Lucky Catch

by Deborah Coonts

  “Oh, Ms. O’Toole, I’m sorry, but he left a little while ago. I thought he was going to meet you.”

  “When did he tell you that?” My voice was hard. Fear tempered it thin, and my tone sharp.

  “As he was walking out.”

  “When was that? Tell me exactly.”

  “A couple of hours, I think. I don’t know exactly. He said he was going to meet you at Cielo.” The girl had that breathy way of speaking that young women the world over seemed to think sounded grown-up in a Marilyn Monroe sort of way. To me, it just sounded like they were auditioning for a porn movie. “To be honest, we’re getting a bit worried. He left Christophe here. Rinaldo was sure he’d be back by now.”

  Dread won out in my heart. I hung up, as if doing so would sever the channel to bad news. Enough “me” remained to think I would have to apologize later.

  As I ended the call and replaced the phone at my hip, I locked eyes with Romeo. “According to his staff, Jean-Charles said he was coming here to meet me.”

  Teddie looked a little twitchy. “It’s going to be okay, you know. I’m sure the guy in the oven isn’t him.” Despite his effort to placate me, he could no longer calm my fears or make me feel better. In fact, as living proof that things didn’t always turn out okay, he made me feel worse.

  “Right. And, if I’m a good girl, Santa will give me everything I want for Christmas.” I pushed myself to my feet, then staggered over to Romeo. “I need to know.”

  As if sensing my hurt and fear, the detective circled an arm around my shoulders and pulled me against him. “Lucky, this isn’t a good idea.”

  Teddie stepped in next to me, his hand gripping my arm. “I agree.”

  Jerking my arm from his grasp, I shut them both down with a glare. Romeo finally nodded, but held on to me, not letting go.

  The three of us peered into the oven. The body curled away from us, the skin bright pink, all the hair burned away. Charred bits of clothing hung from the body—a collar, it had been white. I stepped on my rising panic. The broad expanse of his back faced outward, the top of his shoulder a crispy, burned dark crust. Bile rose in my throat. I pressed my hand over my mouth, fighting the urge.

  Romeo must’ve felt the tremor of revulsion. He tightened his arm around my shoulders and tried to steer me away. “The crime scene folks are on their way. Let’s give them some room.”

  I shrugged out of his embrace and focused anew on the body. My eyes traversed down his spine, looking for something I’d recognize, something . . . identifying. The skin next to the bone actually looked . . . uncooked, but not unique. Under the man’s haunches, the soles of his feet peeked through some sort of green goo. “What is that?”

  Romeo leaned in, waving away the heat. He pulled a pencil out of his coat pocket and poked at the green slime. When he removed the pencil, he pulled thin threads of the stuff with it, sticky and gooey like a spider’s web. “Looks like plastic.”

  “Plastic,” I whispered. I dropped my head and let loose a reedy, nervous laugh. My legs weakened with relief, but my knees held. I squeezed Romeo’s arm.

  “What?” The young detective looked at me as if I’d finally gone ’round the bend, as I been threatening to do for so long.

  “Crocs.” I pointed to the green goo. “Jean-Charles wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a pair of Crocs.”

  * * *

  Teddie and I reconvened in the corner of the kitchen as the macabre work continued silently in front of the oven. Side-by-side we now sat on stools, leaning against the wall, watching the techs work the rest of the crime scene, dusting and photographing, plucking and bagging trace—mind-numbing work, but part of the thrill of the chase. No tiny speck of lint remained untouched, unexamined.

  The cops had separated us and had taken their time. I didn’t know about Teddie, but I was bone-weary, angry, and scared. The smell of seared flesh lingered.

  “It’ll be a long time before I can face roast pork.” Teddie pulled one knee up, lacing his fingers together to hold it.

  “Your jocularity is a bit overdone, Mr. Kowalski.” I gritted my teeth. Panic. It did it to me every time. I never missed an opportunity to say something inappropriate—like a joke at a dead guy’s expense. At the moment, food in general held no appeal, but I didn’t feel the need to share that tidbit. So to speak. I squirmed on my stool, angling for the best view of the body, which the techs had laid out inside a body-bag. “Do they have an ID yet?”

