Death Al Dente (15 page)

T
he red geranium on our back gate drooped pitifully. I brought it into the courtyard for a drink, and pictured Liz's ideas come to life. I still hadn't had a chance to show my mother the sketches. We had a lot to talk about.

A tour bus of visitors headed for Glacier Park for the annual opening of the Going-to-the-Sun Highway stopped in town, and we did a brisk business the rest of the afternoon.

As the last group was leaving, the door opened and Landon sashayed in, wearing shorts, a Superman T-shirt, and a straw cowboy hat and scuffed brown boots.

“Hey, bud,” a balding elderly man said, “I didn't know Superman was a cowboy.”

Landon gave him a withering look. “He wasn't. But all cowboys are supermen.”

The customer was either an accomplished actor or an experienced grandfather, judging by the micromovements in his face as he kept from bursting out laughing. “Got a point there, pardner.” The man tipped an imaginary hat at Landon and winked at me. I handed his wife a bag with her considerable purchases and they left, sharing a smile.

“Do cowboys hug their aunties?” I said, crouching. “And where's your mom?”

He hugged me quickly, then remembered his errand. He pulled a green wad out of his pocket. “She needs ones.”

I made the change, then walked outside with him. Chiara stepped out of her shop. I held Landon's hand until it was safe to cross—he knew our routine—and blew him a kiss when he reached the other side.

Tracy offered to stay late and help me finish restocking and rearranging, but I sent her home with the leftover candy samples and a bottle of cherry wine, and locked the doors.

The jars of pesto still sat on the kitchen counter. We tossed empty boxes in the basement, so I headed down to find one. Tracy was right—a first-class creep hole. Despite the low ceilings, hand-hewn rock walls, and lack of windows, it hadn't felt scary when I was a kid. I remembered coming down here with my dad many times. But then, his presence had always made me feel brave.

I brushed a giant cobweb out of my hair, then shook the sticky mess off my fingers. Maybe we had something red down here to hang on the back gate. I found a box for the pesto and set it on the landing, then plunged farther into cobweb world.

Our Friday school colors displays, now on summer vacation, were primarily pennants and pom-poms, and not weatherproof. The Christmas decorations seemed like a better bet. A bell, or a lantern? Liz said human or animal shapes were best—did reindeer count? Snowmen and angels? I hadn't worked Christmas at the Merc yet, so our organization scheme escaped me. No luck on the first two tries: silver and gold garland in one crate, ornaments and packages of holiday-themed napkins in the second. Decorations and store merchandise intermingled—what a mess.

In the third carton, I found a vaguely familiar wooden box. Inside were four-by-six note cards covered with fading type. I flipped through them, pulling out a few. Recipe cards, mostly for sauces, pestos, and pastas much like the ones we sold upstairs. Others were for dishes based on those ingredients.

But Fresca had never typed. Even now, she e-mailed and texted reluctantly. Her recipes had always been scribbles and notes no one else could decipher. Out of impatience, not fear of plagiarism. She'd worked out complete recipes years ago when she began catering and needed to replicate results from one large batch to the next. Handwritten, but at least they listed all the amounts and ingredients and could be followed by anyone. The binders upstairs brimmed with them.

So what were these? Precursors, apparently, but who'd typed them?

A spark of fear flashed in my brain. Did these cards prove the rumors true? I held the box shut and flipped it over. Hard to make out the initials in the dusty light. No doubt shop students still turned out similar projects, but the carving looked a lot closer to NM than IR.

I carried the box upstairs and set it on the kitchen counter. Stared at it. Claudette had denied telling anyone Fresca had stolen her recipes when I'd confronted her, but would she have admitted it to me? But if they were hers, how had they gotten into Nick's box?

Oh, man, did my mother and I have a lot to talk about.

* * *

B
ut first, finish my research.

