A Measure of Murder Page 7

  “You mean it wasn’t just Süssmayr who finished it?”

  Allison shook her head. “Huh-uh. There were several others. Students of Mozart’s, I think. But Süssmayr did the lion’s share of the work.”

  “How come you know so much about it?” I asked.

  “Oh, well when we sang it in my university chorus, we learned all about its history, and I guess it just stuck with me, you know, since I’d been so obsessed with the whole story ever since seeing Amadeus in high school.”

  We continued up the coast in silence while I digested what she’d told me. So there really was a mystery involving the Requiem, after all. Weird to think that even today, there would still be question about who wrote what parts of the piece.

  And now the director of our small-town chorus had unearthed a previously undiscovered portion of it.

  Chapter Seven

  After our walk, I dropped Buster off at home and then drove downtown to Gauguin. Brian was already waiting out front in a vintage VW beetle. This was a good sign; I like an employee who shows up a little early.

  “Howdy,” he said as he unfolded his tall body from the driver’s seat of the tiny car. I took him into the restaurant kitchen, where we found Javier sorting through the ingredients for the dishes he and I would be testing out after the interview. On the long work table across from the eight-burner Wolf range sat a butternut squash, a whole duck, a bunch of mint, several heads of garlic, bottles of white wine and balsamic vinegar, and a ziplock freezer bag full of something that looked like smooshed black fruit.

  Javier shook hands with Brian and then indicated the food spread out before us. “I thought we’d try out seared duck breasts with a balsamic-fig glaze and sautéed pumpkin with garlic and mint.”

  “Doesn’t look much like a pumpkin to me,” I observed, nodding at the butternut squash.

  “Yeah, they won’t be available until early September, so we’ll have to make do with this for now—it’s imported from Mexico. And it’s also too early for fresh figs, but I had some in the freezer from last season that we can use to try out the recipe.” Javier dropped the ziplock bag into a bowl of warm water to hasten its defrosting and then turned to Brian. “So,” he said, “why don’t you tell me about your restaurant experience?”

  “Well, I was a cook at the Beach Street Bistro for the past four years, until it closed down. And before that, I was on the line at Le Radis Ravi in Los Gatos for three years.”

  “Wow. That’s an amazing place,” Javier said. “Why’d you leave?”

  Brian ran a finger over the smooth, hard skin of the squash. “My girlfriend lives down here, and after I moved in with her, it got really stressful doing that commute, driving back over the hill late every night. So I decided to just get a job here in Santa Cruz, even though it meant a drop in prestige—and pay.” Brian glanced up at Javier as he added this last bit but then quickly dropped his eyes once again.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “I took a little time off after the Bistro closed last month, but I’m definitely ready to start up again somewhere, and it would be an honor to work at Gauguin. I’ve eaten here a bunch of times, and the food is always outstanding. Far better than lots of those high-end places up in the City.”

  Way to pile it on, I was thinking. But the technique seemed to be working, judging by Javier’s fat smile.

  They talked a while longer about people they knew in common and styles of cooking they preferred and seemed to be hitting if off. Good. It would be a huge burden off Javier’s shoulders—and mine—if we could get a new cook so soon.

  Spotting Brandon through the window of the swinging door, I left them to it and went into the dining room. He was busy wiping water spots off of wine glasses with a soft white cloth.

  “Hey, just the man I wanted,” I said. “I’ve got a quick question. You’re a College Eleven student, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You know the maintenance guy there? Steve, I think his name is?”

  “Sure.” Brandon set the glass he’d been cleaning on a serving tray and picked up another one. “When I lived up on campus, Steve used to come and fix stuff in our apartment sometimes.”

  “What’s he like? A nice guy? Mellow, easygoing?”

  “Not,” Brandon said with a snort. “More of a hothead is what. Like, once when our sink was clogged, he was such a royal jerk about it. He got totally pissed off, screaming that it was all our fault and that we’d have to pay for it, when that was so not the case. I mean, they don’t even have garbage disposals, so it’s not our fault if sometimes a little food gets down the drain by accident.”

