Dying for a Taste (16 page)

The next afternoon before my dinner shift at Solari’s, I stopped by Gauguin to organize the bills and invoices for Shanti, who would be coming by to get them the next morning. I still hadn’t arrived at any decision regarding Letta’s restaurant. Truth be told, I was doing my best to avoid thinking about it.

I suppose my reluctance to address the issue came down to pure, simple fear—fear of change or perhaps fear of
not
changing. Because I knew damn well that no matter what decision I eventually arrived at—continuing at Solari’s, leaving it to become restauranteur for Gauguin, or even something completely different, such as finding a nonprofit where I could use my lawyer skills—there was a good chance I’d spend the rest of my days wondering if I had made the wrong choice, if maybe I should have taken one of the
other
paths.

It’s never been easy for me to make choices. I mean, I can agonize for ten minutes over what burger toppings I want. So how could I be expected to decide quickly on something as momentous as a new career?

Unfortunately, however, the Gauguin bills weren’t going to wait for me to make up my mind. It was a little after four when I got to the restaurant, and Javier was at the Wolf range stirring a saucepot as I came through the side door. Reuben, the line cook, was at the other end of the kitchen slicing steaks from a long hunk of meat—a strip loin, by the looks of it. New York steak wasn’t a regular menu item, so it had to be one of the specials tonight.

I stopped to watch Javier as he dropped chunks of butter into the pot and whisked them into the concoction. “What’cha making?” I asked.

“Beurre blanc. I’m gonna drizzle it over the asparagus I’ve got roasting in the ov—
mierda
!” He dropped the whisk and yanked open the oven door. I could see a couple of large roasting pans inside, lined with spears of asparagus just beginning to brown. “Thank God,” he said, grabbing two oven mitts and lifting the pans out to set them on the rangetop. “I didn’t want to cook them all the way right now. I’ll finish them up as they’re ordered.”

“Good thing I happened by,” I said.

Reuben chuckled as he continued to slice his steaks, and Javier graced the two of us with a sheepish grin. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Well, I’ll be up in the office if you need any more help with tonight’s specials.” Snitching one of the stalks from the pan—don’t try this at home; you develop asbestos fingers when you work in restaurants as I long as I have—I slipped past Javier’s attempt to swat me on the behind, dunked it in the pot, and crunched the dripping asparagus as I headed for the stairs.

“By the way,” asked Reuben as I passed by him, “how’s Letta’s dog doing?”

“Oh, Buster’s fine. He’s with Tony and seems pretty happy there.” Javier stopped stirring to look at the two of us, a strange expression on his face. Anger? Hurt? And then I noticed that Reuben was chuckling again. I gave him a questioning look, but he just shrugged and turned back to his strip loin.
Now what was that about?
I wondered as I climbed the steps to the office.

A few minutes later, Reuben came upstairs to look for something in the storage closet across from the office door.

“Hey, Reuben, can you come in here for a sec?” I asked him what was up with Javier.

“Oh, it’s just a joke is all—about the dog.”

“What do you mean, a joke?”

He looked a little abashed. “It’s, well . . . When Letta brought the puppy back from her trip to Baja, she started talking about how she’d adopted it just like she’d done with Javier. And then eventually, it became a sort of joke with her. You know—that Javier and Buster were her two adopted Mexicans.”

“Let me guess. Javier didn’t think it was all that funny.”

“No. It always annoyed him when she said it.” Reuben grinned.

I could well imagine this would not be amusing to a working-class Mexican like Javier, whose culture is less prone to pampering dogs and considering them a part of the family than ours is. So, though Letta likely had thought of the joke as affectionate teasing, he no doubt found it humiliating.

“And you’ve decided to continue this charming tradition now that Letta’s gone?” I pursed my lips in an attempt to show my disapproval.

Reuben looked down at his sauce-spattered shoes. “Yeah. Sorry.”

I waved him impatiently out of the office and continued with my work. I’d just finished going through the invoices and was about to start on the checkbook when Javier popped his head in. “All ready for the big dinner rush?” I asked.

“Not much of a rush tonight. We’ve only got twelve reservations. But Wednesdays are usually pretty slow.”

