A Cookbook Conspiracy (8 page)

I barely avoided plowing into a table, thanks to a passing car’s headlights bouncing
off the coffered ceiling and casting odd shadows on the walls. Liquor bottles lining
the bar caught the light, too, creating multicolored crystal shards that shimmered
across the high-gloss oak floor.

I made it to the far end of the room and turned down the short hall that led toward
the kitchen. A pale glow of light shining through the porthole on the swinging double
doors guided me the rest of the way.

As I pushed the door open, a horrific scream erupted.

Derek tried to yank me backward, but my forward momentum caused me to stumble into
the room instead. That’s when I saw my sister Savannah kneeling on the tiled floor,
a huge triangular bloodstained knife clutched in her raised hand.

She whipped around and the sudden movement caused her scarlet beret to slip off her
head. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks were stained with tears. She was still screaming,
so I took one more step toward her. That’s when I saw someone lying on the floor beside
her.

It was Baxter Cromwell. His eyes bulged open and his white chef’s coat was torn and
spattered with blood. He lay unmoving on the cold, hard tile, as dead as he could
be.

I’m no chicken, but the sight of all that blood splashed on his coat, along with the
bloodstained knife, was enough to make my knees wobble. My vision blurred and things
began to spin. I couldn’t breathe.

“No, you don’t,” Derek scolded as he grabbed me.

“Y-yes, I do,” I mumbled, and sagged into his arms.

*   *   *

T
en minutes later, after Derek had smacked my cheeks a little too eagerly and muttered,
“Snap out of it” a few dozen times, I was back on my feet and pacing the length of
the bar
while we waited for the police to arrive. I was still breathing a little heavily,
but I was fine. Alive, anyway.

Savannah sat on one of the barstools, looking dazed and confused. Thanks to Derek’s
quick thinking, she now wore thin rubber gloves over her bloodied hands. He’d seen
the box of disposable gloves on a shelf by the industrial dishwashing machine and
had urged her to put them on to protect any blood evidence on her hands.

I forced a glass of water into Savannah’s glove-sheathed hand and told her to keep
sipping it.

“I didn’t kill him,” she whispered.

“I know, sweetie.”

She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand and strained to look at me. “How
do you know?”

“Because you’re a vegetarian.”

“Really?”

“No, you twit,” I said softly. “It’s because I know you. You don’t step on spiders.
You wouldn’t hurt a bug to save your own life. And you wouldn’t stick a knife in someone’s
gut and kill them in cold blood, no matter how big a jerk he was. So I know you didn’t
do it, but I just wish you’d seen who did.”

“Me, too.” Her shoulders sagged and she looked exhausted enough to slide off her seat.
I eased her stool closer to the bar so she could lean her elbows on the shiny surface.

I just didn’t want her to fall asleep. We had turned every light on full blast, so
the room was illuminated as brightly as if the sun were blazing down on us. Derek
had locked the front door in case any passersby got the idea that we were open for
business.

I decided to try and keep Savannah talking. Maybe something would click and she would
remember a detail that might help.

“Did you see anyone run out the back door?” I asked. The kitchen door leading to the
back alley had been wide open when we arrived. The killer must’ve run out that door
and disappeared down
the alley. At least that was my best guess. If it was true, we might’ve missed him
by only a few seconds. Maybe we’d even passed him on the sidewalk earlier. The thought
gave me goose bumps.

“I don’t think so,” Savannah said for maybe the umpteenth time. Her tone was dull
and her eyes were unfocused. I’d never seen her like this before, and while I understood
that she was freaked-out, I didn’t have time for it.

“That answer’s not going to work for the police, Savannah,” I said quietly. “You either
saw someone or you didn’t. I know you’re tired, but you need to remember everything
that happened after we left you earlier tonight. You should talk it out. I can help
you. We can go over it all before the police get here.”

She nodded but said nothing.

Derek stepped close, pressed his lips to my ear and murmured, “She’s in shock, love.
Let her be for now.”

“But the cops are going to drag her off to jail. I can’t let that happen.”

He touched my hair lightly, smoothed one thick strand off my cheek. “We’ll make sure
it doesn’t.”

