Eighteen

At first Mel thought she must be seeing things. It was probably just raspberry stains like she’d gotten on her apron, but no, this was a browner shade and it was on a hat. How would anyone get raspberry stains on their hat? They wouldn’t. It was blood. It had to be. Still, just to be sure she nudged Oz.

“Oz,” Mel said. She pointed. “What’s that?”

Consumed with gathering his precious cookbooks, Oz hadn’t noticed the hat. He glanced up, then he reached for it, but Mel smacked his hand away.

“Ow.”

“Don’t touch it,” she said. “In fact, don’t touch anything.”

Mel reached into her pocket for her phone. “I know who killed Miles.”

“What?” Oz asked. “Who?”

“No time,” Mel said. “Close your locker. Let’s go.”

“But my books and notes,” he protested.

“They’ll keep,” she said. She opened her contacts and pressed Uncle Stan’s name. The phone started to ring. “Come on, pick up, pick up.”

Uncle Stan didn’t answer his phone. Mel left a message for him to call her as soon as he could.

“Let’s lock it back up,” she said.

“But—”

“Do it,” Mel said. She was getting a very bad feeling about them being here.

“What’s wrong?” Oz asked as he clicked the lock on the door to the locker. “Who are we worried about?”

“I’ll tell you in the car,” Mel said. She tugged his arm, trying to hustle him along.

They were almost at the door when it opened and in strode Sam.

“Sam, I’m glad you’re here,” Oz said. “Listen, can you do me a solid and—”

Clay Perry walked into the staff room, interrupting whatever Oz had been about to say.

“Mr. Perry.” Oz’s eyes went wide. “I’m just here to get my things, sir.”

“Are you leaving us then, Oz?” Clay asked, looking surprised.

Oz gave him a side eye. “I was told to clean out my locker.”

“By whom?” Mr. Perry asked.

“Ashley,” he said.

Clay rocked back on his heels and nodded. “I think there’s been a miscommunication here. Ashley does not do any of the hiring or firing here at the resort.”

“But—” Sam protested. “She told me—”

“Indeed? Perhaps I should call her and remind her that I’m the boss.” Clay Perry stared at the young man. It was an icy-hard look, the sort that could reach into a man’s chest and squeeze his heart until it stopped. Sam paled and flop sweat appeared on his forehead, cementing what Mel had begun to suspect.

Sam shook his head, as if he could ward off Mr. Perry’s fury so easily, and he pointed at Oz. “But he’s a murderer! She’s right to get rid of him.”

Mr. Perry turned to Oz with one eyebrow raised. “Is this true?”

“What?” Oz cried. “No!” He looked at Sam in bewilderment.

Mr. Perry turned back to Sam. “Explain yourself. Why would you say that?”

Sam looked at Oz and shook his head. “I’m sorry, man, but I can’t cover for you anymore. You killed Chef Miles and everyone in your kitchen knows it.”

Oz staggered back a step. Mel caught him by the arm. She suspected this was Oz’s first betrayal and he would come out of it a changed man, more suspicious and less inclined to trust. In other words, a grown-up.

Oz jerked his head in Mr. Perry’s direction. “I didn’t. I swear.”

Behind Mr. Perry, in strode Uncle Stan and Tara. Mel glanced at Uncle Stan. His face gave away nothing but she knew that he must know. This was a total setup. He frowned at her. Oh, no, did he not know? She glanced at Tara, who looked just as severe. Uh-oh.

Oz opened his mouth to speak, but Mel caught him with an elbow in the ribs. She didn’t know if Mr. Perry knew that Uncle Stan was her uncle and she didn’t want to enlighten him. Oz looked at her in question and she shook her head ever so slightly. Oz frowned but he said nothing.

“That’s quite an allegation, Sam,” Mr. Perry said. “Care to back it up?”

Sweat was beading up on Sam’s brow now. Mel didn’t feel bad for him one little bit. She looked at Uncle Stan, who was watching the young man with interest. Sam’s eyes tracked to Oz’s locker but he didn’t say anything.

“What did Mrs. Perry tell you to say, Sam?” Mel asked. She made her tone friendly.

Everyone turned to look at her but she maintained eye contact with Sam. He swallowed. She looked closely and could see his fingers were trembling.

“No . . . nothing,” Sam said. “She didn’t say anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really?” Mel asked. “Because she told the parking attendant Larry that Oz wasn’t allowed on the premises anymore, but according to Mr. Perry that wasn’t true, so it seems there’s a lot of misinformation being scattered about.”

“She has nothing to do with any of this,” Sam said.

Mr. Perry pursed his lips and then turned to Tara. “Detective Martinez, would you be so kind as to go and fetch my wife?”

