Crime Rib (Food Lovers' Village) (5 page)

W
hen I got back to the Merc, Liz had taken charge of the courtyard, supervising Bob and a friend installing the fountain. We’d settled on weathered metal cutouts of mountains and leaping fish against a wall of red-and-silver corrugated metal, the recirculating water washing away worries and creating a soothing haven.

In theory, anyway. At the moment, wrenches, a cordless drill, and lengths of pipe lay strewn in one corner. The men had muscled in a wheelbarrow filled with stone to surround the trough at the base. Boxes holding new café tables—unassembled—and chairs were stacked next to the gate. Flats of plants sat next to ceramic pots.

“I promise you,” Liz said, her perfectly manicured hands making reassuring gestures. “You won’t recognize the place.”

I didn’t recognize it now.

“Holy cow. Girlie, you got yourself a first-class mess.” I hadn’t seen Ned come up behind me. He gestured at the fence between the Merc’s courtyard and his. “Unlock the gate. We’ll meet on my turf. Lizzie, you send the others in when they get here.”

Lizzie? Only Ned could get away with that.

Ned and I settled at a wooden picnic table in Red’s courtyard. Odd to sit here drinking coffee instead of a beer.

When Tara and Mimi arrived, we all expressed our shock at Stacia’s death. I shared my plan for the memorial fund.

“She loved our quiche. We’ll pledge a dollar from every slice we sell through Sunday.” Mimi’s voice trembled, and I covered her hand with mine.

“I’ll match the Merc’s donation,” Ned said.

His generosity didn’t surprise me, but linking it to ours did. I grinned. “Then I’ll make sure every customer buys at least a pound of coffee.”

He grinned back.

Tara looked somber, in her usual black. “I’ll need to talk to the Caldwells, but I’m sure the Lodge will contribute something.”

We divvied up the task of gathering donations from our neighbors, then moved to the pink elephant in the room: the filming.

“Such a shame,” Mimi said. “We’ll never get another shot at that kind of national exposure.”

“It’s no substitute,” I said, “but why not hire Pete to film the street fair, then put the video on the town website? Or use it in TV ads.” If we did TV ads. Another long-running debate.

“They’re going ahead with the broadcast. They’re not canceling.”

We all stared at Tara.

“Gib had to talk to somebody at the network,” she continued, “but Pete thinks—”

“Place looks different in the morning.” Gib grabbed a silver mesh chair from a nearby table. He sat and stretched his long legs.

“You’ve been here before?” I asked. He and Pete had snuck in together.

“Last night. Soaking up the local flavor and the local gin. Both quite nice.”

Ah. Between the appetizer filming and his arrival at the hit-and-run scene. Or had he gone out later, salving his grief with drink? I took a slow, sad breath.

“What does Pete think?” Pete said, sliding in beside Tara and giving her a quick kiss. His overshirt caught on the bench and he tugged it loose.

Tara blushed. “That the show should go on, in tribute to Stacia.”

“But how can it?” I said. “Don’t you need a producer? Someone to direct things?” My grasp of Stacia’s job was scanty.

Gib leaned forward, hands on his knees. “Here’s our plan. Network’s cleared it. We’ve already got a lot invested in this project. Stacia would not have wanted us to pull the plug.”

Probably not, but saying we know what the dead person would have wanted can be a way to justify our own desires.

“We don’t need help for the field trips,” Pete said. “But for the Grill-off and street fair, we need an assistant.”

“We need you, Erin,” Gib said.

“What? I don’t know the first thing about TV.” But Gib Knox had a way of looking at a woman intently and emphasizing the word “need” that implied a little something extra.

“Piece of cake,” he continued. “Stacia had checklists for everything. And you said yourself you’d be scouting for products for your store. Kill two birds with one scone.” He chuckled at his own joke.

Five pairs of eyes studied me. “I can’t do it. I’ve got a shop to run.”

“You already know the plan,” Mimi said, leaning forward. “Say yes, Erin. We need this broadcast.”

True. All true. “Oh, all right. I’ll ask Fresca to help Tracy out in the shop.”

“Speaking of running things.” Mimi ran a hand through her hair. “Anything else we need to discuss this morning?” We shook our heads, and the rest of the committee took off, leaving me with my new bosses in my job as film crew assistant.

It’s for Stacia, and for Jewel Bay.

