Chapter Nine
Sarah watched her sister in awe. Instead of the angry person she’d been in the car, Expo Emily was in full charge—cool, detached, and giving orders. It was Chef Marcus who was falling apart. He sat in a chair someone had stuck across from a wide-open refrigerator and freezer in the back room of the exhibition hall, running his hands through his dark, curly hair. Although there were stand-alone booths at the front of this room, the space by the refrigerator looked more like a stock area for the different exhibitors.
Chef Marcus’s mumbled mutterings of “I’m ruined” and “Who would do this to us?” were overshadowed for Sarah by the fact that the red-haired vixen, who attacked Emily the night before and was demanding she surrender RahRah, had an arm wrapped around his broad shoulders and her head bent close to his. Apparently, Jane was well on the road to recovery from losing Bill.
“It’s going to be all right. No one can blame you for what happened,” Jane said to Marcus. She looked up and glared at Emily, but Emily ignored her.
Emily seemed focused on the three other people wearing Southwind shirts. The two men appeared about Emily and Sarah’s age, while Sarah pegged the third Southwind employee, a woman, as being several years younger than the rest of the group. The four stood just beyond a puddle of water that surrounded the bottom of the stainless-steel refrigeration unit. Sarah moved closer to the group.
“Jacob,” Emily said to the beardless man standing near her, “what’s going on?”
Jacob paused to peek at his watch, which Sarah couldn’t help but notice looked a lot like the Rolex Harlan wore. “I met Richard in the other room, by the Southwind booth, about three hours ago.”
Sarah wished he would talk faster before she was overcome by the sick fishy smell coming from the refrigerator. She doubted anything in there wasn’t spoiled. She certainly didn’t want to find out.
“We spent a good amount of time pulling booth stuff like tablecloths, plastic forks, and cups together,” Jacob said. “About an hour or so ago, we decided we needed to start on the food for tonight’s catering job. When we came in here to do that, we saw the puddle. The refrigerator door was ajar. I started to stick my hand in to see if things were still cold, but that’s when Richard noticed the power cord was cut. We immediately called Chef Marcus at the restaurant.”
Emily shook her head and then brushed her hair back out of her eyes. “Marcus, I didn’t realize you were planning to prep the Holt dinner here, rather than at the restaurant.”
The folding chair creaked as he shifted his weight, forcing Jane to quickly step away from him. She puffed out her chest as she faced Emily.
“After Chief Mueller gave us permission to come back into the Civic Center this afternoon, nobody knew where you were. Marcus and I decided I should set up my Expo station and whip up the Holts’ dinner, while he focused on Southwind’s lunch and dinner service.”
From the still way Emily held herself, Sarah couldn’t tell if her sister was shooting daggers at Chef Marcus and Jane, but there was no question he turned his face to avoid meeting Emily’s gaze.
“I guess we’ll simply have to explain what happened when we apologize to Mrs. Holt for not being able to complete the job,” Jane said.
Emily glared at her. “Canceling isn’t part of the Southwind style of doing business. We have to make this work. Of course, we can’t take a chance of using anything from this refrigerator or freezer. We’re simply going to have to start over for the dinner we’re catering for the Holts tonight.”
“But we don’t have time,” the much younger woman chef said as she stepped away from Jacob and Richard. She waved a tattoo-sleeved arm in the direction of the refrigeration unit. “The Holt party is at eight and it’s after three.”
Sarah thought she heard an audible sob or sigh from Chef Marcus, but it was overshadowed by Emily’s firm voice.
“We can’t back out of a private dinner Chef Marcus agreed to have Southwind cater,” Emily said. “That’s not the kind of reputation any of us wants our restaurant to get, is it?”
The two men and the woman, who towered over them, shook their heads.
“Luckily,” Emily said, “the Holts are only having ten dinner guests. Has anyone checked the other refrigerator?”
“Yes,” the tattooed woman replied. “It doesn’t appear that it was tampered with.”
