Ellen McKenzie 03-And Murder for Desser (9 page)

Sabrina absently watched Paris abandon hopes of toast to stare at Jake, who was on top of the refrigerator, making soft growling noises. I stared at him, too. Who had let him in? Dan, of course. Sabrina shook her head slightly and went on. “I can think of lots of people who wouldn’t have minded bashing Otto, people with better motives than Mark or me, but I can’t picture how anyone did it.”

“What do you mean?” The coffee had finished and was sitting in the pot, inviting me. I wondered if my already jangled nerves could handle another cup. Why not? I’d eaten my toast. “What’s so mysterious about it? Someone snuck up behind him, bashed him with a wine bottle, opened the gate, and shoved him into the tank.”

“No,” said Aunt Mary slowly, “she’s right. First, why was Otto on the deck when he should have been in the kitchen overseeing the waiters? Second, why didn’t someone see something?”

I had no answer to the first question, but an answer to the second came to me, unbidden and unwelcome. Sabrina had been on the deck. She’d come up from the cellar floor. And everyone else was back in the dining room behind closed French doors. I hadn’t seen her, and I didn’t think anyone else had either.

“We don’t know why Otto was out there.” I refused to let that thought go anywhere. “But we know he was good at tormenting people. It had to be someone he’d pushed too far.”

“Who might that be?” asked Aunt Mary.

“Everyone who ever knew him,” answered Sabrina.

“That’s not very helpful. Everyone who ever knew him wasn’t there last night.” I set my coffee mug on the table and sat back down. “How about Frank? He was there, and their feud was famous.”

“Another of my favorite people. Wouldn’t it be nice if it turned out to be Frank?” Sabrina looked wistful. “Only it wouldn’t help Mark if Frank went to jail.”

“Sabrina!” Aunt Mary said. She set her cup down with a bang. “Surely you don’t mean that. Why, Mark would be devastated. After all, Frank is his father!”

“Unfortunately. But Mark devastated? I don’t think so. Father is as father does, and Frank has been really good at not doing.”

Aunt Mary did not look pleased. How late had Frank stayed last night, I suddenly wondered. I took another look at her. She did look better than usual. Her navy blue knit pants hardly bagged at the knee and the oversized white tee shirt was subdued by her standards. It did have a huge peacock across the front, but the colors were not totally garish, and it didn’t say NBC or anything.

“I don’t believe that Frank Tortelli is capable of murder,” Aunt Mary went on firmly. “Besides, he doesn’t have a motive.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “You were there in that kitchen. They hated each other, they’ve hated each other for years, and Otto accused him of stealing. That sounds like a motive to me.”

“Frank told me all about that,” Aunt Mary said. “Everyone knows Otto was jealous of Frank. Tortelli’s became a huge success after they broke up their partnership.”

“I thought Otto was a big name chef also.”

“He is,” Sabrina said. “Was. Famous for his food, more famous for his temper.”

“Did you know that before you asked him to do last night’s dinner?”

“I’d heard about his explosions but didn’t really believe it,” she said. “From now on, I’m going to believe every rumor I hear.”

“Right.” I tried to read her face. I gave up and turned to Aunt Mary. “And what else did Frank have to say about Otto?”

“That no one believed all that nonsense about the recipe, and that Otto didn’t bother him in the least.”

“Yeah?” That may have been Frank’s story, but I wasn’t buying. And what was all that about him selling Tortelli’s?

“Frank wasn’t the only one who didn’t like Otto,” Aunt Mary stated, perhaps a bit more emphatically than necessary.

“True,” I said, distracted from my thoughts of Tortelli’s sale. “Carlton Carpenter, for one.”

“Why would he want to kill Otto?” asked Aunt Mary.

“He said something funny last night, something that made me wonder.”

“Oh?” asked Aunt Mary. “And what was that?”

“What’s with this guy?” asked Sabrina. “Everybody acts as though they smell something bad when they see him coming. Really handsome guys don’t usually affect people like that.”