“Hey, since you’re here, I wanted to ask you something. I was just going over the invoices from Quality Meats, and I was wondering if you knew if they ever carried grass-fed beef.”

“I doubt it. Why? You thinking of switching over? You know, me and Letta talked about it, and she decided it would be way too expensive.”

“Yeah, so you said. But I was thinking: what if we just offered it as an option and still kept the other meat on the menu? You know, like, for an extra five or ten bucks you get the same dish but with free-range meat? It might prove to be pretty popular in a place like Santa Cruz.”

“I dunno.” Javier’s frown suggested he was not convinced. “But I can find out how much it would cost if you want.”

“Sure, go ahead.” He continued to hover in the doorway. “Did you have something to ask me?”

“I just wanted to tell you—I didn’t wanna say anything in front of Reuben—that the police came by a couple hours ago to talk to me again.”

“Oh yeah?” I motioned for him to sit. Checking the seat of his chef’s pants first to make sure they didn’t have any stray gobs of food stuck to them, Javier sat down on the pale-green wing chair across from the desk. “Did they have new questions for you?” I asked.

“It seemed like pretty much the same stuff as before.” He shrugged. “I dunno; maybe they think I was lying last time and hoped I’d say something different if they asked me again.”

“But they didn’t arrest you, so that means they still don’t think they have enough evidence for a charge to stick. That’s good.”
But it’s not good that they came back a second time
, I was thinking.

“Yeah.” Javier had slumped in his chair and was staring at the Gauguin print on the wall. “They did tell me not to leave the area, though.”

I snorted. “The police have no authority to prevent you from going wherever you want, Javier. I may not be a criminal defense attorney, but I do know that. They can only keep you from leaving if you’ve been charged and then release you on your own recognizance.” At his blank look, I added, “You know, let you out until trial without having to post bail.”

“Well, it’s not like I’d go anywhere, anyway. I’ve got my job here, and besides, where would I go?”

Mexico
, was the obvious answer.
And that’s certainly where the cops are afraid you’ll go
. But I kept such thoughts to myself.

Javier shifted in his chair. “Also, I was wondering if you had any news about . . . you know . . .”

“As a matter of fact, I do. You got a minute right now?”

“Yeah. Reuben’s got it under control for the moment.”

I told him about meeting Kate and then what I’d found out about the letter-writing Ted. “So I think it might also be wise to start checking the produce deliveries and stuff like that, just in case he decides to strike again.”

“Great. That’s all I need: something else to worry about. As if I didn’t have enough problems already.” Javier picked up the small, wooden tiki that was sitting on the corner of the desk and rubbed its smooth surface absently with his thumb.

“But the good news is I think I might get the chance to meet this Noah guy in person this weekend. Who knows? Maybe I can get some important information from him.”

“Won’t that be kind of dangerous? If he knows you’re on to him—I mean, you think he might be the murderer, right?”

“Don’t worry, Javier. It’s gonna be in a room full of other people at some fancy-shmancy restaurant in Berkeley. And I’m betting he won’t know that I know about his secret identity. If Kate realized she sent that e-mail to me instead of him, I’m thinking she wouldn’t tell him. What good would it do? It sure doesn’t sound like there’s any love lost between them.” I was trying to convince myself as much as I was Javier. The prospect of meeting an ecoterrorist who had me on his hit list was more than a tad daunting. “Anyway, it’s more likely that she doesn’t even know about her e-mail goof-up. Besides, I’m thinking of taking the big, bad Eric with me. He can fend off any thugs who come my way.”

Javier set the tiki back on the desk with a laugh. The idea of the slender, five-foot-six Eric taking on anyone in a fight was pretty amusing.

“Oh, and another thing I forgot to mention about what I found out from Kate: so she’s at her farm working last
month—fertilizing her carrots or some such thing—and out of the blue, this guy she doesn’t know drives up and starts harassing her—”

“Was it Tony?” Javier blurted out.

“No. At least, I don’t think so.” I looked at him hard. “Why do you ask that?”

“Uh . . . I guess it just sounded like him.”

“How could it ‘sound like him’? I didn’t even say anything about the guy.”

“I dunno; for some reason, it just reminded me of him.” Javier picked the tiki back up and fiddled with it, not meeting my eyes.

