A Measure of Murder Read online

  Brian then strode out of the kitchen, and as he left, he pushed up the sleeves of his chef’s jacket, revealing the tattoo I’d noticed the first time we’d met: that bright orange-and-yellow flame running up the inside of his forearm.

  I stood there staring after him and then turned to Javier. “What did Brian just say to you?” I asked the head chef.

  “That he was gonna take a quick break before starting work on the cleanup.” Javier then clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. “I guess it’s obvious that we’re closing for the night,” he said. “Let the customers know what happened and that there’s no danger since the ANSUL system kicked in right away. And you can tell anyone who’s already eating that they’re welcome to finish up what they’ve got, if they want. But no new orders should go out, even if they’re from the garde manger or dessert station, since the whole back of the house should now be considered contaminated.”

  Brandon and the other servers nodded, but when they continued to just stand there, Javier waved his hands. “Vaya, go!” he said, and they all filed out the swinging door to the front of the house.

  “So now what happens?” I asked. “Besides cleaning up the mess, that is.”

  “I’ve been through this before,” Javier said with a sigh, “at the restaurant I worked at before I came here. It’s gonna be a day or two before we can reopen. Once the kitchen’s been cleaned, the company’s gonna have to come out and reset the ANSUL system, and then the fire department will have to do an inspection and give us the okay.”

  I nodded and turned to gaze again at the snow scene that our once-shiny kitchen had become. At the sound of a low moan, however, I turned back and saw that Javier was slumped over, his bent arms cradling his head. I lay a hand on the chef’s shoulder, prompting another moan.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll deal. At least there wasn’t any fire damage, it doesn’t look like, anyway. And it wasn’t your fault. So c’mon, buck up, laddie.”

  Although Javier straightened back up, my words didn’t appear to cheer him much. He just stared at the foam-covered hot line, slowly shaking his head back and forth. I guess I couldn’t blame him; it was a pretty depressing sight.

  But even more depressing were the thoughts I was entertaining about Brian. Could he have started the fire—on purpose? He had been the one closest to its source. And that tattoo of his certainly suggested an affinity for fires. What if it had been him who’d followed me up to the storage room the night before? Had he committed arson as a not-so-subtle warning to lay off my investigation?

  Taking one of the plastic buckets Reuben had fetched from the storage room, I pulled on a pair of gloves, tossed all my foam-covered game hens and steaks into it, and began wiping down the grill. We’d been lucky that the ANSUL system had kicked in as soon as it did, since it was designed to detect and extinguish fires on the hot line. It was only because the wastebin had been so close to the range that the nozzles had activated when they did. But if the bin had been even slightly farther away, the flames could easily have gone undetected for a lot longer and resulted in a major fire.

  Even with the luck we’d had, though, Gauguin was going to lose a ton of money because of this. Not just from lost customers but also from perishables that wouldn’t last until we could reopen, as well as all the food lost tonight. And there was the staff, too. It wouldn’t be right not to reimburse them for their missed shifts, but that was going to be even more money down the drain.

  My bucket now full, I carried it to the large, plastic bag–lined garbage can Javier had placed in the middle of the kitchen. As I dumped out the greasy, foamy slop, I let loose along with it several coarse words. Because I couldn’t stop thinking this was all my fault. Returning to the charbroiler, I tried to silence the voice in my ear—that of my aunt, asking how on earth I could have been so stupid as to bring such a calamity upon her beloved restaurant. I’m sorry, Letta, I silently mouthed, fighting back the tears.

  I knew, of course, that I should also be frightened by what had happened. And I was. After all, if the fire had been started on purpose, who was to say that Brian—or whoever was responsible—wouldn’t now try something else?

  But more than being afraid, I was angry. Because going after Gauguin was like going after my own family. And if you know one fact about Italians, it’s that no one messes with la famiglia.

  * * *

  I had to open at Solari’s the next morning, which really sucked ’cause I hadn’t gotten to sleep till almost two o’clock the night before. It had taken several hours to clean up the mess the ANSUL system had made at Gauguin, and then I’d been so hyped up by everything that I’d ended up watching the last hour of the day’s Tour de France stage when I got home. And even after I’d finally gone to bed, I still tossed and turned for almost an hour before dropping off to sleep. So I was pretty bleary as I dragged my sorry self into Solari’s to open the till and count out the cash at ten o’clock the next day.

  When Elena and Giulia arrived a half hour later, I retreated to the office to call our linen service about a stack of stained napkins we’d received with Monday’s delivery. “I don’t know, but they look like someone spilled a bottle of balsamic vinegar all over them,” I told the woman who answered the phone. “The entire bundle is covered with black blotches.”

  She apologized and assured me that one of their drivers would drop off a new bundle that afternoon. Next, I turned to the problem we were having with the heating element for one of our steam tables. I was about to look up the SKU for the part online when I noticed a new e-mail from Margaret Ng:

  Hey Sally—

  Just wanted to let you know that Lydia was asking questions about you this morning. She snagged me at the coffee station and said she’d met you last weekend and wondered if you’d mentioned it to me. She tried to make it seem like just idle conversation, but I got the feeling she really wanted to know if you’d contacted me. I lied, btw, and said no (so sue me—LOL).

  mn

  Huh. I stared blankly at the faded poster over the desk of the old Saeco cycling team, with Dad’s hero, the sprinting phenom Mario Cipollini, front and center. So she was concerned about me after all. That could only mean one thing, I figured: Lydia was feeling nervous about the will. The will that looked more and more like she had drafted it intentionally to be invalid.