“Sunday at the street fair is all interviews,” Gib said. “You just walk through town with us, make sure we don’t skip somebody important, and get everybody’s names.”

Sounded simple enough. “Stacia made a list of participants we thought you should interview, but I don’t have a copy.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Gib said. “You know everybody. Now, for the Grill-off. Every cooking demo is shot in segment format, so host and camera both know what’s happening and don’t miss anything. There’s the intro—me conversing with each chef. Pete pans the work surfaces to show what ingredients they’re using. Then it’s fire time. He shoots them grilling, reducing their sauces, whatever they do. We go down the line. I ask questions. Each chef gets roughly equal air. They plate, he pans, I eat. Voilà.” He sat back, satisfied.

“And what do I do?” It sounded too easy to be true.

“Just stay out of my viewfinder,” Pete said.

Gib shrugged. “You just watch, unless something goes seriously wrong.”

It already had.

“Keep in mind, entertainment first, cooking second.”

The reverse of what every home cook who watched the show imagined. But my real task was clear: make sure the viewers understand that, in Jewel Bay, food comes first.

*   *   *

O
n the theory that sympathy breeds charity, I made the rounds, hitting up my neighbors for contributions to Stacia’s memorial fund. Solicitations are a fact of life in a town that depends on volunteerism for everything from watering the flower baskets that hang on the light posts downtown to stringing Christmas bulbs on the one-lane bridge leading into the village. Most merchants factor donations into our cost of doing business, figuring it’s a trade-off for the lack of municipal taxes—and services.

My sister agreed to contribute a percentage of the weekend’s jewelry sales. Our good friend and stalwart Heidi, the power behind Kitchenalia, pointed to her display of grilling tools and offered to split the proceeds.

I skipped Puddle Jumpers. No need to subject myself to Sally’s tirade about the constant hounding of merchants who barely scraped by to benefit some new cause every week and blah blah blah.

Ray Ramirez at the Bayside Grille called Stacia “a sweetheart—she loved my Reuben”—and said he’d chip in fifty cents for every Reuben sold this weekend. “Glad they’re not canceling. Though I can’t say I’m a big fan of Knox.”

I gave him a quizzical look.

“He and Stacia had lunch here yesterday, and everybody heard him spouting off. Saying if the food looks good, viewers think it tastes good. Don’t know if he honestly thinks we can’t cook worth beans here, or if he just likes playing know-it-all.”

The latter, I suspected. “He’s about entertainment, not food.”

“Exactly.” Ray’s summer-weight cooking shirt lay open at the collar, exposing the tail end of a scorpion tattoo on his chest, the ink black against his coppery skin.

He’d lost a line cook in the early-summer crisis. “How’s the new guy working out?” I asked.

He grinned and gave the thumbs-up sign.

The other merchants responded with similar generosity. Everyone who’d met Stacia had liked her.

Back at the Merc, I spent what was left of the morning helping customers. Fresca was back in the groove, whipping up a storm of basil and pine nut pesto and her classic artichoke dip. Herbal paradise ensued.

Rather than set up our own street booth this year, we were counting on the new layout to funnel foot traffic inside. Our commercial kitchen schedule had been crammed the last few weeks as vendors took advantage of the summer harvest to make more product. Summer Fair was always a huge draw. But the presence of
Food Preneurs
promised to multiply the crowds.

And if my smoked salmon supplier delivered this afternoon, we’d have all the fishes they’d need. For loaves, they’d have to pop next door.

Upstairs in the office, I made a sign announcing the memorial fund. Downstairs, Tracy and I moved the coffeepot and display to the front counter, then she headed out for lunch. Fresca boiled up some fresh linguine, served with pesto made from basil so fresh it was practically still growing. I was mourning the last bite when the phone rang.

“Hey, Erin. Adam Zimmerman, back in civilization.”

I could almost hear his lopsided grin over the line. Kinda like Bozo, Tracy’s dog, but without the black-and-white spots. Or the slobbery drool.

Adam and I had gone to college together, though he hadn’t stuck in my memory. When I came back to Jewel Bay last spring, he’d started calling for contributions to the kids’ wilderness program he ran at the Athletic Club. But then, his calls had become more personal. After the Festa, we’d taken a terrific hike into the Jewel Basin. The skinny geek who came to Montana for outdoor adventure had morphed into—well, a seriously hot guy. Six feet, slender, with dark curly hair and a playful manner, Adam had created a niche for himself in Jewel Bay. We’d met for coffee or a drink a few times and made a dinner date.