With a nod Tara slipped from the room. Now Sam looked panicked and he said, “No, that’s not necessary. Just open his locker and you’ll see. You’ll have all the evidence you need.”

Oz’s eyes went wide and he looked at Uncle Stan, who said, “Go ahead, Oz, open the locker.”

Sam blew out a breath of relief. It was short-lived.

As Oz opened the locker, Mel asked, “Oz, where did you get that lock?”

“Sam gave it to me when mine went missing,” he said. “He said it was an extra.”

“It was,” Sam said. “People leave and forget to take them and we have spares. Happens all the time.”

“How many keys did it come with?” Mel asked Oz.

“Just one,” he said. He used the key on his key ring and unfastened the lock, taking it off.

“Don’t locks usually come with two?” she asked her uncle. He nodded.

“So, if someone else had the second key, they could get into Oz’s locker,” Mr. Perry said.

“There was no second key!” Sam insisted. His voice was shrill and Mel exchanged a look with Uncle Stan.

“Did my husband say why he wanted me?” a woman’s voice asked.

They all turned to the door as Kasey Perry was escorted into the room by Tara. She took in the scene at a glance and tightened the belt on her pool cover-up. Her hair was piled high, she was wearing kitten-heeled mules and sunglasses. It was clear she had been poolside. Mel was surprised only that she wasn’t carrying a margarita.

“All right, I’m here, what do you want?” Kasey asked.

Her gaze lingered on Oz. Mel fought the urge to stand in front of him and protect him from her. Kasey’s attention then moved to Mel. She didn’t look happy to see her.

“My dear, so good of you to join us,” Clay said. “It seems Sam here believes that Oz has committed murder.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Kasey studied her manicure before glancing at him with a bored expression.

No one said anything. Mel felt the tension in the room thicken as husband and wife stared at each other. Mel glanced at Uncle Stan. He met her gaze and one eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. He wanted her to say something.

“I can answer that question,” Mel said.

Every gaze turned towards her, and Oz began to shake his head frantically back and forth. Mel frowned at him.

“Please, don’t,” he said.

“Relax,” she whispered. “I’ve got this.”

“Oh, god,” Oz muttered.

“Our story begins—” Mel began but Uncle Stan cleared his throat, interrupting her. “All right, fine. Here’s the short version.”

Mel paced over to the locker. She pointed up at the bloody hat stuffed in the top of the locker.

“Can either of you fine detectives remove that article of clothing from the top shelf?”

Tara rolled her eyes but proceeded to pull on latex gloves and produced an evidence bag from a pocket inside her jacket. They all watched as she carefully pulled the hat from the locker. The smell was enough to gag even the strongest of stomachs.

Kasey clapped her hand over her nose. “What is that gross smell?”

“At a guess, I’d say the sourdough starter that hasn’t been fed and has gone bad. Very bad,” Mel said.

Tara opened the hat. It was a traditional chef’s hat and, sure enough, inside was a moldy white substance that smelled rancid.

“What the hell?” Oz cried. “Who did that to my hat?”

“Are you sure it’s yours?” Mel asked.

“It was in my locker,” Oz said. “And why is it bloody?”

“Because whoever murdered Gallway used what they had at hand,” Mel said. “And according to what you’ve told me about that afternoon, what they had was their hat as you were prepping for the dinner shift and several bowls of sourdough waiting to be made into bread. With Gallway blacked out on the floor of the kitchen, it was a simple matter to scoop some sourdough into the hat, stuff it into his mouth, and pinch off his nose, causing him to suffocate. I bet they found bruising around the nose and mouth and those bloodshot eyes you saw weren’t from drinking but rather from being suffocated.”

Oz put his fist to his mouth. “I think I might be sick.”

Mr. Perry looked a little green as well and he said, “You’ve given us the how. Any idea on the who or the why?”

Mel strolled forward until she was standing in front of Kasey. She met the woman’s gaze and asked, “Do you want to tell him or should I?”

“Tell him what?” she asked. “I have no idea what any of this means.”

She held her arms wide as if she couldn’t imagine why she was in the staff area to begin with, never mind discussing murder. Mel figured the ingenue thing had probably worked well for her in her youth, but now she was a mature woman and playing the vapid, silly wife just didn’t sell as well.

“Mr. Perry, I am sorry to inform you that your wife is having an affair,” Mel said.

He frowned, looking displeased. “I know about Gallway. It was over a long time ago.”

Mel shook her head. “It isn’t Gallway.”

His eyes flicked around the room and landed on Oz. He looked grim.

“It isn’t Oz, either,” Mel said.

“Then who?”

