Seven
Every eyeball in the dining area turned towards Oz. He shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. Marconi stopped pacing and snapped his head in their direction and then strode towards them. The overhead lights shone off his bald dome, and his glasses and overly large nose gave him the look of a bird of prey.
He stopped at their table and studied Oz. “It’s a damn shame,” he said.
Mel didn’t know if he was referring to Chef Miles or something else. It was as if he’d started the conversation in the middle and expected everyone to know what he was talking about.
“Yeah,” Oz agreed. The confused expression on his face made it obvious he wasn’t clear on what Marconi was talking about, either, but he was playing along.
“You would have been great. You have the looks, the skill, the camera loves you. I’m telling you, you’re the whole package, but now . . .” Marconi raised his hands in the air and let his voice trail off.
“I’m sorry,” Oz said. “What are you talking about?”
“Your television career,” Simon said. He looked exasperated, as if Oz wasn’t getting the big picture.
“I thought you were talking about Miles being dead,” Oz said. His voice was tight.
“That, too, sure,” Marconi said. He nodded. “Real tragedy.”
Mel glanced at Joe to see if he was getting this. Anything resembling a human emotion like empathy or compassion was seriously lacking in Marconi’s voice. It was, in fact, chilling. Joe was frowning, a deep groove appearing and holding in between his eyes.
The television producer, oblivious to their scrutiny, put a hand on the back of his neck. “Not for nothing, but this really puts me in a bind.”
“How so?” Joe asked. His voice was hard.
Marconi turned and acknowledged Mel and Joe for the first time. He looked them over. “You aren’t professional chefs, are you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Because a team would be amazing for ratings. Husband and wife? That’d be great. We could do some real tense moments over a hot stove, you know, build up the drama between the two of you.”
“She’s a baker,” Joe said. Marconi’s eye lit up. “But I’m a county district attorney.”
“Oh.” Marconi’s face fell. He looked wary and disappointed. “That really won’t resonate with viewers of the Foodie Channel.”
“Didn’t think it would,” Joe said.
“Well, this whole thing was a wasted trip,” Marconi said. “I’m going to bounce.”
He turned on his heel and aimed for the door when Clay Perry intercepted him just a few feet from their table. Per usual, Clay was dressed in golf attire, as if he’d just come off the links.
“Where are you going, Simon?” Clay asked.
Simon held his arms wide. “You’re kidding, right? I’m getting out of here and heading back to LA.”
“No, you’re not,” Clay said. “We had a deal. You were going to pick one of my chefs to base a show around. That hasn’t changed.”
Mel, Joe, and Oz exchanged a considering look. This seemed like significant information.
“Hasn’t it?” Marconi asked. “Miles is dead and the only other contender for a television career found his body and is probably a suspect in his murder. I can’t make the magic happen without the talent, Clay.”
Mel glanced at Oz and saw him blanch at offhandedly being accused of being a murderer. She patted his arm in reassurance and he expelled a breath, releasing some tension.
“What about me?” Ashley strode up behind Marconi. She dragged her hand across the top of his shoulders as she inserted herself in between the two men. “I could be your star.” She batted her false eyelashes at him and Marconi rolled his eyes.
“I’m going to save you some time, sweetheart,” he said. “You don’t have the cooking chops and there’s nothing interesting about you. You’re like whipped cream. Pretty and fluffy but you only accent the more substantial tastes, like peach pie or Irish coffee. No one wants a bowl of plain whipped cream.”
Ashley’s lip curled. She looked like she wanted to slap him. Instead, she tossed her dark hair over her shoulder and said, “I’ll show you.” She stared at him. “I was more than Miles’s sous chef, and I know things.”
There was a pause and Marconi studied her as if assessing the threat level she posed. Then he shook his head, unimpressed, and said, “Not about cooking, you don’t.”
Oz snorted and Ashley snapped her head in his direction and glared at him. Oz quickly feigned interest in the tablecloth. Satisfied, Ashley stalked off, looking like she was going to make someone pay for the slight.
“Thanks for nothing,” Clay said. “I need her to step into Miles’s spot until I hire a real chef.”
Marconi shrugged, not looking repentant in the least.
“We’ll talk later,” Clay said. “I’m holding you to our deal. You need to find a talent among my staff for your cooking program. This is not negotiable. Remember you owe me.”
Marconi watched Clay leave, and then he glanced back at Oz one more time before he walked away, shaking his head in disappointment.
“Is it just me?” Joe asked. “Or does it seem like no one is particularly broken up about Miles Gallway being found dead?”
“Not just you,” Oz confirmed.
