Murder from Scratch

by Leslie Karst

  The three of us stared at the couple, who had their backs to us, oblivious to our fascination. After a bit, Sarah set down the pint glass of water she’d been drinking, patted Rachel on the shoulder, then pushed off from the bar. Walking over to where the drummer and pianist sat, she pulled out a chair and joined them.

  Nichole stood. “I’m gonna go chat her up.” She jabbed a thumb toward the bar. “That Rachel chick. Maybe I can get her to come join us. You know, ’cause of my winning personality an’ all.” With a grin that was pretty darn charming, I had to admit, she headed for the bar.

  Mei and I watched as she went to stand next to Rachel and tried to catch the bartender’s eye. It took a while, since everyone in the place had apparently been holding off until the break to order another round of drinks. While she waited, Nichole casually glanced Rachel’s way, flashed a flirtatious grin, and said something to the other.

  Rachel took the bait and leaned over to reply, causing Nichole to let out a boisterous laugh. Overacting, I thought. But then again, Rachel couldn’t know that Nichole’s natural state tended more toward sarcastic understatement than exuberance.

  Her beer finally ordered and delivered, Nichole lingered at the bar, chatting with Rachel. After a few minutes, I could see Nichole motion our direction, to which Rachel responded with a smile and a nod. The two of them picked up their drinks and headed our way.

  Swiveling around in my seat so as to not appear overanxious, I waited for the two to arrive. Yes. I’d finally get to have that talk with her. Way to go, Nichole!

  Mei extended her hand to shake as Nichole made the introduction, and Rachel pulled out a chair to take a seat, turning her attention to the other person at the table. But as soon as she saw who it was, her face froze.

  Our eyes met for the briefest of moments, and there was a hardness there that was a little scary.

  “Uh, I just remembered something,” she mumbled to Nichole, then hightailed it to the other side of the room. But not before I got a good look at her hands—the large, muscular hands of someone who does a lot of cooking.

  And then I noticed the drink she held. It was one of those bright-pink cocktails—a Cosmo or Cape Cod, I wasn’t sure which.

  But it was most definitely a drink made with cranberry juice.

  Chapter 21

  “How was the music last night?” Evelyn asked, pulling out her earbuds as I came into the kitchen the next morning. Buster and Coco sat at their usual place under the table, hoping that her slice of buttered toast would miraculously spring off the plate and onto the floor.

  “It was great! I’m so sorry you couldn’t come with us.”

  “No worries. Me and my friend Molly ended up going out for Mexican food, so it’s all good. And hey, I turn twenty-one next week, so you and me will just have to go to the jazz club together sometime after that.” She raised her coffee mug as if it were a glass of Champagne, then took a sip. “Was Rachel there like you’d hoped?”

  “She was.” I helped myself to coffee and half-and-half and sat down. “And it turns out she’s totally into jazz.”

  “No kidding? Huh.” Evelyn drummed her fingers on the Formica table, causing both dogs to sit up in anticipation. Tearing the top crust off her toast, she held a piece out in each hand. Coco accepted hers delicately, but I was afraid Buster might bite off part of Evelyn’s finger, he was so excited by the sudden appearance of the treat.

  “And that’s not all,” I said. “She was drinking a Cosmopolitan or a Cape Cod.”

  Evelyn frowned. “I’m not sure I get what that has to do with anything.”

  “They’re both made with cranberry juice.”

  “Ah.” The confusion in her eyes turned to profound interest.

  “And get this,” I went on. “I found out that Rachel didn’t quit working at The Curry Leaf; she was fired by your mom.”

  “No way.”

  “Way,” I said, and recounted what Sarah had told me yesterday about Rachel and Jackie’s falling out.

  “Wow.” Evelyn took a deep breath. “So Rachel really could be the one who was there that night. And the one—”

  A sharp bark from Coco caused both of us to start. Nichole and Mei stopped at the doorway, then came the rest of the way into the kitchen once Evelyn had grabbed the dog by the collar.

