I So Don't Do Mysteries (17 page)

Teeth clamped together,
I ignore the throbbing head pain
and give my best suck-up smile. “Just familiarizing myself with the kitchen.” I nod like
I'm cool and in control. Meanwhile, sweat's running down my sides. “Getting
in the groove so I can whip up meringue with love. And I'm feeling it. Feeling the
love.”

“Vraiment?”
He crosses his arms over his big belly.
“Really?” He stares at me, trying to decide how much of my act is for real.

I hum a little Céline, then wiggle my fingertips in the air. “I'm
feeling very meringue-y.”

“
Vite, vite,
quick, quick.” He helps me to my feet. “To
the counter. You must make zee meringue.”

I scamper to my station.

“As for you,” he says to Luke, “you are useless wiz the skinny
door, knocking off a corner of a
mesab
. Now you will carry every table and every furry stool
through the wide front door.”

Luke groans.

“Joonie, you help him.”

“Yes, sir,” Junie says. If there are any additional clues to be found,
she'll find them.

I can't wait to tell her about the article.

Straight-armed, Chef L'Oeuf points. “Go! Both of you!”

Luke shuffles out. Junie follows. There's a spring in her step. She's
glad to be off polishing duty and on to an activity that calls for brains.

Lindsey keeps on wrestling with her dough.

I pop open the egg carton and gasp. The eggs have all turned brown.

At my side, Chef L'Oeuf says, “Beautiful, aren't zey? Zee
organic eggs will form zee high, fluffy peaks.”

I have truly entered a weird and wacky world. Where eggs are brown.

Next to me and practically right under a No Smoking sign, Chef L'Oeuf pulls a
soft pack and a lighter from a secret pocket inside his chef's jacket, then tweezers out a
cigarette with his pointy-like-candy-corn teeth. With a quick flick, he lights his cigarette.

I guess my eyes are totally bugging out, because he says, all haughty, “I am
ZEE Chef L'Oeuf,
ma petite
Céline. Zee rules do not apply.”

Wow. Stir that attitude in with the articles about how Friday's dinner has to be
over-the-top, and you have a recipe for rhino disaster.

Cigarette dangling from his lips, the chef picks up the grinder.

I cough. What a foul, disgusting odor, like burning rubber.

“
Gauloises
,” he says. “I carry zee cigarettes wiz me from
la France
.”

Why?

Now Chef L'Oeuf is grinding sugar into the big bowl. And the air reeks of
sweetness and tobacco mixed together.

“
Le sucre,
the sugar, it must be
très, très
dissolvable,” he says. This leads to a megaboring lecture about refined sugar versus castor
sugar and how I have to drizzle the sugar into the egg whites while beating. And how I'm
aiming for egg foam. Next he's cracking eggs on the side of the bowl and plopping the yolks
into a little bowl and the whites into the big bowl while droning on about Gasparini, some pastry dude
who invented meringue a million years ago. And how Marie Antoinette made hers with her own little
hands.

The whole time the chef's working and talking in half French, half English, the
cigarette wags between his lips. Amazingly, the ash never plops on any food.

Then, in a moment of complete silence, he holds out these archaic hand beaters to me
like he's bequeathing the royal jewels. “Zee
très, très
special
meringue beaters. To help you wiz your magic, Céline.”

I drizzle in sugar. I beat.

He leaves the kitchen to check on Luke and Junie.

I drizzle. I beat.

He returns and checks on Lindsey.

I drizzle. I beat.

He checks on me.

Nothing peaking.

“I forget zee music.” The chef pops a CD into a portable player and
positions the speakers so that they're blaring drumbeats and some flutish instrument right at my
bowl.

I drizzle. I beat.

My arms and wrists and hands feel like they're going to fall off and splatter right
into the bowl of stubborn, flat egg whites.

I drizzle. I beat.

I am so achy that my entire upper body is going numb. Not to mention the three
humongous blisters on my right foot that haven't had a chance to heal.

The chef's cell phone bursts into a Celine Dion song. Of course.
“Allô.”

“One minute,” the chef says. “I need zee privacy.” He
goes into the broom closet.

Like that's not suspicious. I glance at Lindsey to make sure she's still
communing with her dough, prop my beaters up against the side of the bowl, crank the music volume
to cover up the lack of beater noise, then tiptoe to the closet.

I press my ear to the door. Ouch. Obviously they don't believe in whispering in
France. I step back.

“Repeat, please,” Chef L'Oeuf says in his loud, French voice.
“I cannot understand your strange accent.”