“And I think it’s safe to say that Miles Gallway wasn’t just found dead,” Mel said. “I think he was murdered.”
“Then what happened?” Joyce asked. “Did dear Joe save the day?”
Despite the trauma of the day, Mel almost laughed. Her mother had been calling Joe that from the moment he and Mel had gotten together. Joyce simply adored Joe, which was going to make married life interesting as Mel was quite certain if ever there was an issue, Joyce was going to take Joe’s side. She consoled herself that she always had Angie, who would back her to the end.
She resisted laughing, however, because Alma Rodriguez, the fashion designer who had cut down Mel’s mother’s voluminous white satin dress from the ’80s and created something brand-new, with about a hundred yards to spare, was doing her final fitting and Mel didn’t want to mess it up and have Alma stab her with a pin. It had happened before.
“He tried to,” Mel said. “But after Marconi left, the whole thing got pretty ugly with most of the line cooks rushing to Oz’s defense while Ashley and a few of the chefs and floor staff higher up than Oz sold him out to Detective Martinez.”
Joyce’s lip curled just the tiniest bit. Since she and Uncle Stan had become a thing, she had gotten to know his partner, the feisty detective Martinez, and she struggled with the woman’s inexplicable animosity towards Mel.
“Stand still,” Alma ordered. “Or I won’t be responsible for sticking you.”
“I was!” Mel protested. She glanced down at Alma Rodriguez, who despite her success as a fashion designer was still the sourest person Mel had ever met. Alma was glaring at her and also holding a very sharp pin. “Sorry, it won’t happen again.”
Mel sent her mother a mock-alarmed look and Joyce smiled.
“Well, I’m sure the tragedy will get sorted,” Joyce said. With a burst of pride, she added, “Stan is a brilliant detective.”
“He is,” Mel agreed. She was just beginning to get used to the new relationship between her mother and her uncle. Now that she was getting married, she was glad that her mom had someone special in her life. It hit her then that this scene could easily be reversed. Her mother could be standing on the dais while Mel looked on.
“Um, Mom,” she said. “Can I ask you something?’
“Yes, sweetie.” Joyce was fussing with her old veil, which Alma had modernized and minimized as well, again, by taking off about a thousand yards of organza and silk roses. Joyce had clearly been enamored with the whole Princess Di vibe back in the day.
“Do you think you and Uncle Stan are going to get married?” Mel asked. She hoped her voice came across as neutral and not as if she was freaking out, because she wasn’t, she told herself. She was completely okay with however Joyce answered. Really.
She glanced at her mother, who had gone completely still. “I . . . we . . .” Joyce stammered. “I don’t know. It’s never come up. Would it bother you if we did?”
“No!” Mel said. Maybe with a bit too much force as Alma rocked back on her heels and gave her a look.
“Overselling,” Alma said, barely under her breath.
“I mean, I don’t care either way,” Mel said. She shrugged. “You do you.”
“Underselling and a total buzzkill,” Alma said. She shook her head in disgust.
Mel tried again while resisting the urge to kick Alma. “What I’m trying to say is, whatever you crazy kids decide is A-okay with me. One hundred percent. I’ll even be your matron of honor.”
“Now you’re upselling,” Alma said. “Try shutting your piehole and just listen to your mom.”
Mel glared at her but Alma was oblivious as she went back to pinning the hem on the underskirt. If the dress wasn’t the most glorious thing Mel had ever seen, she’d have flounced off the dais by now. But it really was spectacular.
Joyce’s wedding gown had been made out of a sea of white satin with a ton of matching silk rosettes sewn onto the ten-foot train, the top of the puffy sleeves, and across the bodice. When Mel was young, she had thought her mother looked like a fairy princess with her long blond hair swept up in a French twist and under a heavy organza veil that was embroidered on the edges and weighted down with even more silk roses. And her father, young and buff, wearing a black tuxedo and with a full head of hair, looked like the hero on a Harlequin romance novel. Mel had gone through their wedding album so many times, she’d worn out a few of the pages.
Alma, with Joyce’s approval, had reimagined the dress. The rosettes had been plucked off, the train trimmed, the bodice simplified, and the puffy sleeves removed. Now the gown was a form-fitting white satin sheath with a delicate organza overlay that had been embroidered with tiny seed pearls along the hem and the bodice. The rosettes had been redistributed on the headpiece for Mel’s veil, which hung all the way down her back to the floor. The dress made her look long and lithe but also curvy, which was some feat of fashion wizardry that Mel could only guess at. When she looked in the mirror, Mel didn’t even recognize herself.