  I picked up the office phone and dialed the number of Margaret’s office. But I didn’t ask for my law school pal. “Could I speak with Lydia . . . uh . . .” Damn—what was her last name? “She’s one of the litigation secretaries.”

  “One moment, please.” So Margaret’s firm was like my old one: they only asked your name if you were calling for one of the attorneys. I’d always thought it was pretty elitist, but right now I was glad of the practice, since I wasn’t sure if Lydia would have taken my call or not.

  “This is Lydia,” she said when she picked up.

  “Hi, Lydia. It’s Sally Solari. We met last weekend after Kyle’s memorial service.”

  A pause. “Sure, I remember. You’re the one who was asking those nosy questions about me.”

  Good tactic, that—a preemptive bid to tip the balance of power her way. But I chose to respond to her volley with one of my own: “I’m actually calling about Kyle’s will, which I’ve just learned was generated by your law firm.” Now this was of course an exaggeration, as I wasn’t by any means certain about such fact. But she didn’t know that I didn’t know.

  “Uh . . .”

  Yes. I had her.

  “. . . really?” she finally managed to say.

  “And I also know that you’re the one who drafted his will.” Hey, my bluff seemed to be working; why not extend it? “So how ’bout you tell me why you did it? Why did you deliberately prepare a will you knew would be held invalid for lack of witnesses?”

  “I . . .” It came out as almost a squeak, and Lydia stopped to clear her throat. “Let me phone you back,” she said. “I’m at my cubicle where everyone can hear.
What’s your number?”

  I gave her my cell number, to avoid the chance of Elena or Giulia picking up first at the Solari’s reception desk. After several minutes of anxious finger-tapping on my part, she finally called. I’d figured she probably would. After all, assuming she did draft the will—which it now looked like she had—she’d be desperate to know what I was going to do with this knowledge. But I was still relieved when my phone finally rang.

  “Okay, I’m out in my car now,” Lydia said, slightly out of breath. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, for starters, did you really imagine you could get away with it? That anyone would think for a minute it was just a mistake, when there was a will template sitting right there in the office server that you could have used if you’d wanted to make sure his will was valid?”

  “Wait. How . . . ?” It was obvious she was trying to figure out how the hell I knew what I did. But then I heard, “Damn. Margaret. I shoulda known,” under her breath. Lydia must have decided the game was up at this point, because she let out a long sigh and then coughed up the whole story.

  “It was Kyle who asked me to do his will,” she said. “We’d been broken up for a while by then but still tried to get along okay, you know, for Jeremy’s sake. And since I worked at a law firm, he figured he could get it done for free. He could be a real cheapskate sometimes,” Lydia added with a snort. “Anyway, I told him I wasn’t allowed to do it as a legal secretary, since it would be considered ‘the practice of law,’ but that I’d ask one of the attorneys. So he gave me a list of who he wanted to get what, and I took it with me to work.”

  Lydia paused, and I said, “Uh-huh,” by way of encouragement.

  “Well, when I looked over how he’d bequeathed his estate, I got pretty pissed, ’cause he was giving as much to his girlfriend as he was to his own kid. And there was nothing at all for me, the mother of his son, who was doing ninety-nine percent of the child-rearing.”

  “I can guess where this is going,” I murmured, but she didn’t appear to notice.

  “So I got to thinking how easy it would be to make sure Jeremy got it all. I did the will myself and made it look all official with the pleading paper and stuff. But I left out the place for the witnesses, which I figured he wouldn’t know was a problem. And I was right. I told Kyle an attorney from the firm had drafted it, and he believed me, and so he just signed the thing without asking any questions and stashed it away.”

  “And now Kyle has conveniently just died,” I said. “So Jeremy is going to inherit everything right away.”

  “Right . . .” Lydia said, and then I heard her gasp. “Wait! You don’t think . . . ?”

  “Well, what do you expect people are going to think, once they know what you did? It’s the obvious conclusion.”

  “But I didn’t kill him!” she said, though it was more of a wail, really. “I would never have done that! Even though we’d broken up, I still cared for Kyle. He was Jeremy’s father. And besides, he was paying a lot of child support; Jeremy didn’t need his money.”

  Uh-huh. Tell it to the judge.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Altos rock. And I’m not just saying that because I am one. No, it’s because we are the heart and soul of the chorus, the glue that binds together all the other parts. Altos don’t tend to get the sexy melodies of the sopranos or tenors, nor do we sing those low, contrapuntal lines that folks like to hum along with on the car radio. But if you were to take the alto part away from any piece of choral music, it would sound empty and wrong—like it was missing the key spice that makes the dish so very special. We are the je ne sais quoi of the musical world.

  And then of course there’s also the fact there are always about twice as many of us altos as you’ll find in any other section in most community choruses.

