A Cookbook Conspiracy (29 page)

“Ms. Wainwright?” Inspector Lee had just led Kevin out from the private room where
she was conducting interviews.

“Yes?” Savannah and I answered at the same time.

“Not you, Wainwright,” Inspector Lee said, her lips twisting in a wry grin. “Your
sister. Let’s go.”

Savannah looked at me. “Is she talking to you or me?”

“She’s talking to me,” I explained, “but she wants to talk to you.”

Perplexed, Savannah shook her head, but followed Inspector Lee, who got a few feet
away, then whipped around and pointed her finger at me like it was a gun. She made
a clicking sound as if she’d shot me. Then she laughed and walked on with Savannah.

“Funny lady,” I muttered.

“You seem to know her pretty well,” Kevin said, joining me.

We sat down at the nearest table. “Yeah, I know her. She’s kind of gung ho, but usually
fair.”

“I hope so.” She gazed around the room. “It’s hard to believe this is all happening,
you know? Do you remember that first night we were here? I thought this room was one
of the most beautiful I’d ever seen.”

“I remember, and I thought the same thing.”

“Once this investigation is over, Brooklyn, I hope I never have to see it again.”

“You won’t,” I assured her. “But for now we’re sort of stuck.”

She sighed. “Seems we are.”

“How was your interview?”

“Oh, just dandy.” She rolled her eyes. “It only took a few minutes. Basically just
a follow-up, since they already interviewed us earlier.”

“Earlier?” I couldn’t remember seeing the inspectors interviewing anyone. “When was
that?”

“You weren’t here yet.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, and I didn’t have a chance to finish
telling you. I was halfway through my story when I got so wretchedly sick to my stomach.”

“That’s right.” It was only a few minutes ago, so I was surprised I’d forgotten already.
Although, considering everything else that was going on…“You look like you’re feeling
better.”

“Yes, I’m fine.” She shook her head like a wet dog, as though she was trying to shake
the memory out of her brain. “I absolutely hate getting sick like that. And in public,
for all my lovely new street friends to see. I’m such a class act.”

“You couldn’t help it,” I said. “But tell me the rest of the story. What happened?”

“Right.” She leaned forward with her elbow on the table and spoke in a low voice.
“We’d only just found poor Monty when those two homicide inspectors walked in.”

“They got here that fast? Did one of you call them?”

“No,” she whispered. “They claimed that Monty called them.”

“Wait. What?” I sat up in my chair. “Monty? But…when? How?”

“Frankly, Brooklyn, I don’t believe they meant to tell us as much as they did. I think
they were so blown away at the sight of him lying there, dead, that they just blurted
it out.”

I thought about it, tried to picture Inspector Lee walking in on that scene. “She’s
usually tight-lipped as a clam, so it must’ve been a shock for her. What all did they
say to you?”

“Just that Monty called them late last night and told them he knew who the killer
was. But he couldn’t talk on the phone long. Apparently he asked them to meet him
here at ten o’clock this morning and said he would tell them what he knew.”

“What he knew? But why didn’t he just tell them the name of the killer?” It was like
a bad plotline from a B movie. “It doesn’t make sense.”

She shifted in her seat and her voice dropped even lower. “Margot thinks he wanted
an audience for his big reveal. You know how he’s such a drama queen, right?”

“Well, yes, but the police don’t know that.” This didn’t make sense. Why would Monty
put himself in the crosshairs, so to speak? If he had known the name of the killer,
why not go to the police immediately and keep himself safe? And what about the
police? “If they had someone calling in, claiming to have information critical to
their investigation, why didn’t they just go to his hotel and question him?”

“If they’d done that, he’d be alive.” She contemplated that for a moment, then shook
her head in disgust. “They probably thought he was a raving lunatic and didn’t want
to encourage him.”

“That’s possible.” But knowing Inspector Lee as well as I did, I couldn’t believe
it. She was a fanatic when it came to finding the truth.
But wait a minute
, I thought. Lee had brushed me off more than once when I’d pushed my theories on
her. I hated to admit it, but she could be a little arrogant about civilian involvement
in police matters.

Was that why she hadn’t moved on Monty’s information? Could she have assumed that
because I was involved my friends would be irritants, too?

