Crime Rib (Food Lovers' Village) (2 page)

“W
e can’t replace one of the chefs,” Mimi George said, her voice piercing the gravy-thick air of the Jewel Inn’s banquet and meeting room. “The Grill-off is in two days.”

Two and a half, but who was counting? We obviously had bigger fish to fry. Or steaks, in this case.

“What if,” I said, jumping in where angels fear to tread, “we say there’s been a mix-up and ask them to submit new recipes? Time is short. But if there’s one thing every chef in Montana can do, it’s conjure up new ways to serve steak.”

“There is no mix-up. Simply put, you people have a thief among you.”

Nothing raises the collective temperature of any group more than being referred to as “you people.” I’d had just about enough of Gib Knox and his demands, but we’d invited his TV show,
Food Preneurs
, to film the Thirty-Fifth Annual Jewel Bay Summer Food and Art Fair, and its centerpiece, the Grill-off, and we were stuck with him now.

And I didn’t need a meat thermometer to know the other committee members were getting hot, too.

“You wait one minute there, young fella.” Ned Redaway crooked a beefy finger in Knox’s direction. “Don’t go accusing folks you don’t know of being a thief.” Ned had run Red’s, the village watering hole, for close to fifty years, and he didn’t tolerate bullies. He’d once had the hair to match his nickname, though what was left of it had faded to an almost colorless fuzz. At six feet tall and two hundred mostly solid pounds, he was still imposing when riled.

“He may be the best-known chef in the state,” Gib Knox said in a voice as smooth as Belgian chocolate. “He may be your big draw. But he’s a thief.” Six-two or better, a dark-haired man graying handsomely at the temples, the TV host and celebrity chef smiled in smug satisfaction. But we could not let “Nasty Knox” portray the village of Jewel Bay, Montana, to the food-loving world as hicks who couldn’t cook and didn’t know better.

“Hang on,” I said, using my hands as stop signs. “I’m sure we can resolve this without any harsh words or accusations. All we need to say is that two of the three chefs proposed similar dishes. Hucks and morels are a natural combination around here. Since the goal is to give our chefs a chance to demonstrate a beef dish with a local flavor, we’ll ask those two for new recipes.”

“Perfect, Erin.” Stacia Duval, the show’s producer, clapped her hands together. A petite dynamo whose chin-length brown bob boasted red and gold highlights, she practically bounced out of her chair with relief. “But who will tell them? It might be uncomfortable for Mimi.”

“You don’t mean Drew Baker? My chef would do no such thing,” Mimi said in disbelief. She’d gone pale blond for summer, and under her tan, she blanched to a matching shade. Normally, she radiated an eye-of-the-storm calmness—no doubt from years of running the Jewel, one of the village’s favorite restaurants—but she was visibly shaken now.

“What about Drew?” Tara Baker’s heels rapped on the parquet floor as she crossed the room to the long table we’d commandeered for our meeting, her long ash blond hair swinging. As always, she wore black, top to bottom. She and Drew had moved to Jewel Bay six years ago, while I’d been away—he to serve as executive chef of Caldwell’s Eagle Lake Lodge and Guest Ranch, she to be the sales and marketing manager. When they divorced, she stayed at the Lodge and he became chef at the Jewel Inn. A highly acclaimed chef, whose dinner service had become destination dining. The crown jewel of a town that called itself The Food Lovers’ Village. Drew and Knox had worked together years ago in L.A., and when Mimi asked Drew if he could entice Knox and EAT-TV to film an episode here, he’d readily agreed.

“Mr. Knox has accused my chef—” Mimi began.

Tara’s gray eyes widened.

“I’ll talk to him,” I said. Not that I relished the task of playing the heavy, but Stacia was right. Even mellow chefs, like Drew, tend to be strong-minded. I turned to Tara. “Two contestants in the Grill-off happened to think along the same lines. We’ll ask for new recipes and be back on track.”

“Fine, if you want to sweep it under the rug.” Dressed straight out of a Western wear catalog, Knox wore a gray and white tweedy jacket, Western-cut, over blue jeans. His boots were polished but well worn.

“Drew and who else?” Tara said, her tone guarded. “Which other chef?”

The corners of Knox’s full lips twitched. Was he enjoying making us squirm? “That promising young woman from, what is it, Bear Poop Lodge? Such charming names up here.”

“Chef Amber Stone,” Mimi said, biting off the words. “Bear Grass Bed and Breakfast.”