I made a quick salad, grabbed a minibaguette and artichoke pesto, and carried my tray to the office. Fired up Google and began stalking Jay Walker. A surprising number of men bore that name, often a nickname. Adding “Jewel Bay” didn't help. Hadn't Angelo cooked for a fancy joint in Missoula before moving here? No luck. I repeated it all on Facebook, and again got zippo.

Our Jay Walker could not be found. Or didn't want to be.

Next stop, online archives. I slathered artichoke dip on bread and crossed my fingers. Not every small-town newspaper had survived in recent years, or digitized its older editions, but Rick and Jay's hometown paper had done both. I pegged Jay at around forty, and searched his likely high school years. Came up with one grainy photo of the graduating class, listing all twenty-seven seniors. I found his name, enlarged the shot, counted from the left, and landed my finger on a girl. Counted from the right—the kids weren't standing in straight lines—and got a boy. Average height, skinny, a full head of light brown hair, glasses. James Angelo at eighteen? Impossible to tell. The faces were too small, too distant and blurry.

I dug out Rick Bergstrom's card and e-mailed him the page, asking if this boy was the one he'd remembered. He'd seemed sure that the man he'd seen this afternoon was Jay, but Angelo had not responded to his greeting.

I plowed through the newspaper archives for another forty-five minutes. Walker was a common name, but in such a small town, the Walker boys on the high school sports pages were probably brothers or cousins. No references to Jay himself. The Law Log reported several arrests of men named Walker, mostly on minor counts. Again, no Jay. And David Walker, age fifty-six, charged with DUI third offense, twenty-plus years ago.

Five years ago, the paper reported a head-on collision on Highway 2, killing one woman and severely injuring two men, including the driver who crossed the center line, Dave Walker, no age given. Suspected factors: alcohol and speed. I checked the obituaries. Dave, aka David, Walker died days later from injuries sustained in a car crash. Survivors included wife Doreen (O'Keefe) of the family home, a daughter, seven sons—one named Jay—and other assorted relatives. No mention of where the kids lived. Memorials to the hospital cardiac care unit.

All very sad. But it didn't confirm that Jay Walker had become Chef James Angelo.

While I was here, might as well get the scoop on one Rick Bergstrom. Two years older than me, he was all over the sports pages. Football, basketball, and track, and a football scholarship to MSU. A triple threat wasn't uncommon in small towns, where a good athlete could stand out in several sports, and be voted homecoming king, too.

The kids the rest of us wished we could hate, if only we didn't like them so much.

Over the years, Bergstrom Farms had morphed into Montana Gold, and now dominated the local ag scene. Articles mentioned a mill expansion, new contracts with growers, supply agreements with some of the state's best-known restaurants, the new baking operation. A short piece dated a few weeks ago noted the addition of Rick to the family business, as outside sales rep.

I took a break to stretch and plot. If James Angelo was Jay Walker, so what? Montana has always been the last best refuge in the lower forty-eight. The perfect place to reinvent yourself, even if you only moved across the Continental Divide. Half the people on the west side had never been east, and vice versa. The privilege of starting over was hardly limited to trust fund babies or ex-cons. Though with a population a hair under a million—most folks are connected by two degrees, not the usual six—starting over inside state lines could be tricky. But Jay may have had good reasons for not moving farther away.

Nothing to be gained from unmasking him. At least, nothing I'd discovered so far.

All this computer time made me sleepy, but coffee didn't sound good. I snuck one of Tracy's Diet Cokes—it hit the spot.

Time to update my Spreadsheet of Suspicion. I added Angelo, but while he had means, so did almost everyone else, and his motive and opportunity were speculation. Still, filling in little boxes is always satisfying.

What about Dean? I paced the small room. He downplayed his role in Claudette's departure, calling it a vacation. But she'd told everyone it was a permanent move, a chance to start over without small-town scrutiny.

He'd referred to her “magical thinking,” but despite her flighty, romantic nature, she wasn't naive. She wouldn't have left the town where she'd lived for nearly fifteen years and abandoned the cottage and garden she adored on a whim.