Then his on-site camp director quit midseason, leaving no time to find a replacement. Adam had been forced to step in. No cell service at the camp—great for the wilderness experience, bad for a fledgling relationship. We’d only managed to talk a couple of times in the last month.

But summer was almost over.

“So, I’m at the gas station in West Glacier with a busload of kids, on my way back to town. Any chance you’re free this weekend?”

Figures. My luck he’d show up just in time for my busiest days.

“It’s Summer Fair,” I said.

His laugh rippled like cool water over rocks on a hot afternoon. “Of course. It’s Jewel Bay.”

“Come out with us for dinner and music tonight. Chiara, Jason, and me.”

“It’s a date. Another adventure.” Whether he meant the music or me wasn’t clear. And didn’t matter.

The door chimed as we signed off and a family entered. Regulars this summer, the kids went straight for the huckleberry chocolates while the dad picked out cheese, pesto, and salami. The mother carried a basket of produce gathered from our sidewalk cart. We chatted as I rang up their purchases, still feeling the glow from my phone conversation.

Like Adam’s campers, this family would head home soon. Meanwhile, they were cramming in summer fun: hikes, river floats, even a trip down a mountain zip line.

All things I loved. Except for my regular Friday afternoon ride with Kim, I hadn’t done much of anything this summer except work. Maybe, when Adam was back for good, that could change.

That thought was almost as tasty as a huckleberry truffle.

But what about Rick Bergstrom? “Farm boy,” as Tracy called him, had made more visits to Jewel Bay this summer than our sales volume justified. We met for lunch at Ray’s—he liked those Reubens, too—or took a walk on the Nature Trail above the Jewel River. Another Montana kid who’d left for a few years, he’d worked for a food importer in L.A. before returning. He loved food and business as much as I did.

You’re thirty-two
, I told myself.
You can date two guys at the same time.
I bent over to scoop a balled-up napkin off the floor and spiked it into the wastebasket.

Hah. I barely had time for one guy, let alone two.

And I didn’t have time to go riding. But this was my last chance for a moment to call my own until Summer Fair faded into memory.

By quarter to three, the Merc shone, and I felt no guilt about slipping out.

Two feet into the courtyard, I screeched to a halt. I’d been so focused on the shop that the remodel-in-progress had slipped my mind.

“Not to worry.” Liz stood at one of the new tables, covered in cardboard and potting soil, a classic red geranium in hand. “It’s a basic principle of organizing and remodeling. Things always look worse before they look better.”

“Not worse, exactly.” I surveyed the space. The cobblestones had been hosed off and the loose stones replaced. Tables had been assembled and chairs unboxed, but not yet paired and arranged. Half the annuals lay gasping for dirt, their already-potted siblings huddled together, waiting for their assignments. Painstakingly chosen outdoor art was stacked along the north wall. The word was “chaotic.” “Just—unfinished. Oh, my, gosh, the fountain!”

I stared in awe. It looked exactly as it had in the metalsmith’s sketch. But no water flowed and pieces of pipe lay scattered at the base.

“Not to worry,” Liz repeated, practically pushing me out the back gate. “It’s just a part. Bob will have it running in no time.”

Telling me not to worry pretty much guarantees that I will. “Liz, what’s the problem?”

She smiled as she closed the gate behind me. The Merc’s business had been faltering when I’d taken over last spring, and while we were doing well—extraordinarily well—we had no room in the budget for missteps. Or major parts. There’d been no reason to rush—I didn’t know what the Merc was going to do with the space yet anyway—but Liz had insisted.

I was starting to feel funny about the whole thing.

A good hard ride would chase the unease away. Followed by a long, hot shower and an evening with a tall, dark, and handsome guy.

I really do love August in Jewel Bay.

*   *   *

I
learned to ride in junior high, when Kim Caldwell and I became best friends. For years, we spent hours every week at the corrals, on the trails, or in the arena. Back then, she’d intended to become head wrangler, and me her trusty sidekick. Eventually, my parents bought me my own mare, although we’d stabled her with the Caldwells’ herd. Folly was long gone, and I’d found a new ride: a lovely chestnut mare named Ribbons, who came to the split rail fence at the sound of my voice and seemed to enjoy our friendship as much as I did.