“They do if they act like Carlton,” sighed Aunt Mary. “He uses his looks to get out of trouble and get in with what he considers the important people. He, well, he doesn’t always use good judgment in how he goes about it. And the namedropping gets very tiresome.”

“What she really means is,” I said, “he’s not very bright, his ethics are murky, and the only talent he has is to make sure someone else takes the fall when one of his scams falls apart.”

“Ellen, really,” Aunt Mary said, but she didn’t say I was wrong.

“Which brings me back to last night. He told Dan and me that he represented both Otto and the Adams family in the sale of their old house.”

“So?” Sabrina asked. “Is that unethical?”

“Not at all. As a matter of fact, as long as both buyer and seller agree, it can be an advantage to have only one agent involved. But if that agent doesn’t disclose something he should have, then both sides can get hurt.”

I got up, drained my cup into the sink, and filled it with fresh coffee. After all, caffeine can be bracing in times of crisis. I held the pot aloft, waiting for any takers.

“Here. I’ll have some of that. Pour this cold stuff out, will you? What didn’t Carlton disclose?” Aunt Mary picks up stuff fast. On the other hand, she’d known Carlton for years.

“Parking. The city requires plenty of parking before they issue permits for a restaurant. Evidently Otto got the permit, but I wonder how.”

“So that’s what…” Sabrina stopped, nodded, then shook her head. “No thanks, Ellen. My nerve endings are twanging fine. They don’t need more help. You know, one of the things Otto was screaming about yesterday was the cost of having to put in a parking lot. I ignored him; after all, if you’re going to have a restaurant, you have to have parking. I figured he was just having a good time complaining about one more thing. But if Carlton didn’t tell him he had to put one in, and he wasn’t prepared for all that extra expense, he had good reason to complain.”

“About the cost and also about Carlton,” said Aunt Mary slowly. “Ellen, if Otto complained to the Board of Realtors, could Carlton get in trouble?”

“Probably.” I leaned up against the stove and thought about it. “It would depend on lots of things, but Carlton has been slapped on the hand before. It sure wouldn’t be good for him, but I don’t know if it would be serious enough for him to commit murder.”

“You both think Frank could murder someone over an old partnership and a recipe,” Aunt Mary said with a defensive sniff. “Sabrina, you keep making remarks about this Jolene Bixby, and Frank made a couple also. What about her?”

“Jolene’s a lush.”

“You don’t say,” I said.

Sabrina looked a little startled, then laughed. “It isn’t hard to pick up on, is it? But she’s a charming lush. At least, certain types of men think so. Most chefs don’t.”

“I thought she was a famous writer,” said Aunt Mary.

“She would love to have you think so. She used to freelance, lots of the most prestigious food and wine magazines bought her stuff, but now she only writes for that Dallas-based one. But it’s a great magazine, and Mark was really excited to think we’d have our dinner written up in it.”

“Why is she staying at Otto’s place?” I asked. “There sure didn’t seem to be any love lost between them.”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Sabrina said. “She’d just better give us a glowing review, that’s all.”

“How’s she going to do that when she never touched the food?” I asked.

“Judging from her performance last night, she’d better be pretty imaginative.” Aunt Mary pushed her chair back, stepped over the dog, who was once again stretched out in the middle of the kitchen, and headed for the sink. “Let’s get this kitchen cleaned up.”

“I’ll do it. You got breakfast.” I started loading the dishwasher.

“Do you put your pans in that thing?” Aunt Mary asked.

“Absolutely. I’ve made a new rule. If something doesn’t go in the dishwasher or the washing machine, it doesn’t get to live in my house.” I added soap and closed the door.

“I’m going to have to get one of those,” she said.

Sabrina watched us without moving. Usually she was the one cleaning up, moving nervously around the kitchen, doing something, anything, incapable of relaxing. That had almost driven me crazy, but it was better than this inert Sabrina, immobile under a cloud of depression. She seemed to do better when she was talking, so—“Why did Frank get all frozen when Jolene appeared?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Sabrina replied.

