Fudging the Books (22 page)

“You did.” I explained my theory. He stole the pot of doubloons and concealed the pot under the stage at The Pier, then acted as if he’d discovered its whereabouts to reap the reward.

“The sneak,” the mayor said.

“Indeed.” I grinned.

The mayor shook her head. “The poor child needs therapy, I’m afraid. Moments ago I received a phone call from his mother.”

Cinnamon looked intrigued.

“You know Wanda is one of my dear friends,” Z.Z. went on. “We go way back. I fronted her the money for her restaurant. Our families’ lineages are intertwined.”

“Do you both have pirates in your history?” Cinnamon teased.

“Not pirates. Men of the sea.”

“Uh-huh.” Cinnamon winked at me.

Usually I liked to hear the history of the people in Crystal Cove, but right now I was too eager to know what the mayor had to say about the Foodies. “Why did Wanda call you?”

“She and Neil went to meet with Alison’s attorney,” Z.Z. said. “They heard the reading of the will, and an hour later—get this—Neil took off in his mother’s car, without his mother. He left her stranded on the sidewalk. Can you believe it?” The mayor shook her head. “Needless to say, Wanda is distraught.”

“He stole her car?” I eyed Cinnamon. “He killed Alison to inherit her estate, and now that the will spells it out, he knows he’ll be your number one suspect. He’s on the run.”

“Heavens!” Z.Z. yelped. “You think Neil killed his sister? No, no. It’s not possible. Didn’t you just finish telling us he was out and about moving the doubloons from location to location, and he was posting photos on all those blogs? That little prankster had to be way too busy to kill somebody.”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “Don’t you understand how easy it is to keep current on the Internet thanks to handheld devices? Neil would have had plenty of time, after work and in between capers, to kill her. Cinnamon, you’ve got to put out an APB.”

C
INNAMON BELIEVED MY
argument had merit and left the café in a hurry. The mayor accompanied her. I stayed at the café to run the book club meeting. Naturally, the remaining club members plied me with questions, only a few of which I could answer without compromising the investigation.

Bailey put an end to the questions by raising a glass in a toast. “To Alison Foodie. May she rest in peace.”

We observed a quiet minute, and then we moved ahead with our meeting, sharing titles of cookbooks we had recently discovered and citing recipes in each that were truly remarkable. All of the club members enjoyed browsing the cookbooks I had brought as well as tasting Katie’s sensations. For dessert, Katie had made a scrumptious Irish Cream pie using Oreo cookies as the base, and she had concocted a Kahlúa dessert drink that was truly decadent. I wanted to lick the bottom of the glass. After selling nearly the entire stock of cookbooks, we adjourned the meeting.

Katie nabbed me before I could return to The Cookbook Nook to fetch Tigger. She was perspiring from her hard work in the kitchen, but she looked elated.

“Major success,” I said. “Everyone wants you to print out the recipes you used.”

“Will do.” She removed her toque and fluffed her curly hair. “Got time for a drink upstairs?”

I wasn’t sure I could fit another sip of anything into my stomach, but I could see she needed to talk. Her forehead was pinched; her eyes, pained. I hoped her mother hadn’t taken a turn for the worse. I said to Bailey, “Do you want to join us?”

“I can’t.”

“Hot date?”

She smirked. “What do you think?”

All pirate decorations at Vines Wine Bistro were gone. The place looked normal and intimate again. The pert waitress with the cascading hair—no ponytail tonight—showed us to our table and provided menus. While perusing the special wine selections, I noticed Simon standing at the far end of the bar with his wife, Gloria. She looked pale. Was she ill? Simon was clutching her elbow and stroking her hair. He said something, and she smiled lovingly at him. Apparently she had forgiven him. Had there truly been a moment when he wasn’t in love with her? I thought about calling Coco to see if she was still in a funk. I considered asking her to join us to buoy her spirits, but that would be cruel. There was no need for her to watch Simon doting on his wife. Gloria pecked Simon on the cheek and slogged toward the ladies’ room. Simon retreated into the kitchen.

At the same time, to my surprise, Neil Foodie exited the kitchen, in waiter uniform, carrying a tray set with hors d’oeuvres and a carafe of nuts.

“Ready to order?” our waitress asked.

“I thought Neil quit,” I said. In truth, I thought he had fled town.

“Yeah, about that.” The waitress smirked. “He slinked in an hour ago and begged the boss to rehire him. Simon is such a softie.
Forgive and forget
seems to be the message of the day.”

Where had Neil gone? Would he have returned if he were guilty of murder?

