Biscuits and Slashed Browns Read online

  “You bet. It’s nothing like Southern California, but Brown County has grown on me.” I drained my glass and slid it into the industrial dishwasher. “Has there been any talk about Connolly’s murder here in the restaurant?”

  “Not that I’ve heard. But I pretty much stay in the kitchen. Maybe the servers have heard gossip.” He stirred the skillet contents with a deft hand, scraping down the sides. “It’s gross to imagine cutting someone’s neck, isn’t it? I mean, only a monster would do something like that.” He shot me a sideways glance.

  “No kidding. So did you have fun at the bar the other night? It’s a new addition to the Hollow, and a good one.”

  He didn’t look at me as he scrubbed the potatoes soaking in a basin. “I had an enjoyable evening.”

  “Sonia’s a nice woman, isn’t she? She’s a regular at my restaurant.”

  “What’s this, Twenty Questions?” He faced me, frowning. “It’s a nice day for a bike ride out there.”

  Class dismissed. Huh. He’d been friendly when I first saw him outside. What got his back up? “Um, sure. Have a great day, Nick. And thanks for the water.”

  Chapter 22

  After my abrupt dismissal from Nick, I had a good ride home, a shower, and an early lunch. He’d clearly tired of my questions, and I didn’t really blame him. I was being pretty nosy, but I was curious about the young Bostonian. Interesting that both he and Connolly were from the same place. On the other hand, it was a big city. Probably five or ten million people lived in the greater metro area.

  Now, tablet in hand, I moved slowly through my walk-in cooler. I used an app for ordering and inventory, and often reflected if I had to use pen and paper to write down everything I needed and then order it over the phone, I probably wouldn’t be in the restaurant business. I was short on just about everything perishable after the busy weekend. Meats, fruit, milk, eggs, cheese, greens, onions, and more. All of it I tapped in. I got deliveries Tuesday afternoons and then started using it up all over again on Wednesdays. Sometimes we needed to resupply on a Friday, depending on customer count.

  And speaking of customer count, I needed to get to the bank before I set to work upstairs. The safe in my apartment was chock-full of money and I didn’t like to keep so much around. I was about to head back there for one more count when someone knocked on the front door. Would people never learn? When the sign is turned to CLOSED, it means I’m not open. I moved to the door, anyway, only to see Buck leaning down and peering in. All right. For him I’d open.

  “Good morning, Buck.” I leaned on the door frame. “Or is it afternoon?” A gust of a chilly wind blew in. “Come in and get out of the cold.” I gestured him in.

  “I will. Thanks, Robbie. But just for a tiny little minute.” He took off his uniform hat. “Had something I wanted to tell you, in person, like.”

  I sat in my desk chair. “Sit down?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” He plopped into the easy chair I kept in the small office area in the corner and, as usual, stretched out his legs nearly to Chicago. “Thanks for the tip about the stone up to the Nashville Inn.” He pronounced the last word with two syllables, like the name Ian. “Oscar’s got some few guys on it.”

  “Good. I don’t know if it’s important or not, but I figured they should look into it. How did Dr. Rao hold up when he came in, by the way? I’m assuming he turned himself in last night.”

  “Oh, he certainly did. Yes, came in all gussied up, suit and tie fit for a mortician, with a lawyer stuck to him tighter than snot on a hot oven door. Didn’t matter none.”

  “What do you mean, it didn’t matter? What didn’t matter?”

  “His Sunday-go-to-meeting suit and his lawyer. We was already looking for Rao, anywho. We got a eyewitness says he saw the two, him and the deceased, head behind the dumpster Friday night. Yep, we got Mr. Rao locked up good and tight.” His expression was sorrowful and satisfied all at once. “Wadn’t nothing the attorney could do about it.”

  What? “Locked up?” My words came out as a screech. “But you don’t have any evidence Sajit cut the professor’s throat, do you?”

  “Not yet, but we will.”

  I frowned. “Sajit himself says he met Connolly there, and told me he pushed him. Pushing isn’t murder. Adele told me there was a knife in Connolly out at the maple farm.”