  “Did he seem capable of violent behavior? You know, like he might actually hurt someone?”

  “I dunno about that. He did throw a wrench pretty hard when he was yelling, but it wasn’t aimed it at us. And I’ve heard people say he sometimes drinks a lot, so . . .” Brandon frowned. “Why you asking about him, anyway? You know the guy?”

  This was the part of playing sleuth that always got me. Should I be honest or concoct some sort of fake story? A half-truth had been my default position when I was poking my nose into Letta’s murder and seemed appropriate now. “Oh, it’s just that he was the tenant of someone in my chorus, and I gather he wasn’t too happy about being evicted. I was just wondering if there was anything to worry about, is all.”

  This seemed to appease him, and he went back to wiping his glasses.

  I returned to the kitchen just in time to hear Javier say to Brian, “Okay, I’m willing to give you a try. But I’ll need to call your old places, just to make sure.”

  “No worries, man. I get it.” Brian grinned. “Here, I’ll write down the names and numbers of my most recent bosses for you.”

  “Thanks.” Javier took the slip of paper and tucked it into the pocket of his chef’s jacket. “So when can you start? It’d be best if it could be this week, so the guy who’s leaving—Reuben—could help show you how our kitchen works before he takes off.”

  “I could start tomorrow night, if you want.”

  “No, you can’t,” I jumped in. “We have rehearsal.”

  “Oh, right.” Brian picked at his lower lip, no doubt uncertain how this was going to fly.

  “He won’t be able to work Wednesday nights till after our concert. I’d be skinned alive if word got out I was the cause of losing one of our basses.” I turned to Brian. “But you could come in tomorrow afternoon for a few hours, right?”

  “Absolutely. No problem.”

  Javier directed a frown my way, hands on hips. But then he just shook his head and said, “Fine,” with an exaggerated sigh. “At least Reuben will still be here for part of the time. And if you end up working out, I guess it’ll be worth it to be shorthanded on Wednesdays for a few weeks. By the way, do you smoke?”

  “Uh, no, I don’t.”

  “I only ask ’cause I’m trying to quit, and it would make it harder for me if you were going outside for cigarette breaks. I’ve managed to make it five days now.”

  Brian smiled, perhaps relieved that there was a reason for this line of questioning other than his future boss being some kind of control freak. “Congratulations,” he said. “I used to smoke too, but my girlfriend convinced me to quit last year. She kept telling me it was really stupid for a singer to be smoking cigarettes, and I finally decided it was in fact affecting my voice—as well as my taste buds. Anyway, I know how hard it is to quit, especially if people around you are doing it all the time. So we’ll be a good influence for each other.”

  I walked Brian back out to his car after the interview. “Congratulations,” I said as we headed down the walkway to the street. “And welcome aboard.”

  “Thanks,” he replied. “I might not have even learned about the opening here until too late if you hadn’t told me about it.”

  We stopped on the sidewalk by his dinged-up black Bug. “Speaking of the chorus, I was wondering if you knew that guy who just died, Kyle.”

  Brian dug into t
he pocket of his tight jeans—also black—and extracted a mass of keys. “Sure, kinda. We’ve both been in the group for a while. But I wouldn’t say I really knew him all that well. The tenors and basses don’t tend to mix a whole lot.” He chuckled, but the laugh seemed forced, and I noticed he didn’t meet my eyes.

  “I take it you weren’t overly fond of the guy?”

  “No, not overly.” I waited for him to elaborate, but he just stood there, fussing with his keys as if searching for the correct one. When the silence had stretched long enough to start feeling awkward, he finally separated the obvious, much bigger VW key from the others and stepped from the curb into the street. “So, uh,” he said, clearing his throat, “thanks again for everything, but I should probably get going.”

  “Yeah, okay. See you at rehearsal tomorrow. Or maybe at the restaurant beforehand, if I stop by.”

  I watched him drive off, the Beetle’s engine coughing and wheezing as it rattled down the street. Now, I wonder what beef he could have had with Kyle.

