Smoked (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) (8 page)

As soon as I had gotten to work this morning I had checked to see if Maria Kravec had an account and what kind of things she posted on it. If she was saying nasty things on her blog, maybe she also used Facebook to disparage the restaurant and meat industries as well, but I never found an account for Mrs. Kravec.

And now, as I drove along the turnpike, headed for the window factory where Frank Corliss worked, I turned my attention to my mother’s account. She has become quite the prolific user and this morning her posts were centered on Riley. I was treated to a picture of the dog’s new leash, cage, and soft bedding my parents had evidently installed in the kitchen. My mother even took a picture of a shelf in the pantry that was now devoted to foods and treats for Riley. It didn’t seem like she was looking to find him a good home anytime soon. And truth be told, I was thrilled. We never had a dog growing up so having Riley around was going to be fun. And at least this was one four-legged family member I could actually have contact with. I had no desire to meet Scoops or Scopes or whatever his/her name was. I just hoped Henry wasn’t too disappointed I didn’t share his love of rodents.

I finally came to the exit I needed for the factory. I had thought about calling and asking to speak with Frank Corliss, but decided it best to catch him off guard, assuming the man had something to be on guard about. So far I hadn’t talked to too many people, a point I planned to remedy today.

A few minutes later I stood at the front desk and asked for Frank. The receptionist said I could find him out by a grassy, shaded area behind the building. She pointed out the path through a window and I thanked her and made my way around the factory.

Frank Corliss sat at a picnic table holding a sandwich in one hand and a paperback book in the other.

“Excuse me. Mr. Corliss?”

He put the book down and stood up. “Yes. I’m Frank Corliss. Can I help you?”

Like his wife, Frank had red hair and was thin. But unlike his wife he had very pale blue eyes.

“I’m Alex Harris. I spoke with your wife yesterday about the vegan blog.”

“Oh, right. She told me someone came by. What can I do for you?”

I sat down across from him and noticed that his sandwich was tomato and mozzarella cheese in keeping with what Carol Corliss had told me about them being vegetarian.

“I was with her when she called to tell you that Maria Kravec was dead. She said you didn’t seem very surprised. Why was that?”

Frank shrugged. “I don’t remember. I either heard it on the news or the paper. We canceled our subscription but they get a copy here and keep it in the cafeteria.”

“Did you ever meet Mrs. Kravec?”

“In person? No. I saw her one morning on one of those local morning shows and of course once we heard about the blog, I checked out her site.”

“How did you hear about the blog exactly?”

“One of my wife’s friends told us about it. Of course it didn’t mention us by name but we knew it was us she was talking about. And then almost immediately people stopped coming in. That damn Internet.”

“Your wife told me it was a misunderstanding about using the non-vegan products. Didn’t you try to contact Mrs. Kravec to set the story straight?” I had wondered about this yesterday. If someone made untrue accusations about my business I would certainly confront them face to face, maybe even get lawyers involved depending on the seriousness of the situation.

“Of course we tried to contact her. I went to her Web site and sent her a message through that. I gave her my phone number, email address. I explained about the casein and how we had removed the products from our menu and were trying to find alternative suppliers. We never heard from her. But she never wrote anything about us directly after that and we thought it would just die down. But people just stopped coming. Restaurants are funny businesses. Once people think there’s something wrong in your kitchen, they don’t want to eat there anymore. Plus, we specialize and it’s hard getting people to try what amounts to a whole new choice for them.”

Mr. Corliss took another bite of his sandwich. “Sorry. I only have another twelve minutes before I have to get back.”

“I also talked to Julie Vang yesterday.”

“She’s a nut case, that one. Carol and I wanted to start a network of vegetarian and vegan restaurants. Maybe get a blog out there ourselves promoting our restaurants, talk about the benefits of eating healthy. Promote the local farms. You talk up their businesses and they’re more likely to recommend your place when people stop by their stands. We had flyers made and we gave them to all the bed and breakfast places in the area hoping they’d recommend us to their guests. Thought it would be good all around. But she wasn’t interested. Heard she’s turned her place into just one more Chinese restaurant.”

