Simmer Down (12 page)

Even with the dim lighting, I spotted Hannah right away.

She was not at home! Not at home having my boyfriend prepare dinner for her! She was not with my boyfriend at all! What had I been thinking? There was no way Josh was going to leave Simmer the night before the opening to cook for Hannah Banana! On second thought, it was still early enough for her to meet up with Josh later. Watching Hannah, I realized that she was at Eclipse because she was working. Standing at the back of the bar, she held a clipboard and was scanning the room and making notes. If I were Hannah, I thought, I’d be writing,
The terrible food should be updated with refreshing new cuisine. Lose the circa 1980 neon, and install comfortable seating.

Coming to my senses, I realized with a jolt that I definitely did not want to be caught by Josh’s ex while out with my ex. Hannah would love to let Josh know that I was at a bar with Sean. I had to escape before she saw me.

Sean had his back to Hannah, and I tried to angle my body so she wouldn’t see me. I did my best to crouch down in my seat, which was, of course, a barstool and consequently didn’t lend itself to crouching. The result of my effort was to make me look as if I had early-onset osteoporosis. “Sean, I’ve got to run, but I’m glad you asked me about calling the police, and it was good to see you again.” I reached for money to cover my drink, of which I’d had only half.

Sean stopped me. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it. I’m meeting someone anyway, but it was good to see you, too.” He didn’t seem offended by my eat-and-run attitude, so it was easy to avoid an awkward good-bye. I gave him a quick, polite hug and left Eclipse.

I was halfway home before my car finally warmed up. I thought holiday thoughts and admired the preparations for First Night, Boston’s annual New Year’s Eve celebration. Ice sculptures were taking shape. Banners had been hung over the streets, and strings of lights were strewn across trees. Feeling the residual effects of Global Warming, I succumbed to maudlin reflection: it was all so beautiful, and I was in a rotten mood.

I was glad that Sean had sought my opinion instead of going directly to the police to report on the altercation between Hannah and Oliver, but the possibility that Naomi might also have witnessed it left me with a terrible feeling. Had her passion for her work become violent passion? Naomi was admittedly eccentric, but there was a beautiful purity about her fervent devotion to her cause. The image of Naomi behind bars was horrifying. On the one hand, Oliver’s murder was an inexcusable offense. On the other hand, I couldn’t let Naomi, of all people, go to jail.

I
arrived back at the condo to find Noah once again on the wooden structure on the back of the building that served as a fire escape and outside stairway. On the night before New Year’s Eve, he was belatedly stringing lights. Clad only in a pair of workout pants, he looked ready to provide bodily services at any moment to any interested woman who happened upon him.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, put on some clothes,” I snapped as I brushed past him. “This weather we’re having? It’s called winter.”

“Aren’t we cranky tonight,” he commented, smirking.

“Yes, ‘we’ are.” Stomping up the stairs, I hoped I was accidentally-on-purpose kicking wet slush down on top of him. “And having to look at your ass isn’t helping.”

“That’s not what you used to say,” he hollered.

Must he constantly remind me of last summer’s indiscretion? I reached my landing, jumped up and down, and mashed wet snow between the cracks in the floor boards. Then I dumped an old window box full of ice water down on him.

“Hey, cut it out! You’re not very full of the holiday spirit!”

I slammed my back door. If only it’d been cold enough earlier this week, I could have sent icicle spikes through his head.

Suddenly exhausted, I flopped down on my bed and grabbed the cordless phone from the nightstand. Three messages: Doug, Adrianna, and Josh. I kicked off my shoes and listened to the first one, from my friend Doug, who confirmed that he would pick me up at six forty-five tomorrow night to go to Simmer. Doug was so much fun that I was embarrassed to realize that I’d completely forgotten he was coming with me tomorrow night. He was a doctoral student at my graduate school and a teaching assistant in a couple of my classes. I’d met him the previous September, on my first day of social work school, when he’d rescued me in the bookshop by tossing most of my so-called required reading back onto the shelves, thereby saving me hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours of boredom. Adrianna, who was extremely envious that I had a gay friend, had been bugging me for months to ask Doug to hook her up with one of his gay friends. Since she’d started working on her own and was out of the salon scene, she’d lost touch with “her boys,” as she phrased it.

I dialed her number. “My gay friend is escorting me to Simmer tomorrow. Guess you’re stuck with a plain heterosexual to bring you, huh?”

“Damn you!” she snapped back at me. “Where’s mine?”