We needed that note. Doubtful that Fresca overlooked it, but better check anyway. I unlocked the drawer that held the personnel files—not much to them, but I'd been trained to safeguard employee privacy—and withdrew Claudette's file. Between the emergency contact info and tax forms was a narrow slip of paper, ripped off a pad labeled
GROCERIES
—the kind you get in the mail from charities looking for money. Wrinkled and smoothed out, blank on the back, bombshell on the front.

Dear Fresca:

After all our years of friendship, I hate to give my notice this way, but if I told you in person, we'd both cry. And you'd try to talk me into staying. Dean has an opportunity to go to Las Vegas, to perform, and he's asked me to go with him. It's a new beginning for us—I know you understand how rare and precious that is.

The Merc will prosper in your hands.

Love always, Claudette

She'd signed in red with a flourish. Had he lied? Told her he had a job that hadn't materialized? Or overstated his prospects, hoping for a coveted Elvis job that had not magically appeared—and a fling with a cute gal?

A faint sound like something breaking caught my attention. Tentatively, I crept downstairs to check on our beautiful new window.

Intact.

So was the front door, and I saw no problems outside. Must have been next door at Red's—a bar fight, or a dropped tray of glasses and bottles in the courtyard.

Back upstairs, I found the Nevada College of Impressionism's glittery website, with a soundtrack to match. I lowered the volume and scrolled through the pages. Offerings included a one-week Introduction to Elvis, a three-week Immersion, and a six-week program leading to a PhE—a Doctor of Elvisology. Glad I hadn't just swigged pop.

The Careers page boasted: “Our graduates are highly qualified and professional tribute artists. Many find full-time jobs in the entertainment field. Others find pleasure re-creating beloved music and artists for audiences at corporate events, public festivals, and private parties, in their hometowns and beyond.”

Meaning a handful make it big, but most go home to sing in their garages and living rooms, for long-suffering friends and relatives. “Personal enrichment,” in HR terms.

Had Dean set his sights on the Strip, but flunked out and come home with his tail between his spandex-clad legs? Had he lashed out at Claudette when she threatened to expose him? Had she been that angry?

A woman not known for flying off the handle had been home two days and had two rip-roaring arguments. Too bad I hadn't heard more of her Friday afternoon clash with Dean. I needed to talk to Angelo. Who else had seen her and might be able to gauge her temperature?

I made a note in my phone calendar to call the school the next morning.

Before leaving the site, I watched several student performances. Incredible. Dean Martin risen from the grave, a swoon-worthy Tony Bennett, and a pseudo Lady Gaga who made my jaw drop. A long clip featured Elvis tributes from the recent classes, but no shots of Dean. Looked like he hadn't made the cut.

Off to YouTube. You can lose half your life there, gaping at the amazing things people get up to. The cat videos always make me itch to train Sandburg and see if he can buy his own cat treats, but while I don't doubt his talents, neither he nor I have the patience.

Dean had his own channel. Easy to tell the lip-synching from his own singing—his timing was off and his vocals lacked Elvis's richness. The recent clips showed a noticeable improvement over his preclass performances, but no one would see him and think Elvis lived.

Had he really managed to convince both himself and Claudette that he could make a career change?

One last thing. I hacked my sister's Facebook account—sorry, Chiara, I owe you a random act of kindness—and sent a message to Claudette's friends from Vegas. Sucky way to tell them she'd died, but I had no other option. And maybe they'd reply with useful details.

Computer off, the recipe box in my carry-all, I headed out at half past eight. I crossed Back Street and the mostly empty parking lot to the Subaru and hit the clicker. In the flash of my parking lights, I saw my windshield covered in red.

“A
t least they used a cheap brand.” I pointed to the broken jar of spaghetti sauce lying next to my right front tire, contents splattered across my windshield. “Not my mother's good stuff.”

“‘Go back to Seattle.'” Kim read the note tucked under my front wiper.

“You know, this is beginning to feel personal. And it's starting to piss me off.” When I'd first read the note, I'd crumpled it up instinctively, then realized it was evidence and smoothed it out.