Amber Stone and her sister had taken over a run-down inn north of town, adding a dinner service open to the public. She was the only chef who’d actively sought an invitation to the Grill-off—an admirable sign of motivation.

Tara’s thin, sharp features relaxed. “Well, whatever happened, that’s a good solution. Good to see you, Gib.”

Gib rose. Tara turned her head and a kiss meant for her cheek landed on her ear instead. He scowled briefly. She brushed lips with the cameraman sitting next to him—her boyfriend—then slid into an empty chair, dropping her black quilted leather handbag to the floor. The impact rattled the ice in the water glasses.

The third contestant, Kyle Caldwell, had taken over Drew’s post when Drew and Tara divorced. The Grill-off was always held at the Lodge, and the Lodge chef always participated, as a courtesy. No home-range advantage—all the chefs used propane grills provided by Taylor’s Building Supply. The event took place on the Lodge’s stone patio overlooking Eagle Lake, in front of a hundred and fifty guests or more. Tara smiled at me nervously, no doubt relieved to know that Kyle was not involved in the mix-up, whatever it was.

“That’s settled then,” Stacia said with obvious relief. “Erin will talk to the chefs and get new recipes by—what, five o’clock Friday? That should give us time to make sure everything is in order.”

Both chefs? I hadn’t volunteered to talk to Amber, but obviously someone had to. As the new girl—or rather, the newly returned prodigal daughter—I got the chores no one else wanted.

Stacia surveyed the table efficiently, smiling with relief. “Now the next item on the agenda . . .”

I glanced up at the bull moose rack draped with Mardi Gras beads who oversaw this end of the banquet room. No doubt he’d witnessed far fierier explosions. From this angle, he seemed to be winking.

My attention wandered as Stacia and the cameraman, Pete Lloyd, reviewed the plan for tonight’s filming. Stacia was a doll, whip-smart and organized to the max. She had more planning apps on her phone than I’d known existed, and knew how to use every one. She’d sent a list of requirements in advance, but Pete was a last-minute substitute. We’d dodged a bullet earlier in the week when Stacia got the news that their regular cameraman had a health emergency and couldn’t travel. To avoid cancellation, Tara suggested Pete. He’d left a job filming TV news for a station in Pondera, the largest town in northwest Montana, a year or two ago. Now working freelance, he had all the right credentials and experience.

Not to mention the right connections, as Tara’s current paramour. The grapevine claimed she went through a couple of guys a year, but that this one might actually last. They made an odd pair: Tara’s ensemble—wide-legged pants, heels, and a long, collarless V-necked jacket, a lace-trimmed black camisole beneath—reflected an urban style and an urban hyperactivity that hadn’t worn off despite half a dozen years in the rural West. Pete, on the other hand, seemed as casual as his clothing—baggy olive drab pants and a russet brown long-sleeved twill shirt, cuffs frayed, worn like a jacket over his brown T-shirt. Whatever influence Tara had over him had not yet extended to his wardrobe. Which was probably healthy for a relationship.

“What do you think, Erin?”

Busted. I glanced at the agenda. No clue. “Uh. The wine, right?”

Someone—Pete? Gib?—snickered. Stacia smiled gently. “I was saying we’ll meet at the Lodge at four thirty. Chef Kyle’s making the appetizers, and his pastry chef and your marvelous baker friend, Wendy, are doing the desserts.”

“Right.” The appetizer and dessert segments were being filmed tonight so that Saturday evening, we could focus on the Grill-off. During the day, the crew would film local producers. A winery, a creamery, a custom butcher and sausage maker specializing in wild game, and more—every nook and farm we could think of to showcase the taste of Montana. And on Sunday, they’d film the food and art booths at Summer Fair.

“This way, we’ll get the kinks out before Saturday,” Pete said, his voice thin and raspy. “Sort of a dry run.”

“Dry, my eye,” Ned said. “I’m pouring wine.”

“I’ll need it.” I grabbed my phone and pushed back my chair as the meeting broke. I had intended to slip out early and get busy readying the Merc for the big weekend. Officially the Glacier Mercantile but still called Murphy’s Mercantile by the old-timers, the Merc had been in my family for more than a hundred years. When the major businesses left downtown—aka the village—for the highway thirty years back, the Merc stayed put. My grandfather Murphy soldiered on as a grocery man, despite competition from the new supermarket. But he lost heart after my father was killed fourteen years ago in a still-unsolved hit-and-run, and the business floundered. Finally, my mother Fresca—Francesca Conti Murphy—had rescued it from oblivion, creating a haven of local food and craft. But running the business had kept her from her own passion—cooking up a line of pastas and sauces for wholesale and retail trade. So, earlier this year, I’d come back from Seattle and taken over. This would be my first Summer Fair as a village shopkeeper, and my to-do list was long.