  “They were here just last night,” she chastised Coco, making her sit. “Have you no memory?” Then, to the humans who’d just entered the room: “Sorry about that. She’ll be fine once she remembers who you are.”

  “How was the hide-a-bed?” I asked. Since Evelyn was occupying the guest bedroom, Nichole and Mei had been relegated to the saggy sofa bed in the study.

  “Let’s just say that had I been given prior notice of its age and condition, I might have opted for an Airbnb for the night.”

  Nichole drained the last of the coffee from the carafe into a mug and handed it to Mei, then set about brewing a second pot. “So, I heard you talking just now about that Rachel gal from last night. Did you tell Evelyn how she skedaddled as soon as she saw it was you at the table? Like you have big-time cooties or something,” she added with a chuckle.

  “I hadn’t gotten to that part yet. But it’s not really all that funny,” I said, shooting a glare at Nichole. “If she is the person who …”

  “Sorry.” She finished pouring water into the coffee machine, then took a seat at the table with the rest of us. “So you really think someone killed your mom on purpose?” Nichole asked, serious now. “Sally told us about it last night at the bar.”

  “Yeah, I do,” Evelyn said. “And it’s starting to look more and more like Rachel’s our prime suspect.”

  “Who are the others?” asked Mei.

  I glanced at Evelyn to see if she was going to field this question. “There’s a couple,” she said. “First, there’s Mom’s ex-boss, Al, who was super mad at her for quitting and then using some of the recipes from his place at her new pop-up restaurant.”

  “Al thinks he started losing profits because she stole away his customers,” I put in.

  “But Rachel makes more sense to me now,” Evelyn said. “Since she has a motive, and she’s into jazz and therefore could have been the one who played my records. And also because now we know she drinks cranberry juice. That would explain both the red stain on the carpet and the bottle being moved in the fridge.”

  “But couldn’t it have been your mom who spilled juice on the carpet?” Mei asked.

  “It’s possible, but that wasn’t her usual drink. She liked vodka and tonic.”

  “I’m assuming the cops didn’t find more than one glass at the scene?” Nichole said.

  I shook my head. “No, but it’s easy to wash and dry a glass and put it back in the cupboard.”

  Nichole slapped the Formica table. “Sounds to me like it’s most likely that Rachel chick, then.”

  “I don’t know. The problem with Rachel—and with Al,” I said, “is that it’s not that likely Jackie would have been socializing with either of them. And given the record albums and juice that had been moved, whoever killed her must have been someone she invited in to hang out with.”

  “There is Max,” Evelyn said.

  “Who’s Max?” Nichole and Mei asked in unison.

  “A friend of Mom’s. Who it turns out also really likes jazz and could easily have been with her that night. But I have no idea why he’d want to do anything to hurt her, much less kill her.”

  “Except …” I stopped, not sure if Evelyn would want me to repeat what I’d been about to say.

  “Oh, right,” she finished for me. “Except it’s possible they were involved.”

  “Aha!” Nichole said. “That’s your guy, then. It’s always the lover.”

  “If only we could get Mom’s phone unlocked,” Evelyn said, oblivious to the collective eye roll Mei and I had given to Nichole’s last remark.

  “You have your mom’s phone?” Nichole stood up in response to the coffee machine’s beep, announcing it h
ad finished brewing.

  “Yeah, but we don’t know the password.”

  “Have you tried her pets?”

  “Uh-huh. And her address, phone number, birthday, my name, my dad’s name—the real one—and Stan. And the name of her pop-up, all the other restaurants she worked at, the name of her schools.”

  “I still think we should turn the phone over to the police,” I said. “They’ll be able to unlock it, for sure.”

  Evelyn shook her head. “No, I know I’ll be able to come up with the password. Detective Vargas said at Mom’s memorial that their tech guy doesn’t even work on weekends. So just give me till Monday.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “Monday morning.”

  * * *

  Brian was not a happy camper that night at Gauguin. This was the evening he was supposed to have had free—a big deal, since staff in any professional kitchen only rarely get Saturdays off. But because of Javier’s friend’s wedding up in San Francisco, the head chef had pressed Brian into service tonight. And Brian wasn’t letting anyone in the kitchen forget it.

