to keep the money and blame the theft on Dana,” I said.

  “Then why kill her?” Drew asked. “She would have to take office for his plan to work.”

  I hadn’t gotten that far in my thinking. “Well, then, his better idea was to kill Dana so he could stay president and not have to pay the money back.”

  “Wouldn’t they hold another election? He could lose again.”

  “Well, then, his better idea was to kill Dana and run off with the money,” I said. “Plus, there’s all that other curdled milk between them. I’ll bet Randy blames Dana for forcing him to embezzle in the first place.”

  “So what do you need my help with?”

  “Randy won’t let me near him, but he’ll come out here because he wants Markham’s account.” I picked up the landline receiver from the desk and handed it to him. “It’s 555-WEIRD.”

  “I don’t know about this,” Drew said. “Getting the restaurant involved.”

  I appreciated that he put Markham’s first, but I didn’t like his loyalty interfering with my investigation. “Make the appointment and I’ll intercept him in the parking lot. He won’t have to know you were part of
this.”

  “He’ll know.”

  “It won’t matter,” I said. “It’s not like Randy’s going to refuse to sell us thousands of dollars’ worth of wine. He’s in Chapter Eleven. Besides, he’s fixin’ to have other things to think about, like what he wants for his last meal.”

  Drew shook his head, but took the phone from me. “I already planned to call him. He’s trying to get everyone to forget the campaign, so he’s making a lot of good deals right now.”

  “Tell him you want to make a decision soon, and he has to come over right away,” I said.

  Drew talked to Randy, except he didn’t tell him the lie I had proposed, then hung up. “He’s finishing up at Mostaccioli’s and says he’ll be here inside of twenty minutes.”

  I leaned over and kissed him. “You rock like Bon Jovi.”

  “Van Halen,” he said. “Do you want me there when you talk to him?”

  Aw. “Thank you, but we should keep you and Markham’s out of this as much as we can. I can stand the heat.”

  “I know,” he said, then, “Have you seen what they’re doing in the kitchen?”

  I nodded. “Why aren’t you watching?” I asked, realizing too late that he was probably avoiding Jamie.

  “I was out there earlier, but Ursula kept flubbing, and I could only take so many repeats of Sherwood saying, ‘So, Chef, tell me how you came to add green peppercorns to your venison stew.’” Drew dropped his voice to sound like a radio announcer when he quoted Jamie.

  “I think they got past that,” I said. “I’m going to watch until Randy shows up.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he said. “I need to stretch my legs.”

  We stepped into the wait station, but Drew placed a hand on my shoulder to stop me from going through the swinging doors. Apparently, he was familiar with the specifics of filming and that it shouldn’t be interrupted. He was tall enough to rest his chin on the swinging doors, and the crown of my head came to his chin, so he went to the dining room and dragged a chair over for me.

  I climbed onto it and saw Logan standing at the prep table, smiling up at Jamie while Ursula diced potatoes on the other side of her. Jamie said, “And what are some of your favorite ingredients to work with, Logan?”

  Before Logan answered, Ursula slammed her knife on the prep table and cried, “Mo-ther!”

  “Cut!” Mindy yelled.

  Twenty-Three

  I figured Ursula’s outburst had something to do with Nina standing next to a grinning Trevor, but I was with Drew on the sidelines in the wait station and didn’t witness the exact offense. Perhaps Nina had whispered something into Trevor’s ear while pointing to Tiffany. Actually, just seeing Nina standing next to Trevor would have been enough to make Ursula swerve off the road.

  Mindy came around the prep table and stood boot-to-clog with her starlet. “Ursula, sweetie, I’d love to see you more focused. And smile more. Our one point two million viewers love to see chefs having fun.” She backed up, saying, “Okay, wow me.”

  Ursula’s face took on the color and quality of a calcium deposit. “Million?” she murmured.

  Mindy rolled her eyes and yelled, “Take another five, people.”

  Seeing Ursula helpless stunned everyone into inaction, but finally Jamie put his hand on her back and handed her off to Trevor, who walked her through the swinging doors and into the wait station. Drew had already helped me off the chair, so Trevor eased Ursula onto it. No one else came out of the kitchen, so it was left to the three of us to discover why Ursula malfunctioned.

  Trevor knelt in front of her and said, “I don’t know why I did that, babe. I’m sorry. I’ll stop, okay?”

  “Millions,” she said again.

  Okay, I knew what was going on. For all the attention General Ursula York demands and commands in her kitchen, she gets stage fright when the audience is much bigger than her crew, specifically an audience made up of strangers. And now, apparently, an imagined audience. She never leaves the kitchen during service to greet customers and accept compliments, not even from a former US president.

  Trevor put his hand on her shoulder and some honey on his tongue. “You need to get back in the kitchen so they can finish filmin’, okay?”