  Teddie didn’t answer—he was good that way, letting me sort of babble my way back to logical thinking. The sizzle of fear still arced through me, jolting me at the touch of the memory. “Thank God it wasn’t Jean-Charles. But I wonder who, and why, and why here?”

  “All good questions.”

  “And where is Jean-Charles?” I’d tried his cell repeatedly, each with the same result. “What if the killer has him?” Crossing my arms, I hugged myself—suddenly, I felt very cold.

  “What if he is the killer?” Teddie sounded almost as if he’d like that outcome.

  “Why would he leave Christophe at the restaurant, then?”

  “A trip to the scene of an impending murder doesn’t sound like a family outing to me,” Romeo added as he joined us, taking the third stool.

  “But I know him, he wouldn’t . . .” I trailed off. They had a point. Not one I would accept, but without more facts, I couldn’t argue . . . yet.

  Romeo pulled a square of cloth out of his front pocket and blotted his forehead. He didn’t refold the bit of linen, preferring to stuff it back where he’d found it. “We’re looking for him, if that makes you feel better.”

  Two officers muscled their way through the single swinging door, forcing me to bite off my reply. The larger of the two, who looked like he was a NFL lineman moonlighting to make ends meet, glanced around the room, his eyes finally finding who he was looking for. “Detective Romeo, sir, we found this guy hanging around outside.”

  Reaching behind him, the officer grabbed the man lurking there and pushed him to the front.

  Adone Giovanni.

  Romeo raised an eyebrow. “Thank you officer. I’ll take it from here.”

  “Sir.” The two cops touched the brims of their hats, then left as quickly as they’d come.

  “That’s not Jean-Charles, is it?” Adone’s dark eyes danced wildly, his gaze darting between each of us and the body on the floor half-hidden by the surrounding techs.

  “Why are you here?” Romeo asked, his voice serious, even a bit hard.

  “I was looking for Jean.” Adone’s voice wavered, then steadied, as he took a deep breath. “The hostess at the burger place told me he would be here.” Still in all-black chef attire, tattoos, kohled eyes, his hair spiked, he looked out of place in Jean-Charles’s kitchen.

  “And what did you want with Chef Bouclet?” Romeo pressed.

  Adone grabbed one elbow, holding his arm to his side and looking like a kid who needed a hug but was afraid to ask for one, or a kid stilling himself because he had something to hide.

  I narrowed my eyes. Pulling my phone out, I once again dialed the Burger Palais. The same voice answered. “Yes, this is Lucky O’Toole again. Sorry to bother you, but are you the only hostess on duty?” I locked eyes with Adone. He swallowed hard. “You are. And how long have you been on duty? All day. Did you tell anyone besides me where Chef Bouclet had gone?” I chewed on my lip and waited a second or two before repeating her answer. “No. Yes, you’re right, Chef Bouclet would not like you telling anyone his business. Thank you.” I rang off and reholstered the phone without a word.

  Romeo looked at Adone. “So?”

  The rebel chef deflated. “Look, I was supposed to meet Jean-Charles here. They’re releasing the food truck, so I’m back in business. He had some new recipes we needed to work on.” He looked at me, his arms open, pleading.

  I shot a questioning look at Romeo. He nodded. “Coroner’s done with the truck.”

  “When did you and Jean-Charles arrange this me
eting?” I asked Adone.

  “Earlier. I called him.”

  I thought back. Something Jean-Charles had said the last time I saw him—in the kitchen at Burger Palais. He was to meet a friend here. I looked around and the carnage. Some friend.

  “Why did you lie?” Teddie asked the obvious next question.

  Romeo frowned at his intrusion—as a detective, he treated questioning as his sole province.

  “I walked right into the middle of a police investigation.” Adone’s eyes skittered to the body, then back to Romeo’s. “I’m assuming this is the second dead body. The last thing I wanted was for you to think I had something to do with it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, that strategy backfired.”

  One of the techs called to Romeo. He gave me a look that was easy to interpret, then excused himself.

  I motioned to the stool Romeo vacated. “Join us?” I said to Adone in a tone that made it clear there was only one answer.

