Getting Rich (A Chef Landry Mystery) (15 page)

I swallowed hard. “You said
her?
You mean it’s a woman?”

The inspector nodded. “Any idea who she might be?”

My breath was coming in short little gasps. “My girlfriend...partner...she—”

“Is your girlfriend a blonde?” he asked, and all at once I realized the tangle had been a lock of wet blond hair. Toni’s? Black spots suddenly appeared before my eyes. They grew bigger until everything went black.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on the back seat of the cop car, and the good-looking young fireman was holding up my head.

“Here, drink this. Ah, here we go,” he said, as I choked back a gulp of water, and then over his shoulder he called out, “She’s coming around now, sir.”

A police officer came jogging over and together he and the young fireman helped me to a sitting position, as the inspector stood by, studying me coldly. My coat was dripping wet from the coffee I’d spilled all over myself. All I could think was that it couldn’t be Toni.
Please God make it not be Toni.

The policeman, a tall bald man who exuded authority, gave me a sympathetic smile. He handed me a paper napkin from the coffee shop. I wiped my eyes, blew my nose.

“I know this is hard for you,” he said, “but any information you can give us at this point will be of great help.”

Unable to utter a sound through my tight throat, I nodded.

He turned to the inspector. “I’ll take it from here, if you don’t mind.” He climbed into the back seat, sitting next to me. “I’m Officer Duncan,” he said, handing me a card. “Do you have any idea who the victim might be?”

I tried to speak again but nothing came out.

“Take a deep breath,” he said.

I did, and found my voice. “It could be my partner, Toni Lawford.” Speaking the words made it seem all the more real, and tears welled in my eyes.

“Is your partner tall and slender and has blond hair?”

It took all I had to just nod.

“What makes you believe it could be her?”

“She dropped me off at home after work, and she was going back to pick up something she’d left behind.” I purposely avoided mentioning this
something
just so happened to be a gun.

“At what time was this?”

“I think it was somewhere around eleven-thirty.”

As he wrote this down, a horrible thought occurred to me. The inspector had used the word
murder.
Toni did not just die. Somebody had killed her. I began hyperventilating.

This confirmed it. What had happened to me a few days ago was no accident. That woman was out to kill Toni and me. And she had already accomplished half her goal. And then another thought occurred to me. Toni hadn’t yet changed her will. I stood to inherit millions. I would be rich—filthy rich. But I had just lost my best friend. A lump settled in my stomach. I didn’t want her money. I wanted Toni.

“Why would anybody want to kill her?” I asked, tears trembling on my lashes.

“It could be just a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or—” He studied me for a second and then added, “Any idea who might benefit from seeing your partner dead?”

Knowing the way cops think, I was sure to become their number-one suspect. I decided to play dumb. “I have no idea.”

it doesn’t mean we have to lie down and take it

The questioning went on for a long time. I gave him the name of all the restaurant employees and their contact information. He asked for the name of the business’s insurance company, and I had to admit that being new and since we’d only recently started covering our operating costs, we hadn’t gotten around to getting coverage.

His eyes studied me. “That’s too bad. You probably invested a lot of money in this, didn’t you?”

“Everything I had,” I said. As terrible as that was, it was nothing compared to losing Toni.

“Any idea who could have done this?” he asked, and I told them about the threats the crazy woman had made. And then I spent the next hour going over every detail of the confrontation, describing her in detail. I answered questions until I couldn’t think straight. Meanwhile, I wanted to point out that, if the police had taken my hit-and-run seriously, they might have found who did it. And then Toni would still be alive.

At last he called over one of the younger officers milling around and told him to take me home. By then it was six o’clock in the morning. Most of the emergency vehicles had left. Two fire trucks remained, and a few police cars. The policeman jogged over to one of them, hopped in and drove over. He helped me into the passenger seat and I gave him my home address. It was still dark out, but not for long. It was almost time to get up.

“You’re sure you’ll be all right by yourself?” he asked, pulling up in front of my house. He handed me his card.

I slipped it into my pocket, adding it to the others I’d collected.

“If you like, I could drive you to the hospital,” he continued. “You’ve had a bad shock.”

