Enemies Closer (19 page)

“I don’t particularly like Eddie, but that doesn’t make him a murderer and a kidnapper. And just because the cops were asking about it, doesn’t mean that he was having an affair with Susan. Although it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“You were going to tell me why you don’t like him.”

“And I will, but first we’re going to Gigi’s.” He turned toward the waterfront.

“Wait a minute!” said Clara. “Why?” She took a few quick steps to catch up with Ben.

Putting his arm around her shoulder and gently leading her along, he explained, “We need to learn a little more about Susan and her boyfriend.”

“Do you think he’ll be at work today? The day after his girlfriend was murdered?”

“Probably not, but we can nose around, maybe talk to his coworkers, find out how Harry reacted when he found out Susan had been murdered. Restaurants are hotbeds for gossip. Besides, you heard Michelle – she isn’t going to give us any reason to find a motive for her murder at Dovetail, and that includes whether or not she thinks her husband was sleeping with Susan. We have to look elsewhere for information.”

“But why would they tell us anything?”

“Someone will tell us something. And maybe we can convince one of them to give us Harry’s cell number.”

Now Clara smiled. “I have his cell number. He gave it to me.”

Without breaking stride, Ben gave her a big smooch on the cheek. “I should have known.”

Clara thought for a moment. “But, if his girlfriend was sleeping with Eddie, it would point the finger at him too. Why would he talk to us about that? And if he doesn’t suspect anything, I don’t want to be the one to put bad thoughts in his head about his recently deceased girlfriend.”

“We don’t have to ask him about Susan’s alleged infidelities, but we can try to get the dirt on what’s really going on at Maddy’s restaurant. He probably heard all the gossip from his girlfriend.”

“Pillow talk,” said Clara with a quick nod.

They walked along Pike’s Place, dodging the tourists who meandered through the street with pastries, coffee cups, little bags of lavender and expensive packages of smoked salmon to bring back home with them. Emerging on the other side of the charming melee, they walked another block to Gigi’s and Ben opened the large glass door. Gemma was perched at the host stand and, when she saw Clara, walked around it to greet them.

“Clara, come in,” she said.

She introduced Ben as they sat at a bar table. “Of course,” said Gemma. “I thought I recognized you. You’re a friend of Madeline’s.” Gemma Stein was perfectly tucked and coiffed in a black sheath dress and an Audrey Hepburn up-do, but her eyes were wary. “I can’t believe Susan is dead,” she said with genuine sorrow. “Harry is devastated.”

“Is he here, Gemma? We actually have a few questions for him.”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head slowly, “I told him to take all the time he needs. He left yesterday after the police broke the news. I’m planning on running the front of the house through the weekend and maybe into next week.” Her gaze wandered thoughtfully to the window and the view of the Sound beyond. “Some people need time alone, and some need to get back in the swing of things quickly. If I know Harry, he’ll be back sooner rather than later.”

The mournful look in Gemma Stein’s eyes was one of familiarity and Ben wondered whom she had lost. Clara must have been thinking the same thing because she said, “You’ve lost a loved one.”

Gemma’s sad smile conceded the point. “My first husband died of cancer. It was,” she searched for a word, “just terrible. In every way.” She waved her hands dismissively. “It was a long time ago, but I really feel for Harry. I don’t know where their relationship was going, but I do know that he cared very deeply for Susan.”

Clara glanced at Ben before asking, “Do you have any idea why someone would have wanted to kill her?”

“I would have said that it had to be a random attack except that Maddy is missing too, and that’s a big coincidence. It’s hard to imagine the one doesn’t have something to do with the other.” She paused as if considering something and then went on, “I don’t know if this is relevant.” She blinked a few times, seemed to make a decision. “Eddie Perkins approached our restaurant group, Steinboch, about negotiating a sale.”

Clara’s mouth fell open. “A sale?”

“He wanted to open a discussion about our acquiring Dovetail.”

“Gemma, why didn’t you mention this sooner?” asked Clara incredulously.

The other woman was undaunted. “It was only a fishing expedition on his part. Barely an opening salvo. And, it wouldn’t be smart business to start talking about an acquisition before it’s even on the table; since his approach preceded Maddy’s disappearance we had no reason to believe they had anything to do with one another. Now that Susan has been murdered,” her voice faded for a second, “well, like I said: that’s a big coincidence.” Her tone was sympathetic to Clara’s frustration, but unapologetic. Gemma Stein was clearly a sharp businesswoman.