  “What’s taking so long with those apps for table seven?” he hollered, wiping clean a sauté pan as he peered at the tickets lined up on the rail. “I’ve been waiting at least ten minutes to fire their entrées, and we’ve got a second service at that table tonight, people!”

  Slamming the pan onto the Wolf range, Brian stomped over to the door of the garde manger, nearly colliding with Tomás. The prep cook, who’d been moved up to the appetizer station for the night, held an order of our Tahitian sea bass starter in each hand.

  “Got ’em right here,” he said, then rushed with the plates to the pickup counter, tapped the bell, and shouted, “Order up!”

  “About time,” Brian muttered, then returned to the hot line and grabbed the next ticket in line.

  “You don’t have to be so hard on Tomás,” I said, reaching for the bottle of sriracha-mayonnaise to squirt atop an order of spicy fried chicken. “For someone who’s not used to working that station, I’d say he’s really stepped up to the plate tonight.”

  Brian ladled clarified butter into his sauté pan and swirled it about, then set the pan down over the blue-white flame. “I know,” he said with an impatient shake of the head. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I have all these chemicals flowing through my body right now. Angry chemicals. And I can feel them—like they’re shooting up and down my veins or nerves or something.”

  “Sounds like a case of menopause. I know the feeling well. I don’t suppose you’re getting hot flashes, too?”

  “I doubt I’d be able to tell if I were,” Brian said with a snort, “given the heat blasting from the oven and stove right about now.” He laid a plump pork chop into the butter, then wiped his hands on his side towel.

  I studied the cook. His jaw was clenched as he squinted angrily at the meat sizzling in his pan. “Look, Brian, I need you to be honest with me. Are you okay? Because it seems like something’s been going on with you lately. Something besides just your problems with Roxanne.”

  He continued to stare at the slice of pork, then lifted the pan from the heat and deftly flipped the chop. It was perfectly browned, the ribbon of fat along the top edge delectably crisp. With a slow nod, the cook glanced my way, then returned his attention to the pan. “I did cut back on my drinking recently,” he said softly.

  “Ah.”

  “But it’s not like what you’re thinking. I never drank before work. Or during. But afterwards, and on my days off I was probably drinking more than I should have.” He shrugged. “I’d been having problems getting to sleep when I got home at night and the beer helped. But I guess I just kind of let it get out of hand.”

  “Well, that could certainly affect your mood, especially if you go cold turkey or cut way back all of a sudden.”

  “I guess.” Brian added brandy and dried apricots to his pork dish and then tossed the onions he had going in another pan. “Anyway, Roxanne was the one who first got on my case about it. That’s one of the reasons we’d been having problems. So I’ve been limiting myself to only one beer after work, and two on days I’m not working.”

  “And how’s your relationship with Roxanne been going since then?” I asked.

  “Much better. She was totally right.” He shook out his arms, then clenched and unclenched his hands a couple of times. “Don’t worry. I’ll apologize to Tomás later, I promise.”

  “That’d be great. And I’ll try to do what I can to make things less stressful around here tonight.”

  “Good luck with that,” Brian said with a nod toward the line of tickets awaiting us.

  * * *

  An hour later the kitchen was in full swing. Brian and I were on the line, tending sauté pans at six of the eight burners, when Brandon darted up to the pass and stuck his head through the window. “Cancel the orders at table seven!” he shouted.

  I examined the tickets on the rail to check their table numbers, then shook my head. “Too late. They’re already fired.” It was one order of Coq au Vin au Gauguin, which I’d just plated up, and another of the spot prawn special, now sizzling in the sauté pan before me.

  “Damn. One of the people just got a text saying there’s some sort of emergency, and the other guy left along with her, so I had to void the ticket. Sorry I didn’t catch you in time.”

