Smoked (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) (7 page)

Carol got up and walked to the window overlooking the front yard. “We put everything we had into that place. All our money, our time, our energy.” She turned and looked at me. “Thank God we didn’t touch the money we set aside for the kids. They’re both in college and that’s the one thing that’s going good for us. They’re doing great.”

“But what exactly happened? Why do you blame Maria for…for what exactly? Why are you selling your dream?” I asked.

Carol walked back to the sofa and took a look into her cup of coffee. “I need another. Can I get you more tea?”

I followed her into the kitchen and watched as she turned the heat on under the tea kettle and got another tea bag from a canister on the counter. Behind her, through the kitchen window, I saw a large patch of yard that I assumed was the garden where she grew vegetables for her restaurant.

She saw me looking outside and her face looked sad. “We were doing good. It was all starting to come together. After almost two years, we were getting a reputation for innovative food, fresh produce, a welcoming ambience. The
New Haven Register
did a story on the vegan movement and profiled us. We started to get a lot of traffic from students, professors. It was all good. And then that
blog
. It ruined us. And it wasn’t even our fault. Do you know what casein is?”

I shook my head. Carol handed me my cup and we returned to the living room.

“Neither did I. We make most of our meals in the restaurants. We use vegetables from our garden and I supplement with stuff I buy from local small farmers. But we serve a few things, mostly on the lunch menu, which I purchase through our distributor. We are primarily a vegetarian restaurant but have been adding quite a few vegan dishes to our menu. There are so many differences between the two and I’ve taken some classes, I do my research. I try to offer good food at good prices.”

“So what about the casein,” I asked steering the conversation back to the blog.

“It’s a milk protein used in processed foods. It’s vegetarian but not vegan, being milk. I get vegan burgers from our distributor and as it turns out, he’s been misrepresenting his vegan products. The burgers had fillers like casein and ground shellfish.”

“And Maria Kravec wrote about this in her blog?”

Carol nodded her head. “Yes, she did.”

“But how did she know? Can you taste it?”

Carol reached for the hair clip that had fallen earlier and twisted her hair back up on top of her head and secured it. Most redheads I’ve known have light eyes, usually blue, but Carol’s were a deep brown. She was a pretty woman, on the thin side, and clearly had a lively personality, but this business with the blog had clearly taken a toll.

“How did she know? She hired someone to come in, order food, and then take samples back to a lab for testing.”

“Why? Why would someone do that?”

“That’s what I want to know. Why would anyone do a thing like that? We poured everything into that place. If she had found something, all she had to do was let us know. Of course we pulled the burgers right away and I was in the process of searching for a new supplier, but…people stopped coming. These blogs, they travel through cyberspace faster than a rocket. In less than two months, we’ve gone to no customers. People hear that you have something in your food that shouldn’t be there and they stop coming. Things get blown out of proportion.” Carol shook her head. “It’s not like we had a health department citation or someone found a severed finger in their casserole. We couldn’t afford to have any staff, we had no money coming in and a lot needing to go out.” She reached for her coffee and took a slow sip.

“Before we started the restaurant I was an executive assistant at a law firm. I made great money and my husband was the purchasing manager for a manufacturing firm in Bridgeport. He had to go back. Of course his job was gone so now he works on the loading dock for a lot less money and it’s back-breaking work. He’s fifty. I’ve been offered my old job and I’m going to take it, but I have to close everything up first and try to sell the business. Look,” Carol said as she leaned forward on the sofa. “I’m not a bad person. I’m sorry the woman is dead. I am. But she was a nasty piece of work. I didn’t even know her, for God’s sake. Why would she attack my business like that over something that could have been easily fixed?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. She was my neighbor but I didn’t really know her at all.”

“You said you were trying to prove her husband didn’t kill her and since you’re here, I guess you thought maybe I did?”

“Well, I had to check. What about your husband?”

Carol shook her head but for a second I saw hesitation in her eyes. I was going to have to find out exactly where Mr. Corliss worked and have a chat with him.

“Well, I’m sorry I took up so much of your time and good luck with finding a buyer.”

