Death by the Dozen (12 page)

“So, I’m thinking I should go and see Grace,” Mel said. “I mean, she’s got to be devastated. Vic was her whole life.”

“Really?” Angie asked. “Even though he was cheating on her?”

“We don’t know that,” Mel said.

Angie gave her a flat stare.

“Okay, we do know that,” she said. “But I talked to her about it, and she wasn’t even mad. She seemed to think it was just inevitable, and she was waiting it out.”

“Bully for her,” Angie said. “I’d wait it out—in the state penitentiary after I shot the miserable louse in the privates.”

Joe glanced at her across the table. “This is not information I want to hear.”

“Sorry, sometimes I forget you’re an officer of the court,” Angie said. “Still, how can she put up with that?”

“You are assuming that she did put up with it,” Joe said. “We don’t know how Vic ended up in that freezer, and spouses are frequently—”

“Grace did not murder Vic,” Mel interrupted. “I know it. She loved him, despite his character flaws. Besides, she’s not a killer. I know her and she’s not.”

Angie and Joe exchanged a glance, but Mel didn’t back down. She knew Grace. They didn’t. As far as she was concerned, that made it case closed, and she was going to tell Uncle Stan and anyone else who cared to listen the same thing.

When Mel and Angie arrived at the festival the next day, they were greeted by two bright-eyed volunteers. Well, one bright-eyed volunteer and one tipsy one—Mel’s mother, Joyce, and her best buddy, Ginny.

“Oh, honey, how are you?” Joyce asked as she pulled Mel into a crusher hug.

“I’m fine,” Mel said, hugging her mother back just as tightly.

Joyce had checked on her the day before, but Mel was happy to see her again today. Her brother, Charlie, who lived in Flagstaff, had called repeatedly, and Mel had to admit that having her small family circle the wagons for her made her feel much more secure.

“We were shocked, just shocked, to hear about the dead guy in the freezer,” Ginny said. She patted Mel’s arm while taking a long sip from her water bottle. “And then we heard he was your old professor—didn’t see that one coming.”

“Thanks, Ginny.” Mel turned back to her mother. “Have you seen Grace?”

“No,” Joyce said. “And we’re under strict orders from Millicent to say nothing about the incident.”

“Incident?” Angie asked. “Since when is a dead man just an incident?”

“When it’s a dead man who might turn off forty thousand festival visitors,” Ginny answered.

“Ah,” Angie said.

“Any word on what they’re doing about the challenge to the chefs?” Mel asked.

“Business as usual,” Joyce said. “Because of yesterday’s chaos, they’ve put up a leader board, you know like in golf, so if you made it to the next round, you’re on it.”

Mel stared at her, and Joyce gave her a ghost of a smile. Then as if she couldn’t stand the suspense, she jumped up and down and said, “You’re in the lead!”

“We’re what?” Mel asked.

“In the lead, numero uno, tip-top,” Ginny said.

“I have to see this,” Angie said. She grabbed Mel’s arm and said, “Come on.”

They skirted the booths where restaurants were in the midst of setting up for the day and cut across the lawn. Mel couldn’t help glancing at where the bar had been yesterday. She noticed the trailer that Vic had been found in was gone, and she wondered if the police had impounded it.

They reached the stretch of the mall where their cooking dais was situated, and sure enough, mounted above the cooking area was a huge billboard and Fairy Tale Cupcakes was at the top.

“I’ll be damned,” Mel said. “Look at that.”

She quickly perused the board and noticed that Confections was listed third after Polly’s Cookies.

Angie pumped her fist and let out a very unsportsmanlike whoop. Given the circumstances with Vic, Mel couldn’t get that enthused, but she did feel a surge of satisfaction that was impossible to deny.

“Don’t get too used to it,” a voice snarled from behind them. “This is just the first cut.”

Mel whirled around to find Olivia and her sous-chef glaring at them. She wondered if Olivia had any other look or if she suffered from an advanced case of permascowl.

“Oh, I don’t think it’s for us to get used to,” Angie said. “I’d say that’s more your problem, ’cause we’re number one and we’re planning to stay there.”

“Hunh,” Olivia grunted. “That’s going to be kind of hard now that your little judge buddy is dead.”

Mel felt a blast of white-hot anger light her up from the inside with the explosive force of gunpowder. Olivia did not deserve to even utter Vic’s name, never mind be dismissive of his death.

“Shut up,” she said. There must have been something in her tone because both Angie and Olivia’s sous-chef looked at her in surprise. “A man is dead—show some respect.”

Olivia shrugged. “What do I care? I didn’t know him. I wasn’t his little pet.”

Mel moved before it was a conscious thought. She fisted Olivia’s blue chef coat in her left hand while her right formed a fist.

“I said show some respect,” she said through gritted teeth. “What part of that don’t you understand?”

A flash of fear lit Olivia’s eyes, and her sous-chef stood behind her flapping her arms uselessly as if she thought she should defend her boss, but she didn’t want to be the one to take the pounding herself.

“Hey, would you look at that?” a voice asked. Mel glanced over her shoulder to see that the pert and perky Polly Ramsey had joined them. She was looking at her number two spot and appeared very chuffed about it.

“Wow, do you see my name?” she asked. “Look, I’m up there with you!”

Polly set off to get a closer look at the board, and they all watched her go before anyone moved.

