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“THOSE TWO SEEM OKAY. Competent. Respectful.” Woody Bernstein set a platter of snacks on the coffee table in front of the love seat Martin and I shared in the front parlor of The Gabbling Goose. Cheese, crackers, salami, olives, and fruit.
My stomach whined in gratitude, reminding me how long it had been since I’d put anything in it. Sexy Beast, who’d curled up between the padre and me, was so exhausted by all the activity, not to mention his late-night lifeguard duty, that not even the smell of some of his favorite vittles was enough to interrupt his sound snooze.
“You mean the detectives?” I asked, as I plopped a slice of fragrant cheddar on a water cracker. “Howie and Cookie are more than okay. Not only are they swell people, but they happen to be very good at what they do. I’ve known Howie forever. Cookie Kaplan joined the force just six months ago, but already I like her a lot.”
“Woody,” Martin said, “you don’t have to wait on us. It’s after one a.m. The cops have already interviewed you. You look like you’re falling out. Go to bed.”
Woody and his wife, Shelley, who managed the B&B, were around eighty years old. Both wore eyeglasses and unobtrusive hearing aids. Woody was on the short side, stocky, with a white ponytail that only served to direct one’s gaze to the gleaming bald spot above it. Shelley, a light-skinned Black woman, had a couple of inches on her husband. Her white hair was worn short and natural. The vivid color-block cardigan she’d layered over her long purple dress appeared handmade, as did her large beaded earrings and necklace. Age did not appear to have hampered this lady’s sense of style.
Shelley placed a bottle of merlot and three wineglasses on the table. “They’re right, dear. If you don’t get enough sleep, you’ll be useless tomorrow and then it’ll all be on me.”
This mild guilt-tripping, which I suspect she’d been employing for the past half-century or so, had the desired effect. “Well, if you insist,” Woody said, stifling a yawn, “but you have to promise you’ll wake me if the detectives have more questions.”
“Fine, but they won’t. Go on now.” Shelley wagged her hand at her husband, who wished us a good night and disappeared up the nearby staircase.
“Since the cops seem to be done with us,” she said as she started pouring, “I hereby declare it to be wine o’clock.”
“You’re an angel,” I said, accepting a glass. “I don’t know when I’ve needed it more.”
Howie and Cookie had interviewed everyone on the property, starting with Martin and me before moving on to the Bernsteins and the guests who were staying at the Gabbling Goose: a young couple and a family of four. The detectives were conducting these meetings in the large enclosed porch on the other side of the house. Tyler Collingwood, who owned the B&B, had arrived a short while ago and was in with them now.
Within minutes of Martin’s 911 call, the property bristled with emergency vehicles and first responders of every description. I didn’t see them remove Stu Ruskin’s body from the hot tub, but I watched through the front window as the white medical examiner’s van pulled away.
The padre took a sip of wine. “Shelley, you must be as wiped out as Woody. I’ll make you the same promise you made him. We’ll come get you if you’re needed.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me.” Shelley settled in an antique-looking armchair with her wineglass. For that matter, all the furnishings and artwork in the elegant B&B appeared to be from a previous century. “I wouldn’t know what to do with more than four hours of sleep. I’m a night owl and an early bird.”
“You’ll have to teach me that trick,” I said. “I need my eight hours. Six, minimum.”
“Good to know.” Martin’s tone was maddeningly innocent, the fiend. Meanwhile my face heated like a skillet.
Tyler Collingwood joined us in the parlor. The owner of The Gabbling Goose was a little under six feet tall, with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair, a firm jawline, and a confident bearing. Based on the way he filled out his gray silk shirt and close-fitting slacks, I assumed he was either a gym rat or spent every weekend competing in a triathlon. As he scanned the room, I had the impression his intense blue-gray gaze missed nothing.
In short, he was the kind of man it was impossible to ignore. Especially if you happened to be, you know, of the female persuasion. Some men just have that certain something, and he was one of them, despite the age difference. I’d just turned forty a few weeks earlier, and I estimated this man to be in his midfifties.
