A Dinner to Die For (24 page)

I recounted Yankowski’s background. “He might have wanted to kill Mitch. But think about Yankowski. The guy’s managed to hide out from the FBI for twenty years. He’s learned to second-guess everything. He wouldn’t blow it all for the whim of killing Biekma with his own horseradish container, no matter how much the idea might have appealed to him. He might have been a spontaneous type twenty years ago, but he’s not now. If he’d been determined to kill Mitch, he could have found plenty of other ways that wouldn’t bring suspicion on the kitchen crew.” I was clutching the receiver so tightly that my arm was stiff.

Doyle yawned. “So, Smith, you woke me up to tell me that not only do you not think you have Biekma’s killer, but now you don’t even think we have a suspect in the food poisonings.”

“I’m not saying that, Inspector. I checked with the lab. The tuber in the wine cellar is monkshood. Mitch had the only key. He poisoned the customers. I believe his killer knew that and was attracted by the horseradish jar. I just don’t think that killer was Yankowski.”

“So who was it?”

I hesitated. “Inspector, I know you want facts.”

“And I want them soon. I’ll give you the rest of the day. Either you get me the killer—whoever you’ve decided he is—or you stop looking all around, and concentrate on making a case against Yankowski. Because, Smith, you’ve got your feelings, and I’ve got mine, and my feeling is Yankowski’s our man.”

A
FTER MY CONVERSATION WITH
Inspector Doyle, I didn’t feel much like eating. But, as Howard reminded me, I owed him plenty. The least I could do was provide breakfast. And since Wally’s was closed at four-thirty in the morning, our destination would be my kitchen.

Howard had been anxious to see the place in which I was house-sitting, but he wasn’t so eager to deal with my cooking. We had a meeting of the minds there.

By five o’clock Howard was leaning over the stove in my kitchen, stooping to avoid the throng of twisted and slotted implements suspended from one of those metal things that look like a cutout of half an umbrella. He poured olive oil into the iron skillet. It was extra virgin olive oil, a concept that might have amused me, had I not been so preoccupied. What was “extra virgin”? Was it from olives tended only by prepubescent boys with monastic aspirations?

“Where are the onions?” he asked.

“Fridge?”

“Curry powder?”

“One of these cabinets, I guess.” I pushed myself off the low-back wooden stool and pulled open the nearest cabinet door. Inside were plastic bags of variously colored grains of rice, and beige, gray, and maroon beans. Pushing the door shut, I reached for the next.

Howard turned, grabbed my shoulders, and steered me back to the stool. “I can see you’re over your head here. Just sit. I’ll work with whatever I find.” He began to pull open drawers, extricating a can of olives, an onion, garlic, a bag of dried tomatoes, and three small bags of herbs.

I sipped my coffee. Pereira’s acquaintance who owned this house had six pounds of coffee beans in the freezer—Sulawesi-Kalossi, Aged Sulawesi (none of this “we serve no [bean] before its time” in Kalossi?), Ethiopian Fancy, Tanzania, Viennese Blend, and Aged Indonesian Decaffeinated. I’d chosen the Aged Sulawesi.

“Jill, at least Doyle should be pleased you got Yankowski, or whatever his real name is.”

“He would have been if I’d said Yankowski was the murderer.
He
thinks he’s the murderer. I don’t. He’s just giving me the rest of the day to see if I can prove otherwise.”

Pereira’s friend must have been about four feet tall. The counters here seemed low even to me. Howard looked like he was cooking on a play stove. Bending, he tossed a bunch of vegetables into the pan, plunked two pieces of bread in the six-slice toaster, and said, “What about Biekma? Are you sure he poisoned the customers?”

“There was a monkshood tuber in the wine cellar. But there’s no monkshood in the garden. Monkshood grows four to six feet tall. The garden is tiny; the flowers are small. Mitch wouldn’t have been hoarding one tuber, to grow one plant to tower ludicrously above the little ones. And here’s the clincher, Howard: Mitch had the only key to the wine cellar; it was on a chain around his neck. He never gave it to anyone, under any condition.”

Howard broke four eggs into the pan. “So he had the key, Jill. The rest of the staff couldn’t get at it. What about his wife?”

I shook my head. “Not even her. The word is he never took it off, not in the shower, not in bed.”