Mel met her mother’s amused glance and said, “What I’m really trying to say is that I just want you to be happy.”
Alma grunted. It sounded like approval.
Joyce grinned. Mel knew her mother had always been a looker but when she smiled like that, it was easy to see why not just one but two Cooper men had fallen for her.
“I can tell you this,” Joyce said. “Whatever happens, you and your brother will be the first to know.”
This was not as reassuring as Mel would have supposed.
“So, you’ve been fired?” Marty said. He sounded outraged.
“Not exactly,” Oz said. “Just put on a leave of absence since Mr. Perry is concerned about resort guests being put off their food by a possible murderer in their kitchen.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Marty exclaimed. His bald head went a shade of crimson that would have alarmed Mel if she hadn’t seen it before. Marty took aspersions to the characters of his people very personally. “Just because you found the body doesn’t make you a suspect. I’m going to have a word with that Perry guy, and I’m going to ask some questions and find out just what is going on at that place.”
“Please don’t,” Oz said.
“But we need to know what—” Marty began but Oz interrupted him.
“‘You’re a very nosy fellow, kitty cat,’” Oz said.
“Chinatown,” Angie identified the movie quote.
“Well done,” Mel said. They exchanged a high five.
“It’s unfortunate we don’t have someone on the inside at the Sun Dial Resort. You know, someone who could give us the inside scoop,” Angie said.
“What about one of the brothers?” Mel asked. “Do any of them know someone who works there? Collectively, they’ve dated about every woman in the Valley of the Sun.”
“It’s possible. I can check,” Angie said. “Sal has the worst reputation and he does love his hostess girlfriends. There was one at the Ritz who pursued him for years. So long as he hasn’t broken any hearts at the Sun Dial, we might have an in. Given that all the brothers have that distinctive DeLaura look, I don’t think we’ll be able to slip a brother by anyone who might have dated one of them.”
Oz frowned. “I can’t help. I wasn’t there long enough to make any real allies except the ones in my kitchen, but they’re all afraid of losing their jobs so there’s not much they can do for me.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you have me,” Marty said.
Mel glanced at him. “You can’t bully the staff of the resort into telling you things.”
“I would never,” he said.
“Then what’s your plan?” Oz asked.
“I’m going to be a guest,” he said. “I’ll cozy up to Clay Perry and his wife and find out what’s going on.”
“This seems like a bad idea,” Angie said. “What if they connect you to the bakery?”
“They won’t,” he said. “I’ve got a sweet set of custom-made Callaway golf clubs that are just aching to be broken in. Believe me, one look at those clubs and they’ll be begging me to stay and then they’ll tell me everything.”
“What’s so great about a set of golf clubs?” Oz asked. He was not a golfer, having grown up in Phoenix and spent his youth on his skateboard.
“You can’t play without the right equipment,” Marty said. “It’s a status thing.”
“And how’s your golf game?” Angie asked.
“That doesn’t signify,” Marty said. “I don’t keep score.”
“‘Then how do you measure yourself with other golfers?’” Mel asked.
She glanced at Angie, who picked up on the movie quote and responded with the answer, “‘By height.’”
“Caddyshack!” Oz identified the movie quote, raising his hands in the air, like a referee calling a touchdown.
“Har har har,” Marty said. “You laugh but when I’m out on the links with Perry, getting all the inside dirt, you’ll be singing a different tune.”
Oz, Angie, and Mel simultaneously broke into “I’m Alright,” the movie’s theme song, while imitating the furry fake gopher who danced in the movie credits.
Marty lifted his apron over his head and tossed it at Oz. “Since you’re available, you can train the new girl on the counter. She should be here in a few minutes.”
With that he left the kitchen through the back door, shutting it none too gently behind him.
“New girl?” Oz asked. He looked surprised and, Mel thought, a little hurt.
“We needed someone to cover my maternity leave,” Angie said. Her expression was blank when she said it, giving no indication that the new girl was also filling Oz’s vacant spot.
“So, she’s temporary?” he asked.
Mel shrugged. “Depends upon whether Angie comes back or not.”
Angie said nothing even though they both knew she had every intention of coming back. By silent agreement, they didn’t want Oz to feel as if he was being replaced.
“Since you’re on leave, Oz,” Mel said. “Do you mind helping out around here?”
“Not at all,” he said. He pulled the apron over his head. “It’ll be a relief to have something to do to keep me from thinking too much.”
Mel nodded. She got that. Whether Oz had liked Miles or not, the fact that he was murdered in Oz’s kitchen had to leave him wondering how, who, and why. And being considered a suspect made it personal, very personal.