I wasn’t trying to blame myself, but if that was the reason why Inspector Lee didn’t
follow up on Monty’s story, it was just sad. Monty might still be alive if they’d
checked up on him. Even though, sorry to say, he probably had sounded like a drama
queen.

On the other hand, we didn’t have all the facts. Maybe Monty hadn’t actually spoken
with the homicide inspectors. Maybe he’d left a message with a dispatcher who wasn’t
able to reach the people in charge of the case in time. It would be rushing to judgment
to blame the police before I knew what had really happened.

Yet more answers I desperately needed.

*   *   *

“K
evin’s story is essentially true,” Derek said as we drove home an hour later. “Montgomery
did call in. Unfortunately, though, he never got the chance to speak to either of
the inspectors. The dispatcher’s message didn’t show up on either of their phones
until early this morning.”

“That’s downright tragic,” Savannah said.

“Yes, it is,” he said, clearly disgusted. “Obviously there’s a breakdown in their
system somewhere. They’re investigating that side issue, as well.”

I turned in my seat to face him. “Do they think the killer overheard Montgomery’s
phone call?”

“That seems the only plausible scenario,” Derek admitted.

So the police would be tracking down which of the chefs had been at the restaurant
at the same time that Monty made his fateful phone call. I wondered if we could find
out that information as well.

We were mostly silent the rest of the way back to my place. Derek pulled up in front
of our building and after a quick discussion about alternative dinner plans, Savannah,
Dalton, and I climbed out of the car and Derek took off for his office.

Two hours later he returned home unexpectedly.

“This is a nice surprise,” I said, greeting him with a kiss.

“I’m afraid it’s not as pleasant a reason to come home as we’d like it to be.”

“What’s wrong?”

His expression was grim. “The police are right behind me.”

*   *   *

M
y two favorite detectives showed up ten minutes later. They’d come to talk to Savannah,
who, in case we’d all forgotten, was still the prime suspect in the murder of Baxter
Cromwell.

Derek, Dalton, and I lurked in the kitchen as Savannah was being interviewed in my
studio.

“Why couldn’t they do this at the restaurant?” I grumbled, although I was just as
glad to be home rather than still sitting in Baxter’s gloomy dining room. Still, I
was scared to death that my sister might be led out of my house in handcuffs any minute
now.

“They might not want the other chefs to know they’re talking to Savannah,” Derek said.

“I’m going to take that to mean that they’re trying to protect her from anyone who
might try to hurt her.”

“Yes,” Derek said, reaching for my hand. “That’s exactly how I meant you to take it.”

“I’m not sure if I should be more worried or less.”

“Go sit at the table,” Dalton said. “I’m making tea.”

I stared at him in surprise as Derek led me over to the dining room table. We sat
next to each other at the far end and he took my hand. “Savannah will be fine,” he
said.

A few minutes later, Dalton walked over with a tray on which he’d placed the teapot,
four mugs, and a plate of cookies.

“That’s so sweet of you,” I said, giving him a grateful smile.

“Sometimes one simply needs a cup of tea,” Dalton said.

He was right. We sipped our tea, and after a while the two cops and Savannah walked
into the room.

“Would you care for a cup of tea?” Dalton asked.

Inspector Lee stared at him, then looked at Derek. “Whoa. There’s two of you?”

“Didn’t you meet Derek’s brother at the restaurant earlier?” I asked.

Lee frowned at me. “I must’ve thought he was Derek.”

“Understandable.” I introduced her to Dalton and we all talked for another few minutes.
The inspectors refused the offer of tea and finally took off. Derek walked them to
the door.

Savannah sat at the table and Dalton poured her a cup of tea.

“How are you doing?” I asked her.

“Fine. She’s so nice and pretty.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Inspector Lee.”

“Oh. Yeah, she is. Pretty, I mean. Nice? Not always.”

“She was nice to me,” Savannah said.

“Figures,” I muttered. “So what did they ask you?”

“They went over some of the stuff I told them last time and then they asked me about
Margot.”

I frowned. “Margot?”

“I couldn’t believe it, either,” Savannah said. “I assured them she wouldn’t hurt
a fly.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. “What did you tell them?”