Staring up at Derek’s face, I absently counted the few fine lines that branched out
from the corners of his intelligent blue eyes. I knew he’d worked some dangerous jobs,
been in a number of harrowing situations. Even if he hadn’t told me about them, his
eyes would have given him away. They were constantly assessing, occasionally challenging,
always compelling. I wondered which of his adventures had earned him the most wrinkles—not
that he had many. Just enough to make him interesting. Some of them were from laughter,
I knew, but most were hard-won. And all of them had gone into building the character
of the man who stood by me tonight.

My heart swelled. What outstanding deed had I done to deserve his loyalty and love?
It was stunning to know that he occasionally wondered the same thing about me.

“I’m so scared,” I whispered.

“I know.” He wrapped his arms around me and held me for a long moment.

I sniffled. “I’m going to lose all my friends.”

I heard him chuckle. “Probably.”

“Oh, thanks.” He was kidding, but it was a deep, dark worry of mine. Discovering murder
victims was both aggravating and frightening, so much so that I’d finally gone to
my parents’ spiritual advisor, Guru Bob, for advice and counsel. He had suggested
that the gods may have decided that I was the Chosen One, so to speak, who’d been
designated to obtain justice for these victims.

The Chosen One. Really? That’s what I got for seeking the advice of a guru.

Wasn’t it the job of law enforcement to obtain justice for crime victims? Of course
it was. But it was also true that the police I’d dealt with could always use some
extra guidance. So if tonight was any indication, it seemed I might be stuck with
this role for a while. Because sure enough, here I was again, staring at another suspicious
death.

It wasn’t fair. I had a day job. I didn’t want to be involved in another murder.

But this was no time to whine about it. Poor Baxter lay dead on the cold floor a few
feet away, and I was making it all about me. Yes, Baxter had been an odious pest,
but that didn’t mean he’d deserved to be murdered in cold blood in his own restaurant,
for heaven’s sake.

“I didn’t kill him,” Savannah blurted. “Why should I go to jail?”

Derek and I turned and stared at her. The dullness was gone. She appeared irritated
now. It was a much better look on her.

“You shouldn’t,” I said, moving toward her. “But they’ll want to talk to you because
you were the one holding the knife that killed Baxter.”

“But I didn’t kill him,” she said again.

“I know. But how did you end up holding the knife?”

“It was sticking out of his…ugh.” She grimaced.

“Out of his stomach,” I coaxed.

She rubbed her own stomach. “I’m going to be sick.”

“No, you’re not.” I jumped closer and gripped her arms, holding her upright. “Come
on. Deep breaths. Don’t lose it now.”

She took a couple of fast, deep breaths, then her head wobbled. “I feel faint.”

“No!” I looked at Derek in dismay and the muscles of his jaw tightened in response.

All he needed was another weak-kneed Wainwright woman on his hands. But what could
I say? I couldn’t stand the sight of blood and, admittedly, had fainted on more than
one occasion. Savannah had even more right to faint, but that didn’t mean I would
let her.

Frankly, the stronger reason why I’d felt woozy was because for a minute there, seeing
Savannah kneeling on the floor in front of the bloodied body of Baxter Cromwell, I’d
experienced an alarming case of déjà vu.

I’d flashed back to the night I found my old bookbinding mentor, Abraham Karastovsky,
dying in a pool of his own blood. Kneeling next to him, I’d discovered he was barely
alive and had tried to revive him, but failed. With his last breath, he had whispered
the clue that ultimately helped me solve his murder.

Derek had found me kneeling there with Abraham’s blood on my hands. I’d taken one
look at those red smears on my palms and blacked out completely.

I shook the memory away.

“I’m fine,” Savannah muttered finally. “It’s just…all that blood. And Baxter. I can’t
believe he’s dead.”

“Can you tell us what happened?” I asked again, as gently as I could.

She swallowed some more water and I took the glass from her to refill it.

“I—I went to the ladies’ room while everyone was saying good night. It took me a while
to wash up. I was exhausted, but I wanted to clean myself up a little. You know how
it is after a long night of cooking. I felt like food was jammed into every one of
my pores.”

“Mm, nice image,” I said, being careful not to mention that I had no idea how it was
after a long night of cooking. I didn’t cook, remember?

