Dying for a Taste (6 page)

“Dad, it’s not like that at all. I didn’t ask for Gauguin, and I have no idea what I’m going to do with it now that I have it. Why are you being so unfair?” The tears were starting to come, and I just wanted my father to hug me tight and tell me it was all going to be okay.

But instead, he simply wiped the cup dry, replaced it in the cupboard, and then started for the back door. “I gotta finish pruning that rose before work,” he said. “I’ll see you there in a little while.”

Why was everyone in my life so damned stubborn?

Eyes still damp, I retrieved my bike from the backyard—Dad studiously avoiding my look—and pedaled off. When I got to the ocean a few blocks away, I headed north on West Cliff Drive, a winding road that hugs the rocky coastline.

I rode for about a mile and then stopped, inhaled deeply, and gazed out across the bay. From the cliffs to the horizon, the sea displayed multiple hues in the bright sunlight: A foamy white where the waves crashed on the rocks, turning gray where the sand was churned about in the shallows. Farther out, a vibrant turquoise as the ocean floor dropped off, then aquamarine to indigo, made darker where patches of kelp floated near the surface. And then, finally, where the water stretched out to meet the sky, a deep steel blue—almost black—broken only by the numerous whitecaps glinting in the sun as they were caught up by the wind.

The tension began to drain from my shoulders and neck. Yes, this had been a very good idea. Precisely what I needed right now.

Looking north toward Natural Bridges, I could see surfers taking advantage of the breeze that was picking up and starting to bring in swells. I squinted to try to see if one of them might be Eric. I knew he liked this spot, but the black, wet-suited figures in the water all looked alike from this distance.

With a smile, I got back on my bike and pedaled off, a sort of exuberance overtaking me. It’s almost too much, this panorama. No matter how many times I come out here, it always affects me; the beauty of the coastline is simply astounding.

But then, seeing a fishing boat heading back toward the harbor, my thoughts slipped back to my dad and the conversation we’d just had, and the smile faded as quickly as it had come. I knew his anger came from hurt, but why couldn’t he see someone else’s point of view for once in his life?

And then I passed the place along the cliffs where Eric and I used to come at sunset to watch as fiery pinks and oranges lit up the sky, bundled up against the chill and armed with cocktails decanted into water bottles. I started thinking about how I missed that: having someone to watch a sunset with.

As I pumped up the coast, I felt the transformation in my body. Where just a moment before I had been in high spirits, euphoric almost, I was now back to where I’d been when I’d left my dad’s house, tears once again forming.

Damn these hormones and the violent mood swings they cause
.

Not that I didn’t have good reason to be down, of course. Letta had also loved this place. Never again would she get to gaze in wonder at the brown pelicans soaring up the coast in bomber formation, or hear the sea lions’ hoarse barking as they lazed on the rocks offshore, or watch the packs of dogs
chasing each other and romping in the surf down at Mitchell’s Cove.

Making a snap decision, I made a U-turn and headed back the way I had just come. The attempt to clear my brain obviously wasn’t working, so I figured I might as well do something productive—like checking out Letta’s office. Maybe there was something there that could shed light on why the hell she was murdered. And it was a good time to poke around Gauguin. The prep cooks wouldn’t show up until midafternoon, so I’d have the place all to myself. Fortunately, I’d gotten a key to the restaurant from Javier the night before and had put it on my key chain.

I wheeled my bicycle around the side of the building and unlocked the door I had been trying to peer through just three mornings before. Leaning the frame against the
garde manger
sink, I closed and locked the door behind me; removed my sunglasses, helmet, gloves, and cycling shoes; and set them down on the floor in a heap.

I looked around. Although it had felt fine being in the crowded dining room the night before, it was unsettling standing alone in this room, where it had happened. There was the counter where her purse and the teapot and cups had been sitting. And
there
, on the floor, was where she had been found, Javier’s bloody knife beside her.

Shaking off the wave of nausea that was starting to overtake me—I really should’ve had some preride breakfast—I padded in my wool socks up the stairs behind the reach-in refrigerator and around the corner into Letta’s office.

This had been her sanctuary: her escape from irate customers who’d neglected to make a reservation, from broken
hollandaises and shorted meat deliveries, from back-of-the-house squabbles. The wood-paneled room was dominated by a large oak desk. On it sat a lamp made from what looked like a ceramic Chinese vase, a red Bakelite telephone, an old-fashioned adding machine, a small carved-wood tiki, and four neat stacks of papers.

The police must have already been through all this, I figured. No way would Aunt Letta have had the papers so organized, in such precise piles. Tidiness had never been one of her virtues.

I sat down in the chair, a sturdy oak piece to match the desk, and flipped through the pile closest to me: invoices and bills. The next one consisted mostly of files of employee time sheets. Another was tax returns.

Ugh. I was going to have to start dealing with all this pretty damn soon. Or get someone to do it for me. Letta must have had an accountant or bookkeeper who could help me get up to speed and maybe even take over a lot of the paperwork, at least for a while.

But I wasn’t going to think about that right now. I picked up the last stack: a few food-related articles and a bunch of trade magazines.

Next I pulled open the desk drawers and rummaged around. Two were empty; the paperwork on top of the desk must have come from those. Another was full of office supplies: pens and pencils, yellow stickies, paper clips, Wite-Out, tape, and a stapler. The last was equally disappointing: Gauguin stationary and envelopes, unused manila folders, and accordion files.
Damn
. I slammed the drawer shut.

What about her computer? That might have something on it.
I knew she had a laptop that she brought from home to the restaurant when she was here, but it wasn’t in the office.

Duh! Of course the cops would have taken anything of interest away—especially a computer. And her cell phone, too.

