Hot Stuff (29 page)

I fully expected him to walk to the locker room. Instead, he stopped short of the hallway's end and opened the door to Bouvier's office.

“Shit, what business does he have in there?”

I had no idea. The workings of a professional kitchen were foreign to me, and I was simply an observer.

Vanderfield walked out within twenty seconds and proceeded down the hall to the kitchen. We were not privy to Chef Marty's tirade when his number two sous chef finally showed up back in the kitchen.

“Movement,” I motioned to the screen. “Bottom left.”

Someone walking out, the glare of the light destroying any chance of recognition.

Then there was no action. Everyone was either outside the building or in the kitchen whipping up wonderful creations for the well-to-do diners.

I picked up my beer and walked to the patio. The video wasn't getting us anywhere.

“Skip, get back in here,” Em called, urgency in her voice.

“What?”

“Look who's walking in.”

Bottom left screen, a cook with their head down. As the person approached the door, she lifted her eyes as if staring right into the camera lens.

“Kelly Fields.”

“What we're missing is Amanda.” James pointed at the screen.

“She may have been one of the people exiting, or maybe she was already outside.”

“And we won't be able to tell due to that damned floodlight.”

“Kids,” James stood up, grasping his bottle, “we're missing something.”

“No shit,” I muttered.

“Maybe Conway and company are missing it, too.”

Em smirked. “And you know what this missing component is?”

“We know Chef Jean walked outside. Where had he been?”

“In the kitchen,” I ventured. “He had to be in the kitchen to reach the door.”

“Where before that?”

“His office.”

“Exactly.”

“James, it is his office.”

“Who else was in that office?”

“We saw Sophia go in,” Em said.

“We did. And Joaquin Vanderfield.”

“And who knows who else during the course of the evening.”

He nodded, watching the screen.

“I think we're onto something.”

“What?”

“There's something in the office that the killer wants.”

I pictured the cramped space. A desk, one chair, a file cabinet, badly framed photos on the wall, the monitor and recorder—

“The tool chest.”

“Tool chest?” Em hadn't been there.

“Exactly.” James was waving his beer bottle like a conductor waves his baton. “The tool chest where he keeps his knives.”

“So what are you suggesting? Everyone who works there has a knife. Their own knife. Or knives.”

“And they apparently still have their knives. Yet one showed up in my locker, and we found that one in the garbage truck.”

“So the killer had an extra knife.”

“Maybe. But I think we need to check out the tool chest.”

“You're crazy.”

We had no idea what was in those drawers. Bouvier had told us it was his personal collection of knives, but we hadn't seen them. I agreed with Em. James was crazy.

“Do you remember how many knives he claimed were in those drawers?”

I did not.

“Thirty-seven, Skip.”

“He told us that?” I was trying to remember.

“He did. I remember thinking how much it would cost to replace mine. Over one hundred dollars. I was doing the math in my head. I thought there could be almost four thousand dollars' or more worth of cutlery in that red chest.”

No one spoke. James walked to the open balcony door, staring out at South Beach and beyond. There were parties going on,
wild, drunk fests. Tourists and locals were eating and drinking at all-night venues, having the time of their lives. And here we were watching a silent black-and-white video, trying to make some sense of the whole thing.

Finally Em asked the question. “So what do we do next?”

She usually had all the answers.

“I say we open the chest. We see if there really are thirty-seven knives in there.”

“And I say that's the dumbest idea yet.”

He turned and gave Em a benevolent smile.

“Do you have a better one?”

“What's it going to prove?”

“Maybe nothing. But isn't this job about the process of elimination?”

“Enlighten me, Mr. Lessor. Exactly what are we eliminating.”

Pausing for a moment, he drained his second beer.

“Bouvier told Skip and me that he believed in going with your gut instinct. I'm inclined to agree with him. My gut instinct is to open the chest and see how many knives there are.”

“What are we eliminating?”

He took her hand and she took it back rather quickly.

“Em, I think one of the staff walked into Bouvier's office and took a knife from his tool chest. I think the murder weapon came from that chest. If I'm right, then we see who was in the office. So far we saw Sophia and Vanderfield, and we can assume that Bouvier himself was there.”

“Chef Bouvier gave you a knife. Remember?” James had been surprised. “You told me that Chef Marty handed you a knife after yours came up missing. He told you that Bouvier wanted you to have it.”

“So that brings the count down to thirty-six knives. If there are fewer than thirty-six knives, there's a possibility the knife that
Cheryl Deitering has came from Bouvier's chest. And I would guess there's limited access to those knives.”

“So what now, James? You're suggesting we count knives?”

“It may prove nothing. Maybe he gave other employees knives.”

“It's worth a look.”

“Everyone in on this?” I looked at Em.

Throwing up her hands she said, “On what? On agreeing that you two are idiots?”