She granted me a wan smile. “My food is healthier and I use less fat, but I still
need to wash my face at the end of the night. Anyway, there’s a small couch in the
ladies’ room, so I sat down and closed my eyes for a minute.”

“Did you fall asleep?”

“I didn’t think I did.” She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them. “Maybe I did
fall asleep for a few minutes. I must’ve, because when I came out here, all the lights
in the place were off.”

“When you left to go to the ladies’ room, who was still here?”

She thought for a moment. “Peter, Kevin, Baxter, Margot, and Monty.”

“That’s almost everyone, isn’t it?”

“Is it? Wait.” She thought for a moment. “Colette was still here, but she was just
leaving. Raoul had left an hour earlier. He wasn’t feeling well, so he took a cab
back to the hotel. Colette had their rental car and I was thinking of asking her for
a ride back to your place, but she’d been so cranky all day that I didn’t want to
spend another minute with her.”

“Why was she cranky?”

Savannah lifted her shoulder. “Can’t say for sure, but those two weren’t getting along
very well.”

“Raoul and Colette? Are you kidding? Who doesn’t get along with Raoul?”

“His wife, apparently.” She met my gaze and almost smirked. “I know, right? Raoul
is such a doll. She must be nuts.”

I noticed Derek’s sideways glance at us.

“We’re going off topic,” I said. “Let’s see. Was anyone else still around? Any waiters
or kitchen staff?”

She stared at the ceiling and tried to think. “One of the bartenders stayed to serve
us drinks, but after a while he cleaned up and left. A few of the kitchen staff were
still here, prepping for tomorrow. But we stood around talking for so long that they
all left, too. It was getting really late. By the time I took off to the ladies’ room,
everyone but the chefs had left.”

“Okay, and how long do you think you were in there?”

“Maybe eight or ten minutes?”

“And you came out and the lights were off. What did you do?”

“It was a little creepy,” she said. “I called out ‘Hello,’ but nobody answered. Then
I saw the kitchen light was on, so I went in there.”

“And Baxter was on the floor?”

She swallowed with difficulty. I’d forgotten to get her more water, so Derek went
behind the bar, found a full bottle of water in the refrigerator, and handed it to
her.

“Thanks.” She twisted off the cap and took a big gulp. “Yes, he was on the floor.”

“Was he dead?”

“No.” Her shoulders shook and she rubbed her arms to stave off the chills. “He was
still gasping for air, so I didn’t think, I just grabbed the knife and pulled it out.”

“And that’s when we walked in?”

“Well, a few seconds later.” She took another drink of water. “He gasped and choked
first, then, yeah. He died.”

“I’m sorry.” I reached over and took her hand.

She seemed lost in her own world for a minute, then said, “That fish knife was his
pride and joy. He told us how he found it in Singapore.”

I’d seen the knife. It was massive, bigger than any kitchen knife I’d ever seen. The
blade was about twelve inches long and eight inches wide, curving dramatically along
the razor-sharp edge.

“He bought it from one of the roughneck Asian fishermen who sold their catch right
on the dock next to their boats. He’d never seen another one like it.”

“Why is it curved like that?” I asked.

“It makes carving up the largest types of fish a lot easier. You slide the blade under
the gills and just start slicing.”

“Interesting,” I said, frowning.

“He said he paid six dollars for it.”

“Sounds like a bargain.”

“I’ll say. It would cost several hundred dollars at Williams-Sonoma.” She tried to
snicker, but her face crumpled and she began to sob.

“Oh, honey.” I grabbed her and held her. My eyes got watery, too, since I was constitutionally
incapable of letting her cry alone.

After a minute or two, her shoulders stopped shaking. She hiccupped once or twice,
then took some deep breaths. “I’m okay. It’s just…wow. Horrible.”

“I know. I’m so sorry you have to go through this.”

“Yeah. Me, too. Thanks.”

I glanced over at Derek, who was walking the perimeter of the dining room, making
sure the windows were locked and secured, studying the street traffic. He couldn’t
help himself, I guess.

His face was a study in composure. He would be the perfect buffer between Savannah
and the police detectives. It helped that he had an impressive law enforcement background
after working with British intelligence for many years. The detectives we had worked
with in the past called him by his title: Commander. It suited him.