Crime Rib (Food Lovers' Village) (20 page)

“M
y usual, and my sister’s.”

Wendy cocked an eyebrow. “Good time last night? Max said you were here with Bergstrom.”

“The halibut was terrific,” I said.

She glanced up as she reached into the pastry case for my
pain au chocolat
and Chiara’s cranberry orange scone, clearly reading between the lines. “There’s other fish in the sea.”

So why did I feel like such a tuna head?

“Hey, thanks.” Chiara greeted me at the door of the gallery, still closed, and accepted my offerings. “How was the date? And how did you get that belt?”

“Fresca. And great, until he tried to tell me what to do. What is it about guys? They buy you dinner one time and they think they can tell you to stop investigating murder?”

Her eyes widened and she bent over, laughing. Okay, so that wasn’t the way dinner dates usually went.

“Everybody’s telling you to stop, Erin.” She hung the belt on the rack on her way to the back room, me trailing behind. “Why should Rick be any different?”

“You and Mom, okay. But he barely knows me.”

“Good men get protective. It’s in their DNA.”

“We haven’t even exchanged DNA.” I felt myself go as red as my favorite boots. The boots I’d tossed in the back of the closet the moment I got home. “Well, a kiss or two.”

More howling. “Don’t expect anything different from Adam, little sister. Or any guy worth his salt. You can’t go throwing yourself in the path of danger and expect people to applaud.”

I knew. Maybe I’d overreacted. But something about Rick’s words—and his gestures—had felt possessive, and pushed my buttons hard.

Ah, what price love? Or, even, like?

I got to the Merc just in time to open for the day. Not every village merchant bothered to keep regular hours, but to me, dependability is sacrosanct. Tracy showed up a few minutes later lugging a full tin of truffles and a Tupperware box of bone-shaped dog biscuits. She restocked the chocolates while I refilled the dog treat canister. I wrapped up a few for Pepé and tucked them in my bag.

“There.” She slapped her hands together, then slid a maple bar out of a white paper sack. She opened a Diet Coke, using the pop top to hold her straw in place. I suppressed a shudder. Why drinking pop in the morning bugged me, I didn’t know—it wasn’t much different from coffee or tea. But some things just don’t feel right.

Like last night with Rick.

Shake it off, Erin.
I headed upstairs and scanned our Monday and Tuesday sales. No change from last week. Good. That meant the murder hadn’t hurt our business—yet. I rubbed my stars.

Back in the shop, I was surprised to see Tracy still sitting at the stainless steel counter. She squeezed her pop can, and the ping ran up my spine like fingernails on a chalkboard. When she saw me, her concentrated frown turned to a deliberate smile.

“So how was dinner?”

“Uh, great. I had the halibut and he had the steak frites. They’ve got some great new French wines.”

“Some girls have all the luck.” She forced another smile and stood, brushing crumbs off her long deep blue skirt. Today’s earrings featured yellow and purple flowers on an enameled blue background.

Careful
, a tiny voice in the back of my mind said. Tracy had been divorced about a year now, if I remembered right. Was she emerging from her cocoon? I never thought of her dating—I pictured her home cuddled up with Bozo the dog.

Was she interested in Rick? And he in her? I ran back over the signs. Better watch my step—and my mouth.

The front door opened and swirls of sugar wafted in. Candy Divine. No Minnie Mouse costume today, thank goodness. She wore tight black leggings with a pink-and-black zebra-striped skirt, and a low-cut scoop neck pale pink top, sugar dust glistening on her exposed flesh. Her fuchsia-streaked black hair was tied back with a bow of pale pink netting, and her feet were clad in pale pink ballet slippers.

“Marshmallows!” she called in her squeaky voice. We followed her like children shadowing the Pied Piper as she crossed the shop floor and hoisted her giant pink-trimmed basket onto the counter. “Got it this time. You’re going to love them. Promise!”

The question marks that usually punctuated her speech had transformed into exclamation marks. She was starting to grow on me.