“If the murderer hadn’t been in such a hurry, he could have waited till Biekma choked himself in his sleep,” Howard said, laughing. Turning back to the eggs, he added spices, murmuring approvingly with each addition. “Okay, so where’d Biekma get his tuber from? Did he yank it out of a neighbor’s yard?”

“Nothing so violent. He could have gone to a garden store and bought tubers, which is probably what his killer did. But Mitch didn’t even do that. He got his the easy way.”

Howard scooped equal mounds of egg onto each plate, and pulled the toast from the toaster, batting it hand to hand till it reached the plates. “The easy way?”

“He ordered them, with the birds of paradise, from the florist who made the restaurant arrangements. I called him after I finished with Doyle. He was none too pleased to be woken up at that hour. But he did check his records. He’d had three orders for what he referred to as Francis of Assisi.”

“Saint Francis?”

I nodded. “Monks and birds—monkshood and birds of paradise. Griffon, the florist, must have laughed for a minute and a half over that one. You know, Howard, a man can spend too much time snapping thorns off roses. When he could speak again, he did tell me the dates the monkshood was ordered. They were three of the evenings customers got sick.”

“Real gourmet, Biekma. Only fresh poison for his customers.” He held up our plates. “Where do you want to eat these? You said we had about six choices.”

I was tempted to tell him right here, at the counter in the kitchen. I was too wired now to bother with comfort. But Howard was leaning, just slightly, so slightly I doubted he realized it, toward the dining room. I picked up the two coffee cups and led the way.

The dining room was large, dark, with a working fireplace. A mahogany table for twelve stood between the fireplace and a sideboard. It was the type of room where you could imagine King Edward VII settling for an eight-course dinner. Still holding the plates, Howard looked down the length of the table. “I suppose the owners wouldn’t approve of putting the plates on newspaper?”

“I haven’t been home long enough to find place mats.” Setting the coffee cups on the floor, I turned the chairs nearest us to face the windows, then shoved them up a foot and a half from the padded seat beneath the bay window. I pulled my shoes off and sat. Howard went back into the kitchen and returned to put a stool behind our chairs.

“Not bad,” he said putting his feet up on the window seat. The sun hadn’t risen. But the black had lightened to charcoal. In the distance were some variations that might, if the morning did not turn out too foggy, become discernible as the San Francisco skyline.

“Not bad either,” I said, taking a bite of the scrambled egg mixture. “Pretty darned good. How’d you learn to cook like this?”

Putting down his fork, he patted my hand. “If s one of my many hidden talents.”

“Oh yeah?”

He gave my hand a final tap. “Yeah.” Then, stifling a yawn, he picked up a piece of toast and said, “How do you know Biekma’s the one who ordered the monkshood?”

“Griffon remembered him. Griffon said Biekma was not someone he’d be likely to forget. Seems Mitch made scenes about the flowers regularly. The blooms weren’t large enough. The orange wasn’t bright enough. The foliage was too thick.”

“Couldn’t he have removed some?”

“That’s what I asked. Wrong question. Griffon was appalled. Said I obviously had no sense of artistic statement. He said Mitch had tried that once, and they’d had a big row about it. He said he stormed into Paradise and told Mitch if he ever touched another arrangement it would be the end of their business.”

“I’d like to have seen that.”

“It was probably one of the few scenes Mitch Biekma lost control of. Or at least that’s Griffon’s story.”

“I guess Griffon is doing okay if he can come on like that.”

“He told me he was the best.” I laughed. “I hadn’t asked.” I took another bite of the eggs. “Here’s the other thing Griffon told me. Mitch Biekma insisted that the monkshood come root and all.”

“So that’s where he got his roots. And you figure he surreptitiously clipped a few leaves for his customers’ salads. So, he really did need the plants fresh.”

“Right. Ground aconite for soup, leaves for salad,” I said.

“Didn’t Griffon find that a little odd?”

“No. According to Griffon, restaurant people are odd, period. Some of them insist their vegetables be delivered not only with roots in tact, but with the dirt still around them—to be sure they’re fresh! He said he wouldn’t bother questioning any of their requests.”

Howard’s plate was empty. My own was three-fourths full. Even if I hadn’t been so wired, I would never have finished it. I scraped half the eggs onto Howard’s plate. He nodded. It was a ritual too well established to merit comment. I couldn’t recall the last meal we’d had when Howard hadn’t finished enough to feed a normal family and sat vainly trying not to stare at my food.