“So, Jolene came here to do an article on last night’s dinner and on the grand opening of Otto’s bed and breakfast and single seating restaurant, and she was staying with him? But they seemed to hate each other. What was that all about?” asked Aunt Mary. “And what does single seating mean, anyway?”

She sat down across from Sabrina. Paris, who had wanted to help us rinse off the plates with his tongue, resumed his place in the middle of the kitchen floor. It was my turn to step over him.

“There is one set menu each night and only one seating. The diners are often the people staying at the bed and breakfast, but if there are openings, sometimes others can get a reservation. Dinners usually are served only three or four nights a week and, in most places, are special.”

“My,” said Aunt Mary. “Sounds wonderful. And expensive.”

Sabrina nodded, but she didn’t seem to be thinking about Otto’s dinners. “I didn’t know Jolene was staying there. I wonder how she managed that.” She pulled her own bathrobe closed over her shoulders as if she were cold. “I only heard him mention her once. He seemed livid with her. But since Otto was livid most of the time and making threats was what he did best next to cooking, no one paid much attention.”

“I wonder if Jolene did,” I said.

“You can’t possibly think Jolene killed Otto,” protested Aunt Mary.

“Why not? Someone did, and I would a whole lot rather have the police arrest her than Sabrina. How would I explain that to Catherine?”

Sabrina actually laughed. “I’d love to hear that phone call. And I’d hate to be the Police Chief that has to face the wrath.”

I had a mental picture of Dan facing down my older sister, when I realized that all that noise wasn’t Catherine yelling. It was raised voices outside my front door. Paris jumped up from the middle of the floor, banged into the table, and charged into the hallway, adding his voice to the din.

“What on earth?” asked Aunt Mary.

“My petunias!” I exclaimed and ran after Paris.

Frank was giving a press conference on my front steps. Larry Whittaker was standing beside him, but Frank was doing all the talking.

“What’s going on?” asked Aunt Mary. She was too short to look out the glass in the door and was trying to pull aside the lace curtains on the long entryway windows.

“Your precious Frank is holding the press enthralled,” Sabrina said. “It looks like he’s coming in here. I think I’ll go take a shower.”

“What about the dog?” asked Aunt Mary. I could hardly hear her above Paris’ barking and the shouted questions outside.

“Let him out the front door,” advised Sabrina. “He can help Frank.”

I have to admit I was tempted, but before I got the chance, the front door opened. Larry was propelled in, followed by Frank, who turned to pause in the doorway for one more round of pictures.

“Frank,” said Aunt Mary, “what on earth are you doing?”

“My dear Mary.” He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. Aunt Mary flushed. I snorted and Larry cleared his throat.

“I have been busy this morning.” Frank let go of Aunt Mary’s hand and looked around. “Where is Sabrina? And Mark?”

“Sabrina is taking a shower and Mark is out at some winery someplace trying to get his grapes crushed,” I said.

“Oh.” Frank looked disappointed, but not for long. “I have an important announcement to make and rushed right over here to tell them, and you, of course, my dear Mary.” He now graciously included me with a sweeping gesture. “However, when I arrived and saw the members of the press so fortuitously waiting for some tidbit, I knew it was fate.”

“Fate,” murmured Larry. It was the only word he had spoken so far, but his eye twitched, and the anxious expression seemed to have become a permanent part of him.

“Exactly,” Frank said, basking in satisfaction.

“All right, Frank. What is this announcement?” Aunt Mary asked. I was glad she was the one doing the asking. I couldn’t have done it and kept a straight face. Frank so obviously loved all this drama. Larry so obviously hated it.

“I have talked to Otto’s estranged brother, who is his only relative. He lives in New York. He is also a chef. We met when Otto and I were partners, and, of course, he knows what I have done since. He has asked me to take over the restaurant and bed and breakfast until the estate can be settled. Since no one knows if Otto left a will that could be months. Years!”

“You’re joking!” Sabrina stood on the bottom-to-last step, wearing cutoff jeans and a white tee shirt. Her still damp hair, pulled back off her face with a headband, was left to fall over her shoulders in soft, light brown curls. She looked like her mother, right down to the scowl.