Dying for Dinner (A Cooking Class Mystery) (20 page)

"Then how did you know he was looking for you?"

While I asked the questions, Jim pulled out the same notepad that had been in his pocket earlier that evening (I guess technically it was the evening before now that it was Friday morning). Norman talked, and Jim took notes.

"I was loading the car. You know, I was supposed to take stuff over to Bellywasher's. The steel-clad roaster and the ice cream maker and . . ." As much as he loved food and the expensive cookware he sold to prepare it, Norman shrugged it all off as inconsequential in the face of what had happened. "I was going in and out and I heard Greg talking to someone, but hey, that's not unusual, is it? The shop was open late that night and whatever the guy wanted, I knew Greg would take care of everything. He always did. He was--" Norman's voice got thick and he coughed away his emotion. "Greg was a nice guy. I hate that this happened to him. If I would have been braver. Or smarter. If I realized sooner that something was wrong--"

"When did you realize something was wrong?"

I could tell Norman had been avoiding thinking about the whole thing, that's how pale and shaken he was. I couldn't blame him. All the more reason we had to talk about it.

"What did he say?" I asked. "The guy Greg was waiting on, how did you know he was really looking for you?"

"I heard him . . ." Norman swallowed hard. "I heard the man raise his voice. He said, 'It's payback time, Norman.' "

Twelve

"IT'S PAYBACK TIME, NORMAN."

Ignoring the confused looks on Jim's and Norman's faces, I drummed my fingers against the table and mumbled the words. "Don't you get it?" I said, looking from one of them to the other. "It's a clue."

"Well, it's how I knew the guy was looking for me, that's for sure." Now that it was morning and we didn't need the lights, we'd opened the door that led into the main room of the cooking school. A stream of mellow sunshine poked into the room where we'd spent the night. Norman stepped through the sunlight to retrieve the waffles he'd just made. He put them down in front of us, and added a scoop of fresh strawberries and a dollop of whipped cream.

Something told me they didn't eat like this back at the Nevada State Prison.

Norman sat down and cut into his own stack of waffles. "As soon as I heard him say that, I knew the guy was mixed up, that he thought Greg was me. I was in the back office and I was just about to step out front and tell him he had the wrong guy, but . . ." In spite of the sweetened whipped cream, Norman's expression soured. "That's when I heard the first gunshot. After that, I didn't know what to do. I guess I panicked. Instead of going out front, I called the cops."

"That's exactly what you should have done." I gave him a sympathetic smile because I could tell the memory was painful for Norman. Rather than risk losing him to it, I made sure to keep our discussion on track.

"The killer did think Greg was you," I said. "But not the you you are. The you you were." That didn't make any sense. Not even to me. I licked whipped cream from my lips and tried again. "You and Greg didn't look anything at all alike now. But we noticed the resemblance between the young you and Greg in the pictures we found of you in the William Allen High yearbook."

The look on Norman's face told me he was anxious to hear more of an explanation, but rather than get side-tracked, I put a hand on his arm to stop him.

"You see what this means, right?" I asked. "The killer is probably someone who knew you years ago. Or at least someone who's seen pictures of you from back then. He did what we did when we looked at your graduation picture. We tried to imagine what the kid in the photograph would look like with a few years and a few added pounds. So when he walked into the shop and saw Greg--"

"He thought it was me." Norman interrupted me. Which was just fine by me. It gave me a chance to take another bite of waffle. His expression fell and he set down his fork. "What a lousy way to die. Poor Greg. He didn't even know what the guy was talking about. He didn't know I was Norman. Nobody did. So why kill him? Why kill me? I mean, that's what the guy thought he was doing, right? He thought he was killing me." His pleading look pivoted between Jim and me. Which would have been just fine--if we had any answers.

The way it was, we sat in silence for a long while, eating our waffles and sipping the coffee Norman had brewed with just a touch of chicory. After a while, his shoulders rose and fell.

"I know I haven't given you guys much reason to trust me," Norman said. "I'm sorry for that. When I started this whole crazy Jacques Lavoie thing, I never thought I'd have friends who were so wonderful that I'd feel guilty for lying to them. But I do. I have you two, and Eve, and everyone over at Bellywasher's. Believe me when I say I thought of telling you all the truth a thousand times. I just never got up the nerve. And I loved the whole eccentric French chef thing." He gave us that Pepe Le Pew laugh, only this time it didn't sound as jolly as it did downright phony. I wondered how I'd never noticed before. "I loved being in the limelight, having all the D.C. foodies beating a path to my door. Now . . ." He sat back and raised his chin.

"I want you to know that I'm sorry you had to learn the truth this way, and from now on, I'm going to be one hundred percent aboveboard with you. All of you. Always. I swear . . ." He raised his right hand like he would have done if he were in court. "I swear I never did anything to anyone that would make them want to kill me. I'm not a violent man. Never have been. The only thing I ever did was take some people's money. And never a whole lot of it, either. Why would somebody want to kill me for that?"