“I’ll be fine.” I glanced at Mitchell’s house, which was bathed in darkness. My throat clenched. I so, so needed to hear his voice, feel his arms around me. I pushed the door open and struggled to get out.

“Wait. Let me help.” The officer hopped out of the car and hurried around to the passenger side. He handed me my crutches from the backseat and saw me to the door. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call someone for you? I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be alone right now.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said, putting my key in the lock. To my surprise, the door swung open. In my rush to get to the restaurant I must have forgotten to lock it. I glanced over my shoulder at him shuffling, unsurely.

“We’ve already put out an APB with a full description of this woman,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll pick her up in no time. In the meantime, keep your door locked, stay close to home and call me if you think of anything else we should know.”

I nodded. “I will. Thank you.” And before he could give me any more advice, I stepped inside and closed the door. I needed to be alone. From the window I watched as he hesitated another second or two. And then he turned and strode down the walk back to his car.

At that moment Jackie came tearing down the stairs, barking at full volume. I tottered over, dropped my crutches and plopped myself down on the bottom step, gathering her in my arms. I buried my nose in her neck and the tears burst forth. They came in heaving, racking sobs, leaving me gasping for breath.

“Oh, Jackie, what am I going to do? She’s dead, Jackie. She’s dead.”

“Who’s dead?” The voice took me by such surprise I nearly jumped out of my skin. I screamed. When I looked up, Toni was standing before me in living flesh and blood. She looked disheveled but perfectly healthy.

I gasped, clutching my heart. “Oh my God, you’re alive!”

She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “And why, exactly, does this surprise you?”

“I thought you—” Before I could complete my thought, I burst into tears again. And before I knew it, I was laughing and crying, tears mingling with my runny nose. I had completely lost it, and I couldn’t have cared less.

Toni came over, sitting next to me on the stair. She wrapped an arm around me and sniffed my hair. “You smell like smoke. Unless you’ve picked up smoking, I’m guessing you were just at the restaurant.” I hiccupped and more tears came streaming down my cheeks. She patted my arm. “There, there—don’t worry. It was just a small business, no big loss. We can start over.”

I wiped my eyes and looked at her. “You—you know about the fire?” I hiccupped.

“That’s why I’m here.” She rummaged through her pocket and pulled out the copy of the house key I’d given her months earlier in case of emergency. She brandished it. “I hope you don’t mind that I just let myself in.” She slipped it back in her pocket and continued, “I was watching television when a report of the fire came on. I was going to call you but decided to let you sleep. I raced over, but I couldn’t get anywhere near. There were emergency vehicles everywhere. So I came over here. When I found you gone, I guessed you heard about the fire too. I decided to wait.”

I looked over to the living room and noticed the pillow and blankets on the sofa. She offered me her hand and helped me up, handing me my crutches. “Come on, I’ll make us some coffee.”

I followed her to the kitchen, and she pulled up a chair for me.

“So you saw the damage?

I nodded, grimacing.

“How bad is it?”

“Bad, Toni, really bad. It’s gone. It’s all gone.”

“Thank goodness we’re insured. We can always rebuild if we want to.”

The problem was that we
didn’t
have insurance, a small detail I couldn’t bring myself to mention at that moment. “What do you mean
if
we want to rebuild?”

She scowled. “Seeing as we were working ourselves haggard and barely making any money, why would we want to go through all that again? Before I forget—” she opened the cupboard and pulled out the coffee grinder, and then turned to face me, “—will you please explain why exactly you thought I was dead?”

“They found a body in the restaurant,” I said, the full horror of it hitting me again. “Oh God, Toni, I was so sure it was you. They said it was a woman’s body.”

The answer hit us both at the same time, and we blurted it out together. “Jennifer!”

“It must have been her,” Toni continued slowly. “She probably discovered she’d left her wallet there and went back for it. She and Charles are living together. She must have borrowed the key from him.”

I’d had no idea Jennifer and Charles were living together. It made the tragedy seem even worse. Charles was such a nice person, and losing a loved one was one of the most painful experiences in the world.

Jennifer was tall and thin, and had shoulder-length blond hair. From the description the fire chief had given me, no wonder I’d automatically concluded the victim was Toni.