I stood up, leaned over the desk, and grabbed the tiki out of his hands. “Dammit, Javier! What the
hell
is wrong with you? Are you really keeping something
else
from me?”

He sighed. “Look, Sally, there is something I haven’t told you . . .”

I was incredulous. “How
could
you? This is your
life
we’re talking about. Do you really want to go to prison for murder?”

“No! It’s just that, well . . .”

I sat back down and shot him the gravest look I could muster. “
Dígame
, Javier.”

Another sigh, even bigger. “
Bueno
. So the truth is, about a month ago, I was at Dixon’s on my night off, when Tony comes in with this other guy. I’d been there awhile and had already had a few beers. The two of them sat at the other end of the bar from me, but Tony kept giving me these looks. I tried to ignore him and had a couple more beers, and well . . . I guess I was kind of drunk, you know?”

I nodded. “Got it.”

“So on my way to the bathroom, as I’m passing by where he’s sitting, I lean over and say something like, ‘You know, you may think you’re so special for Letta . . .’”

To Letta
, I corrected him silently in my head.

“‘But I happen to know she’s got a girl on the side.’ Or something like that.”

At my open-mouthed look, Javier added, “I just wanted to piss him off, okay?”

“I can imagine that did the job.”

“Yeah, it did. He turned around in his chair and hit me. Hard. Right in the face. Gave me a bloody nose.” Javier’s right hand went to his nose, and he touched it gingerly. “It still kinda hurts sometimes.”

Realization hit me, like one of those light bulbs that appears over a character’s head in a comic book. “That’s why you had that pushing match at Letta’s repast. I get it now. And why you two were acting so weird at the wake. I
knew
that lame excuse you gave me before couldn’t be right. Why the hell didn’t you tell me this the first time I asked about you and Tony?”

“I was too ashamed.” Javier hung his head like a scolded spaniel. “I still can’t believe I betrayed Letta that way, by saying that to Tony.”

That word “betrayal” again. This was the second time in two days it had come up. I couldn’t think of a time when I’d heard it used before—in real life, that is, as opposed to a TV drama or a lurid romance novel. But then again, this case seemed to be turning into something like that, what with the love triangle between Letta, Tony, and Kate. No, make that a rectangle, because you had to add Javier to the equation as
well. It was obvious that his jealousy was a major reason for his decision to taunt Tony that night at the bar, even if he wasn’t willing to admit it. And then there was that creepy Ted character, not to mention the mystery men in the photo and in the muscle car. Quite the collection.

“An’ so I was just worried that the guy you talked about,” Javier continued, “the one who came to Kate’s farm, that he mighta been Tony.”

“I don’t think so—not from the way she described him.”

“Good.” Javier’s face relaxed. “I’d feel even worse if I’d caused that kind of thing to happen. So you have any idea who it was? You think it might be someone related to Letta’s murder?”

I shrugged. “All I know about the guy, other than he drove some kind of macho car and acted like a total jerk, is that he’s got a Giants tattoo on his arm. You know of anyone with a tattoo like that?”

Javier looked pensive for a moment and then shook his head. “I don’t, actually. Which is kinda weird when you think about it. I mean, the Giants are so popular around here, you’d think lots of people would have that as a tattoo.” He stood up. “Look, I gotta get back downstairs. But you’ll let me know if you find out anything else, right?”

“I will if you will,” I answered, giving him a stern look. “There aren’t any more secrets you’re keeping from me, are there?”

“No, no more.” He made the sign of the cross over his chest. “I swear.”

Javier went out the door, and I could hear his quick, light steps descending the staircase. Turning to look out the
window, I gazed down at the petals scattered over the grass next door like pink-and-white confetti and contemplated what I’d just learned. It didn’t
seem
from what Kate had said that it could have been Tony who had driven up to her farm that day, but Javier’s bombshell was making me rethink that assumption. The timing was what made me nervous: the mystery man’s visit had apparently occurred just a week or so after Javier’s drunken blabbering to Tony.

I needed a definitive answer to the question, or I could tell it was going to drive me crazy. If nothing else, I needed confirmation that it
wasn’t
Tony so that I could move on to the other people on my list.