“I know you didn’t want green ones, Erin, but I tried a batch anyway. They’re mint!”

They were sweet. She’d brought three varieties: plain, mint, and chocolate-covered. Slightly firm on the outside, pillow-soft inside, and sweet. Tracy dealt graham crackers like playing cards and we each sandwiched a chocolate-covered square inside.

“Oh, my. Perfect.” Did I mention they were sweet? I bet they’d toast nicely.

“Oh, goody!” Candy clapped her hands and bounced on her toes. Bet she’d been a handful as a five-year-old.

Speaking of five-year-olds. “I’m going to put a bag aside for my nephew.” My sister might curse me for the sugar, but I’d be
in
with Landon.

“I was so afraid you’d want huckleberries in them. I just really don’t like huckleberries.” She made a face like she’d bitten into a lemon.

I laughed. “It’s okay, Candy. I’ll eat your share of the huckleberries in the world.”

The door opened and Iggy wobbled in for her morning truffle.

“Hey, Iggy. You’re looking spiff.” Lime green narrow-legged pants, skimming the ankle, jeweled flats, and a lime green suede jacket trimmed in leather, circa 1970. “A special guy?”

“My doctor. Christine’s taking me.” She waved a hand. “Nothing serious. But I like to look my best, so I fool ’em into thinking I’m not a day over seventy. The usual, dear,” she said to Tracy.

“Try one of these.” I held out the bag of marshmallows. Her deeply veined hand rose, hovered, and chose a pale green concoction.

“Oh, my.” Her eyelids flickered and she smiled at the three of us beatifically. “Divine.”

Indeed.

*   *   *

I
f I was torching my love life for the sake of investigating, then it was time to get out and snoop and spy. Or whatever. But first, a quick session with the Spreadsheet of Suspicion, updating what I knew and what I didn’t.

The “didn’t,” alas, outweighed the “did.” Well, duh. That’s why I needed to get out there and probe the wicked underbelly of Jewel Bay. Although, as the Food Lovers’ Village, that underbelly was probably soft and cream-filled.

With the festival and Grill-off now past tense, I decided to walk through town and check for any stray flyers not yet taken down—and not incidentally, find out if the bad news had put a damper on business. If I could scrounge a little intel on my chief suspects, even better. As cover went, it might be thin, but an investigator has to get creative with her excuses.

One glance at Wendy’s pastry case told me her sales weren’t suffering.

Ginny at the bookstore said it was too early in the week to judge sales, and wondered what I knew about plans to update the farm guide listing local producers. Customers had been asking. I suggested she call Phyl, and went next-door to Kitchenalia.

“Hopping like bunnies all weekend,” Heidi said. “But it’s slowed a bit since then. Still, it’s early.”

Not the retail confidence I’d been hoping for. I headed north on Front Street to Dragonfly Dry Goods, our super fabuloso fabric and yarn shop. Like Kitchenalia, it brought in customers by the busloads. Literally—sewing and knitting clubs from Calgary to Missoula and Billings to Spokane made regular field trips to stock up on locally raised mohair and the latest quilt patterns. A petting zoo for yarn addicts.

The quilted dragonfly banner flying out front told me Kathy Jensen, proprietor and chair of the Village Merchants’ Association, was open for business. Three women with loaded shopping bags emerged, chatting happily. I held the door, smiled, and popped in.

Kathy stood at a yarn display, restocking skeins in stunning colors. A medium-tall ash blonde who moved efficiently and brooked no nonsense, she turned a welcoming face to me. As usual, a small silver and gold dragonfly pendant hung at her throat.

“Looks like you’re starting the day well.”

“I heart Canadian tourists. Especially golf widows.”

Gotta keep busy while the men are on the links. “Don’t we all? So, the bad news hasn’t hurt business?”

“Hard to tell. A slow day or two doesn’t make a trend, especially early in the week.” She tilted her head, her quick gray eyes serious. “But we may see a downturn later, as word spreads. When the folks who are already here on vacation go home, will the next wave go to Sandpoint or Jackson Hole instead?”