“Gay people are not like Halloween candy. He doesn’t have a stockpile that he just goes handing out to whoever asks!” I insisted. I couldn’t very well go to Doug to request that he fix up one of his homosexual friends with one of my straight friends as if he ran some backwards dating service. Still, having a good gay man in her life was every woman’s dream, so I felt a little selfish about not wanting to share Doug. At the same time, I felt possessive; Doug was mine. Ade would have to go find her own.

Ade said, “Well, Owen will just have to do. Anyhow, I had a great time today, and Kayla set me up to go in and do some volunteer stuff with the women at Moving On. I’m so psyched to do this, so thank you for bringing me today.”

“Ade, that’s great! I’m so glad this worked out.” I’d taken Adrianna with me to Moving On mainly because I’d gone into a panic when I’d been informed that we social work students were required to volunteer somewhere for the day. Other students were reviewing mental, and maybe even written, lists of their own talents and figuring out ways to put those gifts to good use. My friend Julie, for example, decided to help remodel the common room in a subsidized apartment building. I was barely able to hammer in a nail without fracturing my hand, and it took only one glance around my condo to know my painting skills had never advanced beyond the preschool level. Bursting with enthusiasm, I had no capacity to paint within the confines of pesky walls and floors. Having no discernable talents, I’d decided to volunteer Adrianna’s services.

“So, Chloe, guess who called me today? Dora! Oliver’s wife?” she reminded me.

“Why did she call you?”

“Remember? I told you. I do her hair. She called to see if I could come over tomorrow to get her ready for New Year’s Eve. Typical. It’s just like Dora to call at the last minute. But can you believe that it’s been only a couple of days since her husband died, and she’s worried about her hair? God. As much as I like hair, if Owen were murdered, I’d have other things on my mind besides whether or not my roots were showing.” She paused. “Probably.”

Dora, the happy widow, thrilled to be rid of her nasty husband, celebrates by glamming up for the night? Dora killed her husband and was now celebrating? Aren’t most murders committed by the family or friends of the victim? Maybe Oliver hadn’t been harassing Hannah but had just been hitting on her, and if that was the case, it probably hadn’t been the first time he’d gone after another woman. I could see it all: Dora, fed up with her husband’s philandering, or attempted philandering, had whacked him! Naomi was thus off the hook. Unfortunately, so was Hannah. Unless the two of them had conspired…?

“Can I come with you?” I begged. “I’m kind of curious about her. We can say I’m your assistant.”

“Didn’t she meet you the other night at the gallery?” Adrianna pointed out.

“Oh. Good point. Well, she probably won’t remember me. And if she does, who says I can’t be a social work student interning as a stylist-in-training? She’s not going to care. Just let me come with you.”

“Fine. I think this is ridiculous, but whatever you want. Just be prepared to stand there and hold hairpins for an hour. Dora likes weird updos with complicated twists.”

Next, I called Josh back at Simmer.

“Yeah?” he said into the phone, obviously swamped.

“It’s me. Just returning your call. What’s up?” I asked.

“It’s mayhem here. I’m going to be working all night. And get this. I found out Gavin is bribing that restaurant reviewer, Mishti Patil, to write a glowing preview review of the restaurant. Can you believe that? I don’t need some pity review. She’s coming tomorrow, and she’d see on her own how the food is. This is bullshit,” he vented to me.

“Oh, my God. I can’t believe Gavin did that. That is so insulting, Josh! And I can’t believe Mishti could be bribed. I thought she was a straight-and-narrow tough reviewer. That’s why she has so much clout, isn’t it?”

“I guess she’ not so straight and narrow after all.”

“How did you find out? I assume Gavin didn’t just tell you. Or did he?”

“No, one of my dishwashers, Javier, heard it. Gavin probably thought he didn’t understand English, and he must’ve mouthed off about what he was doing when Javier was nearby.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing. What can I do? Anyhow, that Isabelle girl is here. She seems like a good kid. She doesn’t know how to do anything, and she’s probably wondering what you got her into, but she’s working tomorrow just because I need the extra set of hands. Let’s hope we don’t scare her off.”

I hesitated. “What are you going to have her do?” What had I done to poor Isabelle? She was going to be caught in a kitchen storm with Josh and Snacker yelling at everyone, screaming for orders to be put up, and generally behaving like psychotic chefs on an opening night. I hoped she would understand that would not be the norm at Simmer. Or I hoped it wouldn’t be the norm.