Carol stood up and smiled. “Don’t worry about it. I understand. And no, for the record, I didn’t kill her. But,” this time Carol’s smile was something like the Cheshire cat, “I just might be able to tell you who did.”

For a second there I thought Mrs. Corliss was going to give up her husband, but no, it wasn’t going to be that easy. I was now headed to the Great Wall, a vegan restaurant in Pirates Cove. Yes, I know. Indian Cove. Pirates Cove. Our forefathers didn’t seem to have much imagination where town-naming was concerned. Truth be told, I always wanted to come from Pirates Cove. I mean, really, how cool would that be? And town lore had it that somewhere along the beach pirates had buried their booty. I spent many a summer day digging on that beach as a kid to no avail. And I wasn’t the only one. It got so bad the town had to pass an ordinance to stop everyone from digging up the beach. And as far as I knew, no treasure was ever found so it might very well still be there.

I pulled into a small parking lot in front of the Great Wall and went in. This restaurant was still in business and even had a few customers. I asked to speak to the owner and a few minutes later I was introduced to Julie Vang.

“If someone did kill her then she deserved what she got,” Julie Vang, a petite Asian woman, spat out. “She had a lot of nerve writing stuff about my place.”

“So it was all lies? A misunderstanding?” I asked looking around. The Great Wall was not as quaint as the Natural World. The outside was just a worn looking building, typical of low budget strip malls and the inside was dark, a bit musty and clearly no expense at all had gone into the décor. The red carpet needed to be replaced or at least cleaned and the heavy drapes needed to be taken out back for a good beating with a broom.

Julie Vang shrugged. “There may have been some truth to some of the things she wrote. Stuff is expensive, you know. I need to keep my prices down so I used fillers in some of my dishes. Who was I hurting? People came and they liked what they got and they came back. I bet if you checked, you would find out every restaurants adds stuff.”

That was not a concept I wanted to explore. I believe what you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you and I wanted to leave it that way as far as behind-the-scenes in the restaurant business went. I had seen too many documentaries on the restaurant industry and it was a wonder people ever ate out at all.

“But you were advertising as vegan and you clearly weren’t,” I pointed out to Julie.

“Where you hear all this stuff from anyway? Who sent you here? Oh, I know. Frank. He and his wife own a restaurant over in Indian Cove. He sent you right? He hated me. Said I was giving vegan and vegetarian restaurants a bad name. Tried to get me to use local produce from area farmers, but they charge too much. Who needs that?” Julie pushed a long strand of dark hair away from her face. “He and his wife wanted to start some sort of, what do you call it, a group of vegetarian restaurant owners to exchange ideas, work together, support local family owned farms, all that crap. Who needs that? I want to sell my food and make money.”

“So were you upset about the blogs? Did your business die down?” I asked.

“Nah. I didn’t like what that lady was writing but so what. It was just her opinion, right? Who cares. I changed my menu and now I’m a Vietnamese restaurant. See. Look around. People still come.”

I looked around A few people still came but then maybe this was as good as it ever got for the Great Wall. It was also an odd time, between lunch and dinner, so maybe the restaurant was doing better than it appeared if it had this many people at this weird hour.

I left a few minutes later. I didn’t see Julie Vang as someone who took criticism to heart. She just changed things around and moved on. I had a feeling Carol Corliss sent me here more out of a personal vendetta against the restaurant than anything. But Frank Corliss was starting to interest me more. I really needed to find out where he worked.

Having my own business certainly had its perks and one of them was I knew a lot of people. I also knew our database was filled with contacts for every business within a hundred-mile radius.

As soon as I got back to the office I asked Millie to contact the human resource managers at manufacturing firms in Bridgeport and discreetly find out if any of them had a Frank Corliss working on the loading docks. As Millie was usually the point of contact these people had when they needed to hire an interim employee, I thought she was the best person for the job. Plus I was hoping to get some work done before I left to meet John for dinner.

“Oh, good, you’re back,” my sister said as she came into my office and sat down.

“What’s up?”

“Have you talked with Millie today?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, just now. I asked her to do something for me. Why?”