  * * *

  At eleven o’clock the next morning, I met my newly hired waitress at Solari’s to start training her. Cathy had years of experience at a popular breakfast joint in town, so I figured this gig would be a snap by comparison.

  Most folks don’t realize it, but breakfast—with all its coffee, tea, juices, and milk and sides of bacon, sausage, toast, pancakes, butter, jam, and syrup, not to mention eggs every which way—can be far more complicated and chaotic for the waitstaff than lunch or dinner shifts. And the servers don’t get nearly the same in tips, since the food costs less and there’s generally little or no bar tab. So it made sense that Cathy would have wanted to make the switch to waiting tables for lunch and dinner at Solari’s.

  She had already changed into our 1950s-era uniform of black skirt and white blouse and was in the wait station talking to the head waitress, Elena. They were going over the lunch menu, with Elena explaining the ingredients and presentation for each dish.

  “Let me know when you’re done with that,” I said to Elena, “and then I’ll take over so you can hit the floor when the masses come pouring through the doors.” Although Solari’s opens at eleven, we generally don’t get many customers till around noon, so this was merely wishful thinking on my part.

  I headed for the office to go through the week’s stack of invoices that needed paying. Ten minutes later, Elena popped her head through the door. “All done showing her the menu,” she said, “and a six-top just came in, so I gotta dash.”

  After giving Cathy a tour of the restaurant and introducing her to everyone who was working that day, I showed her how to operate our antiquated cash register, and then we sat down so I could show her the system we used for filling out our guest checks.

  She chuckled when I handed the pad to her. “I haven’t seen one of these in years,” she said, examining the carbon paper that separated the sheets of paper. “They use a POS at my old place.”

  “Yeah, well my dad is pretty old-school,” I said. “We have a point-of-sale system at Gauguin, too, but until my dad decides it’s worth the money to change, we’re stuck with these here at Solari’s.”

  She seemed to absorb everything quickly and easily, so in less than an hour, I had her out on the floor, taking four tables. Pleased, I went in search of my father to tell him the good news. After trying the kitchen, the storeroom, and the office, I finally found him in the Solari’s bar.

  The room was empty of customers save old Gino, a retired fisherman of my grandfather’s generation who came in most days to drink a lunch of Bud Light before heading home for a nap. Gino touched his faded blue cap to me, then returned to gazing out the picture window behind the bar, where a sleek white sailboat made its way back to harbor after its morning Champagne-brunch charter. Behind it was a view of the majestic houses lining West Cliff Drive and the waves rolling in below at Cowell’s Beach.

  Dad finished decanting a half liter of our house white into a wine carafe and then looked up. “Hey, hon,” he said. “Would you mind taking this out to table six? Carlo’s not coming in for another half hour, so I’m on bartender duty till then.”

  “Sure, Dad.” I took the proffered carafe. “I just wanted to let you know that the new gal, Cathy, seems to be working out really well. I’m thinking that in a couple weeks, she might even be ready to take over as head waitress. Which means Elena should be able to start taking over my job real soon.”

  Dad frowned as he screwed the cap back on the jug of Pinot Grigio. “Are you really sure Elena is ready to step into your shoes? It took your mother years to learn the job, after all. And there are still things you haven’t even really gotten down yet.”

  I set the carafe down on the polished wood bar. “Are we really going to do this all over again? Elena’s been at Solari’s way longer than I have and was trained by Mom, for God’s sake. You know she’ll be fine as manager. I swear, it sometimes seems like you’re just trying to make this as difficult as possible.”

  Leaning over, Dad placed the wine jug on the bottom shelf of the bar fridge and then straightened back up. But he didn’t say anything; he just stood there pouting, jaw tight. Gino, I noticed, had wrested his gaze from the window to observe our spat.

  “And besides,” I went on, “you know how crazy it’s been for me, having to run the front of the house here and deal with Gauguin. I thought we were on the same page with all this.”