“Cross your fingers,” I said, and waved good-bye.

Kathy’s comments brought to mind Mimi, the Lodge, and Amber at Bear Grass. I stood in front of Dragonfly, near the foot of the 1930s WPA stone steps that led up the hill to the high school. I hated to disturb Mimi—she’d been disturbed enough last time I saw her. Keith and Kyle Caldwell would tell me what I wanted to know, but it might be hard to disguise my questioning as professional curiosity.

And Amber Stone had told me quite clearly where to go.

A dark green Porsche SUV cruised by, taking the corner from Hill Street to Front with a skoosh more velocity than strictly necessary. Gib Knox had not yet left town.

My forehead crinkled. The unformed thought I’d had Monday afternoon when I spotted Gib leaving the sheriff’s office finally took shape. Hadn’t he been driving a black Porsche last Thursday morning, when Ned and I came out of the Inn after the meeting and saw him fly by?

And Thursday night? I’d been rattled, and was no car geek at the best of times, but I knew who would know for sure.

“Black, yes,” Kyle Caldwell said over the phone. “But not a Porsche Cayenne. That’s their SUV. Thursday night, when he stopped at the roadblock, he was driving an Acura MDX. Similar shape, but the front ends are completely different. Google it.”

I did. So whose car had that been?

I felt a cold, sharp jab like an icicle in my chest. Now I knew for sure: That green car had passed me two days ago at the Lodge, minutes before I committed B&E. I hadn’t seen the driver, but it had been Gib. My close call in the closet had been closer than I’d realized.

I tucked my phone in my bag and trotted the block and a half to my Subaru. Opened the passenger door. No sign.

“Where is it?” I shoved my hand between the seat cushion and the back, and peered into the narrow space between seat and console. It couldn’t have vanished. I groped under the seat. Not there, either. Finally, I yanked out the floor mat and there it lay, smudged and dented by those little rubber pokey-outey things on the back of the mat.

The stub from Pondera Auto Rental.

“M
iss Erin!”

One foot poised at my open car door, I turned at the sound of my name. A short Asian man in faded olive green fatigues slammed shut the rear doors of his battered blue van and picked up a five-gallon bucket. It was obviously heavy and I was instantly curious.

“Hey, Jimmy. Huckleberries? For me?” The Garden of Eden, in a village parking lot. Investigation could wait.

Jimmy Vang followed me through the courtyard into the kitchen, where I poured the hucks slowly into another bucket, inspecting them under his steady gaze. Like many of the Hmong refugees in northwestern Montana, Jimmy made his living off the land. He foraged, bringing me fiddleheads in May, morels in June, and hucks in August. Picking huckleberries isn’t easy. A wild and distant relative of the blueberry, they grow on steep mountainsides. Only the surefooted and nimble-fingered can pick enough to sell commercially while staying ahead of the competition—grizzlies and black bears. The shrubs wither in cultivation, adding to their scarcity. Even good friends sometimes balk at sharing a fruitful location.

He’d obviously found the mother lode.

As I wrote out a receipt and check, a thought occurred to me. “Jimmy, you sell hucks and morels to quite a few restaurants, don’t you?”

He nodded, thick black hair bobbing.

“Did you sell to Drew Baker, at the Jewel Inn?”

His broad face turned sad. “Oh, yes, Miss Erin. Huckleberry cheesecake. Very popular. Very good.”

“What about steak with a huckleberry-mushroom glaze?”

“When Chef Drew first come to Jewel Inn, he serve a filet”—he pronounced it
fill-it
—“with huckleberries and morels and bought them all from me.”

“He hasn’t served it in a while, has he?” Past tense is a buzzard.

“No. He tell me, good to change the menu. But then, this summer, he say he want to bring it back, could I find him berries, when they ripen? I say yes, for Chef Drew, I will climb the mountain and get extra berries.” Jimmy’s eyes filled and he lowered his head. I put my hand on his arm.

