My first instinct—after suppressing the urge to let out a scream worthy of a horror film starlet—was to flee the scene as fast as I could. What if her killer was still about? I could be the next one lying dead on the floor, my lifeless eyes staring blankly at a rack of powder-blue choir robes.
But this highly rational train of thought was immediately overtaken by the compulsion to know what had happened. If I were a cat, it’s a sure thing my curiosity would have long since taken all nine of my lives.
Leaning over Carol’s body, I did my best to curb the nausea that was rapidly overtaking me and examined the red line around her neck. It looked, to my inexpert eye, as if she’d been strangled with something thin. So thin that the cord had cut into the front of her neck, where a trickle of blood now seeped from the laceration. But there wasn’t any bruising as far as I could tell.
I looked around for the cord or whatever had been used to kill her but saw nothing near the body.
It had to have just happened, I realized. Carol must have come up here at the beginning of break to fetch the baskets of sugar and tea. So her killer very likely was still close by.
And at that thought, my good sense finally kicked in. I took off down the stairs, calling 9-1-1 as I went.
The cops arrived almost immediately. I’d barely made it back into the rehearsal hall and was blathering on in what was I’m sure a nearly incoherent manner when the squad cars screamed into the parking lot and several police officers came running into the hall.
Eric, who’d managed to decipher my story, once again took control and led two of the cops upstairs to the storage room. The other officer held the fort until more backup arrived, telling everyone to stay put and not leave the building.
Allison steered me back to our chairs in the alto section, where she sat with her arm about my shoulders, much like she would have done if Eleanor had just suffered some sort of trauma, no doubt.
Detective Vargas arrived a few minutes later with another plainclothes cop. After conferring briefly with the other detective, who then headed upstairs to the crime scene in the storage room, Vargas came over to where I was sitting.
“I need to talk to Ms. Solari alone for a moment, if I may,” he said, and Allison relinquished her seat to him.
“Well, it’s starting to look like your theory about Kyle Copman being murdered may be right after all,” the detective said, settling his beefy body onto the brown metal folding chair.
I nodded as a wave of fury mixed with helplessness washed over me. Why did it have to take another death in the chorus for him to finally come to this conclusion? Could I have somehow been more persuasive? Done anything else that would have possibly convinced him to believe me earlier?
Leaning forward, I lay my head on my arms and continued to berate myself for not taking whatever actions might have helped to save Carol’s life. After a moment, Vargas put a hand gently on my shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Sally. It’s the killer’s fault. And if you have any information that might help catch him—or her—you should tell me.”
I sat back up and took a few deep breaths. He was right. I needed to get it together, right now.
Vargas listened and took notes as I recounted what I’d learned. Some of it I’d already told him, but this time he seemed truly interested in everything I had to say. First, I talked about Brian: how someone that looked like him had followed me up to the storage room that night; how the cook had seen the list of suspects I’d made; how I suspected that he’d started the Gauguin fire and how he’d given me a strange look right after the fire; and finally, how he and the dead woman had been in charge of the desserts together.
As I spoke, I watched Brian, who was sitting with some of his fellow basses. But unlike the others in his section, he was silent, staring at the floor, his body unmoving.
Next, I repeated what I knew about Lydia, as well as the maintenance man/ex-tenant, Steve, and the detective nodded and wrote it all down.
“Is that everybody on this list you made?” he asked after I’d finished.
“Well, I also have two sopranos from the chorus on it—Roxanne and Jill,” I said and explained my reasons for including them.
“Uh-huh. So that’s everyone?”
I paused. “No . . . There’s one more person, actually. You know that St. Christopher medal I gave you? Well, I found out that it belongs to Marta, our choral director.”
“Okay, that’s good to know.”
I watched as Vargas added her name to his notes, knowing damn well I should also tell him what I’d learned about the theft of the Lacrymosa manuscript.
But I didn’t.
* * *
It was raining hard in southwest France, and I held my breath as the Tour de France peloton came flying around a tight corner at the end of the day’s stage. Sure enough, a rider went down on the narrow, slick road, causing a massive pileup less than a kilometer from the finish. Waiting to make sure that no one was seriously hurt, I watched the competitors disentangle their crumpled bikes and limp to the line and then pointed the remote at the TV and switched it off. No way would I want to be a competitive cyclist; it was a brutal profession. But it made for a terrific spectator sport.