I cleared my throat. “Uh, Toni, did you know that the fire was deliberately set?”

She looked at me, her eyes wide with shock. “It wasn’t an accident?”

“No, and the fire inspector said that the victim was probably murdered.” I stared hard at her. “Toni, listen to me. First I get hit by a car, then the restaurant burns down, and now Jennifer is dead—murdered. I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that this is all just some gigantic series of coincidences.”

The color drained from her. “Somebody is willing to kill, just to see us out of business? Oh, my God. It has to be that crazy woman. What do you think we should do?”

I furrowed my forehead, thinking furiously. “I don’t know.” And then I made up my mind. “Just because somebody is trying to force us to close shop—damn it—doesn’t mean we have to lie down and take it. You and I have to fight.”

She dropped into the chair across from me. “That’s exactly what I was afraid you’d say.”

everybody thinks you’re dead

Toni was making coffee—the last thing in the world I wanted. All I felt was an overwhelming need to figure out who was responsible for what was going on, and find a way to stop them. Was it the bedraggled woman? Could someone who appeared to be a homeless person or mentally ill, if not both, somehow get hold of a car and run me down, and then find a gun, shoot Jennifer and burn down our restaurant? As unlikely as that scenario seemed, I couldn’t come up with a better one. I limped over to the living room, collapsed on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, as thoughts whirled inside my head.

“I almost forgot,” I shouted to Toni in the kitchen. “I have to call the inspector. Everybody still thinks you’re dead.” I reached over for the house phone on the coffee table, pulled out the bunch of business cards from my pocket and sorted through them until I found the one I was looking for. I punched in the number.

She came racing back. “Tell me you’re not calling Crawford and Sanders. I don’t think I could stomach having to deal with those two right now.”

I covered the mouthpiece and whispered. “No, I’m calling the fire inspector. And there’s another police detective in charge, thank goodness.”

On the third ring the inspector picked up, sounding surprisingly concerned considering how cold he had been earlier. “Ms. Landry, what’s up? Did something happen? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I have good news. My friend Toni is alive. It was somebody else’s body you found.” I tried to explain but realized that I wasn’t making much sense. “Here, you can speak to her yourself. She’s right here.” I passed the phone to Toni.

She answered his questions, told him who we thought victim might be, and after looking up Charles’s number on her iPhone and giving it to him, she hung up. “He’s going to let the police know. He said they’d want to talk to him.”

I couldn’t imagine a worse way of receiving such tragic news than by a policeman showing up at your door. I looked at Toni earnestly. “Don’t you think we should go to Charles before the police get there? He shouldn’t have to be alone.”

She hesitated. “We’re really sure about this, aren’t we?—about the victim being Jennifer, I mean.”

I nodded grimly. “It certainly looks that way.”

“I guess we should.” She pulled out her iPhone and touched the screen. “I have his address.” She named a trendy area of the city.

This took me by surprise. I hadn’t expected Charles to be living in one of Toronto’s pricier neighborhoods. Toni rechecked the address. “That’s the address he gave me.”

I let the dogs out, refilled their water bowl, and then we took off.

We headed east of downtown, toward Cabbagetown, so named for the Irish immigrants who first came to live there in the eighteen-fifties. The area had been gentrified—much like my own neighborhood of Queen West—until its real estate had risen to astronomical prices.

We turned from Winchester onto Sumac, pulling up in front of a lovely old Victorian house across from a small park. Again I asked, “Are you
sure
this is where he lives?” I couldn’t imagine that my sous-chef, whom we were paying a pittance, could afford to live in a near mansion.

She pulled her cell from her pocket and rechecked the address. “No mistake—this is it.”

I stared at the house, taking in the three-floor brick structure, its richly carved wood door, the detailed stained-glass windows and meticulous landscaping. This place had to be worth well into the seven figures. “How the hell can Charles afford to live here?”

“It’s certainly not from the money we pay him.” Toni was staring at it in awe. “This place is gorgeous. I wouldn’t mind living here myself.”

