A Beeline to Murder (15 page)

“But it’s aged for mellowness. It says so there on the sign.”

“Average wine aged remains average. It is simply older.” Philippe sniffed the wine again, putting his nose very close to the rim of the glass.

Abby took another sip. “Well, I kind of like it, although I confess I really don’t know much about wine. But isn’t it true that California wines have been giving French wines stiff competition and even winning some major awards for quite a long time now?”

Philippe sipped, swished the liquid around in his mouth, swallowed, and shook his head. “No, this is really not good. West of Toulon, my father’s brother owns a small farm. The soil, it is limestone. It is where the Mourvèdre grapes thrive. From those grapes, he makes a wine that is
magnifique.
It is corked and aged for ten years. You and I, Abby, we must go to Toulon and taste that wine together.”

Abby looked at him, batted her eyes, and smiled. “And where in Canada is Toulon?”

“Oh, no, no, no. Toulon, it is not in Canada. It is in southeastern France. In Provence, to be exact,” he said with a quick wink.

Oh, like it’s just down the road and round the bend.
Abby lifted her glass and nodded.

Smiling, he strolled off and picked his way through the crowd to the Shakespeare in the Park fund-raiser table.

Abby gazed at the swaying branches of the dark pines and oaks, illuminated by the peach-colored glow of sunset. For a moment, she imagined sipping wine with Philippe under a Mediterranean sky while the sea breeze tousled her hair and that light, so beloved by the Impressionists, cast its magic spell. Absorbed in her reverie, she nearly missed seeing Eva Lennahan’s signature white-blond hair as the councilwoman strode past. With her spell broken, Abby hurried to Philippe’s side and pressed her glass into his hand. Catching his questioning look, she jerked her head toward the politician and then fished in her pocket for a business card.

Philippe seemed to be getting used to her sudden actions. He nodded and stepped to the side of the walkway.

When the councilwoman stopped to sign a program for one of her supporters, Abby interjected herself. “Excuse me, Councilwoman. I’m Abigail Mackenzie. This is Philippe Bonheur,” she said, gesturing to Philippe and pressing her business card into Eva Lennahan’s hand. “Such a tragedy . . . the death of Chef Jean-Louis Bonheur, isn’t it? You knew him, didn’t you?”

The councilwoman slipped Abby’s card into the left waist pocket of her cream-colored suit. Her gaze switched quickly from Abby to Philippe. She apparently liked what she saw and flashed an engaging smile, suggesting interest, which he returned. Ignoring Abby’s question, she said, “I see you’ve got our winery’s commemorative glasses.... Philippe, right? Enjoying our wine?”

Philippe smiled and raised the two glasses, but said nothing.

“It defies expectations,” Abby said. Before the councilwoman could so much as bat another fake eyelash at Philippe, Abby continued. “The chef defied expectations, too, didn’t he? I mean, in a good way, and you must have known that. Didn’t I read that you used him exclusively to cater desserts for your political fund-raisers?”

Eva Lennahan curled the long fuchsia nail of her forefinger against her thumb and flicked an imaginary speck from her suit lapel. “Yes, a rising star, that chef . . . sadly no more.” She again made eye contact with Philippe. “My condolences.”

Abby pressed on. “Didn’t I also read that you are using the Baker’s Dozen for catering now?”

“Oh . . . did that bit of news make the paper? I didn’t know. What section?”

“Business,” Abby replied.

Eva Lennahan sighed contentedly. “Well, of course, everyone knows I support local businesses, and the sudden demise of Chef Bonheur left me in such a lurch.” She cast a come-hither look at Philippe. “The people around me, well, I require them to be not only good at what they do, but also trustworthy and dependable.... It’s an election year, for goodness’ sake. One can’t be too careful.”

Abby wasted no time in getting to the heart of her line of questioning. “You signed a contract with the Baker’s Dozen one week before Jean-Louis died . . . almost as if you had a sixth sense about his fate.”

Eva Lennahan raised a perfectly plucked brow. “Good grief. Reporters do make the silliest linkages.”

Abby eyed her more closely. “Did something happen to make you want to stop working with him?”

Eva’s mouth molded itself into a syrupy smile. “Which media did you say you work for?”

“Oh, I’m not a journalist,” Abby replied.

Eva Lennahan slipped two fingertips into the left waist pocket of her stylish suit and retrieved Abby’s card. As she looked at it, her expression hardened. “I do wish we could continue this chat, but I’m just here to show support for the Shakespeare troupe. Sorry to have to end our little discussion, but my husband awaits.” She looked at Philippe, who, supporting an etched wineglass by the stem in each hand, was obviously unable to shake her hand. Eva plucked away one of the glasses and held it against her chest while she extended the other hand toward Philippe.