“Oh, she’ll be busy doing whatever I need done. I’m going to show her how to prep some of the vegetables for me in the morning, and then at service, I’ll have her fill in wherever she can. And she’ll probably help keep the kitchen clean while we’re working. I’m going to give her a quick tour of the kitchen tomorrow morning, and then I’ll keep her with me to go run and grab anything I need. She’ll be okay. I’ll take care of her, so don’t worry,” he reassured me.

“Okay. Just give her my number if she needs anything. I’ll let you go. I miss you already,” I confessed.

“I know, babe. I miss you, too. I’ll call you in the morning, all right?”

“Hang in there.”

I clicked the phone off and sulked for a few minutes. Josh’s schedule was going to leave little time for love.

W
HY
Dora needed her hair done at nine in the morning was beyond me. I hit the snooze button on the alarm clock and pulled the blanket over my head. It was still dark out. To my mind, no one should be forced out of bed to cater to the whims of the widowed rich. If I was this grumpy about waking up, Ade, morning person that she wasn’t, would be twice as cranky.

I hit snooze two more times until I finally convinced myself that it was absolutely necessary to pry myself out from under the covers if I wanted to look relatively awake when Adrianna picked me up. It took me twenty minutes to pick out what I thought a hair stylist’s assistant should wear. I ended up settling on simple black pants and a white top: universal employee attire.

I opened the fridge to check for something to eat and found nothing that interested me. I wasn’t a fan of most breakfast food, and unless I could arrange for fresh pastries and muffins to be delivered to me daily, my interest in breakfast wasn’t going to increase. I did love eggs Benedict and overstuffed omelettes, but the odds of my making hollandaise sauce or whipping up an omelette early in the morning were slim. Besides, my homemade omelettes were never as good as the ones I got eating out or the ones I used to get at my college cafeteria. As absolutely terrible as most of the food was in college, the omelettes were outstanding. Unfortunately, hot breakfast was served during the week only until eight thirty—eight thirty in the
morning
—and since I never scheduled a class before ten, I had to be desperate for food to get up early. Lunch and dinner had bar themes: a gas-inducing taco bar, a dried-out baked potato bar, an overcooked-pasta bar, and sometimes a who-the-hell-wants-waffles-for-lunch-or-dinner bar. The food was so bad that I started going to the salad bar and microwaving weird combinations in the hope of creating something edible. My greatest success, or so it seemed at the time, was cold rice mixed with ranch dressing, curry powder, and peas, the whole concoction micro-waved to a blazing temperature to suggest an Indian dish. In retrospect, it sounds pretty gross, but at the time, it wasn’t half bad.

Adrianna beeped her horn at eight forty-five, just as I was fitting the top on my to-go coffee cup. I raced downstairs.

“Morning,” Ade grumbled.

“Too early for you?” I asked as I settled into the passenger seat.

“You’re not kidding. What’s Dora going to do after I do her hair? Sit around all day and pose? Stupid woman.” Oh, she was grumpy. Not that I enjoyed being roused at an early hour, but Ade was resentful; she was working at this hour only because she needed the money. “Anyhow,” she said, grabbing my coffee out of my hand, “what’d you do last night? And is this caffeinated?”

I cleared my throat, ready to be reprimanded. “Yes, it’s caffeinated, and I saw Sean last night.”

Since my dear friend was, at best, a terrible driver, I should’ve known better than to break the news about seeing my ex-boyfriend to her while she was behind the wheel. While she stared at me, I stared at the road with the intention of alerting her to the presence of random obstacles, like other cars or human beings. “It’s not a big deal. Could you just try to drive, please?”

She swerved to avoid barreling into a parked car and turned right onto Beacon Street. Thank God, there was barely any traffic. On the morning of New Year’s Eve, the whole city seemed like a ghost town.

“Why would you see Sean?” she demanded.

I explained his Hannah dilemma and why he’d called me.

“He couldn’t have talked to you over the phone? He had to see you in person? Please, Chloe, he’s still hung up on you.”

“What? No, he is not,” I insisted. “He just, well…Oh, shit. Do you really think so? He wasn’t acting like it.”

Adrianna smiled and raised her eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t he be, right?”

“Shut up. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. I don’t think I’ll see him again, and I’m glad we can at least be friendly after I dumped him so hard.”

“Hm-hmm. Should Josh be worried?”

“No, Josh should not be worried! How can you even ask that?” Now I was getting grumpy.