I gawked at it for a minute longer, as much in procrastination as in admiration. “Well, we can’t stay out here forever.” I pushed open the door and hopped out on one foot, grabbing my crutches from between the front seats and pulling them under my arms. Another week and I’d be getting around almost as comfortably with them as without.

Just as Toni reached for the bell, the door flew open and Charles appeared in his terry bathrobe. The deep circles under his eyes hinted at a sleepless night. “Jennifer?” he blurted, looking faint with relief until, seeing it was only Toni and me, his face fell. “Oh, hi.” He frowned, puzzled. “What are you two doing here?”

“Uh, Charles, I’m afraid we have some bad news. There’s been a fire at the restaurant.”

“Oh?” he answered, glancing over my shoulder, still looking for Jennifer no doubt.

My heart sank for him. “The restaurant is pretty much gutted,” I added.

This seemed to get through to him. “The restaurant is gone?”

“Burned to the ground, Charles—it’s gone.”

He took a step back, tightened the belt around his robe and gestured for us to come in. “That’s unreal. That means we’re all out of a job?”

Nodding, I took a deep breath. “There’s more. The fire inspector thinks it was probably arson.”

“Are you serious?” He frowned. “Was it that lunatic who threatened you?” Pausing between the foyer and the living room, he shook his head in disbelief. At last he gathered himself and pointed toward the sofa. “Have a seat. Can I get you anything?”

I shuffled further in. “No thank you.” I turned and almost gasped out loud. The living room was magnificent—large yet inviting, with dark hardwood floors, robin’s-egg walls and creamy white high ceilings. I looked around, admiring the light taupe sofa and armchairs. An arched doorway separated this room from the dining area—a long dark-wood table, upholstered chairs, a sparkling chandelier and what looked like hand-painted wallpaper with an oriental motif. The decor was magnificent, elegant yet comfortable with tasteful furnishings and walls covered in art. It could have been featured in a decorating magazine.

“Are you sure? Coffee? Tea?”

“No, thank you,” I said again, letting myself sink into one of the down-filled armchairs. I cleared my throat. “Er, Charles, I need to ask you, did you give anybody a copy of the restaurant key by any chance?”

He looked taken aback. “Of course not—I’ve only got one copy, and I have it right here.” He rose and went to an antique desk near the entrance, picking up a key ring and going through it. He paused, his forehead furrowing. “I know I had it yesterday.” Understanding flashed through his eyes. “Jennifer must have borrowed it. We had an argument last night and she took off in a huff. But why would she have wanted—” He froze, blood draining from his face. “The fire—did anybody—?”

My mouth dried. But just as I was about to tell him, I was saved by the doorbell. Charles looked too shocked to move.

“I’ll get it.” Toni strode to the door. “Hello, Officer, I’m Toni Lawford,” I heard her say in a low voice.

And then I heard a male voice I recognized as Police Officer Duncan’s. He walked in, and nodded to Toni and me. “Are you Charles Bateman?”

Charles paled and nodded.

The officer turned to me. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with him in private.”

“Of course.” I turned to Charles. “We’ll be waiting in the car in case you need us.”

I wasn’t sure he’d heard me, but we pulled on our coats and left. Soon we were sitting in Toni’s car, shivering. She turned on the motor and put the heat on full blast. Hot air instantly streamed in. “Poor guy,” she whispered, breathing in her hands for warmth. “I can’t imagine what he must be going through. He’s probably feeling a hundred times worse because his last memory of Jennifer will be of them arguing.”

I was trying to picture the timeline according to what Charles had just told us. “Jennifer didn’t tell him she was going to the restaurant.” I thought for a second. “If she was storming out after an argument, she was probably planning on checking into a hotel, but since she’d forgotten her wallet at work, she must have swiped the restaurant key from Charles’s ring as she left.”

I was quiet for a few minutes as I pictured the scenario unfolding in Charles’s house as we spoke.

“Poor guy.” I said, echoing Toni’s words.

We sat in silence, our shivering quickly fading as the interior warmed. Ten minutes or so later, long after the temperature had reached toasty warm, the front door opened and the inspector stuck his head out. He glanced up and down the street until he spotted us and waved us over.