The ensuing handshake was long enough to give Abby a full view of the rings Eva wore, especially the diamond engagement ring, with its filigree work.

“Pleasure to meet you, Philippe. . . . Ms. Mackenzie,” Eva said in a dismissive tone. In less than a heartbeat, the platinum-haired politician returned the glass to Philippe and pivoted away. As she strolled back down the walkway, she tossed Abby’s card into the nearest spit bucket. At the end of the paved walkway, a dark-haired man joined her. Together they disappeared into the packed parking lot.

Motioning to Philippe to come along, Abby followed Eva’s footsteps, peering into the sea of cars. Finally, she spotted a black sedan pulling away. Taking her glass from Philippe, she asked offhandedly, “Was it something I said?”

Philippe snorted. “You are asking me? I find . . . sometimes. . . American women difficult to comprehend. They smile too easily. They look you right in the eyes. This says to a man, ‘I want to have sex with you.’ ”

“No, it doesn’t. Surely not. Is that what you really think?” Abby didn’t try to hide her surprise.

“Oui. Is this not accurate?” Philippe stared at her, a baffled expression on his face.

“Well, that notion is certainly fodder for a long discussion, which we’ll have at another time,” Abby replied with a chuckle.

“This woman, is she a suspect?” Philippe asked, seemingly perplexed.

“I’m not sure,” Abby answered. “Murder suspects generally have a motive. I can’t fathom what hers might be. But I don’t think she welcomes any questions about your brother. Now, that arouses my curiosity.”

“Let me tell you what is aroused in me,” Philippe said. “It is
l’appétit.
The oysters . . . We are on a quest
,
n’est-ce pas?”

“Oh, my goodness, yes,” Abby replied. “Let’s go this way.” She took his free hand in hers and pulled him into a short line that ended at a roped-off area where two cooks slaved away over a smoking grill. When it was finally their turn for oysters, the apologetic expression on the cooks’ faces said what their words affirmed. “We just ran out.”

 

 

 

1 stick unsalted butter
2 teaspoons finely minced garlic
12 fresh oysters on the half shell
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons finely minced fresh parsley

 

Chapter 11

Use a dab of raw honey or bee propolis (the resinous material bees collect and use to seal their hives) to treat a peck wound on a chicken, since honey and propolis have antiseptic, antibacterial properties.

 

 

T
hey had to get Jean-Louis into the ground . . . and fast. An uptick in gang violence on the county’s east side had left seven dead in stabbings and retaliatory shootings. Space was filling up at the morgue.

Abby learned about this latest news after attempting to hoist a hefty bag of chicken crumbles over the feeder. Lifting the bag was one thing, but pouring the poultry feed into the hanging metal chicken feeder while answering her cell phone proved impossible. She dropped the bag to take Philippe’s call. It soon became apparent that he was feeling overwhelmed and more distraught than usual. He talked nonstop, frantically flipping between French and English, attempting to explain how the situation with Jean-Louis had gone from
très terrible
to
absurde.

“Slow down, Philippe. Breathe. Now tell me slowly in English, please.”

“We must bury Jean-Louis and soon.”

Abby failed to see the issue. “So what’s the problem? The funeral home can pick him up from the county facility. It’s easy enough to transport the body back to the East Coast for burial.”

“The problem . . . the problem,” he said, his volume rising a decibel, “it is that I have yet to make arrangements.”

“Oh?” Abby eyed the poop floating in the chickens’ watering canister.
Why can’t you ladies just drink without climbing up and pooping into your water?

“This whole affair has been most difficult.” Philippe rambled away from her question and complained about the morning news show he’d watched in the lodge’s dining room and, explaining how it had ruined his breakfast muffin and coffee, wondered why American hotels had to have televisions in every room, anyway, showing clips of violence when people might be eating.

“But let’s back up a minute. Have you called Shadyside Funeral Home? Or visited the priest at Holy Names? The church is right there by the pastry shop, less than ten blocks from the Las Flores Lodge, where you are staying.”

“Non.” His tone sounded sullen now. “I haven’t been inside a church in years.”

“Jean-Louis’s body has been in the morgue for several days now. Do you need help making these arrangements?”

“Oui. I thought I could deal with this tragedy . . . for my mother, for my father . . . but I did not know it would affect me the way it has.”

Abby sighed heavily. The weight of grief she understood from her experience with victims, their families, fellow cops, her folks. Death was something you had to deal with when working the streets and when you had aging relatives. Everyone died. But thinking about death philosophically and intellectually was much different than personally experiencing the death of a loved one.

“The ruling of suicide is
très terrible
. It occurs in a moment of insanity, and surely anyone who takes such action is out of his mind, n’est-ce pas? But someone snuffed out Jean-Louis’s life. I had hoped you would find out who did this. Then I could take care of Jean-Louis. But you haven’t. I haven’t. Now we must.”