“I’m just checking. Relax. Josh is great. I’m just making sure there are no lingering feelings. Oh, I forgot to tell you. I stopped into Simmer last night.”

“You did?” I grabbed the dashboard as we peeled a corner.

“Yeah. I got a little tour. It looks great.”

“Where was Owen?”

“He had a
gig
, as he said. A puppeteer gig, if you can believe it. Some show for kids or something. It’s ridiculous. So I wanted to get out of the house, and I figured I’d go down and check out the new place.”

“And Josh was there?” I asked hopefully.

“Of course he was there. Where else would he be?”

“I don’t know. Cooking a late-night dinner for Hannah?”

“You’re crazy. He was working like a dog when I was there. Oh, here’s Dora’s street.”

We got to Dora’s house—or should I say palace?—and parked next to a Bentley. Yes, I swear to God, a Bentley, which mercifully, Adrianna avoided hitting. She popped her trunk and grabbed the two bags with her styling supplies. I followed her up a cobbled walkway to a medieval-revival monstrosity complete with steep roofs and half-timbering that had patterned brick in between dark beams. Even on the last day of December, it was obvious that the grounds were heavily manicured. Evergreen shrubs had been pruned into lifeless-looking cones and orbs. Ick. My landscaping parents would have turned up their noses at the display of vegetative geometry.

As if reading my mind, Adrianna turned to me and said, “Is this not the ugliest house you’ve ever seen in your life? Money does not buy taste. Wait until you see the inside. You’re going to want to throw up.”

“Hello, dear,” Dora said as she opened the oversized front door. Dora’s face was as taut as it had been at the gallery the night Oliver had been murdered. As a budding social worker, I felt a strong desire to sit this woman down to discuss her need for incessant Botox treatments, but I reminded myself that I was here as Adrianna’s assistant.

“Hi, Dora. This is my new assistant. She’ll be helping me out today.”

Dora barely glanced at me and didn’t seem to recognize me or to care that Adrianna hadn’t told her my name. Her lack of interest was going to make my undercover operation easy. “Let’s go to our suite. My suite now, I guess.”

As we followed Dora up a winding staircase to the second floor, my stomach churned at the gaudy decor. The dominant colors were nausea-inducing mauves and greens. Pastel furniture filled the large rooms. Dora wore a hot-pink silk robe with a lacy negligee peeking through the top, and slippers with miniature feathery boas fluffing out of the straps. Ade turned to me and covered her mouth as she made silent retching motions. I smacked her arm away and willed myself not to have an attack of the giggles.

We settled in the master bedroom, which was all pale chartreuse and at least the size of my entire condo. Dora seated herself in a chair she’d placed in the center of the room so that it faced the television. To keep myself out of Dora’s eyeshot, I stood behind her—not that she noticed people like me.

“So how are you doing, Dora?” Adrianna said with fake concern as she wrapped Dora in a nylon cape. “I am so sorry to hear about Oliver. You must be devastated, you poor thing.” I loved watching Ade kiss some ass.

“It’s the worst week of my life, without a doubt,” Dora agreed. “I’ve been with Oliver forever, and now he’s just gone.”

She grabbed the remote and started flipping channels. Oh, good.
Perfect Strangers
was on. And coming up next, Shannen Doherty’s brilliant made-for-TV movie
Friends ’Til the End
, in which Shannen stars as the lead singer of a rock band who acquires her very own stalker. Unbeknownst to the other women in the room, I’d seen this movie a few times and considered it one of the
best
guilty pleasures of all time. By exerting superhuman self-control, I might be able to refrain from humming along to ex-Brenda singing the idiotic “Does Anybody Hear Me?” I seriously hoped that Dora wasn’t planning to start flipping channels again.

Adrianna began combing Dora’s hair and clipping up sections in preparation for foiling in highlights. “What’s going to happen to Oliver’s business now that he’s gone?”

“Oh, the Full Moon Group will be fine. All their businesses run themselves at this point. Truthfully, I’m a little relieved that I don’t have to listen to any more talk about Oliver’s unfailing sense of brotherhood with that goddamn group. I loved him, but I didn’t love his work. Especially Barry and his ridiculous desire to convince people that he’s some kind of aristocrat. A gourmet restaurant is nothing but a silly, expensive hobby. Oliver was the one who knew how to make the money, and all Barry wanted to do was throw it away by opening a fancy new place with great food and no profits. Don’t get me wrong. I like to eat out at nice restaurants as much as the next person, but I don’t want to
own
one. But they’d known each other for years, so Oliver could take Barry’s irritating whims better than I could. I don’t know how Oliver was so patient with Barry, but he thought of him more like a brother than a partner, so those two had a sibling love-hate relationship. They’d be fighting one minute, and the next, everything would be fine.”