“Play nice, Emily,” James said. “I've got a way to do this.”

“How?”

James reached into his pocket and pulled out his two misshapen paper clips.

“Your friendly locksmith is ready and willing.”

“Honest to God, James,” Em picked up the empty Yuengling bottles and took them to the kitchen. “Why don't you just ask Bouvier if he'll show you the knives?”

“Two problems with that, Em. Number one, what if he says no? Then we're right back where we are now. And number two, we think there's a possibility that Jean Bouvier may be a suspect.”

“A suspect?”

“Kelly Fields says Amanda slept her way to the top. There is no further to go than Chef Jean. And what if she was blackmailing him?”

“James, I'm going to say something that I've thought for a long time. Sometimes I don't think you've got a brain in that handsome head of yours.”

I still wasn't certain what we were going to prove, but James was bound and determined that the answer to our case was in Bouvier's tool chest.

I'd bought into this thing from the start, so I agreed to go with him. Em had never bought into James, even though she was responsible for our current position, but she refused to be a part of another breaking and entering.

We departed with the five CDs and two former paper clips.

“Let's say we find the thirty-seven knives—”

“Thirty-six. Chef Jean gave me one of his, remember?”

“Thirty-six. It means nothing. Any one of those people we saw going into the office could have picked up a knife.”

“But I'm guessing only one did.”

I had James stop at the all-night Walgreens on Biscayne Boulevard and I bought a small magnet, the kind you stick on the refrigerator to hold a bill or important piece of paper. We had several bills on ours, at all times. Electric, water, cable, Internet, all at least two months old.

“You can bypass the security system with that?”

“This one I think I can.” I'd seen the contacts several times and they weren't installed very well. Usually, the installation requires someone to hide the magnetic contacts between the door and the frame. The installer will put putty or some covering over the small metal contacts. “The contacts are out in the open on this install, so we'll know where to place the magnet.”

We reached the restaurant in fifteen minutes, and James pulled into an apartment complex across the street.

“Don't want to be too obvious.”

“So you really think you can pick the lock on this place?”

“Pretty sure. And I've brought along a man who knows security systems.”

It was one thirty in the morning, and fortunately the moon was behind a cloud bank over the bay. James pulled out his tools, as they were, and proceeded to wiggle the rake. It sounded like a new dance craze or something dirty you would do in bed.

“Once it's open,” he said, “are you ready with the magnet?”

“You just get it open.”

He moved it back and forth, up and down, all the time applying some pressure with the other clip.

“You just put another magnet over the one in the frame?”

“I explained it to you. This system isn't a sophisticated motion detector. It's simply two magnets that make contact with each other. When they are separated, the circuit is broken.”

He continued working the metal rods.

“So, when you open the door, the two magnets are no longer together and the alarm sounds.”

He nodded his head, concentrating on his motion. A circular pattern, then up and down. He would end with two diagonal movements, moving the metal pieces quickly to the right and down to the left, then left to right.

“Once you get the door open just wide enough to see the contact, you quickly put another magnet over the one mounted
in the door frame. That will be the wired connection. You trick the system into believing that there's still a connection and,” I hesitated for effect, “voilà. No alarm sounds.”

“You've learned your trade well, Grasshopper.”

“On the other hand, if the magnet isn't strong enough, or is too strong, it could send the wrong signal and we could be in some deep shit.”

“Not much chance of that happening, right?”

“Actually, there's a good chance.”

“Well,” he pulled the thin rods from the lock and shrugged his shoulders, “time to test your theory. The lock is officially picked.”

I'd read about it. I'd never done it.

“How much time after you open the door before the thing goes off?”

“Half a second. Maybe less.”

“It's like when you watch a college basketball game and they make the last second last for five minutes?”

“Actually, James, it's not like that at all. When I open that door, I've got to place this magnet on the mounted contact immediately. And the polarity has to be correct. If it's wrong, they push against each other and we're screwed.”

“I thought you said this was a piece of cake.”

“Never said it, James. I simply said it could be done.”

We both pulled on latex gloves, and I reached for the handle. My hand was actually shaking, and I took a deep breath to calm myself. I started over, both hands now down at my sides.

“Gloves, dude.” In the dim light I saw James smile. “Should have worn them when we found the knife in the locker. You see, we've come a long way.”

I didn't think we'd come nearly far enough.

Holding the magnet in my right hand, I reached for the handle with my left. If the polarity was wrong, maybe there was
still a chance I could turn the piece of metal over and quickly place it against the contact. The chance of that success was almost zero percent.

“You gonna do it?”

I nodded.

“Then let's get it done.”

“James, seriously, this might not work. That alarm may go off immediately.”

“Skip, in the scheme of things, it's not that big a deal.”

“You think the answer to this case may be in Bouvier's office?”