“So, what’ll it be?” the waitress asked. We gave her our orders. She set out cocktail napkins and strolled away.

I watched Neil as he delivered the treats to a table where an intense-looking couple was talking nose to nose.

Anxious to find out whether Cinnamon had caught up to him before now, I excused myself from the table and met him halfway to the bar. “Neil.”

He spun to greet me. His smile turned into a frown when he realized it was little old
me
and not a customer from one of his tables. “Yeah?”

A fine welcome. I said, “Did you talk to the police?”

“No.” His eyes grew wary. “Why?”

“You drove off in your mother’s car and left her on the sidewalk.”

“I needed time to think.”

“I thought you quit here and got another job.”

“I’m not going to take it. The pay is better at Vines, and like I said, I’ve got debts. I need the extra bucks.” Neil moved the tray he was holding to his left hand and glanced over his shoulder. “Look, I’ve gotta get back to work before the boss reconsiders his decision.”

“Wait,” I said. Simon wasn’t paying attention to us. Gloria hadn’t returned from the restroom. “Didn’t you get the finder’s fee for returning the pot of doubloons?”

“How’d you know about that?”

“Your colleague over there”—I thumbed at our waitress—“said you came into a couple of thousand dollars. I did the math.”

“Yeah, well, I couldn’t keep it.”

“Couldn’t because you were the one who stole the pot?”

“I—” He sucked his lower lip. “I should’ve guessed you’d figure it out. Lucky you. You get two free tickets.”

“To?”

“My next stand-up gig.” Neil winked. “Okay, let’s just say, I borrowed the pot.”

“For your
fresh
comedy material.”

He snickered. “It was funny. I’ll slay ’em with the stories the next time I get a gig.”

“How about all those photographs?” I said, baiting him.

“Heh-heh. Yeah. I got a boatload of those.”

“How did you manage to do it and work at Vines that night?” I asked. “Did you take the doubloons and snap off a few photographs at different locations before your shift, and then load them while you were here?”

“You’re pretty clever.”

“So are you.” I had no compunctions about falsely appealing to the guy’s ego as I led him down a path to a confession.

Neil shifted feet. “Yeah, the hardest part was going house to house.”

“Or firehouse, in one instance.”

“Yeah, without anyone catching me. By the time four
A.M.
rolled around, I was sweating like a pig.” Neil stiffened. His doughy face went still.

“Neil?” I waved a hand in front of his face.

He blinked and roused and took a quick peek around the bistro. He zeroed in on Simon, who wasn’t looking our way. In a cold, almost ghostly voice, Neil said, “I’ve got customers to attend to.”

“One more thing. This is important, Neil.” I tapped his forearm. “Your mother is worried.”

“Why?”

“When you took her car, she thought you might be on the run.” It was a small lie.

“On the run because . . .” His eyes widened. “Aw, cripes. She thinks I killed my sister? Do you? Dang. Nah. No way. I went back and forth all night, from the photo shoots to home, to check on my mother. She didn’t wake up, so she doesn’t have a clue.”

“Why did you need to check on her? Was she sick?”

“No, she’s—”

“Getting on in years.”

“That’s not it, either. She’s . . .” Neil worked his tongue inside his mouth. “Heck, it’s not a crime. My mother has narcolepsy. She falls asleep pretty much at the drop of a pin. It’s why she quit the restaurant business. It’s why I can’t take the computer job.”

“Do you have narcolepsy, too? Do you zone out, like you did a second ago?”

“Nah. I can’t do the day job because I need to be with Mom during the daylight hours. At night, like now, once she’s out, she’s
out
. That’s how she was the night Alison died.
Out
. Shoot.” He scuffed his shoe on the floor and looked a third time at Simon. “Man, I need to talk to my mom, but I can’t ask to go home right now. I just got here.” Neil drummed the empty tray with his palm. “I need this job.”

A patron passed by us to use the facilities. After he disappeared into the restroom, I said to Neil, “What about Alison’s estate? That should bring you an income. Why do you need to work here?”

Neil snorted. “What estate? It turns out Alison poured every penny into her company. She was flat broke, like I thought.”

“The business has got to be worth something.”

“In name only. It’s buried in debt.”

That didn’t correspond with what Wanda had told us. “Your mother said the attorney has buyers lined up.”

“Buyer. One. Lake Enterprises.”

“As in Ingrid Lake?”

He nodded.

My skin tingled pins and needles. Did Ingrid murder Alison so she could descend upon Alison’s unassuming family and purchase the publishing company for a song?

Neil added, “Don’t worry. I’m not selling to her. She doesn’t have an ounce of creativity in her little finger.”

