Dying for Dinner (A Cooking Class Mystery) (5 page)

"And you should be happy I don't take a poke at that smug expression on your face." I glared at him, just for good measure.

But Tyler was already past that. He looked over to where a team of paramedics was putting Greg's body into a bag and hoisting it onto a stretcher. "We're right back where we started from," he said.

I thought about everything he'd said. "Maybe not. Why not just ask Monsieur Lavoie? If he knew Greg was in trouble, he must have seen what was happening. He'll tell you. Just ask him."

"I'd love to. If I could find him."

That jumpy feeling in my stomach solidified into a block of ice. I looked at Tyler hard. "You mean . . ."

"He's nowhere in the store, that's for sure. In fact, the back door was wide open. Like maybe he left that way and didn't bother to close it behind him. He called from his cell phone, but there's no answer on it now."

"Yeah." Thinking, I worked over my lower lip with my teeth. "That's what happened when I called him. You've tried--"

"His home? Right before you walked in, we heard from the team of officers we sent over there. There's no sign of Lavoie there, either."

"That means--"

"Yep." Tyler didn't look any happier saying it than I did hearing it. "Your friend Jacques Lavoie has disappeared."

Three

HAVE I MENTIONED THAT JIM IS A CONSUMMATE professional?

I suppose I have. I mean, it's impossible for me to talk about Jim and not sing his praises to the high heavens. Yeah, he's that terrific. On the personal side, he's always been there for me. Professionally, I've seen him come through in a cooking pinch so many times, I'm pretty much convinced he's a bona fide kitchen superhero.

But if I needed more proof, it came the day after Greg's murder.

In spite of the fact that he'd soldiered through with the rest of the cooking class even after I called him to tell him what had happened at Tres Bonne Cuisine and that we'd been up half the night in an effort to find Monsieur Lavoie, Jim was at Bellywasher's at his usual early hour. When lunchtime rolled around, he directed the kitchen staff like a conductor in front of his orchestra.

No missteps.

No miscues.

No sour notes.

Me? Well, after calling Monsieur's cell phone a couple of dozen times an hour the night before, going along with Jim when he visited every one of the haunts he knew Monsieur frequented, and just basically pacing my apartment as we wracked our brains to try to figure out what had happened to our friend, I was a little less perky.

The latest batch of supplier invoices was on my desk in front of me, but the numbers swam in front of my bleary eyes.

When my office door snapped open and Jim stuck his head in, I was grateful for the break. "Anything?" he asked.

I shook my head. "No answer," I said, with a look toward the phone on my desk. "I've been calling every half hour or so. But there's no answer at his house. No answer on his cell, either."

Jim's white apron was a stark contrast to the smudges of exhaustion under his eyes. He looked over his shoulder, quickly checking to be sure that for the moment, everything was under control out in the restaurant. Only when he was sure did he step into my office and close the door behind him.

"What are we going to do?" he asked.

In all the hours we'd worked on the problem, I'd never heard Jim sound this discouraged. Or this worried. I rose from my chair and crossed the room (it didn't take long; my office is lilliputian). I would have given Jim a hug if there wasn't a smear of marinara across the front of his apron and I wasn't wearing a white sweater.

I put a hand on Jim's arm and gave it a squeeze. "We're going to find him," I said, and honestly, I believed it. "Monsieur can't have just disappeared off the face of the earth. He has to be somewhere." I was grateful that Jim was listed as the emergency contact on the note that hung over the cash register at Tres Bonne Cuisine. That meant the cops had contacted him directly the night before. He was in the loop, and he wasn't getting all his information about the murder and Monsieur's disappearance secondhand from me. "You heard what Tyler said when he called you last night," I reminded him.

"You mean about Jacques making that phone call. The one that alerted the police to the trouble." Jim nodded. A lock of hair fell onto his forehead, but he didn't move to brush it back. The curl of hair made him look younger. And more vulnerable.

I'd heard people talk about heartstrings, and at that moment, I knew for certain they were real because mine tugged in sympathy.

"Tyler said that phone call means Jacques is as right as rain," Jim said. He didn't have to; I remembered the call as well as he did. But I let him talk. He was bolstering his own spirits, and trying to buck up mine, too. "Jacques was able to make the phone call, so he must not have been hurt. Tyler said it means we shouldn't worry that he might be . . . you know."

I couldn't blame Jim. I didn't want to say it, either. I didn't even want to think about what he was thinking about, so I didn't. I concentrated on the facts instead.

"When I was at the shop, Tyler told me the back door of Tres Bonne Cuisine was open when the police arrived. I think that means that when the killer came into the store, Monsieur must have been loading his car with the stuff he was supposed to bring over here for your class. Of course, I didn't get a chance to look around the store. If I could have gone back there, maybe I'd know for sure." A stab of embarrassment reminded me that after Tyler had given me more time than he probably should have at an active crime scene, he unceremoniously escorted me from the premises and told me to mind my own business.

Which was exactly what I was doing, I reminded myself.

Monsieur was our friend. This was our business.

With that in mind, I went right on. "He didn't come right out and say it--you know how Tyler can be--but I got the feeling he thinks that Monsieur walked back in and realized something was wrong. I'll bet Monsieur was all set to help. You know he wouldn't just turn tail and run. Not when a friend is in trouble. He's not that kind of person. But then he must have heard the shots, and that's when he called 911 and got himself out of there. It was the smart thing to do and it also means that he's safe. He's just--"

"Missing? Disappeared into thin air? Hiding? That makes the least sense of all. Why would he want to hide? Why would he need to?"