“I understand that,” said Ben, “but now you need to tell the cops. Something is wrong at that restaurant and people are getting hurt over it. Maddy never mentioned selling to me. If there was a disagreement over keeping or selling the restaurant, it could be a motive for making Maddy disappear.” He didn’t mention Maddy’s questions about possible stealing at Dovetail because if Gemma was as shrewd as she seemed, and she wanted to acquire Dovetail, it would give her leverage.

“Did he come to your offices, or just drop by the restaurant?” Ben wanted to know.

“Neither. It was all via email, and I haven’t heard any more about it since Madeline went missing. Under the circumstances, I haven’t pursued it further.”

“You have to talk to the police about it,” said Clara a little sternly. “It could be really important.”

“I’ll call the detectives right away,” said Gemma.

“Thank you,” said Clara, “but before you do, is there anything else you can think of that might have been going on at my sister’s restaurant? Any industry gossip or something you may have heard from Harry?”

Gemma thought for a moment. “Well, Harry is like a vault. He tells me all the dirt, but not about his girlfriend’s place of business.” She smiled coyly. “And believe me, I always ask. As for word around town, Dovetail is really successful. Particularly for such a young restaurant. Nice place to work, incredible food, great service, and Madeline is a star. Brilliant chef, charming, very beautiful,” she looked pointedly at Clara, “just like you. Everyone wants her to come out of the kitchen and chat. You could put her on television.”

Clara seemed to miss the compliment. “So, no issues that you know of?”

“Not that I’ve heard, but if they’re thinking of selling, there must be some problems. Of course, it could just be that running the place is overwhelming. Plenty of successful restaurants have been sold because the owners were exhausted.”

“And that’s where Steinboch would come in,” said Ben.

“Yes, but we’re not a consultant firm or a staffing company. We don’t just charge a fee for our services. We own all of our restaurants outright. We hire, monitor and manage everything.”

“So if you bought Dovetail, Maddy wouldn’t be the head chef anymore?” asked Clara.

“Maddy could be the head chef of any restaurant in the city, if she wanted. Like I said, she’s a star. I wish I could clone her.
But
, she would no longer be the owner.” She looked at her watch. “I’d better be off if I want to talk to the detectives before the rush begins.”

Clara opened her purse and fished a business card out of an interior pocket. “Call these detectives. They’re in charge of Maddy’s disappearance.” She added her own card. “And please, if you think of anything else, let me know right away.”

Gemma took Clara’s hand and said, “Absolutely. I’m so sorry for you, Clara. I hope you find your sister safe and sound.” She turned to Ben. “You’re a good friend, Ben. Take care of one another.”

They poked around the restaurant for a little while longer, asking questions about Maddy, Susan and Dovetail, but didn’t discover anything important.

Leaving Gigi’s just as the sun came out from behind the bank of clouds that had been hiding it all day long, Clara turned to Ben as he pulled her against his warm broad chest. She wrapped her arms around his waist and murmured in a breathy Marilyn Monroe voice, “I’m not sure what I would do without your strong arms to comfort me, Mr. Radcliffe.”

Ben squeezed her a little tighter and whispered in her ear, “You don’t have to wonder, Clara Gardner.” He kissed the top of her head. “Let’s go back to my office.”

Chapter Eighteen

C
arlisle and Kincaid were back in the incident room when the call came through. Kincaid took it while Carlisle made a coffee run. Fifteen minutes later she came back with two steaming cups from Starbucks and found her partner pacing the room.

“Eddie Perkins was trying to sell Dovetail,” he said without preamble. “That was Gemma Stein from Gigi’s Bistro, one of the co-owners of that restaurant management company, Steinboch, and she says that Eddie approached her about selling the restaurant to them.” Judy had set the hot coffee on the conference table and he said, “Whole milk?”

“Two percent, Jerry. If you want whole you have to get it yourself.”

“The French drink whole.”

“The French have much smaller coffee cups,” she replied unapologetically. “So, our friend Eddie wanted to sell the restaurant. What about Maddy and Michelle?”

“Don’t know. All negotiations thus far were made via email solely from Eddie Perkins’s address.”

“We have to talk to Clara and Ben about Maddy, but we can ask Michelle directly what she thought about selling. She’s busting her ass right now to keep Dovetail going without her partner. Seems like a lot of work for a business she wants to sell. Although it would probably sell higher if it’s thriving. Maybe busting her ass to get as much for it as she can?”