I followed Toni into the eerily silent living room. Officer Duncan nodded a greeting. Charles was sitting in the same spot, now with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. His grief was almost palpable. I paused, uncertain what I should do or say.

Toni didn’t hesitate. She strode over and sat next to him, rubbing his back. “I’m so sorry, Charles.”

He raised his head and looked at her through red-rimmed eyes. “I have to go identify the body. I don’t think I can do that by myself.”

Toni squeezed his hand. “Would you like me to go with you?” He nodded silently.

“All right then,” Duncan said. “We might as well get this over with. It shouldn’t take very long.”

Charles seemed to gather his courage. He pulled himself out of his chair.

Toni turned to me. “Why don’t you stay here? Maybe you can call the guys in the meantime.”

A minute later the three of them were gone. I took out my cell phone, staring at it as I drummed up my nerve. For all I knew they could have already heard. But if they hadn’t, and I didn’t call them, they would leave for work. I punched in Jake and Marley’s home number.

This time the words poured out of me. The restaurant had burned down during the night. The police suspected arson. A body was found in the debris and Charles was on his way to identify the remains as Jennifer’s.

“Jennifer is dead?” he said in disbelief.

“Her identity hasn’t been confirmed yet. But it looks that way.”

“But—” He struggled for words. “What happened?” In the background I could hear Marley asking, “What’s wrong?”

I tried to give him some answers, but I still had as many questions as he did. To my great relief he offered to call Scott. I hung up and breathed a sigh of relief.

There was nothing I could do but wait. I put my aching ankle up on a footstool as I contemplated the possibilities. There were only three I could think of.

The first was that one single person was responsible for everything that had happened; the hit-and-run, the burning down of the restaurant and Jennifer’s murder. Whether this person was the woman who had uttered the threats was a different matter. Much as I would have liked to believe that theory, if I did, I would also have to believe that this woman, who appeared insane and possibly homeless, had access to a luxury car and to guns, and as crazy as she was, that she had formulated some kind of plan to get rid of us and or the restaurant.

Another theory was that not all of those incidents were committed by the same person. Maybe Steven was right and that the hit-and-run really was no more than an accident. I liked this theory. But it still left unanswered questions. Even supposing that crazy woman had burned down the restaurant, how did she get her hands on a gun?

My last theory was that the hit-and-run, the burning of the restaurant and Jennifer’s murder were all related, but that somebody other than the crazy woman was responsible. This idea scared the bejesus out of me, but I had to consider it nonetheless. It implied someone sane was behind it all. There were countless questions with that one. What did Toni and I have in common other than the restaurant? Nothing.

I had to be missing something, but what? I was still puzzling over this when my cell phone rang.

It was Toni. “We’re on our way back—should be there in ten minutes or so. Why don’t you make a pot of coffee in the meantime? I have a feeling Charles will need a cup.”

I bit back the countless questions I had. Now was not the time, not with Charles in the car and hearing every word. I’d wait for a moment alone with her. I hung up and made my way down the hall toward the back, where I found the kitchen. I searched the cabinets until I found the coffee. I was grinding the beans when in occurred to me that Charles had probably not eaten since last night. He could do with some food too.

By the time I heard the front door open and close, the coffee was ready and I had the eggs whipped and ready to pour into the skillet. I returned to the living room, praying Toni would tell me the victim was somebody else—not Jennifer. But one look at Charles’s stricken expression was all the answer I needed.

I caught Toni’s eyes and she nodded grimly.

I clomped back to the kitchen where I set the coffee on a platter, dropped a spoonful of butter into a pan and poured in the beaten eggs. “Toni, could you come out here and give me a hand?” She hurried over and I pointed to the coffeepot, whispering, “Do they know how she died?”

“So far, all they know is that she was shot in the back. But they have no idea if she died of the gunshot or from smoke inhalation. They’ll know more after the autopsy,” she said in a low voice. “The news of Jennifer’s death was already on the radio when we came back. Poor Charles. I thought he was going to pass out when he heard it.”

She picked up the pot and a cup and carried them out to the living room. I followed. “Here you go,” she said to Charles. “And Nicky made you something to eat.”

He sat crumpled over, staring vacantly at the floor. He shook his head. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”