A moment later, he lifted his gaze to mine and I withdrew my hand. “Did you sell to Chef Amber Stone at Bear Grass?” I asked.

Jimmy’s eyes sharpened. “When she open, I offer. But no, she want a more—what’s the word? A more fancy menu.”

Her menu seemed perfectly fine, but hardly fancy.

He went on. “But then, she call asking. I had some dried morels and frozen berries from last year. I offer her those. What I could do? Morels all gone, hucks not ripe. They ripe now, though.” He gestured at the bucketful of tart purple beauties.

“When, Jimmy? Do you remember when she called you?”

He shook his head. “She not happy, but she buy anyway. Receipt maybe in the van.” He scurried out the back door.

Cheesecake. Huckleberry cobbler. Huckleberry peach pie. Huckleberry filets. My mouth watered.

In a flash, he returned, clutching a grubby, wrinkled receipt. Amber’s handwriting wasn’t easy to decipher, but the date was clear.

Bingo
. “Jimmy, can I keep this? I’ll make you a copy, for your records, if you’d like.” As if Jimmy cared about records. His van was his filing cabinet. An open door, a gust of wind—poof.

“Anything for you, Miss Erin. You good to me. Like Chef Drew.”

*   *   *

B
y the time I’d rinsed the hucks, packaged them in quart bags, and tucked them in the cooler, most of the morning was gone. Tracy had left for lunch and her dog walk and I had charge of the shop. I made a sign reading
FRESH HUCKS—INQUIRE WITH
IN
and stuck it in the produce cart. Grabbed a cold Pellegrino and sat on the stool behind the front counter, flipping through the latest issue of
Entrepreneur
. Lots of interesting articles—“Thinking Like a Customer,” “Staying Green,” and a piece on managing difficult employees. I had none at the moment, but advice on dealing with the difficult is always timely. I was deep into it when the front door opened.

But no one entered. “Who’s there?” I said, my tone querulous.

No answer. Just a soft rubbing sound from the other side of the counter.

“Ghost? Is that you?” My voice quivered. Still no response. “Ghost, what do you want?”

“I want a truffle!” Landon jumped up, his cowboy hat bouncing. “I fooled you, Auntie.”

I came out for a hug, then opened the case and withdrew a raspberry chocolate, his favorite. “You did.” He hadn’t—we’d played this game before and I’d spotted Jason outside, but it never got old. “What’s in the bag?”

He struggled to hoist the canvas bag he’d dragged in. “Daddy and I bought school supplies. I’m going to be in kindergarten.”

I didn’t remember needing supplies for kindergarten, other than my nap mat, promptly banished to the orchard tree house when I graduated to the first grade. Crayons, glue sticks, pencils and erasers, scissors. Zip-loc bags and wipes. A pencil box and a notebook, ruled extra-wide. Who doesn’t love the feel and smell of school supplies?

Who doesn’t love a new beginning? I’d made my own—was still making it. Drew’s had ended abruptly, and Stacia’s had been denied.

The door opened again and in walked Chuck the Builder. “Hey, Chuck. Don’t see you in weeks and now twice in three days.”

“Fresca in? She wanted me to look at your faucet, and since I’m early, I thought I’d take a peek.”

“Go ahead,” I said, puzzled. Our faucet worked fine, far as I knew. Chuck headed for the kitchen and I helped Landon pack up his supplies. “You know, you won’t be able to wear your hat in school. And you’ll want to leave your tail and badge at home.”

“I know,” Landon said. “No hats inside—recess only—and cow dogs don’t go to school. But it’s okay, Auntie. It’s part of growing up.”

He was growing up so fast I could hardly stand it.

“Thanks, Erin,” Chuck said a moment later. “I’ll wait for her next door.”

Now what was that about? I took Landon’s hand and we followed Chuck outside. Across the street, Jason emerged from the gallery. Landon looked both ways then dashed across the street and leaped into his father’s arms.

Tracy returned and I headed out the back, ready to resume investigating. Landon might be hanging up his badge, but not me.