He's making accent comments? Now, that's just wrong.

“Oui, oui,”
he says. “I will take both zee rhino meat and
zee horn.”

Ack. Eek.

“
Oui, oui,
you will receive zee bigger percentage.
Bien sûr
.
Zees is a
très
good deal for zee two of us.”

He's talking to the poacher.

There's a pause, and then he says, “
Oui, oui,
Thursday night is
good. I need zee fresh meat for Friday.”

Ack. Help. The poacher's going for it in two nights.

There's another pause. “Just don't tell them,” the chef
says.

Clatter. Bang. Boom.
Loud, scary sounds are happening in the dining area.

The chef bursts out of the closet. “I call you back. I call you
back.”

His heavy footsteps thump past me. Then I hear him bang open the swinging door to
the dining area. The sec the swinging door clangs shut, I unflatten myself from the wall and slowly
close the closet door. A shiny object lies on the linoleum floor. The chef's cell. In his panicky
hurry, he must've dropped it.

I have to grab it. But I'm frozen. Of course. I try to lift my right foot. No go. I
try to lift my left foot. No go. I am so sick of this freezing problem. The phone. The phone. I have to
have it. It's the key to the case. I think of cute little Ongava and the female crash and how
they're counting on me. I think of my mother and how horrible it would be to lose her again
and how she's counting on me.

And all those thoughts do the trick. I look around, acting all together and relaxed.
Lindsey is punching her dough, really whomping it.

I dash over and snatch up the phone. While jabbing keypad buttons like I'm
crazed, I dart back to my station.

What is with this phone? Where's the Calls Received screen?

The swinging door opens, and the chef strides to the counter, shouting over his
shoulder, “Luke, yooou touch nothing. Yooou moron. Joonie, don't let him touch
anything.”

Hands on hips, he stares around the area where he accidentally dropped his phone. He
blinks. He opens the closet door and looks inside. Shaking his head, he slaps his pockets.
“Céline?”

Yikes. Yikes. Yikes.

He's steamrolling toward me.

I totally panic and sink the cell into my bowl. I'll never get the
poacher's number off it now.

I drizzle. I beat.

“Deed you see my telephone?”

“Um, um, um.”

The chef looks in my bowl. His jaw drops.
“Mon Dieu!”

Mon Dieu
indeed. Beautiful, tall, snow white peaks rise proud and firm. Like
mini-mountains, they point to the ceiling. They stand at attention. They're perfect and
gorgeous. I, Sherlock Holmes Baldwin, aka Céline Dion, have produced the meringue of all
meringues.

“Lindsey!” Chef L'Oeuf calls. Then he waddles as quickly as he
can to the door and shouts, “Luke! Joonie!”

Back by my side, he pats my head. “Céline, yooou are zee most talented
sous-chef of meringue in the United States of America. Maybe even in
la France
.”

“Merci,”
I say. “Thanks.”

“Good job, Céline,” Lindsey says.

Luke and Junie skid in.

“Way cool, dude.” Luke whistles.

“Incredible,” Junie says.

As we're all oohing and aahing over my meringue brilliance, the peaks start
swaying and gurgling and foaming. The tallest, most amazing peak slowly sinks, toppling with a plop.
The other peaks follow suit. Then, from the depths of the dancing, bubbling mixture, a song warbles
up. At first, it's low and quiet, but in seconds, Céline Dion and some guy are belting out
“Beauty and the Beast.”

Incoming call!

Like we planned
this morning, Mom, Grandpa and me are
having an evening debriefing session on Great-aunt Margaret's porch. Junie's with us
too. I'm filling them in on my restaurant fiasco and getting the lowdown on what they learned
about Damon.

“Why didn't I stick the phone in my pocket?” I press my
forehead onto the cool glass tabletop. “The bowl? What was I thinking? We could've
had the poacher's phone number. Maybe even his name too.”

“Sherry, you made a split-second decision,” Mom says.
“It's done. You can't beat yourself up over it.”

“It could've been a restricted number,” Junie says to me,
“which wouldn't have given us any info.”

I hadn't thought of that.

Buuurp.

Junie makes a grossed-out face.

That
was
a bijormous burp, for a small bird.

Grandpa's on the stucco wall, flapping all bizarre, with one wing fluttering
forward while the other's swinging back. Very Claymation.

“You got the chef's motive. He needs money to beat out Chef
Poulet,” Mom says. “Thanks to you, we know Chef L'Oeuf is our
man.”

