A Spoonful of Murder (9 page)

“No, 327 is Department of Corrections Policy. Rule 79.26 is APA.”

Lucky blinked slowly, ready to reach across the counter and throttle the deputy, but thought better of it. Bradley might arrest her. She was sure there was a penal code to cover assault on a police officer, and sure that Bradley could quote it chapter and verse. She took a deep breath to control her impatience and calmly replied, “Will a driver’s license do?”

“That would be fine. Please remove it from your wallet. I’ll have to make a copy.”

“Okay.” Obviously, the quickest way to get past Bradley and actually speak to Sage was to comply with all aspects of the APA rules. She hurriedly filled out the one-page form and signed it, as Bradley returned her driver’s license to her.

“Follow me, please.” Bradley opened a heavy door and led her down the hallway. “I have to ask, are you carrying any weapons?”

“Not today, Bradley.”
But next time I see you…
She followed him down the short corridor and waited while he unlocked the security door. At the end of this area were two cells, each one equipped with a cot and a hard wooden bench.
Sage sat on the bench, his eyes closed, leaning against the concrete block wall. Lucky spotted a row of stools and pulled one closer to the locked cell.

“Ms. Jamieson…Lucky…please do not move any closer to the cell, and do not touch the prisoner or pass any items to him. Do you understand?”

“Yes, thank you, Bradley. I only want to talk to Sage.” Lucky waited, but Bradley continued to stand next to her. She looked up at him. “In private, please.”

Bradley sniffed and reluctantly retraced his steps to the front counter. Lucky waited until she heard the door close behind him. She watched Sage carefully, trying to gauge his mental state.

His arms were crossed against his chest. He opened one eye and stared at her. “You shouldn’t have come here, boss.”

“Don’t you start. I’ve had enough difficulty with Bradley.”

“Don’t waste your time with me. There’s nothing you can do.” A muscle in his jaw clenched and unclenched.

“Why not?” Lucky’s heart skipped a beat. “Are you saying you’re guilty?”

Sage shook his head negatively. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then talk to me. Maybe we can find a lawyer to help you. What was there between you and this Honeywell woman?”

Sage leaned back against the concrete wall and closed his eyes once again. “Go away, boss. I’ve got nothing I want to say—especially to you,” he replied bitterly.

Lucky felt as if she had been slapped across the face. His bitterness was directed at her, and she was at a loss as to why that would be, or how she could reach him. She patiently waited a few minutes more, willing Sage to talk, but he refused to look at her or offer any explanation.

“Okay,” she finally spoke. “Have it your way—for now. But I’ll be back. You’ve gotta let somebody help you, Sage.” Lucky pushed the stool against the wall and returned to the front counter where Bradley was pretending to be absorbed in a clerical task. He looked up as she approached.

“Bradley, is Nate around?”

“No. He’s up at that house on…” Bradley clamped his mouth shut, suddenly aware he was about to say too much and he’d be in trouble with Nate. Lucky noticed that his high school acne had never quite cleared up. Blemishes stood out against the paleness of his skin, particularly when he was embarrassed.

“The house on Bear Path Lane?”

Bradley stood up straighter. “I didn’t say that.”

“Never mind, Bradley,” Lucky replied sweetly. “I won’t tell Nate you told me.”

Bradley sputtered, “I never did, Lucky, you know that.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she replied neutrally, enjoying a delicious moment of needling him.

Bradley quickly shuffled the papers in front of him into a neat pile while he regained his composure. He turned back to Lucky and asked blandly, “Did Sage have anything to say?” Lucky caught the hint of a crafty gleam in his eyes. Did he really think she was so naïve she would confide in him?

“Not much. What has he told you?”

“He won’t say a word to us,” Bradley blurted out quickly. “He…” Then he stopped himself in midsentence, realizing the tables had been turned and Lucky was attempting to extract information from him.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to see him. But can you let Nate know I stopped by? I’d like to talk to him when he has a minute.”

“I’ll tell him. By the way, we have to feed our prisoner until the arraignment. We’re not set up for that kind of thing. We can bring him breakfast in the morning, but we won’t be able to feed him lunch or dinner. If the Spoonful can take care of him, the County will reimburse you.”

“Not a problem. You have a refrigerator and a microwave?”

Bradley nodded. “Sure. In our lunchroom.”