*   *   *

I
passed the sheriff’s office on my way out of town. Didn’t stop. Kim might agree that the two crimes were related, but without evidence, Ike would never give me a chance to prove my theory.

No evidence yet, but I was getting closer.

The secret had to be in the recipes. In contrast to hucks, morels follow underground networks that trail through the woods for miles, sprouting to life after the June rains. They can pop up anywhere—we always find a few dozen in the orchard—but are most abundant in forests that have burned in the last year or two.

And as with hucks, people go to great lengths to protect their patches. A few years back, a crew of professional mushroom hunters from Oregon invaded the local pickers’ territory and one of Jimmy Vang’s cousins was killed.

Not the hunters who were the problem this time. Reg and Tara had shed some light, but something dark and mysterious still lurked.

Like a good mushroom picker, a good investigator knows when to follow her nose. I swung a hard right onto the road leading to Reg’s place. The big studio doors were shut. Good—no excuses needed—I’d hate to lie to Reg. I followed the lane past the studio and up the driveway to the guesthouse. Happily, the doors on the garage level of the guesthouse were out of sight from both the main house and the studio.

Unhappily, the doors were locked tight.

I circled the building. The garage windows were locked, too. No ladder. I had no way to reach the second-floor deck with the steps still out of commission.

But what about that doggy door?

“Think thin,” I said out loud and rubbed my lucky stars. Drew didn’t have a dog, but Reg had planned for a midsized beast. I wriggled through the heavy rubber curtain and crawled into the garage. The dark, clammy garage. I brushed the dirt off my bright blue skinny jeans. This week was wreaking havoc on my wardrobe.

The garage held Drew’s car, a workbench with a few tools, a garbage can, and stacked recycling bins. I thanked my stars and skirted ’round the car to the door leading upstairs.

“Erin, you are living right,” I said when the knob twisted and the door opened.

Tara and Debra had not made much progress after I left. We’d stacked a few boxes next to the door, but they’d only managed to fill a couple more. The pile of shirts still lay on the dining room table.

An empty bottle and two wine glasses sat on the bar. At least they’d made good use of their time—and of Drew’s wine collection.

His laptop sat in the tiny desk alcove. I dropped onto the wheeled stool and punched it on. No doubt the sheriff’s deputies had already gone over it, but now we—I—knew what to look for.

Drew had used the same password at home as at work. Once again, I scrolled through his e-mail files and the sent e-mails. There it was: an e-mail to Stacia, copied to Gib, with an attachment. I clicked. It opened.

The PC pixies arranged the pixels into words. Drew Baker’s recipe for Filet on Portobellos with Huckleberry-Morel Glaze. “Yes.” I pumped my fist. Drew had tested the recipe on Reg, then sent it in at 8 a.m. two days before it was due. I didn’t recall when Amber had submitted her version.

Didn’t matter. I checked the date the document was last revised. The day before it was sent. When created? Click, click. Four years ago—which explained why it was on his home computer, not the Inn’s. Back then, he’d been the Lodge chef.

No way to tell what the recent modifications were, but no matter. This, and Reg’s testimony, were near proof that Drew had not stolen this recipe from Amber Stone. But how—or if—it related to his murder, I had no idea.

I hit
PRINT
. Where was the printer? A whirring sound assured me a wireless printer was nearby and working—but where? Not in a kitchen cabinet—we’d emptied most of them. I tilted my ear, listening.
Follow the trail
.

And found the printer in the pantry, amid shelves crammed with staples, hundreds of cookbooks, and more kitchen equipment. I cackled out loud. Those girls were going to need some serious help packing.

Before shutting everything down, I searched for e-mails to or from Tara and Gib. Nothing pertinent in the in-box, folders, or sent e-mails. The Recycle Bin held a few unrelated documents. Whatever the old tensions were, they had not left an electronic trail.

Drew had reached into his personal archive and pulled out his finest. He may not have held a grudge, and may never have imagined that Gib did. But he knew, when you cook for an old friend, the stakes are high.

Cooking well is the best revenge.