  “Welp, we’ll see. He might could be a purt’ good liar, Robbie. You don’t know. And it’s surely assault, in any case. Daughter said she wants to go ahead and press charges.”

  “That’s terrible.” The poor man. And his poor family. Here they’d just gotten him back and he’d turned himself in, and instead of being thanked, was jailed for his troubles. But what did I know? Maybe he was lying about the murder. Nobody in his family knew what time he got home. And . . . Whoa.

  “Buck, if he killed the professor, there has to be more blood somewhere. Right? I mean, you can’t cut someone’s throat without a lot of blood, I would imagine.” Picturing a slaughterhouse made me shudder, but I went on. “If it’s blood on the stone block at the Nashville Inn, then it’s probably in Sajit’s car, too, if he took the body to the maple farm. Or even if he killed Connolly at the farm, shouldn’t there be blood in the car from the head wound?”

  He nodded. “We thought of all those things, now. Oscar’s dang thorough. And I want you to leave it to the experts this time, you hear me? I don’t want you going and getting in trouble again. I know you, Robbie Jordan. Promise?”

  “Yes, yes.” I waved away his worries, but my puzzle brain was working overtime. Somewhere in the county Warren Connolly’s blood had been spilled. But where?

  * * *

  After making a pleasingly large deposit at the bank, I changed into construction clothes at home, and headed upstairs. I’d made a lot of progress in the last month. The wallboard on the reconfigured walls was up, although actually I’d hired the job out. I couldn’t manage the big sheets of heavy drywall myself, and Abe knew two guys who were looking for short-term jobs. They’d done a good job without overcharging. I’d paid one of them to do the taping and plastering of the seams, too, which included the sanding between coats. One thing I hated more than anything else was breathing plaster dust. Carpentry itself was a happy-making job for me, and today’s task was just that, cutting and installing baseboards.

  Abe. Remembering Abe’s recommendation naturally made me think about him. And the woman I’d seen him with this morning. No. I wasn’t going there. I was here to work, and work I would. Negative fantasies did not have a place in my afternoon.

  I jacked up the thermostat, also installed and connected in the last month. No more working in a cold zone like I had all winter. I’d hired out the heating system, of course. I’d opted for radiant heat in the floor, since I needed to take up the antique floorboards anyway to install soundproofing between this level and the store below. But I’d saved all the intact wide pine boards, several of which were almost a foot wide, and had my floor guy piece in what he needed with new boards. Once the new boards were stained and the whole thing finished and polyed, it was going to look beautiful, and in keeping with the 150-year-old building.

  Birdy had followed me up the stairs. I hadn’t let him keep me company when the walls were open and the place was full of all kinds of dust, but now it was fine. He prowled the corners, played with a stray curl of wood shaving, and generally supervised without saying a single negative word other than dashing into the next room whenever I started up the power saw.

  I spent a couple of hours measuring and cutting baseboards, mitering the corners, and screwing them in place along all the junctions between floor and wall. My knees ached from all the floor work, but not too badly. I wore kneepads strapped around each leg to cushion my joints.

  This kind of work also freed up my brain to consider the current real-world puzzle. I hoped the police team would solve this case quickly. I hated for Turner to know his dad was in jail, although I supposed Sajit being detained probably meant Christina was
no longer under suspicion. I started a screw at either end of the one-by-six board I’d just cut, set it in place, and shot the screw through to the stud with my power screwdriver. Zup-zup. Such a satisfying sound.

  The question of the murder weapon still remained, the high-carbon-steel blade best suited to slicing anything from beets to beef, depending on the model. I’d call Christina once I finished this wall. She also had Mondays off now, and maybe she’d like a beer and a gab session at the end of the afternoon. Buck had said Noreen wanted to press assault charges against Sajit. Did she know about Christina’s assault charges against Connolly? Christina had said it was a few years ago. Noreen would certainly have been old enough by then to hear adult news like that.