Now, two items longer.

Knox towered over all of us except Ned. “First the cameraman falls on his death bed. Then a recipe thief. Let’s hope this thing isn’t cursed.”

“Hush your mouth,” Stacia said, the first harsh words she’d uttered in all our dealings.

I rubbed the colored stars tattooed inside my wrist, and bit my tongue to keep from cursing Gib Knox.

N
ed Redaway had aged noticeably since the tragedy that had struck the village earlier this summer, his face thinner, his right leg dragging. I followed him out of the banquet room and through the pine-paneled dining room, beneath the soulful gaze of whitetail deer and elk and a grizzly who looked like he’d snatch your huckleberry pancakes if you weren’t careful. At the Inn’s entrance, I held the heavy glass door for Ned. Outside, he reached for the log railing and lumbered slowly down the steps.

“Girlie,” he said as we crossed the intersection of Hill and Front, my hand at the ready in case he stumbled. “Getting old is hell. Don’t do it.”

The natural response is “beats the alternative,” but after what Ned’s family—and mine—had been through, I forced myself to offer a weak smile.

The village is served by a single narrow street—great for our picturesque quotient, but rotten for traffic and parking. As we reached the opposite side, a big delivery truck swung wide to make the corner. Behind it, the sound of an impatient driver gunning his engine distracted me, and I turned my head a few degrees. Gib Knox at the wheel of a shiny black Porsche SUV. Figures he’d rent the hot stuff. At least it was on EAT TV’s dime, not ours.

If wishes were Porsches, beggars would drive.

Red’s Bar has been around almost as long as Murphy’s Mercantile, its next-door neighbor. Red’s neon beer signs and sticky floors, its nachos and chicken wings and raucous Saturday nights, fit visitors’ image of a small Montana town, but the rest of Jewel Bay catches them by surprise. They’re charmed by the contrasts: cutting-edge galleries next to fly-fishing shops. Hot and cool jazz and deer nipping any unfenced rosebuds. A classic dude ranch and a waterfront state park filled from May to September with RVs and tent campers.

And of course, Drew Baker’s three-star cuisine and Ned Redaway’s burgers and beer. I adore them both, though for my last meal, I might ask for takeout so I could enjoy a few waffle fries with my duck confit.

“I love August. I love Summer Fair.”

“It’s a headache,” Ned said. “Blocks the street. Folks can’t park.”

“Ned Redaway. Are you becoming a curmudgeon?”

He snorted. “Been one all my life. Well, all your life anyway.” He grinned and, for a moment, seemed like his old self. “No, the Fair’s fine. I’m just aping some of our neighbors, yanking your chain.”

For probably all of its thirty-five years, Summer Fair had pushed the buttons of town’s naysayers. The againsters, my mother calls them—folks who are against anything, until it succeeds, when they promptly forget they ever opposed it. I’d encountered that attitude earlier this summer when I spearheaded a new celebration, the Festa di Pasta, to kick off the summer tourist season. In a town where more than half the merchants make their living in the ninety days of summer, then beg Santa for a little icing on the cake, any event that brings people into the village and encourages them to leave their money behind is a good thing.

But while most restaurant owners and shopkeepers agreed, a few griped about “another festival.” Others complained that all the events focused on the village, aka downtown. Well, duh. The highway businesses tend toward the utilitarian—video store, Laundromat and dry cleaner, hardware, auto parts, and the aforementioned supermarket—while the downtown shops tend toward the nonessential. The link between holiday celebrations and new windshield wipers is not always obvious. Happily, most highway businesses join the fun—decorating, selling tickets for concerts at the Playhouse, or hanging posters—recognizing that if we don’t prosper, the whole town suffers.

But what frosts my cake are the folks who refuse to change. Heck, the nature of business is change. If I learned one thing in ten years as an assistant grocery buyer at SavClub, the international warehouse chain headquartered in Seattle, it was that you will never bring in new customers, or increase your profits, if you aren’t willing to change.

And Old Ned, bless him, got that. “Gotta mix it up,” he’d said when I suggested the Festa. “Try new things.” The way it turned out, I wouldn’t have blamed him for changing his mind. But he didn’t.

“There’s always gripers,” he said now. “And what they love to gripe about most is the problem-solvers and idea gals like you Murphys.”