“Oh, Lord.” Abby latched the henhouse door and sank onto a bale of straw, her thoughts swirling. Of course, morgue space would be needed for the incoming. Now Abby understood the urgency Philippe had expressed about proving Jean-Louis death was
not
a suicide. He couldn’t face putting his brother’s body in the ground if people were thinking his brother had taken his own life. It was already day six. The body was going to have to be buried somewhere . . . and soon. But another thought loomed—once the body was buried, if murder was proven, it just might have to be exhumed and reinterred. There was the whole issue of embalming.

Abby sat on the bale, elbows on her knees, cell phone to her ear, listening as Philippe rambled. She knew that a buried body took its secrets with it. Murder victims required an in-depth external and internal exam, but had Jean-Louis’s body received that kind of scrutiny? From what Abby remembered from the coroner’s report of their limited investigation, an external examination had been done, and blood and tissue samples taken for toxicology—usual for homicides but getting those results could take up to two weeks. The ruling of suicide meant Chief Bob Allen could close the case, which he did because all indicators pointed to suicide. That conclusion would save the cash-strapped county money. Chief Bob Allen might be a pain in the rear end, but he did everything by the book. Furthermore, the coroner’s office could make the call to do an autopsy with an internal examination, or not. Abby realized she would have to take another look at the report and work the case even faster to get at the truth
before
Jean-Louis was laid to rest.

Henrietta, the small speckled Mediterranean hen, began a series of trilling purrs as she took her dust bath, squirming, scratching, and tossing herself sideways. Her sister hovered on the nesting box. Houdini eyed Mystery, a large black Cochin, whose feathers never got ruffled over anything, as if to say, “Hey, baby, come perch with me.” Reminding herself that her chickens seemed to respect the rooster to make decisions for the entire flock in times of distress, Abby asked Philippe, “What is your father’s advice?”

Philippe’s voice dropped slightly, as if the edginess he’d felt over the problem had somehow dissipated by talking it over with Abby. “My father says perhaps it would be best to bury Jean-Louis here. My mother is in the hospital—complications from her late-stage Parkinson’s disease.” He hesitated and then added, “My father doesn’t want to leave her. What if something happened to her while he is here? Abby, he isn’t in the best health, either. This overwhelms me. I need your help.”

“Of course. You have it, Philippe.” Abby hurriedly created a mental checklist.
Contact Shadyside, the local funeral home. Choose a burial site. Plan a wake. Or consider a graveside service. Find out if videotaping is permitted.
How else could Philippe’s parents witness their youngest son’s final send-off?

Staring at a pile of freshly deposited chicken droppings, Abby heard herself say with more optimism than she felt, “Don’t worry, Philippe. We’ll work this out.”

When Abby had finished cleaning and refilling the chicken watering canister, she gathered the eggs and, deep in thought, walked back down the gravel path to her farm kitchen. On any other day, she would check the ripeness of the apricots and peaches, count the number of fruits on her White Genoa fig tree, and note the swelling and striping of the Fuji apples, espaliered against a wooden trellis. But the state of her orchard seemed less important than the state of mind Philippe had worked himself into as a result of inaction.

Inside the kitchen, Abby fed Sugar and sank onto a high stool next to her unfinished cup of coffee. She would at least allow herself time to drink the rest of the coffee, though she wished she had a linzer cookie—her favorite—to go with it. Then she needed to make some calls to the local funeral home, check on Etienne’s new alibi details, see if she could plug the hole in Willie Dobbs’s alibi, and then hook up with Philippe to search his brother’s apartment for anything of relevance to the case. But no two ways about it, Sugar needed a bath. The dog stank. Sensing she would regret it, Abby resolved to let the doggy bath wait.

Her first call was to the morgue to make sure that Philippe had his facts straight and that he could take the body. He could. The next call was to Shadyside Funeral Home, a full-service facility that offered everything from picking up the body to preparing it for viewing and burial and conducting chapel services. Several funeral services were already scheduled for that week at Shadyside, and the facility’s director told Abby that staffing-wise, they were stretched thin. But they would try to accommodate Abby and Philippe’s needs. The director offered an option: a viewing of the body at 2:00 p.m. and a graveside service at 4:00 p.m. at the small Catholic cemetery next to the Church of the Pines, which was about a mile out of town, up the mountain. There were no cemeteries in town, except for the historical one, because of local zoning laws and also concerns over flooding. Part of the town, where the creek ran through, was a designated floodplain. No one wanted buried caskets to rise up and float during seasonal floods.

Abby called Philippe. Would he and his parents object to a wake at the funeral home and a graveside service at the Church of the Pines? She figured Philippe would at least want to see the location first. Her call went to voice mail, so Abby left a message. While she waited for him to return her call, Abby dialed Kat to ask about rendezvousing at Dobbs’s estate.