“Vietnamese.”

“Whatever.” Frank gave a grunt.

“You were lucky to get your job back,” I said.

“Yeah, well, it’s not the job I had for over ten years before. At least I have good benefits but the pay is about half of what I made and the work is hard. Plus we pretty much lost all of our savings. Broke my wife’s heart and I don’t like seeing her hurt.”

“Were you happy to hear about Mrs. Kravec?”

Frank Corlis looked at me with those pale eyes. “Happy? Can’t say it matters to me one way or the other. I do think people need to take responsibility for what they say on the Internet. Doesn’t seem fair that one person, who didn’t know anything about us at all, could simply write a blog, cause us all this trouble, and get away with it. Now that she’s dead I would love to sue her estate for damages but then where do I get the money to hire a lawyer? She didn’t seem like a nice person and didn’t even have the decency to respond back. Just ruin someone’s livelihood, break their heart and move on to the next. Nope,” Frank shook his head, “can’t say I mind very much what happened to her. What goes around comes around and it looks like she got what she deserved.”

I really couldn’t blame the man for feeling the way he did. Maria Kravec did indeed seem to make accusations without any proof and then wasn’t willing to take another look and write a blog explaining the situation and admit her error. Maybe in the end it wouldn’t have mattered. Restaurants were notorious for going under within a couple of years. It was the nature of the beast and I would imagine a restaurant with such a specific menu would have a hard time attracting new customers. It wasn’t like mom and dad could try something healthy while the kids ordered burgers and fries. Those choices just weren’t available at The Natural World.

The next person on my list was Nadine Davis. She was Maria Kravec’s assistant and Ellery had written down the address of the small office space Mrs. Kravec had rented for her business. Which was what exactly? So far there was the Web site and the blog. Couldn’t she have done that at home? And why an assistant? Sam and I had waited quite a while before bringing Millie on board.

Suddenly I was very hungry and as I was near to my parents’ home I decided to stop by and see what they had in their pantry besides dog food. My mother and father still lived in the house Sam and I grew up in. It was certainly more room than they needed, but I liked that they had kept it all these years.

“Alex, what brings you here in the middle of the day?” my mother asked. She and my dad were seated at the kitchen table eating grilled cheese sandwiches. With bacon. Just what I wanted.

“Have a seat, dear. I’ll make you a sandwich.” My mom busied herself while I took a look around.

“Where’s Riley?”

“Right, here, Auntie.” Henry came into the kitchen with the dog at his heels.

“Henry. What on earth are you doing here? Why aren’t you in school?”

“Half day,” my dad said. “Some sort of teacher conference so he’s spending the afternoon with us.”

Suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I jumped out of my seat and turned to my mother. “Where’s the, you know, his new friend?”

“You mean Scopes, Auntie? I can’t bring her here because Riley would snap her neck like this.” Henry made a cracking sound that turned my stomach. How were Sam and I ever going to survive this intrusion into our lives for three years? Maybe the thing wouldn’t live that long.

“Auntie, she’s really cute,” Henry said as he came to my side and put his arm around my neck while Riley stood by his side. “She likes to crawl up my shirt and nibble my cheek. It feels funny.”

I was just about to kiss said cheek, but instead I kissed the top of his head. “I’m sure she’s wonderful, Henry, but I’m a bit afraid.”

“So is my mom,” Henry laughed. “She kisses me good night at the door. She won’t come into my room. My dad has to read to me before I fall asleep.”

“So, Mom, have you found a new home for Riley?” I asked while my dad rolled his eyes.

“Despite my best efforts,” Mom began as she placed the sandwich in front me, “no one seems to want him.”

“Can you imagine,” Dad chimed in. “Not one of those imaginary people she contacted wanted the dog.” My father reached down and rubbed Riley’s head then gave him a piece of crust. My mother wasn’t the only one who was hooked. “Your mother is even talking about starting one of those blog things where she writes about Riley every morning.”