I turned my attention back to the papers scattered across the living room coffee table. Javier and I had finally decided on a general concept for our fall menu, and I’d promised him the preliminary food costing numbers by tonight. I’d been trying to finish up my calculations as I fast-forwarded through the bike race, but the attempt at multitasking had not been too successful. It’s not easy to operate both a DVR remote and a handheld calculator at the same time.
For the next hour, I concentrated on mains and sides, portion sizes, and the price per pound of whole Pekin ducks, pumpkin, brussels sprouts, Gorgonzola cheese, and Beurré Superfin pears. But I found it difficult to maintain my focus. The image of Carol, with those blank eyes staring up at me, kept invading my thoughts.
As did the memory of Brian and the look of scorn—or whatever it had been—that he’d given me after the fire. I couldn’t get past the idea that he was the one who’d strangled Carol. The fact that they’d both done the desserts together seemed like too much of a coincidence. And he had been late to the table at break last night. Just because he said he’d gone to his car for the coffee cups didn’t mean anything. You’d be forced to come up with an alibi like that if you had in fact just killed someone.
But why would he have done so? Did Carol witness something that could have pinned Kyle’s murder on him?
And then I had a truly frightening thought: Did Brian think I had evidence that could incriminate him? Was I in danger of suffering the same fate as Carol?
Wresting my brain from such thoughts, I forced myself to concentrate instead on my menu planning. Finally, at four fifteen, I completed my calculations, gathered up my papers, and clipped them together. Javier should be happy, since I’d managed to get the food cost average down to thirty-one percent. Not bad when you took into account the fact that our meat and poultry were now all grass fed and pastured.
After taking Buster for a quick walk, I changed into my work clothes—black chef’s pants and an old T-shirt to wear under my white chef’s jacket—and headed for Gauguin. Javier was up in the office, reviewing the corrections I’d made to the menu descriptions for our fall dishes. Although he’d come up with the general wording, I’d been tasked with checking his grammar and spelling.
“Is there supposed to be one of those little line things here, for the seared duck breasts?” he asked when I walked into the room.
I leaned over and looked where he was pointing. “A hyphen. Yeah, it’s supposed to be there. Or we could say ‘balsamic and fig,’ if you prefer, but I think ‘balsamic-fig glaze’ sounds better. Here. I finished the food costing calculations and got it down to thirty-one.”
He took the papers from me, flipped to the last page, and grinned. “Way to go. How’d you get the rib eye for so cheap?” he asked, turning back a page.
“I guess it was some new customer deal, ’cause they knocked two bucks a pound off their regular price for switching from Quality Meats over to them. Let’s hope they don’t raise it in a few months, but for now I can’t complain.”
“Nice.” Javier dropped the papers on the desk and pushed back his chair. “Time to head downstairs, I guess.”
Brian arrived about twenty minutes later. Kris and I were setting up the mise en place for the line when the cook banged through the swinging door, a scowl on his face.
“Why the sour look?” Kris said, swatting him with a side towel. “You have a fight with your girlfriend or something?”
This sort of razzing in a restaurant kitchen is totally normal, but given the circumstances, Kris’s comment made me flinch. I had no idea how Brian would react and was afraid he might do something unpredictable—and scary.
But instead, he merely grabbed the towel from her hands, wadded it up, and threw it back at her. “I wish it were that. I was just at the police station, where they spent like three hours giving me the third degree. For some bizarre reason, they seem to think I might have something to do with Carol’s murder,” he added, shooting me a hard look.
Uh-oh. I said nothing, turning away to occupy myself with organizing the containers of dry seasonings for the hot line.
“Well,” Kris went on, oblivious to the tension building between Brian and me, “if they really thought you’d done it, they wouldn’t have let you go. You’d be in jail right now.”
Javier came into the kitchen from the garde manger at this moment, and we all shut up. Jail was a sore subject with the head chef. I wasn’t sure if he truly hadn’t heard the previous discussion or whether he was just acting as if he hadn’t, but he didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he asked us to gather around to hear the assignments for the night.
I was much relieved when he instructed me to work the charbroiler again. Since Brian was on the line, this meant I’d be able to pretty much avoid him for the night. The last thing I wanted right now was to work in close proximity with someone who very possibly had it in for me. Especially when that work involved open flames and razor-sharp knives.