My sister and other village merchants had devised a plan to address complaints about the congestion the street fair caused. The biggest change clustered vendors’ booths in groups of four in the middle of the street. Each vendor would gain a coveted corner spot, and most important, booths would no longer block access to the shops. Foot traffic could flow freely on the street or sidewalks, allowing visitors to pop into the Merc, the Jewel Inn, or Puddle Jumpers children’s shop if a sight or smell caught their eye. The sheriff and fire chief had approved—with just the one road, emergency access was critical.

Win-win always beats whine-whine, in my opinion.

“You know me,” Ned added. “I never mind anything that brings people downtown. Folks always gotta eat and drink.”

I kissed him on the cheek and reached for the worn brass handle of the Merc’s front door. Across the street at Puddle Jumpers, Sally—Queen of the Againsters—swept her sidewalk furiously, the tail of her black-and-tan print blouse bouncing as she moved. She did everything furiously. She believed “they” should sweep her sidewalk, even though as an unincorporated town, Jewel Bay had no “they.” I waved. She glowered and kept on sweeping.

“You gotta feel sorry for that broom. Hey, little sis.” My sister Chiara—say it with a hard C and rhyme it with “tiara”—stood outside the Merc, her five-year-old by the hand.

“Auntie!” Landon cried. “I’m a Jedi Knight.”

I crouched for a closer look. “You certainly are.” Landon split his loyalties between Jedi warriors, Superman, and Hank the Cowdog, head of ranch security. Today, he wore the fighter’s off-white tunic and brown pants, a light saber at his side. Chiara could make anything with her hands, and had fashioned brown boot covers that matched the pants and disguised Landon’s cowboy boots.

“H-U-huckle, B—Auntie, I forget the rest.”

“H-U huckle, B-U buckle, huckleberry pie. H-U-C-K-L-E.” He joined for the end of the rhyme my father had taught me. “B-E-R-R-Y.”

We exchanged high-fives and I rose to hug my sister—a bit like hugging myself in a mirror, as we share the same dark hair and eyes and heart-shaped faces, although I’ve got a couple of inches on her. Now that she was a partner in a co-op gallery, plus artist, wife, and mother, her summers were uber-busy.

“Love the headband,” I said, admiring the stretchy red floral thing worn low over her forehead, hippie-style. She was two years older than me and about a thousand times more adventurous.

“Thanks. Gotta run. I’ve got a million things to do before Friday night.” Her eyes widened and she started to pink up.

“Why? What’s going on Friday?”

Chiara shook her head quickly. “I just mean the weekend’s going to be crazy. Remember, there’s music Friday night and you’re coming with us.”

I nodded. Happily, Jedi Knights are highly evolved and don’t mind their aunts kissing them in public.

The magical smells of basil, garlic, and tomato greeted me inside the Merc. Our retail operation fills the front of the shop, offering a mix of food and drink from nearly two dozen regional growers and producers. In the back, a commercial kitchen gives vendors a space to make their huckleberry chocolates, pickles, jams, and other tasty products. We’d cleaned out the basement a few weeks ago to make room for automated filling and labeling machinery we’d bought from an orchard in central Washington that had upgraded its cannery.

Today, my mother—training myself to call her Fresca is a constant challenge—had the kitchen in high gear, working an extra day to meet demand. She was turning produce from Rainbow Lake Farm into her special Summer Sauce, a big favorite with the summer people. And with me.

Seeing it all in action gave me the happy tingles.

My stomach reminded me I’d skipped my usual breakfast—a latte and a croissant or
pain au chocolat
from the French bakery next door—to make the Grill-off committee meeting. If I’d chosen to be late instead, could I have avoided getting stuck telling two chefs they needed to submit new recipes at the last minute?

Fat chance. But at least I’d have been properly fortified.

“So, what’s he like?” He, meaning Gib Knox. Tracy, my shop assistant and sole employee, was celebrity-crazy. She still swooned about the day she spotted John Travolta in Jewel Bay Grocery. He’d flashed her that famous grin and winked.

Fresca wanted to know, too, so I perched on a bar stool at the stainless counter separating the kitchen from the sales floor and gave them the scoop.

Tracy’s eyes grew huge and she shook her head in disbelief. Her thick chestnut hair barely moved, but her rainbow beaded earrings swung like a five-year-old at the park.