He extended his hand, and we came to our feet to shake it. “Ty Collingwood.” His voice was a rich baritone, because of course it was. “I wasn’t ignoring you earlier. The detectives grabbed me as soon as I got here.”
We introduced ourselves and Sexy Beast, who roused himself long enough to accept a few brisk pats.
“I would’ve been here sooner,” Ty said, “but I was at a jazz club in Southampton and my phone was silenced. I didn’t learn about Stu’s suicide until the show ended, and of course, the drive back took an hour and a half.”
“Did the cops say it was definitely suicide?” I asked. “I mean, it looks like that, but they wouldn’t tell me anything.” No surprise there. Howie Werker always played it close to the vest. I usually had better luck cajoling information out of Cookie Kaplan when her partner wasn’t around.
“Naturally, they wouldn’t commit themselves,” Ty said. “The investigation has to run its course and all that, but it’s clear they think he killed himself.”
“That’s the sense I got, too,” I said.
“Which means,” Martin said, “they must’ve found the gun.”
Ty nodded. “I overheard a couple of cops talking about it. A Glock nine-mil with a suppressor. It was at the bottom of the hot tub.”
“Suppressor?” Shelley asked.
“Silencer,” Martin said.
Speaking of silence, an awkward one ensued as the four of us contemplated the specific sequence of events that had caused that Glock to end up in that location. I shuddered as I pictured Stu Ruskin placing the barrel of the gun in his mouth.
Ty broke the spell. “I hope this tragic incident didn’t completely ruin your stay with us.”
“Oh, were not staying here,” I said. “Well, we were planning to, but...”
“That’s understandable,” Ty said. “Let me offer you a couple of free nights to make up for the inconvenience.”
“I already gave them a voucher,” Shelley said. “Our other guests, too.”
“As always, you’re on top of everything.” He gave her a warm smile. “What would I do without you and Woody?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “hire someone younger and sexier?”
“Do they make them sexier than you two?”
“Good point.” She rose. “Are you hungry? I can fix you a plate.”
“I’m fine, I ate at the club. And anyway, it’s late, Shelley. You should be in bed.”
“We tried that,” Martin said.
“Oh yeah,” Ty said. “Ms. ‘I only need five hours sleep.’”
“Four.” Shelley gave him a knowing look. “Does this club you were at serve my apple crisp? Warm, with vanilla ice cream?”
She’d said the magic words. His eyes widened. “You made apple crisp?”
She turned to us. “There’s plenty. Can I interest you? It’s my specialty.”
“She’s not lying.” Ty stabbed a finger toward his manager. “Shelley Bernstein makes the best apple crisp on the planet.”
“Sounds amazing, but we’re still working our way through all this.” I indicated the snack platter. In truth, I was hoping for a few minutes alone with the padre, something we hadn’t had since he’d made that 911 call.
“We’ll take a rain check,” Martin said.
Ty and Shelley passed through the adjoining drawing room and into the kitchen while we resumed our seats. I took a healthy swallow of wine.
“He called him ‘Stu,’” Martin said. “Did you notice? Like he knew him.”
“I noticed. I also noticed that you told me you’re Stu Ruskin’s bodyguard.”
“Was,” he said. “I was Stu’s bodyguard. Part-time for five and a half months, until this past December.”
I shook my head, struggling to process this new information. “You’re a bartender, Padre.”
“Yeah, so?” He shrugged. “There’s more to my life than Murray’s Pub. The job doesn’t claim all my time.”
I was well aware there was more to Martin's life than tending bar. During the past year, he and I had shared some intense, even life-threatening experiences, which naturally had brought us closer together. I felt a gut-deep connection with this man that both thrilled and frightened me.
The fact is, I still knew precious little about his background and in particular how he’d come by some of his more, shall we say, practical life skills. Such as picking locks, disabling security systems, cracking safes... you know, basic handyman stuff like that.
He was also skilled at evading my subtle and not-so-subtle attempts to pin him down. Was he a cat burglar? Con man? Bank robber? Something worse? And if so, were we talking past tense? I thought I could live with past tense. Maybe.