Mel tipped her head to the side. Clay followed the direction.

“Him? Sam?” He barked out a laugh. “He’s a boy.”

“I’m twenty-two,” Sam protested.

“Which makes you half her—”

“Enough!” Kasey interrupted her husband. “I refuse to stand here and listen to these ridiculous accusations. A man suffocated with bread dough, me having an affair with a boy, it’s preposterous. And you have no proof.”

She turned to leave and Mel let her get almost to the door when she said, “Except I do have proof.”

Kasey stopped in her tracks and slowly turned to face Mel. She did not look the least bit nervous, making Mel feel a sliver of doubt. No, no, no. She was positive about this, and she just needed to present it that way.

“You know what they say about a lie?” she asked the room. “They say to keep it as close to the truth as possible so that it’s easy to remember.”

She felt the weight of Uncle Stan’s stare and Clay Perry’s, as well. She needed to deliver the answer clearly and concisely. No pressure.

“When Oz asked Mrs. Perry why she said she was having an affair with him, she admitted that she’d lied and explained it away as a joke, that she was really poolside the day Gallway was murdered, as her receipts would show.”

“Really?” Kasey asked. “We’re doing this again?”

“Yes, because while Oz and I were at the pool, the one thing I noticed was that you refused to sign the receipt for your drink,” Mel said. “Your hands were oily, you said. Your waiter was not surprised so this tells me that you never sign your receipts, which means you don’t have any proof that you were poolside at the time of Chef Miles’s murder.”

Kasey tossed her head. “That’s it? A lack of receipts?”

“You told the police you were having an affair with Oz but you weren’t,” Mel said. “Instead, it was with Sam, another young male chef. Keep it close to the truth.” Mel turned to look at Sam. “Right, Tiger?”

He paled. She turned back to Kasey.

“Ridiculous,” Kasey muttered. She glanced at her husband and away, as if to gauge his reaction. He looked furious. Kasey never looked at Sam. Mel did. The look on his face was imploring. Mel felt awful but she had to keep going.

“You see, this way she admitted that she was having an affair with a young man, but instead of telling us who it really was, she lied and said it was Oz to keep the suspicion off of Sam,” Mel said. “But this keeping it close to the truth is where she really tripped herself up.”

Mel paused. Everyone was watching her. Oz looked like he might faint, but he didn’t interrupt.

“She said that Oz said he was going to kill Miles Gallway so that he could move up to executive chef and provide for her in the way she was accustomed. Another obvious lie since Oz is a pastry chef and has no interest in being in charge of the main kitchen.”

“That’s true,” Oz chimed in. “I really don’t want that job.”

Clay nodded as if this was not new news to him. Mel glanced at Uncle Stan, who appeared to have relaxed a little bit, as in maybe he trusted her to bring this home.

“But her lover did make such a vow to her,” Mel said. She waited for the protest. There was none. Kasey just watched her with narrowed eyes and Mel knew if looks could kill, she’d be deader than the sourdough in the hat. She decided to shake things up.

Mel whirled on Sam, who was watching everything as if he were a bystander and not a player. “What exactly did you promise her, Sam? That you’d provide for her as well as Mr. Perry? Did you really think you’d be able to step into Miles’s job when you don’t have anywhere near enough experience and you have Ashley already ahead of you in line for that job? Or was that why Simon was here? To hire Ashley for the Foodie Channel and clear the path for you? Did you really think Kasey would be all right with the paltry salary you’d make as an executive chef? Look at her and look at you—how did you think this was ever going to work? Or did you have your eye on something even bigger? Were you planning to be Simon’s discovery, the rock star super chef of the Foodie Channel?”

Sam’s eyes went huge and his red face looked as if it had been scalded by boiling water.

“No! I didn’t think any of those things,” he protested. “That’s not what happened at all. Kasey wanted me to kill Mr. Perry, but Chef Miles overheard us and started blackmailing her. She told me I had to kill Chef to keep him from telling Mr. Perry, but I panicked. I couldn’t do it. Then I walked into the banquet kitchen and saw Sarah . . .”

Sam’s voice broke and Mel had to fight to keep her voice even. “You saw?”

Sam hung his head. “Yeah. I saw her hit Gallway and I called Kasey. She told me to finish him off, but I didn’t . . . I couldn’t . . .”

“So Kasey arrived in the kitchen and did it herself,” Mel said.

The room was dead silent as everyone waited for Sam to confirm or deny.

“Yes, she did. She told me to get him into the pastry kitchen, so I offered to help Gallway with his head wound. He was holding a cloth to his head and he had the meat tenderizer in his other hand. He was ranting and raving about Sarah. He said he was going to kill her when he found her.”