“It's a warning of some kind.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” She ignored me. “Two random acts of vandalism is too much coincidence. The first attack was on the building, the second on me—or my car. So is the real target the Merc, my family, or me? And how is any of that related to Claudette's murder?”

“You know I'm not going to discuss my theories with you, Erin.”

Which I chose to interpret as meaning she didn't have a theory. But as with the Merc's busted window, she wouldn't be here if she didn't have the same questions I did.

“And another thing. Nobody saw this? Look how light it is.” I told her about the crashing sound I'd dismissed as an accident in Red's courtyard. “Ask Ted.” He stood at Red's back gate in his white apron. The patrol cars' lights had drawn attention the vandalism hadn't. Max Fontaine, also in a white apron, stood outside the bistro's back door.

When I looked back at Red's, Ted had gone back inside. If he or his customers had seen anything, Kim would find out. I crossed the lot and called out to Max. “Just spaghetti sauce. Nobody hurt. See or hear anything?”

He shook his head, waving one hand. “
Non, non.
I am focused on my stove. Who will be next? This must stop.”

The deputies finished photographing the scene, and tagged and bagged the jar and note. They printed my wiper, door handles, the hood. The car wash was closed, but I didn't want the acid to damage the paint job, so as soon as Kim gave me the okay, I dumped a bucket of warm soapy water on the front end and washed off the tomatoey mess.

By the time I got home, I was spitting mad. Kim might not want to share her theories—fine. Then I wouldn't share mine. As soon as I had some. Okay, so she had research tools and investigative staff and other stuff I didn't have. Like arrest powers. And a murder board. But I had a killer spreadsheet.

And a killer cat, who usually greeted me. “Sandburg,” I called from the front porch. “Saaaan-deee.”

Dang. The one flaw in Bob's cabin remodel had been his decision to reuse the original hardware. The front latch had a tendency to pop open, leaving the door ajar an inch or two. Which wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have a mouse-loving cat who liked to bring his friends home.

Inside, I set my carry-all on the bench and lifted out the recipe box, dusty from its days in oblivion. Cleaning the basement would be a pain in the behind, but at least it wouldn't cost anything more than a bottle of ammonia and some scrub brushes, unlike the courtyard project.

I'm not superstitious, and while the spaghetti jar incident angered me, it hadn't made me nervous. But something didn't feel right. As if the air had been disturbed.

I glanced around. Was that book where I had left it? Had those bananas been moved? Was that a partial smudged footprint on the floor, or a spot where Sandburg had rolled on his back?

I shook my head. Nothing out of place. No signs of an intruder. Surely Sandburg's absence was just a coincidence.

No such thing. I snatched up my keys and phone and dashed outside. “Sandburg.” Over and over, I called his name. I circled the cabin, crouching to peer under shrubs, stretching to spy into cubbyholes a young, limber cat could crawl into. I spiraled outward, into the woods, hunting, calling, wishing I'd fetched his treat tin to rattle, to summon him home. The forest seemed to have eyes, but none of them belonged to my cat.

I tramped and stomped, then leaned against a tree, the bark snagging my shirt and hair. How had ten pounds of fur wriggled so deeply under my skin?

In a flutter of wings, a robin landed on a branch near me.
“Hope is the thing with feathers,”
my teenage self recited. He cocked his head and flew off.

I checked my phone. What felt like hours of searching had been only fifteen minutes. I called Liz and Bob.

They hadn't seen him. “It's still light out. He's probably hot on the mouse trail. He'll come home—don't worry.”

“Don't worry.” Right. I wound my way back to the cabin, and sat on the front step, clenching my jaw. With so much going on—from good things like the success of the Festa and our growing sales, to annoyances like the broken shop window and my vandalized car, to real tragedies like Claudette's murder and Ian's poisoning—every nerve cell in my body felt fired up. Oversensitive.

A movement at the edge of the woods caught my eye, and a small, dark cat emerged from the brush. Sandburg trotted past me and hopped on the porch as if nothing had happened.