It depended on a number of factors. Such as whether he’d ever done time. More important, in my book at least, was the question of whether he’d ever hurt anyone during the course of his, um, activities. That was the make-it-or-break-it question that kept me awake at night. I still didn’t know what I would do if I learned the answer was yes.
Oh hell, I knew what I would do. Or more to the point, what I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t open my heart to someone like that. And for sure I wouldn’t make sexy-time dates with someone like that.
“How long have you done that?” I asked. “You know, worked as a bodyguard.”
He was busy poking around in the snack platter for the ideal slice of salami to crown the gob of brie he’d smeared on a slice of baguette. “Oh, about twenty years. No, I guess it’s been a little longer than that.”
“So here’s the big question,” I said.
“Why didn’t we go to the Hilton?” He shoved the loaded cracker into his mouth and followed it with the last of his wine.
“That certainly would’ve saved us all this drama,” I said, “but the question that occurred to me is this. Why would a person who’s contemplating suicide hire a bodyguard? It would seem to be counterproductive and at the very least a waste of money.”
“That’s my Jane, ever practical. You want some of these grapes before I polish them off?”
“They’re all yours. Answer the question.”
“I’m as baffled as you are,” he said. “I told Howie and Cookie about my time working for Stu, and brought up the obvious inconsistency. I mean, I assume that when someone commits suicide, they’ve spent some time thinking about it. It’s not usually a last-minute decision. But what do I know? I’m no shrink. Plus, it’s been five months since I stopped working for him. A lot can happen in five months.”
“So, what did they say?” I asked.
“Cookie asked me if Stu ever seemed depressed or suicidal. I said no. Then Howie said people change their minds, and anyway it’s too early to say for sure it was suicide.”
“But they’re definitely leaning in that direction.” I poured us each a little more wine. “It’s obvious that’s what they’re thinking.”
“Agreed.”
“Maybe Stu did change his mind,” I said. “Maybe it’s why he fired you.”
Martin glowered at me. “Cookie said the same thing. Why does everyone assume he fired me? I’m a skilled, experienced bodyguard. I’ve never lost a client yet.”
“Sorry, I just... Why did Stu hire you in the first place? Why did he need protection?”
“The cops asked me that, too. Stu claimed someone tried to off him.” Martin paused to let that sink in. “Yeah, I know, but it wouldn’t be the first time a client convinced himself that someone was gunning for him.”
“Meanwhile it’s all in his imagination,” I said. “But in Stu’s case... What exactly happened back then? I mean, what made him think someone was trying to kill him?”
“He refused to say. Which is less than helpful when you’re trying to keep your client alive. And if he knew who the supposed assassin was, he was keeping it to himself.”
“Well, let me ask you this, then. During the time you were working for him, did you ever feel his life was in danger?”
The padre shook his head. “I never saw any evidence of it. But I wasn’t with him twenty-four seven. Generally he called me in when he had some public event, when he felt particularly exposed.”
“Do you know whether Stu replaced you after you quit?” I asked.
“No idea. I certainly wasn’t about to recommend the gig to anyone.”
“Why not?”
“Because it wasn’t just that Stu was withholding important facts,” he said, “facts any bodyguard would need to do his job. The guy also turned out to be crooked. The pay was good, but I’m not that desperate for work.”
I managed to control my expression. Martin quit a lucrative side gig because the client was crooked? I liked the sound of that. It went against a lot of what I knew, or thought I knew, about the padre. I hoped I wasn’t simply grasping at straws.
“Crooked in what way?” I asked.
He offered a wry smile. “You ready for this? He stole a recipe.”
“The monster.”
“The thing is,” he said, “this was no ordinary recipe. You ever heard of a cookie called the Dreamboat?”
“No. Should I have?”
“You probably know it as the MegaMunchGigantiKookie,” he said. “It hit the store shelves a couple of months ago. You must’ve seen the commercials, all the media coverage.”
I made a face. “You mean that ginormous, overstuffed, candy-studded monstrosity that weighs more than my head? I’ve never had the pleasure. I look at that thing and all I see is a week’s worth of sugar and fat.”
