Death of a Crabby Cook (12 page)

Naturally, Dillon disappeared again, claiming he had more “investigating” to do, but he promised to keep in touch so his mother wouldn't worry. I spent the rest of the day helping Aunt Abby by taking orders from the onslaught of the festival crowd. By seven o'clock, my feet hurt from standing, my neck ached from craning out of the School Bus window, and my arm throbbed from the pain of my earlier fall, giving me little time to ponder the murders. But by the time I got back to the RV, my mind was spinning like a whisk with all that had happened.

My reporter habits kicked in, and my first thought when I arrived home was to write up what I knew. The events over the past couple of days were a story waiting to be told. In fact, I thought if I could scoop Trevor and
find out why the two men were murdered, I could write it up for the
Chronicle
and maybe get my old job back. At the very least I'd be paid a much-needed wad of cash for being first with the news.

I poured myself a glass of bargain merlot and opened my laptop. I'd spent so many years writing restaurant reviews, I was afraid I'd lost my touch for front-page headliners. But I was no crime writer; I was a food critic. Did the two have anything in common? Could I gather the ingredients for a good story, build it into a compelling, step-by-step narrative, and actually have it turn out as meaty as a perfectly grilled filet?

Or was I so rusty it would be more of an undercooked pile of mush?

My phone rang, disrupting my vision of an above-the-fold byline.

“It's a Small World.” Aunt Abby.

“Darcy? Come in the house! The cops are here!” She hung up before I could say hello.

I glanced out the back window of the RV and saw the back of a black-and-white car parked in front of Aunt Abby's house.

Uh-oh.

I rushed out of the RV and around the side of the house to the front, where I found not one but two cop cars. Two officers from each car were getting out of the official vehicles.

“What's going on?” I called to them.

One of the officers had a hand on the gun that hung from his belt. His other hand rested on the handcuffs that dangled down. He looked like he was ready for anything.

Receiving no answer, I said again, “What are you doing?” My voice rose as panic set in.

“Step back, ma'am,” the officer next to him said. He raised a warning hand, gesturing for me to halt.

I tried to scramble up the steps ahead of the two officers, but the second cop stopped abruptly and I bumped into him, hitting my sore arm.

“Ouch,” I cried out, cradling my arm.

“Stand back,” he said again, this time more forcefully.

I took a step back. “Wait a minute! This is my aunt Abby's home. What do you want with her?”

Even as the words came out of my mouth, I had a feeling why they were there. That container of poison they'd found in the trash behind Boris's truck earlier. I was sure it had my aunt's fingerprints all over it.

Keeping my distance, I followed the two officers to the front door, while the other two stood back by their cars.

“This is harassment!” I said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind. “I'm calling my lawyer!”

Ignoring me, the first cop pounded on the door. “Police! Open up!” he commanded.

Seconds later Aunt Abby appeared at the door. She looked as white as cake flour. I stepped around the cop and stood next to my aunt, who seemed about to faint.

“Can't you leave her alone? She's innocent!” I said.

The first cop turned to Aunt Abby. “Are you Abigail Warner, the owner of this house?”

Eyes as wide as saucepans, Aunt Abby bit her lip and gave a slight nod.

“We have a warrant to search your home.” He looked at the second cop, who held up a handful of papers.

Aunt Abby slowly took the papers and scanned them. She gazed up at the cops with tears in her eyes.

“Step aside, ma'am.”

Aunt Abby did as she was told, but I didn't move from my spot.

“What are you looking for?” I cried as the two officers stepped around me and entered the foyer.

Cop number two nodded toward the sheaf of papers Aunt Abby held limply in her hand. Her hand fell open and the papers floated to the floor. I knelt down to gather them up and froze. While one of the sheets was indeed a warrant to search Aunt Abby's home, the other caught me by surprise.

I looked up at the officer, shaking my head. “What the hell is this?”

“That is an arrest warrant for Dillon Edward Warner.”

“Dillon?!” I said, not expecting this turn of events at all. “But . . . but . . .”

But what? I'd been so ready to defend my innocent aunt, I had nothing to say about my cousin.

The two cops shouldered past us and began searching the house. While we waited in the foyer, I whispered to Aunt Abby, “Do you know where Dillon is?”

She shook her head and twisted the ring on her finger. “I haven't seen him since I left Fort Mason. He wasn't here when I got home.”

Worry lines creased her forehead, and I squeezed her hand, trying to comfort her. I knew she was concerned about her son, but this time I was glad he'd gone missing. Was this about Dillon's computer hacking? After all, that was the reason he gave for going AWOL and wearing a disguise.

Or did it have something to do with the murders?

Of course not! What was I thinking? Dillon had been using the Internet to find out more about the two victims so he could help his mother.

So what did the police want with him?

The two officers emerged from Dillon's room, carrying what looked like most of his computer equipment. In
spite of everything he had, I'd only seen him use his laptop, which he carried with him everywhere. At the moment, that laptop didn't appear to be among the stuff the cops had confiscated.