I interrupted him because I didn't know if Norman knew this part of the story. "But he didn't want to kill you. The murderer just wanted to make you talk. That's why he shot Greg in the foot. He thought Greg was you, and he thought if he hurt him badly enough, Greg would tell him whatever it was he wanted to know. Only Greg didn't know, of course, because Greg didn't have any idea what the killer was talking about. And after he shot Greg--"

"He saw me." Norman's complexion was ashen. "I heard the shots and I was so startled, I knocked against something back in the office. That was the first the guy knew there was somebody else in the store. That's when I really got scared. I took off for the back door. But not before the guy got a look at me. I saw his face. Just for a moment. And I've got to tell you, there was such a funny expression on it, I couldn't make heads or tails of what the guy was thinking. But now I get it. That was the first he realized he'd shot the wrong man."

"And that's when you knew your life was still in danger." It was the first thing Jim had said in a while and I looked his way to find him deep in thought, his brows low over his eyes and his jaw firm. "It's no wonder you've been keeping yourself out of sight. He's still out there. And if he finds you--"

"That's not going to happen." I thought it important to point this out, mostly because I could see that the very idea was making Norman green around the gills. "We're getting ahead of ourselves," I said, not because we were, but because if I kept the conversation on our investigation, Norman wouldn't have to think about the vicious killer who was still out there somewhere looking for him. "What we really need to concentrate on is who the guy is, and what he wants."

Norman didn't look sure. "I keep wondering how he knew. I mean, about Tres Bonne Cuisine. If the killer wasn't even sure who Greg was or what I look like, how did he know to come to Tres Bonne Cuisine?"

I didn't have the answer and I didn't pretend I did. "What's even more important," I said, "was what he was trying to find out. He said, 'It's payback time, Norman.' That means he thought you owed him something. Even more important--"

"I don't." It was Norman's turn to interrupt. "I don't have any outstanding debts. Nothing that would cause someone to come looking for me with a gun, anyway."

"But it's not a debt you have now. Don't you see?" As if it might help, I set down my fork so I could concentrate on explaining things as clearly as possible. "The guy didn't know you as Jacques or Bill or Fred or by any of your other identities. He said
Norman
. He knew you back when you were the real you. And that means--"

"It might have something to do with one of the scams you ran back in the days when you were Norman." This came from Jim, and he so succinctly said what I'd been beating around the bush to explain, I could have kissed him. If I didn't have a mouth full of waffle. "This bloke, he must have had a grudge for a very long time."

"And we're back to square one." So that we could set the table for our breakfast, I'd taken the list of scams Norman had written out earlier and put it over near the sink. I retrieved it and put it on the table in front of Norman, then handed him the pen.

"Go ahead," I instructed him. "Put a check mark next to the scams you ran back when you were Norman."

WHAT WITH THE SURPRISE OF FINDING MONSIEUR (I
was having a hard time getting used to thinking of him as Norman), the double surprise of Jim showing up at the shop, and the wine and the waffles and the stories we exchanged and the theories we tossed back and forth, we were all pretty exhausted by the time eight o'clock rolled around. Rather than beating our brains and wasting our time, we decided to meet again later that afternoon at Jim's, before the dinner hour at Belly-washer's.

We smuggled Monsieur . . . er, I mean, Norman . . . out of the shop wrapped in an oversized shawl Eve had once left there and wearing the straw gardening hat I kept in the backseat of my car on the off chance that one of these days, I might actually have a garden to wear it in. It was still early and most of the retail shops on the street weren't open yet. As far as we could see, the coast was clear; there was no one watching us or Tres Bonne Cuisine. But even though he was confident they wouldn't be followed, Jim was no dummy. He drove the roundabout way to his house in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, bustled Norman inside, and settled him in the guest room with the miniblinds closed.

I had other plans. I made a call, and even before I told him he deserved his very own superhero outfit, Raymond agreed to forgo his Friday beauty nap and work the shop for me that day. And me? I went home and took a nice, long nap. Between that and a shower, I was rarin' to go by the time I got to Jim's for our powwow.

I, too, took the long way to Clarendon and maybe Norman's paranoia was getting to me, because in case someone was watching me, I offered to park a couple of blocks from Jim's house and walk the rest of the way. (Yes, I was imagining myself slipping in and out of the shadows in a very detectivelike way.)

Jim would have none of that. His place is on a too-close-to-seedy-for-comfort street, and he insisted I park in the driveway. He met me even before I got to the front door.

And I'm not complaining or anything. I mean, being welcomed to Jim's with a hug and a kiss was just about the best way I could think of to end twenty-four hours full of shocks and revelations. But what Jim didn't know was that usually when I get to his place, I take my time walking up the front steps and across the porch to his door.