  “It’s okay. These things happen. Here, lemme see if any of the next few orders are for either of these dishes. Nope, no dice.” I shook my head, and the server started back for the dining room. “Wait, hold on a sec,” I said, dumping the order of shrimp onto a plate and setting both entrées onto the pass. “Go ahead and take these out to the wait station for you all to share.”

  Brandon grinned as he took the plates. “Thanks, Sally.”

  “Yeah, well, no reason they should to go waste.”

  But of course it was a waste to the restaurant—not only of the food itself and the labor that had gone into preparing it, but also of the potential profit on what would otherwise have been two additional covers that night for Gauguin.

  Good thing this doesn’t happen very often, I thought as I wiped off my pan with a paper towel. Because it wouldn’t take many voided tickets to have a serious effect on our bottom line.

  I set the sauté pan down on the stove with a frown as I remembered Al lecturing me about Food Service Economics 101 at the restaurant owners’ luncheon earlier in the week. Tamarind had been down only a few covers a night recently, but it was enough to make a difference to their profits.

  I stared out through the pass window at the diners, some finishing up their meals, others digging into orders of pot stickers, duck confit, and crème brûlée. Brandon was at the point-of-sale terminal, entering information onto the computer screen and printing out the check for one of the tables.

  How easy it would be, I realized, for someone with access to the POS codes to steal from a restaurant. All they’d have to do would be to void tickets after the customer paid, then pocket the money themselves. And in the case of a cash payment, no one would ever be the wiser unless they happened to check the “voided ticket” category in the system, something I only rarely did.

  I bit my lip as I watched Brandon place the bill on a tray, drop two wrapped chocolate mints on top, and take it out to table four. If I hardly ever checked to see about our voided tickets, it was unlikely Al did either.

  Could that be the reason Tamarind had been losing money of late? Here at Gauguin we didn’t get a lot of cash sales, but there were often one or two a night. And as Al had said, it only takes a few lost covers a day to make a difference between profit and loss for a restaurant running on a very tight margin.

  But if someone were voiding tickets and pocketing the cash at Tamarind, they’d have to have been given access to the POS codes. So it would have to be someone like the dining room manager.

  Someone like Max.

  “Sally, you okay?” Javier startled me out of my reverie, and I realized I’d been standin
g there at the stove, staring blankly out at the dining room, for almost a full minute.

  “Yeah, fine,” I said with a quick smile. “Just thinking about something is all.” Grabbing the next ticket in line, I set to work on two orders of the pan-fried Petrale sole special.

  But why would Max be embezzling from Tamarind? That aspect of my hypothesis didn’t seem to make any sense. His job as dining room manager surely paid well, and he’d be risking everything by such an action. Since only a limited number of employees would know the POS codes, it wouldn’t be at all difficult to figure out who the culprit was, once it was discovered someone had been voiding tickets.

  And then I wondered if my embezzlement theory could have anything to do with Jackie. According to Al, the lost sales had started right around the time she opened The Curry Leaf. Could Max—or whoever it might be—have decided that her new pop-up would provide perfect cover for the sudden drop in sales at Tamarind? If so, they’d been right, as Al certainly believed that was the cause.

  Okay, then, I mused as I ladled a pool of sauce normande onto two plates, then set the golden-brown sole fillets on top. Assuming my new pet theory to be true, how could the thefts be related to Jackie’s murder?

  Maybe she had known about the embezzlement.

  And maybe the thief had killed her to shut her up.

  Chapter 22

  It was after midnight when I got home that night, exhausted and achy. Having two complete dinner services with each table filled is terrific for the pocketbook but miserable on the body. Brian, however, had been a trooper. Unburdening himself like that must have released some of his pent-up anger, because after our conversation he’d reverted back to the Brian of old, joking around with the staff and whipping out the hot-line orders like a master chef.

  Evelyn was in the living room watching another old movie when I let myself into the house. Fetching a nightcap, I joined her on the couch.

  On the screen, Katherine Hepburn spoke on the telephone in a rapid patter, listing the names of all of Santa’s reindeer. Several bottles of Champagne sat atop the gray metal desk before her.