“Did you notice anything?”

“No. Does she have sea foam green eyes again?” Our office manager had a penchant for dressing for holidays and coordinating her eye color, via contacts, to match her outfits. We hadn’t seen the sea foam eyes in quite a while though a very pretty violet color had made an appearance recently.

“No. Nothing like that. She’s….well, she’s…”

“Spit it out,” I said. I could feel myself getting impatient.

“She’s cranky. There, I said it.” Sam sat up straight, clearly proud of herself for getting this disturbing information out.

I took an audible gasp. “What? That’s not possible. Millie doesn’t have the cranky gene. She doesn’t have the nasty gene or the petty gene. Are you sure?” This was horrifying news. We counted on Millie to be the good cop to our sometimes bad, overly stressed cranky cops.

“I’m sure. She snapped at me,” my sister said, clearly wounded.

I put my hand to my heart. “This can’t be. What are we going to do? She can’t be turning into, well,
us
, can she?”

Just then Millie came in with the information I requested. Sam excused herself and left rather quickly I thought.

“He’s working at a window manufacturer and he takes his lunch at noon. He likes to sit out at a grassy area they have and read. If you show up tomorrow you should be able to speak with him.”

“Perfect,” I smiled. “Just the information I needed. So, how have you been, Millie?” I asked, the words sounding lame the minute they left my mouth.

Millie sat down. “Okay, what did Sam say?”

“About what?” I tried to sound innocent, but Millie just gave me the
look
. “Okay, here’s the deal,” I leaned forward on my desk and clasped my hands together. “She said you seemed out of sorts today. Anything you’d like to talk about?” Please God, don’t make her give her notice.

“Rueben asked me to move in with him?”

“He did?” I brightened. “That’s wonderful?”

“Is it? I’ve never lived with anyone before. I’m twenty-nine years old and I still live with my mother.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. You’ve been waiting for the right guy. I admire you.”

“I don’t know what I’m so scared of. I mean, I spend the night over at his place a couple of times a week, but this would be, well, hopefully forever. Is he the right guy?”

“What do you like about him?” I asked, hoping to help her sort everything through.

“He’s fun. And kind. And Gran loves him. We have a great time together and he likes to just hang out with my family. He fixed a light switch in my mom’s room last week. And last Saturday night we got take-out Chinese, played Scrabble and then we all watched a movie. He’s easy to be with.”

“He sounds like John,” I smiled. Meme loved him from day one and that was big for me, having Meme’s approval. And John loved hanging out over there, too. He fixed stuff for her around the house and we loved to take Chinese food over on the weekends and play cards.

“Really? You mean I’ve found my John?” Millie looked happy and relieved.

“I think maybe you have.”

“But what about my mom and Gran?”

“I think they’re going to be thrilled for you, Millie.” I reached across the desk and patted her hand. “They just want you to be happy. You’re not abandoning them. You’ll be living very close to your mom and with Rueben’s crazy work schedule you’ll have plenty of time to keep them company.”

“You’re right, I will, and my mom actually went out on a date last week. Maybe we’re all moving on. I just hate change. But I do want to be with him. More and more all the time.”

I could sympathize with her there. It took me forever to decide to marry John. To his credit he waited patiently and it was just another reason why I loved him. “You’re going to be fine. And don’t forget, we’re not going anywhere, so not everything will change. We’ll still be here for you every day. We’ll just be adding Rueben to the group.”

Millie came around the desk and gave me a hug and then left for the day. I closed my computer, gathered my stuff and left as well. Suddenly I was very excited to see my John.

I love Facebook. There, I said it. One of the things I like about it is that I can keep up with friends who live far away, I’m reminded of birthdays so I can send a greeting, and I get updates on products I like such as Chobani yogurt. I mean really, how would I know they’re releasing two new flavors if not for Facebook? My mother and grandmother also use the service and it’s nice to check in with them a couple times a day to see what they’re up to and that everything is okay. My grandmother even got “unfriended” after the last election when she challenged someone on their views. She was quite proud of being unfriended and really gets a kick out of posting stuff. Go, Meme!