  That wasn’t going to work. Not fast enough, anyway. But I knew how to encourage her, and amuse myself in the process. “Ursula,” I said sternly, “a word in the office.”

  I took her hand and pulled her behind me, then shut the door and locked it in case Trevor wanted to come in and spoon-feed her some more nice. I put my hands on my hips. “What are you trying to pull?”

  “What?”

  “First you steal my recipe for salmon cakes, and now you’re trying to ruin the restaurant.”

  “Mitch said it’s Iris’s recipe, and I’m not ruining the restaurant.”

  “Mindy and her film crew don’t have time for you to work through your personal problems with your mommy and your boyfriend.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Not what? Acting like a princess like you always do when something doesn’t go your way?”

  “No, I—”

  “This isn’t about you, Ursula, this is about Markham’s, which already has a black eye because you were arrested for Évariste’s mur-

  der.”

  “That wasn’t my fault. I—”

  “And I suppose this passive-aggressive little stunt of yours—”

  “Stop interrupting me!” she screamed.

  Finally.

  Someone jiggled the door handle, and I figured it was Trevor riding to her rescue, but Drew said, “Poppy? Randy Dove is here.”

  “Momentito,” I called, then unlocked the door and said to Ursula, “That’s your kitchen, Ursula. Cowgirl up and get back out there.”

  Ursula had a strange smile on her face as she opened the door, and I knew that the General was primed to execute a maneuver. “Come on,” she said, as she took Trevor’s hand and dragged him onto the front lines.

  I looked over at an amused Drew. “I’m glad I wasn’t working here when you two were cooking together,” he said.

  “It worked, didn’t it?” I pointed at the still-swinging doors. “Fat lady hasn’t sung yet, though.”

  Ursula’s impulsiveness is more suited to sneak attacks than planned assaults, so whatever she had brewed up would go down immediately. We opened the swinging doors at the moment Ursula took Trevor’s face in her hands and put her lips on his lips.

  “Nothing good can come of that,” Drew said.

  The kitchen gushed with cheers and applause, mostly from the cooks. The look on Nina’s face was every bit as stupefied as the one on Trevor’s, then Nina rushed into the center of attention and wrapped bony arms around her daughter and her daughter’s no-longer-secret-but-probably-still-sometimes boyfriend.

  Mindy clapped her hands until everyone realized that she wasn’t on the same rhythm as the applause, and when she had their attention, she said, “Let’s get to work, people.”

  “I guess nobody wins the Duelin’ Dames pot,” I said to Drew. “Where’s Randy?”

  “I asked him to wait in the foyer while I located some paperwork.”

  Randy stood at the hostess stand, assessing his competition—our current wine list. Like the restaurant a few months ago, it, too, had been upgraded from a three-varietal listing of our cheap house wine tacked on at the bottom of the food menu to a leather-backed presentation with two columns’ worth of red, white, and sparkling wines offered by both the glass and the bottle. No more half-carafes.

  So absorbed was Randy in professionally judging our wines that he didn’t notice me until I stood in front of him and said, “How many in your party, sir?”

  He scowled at me. “I’m waiting for Drew Cooper,” he said, no warmth in his voice.

  “Oh, is that why you’re here?” I said. “I tho
ught you might be looking for me so you can confess your crime.”

  “I told you that money was from a bet.”

  “And Mike Glass told me it was money you took from the Friends of the Farm funds.”

  Randy became interested in the surroundings and said, “Borr-

  owed.”

  “But you haven’t paid it back, so if the Friends took an accounting today, they’d call it embezzlement.”

  “I borrowed it, and I’m going to return every penny,” he said. “It’s not like the money was going to needy little orphans.”

  “Needy little vegetables,” I said. “Good Earth couldn’t buy their mobile irrigation system this summer because the Friends didn’t come up with their share of the money. And now we know why.”

  Randy waved his hand and tried to laugh it off.

  “The reason the Friends exist is to support the farm, Randy. You cheated them, the farmers, and the CSA subscribers. If you think business is bad now, wait until everyone learns what you did.”

  “Anything else?” he said, examining his fingernails to demonstrate his weariness. “A lecture on how wearing fur is cruel or eating animals is wrong?”

  “No, but taking a human life is wrong.”

  “I agree.”

  “And your method was especially vile.”

  That finally ruffled him. “What on earth are you blathering about?”

  “You poisoned Dana White.”

  “Poisoned her!”

  “You had lots of reasons,” I said. “So she wouldn’t find out you stole the money is one. A big one. You also wanted revenge for what she did to you and your business during the election.”

  “If I killed everyone who had a negative effect on me or my business, we wouldn’t have many restaurants in Austin.”

  “Are you admitting to it, then?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Why did you ask Mike for the money back? He said you had a better idea.”

  “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

  Oh, yes you do. “Was your idea to get rid of Dana so you could keep the money?”