I got up from the chair and went to the window. You could see down into the neighbor’s backyard, which was full of fruit trees with white and pale-pink flowers, a shaggy lawn, and an unkempt flower garden in full bloom. Aunt Letta must have enjoyed this view.

I’d been in her office on numerous occasions but had never paid a lot of attention to its contents. I leaned over to examine a photo that hung next to the window and was surprised to see that it was of our family, taken at Salvatore’s ninetieth birthday party shortly before he died. There was my grandfather in a silly paper hat, his arm around Giovanna, with my mom and dad and me on one side and Aunt Letta, in loose batik pants and a silky blouse, on the other. It was taken in Nonno and Nonna’s backyard; you could see their espaliered pear tree hugging the brick wall in the background.

Tucked into the corner of the frame was a small snapshot of Letta and Tony that looked like it had been taken at a park up in the redwoods. They were sitting at a picnic table spread with a red-and-white tablecloth and covered with food: a wedge of cheese, a round loaf of bread, some red grapes, and a few oranges. Someone else’s arm protruded into the picture, partially obscuring Letta’s lower body.

I moved on to the next picture on the wall: a print of a Gauguin painting of two women in skirts—but nothing else—one holding a slice of watermelon, the other a sprig of
pink flowers. I’m generally not much of a fan of what I believe is called “primitive” art, but I have to say I quite like that painting: a sort of mix of Polynesian, Impressionist, and old-school “classical” styles.

The only other thing in the room was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. I stopped before it and gazed at the titles, a good 90 percent of which appeared to be about cooking. There were food essayists, such as Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin and Ruth Reichl, and biographies of people like Julia Child and Auguste Escoffier. And lots of cookbooks. I bent over to read some of the titles: Sam Choy’s
Polynesian Kitchen
, Alice Waters’s
Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook
, Madhur Jaffrey’s
Indian Cookery
, Jacques Pépin’s
La Methode
, Ruth Kallenbach’s
Cooking at Escarole
.

I pulled this last one out. I’d never been to Escarole, the San Francisco restaurant started by the now-famous Ruth Kallenbach after she left Chez Panisse. But I’d always wanted to try it, especially since I knew she’d taken Letta with her to become sous-chef for the new restaurant. Eric and I had long talked about going up to the City to see an opera and eating at Escarole beforehand, even though Letta had long since left the place, but we had never managed to do so.

As I opened the book to flip through the recipes, two envelopes and a small photograph slipped out and fell to the floor. I stooped to pick them up.

The photo was of a woman with short, blond hair, who looked to be in her thirties. She was standing in front of a two-story wood-shingled house, wearing jeans and a green-and-white button-down shirt, and laughing at whoever held the camera, her eyes squinting into the sun. It was an old
photo—from the 1970s or 1980s, I guessed from the faded colors and the pinkish tint. I set it aside and picked up the envelopes.

Both were addressed to Letta, care of Gauguin. Neither had a return address, but the postmarks, which were dated November of last year and March of this one, said San Francisco. Sitting back down, I slid the paper out of the earlier dated of the two, unfolded the sheet, and smoothed it out on the desk. It was a short, printed letter written by someone overly fond of boldface, italics, and exclamation marks:

There was no signature.

Wow.
I set the paper down and exhaled. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t condone either cruelty to animals or the overfishing of our oceans. I buy free-range eggs when I can, and it’s been years since I’ve ordered Chilean sea bass at a restaurant. But whoever wrote this letter seemed to be pretty, well . . .
fanatical
. And that last sentence sure was disturbing—all the more so given the letter’s anonymity.

I read it again. Of course I knew what factory-farmed chicken was: those big sheds with thousands of birds all crammed together. But what the hell did “CAFO” stand for?

I reached for the second envelope and found another letter inside in the same style:

Oh my God
. Could this be the reason she was murdered? I’d heard that some of those animal rights people could be pretty nuts. But would they really go so far as to actually kill someone?

I set the letter down and pulled my phone out of the back pocket of my cycling jersey. I had to find out if Letta had said anything to Javier about getting these letters.

After four rings, I figured I was going have to leave a message, but then he answered, in a groggy, sleepy voice.

“Mmmm . . . hullo?”

Oh, shit
. What time was it, anyway? Eight thirty? Nine? Of course he would still be asleep; I knew enough about chefs’ hours to know that.

“Uh, hi, Javier. It’s me, Sally. Sorry to call so early . . .”

“It’s okay. I had to get up anyway to answer the phone.” His laugh turned into a cough—that early morning smoker’s hack so common in restaurant workers—and then he cleared his throat. “So what’s up?”

“I’m down here at Gauguin, going through some of Letta’s things, and . . . well . . . I found something weird. I was wondering, did she ever mention to you anything about receiving anonymous threatening letters?”

“No, she never told me anything about that. Why? Did you find some?”

“Yeah. And they’re kinda creepy.”

“So, uh, what exactly were they threatening her about?”

“Food.”

“Food?” Javier sounded incredulous—and surprised, too, as if he been expecting a different answer.

“Yeah, food. Whoever wrote the letters wanted Letta to stop serving factory-farmed meat, endangered fish, you know, stuff like that.”

“Oh,
those
people. Huh.” Javier lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then coughed again. “You know,” he said, “we did talk about putting some of that—what’s the word?—grass-fed meat on the menu a while back after some customers had complained to her about it a couple times. I guess one of them was a real jerk. But when she found out how much it cost, she decided not to do it. Our entrées are already pretty expensive,
even with the regular meat, and it woulda pretty much doubled the price.”

“You remember when that happened? How long ago?”

He took another puff. “Sometime last fall, maybe? It’s been awhile.”

Right around the time of that first letter
. “Did you get a look at any of the people that complained?”

“Nuh-uh. But Letta told me about it afterward.”