Dying for a Taste (22 page)

Waking up at eight
AM
is not a pleasant experience when you didn’t go to sleep until almost two the night before. I’d actually gotten home at around midnight but was too wired from the night’s work to go straight to bed. Although cooking in a high-end restaurant can be crazy exhausting, it can also be a total rush. That feeling of synergy, when the whole kitchen is in perfect sync, like a finely calibrated machine, everyone at their different stations, elbows practically bumping in the cramped quarters.

And when the night is done—the last order sent out to the dining room, the perishables wrapped up and stowed away in the walk-in fridge, the pots washed and the rangetop wiped clean—you’re left with a big-time buzz, as if shot up with some kind of strong stimulant.

So it takes a while to unwind. Alcohol helps and is commonly consumed by restaurant workers after hours. After closing that night at Gauguin, I hung out with the staff, drinking beer and shots of tequila till about eleven thirty.
But when I got home, I was still too hyped to go to bed, so I channel-surfed for an hour and a half and had another beer.

This lifestyle is all well and fine if you’re young and if you don’t have to show up for your next shift until four the next afternoon. But I am no longer in my twenties and was supposed to be at Solari’s at ten thirty.

Groggy and slightly hungover (I should have skipped at least that last beer), I decided to stop by the jail before heading to work. I doubted Javier would be sleeping in, even if they let the inmates do that, and I figured he’d be thankful for the visit.

He looked a little better than the day before. The shock of yesterday’s arrest and incarceration seemed to have been replaced by resignation. But I could tell he was depressed. Who wouldn’t be?

“Well, Reuben did a good job as sous-chef,” I said, trying to sound cheerful as he shuffled into the interview room once again in his soft plastic slippers. Were they purposely made backless in order to discourage thoughts of fleeing?

Javier nodded. He didn’t seem too interested in the restaurant this morning, so I changed the subject. “How was it here last night?”

He shrugged. “My cellmate snores.”

“That’s no fun. I don’t think I’m allowed to bring you anything like earplugs, but you could try wadding up some toilet paper.”

“Yeah.” He shifted in his chair. “What I’d really love is a cigarette, but there’s no smoking in the jail.”

“Any news on when you’ll get arraigned?”

“Tomorrow morning, they said. Probably.”

I wasn’t sure why he was acting so different from yesterday, why he was so taciturn. Maybe it had just taken a day for it all to really sink in. That and shame, perhaps. The fact that he didn’t want anyone to know he was here suggested deep embarrassment about his plight. I guess I couldn’t blame him. I tried to keep the conversation going for a while longer, but after about ten minutes of me talking and Javier giving one-syllable responses, I gave up.

“Look, I gotta get to work. But I’ll try to make it to your arraignment tomorrow.” I stood up and pushed the call button.

“Hey, Sally, can you do me a favor?”

“Yeah, sure. Of course.”

“I forgot about it yesterday when I saw you, but I’m supposed to be feeding my next-door neighbor’s cat while she’s gone. She gets back tomorrow, but since the cat didn’t get any food yesterday, it’s probably pretty hungry.”

I smiled. Depressed as he was about his own plight, Javier was still concerned about a neighbor’s cat. “I can feed it. No problem.”

He told me where his apartment was and that a bin of dry food was sitting right outside his neighbor’s door. A pair of sheriffs came in and waited until he’d finished. Then one took Javier away and the other escorted me back out to the lobby.

***

I pulled up in front of Solari’s and stripped off my wool blazer as soon as I got out of the car. These hot flashes were becoming truly annoying. As I tossed the jacket onto the back seat, I saw sitting there the letter and surveyor’s
report my dad had given me the other night. What with the chaos of yesterday, I’d forgotten all about them. Better take a look now, before he asked if I’d read them yet. I grabbed the papers and, after securing a much-needed cup of coffee, got myself settled in the office and pulled out the letter from Wanda’s attorney:

Blah, blah, blah. Typical overblown legalese. I was about to turn to the copy of the surveyor’s report, but then my eye was caught by the word “toxic” in the letter. I read this paragraph:

I hadn’t paid any attention to this when I’d first skimmed the letter at my dad’s house, but now that the toxicology report on Letta had come back, it had a whole new resonance. That drug they found in her blood—what if it also came from a plant in someone’s garden?

I grabbed my bag and pulled out the toxicology report I’d stuffed inside the day before. Unfolding the paper and smoothing it out, I scanned the page for the name of the toxin. There it was: gelsemine. I turned to the office computer and pulled the drug up again on the net.

Yep, I was right. The alkaloid was derived from
Gelsemium sempervirens.
Common name, “yellow jasmine.” How could I have missed that before? I typed “yellow jasmine” into the browser search box and learned that it was a climbing vine with prolific, bright-yellow flowers and dark-green leaves. It bloomed in early spring. That would be now.

But did it grow in this area? Perusing several articles noting that yellow jasmine thrives in “temperate to tropical climes,” I finally found one saying that it did fine in coastal California as long as it got good sun and received plenty of moisture. I took a good look at pictures of the plant on various websites in the hope that I’d be able to recognize it if I saw one.

A soft knock at the partly opened door startled me. “Sally, could I talk to you for a minute?” Giulia stuck her head into the office.

“Yeah, sure,” I said and forced myself to pay attention as she explained about a scheduling conflict the following week.

Once the Solari’s lunch crowd had finally thinned out, I headed over to Gauguin. Reuben had found us a new cook, which thankfully relieved me of further responsibility, but I
needed to make sure he’d actually shown up and that all was going smoothly.