“Why would Drew copy Amber’s recipe?” Fresca said. We’re the same height—five-six—but she’s slimmer than I. And though we’ve both got intense dark eyes, her face is oval and her complexion olive, while my sister and I have narrow chins and the fair Murphy complexion. On kitchen days, Fresca twists her straight dark hair into a knot at the nape of her long neck, a few strands of silver showing at the temples. No one believed her sixty-one years. “She’s up and coming, but he’s already got it made.”

“Not a clue,” I said. “The chefs e-mailed their recipes directly to Gib and Stacia.”

Tracy sliced a baguette and poured a jar of Fresca’s olive tapenade into a small, handmade terra-cotta bowl etched with a leaf pattern for customers to sample. I helped myself.

“Why did he want to see them in advance? We’ve never let the judge do that,” Fresca said. The question created a rare wrinkle in her forehead.

“We’ve never had a hotshot TV chef before.” Past judges had been local celebrities—a retired four-star general, the former TV news anchor who summers here, an NFL star turned potter. “Gib wants to be sure they meet the show’s standards for quality, and that the average home cook can re-create them. They post all the recipes on their website.”

Fresca sniffed. “In other words, he doesn’t trust us.”

“Trust but verify.” Tracy shrugged her plump shoulders.

“At least we kept him from insisting that Drew be disqualified.” I filched another slice of bread and slathered on a double dose of tapenade.

Tracy looked puzzled. “Aren’t they old friends?”

Being old friends means different things to different people. “They worked together years ago in L.A., but they weren’t close. They both said there was no risk of bias.” If I remembered right, Gib had agreed to host the show only if Drew participated. Quality Assurance, he’d called it. Which made his accusations doubly odd.

No matter. Crisis averted. Now to massage the chefly egos and get those new recipes.

But first, my own shop needed tending. After the Festa, I’d rashly decided to update the dingy courtyard behind the Merc, despite not yet having a plan for how we’d use the space. Our pal Liz had a vision, though, and once she takes on a project, fasten your seatbelts.

Her vision included a fountain being delivered later this week, along with plants, café tables and chairs, and wildlife paintings reproduced on metal—a joint venture between a local artist and a homegrown sign company. My mother had just given me control over the building as well as the retail business, and silly me, I respond with a project spree. Of course, the only perfect time for a remodel is after it’s finished.

I’d promised to make sure the courtyard was empty and clean, so I wrapped one of Fresca’s veggie print aprons over my dress—a cream-and-blue-flowered number—and headed outside.

“Potential” is such an expensive word. But the space did have it. It also had a lot of dirt, leaves, and twigs blown in over the fences that separated our courtyard from Red’s adjacent space and from Back Street, aka Back Alley.

The alley still gave me the shivers. I would never forget finding a friend dead—murdered—on the dusty gravel. That was the real reason for the remodel. Liz insisted we needed to cleanse and renew the courtyard using feng shui, the Chinese philosophy of how energy moves within a space. I grabbed a broom and got the energy, twigs, and trash moving.

We needed change, but feng shui smelled woo-woo to me. Liz’s sketches included a diagram showing what she called the
baguas
or quadrants. It looked like a game of tic-tac-toe.

Even the terms are contradictory. How can you divide a space into nine parts and call them quadrants? Liz says you can feel when energy is flowing in a space and when it’s blocked. Her example is walking into a house and knowing something’s wrong, then finding out later that the couple who lives there just had a fight. I think we’re picking up on their nonverbal cues, not some intangible feeling in the space.

Listen to yourself. Pick up a broom and you turn into Sally Sourpuss
. I’d asked Liz for help because her own home is so inviting. So was my cabin, a historic building her husband, Bob, had relocated to their lakeside property.

Burning daylight, Erin.

I got back to sweeping, and both the space and I felt better in minutes.

Back inside, Tracy was busy assembling our new product, Breakfast in Jewel Bay baskets. Each featured a pair of hand-thrown coffee mugs, Cowboy Roast coffee or herbal tea, and Montana Gold pancake mix with Creamery butter and a choice of huckleberry or chokecherry syrup. We also, finally, had reliable sources for local eggs and sausage. This weekend would be the test run, but after the success of our Lakeside Picnic baskets (“Just Add Water”), my hopes ran high.

Management and staff should balance each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and Tracy’s knack for display and packaging proved it. And she was catching on to the fine art of encouraging a customer without being pushy. She had a flair for cheap chic, too—today, she sported a long grass green skirt with an oversized white linen shirt and a wide dark brown braided leather belt.

“Love the outfit.”

“Five dollars for the skirt and ten for the shirt at the thrift shop in Pondera.” Pronounced
Pon-duh-RAY
, the big town thirty miles away.