“Why do you care?”

“Foodie Publishing was my sister’s baby. Her company shouldn’t be run further into the ground by some tight-teethed know-nothing.”

He spoke with such vehemence, and yet something about his passion seemed off. I would bet he was an adequate comedian. Was he a decent actor, too? He seemed intent on convincing me of his loyalty to family. Was it possible he murdered his sister to set the sale of her company in motion?

“I’ve got to call a friend to check in on Mom.” Neil
tucked the serving tray under his arm and fetched his cell phone from his pocket.

Seeing him with his phone zinged me back to my conversation with Cinnamon earlier. “Neil, the night Alison died, she was texting someone. Was that you?”

“Nah. I never text.”

“Sure you do. I saw you texting that night. Here, at Vines.”

“Uh-uh, I don’t text.”

“Over there.” I pointed. “You were lingering by the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the wall and punching the buttons of your telephone.”

He grinned, but there was no warmth in his gaze. “Man, you are observant, but nah, I wasn’t texting. I write down jokes on a cyber notepad as they come to me. Here.” He opened an application on his phone and thrust it at me. “Check, if you don’t believe me.”

I glanced at the screen. Jokes appeared on the notepad app—ordinary jokes, nothing with pizzazz. The date and time on the note synched with what he was saying. I clicked on his text message app. There was nothing there. Not even one text.

“Hand back the phone now,” he said.

Another thought occurred to me. Boldly, I moved away from him while hitting the telephone icon.

“Hey.” Neil followed me and batted my arm. “Give it back.”

I spun around. His face was a fit of rage. What did he intend to do? Wrestle me for it? What was he hiding? I pressed on the Recently Called list.

“Don’t,” he hissed. “Stop.”

I saw a record of phone calls with only two numbers dialed repeatedly, each of which had a designation: his mother and Vines. I suspected the killer had erased all communication from Alison’s phone. Wouldn’t Neil have been diligent enough to do so on his own phone? Was he innocent after all? If so, why was he so adamant that I relinquish the phone?

“Please,” he pleaded. “If the boss sees me with my cell phone out, I’m toast.”

“You’re lying. You just said you pulled out your phone to call a friend to check on your mom.”

“I was going to make one call. Back there. Out of sight. C’mon, hand it back.”

I did.

Neil stuffed the phone into his pocket and said, “Keep your distance from me from now on, okay?”

“You need to talk to the police.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He shuffled away.

When I returned to the table, Katie was sipping a glass of wine. Half of it was already consumed. She had ordered me a glass of the same. I took a sip and sighed. It was a cool and crisp Riesling, perfect after a heavy meal.

“Is everything okay?” Katie asked.

“I thought Neil might have killed Alison, but now, I don’t think so. He isn’t smart enough. Whoever killed her was savvy.” I swirled the wine. Thin streams of the gold liquid trickled down the insides of the goblet. I took another sip and thought about Ingrid Lake. She wanted to purchase Foodie Publishing. Was that enough motive for murder?

“Hello,” Katie said. “Where did you go? La-la land?”

I flicked the air with my fingertips. “I’m here. I won’t dwell on it anymore. Did you eat?”

“I tasted everything that went out of the café kitchen earlier. That’s plenty of food for me.” Katie ran a finger down the stem of her glass. “Besides, I’m not very hungry, with my mother . . .” She bobbed her head. “You know. I’m sort of wondering how much longer she can go on like this. I’ve studied the statistics. She’s in the four percent of people under age sixty-five who have Alzheimer’s. Most can live a long life, but does she want to?”

“What is the alternative?”

Katie leaned forward on both elbows. “It’s draining.”

“I wish your dad would help.”

“Me, too.” Katie offered a rueful smile. “I remember learning to cook at my mother’s side. She was marvelous. Did I tell you? She could whip up stuff in a blink of an eye. Add a little this, remove a tad of that.”

“My mother did the same.” Which was one of the reasons I had never learned to cook until now. Why try when there was a great chef at the helm?

Katie polished off her wine and signaled the waitress to bring her another. “What do you think about Bailey and Tito?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Do you think they make a good match?”

“It’s early yet, and for Bailey, that means it’ll probably end soon.”

“Wow. Aren’t you the cynic.”

“She’ll find a reason to end it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because she’s nervous about
forever
. I think it has to do with the fact that her mom and dad got divorced.”

“It’s better to get divorced than live a lie, like my parents.” Katie sighed. “Besides, Bailey’s mother is completely in love with your father. That’s got to show her there’s an ideal to strive for.”