The new guy turned out to be a gal, Kris. She was already in the kitchen when I got there, being shown around by Reuben. They’d cooked together at another place some years back, and he was confident she’d fit in well with the Gauguin crew. My regard for Reuben bumped up a notch.

I left them to it and went upstairs to the office. I’d spaced out organizing the bills and invoices for Shanti the day before, and she’d be coming by for them in a few hours. Sitting down at the desk, I was about to open the receipts file Javier had left out for me when my eye was caught by a letter sitting at the top of today’s mail pile on the desk.

It was a plain, white envelope with my name and “c/o Gauguin” typed on the front. There was no return address, but it did have a San Francisco postmark. I got a tingling sensation on my skin. Sure enough, inside was a sheet of paper with printed text that looked disturbingly familiar:

I set the letter down and got up to yank open the window. A feeling of claustrophobia had overtaken me. My forehead was hot, and I was starting to sweat. It could have been a hot flash, and the lingering hangover also no doubt didn’t help. But I knew those weren’t the real causes.

That look in Ted’s eyes as he’d raged at the
charcuterie
woman after dinner had come back to me, reading the last sentence of his letter. And now I was on his list.

I picked up the phone and called Eric.

“I’m scared,” I said.

***

Eric advised me to take the letter straight down to the police station and talk with Detective Vargas. He became even more adamant after I told him about the blue car. “I may have my issues with the guy, but you should let the cops do their job. That’s what they’re there for.”

“You sound like my dad,” I said. But I knew he was right.

I couldn’t leave Gauguin, however, until I’d organized the bills for Shanti. And then once that was finished, I remembered the cat.
Better stop and feed the poor, starving thing on my way over to the police station.

Javier’s apartment was downtown, a couple blocks from Neary Lagoon. I found a spot in his parking garage and
climbed the stairs to the second floor. Following the walkway around the side of the building, I located his number. Sure enough, outside the next door down were two bowls and a Tupperware container of cat food. At the sound of the tub being opened, a large gray-and-white tabby came trotting down the walkway and brushed up against my legs. It started to eat as soon as I poured out the kibble.

Seeing that the water was also low, I picked up the other bowl and went in search of a hose or outdoor spigot. I finally found a faucet at the back of the building next to the garage. As I crouched down to fill the bowl, I noticed some yellow flowers scattered over the cement and looked up. There, climbing all the way up to the third story, was a magnificent vine covered in blooms.

I wasn’t positive, but it sure looked like a yellow jasmine. Shaking my head in defeat, I picked a couple flowers and a sprig of leaves and tucked them into my jacket pocket.

It can’t be. Please, no
.

Water bowl in hand, I headed back upstairs, trying to decide what to do with this new evidence. Should I tell Detective Vargas about the flowers? On the one hand, it seemed wrong to volunteer information that could harm Javier when I had no proof at this point that it was even pertinent. For all I knew, the plant could be totally unrelated to yellow jasmine. And how could I even be completely sure that yellow jasmine was what had been given to Letta in any case?

But on the other hand, as a member of the bar, I knew I was considered to be “an officer of the court,” which mandated the legal and ethical obligation to come forward with
any possibly relevant evidence. Too bad I’d had to go active again, or I wouldn’t be facing this moral dilemma.

The gunning of a car engine interrupted my musing, and I nearly spilled water all down my front. Turning at the sound, I was just in time to catch a flash of blue as a car entered the parking garage.

Was that the muscle car?

I set the bowl down and took several deep breaths, unsure whether this was paranoia or whether my ramped-up heartbeat was a rational response to the situation. I stood there on the walkway for a couple minutes, hoping that whoever was in the car would simply emerge from the garage and go into their apartment.

No such luck.
Damn
.

Removing Letta’s can of pepper spray from my bag, I transferred it to my right jacket pocket and made my way back down the stairs.

At the door to the parking garage, I stopped and listened. All was quiet. I let my eyes get used to the dark and then scanned the place, searching for the metallic-blue muscle car. At this hour, when most folks were probably still at work, there were only a few cars in the building, and the only blue one I could see was a dinged-up Toyota Corolla—definitely not the muscle car that had followed me before.

I exhaled and released the grip I’d had on the can of pepper spray. The T-Bird was against the far wall, and as I crossed toward it, I could feel my shoulders begin to relax. After stopping by the police station, I was going to go home and pour myself a hefty Jim Beam on the rocks.

Once at the driver’s side door, I set my bag on the hood and searched for my car keys. I rummaged around, cursing the propensity of keys to always sink to the very bottom of whatever clutter one might possess. And then a hand clapped over my mouth.

A second one immediately grabbed me around the waist.

I tried to yell, but the sound was muffled by the large hand pressing down more firmly.

“Don’t struggle if you don’t want to be hurt,” a low male voice said.

I stood still. I’m tall for a woman and no weakling. But I could tell from the way he was bending over me that this guy was way bigger than me.

“I’ve been watching you,” he went on, “and I’m gonna keep on watching.”

So he must be the mystery man in the blue muscle car. But if so, where was the car? Why hadn’t I seen it?

But mostly I was thinking,
Please let someone come into the garage—right now!

“I seen you poking your nose where it don’t belong, and I don’t like it one bit.” The man’s voice was raspy, like he had phlegm in his throat that needed clearing. “But all you gotta do is lay off, and everything will be fine.”