Adrianna held her hand out, and I handed her more hair clips. “Can you grab the foils out of the bag while I finish this?” Her tone of voice was meant to make her sound like a master speaking to an apprentice.

“So you’re going out tonight, Dora? I’m glad you’re getting out of the house.”

“Yes, Sarka insisted that I join her and Barry tonight at some new restaurant.” Oh, great. She was going to be at Simmer for the grand opening. “I’m only going because Sarka is truthfully a very nice woman, and she doesn’t want me to lock myself in the house forever.” In this case, “forever” meant the entire three days since her husband had been murdered. Three days, and this woman was actually going out to dinner to celebrate New Year’s Eve!

“Dear,” Dora continued. “I’ve forgotten to ask you. Would you be able to stop at Sarka’s to do her hair for tonight? Barry called me last night to see how I was doing, and when he found out I was having you come by today, he thought it might be nice for Sarka to have some pampering, too. She’s been upset about Oliver as well.”

“Not a problem,” Adrianna assured her. “I’ve got some time before my next client. Does she live far from here?” Ade eyed me, silently asking if that would be okay. I quickly nodded a yes.

“No, they only live a few blocks from here. She won’t want anything too fancy, so it shouldn’t be a long appointment. I think Barry just wants to do something nice for her. Sarka’s expecting you. I said that you’d go there as soon as you were done here.”

Ade showed no reaction to Dora’s high-handedness. She quickly mixed up a smelly bowl of hair color and started weaving a comb handle through thin sections of Dora’s hair, separating strands into the foil sheets I was now handing her. “I’m glad you have friends to help you out. What restaurant are you going to?”

“Some place on Newbury Street. Simmer, I think it’s called.”

“Oh, how funny! We’re going to be there tonight, too,” Adrianna said.

“Oh.” The fact that mere folk like us would also be at Simmer seemed to lessen the upscale factor. “Well, we just wanted to go somewhere simple for the evening. I’m not really up for much more, obviously.”

I refrained from kicking Dora for referring to Simmer as “simple” and kept quiet as Dora and Adrianna made small talk. I disliked this woman, but I couldn’t find any obvious reason to think she’d killed her husband. She wasn’t a sobbing wreck right now, but her composure wasn’t proof of guilt. And why kill off the man who was supporting her and her awful taste? Unless she was unimaginably tired of dealing with the tumultuousness of the business? But if she was going to get rid of half of the Full Moon Group, why not destroy the partnership by taking out Barry? My reasoning made no sense, even to me. In searching for motives, I was inventing weak possibilities.

That still left Naomi as a likely suspect. Would she have done something so stupid? And so violent? The Avenging Harassment Angel, she’d be called in the headlines. And when I needed a job reference, what would I do? Have her compose one from prison?

When Ade went to the bathroom to mix some more color, I followed her. “Ask her if she killed Oliver,” I demanded.

“Are you nuts? I’m not asking her that. Besides, she’s obviously in a state of shock and trying to go about her life as though nothing has happened.”

“Okay, well, ask her about Oliver’s life insurance policy. And the key man thing Owen told us about. Maybe she’s getting a huge settlement of some kind.”

“Fine, I’ll try,” she agreed, going back into the bedroom. “But I’m not saying
key man
. She’ll think we’re investigating her.”

“Well, we are.”

Adrianna waited until Dora was bent over the sink having the color rinsed out before broaching the subject. “So, are you going to be fine moneywise, Dora? I don’t mean to be nosy. I just want to make sure you’ll be okay.”

Dora shouted above the noise from the faucet. “Oh, I’m fine. Oliver had a standard life insurance policy and all that.”

I nudged Adrianna, and she nudged me back harder before asking, “What about the business? Do you get anything from that?” she asked.

“Barry is signing over that part of the insurance money to me.” Before I could shout
“J’accuse!”
and point my finger at the murderer, she continued, “But I don’t need it. I have my own money. I’m going to donate all the money from the business somewhere. I don’t know which of my charities needs it most, though. Maybe I’ll divide it up and give some to each.”

I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Why doesn’t Barry want to keep the money and put it back into the business?”

Adrianna glared at me for overstepping my bounds.