No doubt Dillon had it with him. And hopefully there wasn't anything incriminating on the computers he'd left behind. Surely Dillon was too smart for that.

Or was he?

After the police headed out the door with their loads, I turned to Aunt Abby and whispered, “Any idea what they're going to find on those computers?”

“Nothing,” she said matter-of-factly. “He uses hard-drive encryption. Even if the cops try to open his files, it will immediately boot and ask for a password. No password? No access.”

I stared at my aunt. “How do you know all this?”

“Dillon told me after he got in trouble with the university. He said the encryption he uses is military grade, so he should be safe.”

I was surprised and impressed by her tech savvy. “Wow. Can they get his password?”

“Nope. Even if they catch him, they can't force him to give up his password.”

“Really!”

“Yeah, but that only works with the police. If someone like the mob wanted his password, they'd use the ‘type in your password or lose a finger' method of recovery.”

Yikes. Good thing the mob wasn't after him. At least, I hoped that was the case.

The two officers returned and headed back down the hall to Dillon's room. Moments later they came out with
more of the electronic equipment. At least they left Ratty.

As soon as they were outside again, I said, “The cops probably have their own computer geeks who can figure this stuff out.”

Aunt Abby shook her head. “Dillon always copies his files onto a thumb drive and then uses a hard-drive cleaner to wipe all traces of the files. Something called DBAN. Apparently that and Sledgehammer Crusher are the standards for hard-drive destruction, along with Sledgehammer Manual Crusher.”

I couldn't believe all the techno-words coming out of my aunt Abby's pert little mouth. And here I thought her vocabulary was mainly limited to “stir,” “braise,” and “sauté.”

We spotted one of the officers about to get into his squad car. Aunt Abby ran out to him and cried, “Hey! Where are you taking my son's computers? You said you had a warrant to search my house, not to steal stuff!”

I grabbed my aunt's arm and held her back, afraid she might do something stupid like threaten one of the cops with a carving knife, like she'd done to Oliver Jameson. Assaulting the police would only make things worse, and arguing wouldn't help either. I'd done enough of that for the both of us.

The officer stuck his head out of the driver's window and handed Aunt Abby a piece of paper. “Here's a receipt for everything. But I'd advise you, Ms. Warner, if you know where your son is, you should tell us. Withholding information or harboring a fugitive is a felony.”

“I told you—I haven't seen him for several days,” she replied, lying through her perfect white teeth.

“Well, if you do, you need to contact us. Understand?”

Aunt Abby's mouth dropped open as if she were about to say something else, but she pressed her lips together and nodded. She glanced at the receipt and added, “When can I get my son's stuff back?”

“We'll be in touch,” he tossed back. With both vehicles loaded with computer equipment, the police officers drove off, leaving my aunt and me standing at the curb, wondering what had just happened.

We walked back inside and I closed the front door behind me. Aunt Abby led the way to the kitchen. It looked like she'd been in the midst of preparing mini potpies for her food truck when she was interrupted by the police. Dozens of dough-lined foil bowls sat on the counter, filled with what looked like a mixture of meat and vegetables.

Instead of returning to her work, Aunt Abby plopped down on a stool and let out a big sigh.

I rubbed her shoulders for a few minutes, then opened her cupboard and pulled out a bottle of chardonnay. Filling two glasses nearly to the rim, I handed one to Aunt Abby and joined her on the second stool. After a long sip, I set down the glass and reached for my aunt's hand. She stared into her wineglass as if in a trance.

“Aunt Abby?” I said gently.

She blinked and looked at me.

“Are you going to be all right?”

She nodded. “I'm just worried about Dillon.” She took a sip of the medicinal wine.

“Any idea where he is?”

She shook her head.

I frowned. “Are you sure?”

“Honestly. I have no idea. I'm just glad he wasn't here.”

My thoughts exactly.

She took another, longer gulp. Remembering how intoxicated she'd been the other night, I wondered if serving her wine was a good idea. I decided to get her talking more and drinking less.

“Why do you think the police want to talk to him?”

She took another sip. Apparently my questioning only made her want to drink more.

“I'm sure it has to do with his hacking. I told you, the feds have been watching him since he left college.”

“But those weren't federal officers, Aunt Abby,” I told her. “They were SFPD.”

“They all work in cahoots together,” she said.

I sat silently for a moment, hesitating to continue, not wanting to upset her—or cause her to drink more. But I wondered if she was holding back information about Dillon.

“Aunt Abby, is there any chance Dillon did something to protect you, maybe something involving Oliver or Boris . . . ?”

She looked at me as if I'd just thrown wine in her face. “Of course not! How can you ask that? Dillon would never harm anyone, not even to protect me. And besides, I don't need any protection! I can take care of myself.”

