by Robin Allen
I entered the kitchen and saw Bjorn in his usual black chef’s coat and checks. He stood at the small prep table drinking coffee and reading the Statesman. He looked like he had slept upside down in a cave. He frowned when he saw me, so I held up both hands. “I come in peace,” I said. Unless he was a murderer.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Thanks.” I filled a cup from the full carafe. “I’m sure you’ve heard about Dana by now.”
He flicked the paper with his index finger. “Still front-page news.”
I waited for him to say more, that he was sorry it happened or how Austin had lost a talented chef, but apparently he thought it was my turn to talk. It wasn’t. When you’re talking, the other person isn’t, which means you’re not getting information. I nodded and sipped coffee. I had poured it myself and felt confident that Bjorn hadn’t poisoned it. Plus, he didn’t know I was coming.
“I knew you’d be here this morning,” he said.
I set the cup on the counter. “Oh?”
“It wasn’t our food, though,” he said. “It was something Dana brought.”
“But everything at the dinner is from the farm,” I said.
“Not everything.”
I don’t like when people drop a provocative statement like that, then smile like they’ve eaten a Michelin chef’s meal, basking in their secret knowledge, waiting for you to ask them to elaborate. Why can’t they just continue with the explanation? But I wasn’t there to give anyone a lesson in civility, so I said, “What do you mean?”
Bjorn smiled bigger, widening the divide between what he knew and what I wanted to know. I displayed my inspector’s badge. “Are you confessing to a county health inspector that you brought in produce from an unapproved source?”
That erased his smug smile. “No! Goodness, no,” he spluttered. “Perry would feed me to the pigs. No, the onion crop was light be-
cause of the drought, so Dana sent one of her cooks to Whole Foods for some.”
“So you are confessing.”
“I said Dana did it. And it was a private party.”
“What’s your impression of the restaurant Dana planned to open at the farm?”
His blue eyes flashed with barely contained furor.
“Was the farm going to let you go?” I pressed. “Is that why you asked Dana for a job?”
I expected him to deny it, but he set his mouth and nodded.
Another good reason for Bjorn to poison Dana. He knew the dangers of food-grade hydrogen peroxide. His intent may not have been to kill her, but he may have wanted to get even with her for upheaving his life and then for denying him a job, or make her sick enough to stop her from opening the restaurant. When you act out of emotion, plans and consequences rarely make it onto the drawing board.
“When did they decide to bring in a restaurant?” I asked.
“A few months ago,” he said. “All of a sudden, one day that’s all everyone’s talking about.”
“Were they arguing?”
“Look, it doesn’t matter now. Dana is dead and so is the res-
taurant.”
“Don’t you think they’ll bring in another chef?” I asked. “Those are a lot of plans to throw onto the compost heap.”
“They didn’t want just any chef,” Bjorn said, clearly angry that they didn’t want him. “They wanted the great Dana White.”
Right then, my phone rang in my backpack. I extracted it and looked at the display. Olive. “I have to take this,” I said to Bjorn.
I went out to the washing shed, which, except for the muddy floor, looked orderly after the morning’s boxing, and found a quiet place away from the activity. “What’s the buzz, Amber?”
“Kelly,” Olive said.
“Like Kelly green?”
“Doggone it,” she said, then hung up.
I waited for her to call back with either her new identity or the reason she called in the first place, but after a couple of minutes of silence I returned my phone to my backpack and returned myself to the kitchen, resolved to lock Bjorn in the walk-in if I had to and squeeze every drop of Dana-related information out of him.
But he was gone, replaced by someone better.
Tanya McDougal stood in front of the walk-in door, fanning her tan, lined face and neck with a large, round plastic lid, even though the cool morning had warmed up to the low seventies outside and it felt like the mid-eighties in the kitchen. She wore plaid shorts and a faded red T-shirt under a white apron, her cotton-candy hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. She also wore blue rubber gloves, which could have accounted for her overheating. Those things don’t breath.
“Hey, Tanya,” I said.
She turned with a jolt, then fanned down her shirt with the lid. “Oh, hi, Poppy. I didn’t know you were still here.”
“I’m investigating a possible food poisoning incident,” I said. “You heard what happened to Dana?”
She nodded and I noticed sweat on her forehead, running down from her hairline. “The police were here yesterday.” She closed the walk-in door and resumed fanning herself. “We’re all just sick about it.”
Not everyone. “I spoke with Bjorn a few minutes ago, and I understand that y’all took a vote on whether to bring Dana’s restaurant to the farm.” I made it sound like Bjorn had given me the information to see how Tanya reacted to it.
“Bjorn,” she said through tight lips. “That’s family business.”
I assumed she had no intention of discussing family matters with me either, so I headed her toward something only she could tell me, which is when she had come into the kitchen to get aspirin. “We missed you at the party. Megan said you had a headache.”
“I still do,” she said, “but I had to make the preserves this morning.” She wiped her face on her sleeve. “I wish Perry had never made us start selling that blasted stuff.”
“The night of the party, you were seen getting aspirin from the first-aid kit,” I said. “Did you talk to Dana while you were here?”