“Since when do you have a problem with sugar and fat?” The padre was well aware of my fondness for junk food.
“There’s junk food and then there’s Junk, Padre. With a capital J. Your basic, run-of-the-mill junk food tastes good and offers a naughty thrill. Maybe even a few vitamins along with the grease and high-fructose corn syrup. Yum.”
“And the capital-J Junk?” he asked.
“Food only in the loosest sense of the word. I once checked out the ingredients list for that MegaMunchGigantiKookie. And I’m not even talking about the hard-to-pronounce ones. Did you know there’s an entire brownie inside every one of those things? And a caramel center inside of that? Oh, plus beer extract and bits of beef jerky for flavor, because what cookie would be complete without beer and jerky? I bet it doesn’t even taste that good.”
“It tastes awesome,” Martin said. “Though I must admit, the original was far superior to the mass-produced knockoff.”
“Original?”
“The Dreamboat. It was created in this small bakery in lower Manhattan, The Cranky Crumb, owned by a guy called Henry Noyer. Lives right here in Crystal Harbor, as a matter of fact. He started selling the things about a year ago and they became an instant sensation. Word spread, the Dreamboat became incredibly popular, the bakery had lines around the block. People would queue up an hour before the place opened. Henry had to limit customers to one apiece.”
“I take it Stu stole the recipe?” I said.
“Yep. And sold it to Conti-Meeker.”
“Wait. Conti-Meeker Pharmaceuticals?” I shook my head, certain I must’ve heard wrong. “The huge multinational drug company? They’re not in the cookie business.”
“They are now. The powers that be renamed it the Conti-Meeker Group with an eye toward branching out into other products, starting with foods. Once they got ahold of the recipe for the Dreamboat, they fast-tracked production and started cranking them out under the name MegaMunchGigantiKookie.”
“How convenient,” I said. “So now, after you’ve choked down a couple of those fat-and-sugar bombs, the same company will sell you your cholesterol medication, your blood pressure drug, and your insulin. Is this a great country or what?”
Sexy Beast blinked, opened his jaws on a giant yawn, and sniffed the air with interest. I offered him a small piece of cheddar, which he scarfed down before turning a few tight circles and resuming his beauty sleep.
“So how did Stu get ahold of Henry’s recipe?” I asked.
“That’s the thing. Technically, it wasn’t Henry’s recipe. His wife is the one who came up with it. Well, Georgia Chen is his ex-wife now, but they were still married when The Cranky Crumb started selling the Dreamboat.”
“Was she his partner in the business?” I asked.
“Astute question. No. Henry owned the bakery before they got married, and he remained the sole owner during and after their marriage.”
“So legally Georgia was considered, what, an employee? I think I read somewhere that if an employee creates a product or invention or whatever, it becomes the property of the employer.”
“That’s often the case,” he said, “because companies make their workers sign contracts to that effect. And Henry was no exception. His business might’ve been small potatoes, but he was determined to protect it, which meant safeguarding his trade secrets.”
“Including the recipe for an insanely popular cookie.”
Martin nodded. “So yeah, the contracts his workers signed said that The Cranky Crumb owned any recipes they came up with while working for him. Plus there were the usual nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements. And he kept the recipe in a secure vault, which only he had access to, via a fingerprint scanner.”
“Didn’t he keep a copy on his computer?” I asked.
“Nope, just paper. Real old-school. I think he was afraid his computer would get hacked. Also, instead of giving his cooks access to the secret recipe, he would mix up the dry ingredients himself and store the mixture in premeasured bags. The baking instructions would say to mix the contents of a bag with the wet ingredients or whatever. With all that security, Henry figured his recipe was safe.”
“I’m waiting for the part that goes something like, ‘The thing he didn’t count on...’”
“The thing he didn’t count on,” Martin said, “was his wife, Georgia, who he was madly in love with, and who he would never even dream of asking to sign a contract—”
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“—falling in love with another man and divorcing Henry.”
“That still doesn’t explain how Stu ended up with the— Oh, wait.”