These were the same questions that we'd been over the night before--again and again, until our heads spun and our brains were as fried as the ravioli on the day's menu. Before I could try to drum up some answers that sounded new, different, and even vaguely plausible, there was a rap on my door.

Heidi, our waitress, opened it and came inside. In my office, three is the proverbial crowd and when Jim stepped closer, I stepped back to keep my sweater from getting ruined. Heidi, smart girl that she is, didn't waste any time.

"The party at table four is ready for their birthday cake," she told Jim, and he assured her he'd be right there. I knew the Tennessee whiskey cake Jim had made the day before was a special order for a group of regulars and that he was proud of his recipe. There was no way he wasn't going to serve it himself.

Before he stepped back into the restaurant, he looked toward my phone. "You'll try again?"

I didn't have to answer. He knew I would.

Before he closed my door, though, he turned to me one more time.

"He was the one who gave me my first real job when I came to this country, you know." Jim's smile was brief. "I was barbacking here for Uncle Angus, but there's only so much of that a young fellow can do, especially one who's itching to cook. Jacques' shop was brand new and when I stopped in to look around, he saw that I was interested, and knowledgeable. I'd taken a few cookery courses back in Scotland, but I'd never seen anything like that shop of his. I started out unpacking boxes, stocking shelves. I learned a lot there, and Jacques gave me a chance to cook, and to teach."

I knew the story, of course, but I didn't bother to point this out to Jim. As I'd seen in so many investigations, those left behind to deal with the aftermath of a tragedy needed space to explore their feelings and a chance to talk.

"But this isn't a tragedy," I told myself the instant Jim was out the door. And then I felt guilty. Because of course Greg's death was exactly that. Monsieur's disappearance, on the other hand?

Right now, that was a mystery.

As always, my mind and Eve's were apparently moving in the same direction. That would explain why the moment I was back at my desk and staring at those endless columns of blurred numbers again, she slipped into my office and plunked into the chair next to my desk.

"You're going to take the case, right?" Eve didn't wait for me to answer. She'd left her purse in my office that morning and she got it out of the bottom drawer of my desk, dug inside, and pulled out a tube of lipstick. "I mean, you pretty much have to, don't you? What with Monsieur being our friend and all."

"I dunno." I rolled my chair back. "It's not that I wouldn't like to know more--"

"Of course you would." Eve uncapped the lipstick, applied it, and smacked her lips together. "You're a smart woman with an inquisitive mind."

"But we don't have much to go on."

"You mean the cops don't." Eve pulled a mirror from her purse. She pouted into it, checking her lipstick. "You're oodles smarter than they are, Annie. You've proved that more than once."

"I have, but--"

"And you know you could do it again."

"I might be able to, but--"

"And you want to, don't you?" She looked directly at me when she said this and, face-to-face with the sheen of excitement in Eve's blue eyes, I found it impossible to speak anything but the whole truth and nothing but.

"It is interesting to investigate," I said, my words tentative. "I'll admit that. I like solving the puzzle of a case. I like knowing that a victim has found justice and the person responsible will be punished. But--"

"But? But what?" She shoved both lipstick and mirror back in her purse, tucked the purse in the bottom desk drawer, and sat up straight. "You are not telling me that you're going to give up on Monsieur Lavoie, are you, Annie? Because I just know that can't be true. He's our friend. And you're the best detective this side of the--"

"Oh, no. Don't try to pull that on me!" I was up and on my feet even before I realized it. "Being curious about what happened to Monsieur is one thing. Being thought of as some kind of Sherlock Holmes is--"

"The absolute truth. And you know it. You've got a gift."

"Maybe. Possibly. OK . . ." I indulged in a little vanity, not a weakness that usually plagued me. "OK, you're right. I'm pretty good at this detective thing. That doesn't mean--"

"Of course it does. You don't think the police are anywhere near as concerned about Monsieur as we are, do you? I mean, truly, they might want to be, but they're just as busy as can be. And they don't know Monsieur like we do. They don't like him as much as we do. I mean, how can they, when they don't know him. Unless some of them do. I mean, if they're cooks. And they shop at his store. But I don't think they all could. I mean, every single cop on the Arlington force? That seems a bit unlikely. And it would mean Monsieur would be busy. All of the time." She must have seen my eyes go glassy. Eve twitched away the rest of her convoluted theory.

"Why, if we don't take charge and take on this investigation," Eve said, her voice as rock steady as her shoulders, "the mystery of what happened to Monsieur might never be solved."

I hadn't failed to notice how the
you
had somehow morphed into
we
. It didn't matter and, besides, like I've said before, there's no one I'd rather have with me on an investigation than Eve.

"We could go back to the places Jim and I stopped last night," I told her. "Those couple little bars in Clarendon, and that coffee place that Monsieur likes so much. Maybe there will be someone there today who wasn't there last night." It was an idea, sure, and it was better than sitting around doing nothing, but honestly, it felt useless. I twitched my shoulders, but that did nothing to get rid of the uneasiness that sat on them like a weight. "I don't know. It just doesn't seem like enough."