  The chef did as he was ordered, straddling the stool. Keeping his legs wide, he gripped the slice of seat between them with both hands. His wide-eyed gaze lingered on the body before turning to me. “Is that Jean?”

  “No.”

  He straightened as the answer hit him like a slap.

  “Aren’t you relieved?”

  Teddie thrust a beer at Adone and one at me, then took a deep pull of his own as he retook his stool. I never saw him leave.

  Adone drank deeply, then rested the bottle atop one thigh while he bounced his foot.

  I waited for the jiggled beer to overflow, but that would be his problem . . . probably the least of his problems, so I didn’t mention it.

  “Of course I am happy . . . for Desiree. There is not so much love lost between us, to be honest, but I wouldn’t wish that”—he jerked his head toward the body—“on anybody. Why would someone put a body to broil like that?”

  “To make a point.”

  “What’s the bad blood between you and Jean-Charles? Besides the way you’re treating his sister.”

  I saw an excuse in his eyes, but he thought better than fighting that fight. “Jean, he is very classical in his culinary approach. Very French. I like to shake things up a bit. There’s a group of us, younger chefs, we are trying different fusions, different techniques.”

  “The anti-Ducasse and his ‘quality restaurant’ label,” Teddie said. I guess he’d picked up a thing or two on his whirlwind world tour.

  Adone’s eyes lit with zeal. “Exactly. Collège Culinaire de France took a dislike to us.”

  “You were blackballed.” Not wanting any more of my beer, I handed it to Teddie, who had drained his.

  “What is this? My balls are sometimes blue . . . women!” Adone shook his head. “But they are not black.”

  I did not smile. I didn’t know, but I had a strong feeling he was patronizing me and I was the butt of a subtle joke. “You couldn’t get a job in a legitimate kitchen in France.”

  He looked chagrined that his joke didn’t elicit the expected response. “This is so.”

  “You blame Jean.”

  Adone shrugged.

  “And then.” I leaned forward, pressing home my point. “When you came crawling, he put you in a food truck.”

  Adone pulled himself out of his slouch, pressing his shoulders back. “He told me I would not work in any of the best kitchens.”

  “Not ever? Or not yet?”

  Adone’s face shut down. “It is a small difference.”

  Teddie and I exchanged glances.

  The hate ran deep between these two.

  Deep enough for murder?

  Chapter Seven

  The minute I strode through the front entrance to the Babylon, Flash Gordon, my best friend and Las Vegas’s primo investigative reporter, hit me like a killer whale hitting a baby seal. She fell into step beside me, which was good—I had no intention of slowing down . . . I knew what she wanted.

  “Girl,” she said. “I’ve been cooling my heels here for, like, forever. Where you been?” She gave me the once-over. “You got the look on you. Give it up.”

  I flicked a glance in her direction. Refusing to meet her stare. She was like the Devil—if she looked into your eyes she could see into your soul—or so it seemed, anyway. Today, I didn’t want to fall under the spell of her particular form of black magic.

  The lobby was packed with people strolling, looking, cuddling, or just enjoying the ambience. Many took advantage of the moment and paused to snap photos against the wall sectioning off the indoor ski slope, or while sitting on the railing of one of the arcing bridges across our version of the Euphrates as it meandered through the lobby. Some even pointed their lenses skyward to capture the Chihuly rainbow of blown-glass hummingbirds and butterflies. All of that should have warmed my heart, but with Flash in full barracuda mode, I wasn’t feeling the joy. Somebody roasting a man in “my” oven, and a missing chef, had put a serious damper on my day.

  Even with Flash in heels and me in flats, my six-foot frame gave me a huge advantage . . . almost a foot. Today, as every day, Flash’s clothes looked painted on: tight jeans, a hot-pink tee shirt stretched well past the point of good taste. Not that taste was ever Flash’s goal. Riotous curls of red hair cascaded down her back from the clip that caught them at the nape of her neck. Gold diamond hoops, way too large for her heart-shaped face and diminutive stature, looped from her ears and banged against her neck as she took two strides to my every one. Hot pink lips pressed into a thin line and large doe eyes that belied her killer instinct completed the picture. I ignored all of it as, deterred by the line in front of the elevator, I motored toward the stairs.