“We’ll take care of it then. Jack or I will be back later,” she called out as she pushed through the front door. She had kept up a front for Bradley, but her spirits were somewhere
down around her boots. There was no way she would confide any of her fears to Bradley. Anything he learned would be all over town in no time flat. Try as she might to be compassionate, Bradley always seemed to bring out the worst in her. She had to make a conscious effort not to react. After all, it was so easy to puncture his pomposity, like sticking a pin in an overinflated balloon. She wasn’t sure if that qualified her as mean-spirited, but most of the time Bradley had it coming.

W
HEN LUCKY REACHED
the Spoonful, the neon sign in the window was glowing, a beacon against the cold and the fear. The restaurant was empty. She entered through the front door, flung her jacket on one of the chairs and called out to Jack.

“In here, my girl,” he answered.

She slipped behind the counter and peeked through the hatch into the kitchen. Jack was heating one of Sage’s containers of soup on the stove. A baking dish of cornbread sat on the counter, with squares already sliced.

“You hungry?” He looked up and smiled.

“I’m starving. That smells wonderful.”

“It’s the zucchini parmesan, and we can have some with cornbread. I’m not Sage, but I thought the least I could do is fix us some lunch. There are several more containers in the freezer—so we’ll be okay until Sage is released.”

Lucky heaved a sigh. “I wish I could be as optimistic.” She did a slow turn, looking around the restaurant. She loved this room—the yellow-checked café curtains at the big window, the framed photos of historic Vermont sites and snapshots of skiers on the slopes and regular customers covering the upper walls. The wainscoting was dark polished wood and the floor was constructed of old wide pine boards. Everything here spoke of the presence of her parents. She could feel them as if they were just at the edge of her vision, still here, watching over her and Jack. If she could only turn quickly enough, she’d be able to see them again.

She knew she was feeling sorry for herself, but she couldn’t help but remember times in her life when she had worked so hard and something out of her control dashed her plans. There was the spelling bee in junior high with a prize of a new cherry red two-wheeler. She stayed up studying for three nights only to wake with laryngitis, unable to speak the day of the event. Then there was the time she fell out of a tree and broke her ankle the day before the senior prom. Maybe she was the jinx—Jack should have named her “Unlucky.” She’d had her doubts about keeping the restaurant open. Now it looked as if that choice might be taken out of her hands. But all that aside, currently the important thing was to convince Nate that Sage wasn’t guilty and that the murder had nothing to do with the Spoonful.

She gathered two place mats with silverware and napkins and laid them on a table by the window. Jack returned from the kitchen with the soup bowls and cornbread on a tray. “We’re sitting by the window?”

“Yes. Maybe people will mistake us for customers and come in.”

Jack smiled. “Eat up. What did you learn from our boy? How’s he doing?”

“Not good.” Lucky looked across the table at Jack. His complexion was gray, and the long lines that scored his face were deeper. “He wouldn’t talk to me at all. Told me I shouldn’t have come. Oh, before I forget, we’re in charge of feeding him—at least until he’s arraigned—lunches and dinners.”

“Good. I’ll fix him a steak and a baked potato tonight and bring it over with a few containers of soup. I just hope you can cook something besides steak—that’s all I know how to do.”

Lucky smiled. “I’m no chef, but he won’t starve. I have some chicken recipes and I make wonderful mashed potatoes. We’ll figure it out. We can take turns. If you want to bring food today, I’ll do the honors tomorrow.”

Lucky broke off a chunk of cornbread and dropped it in her soup. “Maybe you’ll have better luck getting Sage to open
up. You know, I noticed something the other day and I didn’t know what to make of it.” Lucky recounted Sage’s reaction when he spotted the blonde woman in the restaurant. “Jack, there had to be
something
between Sage and that woman.”

Jack, stirring his soup, looked up. “I didn’t notice that. But come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing him around at all when she came in. Maybe you’re right.”

“Wish you could have seen it. He just looked thunderstruck. Clammed up and dashed right back to the kitchen. It was very weird.”

“Like he knew her from somewhere else and didn’t expect to see her here?”

“Exactly like that. There’s something there—between him and that woman. But he’s not about to tell me, at least not right now. Hopefully, you’ll have better luck.”