Nothing had.

I burst into tears.

* * *

W
ednesday evening's stresses had one upside: They'd been the perfect pretext to put off confronting Fresca. But I had no excuse Thursday morning. Today. I had to talk to her today. I even made a list, so I wouldn't forget anything: The courtyard project. Cleaning out the basement. Rebuilding her inventory. Claudette's note.

And what about the recipe box?

On the chance that someone had overheard Dean and Claudette arguing, I swung by the drugstore on my way into the village. Polly Paulson—she'd always be Polly Easter to me—had started working in the drugstore in high school and, three kids later, still greeted every customer with a genuine smile and knew ninety percent by name.

“Hey, Polly. When you gonna stop slumming and come work for me?”

Her laugh jingled like charms on a bracelet. “I hope you didn't come in for more candles, Erin. You wiped us out.”

“Polly, Friday afternoon, did you see Claudette Randall talking with anyone?”

“That poor girl.” She closed her eyes a moment. “I saw her with you. And who's that fellow—half bald, wears those silly pants like pajama bottoms all the time?”

Black cotton, covered with red peppers. “James Angelo. Caterer, cooks at the Bayside Grille.”

“Yep. Him. Can't believe I blanked it. After you left, they talked outside for a long time. Looked serious. But that's all I remember. The usual after-work rush to pick up prescriptions and whatnot had me chained to my cash register.”

The continuation or the start of the argument Wendy had witnessed? I hadn't asked what time she'd seen them raising Cain across Claudette's backyard fence. But Wendy had been futzing around Red's courtyard with steam trays when I arrived, so she must have gone to her grandmother's earlier in the afternoon, knowing she'd be working the Festa dinner that night.

I snuck a surreptitious peek at the display of huckleberry products on my way out. Nice enough, but nothing we needed to carry. And no chocolates.

Whatever made me glance in the backseat of my car, I don't know, but there was the white bag I'd plucked out of the bushes in the parking lot last Friday night. Back inside Jewel Bay Drug, I asked Polly if Claudette had bought anything that afternoon.

“No. But that Angelo. What a jerk. Had a prescription the pharmacist wouldn't fill and he got all huffy and stalked out. Almost didn't pay for his merchandise, but I nabbed him.”

Despite her good nature, I bet neither shoplifters nor her kids get away with much.

“What did he buy?” Not that it mattered.

“Stupid kid stuff. Said it was for his nephews. Gordy's not in—he could tell you what was up with that prescription.”

Angelo's purchase didn't prove my theory that he had spotted Claudette heading for the Festa, followed her, and stabbed her. Those little white bags were all over the place.

Every answer raised more questions.

“Thanks, Pol. You ever want a new job, you call me.”

The sound of her Tinkerbell laughter followed me out the door.

* * *

W
ith Claudette's memorial service scheduled for one o'clock, we'd be closed most of the afternoon. I put a note on the Merc's website and made a sign for the front door.

Myself, I refuse to wear black to funerals. Not that I don't grieve. I'd rather celebrate the life than the loss. In Claudette's case, that meant a festive look, so I'd chosen a blue-and-green batik print maxi dress with a grass green cropped cardigan and three-strap cork-soled sandals.

Tracy's outfit sprouted from that same philosophy: a gauzy red peasant blouse over a tiered red-and-orange skirt with a wide orange leather belt. Red earrings peeked out from behind her flowing chestnut hair.

“Snazzy belt,” I said.

“Two dollars at a garage sale,” she said, “and fifty cents for the chili pepper earrings.”

But what surprised me most was her morning can of Diet Coke. She'd fashioned thin foam rubber into a thermal sleeve decorated with the Merc's logo. She squeezed the can and, miracle of miracles, no metallic twang. “If you like it, we could sell them.”

Takes a lot to stun me speechless, but that did it. I hugged her. I suspected this day should have come with a “sudden emotion ahead” warning.