“Well, they knew I used to be involved with Baxter, so they—”

“Where’d they hear that?” I interrupted, even though I knew it was that big-mouth
Colette, who’d told Jaglom a bunch of lies that first night.

“They heard it from me,” Savannah said. “I told them all about our relationship when
they first interviewed me.”

“You did?”

“Well, sure. Don’t you remember? I told them everything. That’s what you’re supposed
to do, right? Tell the truth.”

I smiled. “I love you, sis.”

“I…love you, too?” she said warily.

With a laugh, I gestured for her to continue.

“So they’d heard a rumor that Margot had carried on affairs with both Raoul and Baxter
and they wanted to ask me about all three of them. Can you imagine? I assured them
they were way off base.”

“Off base about whom?” I said cautiously.

“About all of them!” Savannah cried. “None of them would ever hurt anyone, especially
not Monty.”

“But what about the affairs?”

She waved her hand. “Oh, who cares about that? We were all kids back in Paris. Everyone
was sleeping with everyone else. Doesn’t mean anyone’s a killer.”

She didn’t have much more to add and I didn’t press her. But I wasn’t about to kick
Margot off the suspect list. She came across as
friendly and flirty, but she really wasn’t. She was always watching, judging, gauging…something.
Why? Was she just insecure? You’d never know it by the way she dressed. Flamboyant
and sexy, which would have been fine if only it matched her real personality. But
it didn’t.

A while later, Derek caught up with me in our bedroom. “I have some news, and it isn’t
pleasant.”

“What is it?”

“It’s about Montgomery. He was injected with a massive amount of rat poison. Its main
ingredient is strychnine, as we surmised.”

I sank down onto the love seat. My heart ached for poor Montgomery. He’d suffered
an agonizing death and he hadn’t deserved it. In fact, no one deserved that. “That’s
horrifying. But how was he injected? And when?”

“Apparently, it was very late last night,” Derek said. “The killer used a meat injector.”

“A meat…ew.” I shivered at the thought. But it made an awful kind of sense. Most chefs
probably carried their own with them wherever they traveled. Now that I thought about
it, I realized that even my father owned one. He used it to marinate the Thanksgiving
turkey, among other things. It was sold as part of a kit along with several needles
of different sizes.

Needles.
Ugh. And there went my stomach.

“That’s just unbelievable. Terrible.” I rubbed my queasy belly. “Do they have any
idea who did it?”

“Not yet, but they plan to conduct a much more thorough search of everyone’s kitchen
tools.”

I gasped and jumped up from the couch as a thought suddenly struck me. “It can’t be
Savannah!”

Derek leaned his hip against the bureau. “No, of course not. But why do you say that?”

“Because she’s a vegetarian!” I laughed. I knew it was tasteless
to be happy at the moment, but there was nothing more I could do for Montgomery, while
Savannah needed all the help she could get. “She doesn’t even own a meat injector.”

He chuckled. “Good point, darling. I’ll mention that to the inspector.”

“Wait—it can’t be Raoul, either. He’s a pastry chef.”

“Yes, love,” Derek said softly. “But he’s married to someone who specializes in meats.”

I frowned. “Well, whatever.” It was a shabby comeback, but I couldn’t help it; I was
in shock or something. The thought of someone using a meat injector to kill a sweetie
like Montgomery made me feel sick and depressed.

I went in search of some ginger ale to calm my stomach and felt better after a few
minutes. Derek was needed back at the office, so he took off after promising to return
home by six o’clock.

By mutual, silent agreement, the rest of us all wandered off to do our own thing.
I walked into my studio, where, true to his vow, Dalton had settled in at the desk
and was poring over the cookbook pages. He had his laptop open and a spreadsheet in
front of him.

I took a peek at the spreadsheet and saw a long column of the same hieroglyphic symbols
I’d seen in the cookbook. He had transferred each symbol onto the sheet and was testing
different letters of the alphabet as well as short phrases that might correspond to
each of the squiggles.

Dalton had a tendency to swear under his breath every so often. I couldn’t blame him.
If I was looking at that never-ending line of squiggles and numbers, I’d be cursing,
too.