“Good,” Emily said. “That means our salad and vegetables are okay. We can serve a partially cold buffet dinner.”
“I can make a vegetable appetizer tray if you do a grocery run for the main dish,” Richard volunteered. “When you get back from the store, I can help with something else.”
“Perfect,” Emily said. “Richard, there are extra cutting boards you can use under one of my tables in the Southwind booth area. Prep for a tray for twelve. In the meantime, Jacob and I will do a quick food run.”
Emily looked at Jane, who still had a hand resting on Marcus’s shoulder. “Jane, please help Richard. The two of you can wash, tear, slice, and separately bag enough lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, mushrooms, and peppers for a big salad. We’ll put it together at the house.”
“But . . .” Jane said.
The man, who Sarah remembered was Richard, ignored Jane and began walking to the next room. Sarah couldn’t take her eyes off him. Unlike the copper-skinned woman who had one obvious tattoo, every inch of his skin appeared to be inked. He even had tattoos on his hands and across his knuckles.
Jane’s loud objections to Emily’s instructions drew Sarah’s attention away from trying to decipher his artwork.
Emily cut Jane off. “Either go help Richard or leave.”
Jane bristled but hushed after Chef Marcus took her hand and held it, saying something quietly to her. Whatever he said, Jane smiled. She let her hand linger in his for another moment before she went off in the same direction as Richard.
Despite his pep talk to Jane, Chef Marcus remained seated, his face now back in his hands. Sarah tried to figure out why. It wasn’t like he was a new chef. Surely, even if his young staff hadn’t been through a time-crunch crisis before, he had.
“Grace,” Emily said to the woman chef, “until Jacob and I get back with more food, you and my sister can throw out everything in this refrigerator and freezer.”
Chef Marcus softly moaned again.
“Chef Marcus, why don’t you help Richard and Jane until Jacob and I get back?”
With effort, Chef Marcus rose and ambled in the direction Jane had gone.
Turning back to Grace and Sarah, Emily said, “Grace, this is my sister, Sarah Blair. Sarah, this is Grace Winston, my right hand. Besides the two of you throwing things out, would one of you grab a sheet of paper and list what the two of you are tossing? Oh, and, Sarah, use your phone to take pictures of this area and what ends up in the garbage. I’m sure the insurance company will want us to document as much as possible.”
“Em, don’t you think you should call the police first?”
“The police?” Grace asked.
Sarah pointed to where the plug was in the wall but the cord lay frayed on the floor. “This looks deliberate. It seems to me we should leave this area untouched until the police see it.”
Grace stepped away from the refrigerator, but Emily motioned her back.
She faced off against her sister. “We simply don’t have the time. We need to clean up before we can cook. There can’t be the slightest possibility of cross-contamination from the rotten shrimp, scallops, chicken, and other proteins. If we get rid of them and clean our surfaces, we should be able to pull off tonight’s dinner safely, but it’s going to take all of us working at full force starting now.”
“Peter won’t be happy with you mucking up his crime site.”
“If I wasn’t a bit spooked that Bill’s death and this cord being cut might be related because someone is out to get Southwind or Marcus, I wouldn’t call the police.” She pulled her cell phone from her pocket. “We don’t have the time to wait for the police to come or chance them closing our booth down as a crime scene, so while I’m calling Peter’s office, you two snap some photos and start cleaning the refrigerator out.”
While Emily placed the call and wandered into the next room, Grace began pulling a large drum trash can across the room. Sarah rushed to help her, but Grace waved her off. “I’ve got this.”
She pointed toward a chest of drawers. Its top was being used as a workstation. “There’s paper and a pen in the second drawer and, while you’re over there, grab us each a pair of rubber gloves from one of the boxes on top.”
Sarah did as she was told.
With their gloves on and the can positioned, Grace opened the refrigerator all the way. The odor intensified. Grace stepped up to the refrigerator as Sarah silently debated whether it would be immature to hold her nose while they worked.