Meanwhile, I had questions. If Angelo's name wasn't really Angelo, what else about him wasn't right? “Trace, do you remember when James Angelo came to town?”

She poked a straw into her Diet Coke, twisting the tab over the opening so the holes lined up and held the straw in place. “I met him when he rented that little house next to Claudette's. He started at Chez Max as a sous-chef, but it didn't work out.”

“Didn't I hear he cooked at the golf course, then started his Italian line and catering?”

“Yeah. After Max fired him. Claudette said he tried to persuade Max and Applause! to drop Fresca's products and let him make some of their stuff, but no chance.”

The tomato and pepper sauces, pastas, and other items Fresca made for our commercial accounts were critical to the bottom line. Local sourcing allowed restaurants to cut prep time and boost their “brag factor.” Angelo's interference was relevant history I hadn't known. “Which set him on a collision course with Fresca. Anyone go with him?”

“No. Seems crazy to launch a business, then behave so badly you alienate the movers and shakers.”

“My impression is you have to be a real jerk not to get along with Max, but you also have to be a real cook. His menu's more demanding than Ray's.” I started a pot of Rick Bergstrom's Wheat Coffee and got out the sample-sized paper cups. Spotted a purple wrapper from the huckleberry chocolates in the wastebasket. Tracy was right—we needed a replacement soon.

I added a mental note about Angelo to my list of things to discuss with Fresca.

Had that misstep sparked his fight with Claudette? Seemed unlikely—she'd left the Merc months ago, so why would she care now? With Dean's deception, she'd had plenty of new problems on her mind.

Or had she known his secret, whatever it was? What would he have done to protect it?

“Wonder if Dean and Linda will show their smarmy faces at the memorial service,” Tracy said, twisting a lock of hair.

“They have to, if they don't want everyone in town talking about his affair.” Or suspecting them of murder. “Sometimes you have to show up, to shut people up.”

“I told her not to go to Las Vegas.”

“Must have sounded like an adventure. Claudette loved to have fun.”

She teared up and I fetched a box of tissue. “I told her,” she said, “never move for a man just because you're afraid of being alone. She said don't assume she was making a mistake just because I had, that Dean wasn't like Mitch. She said not to begrudge her happiness and now she's dead. And she came back and she didn't tell me or call me and I never saw her alive again.”

At least Tracy'd had reason to be angry with Claudette. I'd been ticked at my dad over some teenage tantrum, some “no” I hadn't wanted to hear.

I hugged her and handed her the tissue box. Anger plus sudden death equals longtime guilt.

* * *

T
racy opened the shop, and Fresca came in to prepare the funeral food we'd promised. First, though, she read me the riot act for not telling her about the spaghetti sauce incident, and made me promise to install a security system at the Merc. I didn't bother pointing out that it would not have detected vandalism in the parking lot.

I snuck upstairs to see if any of Claudette's friends had responded to my message. Several had. No surprise—they'd all loved her, couldn't believe the news. None expressed any fondness for Dean. One called meeting Claudette the highlight of the class. I printed that message to share at the service.

How is it,
wrote a man whose profile picture bore an uncanny resemblance to the King,
that a dud of a dude winds up with such a dandy girlfriend?

I'd never thought of it quite that way. Apparently as undistinguished an aspiring Elvis as he was a healer, Dean had attracted two fun-loving, sparkly women. Who had little else in common, besides being foodies who couldn't cook. Claudette had been sweet, if unreliable, and Linda was a harpy. Of course, Linda's husband had run off with another woman in a very public way. That would mess up anyone's mood.

She must really love him, to take him back and to defend him. In protecting him, she was also protecting their daughters. Linda Vincent as noble protector was a hard one to swallow. Keeping “Dr. Dean” off the stage and in the chiropractic office benefitted her financially as well.

The final message snagged my eye.
So sad. Hanging out with Claudette by the pool, it was obvious things weren't going the way she hoped. Too bad Dean couldn't appreciate her—but what else could you expect?!!?