Martin smiled, watching my expression morph from confused to aha! “I doubt Stu ever really cared for Georgia,” he said. “To him, she was a means to an end.”
“So you think Stu wrecked their marriage just to get his hands on this valuable recipe?” I asked.
“I know he did. And so does Georgia.”
“So you know her.”
“I know her.” He didn’t look at me as he said this. Hmm...
“Tell me about her,” I said.
“What’s to tell? Georgia’s no doormat. The instant she realized what Stu had done, she dumped him.”
That wasn’t the information I was looking for. Was Georgia beautiful? Alluring?
Did she and Martin have a fulfilling relationship? If so, was it over?
“So then,” I said, “she wasn’t in on Stu’s scheme? To sell the secret recipe?”
“If she’s to be believed, Stu swiped it from her. His sole reason for busting up her marriage and getting close to her was to gain access to it. He was a grifter playing a long con, and Georgia was his mark.”
“Did you consider she might be lying about her involvement?” I said. “That she hated her ex enough to sell the recipe out from under him?”
“She never hated Henry, as far as I can tell,” he said. “They were married for more than a decade. Apparently he never fell out of love with her. He was always hoping they’d get back together, right up until he sued Georgia and Stu for corporate espionage.”
“Ouch. I guess that would kill the romance. I take it Henry didn’t win the lawsuit?”
“Nope. His case was too weak,” the padre said. “He’d failed to take the necessary precautions to protect his trade secret.”
“Really?” I said. “Despite the fingerprint vault and the cookie mix and all that?”
“His ex-wife knew the recipe by heart, remember. After all, it was her creation. A creation he never took ownership of when he had the chance. Bottom line, it wasn’t his trade secret.”
“It sounds like he trusted her not to share it.”
Martin nodded. “With good reason. They had a mutually respectful relationship, even after the marriage was over. Henry knew she was involved with Stu, of course, but neither of them suspected his true motives—until it was too late.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
“Georgia confided in me.”
“I see.”
Martin leaned back and draped his arm over my shoulder. It felt good, so I leaned back as well and kind of snuggled against him, to the extent I could do so with a sleepy toy poodle playing chaperone between us.
“Henry must’ve been apoplectic when he found out what Stu had done,” I said. “Did he confront him?”
“Of course. You know what Stu told him?”
“What?”
“He told him that Georgia willingly handed over the recipe as an act of love,” Martin said, “that she wanted Stu to profit from it.”
“And Henry believed it?”
He sighed. “Maybe. Probably, since that’s when he decided to sue both of them.”
“I’m thinking Stu’s conscience might’ve been eating away at him,” I said, “and that’s why he decided to kill himself.”
“The Stu Ruskin I knew wasn’t one for introspection. He was one for self-interest, greed, and covering his tracks.”
“So you don’t think it was suicide,” I said.
“No. I think someone decided to take him out of the picture.”
“I wonder what gave Stu the idea to swipe a valuable recipe,” I said, “and sell to the highest bidder, so to speak.”
“Well, it kind of ties in to what he did for a living.”
His fingers began stroking my upper arm. A fine shiver raced through me and it became hard to concentrate. I managed to say, “And what was that?”
“Stu was a cookie rep.”
I pulled away from the padre just enough to look him in the eye. “A cookie what?”
“Rep—a manufacturers’ representative.” He pulled me back against him. “The go-between who sells a company’s product to a store, which then sells it to people like you and me. In Stu’s case, he represented various bakeries, who paid him a commission to get their cookies and brownies and whatnot into restaurants, grocery stores, wherever they sell stuff like that.”
“That must be how he met Henry.”
“And Georgia,” he said. “Stu wasn’t content with the hefty commission Henry was paying him to get his Dreamboats into restaurants all over the city. He was looking for a bigger payday.”
“And he didn’t care if he destroyed someone’s marriage in the process,” I said. “Not to mention what it must’ve done to Henry’s bakery.”
“Between the loss of its signature product and the steep legal fees from the lawsuit, The Cranky Crumb never recovered. It closed its doors a couple of weeks ago.”
A deep male voice said, “What can you expect from a Ruskin? Same crime, different era.”