  “I don’t know, hon. I’m just not so sure . . .”

  “Well I am, and I guess maybe that’s all that really matters.” Picking up the carafe once more, I turned and headed for the dining room without waiting for a reply.

  * * *

  Since I had the afternoon free, I went home after finishing up at Solari’s to check out the day’s Tour de France stage. They had yet to reach the mountains, so I fast-forwarded through most of the flat race till its inevitable sprint finish.

  Afterward, inspired by Mark Cavendish’s heroic jump from behind his lead-out train to win by a wheel’s length, I decided a bike ride was in order. It would be a good way to blow off the steam that had yet to dissipate from the quarrel with my dad. Nothing too long, but enough to stretch my legs and get my heart pumping. Up the hill to UCSC seemed perfect.

  After pulling on my jersey and spandex shorts, I did a few leg stretches, with Buster’s eyes riveted on me the entire time. He’s learned that when I change into my cycling kit, although he won’t get to go along with me, I always give him a treat as I wheel my bike out the front door. You’d think that dry dog biscuit was some kind of pâté de foie gras from the anticipation and excitement it inspires in him. But dogs do love a routine—especially when it involves any kind of food.

  From Letta’s house (no, my house) near the ocean on the Westside, the ride up to the university isn’t what any serious cyclist would consider strenuous, but for me it’s a pretty good workout. And by the time I reached the entrance to campus at the top of Bay Street, my legs were starting to burn, and my mouth was open, sucking in air.

  Luckily, the road flattens out for a bit after this point, so I was able to catch my breath in time for the final, longer ascent to the top. As I neared the highest point at Science Hill, I looked up from staring at my chainrings and wishing I had one lower gear and saw a sign pointing to the right. College Eleven. That’s where the maintenance guy, Kyle’s ex-tenant, works.

  Turning down the road, I followed it up yet another steep (but thankfully short) hill and rolled to a stop in front of what looked like an administration building, flanked on three sides by towering redwood trees. I dismounted and exhaled deeply a few times and then hailed a young woman with shoulder-length turquoise hair and a bulging daypack who was passing by.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “can you tell me where the maintenance guy works? Steve?”

  “Yeah, it’s over there. That door you can see on the bottom floor.” She pointed to a stucco building painted a shade that would have been called burnt sienna in the box of crayon
s I’d had as a kid.

  As I walked my bike toward the building, a piney scent washed over me, released as my cycling cleats crunched across the mat of redwood needles littering the path. Above the doorway was a sign reading “College 11 Maintenance.” A white pickup truck sat near the door, a row of troll dolls wired to its front bumper. One, I observed, had hair the exact same color as the student I’d queried.

  The door was open, but it was dark in the cavernous shop, and it took a moment for my eyes to readjust. After a few seconds, I discerned a man sitting at a cluttered desk at the far end of the room, staring at a computer terminal.

  “Steve?” I asked.

  “I told you all this morning,” he said, not taking his eyes from the screen, “if you have any questions, you gotta go to your crew leader.”

  “Uh . . . I don’t think that applies to me,” I said.

  “Oh.” He rolled his office chair around to face me. “Sorry. I thought you were one of my student workers. I gave them a new paint job this morning, and they’ve been badgering me all day with questions. What can I do ya fer?”

  I leaned my bike against a wall covered with long plastic drawers and took a few steps toward him. “Well, it has to do with your old landlord. Kyle?”

  “Yeah. I heard about him. Nasty way to go.” Steve shook his head and then looked up at me with a frown. “So are you a cop or something? What’s it got to do with me?”

  “No, I’m not a cop.” I nodded toward a paint-spattered plastic chair pushed up against the wall. “May I?”

  “Go ahead,” he answered with a shrug.

  Checking first to make sure the paint wasn’t wet, I sat down. “But I am a friend of Kyle’s girlfriend, Jill.” This wasn’t so far from the truth to be considered a lie, I rationalized. “And she’s pretty upset about what happened, as you can imagine. So I offered to ask around about him, is all.”