Tanya blinked wide blue eyes at me. “I don’t … I feel … ”
Faint, apparently, because that’s what she did.
“Here we go again,” I said as I rushed to her.
She had reached for the walk-in’s door handle to steady herself and pulled open the door when she went down. I left it open to give us some cool air, then knelt next to her. She was breathing and I saw her neck pulsing, so she didn’t need resuscitation. Just a simple faint from the heat.
For some reason, I pictured the revival skills I had seen in the movies. That part of the story typically involved a drunk either being rousted by the police with shouting and taps against his foot with a billy club, or his friends dousing him with cold water and slapping him into consciousness. I took a kinder approach.
I went to the sink and wetted a grill towel, then placed it on Tanya’s forehead, then I lifted up her apron to get air circulating around her legs. I struggled to peel off one of her rubber gloves, because her hand was sweaty inside and it didn’t come off easily. But when I finally got it off, her fingernails were painted bright pink!
I leaned in and lightly stroked her cheek. “Tanya, honey, wake up. Get up.” That close, I got a good whiff of gin on her breath.
She opened her eyes, then closed them and removed the wet towel. She didn’t ask what happened, so I imagined that her fainting wasn’t an uncommon occurrence, if not a regular one. I helped her sit up and propped her against the prep table, then filled a coffee cup with cold water and she guzzled it.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
She dropped her eyes. “I’m so embarrassed,” she said. “This never happens.”
“Tanya?” Bjorn called from the doorway. We were on the other side of the prep table, so he couldn’t see us. “Kevin and Ian just drove up.”
Tanya grabb
ed my arm and mouthed, “Please don’t tell.”
I popped up. “We’re here, Bjorn.”
He came around and scowled at Tanya. “Why are you on the floor?” he barked.
Tanya’s eyes pleaded with me not to tell him the truth, so I said, “I dropped my badge and we bent down at the same time to pick it up and bonked heads.”
Tanya rubbed her forehead for realism, and I did the same.
Bjorn closed the walk-in door, saying, “Those preserves done?”
“I have enough pecans for another small batch, so I need more brandy,” Tanya said.
Bjorn left us in reproachful silence, and Tanya heaved herself up to standing. “Thanks for not saying anything,” she said as she peeled off the other glove.
“Why didn’t you want Bjorn to know you fainted?”
“It’s … a private matter.”
“Because of your drinking?”
“What?” she said with a faltering laugh.
“The night of the party, I found an AA newcomer’s medallion in the washing shed. Is it yours?”
“We had a lot of people at the farm that night. Why do you think it’s mine?” She picked up a marker and wrote the date and “Pecan” on a Good Earth Preserves label, then affixed it to one of the jars cooling on the table.
“Because it had bright pink nail polish on it,” I said.
She made both hands into fists to hide her fingernails. “That doesn’t mean I’m an alcoholic.” Then her body shook and her face flushed and she sniffled.
I turned her away from the table so she didn’t contaminate the prep area with her tears and snot. “Was that your gin in the OxyGrowth bottle in the walk-in?” I asked.
She nodded. “I’m trying to quit, but it’s sooooo hard.” She gulped air then bent down and wiped her face with the skirt of her apron. “Bjorn’s an alcoholic, a recovering alcoholic, and he’s trying to help, but he’s making things worse.”
“Is he your sponsor?”
“No. You’re not supposed to … he quit cold turkey and he thinks I should do the same. He doesn’t understand why I’m having a hard time.”
I didn’t know what to say to encourage her: “Good luck.” “You’ll do better next time.” “Keep your chin up.” “Take it one day at a time.” Are you allowed to say that if you’re not an alcoholic?
Tanya said, “I’m getting yanked six ways from Sunday right now, and I’m having a hard time dealing, you know?”
She seemed like she wanted to confide in someone about her hard times, and if I was going to play the role of her confessor, she was going to confess what I wanted her to. “Does it have anything to do with bringing Dana and Herbivore to the farm?”
“That’s part of it,” she mumbled.
“Did you vote against her?”
“Are you kidding? No!”
“You wanted her here?”
Before Tanya answered, Bjorn erupted into the room. “You voted for that Nazi!”
Tanya hid behind me, which I didn’t appreciate, but she found her voice. “You were spying on us? I can’t believe you, Bjorn!”
He stepped toward us and we both skittered back. “What do you expect?” he said. “Every day you come in late and hung over or you don’t show up at all because of one of your humidity headaches. You say we’ll talk later, but you leave early.” He slammed a half-full bottle of brandy on the prep table. “I can’t hunt you down at your house, now can I?”
“Because you do this!” Tanya said. “You go crazy when you hear something you don’t like.”
“How long have I covered for you, Tanya? How long? Years.” His face suddenly lost its hard edge and so did his tone. “You’re supposed to be getting help.”
“I don’t want help!” she cried, punctuating her declaration with her fist against my back. “I like to drink.” Punch. “I want to drink.” Punch. “All day, every day. But I can’t because of these stupid preserves, this stupid kitchen!”
She moved past me and lunged for the brandy, but Bjorn stepped between her and the table, and I held her arm. And then she fell into Bjorn and blubbered incoherent syllables into his chest.