Mel relaxed her grip on Olivia’s coat and smoothed the creases with her palm as she said, “I think we understand each other now.”

“Oh, I understand,” Olivia spat. “Now
you
understand I’m going to pound you, just so we’re clear.”

Angie stepped forward, but Mel stopped her with a hand on her elbow.

“May the best chef win,” Mel said.

“Don’t worry, I will,” Olivia said, and she stormed away from the dais.

“Mel, so help me, if you withdraw us from this competition because of Vic, I will understand, but oh, I will be so disappointed.”

“I’m not going to withdraw us,” she said. “After all, this may be the best place to find out more about Vic’s death.”

“No, no, no!” Angie protested. “We are not getting involved in this, absolutely not.”

“ We already are involved ,” Mel said. “Vic was my friend, and we’re the ones who found his body. How much more involved can we get?”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Angie agreed.

Mel had started to walk around the grounds, and Angie fell into step beside her. They had to duck and weave as workers were hauling carts, setting up for the day’s events.

“Or we could focus on making mincemeat out of Olivia in the competition and save the whole murder thing for the police.”

“Absolutely,” Mel agreed. Her eyes scanned the gathering crowd. “Olivia’s going down, but if along the way I happen to gather information that I think will help Uncle Stan, I’m going to pass it on to him.”

“But that’s not our purpose,” Angie said, looking concerned. “That’s secondary. Mel, hear me, ‘There’s one thing I want you to do for me. Win. Win!’”

Mel turned to look at her and frowned.

“Did you really just quote
Rocky II
to me?”

“It helped, didn’t it?”

Mel shook her head and walked away.

“Oh, come on, it had to help a little,” Angie protested. Then because Mel didn’t acknowledge her, Angie started humming the
Rocky
theme song behind her. She jogged around Mel, doing her best Rocky impression, which was pretty bad. Mel couldn’t help cracking a small smile.

“All right, all right,” she said. “I get it. You want to win. I promise I won’t let anything get in the way of that.”

Angie stopped jogging and hugged her. “And I will do anything I can to help you gather information.”

Mel gave a nod and glanced at her cell phone. They had only a half hour until they were to report to the dais for today’s culinary competition. She wondered if Grace would be here or if she’d stay holed up in her hotel room. Mel was betting on the latter.

“I’m going to run a quick errand,” she said. “Meet me at the stage in twenty minutes.”

“Where are you going?”

“I want to ask our host what he thinks about Vic ending up in a freezer,” Mel said.

“Johnny? You’re going to talk to Johnny Pepper?” Angie gaped. “You said you were going to gather information; you didn’t say you were on a suicide mission.”

“Why is it a suicide mission?” Mel asked.

“Have you seen Johnny’s show?” Angie asked. “That man is crazy. He actually learned how to eat fire. How do you know he won’t shish kebab you?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m just going to see what I can find out,” Mel said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be subtle.”

“Joe is going to be so unhappy about this.”

“I don’t see any reason why Joe would have to worry his pretty little head, do you?”

“No,” Angie said with a resigned sigh. “Fine, I’ll go see if I can chat up Pete and Dan from the bar yesterday. Maybe they heard something.”

“Twenty minutes,” Mel said, and she hurried off to the conference hall they had met in yesterday. Johnny Pepper had a dressing room in it all to himself. She was hoping he was there now, prepping for today’s competition.

She blew through the conference room, where her fellow competitors were caffeinating and carbing up on the free coffee and muffins that had been put out for them.

She saw Polly, who waved at her, but Mel stayed in motion while she waved back, not stopping until she reached Johnny’s door. She raised her fist to knock, but the sounds of shouting made her pause and press her ear to the door.

“She’s not qualified!” a Southern drawl as thick as molasses sounded through the door.

“Who cares?” a voice snapped back. It sounded familiar, but Mel couldn’t place it. “She’s a damn sight better looking than that miserable old—”

“Watch it,” the drawl said again. “You’re talking about my friend.”

“Whatever,” the voice argued. “You can’t replace her now. She’s already been photographed as the replacement judge, and like it or not, she’s going to be a real boost to our ratings.”

“Even though she doesn’t know a garlic press from an egg slicer?”

“She doesn’t need to. She’s representing the everyman palate.”

“Oh, spare me.” The drawl sounded disgusted. “Are we through?”

“For now,” the voice said.

“Good, then clear out,” Johnny said. “I need some prep time.”

Before Mel could step back, the door was yanked open, and she found herself face to face with Dutch.

“Mel, what a surprise,” he said.

He was dressed in his usual creased slacks and dress shirt, but she noticed that he didn’t look as calm as usual. In fact, his shaved head was beaded with sweat, and he didn’t even bother to put on the charm.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I just came by to see Johnny,” she said.

“I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“Well, now you do,” Johnny said. “If you’ll excuse us?”

Dutch glanced between them and gave Mel an inquisitive look before he reluctantly departed.

“Always a pleasure,” Mel called after him. She stepped inside the room and closed the door.

“Melanie Cooper, right?” Johnny asked.

“That’s me,” she said. She clasped his outstretched hand and was surprised to find it rough with calluses. Johnny Pepper hadn’t always been a celebrity.

“I saw your work yesterday,” he said. “Impressive.”

“Thanks,” she said. “And thanks for chasing Dutch off.”