  Dr. Rao being guilty would clear Sonia, too, for the time being. She at least had an obvious gripe with Connolly. But really, who killed over academic disagreements? If it was a common practice, there wouldn’t be a single professor left. On the other hand, Sonia had been the one unwilling to say where she’d been Friday night. She didn’t have any obligation to tell me, but it had sounded like she didn’t want to tell the police, either.

  Maybe she’d been with Nick. But I didn’t think so. Saturday night at the Hoosier Hollow bar had definitely looked like their first date. Then where had she been the night before? People kept secrets for so many reasons. Because they were doing something illicit, something they were ashamed of, something that risked harming themselves or another. Sonia could have been having an affair with a married man, I supposed, although I didn’t have any reason to believe that. I doubted she was robbing a liquor store or stealing from anyone.

  Or was she just intensely private? Maybe she wouldn’t tell the detective where she’d been because she didn’t want the government in any part of her life.

  I measured the distance between the next corner and the new doorway to this room’s private bathroom. I measured two more times, writing the numbers on a new board and allowing extra for the mitered corner, before carrying it to the table saw. I pictured my mom, bent over her own saw as she guided a board through, her tan face concentrating on making the cut exactly right, her cap of flaxen hair not quite falling into her eyes. She had taught me well, and I knew how proud of me she would have been to see my renovations here. My fond images of her at work wrestled with an upsurge of sadness, as often happened. I swallowed down a sudden thickness in my throat and swiped away the tears with the back of my hand.

  Another daughter had lost a parent this week. Noreen had pressed charges for the assault on her father. Hadn’t somebody been looking at Noreen herself as a person of interest just a day or two ago? I couldn’t remember if it was Buck or Detective Thompson. Or maybe it was one the other people I’d been talking to about the murder. To me, Noreen’s grief had seemed genuine. But who knew? Maybe it wasn’t. If Connolly had willed his assets to her, and if she still smarted from his inattention when she was younger, inheritance could be a motive. Maybe her mother was ill and destitute and Noreen needed money to take care of her.

  Right. Now I was thinking like Charles Dickens. The saw whirred through the board, with a sharp change in pitch when it exited the wood. Why couldn’t the police cut through the lies and evasions as easily?

  * * *

  “Cheers.” I lifted my pint glass and clinked it with Christina’s when she did the same. We sat at my kitchen table at a little after five. The clouds had blown through while I’d been upstairs working. The prism I’d hung in the west-facing window down here caught the late-afternoon sunlight and spilled it out into slowly spinning rainbows. I’d always considered seeing a rainbow in the sky a lucky omen. Could these indoor splashes of spectrum be good luck, too?

  After she took a sip, Christina said, “This was a great idea, Robbie.”

  “I thought so.” I often hung out with my friend Lou for my fix of female friendship over beer, but was glad I’d asked Christina today. And Lou was in Sweden at a conference, anyway. “It’s a happy coincidence we have the same two days off.” Hoosier Hollow was also closed Monday and Tuesday.

  “I know. Especially because otherwise you’re cooking in the mornings when I’m off, and vice versa.” She swirled a pretzel in the bowl of hummus I’d set out and popped it in her mouth. “Yum. Roasted garlic. Did you make this?”

  “I did. It’s so easy, and I always keep a can of tahini in the fridge.”

  I watched as she explored the tastes, the classic move of a cook wanting to analyze a dish. A little smack, the movement of a tongue in a closed mouth, another small smack.

  “Mmm, garlicky. So it’s chickpeas, tahini, roasted garlic,” she said. “What else? A little citrus?”

  “Lemon juice, olive oil, and a dash of soy sauce. Throw it all in the food processor and you’re done.” I helped myself to a few pretzels, too, dipping one and tasting it. “Oh, and a few drops of hot sauce just to perk it up. So how’s Betsy lately?”

  “She’s good. Gainfully employed, which is always a plus. She’s started welding sculptures on the weekends, too. Crazy metal stuff. It’s pretty awesome.”

  “I’ll have to come see one of these days. Danna’s boyfriend makes metal sculptures, too, she says.”

  “And how’s your man?” Her blue eyes twinkled from under lashes so light you could barely see them.

  “He’s a dear.” I think he is.