  Flash reached for my arm, but I shifted it out of her reach. I might not outlast her, but I could outrun her, or at least stay out of her grasp.

  “Come on, Lucky. Throw me a morsel,” she gasped as she struggled to keep up. “Even a tidbit would keep me ahead of the pack.”

  When the alarm tone on my phone sounded at my hip, I changed directions. I didn’t even need to look at the thing. The prep meeting for the Last Chef Standing competition was scheduled to begin ten minutes from now in the Golden Fleece Room. Since I was in charge, I figured I probably ought to show up.

  Flash grabbed me hard and whirled me around, despite my serious size and weight advantage. There was a leverage lesson in there somewhere, but I was too scattered to glom onto it. “That look. Yup, you got it, and I want to hear about it. You got bodies being fricasseed all over town. A recipe for disaster.”

  “Isn’t that my line? If it isn’t, it sure sounds like something I might say.” I yanked my arm from hers. “Regardless, it’s an ongoing police investigation.” The woman was amazing—she must have a direct tap into the information superhighway. The bodies weren’t even cold yet. I cringed at the visual of the baked guy and wondered how long they could leave him out of the cooler before he started to rot. Of course, he was half-cooked, so that might help. I let my head drop forward—Christ, I was one sick puppy.

  After making sure I had Flash’s attention, I gave her a stern look. “You really should leave this alone.”

  She made a rude noise. “Honey, you know ‘should’ ain’t in my vocabulary.”

  I continued walking. “Yeah, well it should be.” Was that like a tautology? I couldn’t remember. Unable to come up with a better pithy reply, I left the whatever-it-was hanging between us. Then a thought hit me. I stopped, catching her off-guard. She galloped a few strides before adjusting and coming back. I gave her a serious look. “Our normal agreement, right?”

  She nodded and switched gears seamlessly. Faster than I could say Siegfried and Roy, a pencil and pad materialized in her hands. “I help you. You give me the exclusive, but I don’t print a word until you say so.”

  “Don’t even breathe a word until I give you the go-ahead.” She nodded once, which was enough. With Flash, a nod was a bond. “I need all the info you can gather on Fiona Richards. Apparently, she was a purveyor of g
ourmet foodstuffs.”

  She had me spell the name, even though I couldn’t imagine how else one would spell Fiona Richards besides the obvious way, then I gave her all the background I knew, which took all of ten seconds, fifteen at the outside.

  Flash flipped her pad closed, then stuffed it in her back pocket, surprising me—the fabric looked stretched beyond imagination as it was. The pencil, she stuffed in the crevice of her ample rack.

  “Why do you put that there?”

  “It’s the best place to keep pencils.” She managed to say that with a perfectly straight face, but buried under two murders, my sense of humor couldn’t rise to the innuendo.

  I glanced down at my own inadequate chest. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Not much to work with.”

  I gave her a stunned, wide-eyed look. “For your sake, I’m hoping we’ve shifted back to the business at hand and are not waxing poetic about my inadequacies.”

  She shot me an equivocating grin.

  “Cute. Anyway, that’s all I got. You’ve worked miracles with less.” I started again toward the elevators, the line had dissipated. “I need to start making connections. I’ll have the name of the other victim as soon as Romeo figures out who he is . . . was. Then I want you to dig until you can connect the dots.”

  “Isn’t this the sort of thing the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock is better at? After all, he’s the city’s best PI, and you got him in your back pocket.”

  I stared over Flash’s head. “Yeah, but I need him for something else.”

  I wasn’t ready to tell her I needed him to find my missing chef.

  * * *

  Flash left me to ride the elevator up one floor to the mezzanine on my own. A precious moment of solitude to gather myself. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly enough. When the doors opened and I stepped out, I still felt shaken and out of synch with the universe. Heading down the hall, I made a half-hearted attempt to pat my hair into place, then smooth my skirt and adjust my jacket. I swiped a finger under my eyes—with all the tears, I could only imagine what my makeup looked like—and tried to pull myself together. Catching a quick glance in a wall mirror, I was surprised to see a calm and collected outward appearance that perfectly hid the tumult inside.