Yeah, thanks to me, we know Chef L'Oeuf is our man. I straighten up, moving
into proud mode.

“Most police work leads to a dead end,” Mom continues. “Take
Grandpa and me today. We spent hours tailing Damon and then learned that legit funding came through
for his movie. In fact, it was a lot of money, so he has no need to make money by killing the
rhinos.”

Yeah, thanks to me, we know Chef L'Oeuf is our man. I flip my hair.

Junie's watching me, all quizzical. I forget she can't hear what my
mom's saying. I tell her about Damon getting a bunch of money for his movie.

“That'll make Amber happy,” Junie says, “especially if it
means she gets more screen time and a line.”

Grandpa croaks out a bunch of gibberish and punctuates it with another scary
burp.

“I'm very proud of Sherry too, Wilhelm,” Mom says.

Obviously, I rock. The cell phone thing was just a small miscalculation. I high-five
Junie. I smile big across the table at Mom. Then I turn to flash an ear-to-ear grin at Grandpa.

He's asleep, his little head tucked under his little wing. He snorts out a nasally
snore.

“I'm worried about your grandfather. He must be exhausted,”
Mom says. “Flapping from Phoenix and up to the Wild Animal Park was a long haul for him.
Also, he's been flying local reconnaissance, getting to know the lay of the land.”

“While he's napping, what's next for us?” I rub my
shoulder. “A Jacuzzi sounds like the hot ticket after all that meringue beating.” I
pretzel-twist down to massage my calf. “Plus, I hiked three million miles in sandals
yesterday.”

Ignoring my pain, she says, “Is there any way you can spend more time at the
restaurant? See if you uncover anything on the poacher's identity?”

“No!” I screech. “I deep-sixed the chef's cell in egg
whites and sugar. Me and Junie hightailed it outta On the Bay so fast our heels were smoking.
I'm never showing my face there again. Even if it's the last restaurant open on Earth.
And I only have dirt and worms to eat and my own saliva to drink.”

Junie's also looking freaked at the idea of going back to the restaurant.

“I get it, Sherry.” Mom sighs. “Tell me about the phone call. All
the details you can remember.”

All the details? I choose a few strands of hair and start twirling. Who knew
there'd be a test? “Chef L'Oeuf wants the meat and the horn. I already told you
that.” Twirl. Twirl. Twirl. “And he'll give the poacher more
money.”

“Anything else?”

I twirl a bunch more hair—like, half my head. Was there something else? Maybe.
It's kinda like trying to remember a dream. “Maybe.” I shake my head.
“He coulda said more. But maybe not.”

“If you remember something, Sherry, tell me.” I bet Mom's
twirling her hair too. “Did Junie hear anything?”

“No, she wasn't in the kitchen at the time.” I tell Junie,
“My mom's asking about the phone call.”

Junie nods. “That's when I was stuck moving furniture.”

Hands behind her ears, Junie's listening intently. She frowns with frustration.
“I can't hear a thing.”

“Sorry,” I say to her. To my mom, I say, “Where do we go
next?”

“When you're stuck in an investigation, always return to the scene of
the crime,” Mom says.

I look up at Grandpa, snoring peacefully, claws gripping a branch. “What about
Grandpa?”

“He needs his sleep,” Mom says. “Where's Amber? She
can drive you two to the Park. I'll meet you there.”

I translate for Junie, who pulls out her cell. “There's not much point in
going now,” she says. “Doesn't the Park close soon?”

See why she gets all As? The girl never takes a vacation from thinking.

Junie doesn't even squeeze in “Hello” before Amber's
making lots of noise in her ear.

Junie says, “My bad. I didn't know you were with someone, but Sherry
and I need a ride to the Wild Animal Park tomorrow.”

More noise from Amber.

“I don't need to play fair. I can rat you out about Sean
Franklin's bad older brother.”

More noise.

“Of course I know the Golden Rule.” Junie pauses. “What kind
of deal?” Her voice is wary. She closes her eyes, listening. “Fine. I'll do
it.” She opens her eyes. “And you'll take us to the Park tomorrow
morning.” She disconnects.

I raise my eyebrows. “So?”

“I have to be an extra on the set tomorrow afternoon.”

“What? Why?”

“Apparently, I make Amber look good.”

“So, Junie,” I say, “we're off detective duty till the
morning.” In the snap of a finger, the blisters on my feet heal and my shoulder stops throbbing.
“Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“Shopping!” we squeal together.