“But it’s my day off,” Kat protested.

“I know,” Abby replied, “but Dobbs and I have already had a run-in. If he’s there, he might call the cops. If I bring my own cop friend, maybe he’ll be a little more helpful and a little less aggressive. And you know I’ll make it up to you.”

“How? I already have a year’s supply of honey.”

“Okay, no honey. What else?”

“Stand in for me on a dinner date with Bernie.”

“Now, why in the world would I do that?” Abby felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“He doesn’t do favors for nothing. Remember all that evidence bagged and tagged at the pastry shop? You know that evidence is supposed to be logged in by the investigating officer. So, Bernie helped me out. I was drowning in paperwork and had to write my report. I owe him dinner.” Kat was beginning to sound a little whiny.

“Arghhh. You told him you would take him to dinner?”

“It’s what he wanted! Abby . . . girlfriend! Just tease him. Tell him you’re skipping dinner and going straight to dessert. Then take him for a scoop of ice cream and use that stupid line he uses on women. ‘I’m here for a good time, not a long time.’ ” Kat chuckled. “It might work.”

“Not funny,” Abby said. “It’s
you
he wants to go out with, not me.”

“Do I have to remind you that we are talking about Bernie here, a guy who would go out with a Saint Bernard if it wore a bustier?”

Resigned that this was an argument she couldn’t win, Abby asked, “If I agree to that date with Bernie, will you meet me at Dobbs’s place in twenty-five minutes?”

“No problem.”

“Okay. Let’s rendezvous in front of the guard gate.”

“I won’t be in uniform,” Kat reminded her.

“It doesn’t matter. Dobbs knows you.”

Before dressing, Abby brushed pearlescent finishing powder and a softly colored peach blush on her face, then dabbed a bit of gloss on her lips. She chose a conservative black skimmer dress and a black summer sweater with white piping at mid-elbow, a black headband, and black flats—simple attire, but appropriate for pinning down Dobbs’s alibi and then calling on the priest and the funeral director.

A half hour later, she wheeled the Jeep in front of the Dobbses’ electric wrought-iron gate with the ostentatious D emblem. Kat’s silver Datsun roadster, restored with a new engine, was parked along the stone wall that was part of the guardhouse. The guard was standing outside and was already talking with Kat, who looked like a teenager in her blue-green print sundress, which hit her at mid-thigh, exposing lean, muscled legs from daily runs.

Seeing Abby drive in, Kat hurried over to greet her. Running her fingers through her blond tresses, which had been cut in an edgy style and moussed, Kat said, “You dressed up for a knock and talk?”

“No, I dressed for a visit to check out a cemetery with Philippe.”

“Oh, gotcha,” Kat said. “Well, you look . . . solemn.” She changed the subject. “Dobbs isn’t here. I’ve already explained to the guard that this is an informal investigation. I asked for a little of his time and promised him we would be brief.”

“I appreciate that. Thanks,” Abby said. She followed Kat to meet the six-foot uniformed security guard, who was cleanly shaven and wore his brown hair in a crew cut. He stood as straight as a hoe handle.

“What can I do for you, ma’am?” the guard asked politely.

“Well, first of all, thank you for your time.” Abby handed him her card. “Five days ago, between three and six in the morning, Chef Jean-Louis Bonheur died in his pastry shop. He and your boss, according to some eyewitnesses, argued prior to the chef’s death. Do you know where your boss, Mr. Dobbs, was during those early morning hours?”

The guard studied her card, looked up, and replied, “Most likely, he was asleep up at the big house.” He walked into the guardhouse and slipped her card into a drawer.

“Is there any way to prove it?” Abby asked, motioning Kat to follow her and the guard into the narrow room equipped with surveillance monitors.

The guard sighed. “Not sure. I don’t get here most mornings until seven, and I go home around seven at night. But Mr. Dobbs, when not away on business, is always here at night. He prides himself on being a real family-type man.”

“Is there a night guard on duty?” asked Abby.

“No, ma’am. For night security, we rely on the gate and house alarms and surveillance equipment.”

“So, are there cameras inside the house?”

“Yes, ma’am. Inside and out.”

“In the vicinity of the owners’ bedrooms?”

“Yes . . . at each end of the hallway.”

“Any chance,” Abby asked hopefully, “that I could take a look at what your surveillance shows? I’d like to verify where Dobbs was when the chef died.”

“No, ma’am, I couldn’t let you do that. It’s against the rules.”

Abby didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot with the guard, but how to tactfully persuade him?

“What if you looked the other way?” Abby asked. “Or what if you stepped outside to smoke? I mean, with your back to me, how you could be expected to know what I could or could not see?”