He hugged her and kissed her hair and said, “It’s okay, baby. One day at a time, okay? Just take it one day at a time.”
Twenty-Eight
Baby? Well, I suppose it was inevitable with them working so closely together and having the common interests of cooking and alcoholism. But if they were having an affair, why would Tanya vote for Herbivore when it would put Bjorn’s future at the farm in jeopardy?
“Sorry to interrupt y’all,” I said, “but who voted against Herbivore?” They could rehearse this soap opera on their own time.
Tanya drew back from Bjorn and looked away from him. “I don’t know,” she said. Bjorn grunted his dissenting opinion, and she said, “Really. We did it anonymous. Nobody knows.”
“Surely y’all had some discussion,” I said.
“Oh, there was plenty of discussion,” Bjorn said, the comfort gone from his voice, “but some people lied about what they wanted.”
“Don’t start, Bjorn,” Tanya said tightly. “Pour the brandy and let me finish the preserves.”
He picked up the bottle of brandy and a plastic measuring cup and held them up in front of Tanya’s face while he poured, taunting her. I saw tears in her eyes as she went back to printing on the labels.
A more considerate person would have left them alone to cool off, but they were both high on the emotions of anger and disappointment, which are often a potent truth serum, and I wouldn’t have another chance like this. They were also invested in our conversation and wouldn’t stop to wonder why I was poking my nose into the farm’s business instead of poking a thermometer into the preserves.
Bjorn began to stir the brandy into a large stock pot on the stove, so I walked over to Tanya. “Before we bonked heads earlier, I asked about you coming into the kitchen to get aspirin.” She stopped writing, but otherwise didn’t move. “Do you remember what time you were here?” I asked.
She shrugged. “They were really busy, though.”
“Was Dana around?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t feel good.”
“You were drunk,” Bjorn said.
Tanya dropped her shoulders and closed her eyes briefly. “I got the aspirin then went home.”
“Did you come down again during the party?” I asked.
“No,” she said, then sniffled.
I felt bad for her—married to Ian the jerk, having an affair with a worse jerk, and drinking day and night to get away from something emotionally that she couldn’t get away from physically.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I heard you arguing with a man in the office after Dana left in the ambulance.” I didn’t know for sure if it was Tanya, but since she had voted for Dana, and it had enraged Bjorn, it might have enraged someone else.
Tanya glanced at Bjorn, then went to the pot on the stove. “Yeah, I remember now,” she said. “I went in there to get a bottle I hid—”
“You what!” Bjorn yelled.
I shot a hard look at him. “Leave that for later.” I turned to Tanya. “Who came in?”
“Kevin,” she said.
Her own son had talked to her like that? “I thought the votes were confidential,” I said.
“They are, but everyone kept arguing and changing their minds.”
“Et tu,” Bjorn said.
Tanya ignored that Shakespearean reference to being a traitor and continued, “Bjorn told me Cory was voting against her, so I … evened things out.”
“She wasn’t supposed to be voted in!” Bjorn yelled. “Dana didn’t belong here!”
“It’s not up to you!” Tanya shot back. “This is how we do things. This is how we’ve always done things. Perry won this time.”
Reading between the lines of Tanya’s reason, it sounded to me like she really did want the restaurant. She probably saw it as the only way to get rid of beastly Bjorn. Whatever soft feelings she ever had for him were obviously used up. If she had made sure Dana was in, she wouldn’t have killed her.
I decided to strike a match against Bjorn. “How did you know that Cory was going to vote against Dana? Because you forced him to?”
“You need medication,” he said.
“I heard y’all arguing in the Field, remember? Did you threaten to expose his pot crop?”
Tanya gaped at him. “You called the police on Cory?”
Bjorn put his hand up in a stop-right-there gesture. “No, I did not.”
“You didn’t threaten him or you didn’t call the police?” I said.
He gave me what I will now refer to as his signature hateful glare. “I used his illegal activities to sway his vote, but—”
“You what!” Tanya cried.
“But I did not call the police,” Bjorn said. “I had no reason to.”
I said, “Unless you thought he lied to you when he said he voted against her, and you were getting even with him.”
“I did think that, actually, but I already told you, I didn’t call the police.”
I didn’t want to defend Bjorn to Tanya, but I couldn’t let them continue down this bunny trail. “They wouldn’t have arrested Cory after one phone call from Bjorn,” I said. “They already had evidence against him, so I bet they’ve been undercover out here for a while.”
“Not with my help,” Bjorn said, ever interested in covering his own butt.
“Getting back to that night,” I said to Tanya. “How did Kevin know you voted for Dana? Did you tell him?”
“He came into the office a few minutes after I did, saying he knew it was me and I messed everything up.”
“What did you mess up?”
Tanya shrugged.
I looked at Bjorn. “Did Kevin know that Cory planned to scuttle Herbivore?”
He scoffed. “How would I know what those kids know?”
I couldn’t think of anything else to ask them—other than the obvious question about whether either of them had killed Dana—but that would tip a hand I wasn’t sure I held, so I left them to marinate in their man-made mess.