The mention of the blog brought up Maria Kravec and I spent the next twenty minutes explaining to my parents that I was not getting involved in the investigation into her death. Darn that sister of mine. She just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. As a matter of fact, I assured them, we didn’t even know for sure if a murder had been committed. It still could have just been an unfortunate accident. Highly unlikely, but I didn’t want to worry my parents. At least my sister hadn’t told them I had been “hired” as a private investigator. My mother would have called John on the spot.

I decided to change the subject. “Henry, are you excited about your party?”

“Yes! I can’t wait. Grandma’s making the cake. Auntie, you are coming to my party tomorrow, right?” Henry asked, his eyes bright with anticipation.

“Is it at your house?” I winced. My mother kicked me under the table. “Of course I’m coming, Henry. Would I ever miss your birthday?”

“Good, you can meet Scopes!” Henry took off with Riley chasing after him and I left a few minutes later promising my mother I would show up for the party.

The office that Maria Kravec had rented was in a small complex of one-story office buildings and I quickly located her suite. I wasn’t sure why I had stopped. I had the phone number for the assistant, which Ellery had given me, and I planned on calling her and setting up a meeting. I really didn’t expect to find anything, least of all an open office. With Maria dead, I was pretty sure the office would be closed, probably for good. But as long as I was here I might as well try and so I reached for the door knob and gave it a turn. To my surprise it opened up onto a small reception area.

I didn’t see anyone but then I heard typing and called out. “Hello. Is anyone here?” I took a couple of steps into the room and called out again. “Hello?” I heard the typing stop and a second later a young woman appeared in the door way.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t expect anyone to be here.”

“Then why are you here?”

I couldn’t fault the young woman for her bluntness; she just caught me off guard and called me out on it. “I’m Alex Harris. Maria Kravec was my neighbor. Her daughter Ellery hired me to look into her death.”

The young woman, who was short with a full figure, looked bewildered. She had very short hair cut in a trendy but rather severe fashion dyed that weird almost-maroon color, and designer glasses that looked too big for her face. She took them off and rubbed her eyes. “Ellery hired you to look into Maria’s death? Why? The papers said she died from anaphylactic shock.”

It seemed like I made it here well ahead of the police. Of course, they were pretty certain they had their suspect in Mr. Kravec, and maybe they did, but it wouldn’t hurt to see what else I could come up with. After all, Ellery had asked me to look into her mother’s death and I had promised I would.

“She did. But there were some questions the family had and they asked me to look into things. Are you Nadine?”

“Yes. Nadine Davis,” the woman said as she came around the reception partition and shook my hand. She was dressed in a black skirt and royal blue jacket and I noticed she had on shoes with about a four-inch heel. Take those away and she had to be under five feet. “So what do you want to know? I’m kind of busy,” she continued in her blunt way.

“Do you mind if we sit down?” I asked, moving over to a small sofa and setting my purse down on the end table. “Well, for starters I’m a little surprised Maria had an office space. Couldn’t she write her blog from home?”

Nadine settled herself next to me on the sofa. “She did at first, but with the new products line starting up soon, we needed more space for a distribution center.”

“Products line? Distribution center?”

“Have you seen Maria’s blog?”

“Yes. I checked her Web site out.”

“She and her partner, Ryan Reynolds—.”

“Ryan Reynolds the actor is her partner?”

Nadine gave an exasperated sigh. “Everyone asks that. No. Our Ryan Reynolds has a full-time job as a salesman for a payroll company. He and Maria met a while ago at some store or someplace, and he’s helping her develop a line of vegan products. As soon as everything is in place, we’ll be filling orders from here.” Nadine looked around the small space. “At least until we can afford something bigger. But it takes time to build up your customer base.”

“What kind of products?” I asked.

“All sorts of things. Cookbooks, packaged snack foods like vegan jerky. Hemp products. Ryan’s working on putting together a custom line of sauces and salad dressings and cosmetics.”

I started to wonder about money. As far as I could tell from the Web site they weren’t selling anything yet so where was the money coming from to pay for this place, and, I assumed, a salary for Nadine. And coming up with a custom line of products had to cost something as well. “Who’s paying for all of this right now?”