“This case is like the Myth of Sisyphus,” I said. “First there was the poison. Raksen finds out what it is and where it was, and what does that get us? Nothing. Anyone could have filled that jar with aconite. The jar was standing in the pantry all day long. I’ve got Yankowski, but I can’t believe he’s the killer. And Howard, I just cannot believe that someone put up a note telling Earth Man to come back at the time Mitch poured the poison into his soup; that someone took down that note before Mitch died; and that all that was just a coincidence.”

“So you’re back to Earth Man, huh?”

I had hoped Howard would have more of an insight than that. Frequently he did see my cases in ways I might not have. But instead of presenting me with a revelation, he just yawned. He, of course, hadn’t had the five-hour nap that I had. How late he had been up the previous night dealing with the aftermath of his drug sting, I didn’t know. But no amount of exhaustion numbed his appetite. He picked up his fork and began the final push on the eggs. Out the window the sky had lightened to battleship gray; the suggestion of the city skyline was clearer. Howard finished the eggs and put the plate on the floor. He yawned. “More coffee?” I asked.

“Mmm.”

“Or wine? They have a wine cellar of sorts here. No poison, just wine.”

“I think I’ll stick with the fridge. There were a couple of bottles in there.” Howard got up, and after stacking the plates and grabbing both mugs in one hand, he headed into the kitchen. In a minute he returned with two glasses and a bottle.

“I guess I’m not being much of a hostess,” I said, accepting one.

“You aren’t likely to be featured in
Sunset
magazine.” Swallowing a yawn, he laughed. “At least not till you’ve found the killer. I know what you’re like when you’re close enough to taste a collar.”

I laughed. “Revolting image of the day.”

Howard merely smiled. I could tell the hour was catching up with him. “As I was saying,” he went on, “I understand your professional eccentricities. Even the best of us can be single-minded.”

“By the best you mean—”

He nodded, forefinger to his chest. “But I’m willing to help you. After all, you’re only a woman.”

Picking up the discarded newspaper, I smacked him.

“Hey, what’s that? You think I’m a dog?”

“Well, you may require some training.”

Howard caught my eye. “I’m doing my best to understand, but like Jackson says, you can’t know what it’s like to be black if you’ve never been.”

“Maybe so.” I smiled and clinked his glass, then leaned back and drank. “And maybe I didn’t need to snap at you.”

He tried to suppress a yawn, and failed. Then he smiled. He caught my feet between his. I hadn’t realized mine were cold. The warmth of his feet made the cold parts colder, but it also made the warm warmer. I smiled and reached for his hand, covering it, in part, with my own. Outside, the edges of the redwoods and the eucalyptus in the yard beneath were becoming distinct. The first tentative rays of morning were breaking through the night. In the distance, over the Golden Gate Bridge, the clouds separated, like a sheet suddenly torn, and the blue of morning peered from behind and then was gone. It might not reappear all day. No matter. I turned toward Howard, looking at him slouched back in the armchair. His mop of red curls stood out from his head. When I first knew him, he had worn one of the uniform hats, the ten-gallon type. It had left a ridge above his ears. I could remember staring at that ridge night after night over burgers at Priester’s. He had been the friend I had needed in those bleak times, when I struggled to realize that my marriage had crumbled, that it had, indeed, been rubble for over a year.

How many times had I focused on his wide, sudden grin, and the laugh that burst out in great rippling swells and obliterated all thoughts? Rarely had I let myself meet his eyes; I had been afraid of being drawn in, of drowning. I needed his strong friendship to hold on to.

Getting involved with a man you work with is dangerous. If it fails, the awkwardness is ten times greater than the vanished pleasure. Making a mistake with the man with whom you share an eight-by-ten office …

I put down my wine glass. I ran my fingers across his shoulder and looked at those deep blue eyes. Or more accurately at the lids. Howard was asleep.

S
IX-THIRTY
S
ATURDAY MORNING IS
not a good time for much of anything, except driving down steep empty streets. I knew I should be relaxed before I tackled the steep drop of Marin Avenue. I was too wired now. But I was too wired to do anything else. I got in my car and drove up to the top. I sat there, car poised at the edge of the intersection. The street looked like a giant slide at an amusement park: steep, slick, and permitting no escape. My face was already clammy with fear. I stepped on the gas.