  “A hunk of a dear, one might add.” She reached over and gently punched me in the arm. “That dude could rake in the big bucks as a model.”

  I laughed even as I felt my face warm. “Truth. But he’s a lot happier working on the lines. I can’t picture him strutting a runway, can you?”

  “No way.” She snorted. “So have you been out on your bike lately? It must be nice to have winter almost gone.”

  “I took a long ride this morning. I actually stopped by the Nashville Inn and ended up having a chat with Nick. He seems pretty comfortable there.”

  “I know. He’s an accomplished chef even though he’s young. I felt good handing off the job to him, like I wasn’t stranding the boss.”

  “He acted a little odd before I left. Maybe he was just in a hurry. And he told me he answered an online ad for the position. I didn’t realize you’d posted one.”

  “He said what?” She stared at me, her chin drawn back. “I didn’t place any ad. The owners didn’t, either. Nick just showed up and knocked on the kitchen door one day, résumé in hand, saying he was looking for work as a cook. It was a good résumé, too. He’d worked at a couple of excellent restaurants in the Boston area. I’d just been offered the Hoosier Hollow job and the timing worked out perfect.”

  “Funny. Why would he tell me something different?” I sipped my beer. “I don’t know if you heard Dr. Rao is in jail right now.”

  “I heard, and it’s a relief to know they aren’t considering me for the crime anymore. But Dr. Rao’s too nice to kill anyone,” she scoffed. “Him being in jail has got to be a mistake.”

  “Buck told me they have an eyewitness who saw Sajit and Professor Connolly heading behind the dumpster at the Nashville Inn the night before Adele found the body.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Connolly was staying at the inn, I heard. So they believe Rao killed him there and then took the body to his farm? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It’s just one of things bugging me.”

  Her expression grew serious. “You and me both, girlfriend. The main thing for me being—who in hell stole my knife?” She wagged her head from side to side. “I take good care of those babies. You know how it is. It’s not just that they cost a lot of money, although they do. And they’re always in my knife roll when I’m not working.”

  “It’s like they’re an extension of your hands, right?”

  “Exactly. Knives are a chef’s tools, her art, her craft. And I totally trust my staff over at the Hollow.” She frowned. “But if Dr. Rao is the killer, how’d he get my knife?”

  “Where do you keep them when you’re not cooking?”
<
br />   “In their roll on my desk.”

  “Have you hired anybody new recently?” I cocked my head. “Or did someone unusual come through the kitchen?”

  “Thompson asked me the same thing. There is a newish guy, but he seems completely honest. He had great references.”

  “Maybe Sajit convinced another person to take the knife for him,” I suggested.

  “An accomplice.” She raised her pale eyebrows. “It would have to be. Because I know he wasn’t in the Hoosier Hollow kitchen himself. I could swear.”

  “When did you notice the knife was missing?” I asked.

  Birdy ambled in, eyed Christina, and jumped onto her lap.

  “Whoa.” Christina held her hands above the table and leaned back. “Sorry, little buddy, but you just picked the lap of an allergic person.”

  “Sorry.” I stood and reached out for my black and white bundle, but he wriggled as I lifted. His back leg collided with Christina’s glass and knocked it over. “Oh, no!” Birdy leapt out of my hands to jump down and dash away. I grabbed a kitchen towel as beer dripped over the edge of the table. At least the glass had fallen in the other direction and the beer hadn’t landed in Christina’s lap. “Now I’m double sorry. Silly cat.”

  She laughed and stood. “No worries, my friend. I’d already drained more than half, anyway.”

  I poured her another after I finished cleaning up, and our conversation strayed safely to town politics, a music-tour vacation she and Betsy had taken in Ireland, and our families. After she left I realized she’d never told me when she’d missed the knife.

  Chapter 23

  “No, Robbie, we don’t want your so-called help.” Mona Turner-Rao’s every word dripped sizzling scorn out of my phone like bacon grease on a hot grill. “You’re the one responsible for having my husband, a distinguished researcher, locked up like a common lowlife and accused of a crime he did not and would not commit.”