Except for the fact that you were a suspect up until recently,
I thought,
and maybe still are.
Instead, I said, “Any chance you're protecting
him
?”

“No! There's no reason to protect him. He didn't
do
anything.”

“Except break into some computers.”

“He only did that to help me when the cops thought I might have killed Oliver Jameson.”

“All right, if you're sure, then there's something we need to do.”

“What?” Aunt Abby asked, her tight face softening.

“We have to find who killed those two chefs. And we'd better do it soon, before Dillon finds himself in bigger trouble than computer hacking.”

Aunt Abby's eyes lit up. She slid off her stool and opened a nearby kitchen drawer. Unlike the rest of her neatly organized cabinets, this was a mess of odds and ends—the classic junk drawer. After riffling through the chaos, she withdrew a Mickey Mouse pad of paper and a pen that read “Pirates of the Caribbean,” and brought them back to the counter.

“All right, Darcy. Let's
do
this,” she said.

I smiled. “Okay. Well, first we need some suspects. I've been trying to come up with a list of anyone who had a problem with either Oliver Jameson or Boris Obregar. Then we have to find some sort of connection between the two dead men.”

Aunt Abby began writing down names as I called them out from my list, which included everyone from the Fort Mason food truckers to the delivery people to the restaurant owners nearby. She had nearly thirty names down before I stopped feeding them to her.

“I think we can move most of these to the bottom of the list,” I said, glancing at her notes, “since it seems like only a handful of the food vendors had a problem with either Jameson or Boris. Tripp stays at the top of the list for his argument with Boris, but I wonder if he had problems with Oliver too. So what do we have?”

Aunt Abby numbered them as she read the names aloud.

“Number one is Tripp, for obvious reasons. Numbers two and three are Sierra and Vandy, because they were hassled by Boris for being vegans. And number four is Willow, since she'd had several run-ins with him as well.”

“Really?” I asked. “Willow and Boris didn't get along?”

“Nope,” Aunt Abby said. “She told me he was always hitting on her and wouldn't take no for an answer. Sleazeball. And the rest had problems with Oliver, since he wanted to get rid of the food trucks.”

“I wonder if Tripp made deliveries at Bones 'n' Brew too,” I said.

Aunt Abby shrugged.

“Well, anyway, we're off to a good start. Anyone else?” I asked.

Aunt Abby tapped the counter. “What about Cherry Washington, Boris's assistant?”

“Right! I saw her in Tripp's delivery truck that night.”

Aunt Abby added Cherry's name to the list.

“Something's going on between those two,” I said. “Any idea what Cherry's motive might be?”

Aunt Abby thought for a moment, then said, “Maybe she was having an affair with Tripp and Boris was jealous!”

I almost laughed. “I doubt it, Aunt Abby. An attractive young woman like Cherry Washington would hardly be interested in a bore like Boris. Anyone else?”

Aunt Abby tapped the counter again.

I hesitated, then offered, “Uh, what about Jake Miller? Did he have any problems with Boris?”

“Don't be silly!” Aunt Abby said. “Jake wouldn't hurt anyone! He's a sweetheart. . . .” She suddenly drifted off.

“Aunt Abby?” I said, wondering where she'd gone. “I know that look. You just remembered something, didn't you? Something about Jake?”

She took another sip of wine.

“Aunt Abby! Spill it!” I demanded.

“It's nothing. Really.”

“Then tell me!”

Aunt Abby turned to face me and took a deep breath. “All right. This one time, Boris asked Jake why, if so many cops frequented his cream puff truck, he didn't sell doughnuts. Jake told him that he had a lot of friends at SFPD because he used to be a lawyer, and not all cops eat doughnuts. Boris made some kind of rude remark—a pig reference—and after that, it was like Boris avoided Jake and vice versa. That's what Jake said, anyway.”

Remembering what Dillon had found out about Boris's arrest record, I wasn't surprised he'd avoided Jake. But that hardly gave Jake a motive to kill Boris. Was there something more to it than that? Something Jake hadn't shared with Aunt Abby? Had he had another run-in with Boris we didn't know about? Or with Oliver Jameson?

“Well,” I said, “maybe he had a beef, so to speak, with Boris, but it doesn't sound like anything that would lead to murder.”

Aunt Abby took another sip of wine. It was such a tell. I narrowed my eyes at her.

“Aunt Abby?”

“What?”

“What!”

“Nothing,” she said. “It's just that, well, another time I overheard Oliver threatening Jake about his cream puffs. He said something about offering a new menu item—cream puffs—and accused Jake of stealing his secret recipe. Jake just blew him off. At least, as far as I know.”

Either that or he blew him away,
I thought.

“Did you ever ask Jake about this?”

“Of course not. It was none of my business. Besides, Jake would never steal recipes. I told you. He's a sweetheart.”

I took the pen from Aunt Abby's hand and wrote down “Jake Miller.”

Maybe there was something more sinister hidden inside that cream puff we knew as Jake Miller.