Sam paused to swallow. A tear slipped out. Mel could not find it in herself to feel sorry for him.

“Kasey arrived in the kitchen and pretended to help him. Instead, she took the wooden mallet and clobbered him.”

“Lies!” Kasey screeched. No one paid her any attention.

“Gallway collapsed on the floor but he was still breathing, so Kasey grabbed Oz’s beanie and stuffed it in his mouth, but he could still breathe so she grabbed a fistful of the bread dough that was rising, stuffed it in his hat and stuffed the whole thing back in his mouth, pinching off his nose until he suffocated.”

“Shut up, Sam, shut up!” Kasey cried. “I’m telling you this is all lies. Ridiculous lies!”

“Why did you put the hat in Oz’s locker?” Mel asked.

“When he found the body . . .” Sam shrugged.

“I was the perfect frame, because Gallway and I had already had a very public argument,” Oz said.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. He didn’t meet Oz’s gaze.

“You gave her the other key to Oz’s locker,” Mel said. She tipped her head to the side. Then she looked at Uncle Stan. “You might want to ask how many other people’s locks have gone ‘missing.’”

Sam hung his head. He mumbled something. Mel could barely make it out and when she did, she was filled with a mixture of contempt and pity for the young man.

“She said she loved me,” he said.

“I never!” Kasey snapped. “As if I could ever love you.”

“I think we’ve heard enough,” Mr. Perry said. “Detectives, if you’d like to escort my wife off the premises, I’d be obliged.”

Tara went to take her arm, but Kasey yanked her elbow out of her grasp and whirled around to face Mel.

“You think you’re so clever, don’t you?” she asked. She looked Mel up and down, clearly finding her wanting. “Well, this is all speculation and you can’t prove anything.”

“No, but I’m betting the police lab can,” Mel said. “Your DNA is going to be all over that hat and the dough residue and Miles’s body. I’ll bet your hair and body oil is all tangled up in this.”

“You—” Kasey came at Mel with her nails out. Tara stepped forward and grabbed her around the waist, for which Mel was grateful.

“So what if I killed him?” Kasey hissed. She struggled as Tara secured a pair of cuffs around her wrists. “He was trying to blackmail me. Me!”

Mel leaned away from Kasey on the off chance she broke Tara’s hold and charged her. Still, she knew this was her opportunity to turn Kasey’s rage against her.

“You killed Chef Miles when he was already wounded to get out from under the blackmail,” she said. “Then you roped your lover, Sam, into helping you frame Oz by hiding the evidence in his locker. Is that about right?”

Kasey answered her with a string of curses that made Mel’s ears bleed.

“Keeping it classy, I see,” Clay said. He shook his head at his wife and then turned to Tara. “Get her out of here, Detective. I’ll follow in my own car shortly.”

Tara took Kasey by the arm and hauled her from the staff room. The collective tension level dropped as soon as she was out of sight.

“I’m going to need you to come with me and give a full statement, Sam.” Uncle Stan said.

“All right.” Sam glanced at Oz. “I’m really sorry, man.”

Oz stared at him. “I’ll have your locker packed up for you and sent to your home. If you ever step into my kitchen again, I’ll break your hands.”

“Oz.” Uncle Stan’s tone was a warning.

Oz ignored him, staring down his sous chef. “Am I clear?”

“Yeah.” Sam nodded.

Uncle Stan led him away but paused at the door and said, “I’ll need official statements from the two of you.”

“Of course, we’re right behind you,” Mel said.

Uncle Stan stared at her and asked, “When did you figure it all out?”

“The Beast,” she said. He looked mystified and she explained, “Oz came back to the kitchen to feed the Beast the day that Miles was murdered, but one of the bowls of dough that his bread guy, Tomas, left out to rise, didn’t. Why wouldn’t it if it came from the same batch as the other two? Also, Sarah said she didn’t smell alcohol on Miles, but Oz said his eyes were bloodshot. Suffocation does that to the eyes. That’s when I suspected someone had used the sourdough to suffocate Chef Miles. The smell coming from the hat in the locker confirmed it. They didn’t just murder Miles, they murdered the starter, too.”

Stan blinked at her. Then he shook his head and said, “Chefs are weird,” leaving Mel and Oz in the staff room with Clay.

“Well, Oz, I don’t suppose I can convince you to take your old job back,” he said.

Oz shrugged. It was clear he was feeling pretty shell-shocked.

At that moment, Simon Marconi walked into the room. “Oz, my man, I just heard they caught Miles’s killer. Do you have a sec? I’d like to talk to you about your future.”

Oz turned to Mel. “Save me.”

“Always,” she said.