“Hmmm.” Jack wiped his chin carefully with a napkin. “I’ll give it a shot. We’ll find out eventually, whatever it is.”

“I don’t want to wait for eventually. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Now the Spoonful is associated with murder in everyone’s mind. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. We don’t deserve this.”

“Deserve has nothing to do with it, my girl. We’ll get through. And if not, well, we’ll both figure out something else to do. After all, you’ve got a college degree. Must be lots of things you can do.”

Lucky chuckled. “Oh, sure—a degree in theatre arts. That’ll be very useful in Snowflake.”

Jack reached across the table and grasped her hand. “You never know. Give me a smile now.”

Lucky looked across the table at Jack and tears rushed to her eyes.

“What’s that?” Jack asked. “Tears? No tears, now. Nothing to cry about.”

“Just once, I want something in my life to go smoothly.”

He squeezed her hand. “It will. Never drag the past into your future. Remember that.”

She nodded disconsolately. “Any customers while I was gone?”

“Just Hank and Barry. They stopped in to see how we’re doing, but that’s all. I guess everyone’s afraid to come near us.” Jack turned to look out the window. “Don’t tell me…”

Lucky followed his gaze. A white van topped with an apparatus that looked like a satellite dish slowed to a stop in front of the Spoonful. Across its side in red and blue were large letters—WVMT. Two men jumped out of the rear of the van, followed by a tall woman with long dark hair wearing a red coat. She stood on the sidewalk, directly in front of the blue and yellow neon sign, while a man in a parka hoisted a camera onto his shoulder. Another woman climbed out of the rear of the van. She wore jeans and a jacket and carried a bag with many small pockets on the outside. She whipped out a large makeup brush and quickly touched up the face of the woman in the red coat.

Lucky gasped, dropping her spoon in the soup. “Jack, are they doing what I think they’re doing?”

The second man, standing next to the cameraman, held up three fingers, counting silently…three…two…one…The dark-haired woman held the microphone in front of her, and her lips moved while she gazed intently into the eye of the camera.

Jack jumped up from his chair. “We’ll see about this…” He stomped into the kitchen and returned with a broom in his hands. In a moment, he was out the door and onto the sidewalk, charging the cameraman with his broom. Lucky jumped up and rushed outside. The cameraman’s assistant was doing his best to run interference between Jack and his boss while the dark-haired woman had a terrified look in her eye. Lucky grabbed Jack’s arm just as he was about to smash the broom over the cameraman’s head.

“Jack, please, don’t,” she begged. “This’ll just make things worse.”

Jack looked at her, his face flushed. “These
vultures
are gonna make things worse. We don’t want this kind of publicity.”

The dark-haired woman spotted her opening. She moved quickly and stood next to Lucky, who was struggling to
extricate the broom from Jack’s hands. The camera followed the movements of the newswoman as she turned to the camera again.

“I’m here with the owners of the By the Spoonful Soup Shop, a thriving Snowflake business—thriving, that is, until the discovery of the body of Boston socialite Patricia Honeywell who was brutally murdered at this very restaurant.”

The dark-haired woman stuck the microphone in front of Lucky’s face. “Do you have anything you’d like to add, Miss Johnson? I understand your chef has been arrested for this murder.”

Lucky was shivering from cold, but nevertheless, the words came. “No one—absolutely no one—was murdered at our restaurant. We’re shocked by all this, but we firmly believe our chef is innocent. This had nothing to do with By the Spoonful.” Her anger building now, she added, “And by the way, it’s Jamieson—J-A-M-I-E-S-O-N—
not
Johnson.”

The dark-haired woman ignored her last statement. Smiling, she turned to the camera. “Well, there you have it, folks. The owners of the By the Spoonful Soup Shop are standing behind the accused murderer. Let’s hope their faith is not misplaced.”

The cameraman yelled, “Cut,” and the woman in the red coat turned her back on Lucky and threw the microphone at her assistant. She grabbed the door handle of the van, climbed into the front seat and locked the door. The cameraman and the makeup woman hurried into the back of the van. As soon as all the doors slammed shut, the assistant revved the engine and the van pulled quickly away.

Lucky and Jack stood rooted to the sidewalk watching as the van took off down Broadway heading for the highway out of town. Jack, muttering to himself, turned and headed back to the warmth of the restaurant, broom still in hand. Lucky followed.