  I got to the women’s sectional early that night, in the hopes of talking to Jill again. She hadn’t yet arrived, though, so after handing Carol at the dessert table the two trays of blondies I’d baked, I chatted with some of my awesome fellow altos as we sat waiting for Marta to step up onto the podium. “Are any of you thinking of auditioning for the Recordare?” I asked.

  Most shook their heads no. “I’m going for the Tuba mirum,” our section leader, Wendy, said. “It’s really short, so it won’t take much work to learn, and I’m super swamped with work and stuff at home right now.” Two other women indicated interest in trying out for that one, too.

  “I might audition for the Recordare,” said a gal I didn’t know well. She always sat in the far back, so I had no idea how much competition she’d be if I did try out for that part.

  “I’m thinking of doing the Benedictus,” Allison said.

  “Really?” I’d taken a look at that movement and knew it to be the hardest alto solo of the bunch.

  “Well, I haven’t decided yet for sure,” she added, giving me one of those I-double-dare-you looks we’d used with each other as teenagers.

  “I will if you will,” I said, and then immediately regretted it.

  Allison smiled. “I knew that would work.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t until break in the middle of full-chorus rehearsal that I got the chance to talk to Jill. “I found out Lydia did indeed draft Kyle’s will,” I told her as we munched on squares of my gooey blondies, made all the sweeter by the addition of white chocolate chips. “And I got her to cop to the fact that she left off the spaces for witnesses on purpose.”

  “So does that mean it’ll be declared valid after all, since she’s admitted what she did?”

  “Well, I’m certainly no expert on probate law, but I don’t think that’s possible. I’m pretty sure that an invalid will remains invalid, even if there was fraud involved in its procurement, as they say. But you could sue Lydia for the money you lost because of her fraud, I suppose.”

  Jill shook her head. “Damn lawyers,” she muttered, gazing down at her red patent leather Mary Janes.

  Attorneys all learn quickly to ignore such comments, and I let it slide. “At least now we finally have an obvious suspect for Kyle’s murder,” I said, “given how Lydia—or her son, anyway—stands to benefit from his death.” Jill nodded but continued to stare at her shoes. “And I also have some other news. I took your advice and went up to that storage room during break Monday night.”

  This got her attention. “Really?” she said, looking up. “Did you find anything?”

  “I did. Two things, actually. Here, check it out.” Taking the St. Christopher medal from my purse, I carefully unfolded the handkerchief I’d wrapped it in and held it out for her inspection. “This was inside a crevice where the window frame fell out. You have any idea who it might belong to?”

  Jill smiled.

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing.” She paused a moment, as if collecting her thoughts, and then chuckled softly. “It just reminded me of something, is all. When I was in the sixth grade, I had a boy give me one of those, you know, to go steady.”

  I joined in her laughter. “Right! The boys at my school did that too. It was a big deal, and I always wanted a St. Christopher. But alas, I guess I wasn’t popular enough.”

  “Well, don’t feel too bad,” Jill said. “Our ‘going steady’ only lasted like three weeks, and he was too chicken to even hold my hand. And get this: the boy was Jewish.”

  “I don’t think people pay much attention to the Christian aspect of those medals. Surfers wear them all the time, and I bet most of them aren’t religious. At least not in any formal way. I asked Eric, since he’s a surfer, if he knew any chorus members who wore one, but he couldn’t think of anybody.”

  Jill stared at the group of singers clustered around the dessert table and thought a moment. “No,” she said with a shake of the head. “I can’t think of anyone either.”

  “Well, that’s not the only thing I found up in that room. I also found this.” I rewrapped the medal and, after stowing it back in my bag, pulled out the Elixier lozenge wrapper and
showed it to Jill. “And then, that same night at rehearsal, I saw Marta eat one of them. It was when she had that coughing fit.”

  “Uh-huh.” She didn’t seem too excited by this information.

  I replaced the wrapper in my purse. “Okay, I know how common they are, but maybe we can at least exclude some people who couldn’t have dropped it. Like, did Kyle use that kind of throat lozenge?”

  “No, definitely not. Even though lots of singers swear by ’em, Kyle was convinced that since they have menthol, they’re actually bad for your voice. He always said that by numbing your throat, you don’t know when you might be causing it even more damage. So he used slippery elm lozenges instead. Plus, opening those wrappers,” she nodded toward my purse, “is so friggin’ noisy. It always drove Kyle nuts when people used them, especially during a concert.”

  “And I know Eric doesn’t use them either. But we do know Marta does. Which has got me thinking: Do you happen to know anything about the rumor going around that she didn’t write that piece that was performed at the new music festival in Chicago?”

  “I’ve heard it; I think everyone in the chorus has. But I don’t know how it got started. Why? You think it might be true? And have something to do with Kyle’s murder?”

  “Who knows?” I said, shaking my head. “I think the more I get involved in this whole damn mess, the less I know about any of it.”

  At the sound of Marta tapping a pencil on her black metal stand, we all shuffled back to our places, everyone continuing to chatter until the director hushed us with another round of pencil taps. She asked us to turn to movement seven, and we spent the second half of rehearsal on the Lacrymosa.