“Or it could be that her slippery husband wants to sell – or needs to sell – and the only way he could make his business partners go along was by getting rid of one of them and putting so much pressure on the other that she can’t keep it going.”

“Michelle is his wife.”

“We’ve seen plenty of husbands do much worse to get what they want.”

Carlisle slapped the table in frustration. “We need a warrant for Eddie’s finances. And for Dovetail’s books. And for Maddy Gardner’s will – we need to find out what happens to her share of the restaurant if she dies.”

“We can go to the DA, but I guarantee we don’t have enough for a warrant.”

She knew he was right. “If Eddie is screwing his wife over, maybe she’ll give us access to Dovetail’s finances. And she must know what happens in the event of Maddy’s death. I’m sure they all made some agreement together when they bought the place.”

“
If
Eddie went to Steinboch without her knowledge and
if
that’s enough to convince Michelle that her husband betrayed her, maybe then she’ll give us evidence that would incriminate him in Maddy’s disappearance.”

“I know it’s a lot of ifs, but unless they’re in it together, it’s our best shot.”

“Where does Susan Burns fit into all of this?” asked Kincaid.

“I don’t know. Maybe she was Eddie’s lover and his partner in crime and he decided she was a loose end. Or maybe she doesn’t fit into it. Maybe her murder was just a wild coincidence. That’s Tanaka and Iverson’s problem.” She looked at her watch. “Shit. It’s four o’clock. We’re not going to get anything out of Michelle during the dinner rush. We’ll just piss her off.”

“If we leave now, we can catch a few minutes. This is too important to wait.”

In unison, the two detectives lifted their coffee cups and drained them. Then they were out the door.

Maddy Gardner did not need light to know that the chunk of metal she had been so vigorously trying to unearth was useless.

She held the piece of wood she had used as a shovel in her lap and let the hopelessness of her situation wash through her. It was dark in the cellar, but she could see a faint light illuminating the foliage outside of the distant window and knew there was still daylight left in the real world. Picking up the disappointing find, she walked the few steps back to the wooden post that had become the center of her universe. Sitting, she took a long drink of distilled water and a listless bite of an overly-sweet snack cake.

As she had scraped more dirt away from her treasure, she had realized that it was the steel lid of an old toolbox. She could feel the grooves in the metal, the rust, and finally found the handle. The dirt was tightly packed and her implement so rudimentary that she knew it would take time to dig the whole thing up, but Maddy was excited. She couldn’t believe her luck. She ran through a list of tools that might help her get free of the chain around her wrist. Hammer, pliers, handsaw, a screwdriver! She ignored the painful slivers in her hands, ignored the fading light, and at last dug far enough to reach the wire draw latch. She scraped more dirt away with her fingers and discovered that the lid was attached to – absolutely nothing. A knot began to form in her stomach, but she continued digging. Perhaps the rest of the toolbox had rusted away from the lid. Age, moisture, dirt, the conditions of this cellar would erode anything. She kept digging, freeing the lid and tossing it aside. She scraped and dug with the slat of wood until she lost all hope.

There was nothing more to find.

Suddenly, Maddy began to weep in despair. Several minutes passed while great wracking sobs overcame her. She shook and wailed and beat the ground with her fists, and as she pounded the dirt floor of her prison she felt rage replacing the doom.
Who would do this to me?
she thought.
Who despises me so much that they would chain me up in a dank basement with no light, no running water, and no hope?

Maddy could think of no one.
A stranger? A lunatic?
she wondered.
But what would a stranger get out of locking me up alone?
There was no one here to rape or molest her. She wasn’t being used for sex or work or sadism.
Ransom?
Again, she could think of no one who would concoct that plan. Maddy’s parents were well off, but by no means multi-millionaires, and there was nothing flamboyant about their lifestyle. Nothing that might attract the attention of would-be kidnappers. Maddy herself had a small condo in downtown Seattle but it was mortgaged, the restaurant was mortgaged. She still had two years of payments on her reliable but hardly glamorous Toyota. The problem was, if she ruled out a sex-maniac, a human trafficker and a profiteer, all she had left was that someone she knew, for some reason she didn’t understand, had locked her up in this dirty, moldy hole in the ground to die.
With Twinkies for my last meal.

The light in the window had faded while she was having her temper tantrum. Maddy finished her snack cake and swished a mouthful of water to wash away some of the sweetness. She climbed back into the sleeping bag that was her only comfort in this dark place and thought about that toolbox lid. She had an idea.

There was no parking outside of Dovetail and a produce truck blocked the loading zone, so Carlisle dropped her partner at the door to the restaurant. “She likes you better anyway.”

While his partner circled the block looking for a place to park, Kincaid once again knocked on the door to Dovetail. Joe, the bartender, recognized the detective and let him in but he didn’t look happy about it.

Before Kincaid could ask for her, Michelle rounded the corner and stopped dead when she saw him. Her expression went from exasperation to fear when she saw the look of urgency on the detective’s face. “What’s happened?”

“May I talk to you in private, Mrs. Perkins?”

“Sure,” she said uncertainly and led him back to her office. “Have you found Maddy?”

“No, we haven’t. I have to ask you something sensitive and for the sake of your friend, please tell me the truth.” He kept his eyes directly on hers to make sure she understood what he was saying. “Did you have plans to sell Dovetail to the Steinboch Restaurant Group?”

Michelle’s head shot back as if she’d been slapped. “Of course not!”

“Mrs. Perkins, we have reason to believe that your husband broached the possibility of selling this restaurant to Gemma Stein and her partners. Do you know anything about that?”

Now Michelle’s mouth hung open in disbelief. “That’s absurd!”

“So you have no intentions of selling Dovetail?”

“None! Where did you hear this?”

Kincaid didn’t answer. “Did Madeline ever talk to you about selling?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head vehemently, “never. Maddy loves this place as much as I do. We chose the location together, the style, picked out the furniture, planned the menus, ordered the food, hired the staff. When we had to replace one of the grill tops we sat together and pored over the specs of different models until the wee hours of the night, drinking wine and making checklists until we had the best one for
our
kitchen. Dovetail is our creation. We’ve only been open two years and we’re booming. Success in this business is a rarity and we’ve achieved it. I’m telling you, Detective Kincaid, neither I nor Maddy had any intention of selling.”

“What about Eddie?”

The question hit Michelle like a ton of bricks. She opened and closed her mouth, looked away, and finally said, as if she were searching for an answer herself, “Why would he want to sell?”

Kincaid let the question hang in the air a moment before saying, “Michelle, we’d like to take a look at Dovetail’s finances.”

“That’s ridiculous. Absolutely not.”

Kincaid went on as if she hadn’t responded. “And, we’d like to know how Eddie’s business is doing. Whether he’s had any setbacks recently.”

“He’d never let you do that.” When the detective raised an eyebrow she said, “And I don’t have access to his financial records.”

“What about your personal finances?”

“I have access to those of course, but…” Her voice trailed off.

“But what, Michelle?”

“But he takes care of everything.”

Again, Kincaid let the silence hang over that statement before saying, “Michelle, take a look at your finances, at Dovetail’s. If you see anything out of place, anything that’s different from what you thought it would be, consider granting us access. Do it for Maddy, for Susan, for your own peace of mind.”

She just looked at him. Sorrow and fear and uncertainty filled her voice when she said, “I have to get back to the kitchen now, Kincaid.”

He opened the office door, but before he left, Kincaid said, “Think about what I’ve said, Michelle, and do the right thing.”

Outside, he found Carlisle just pulling into the loading zone behind the exiting produce truck. He waved to her in the rearview mirror and she stopped so he could get in. “Couldn’t find a place to park. Did you get anything out of her? Without me?” Judy batted her eyelashes dramatically.

“I managed on my own,” he said, putting on his seat belt. “She seemed pretty surprised when I told her Eddie had contacted Gemma Stein about selling.”

“You believe her?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, but could be she’s an all-star liar. She wouldn’t be the first.” He filled her in on his conversation.

“Did you hit her with those baby blues?”

“Don’t I always?”

“You are one tough cookie, Jerry Kincaid. Do you think it worked?”

“We’ll see, but she was pretty shaken. Give her some time to get really scared and maybe she’ll let us into those records.”

“I hope to god Maddy doesn’t have anything to do with this,” said Kincaid, absently running a hand through his thick red hair. “Although at this point, her involvement might be the only chance she’s got of still being alive.”

“Hard to imagine someone has been keeping her against her will for this long. It’s been five days since we think she disappeared, more than forty-eight hours since we got the case. There’s been no sign of her. She hasn’t used her credit cards. She hasn’t contacted anyone. But her body hasn’t turned up either, which means she may still be alive. Either way, she’s still our missing person and we have to find her.”

“Let’s get her photo on the news tonight, Jerry. Try to get the DA started on a warrant for her bank records. Maybe we can find out where the money came from.”

Carlisle pulled out into traffic and headed for the precinct.