Chocolate Quake

Table of Contents

 

 

“Clever, fast-paced. . . . Food columnist Carolyn Blue is a confident and witty detective with a taste for good food and an eye for murderous detail. . . . A literate, deliciously well-written mystery.”—Earlene Fowler

 

“Not your average who-done-it. . . . Extremely funny. . . . A rollicking good time.”—
Romance Reviews Today

 

“
Crime Brûlée
is an entertaining amateur-sleuth tale that takes the reader on a mouthwatering tour of New Orleans. . . . Fun.”—
Painted Rock Reviews

 

“Fairbanks has a real gift for creating characters based in reality but just the slightest bit wacky in a slyly humorous way. . . . It will tickle your funny bone as well as stimulate your appetite for good food.”—
El Paso Times

 

“Nancy Fairbanks has whipped the perfect blend of mystery, vivid setting, and mouthwatering foods. . . .
Crime Brûlée
is a luscious start to a delectable series.”

—
The Mystery Reader

 

“Nancy Fairbanks scores again . . . A page-turner.”

—
Las Cruces Sun-News

CRIME BRÛLÉE
TRUFFLED FEATHERS
DEATH À L’ORANGE
CHOCOLATE QUAKE
THE PERILS OF PAELLA
HOLY GUACAMOLE!
MOZZARELLA MOST MURDEROUS
BON BON VOYAGE
FRENCH FRIED
Anthologies
THREE-COURSE MURDER

 

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
CHOCOLATE QUAKE
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with
the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / April 2003

Copyright © 2003 by Nancy Herndon.

eISBN : 978-1-101-16144-9

Berkley Prime Crime Books are published
by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and
the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design
are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

Acknowledgments

I would particularly like to thank Eileen Hirst, chief of staff at the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, who provided so much information on the jail; Inspector Sherman Ackerson of the San Francisco Police Department, a wonderful source of information on police procedures in San Francisco; Elizabeth Falkner, executive pastry chef and managing partner of Citizen Cake, who sent me the recipe for the delicious hazelnut and chocolate dessert; Hoss Zaré, owner and chef at Zaré, a restaurant, in San Francisco, who provided recipes for Wild Mushroom Soup and Dungeness Crab Cakes; my son and daughter-in-law, Bill and Anne Herndon, who were my hosts and guides to the city, from the Hall of Justice to the many neighborhoods and wonderful restaurants.

The following books provided information on and pictures of the city and were invaluable research tools:
San Francisco Memoirs, 1835-1851
and
More San Francisco Memoirs, 1852-1899
, compiled and introduced by Malcolm E. Barker;
Reclaiming San Francisco, History, Politics, Culture
, edited by James Brook, Chris Carlsson, and Nancy J. Peters;
A Short History of San Francisco
by Tom Cole;
Fodor’s San Francisco
;
San Francisco Victorians
, photographs by Michael Blumensaadt, essay by Randolph Delehanty; and
San Francisco Points of View
, photography by David Wakely, essays by Dan Harder.

Last but never least, thanks to my agent Richard Curtis and my editor Cindy Hwang, both of whom have been so supportive as the series progresses, to my friend Joan Coleman for her friendship and support, to my son Bill for running my website, and to my husband Bill, scientific consultant, travel companion, innovative chef, and walking dictionary. Any words I misspelled are probably his fault. However, he
was
right about the opera in which “Una Furtiva Lagrima” appears and the spelling of the Italian word for
tears.
And I was wrong. It takes a woman to admit that.

N.F.

1

San Francisco Shock

 

W
e flew into
San Francisco, registered at a lovely hotel, and had dinner in the company of several scientific couples at a French restaurant. Of course, it wasn’t like the nineteenth-century French restaurants in San Francisco, where male patrons could go upstairs for champagne, poker, and pretty companions from “the finest eastern finishing schools.” In fact, after the earthquake of 1906, the mayor was indicted for taking kickbacks from French restaurants. He provided liquor licenses; in return he received money and “finishing school” favors. No one invited us upstairs for champagne, and downstairs we had to pay for our own.

Still it had been a lovely evening, after which I dropped into a comfy chair in our hotel room and did my wifely duty. I called my mother-in-law to say we were in town. This is what I heard on her answering machine: “You have reached the number of Professor Vera Blue. I am not at home because I have been arrested for first-degree murder and am presently housed in San Francisco Jail # 2 at the Hall of Justice, seventh floor, 850 Bryant Street. Visiting hours are 11 A.M. to 2 P.M. on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. I am told that a prospective visitor should take the elevator to the sixth floor by 7:30 A.M. and line up for one of the twenty-minute appointments, which fill up rapidly. To avoid this inconvenience, you might prefer to call my lawyer, Margaret Hanrahan, at the Union Street Women’s Center, or leave a message after the beep, which I can retrieve and try to return. We are allowed to call out. We are not allowed to receive calls. You may send a letter, but no doubt the San Francisco Police will have realized their error before any exchange of mail can occur.”

“
Jason
!” No answer, but I could hear the shower running in the bathroom. I hung up and rushed to inform my husband that his mother was in jail. If it were some feminist protest she’d been involved in, I wouldn’t have been so shocked. Not that a woman her age seemed a good candidate for participation in a protest involving police presence and arrests. Mother Blue, as I humorously call her, but not to her face, must be near seventy, when women should be protecting their bones as well as their convictions.

That thought caused me great uneasiness. What if floor number seven was a prison hospital? “
Jason
!” I knocked sharply on the glass shower door. Murder? There had to be a mistake. Aging, if sharp-tongued, professors of women’s studies at prestigious universities do not murder people. They just hack their opponents down to size with the daunting power of pen and tongue. Goodness knows, she’s done it to me often enough.

For years her disdain was predicated on the fact that I stayed home raising children and giving gourmet dinners for peripatetic scientists visiting my husband instead of contributing my talents to assure the place of women in the power structure. Not that my mother-in-law ever admitted that I have any talents. Lately, with the children off at college and me pursuing a career as a food columnist, she has turned her attention to my size. Just because I’m five-six doesn’t make me a giant. Jason’s taller than I am—by an inch—and my mother-in-law is simply short. Furthermore, I am not fat. I’ve taken off the weight I acquired eating at wonderful restaurants in New Orleans, New York, and France. But she sent me a size sixteen dress for my birthday. I wear a ten, and I did not appreciate the gift. “Jason Blue, have you lost your hearing? You’re probably letting the shower run into your ears,” I shouted.

Jason opened the door an inch and replied, “I don’t want to hear about the dangers of wet ears. You nagged Chris and me about wash cloths and wet ears all the way through our tour of Northern France.” He grinned at me through the opening. “Has it occurred to you, love, that you’re becoming obsessive about a number of things now that you’re in your middle years?”

I ignored the reference to middle age and said, “Your mother’s in jail.”

“Right.” Jason laughed and started to shut the shower door.

“No, really. She’s charged with murder.”

“Terrific. Then we won’t have to take her out to dinner. Who did she kill?”

“Jason, I’m not joking. She’s in San Francisco Jail #2, seventh floor.”

Jason did some noisy splashing, turned off the water, and reappeared wrapped in a towel. “And I suppose she told you this?”

“It was on her answering machine.”

“Then you got the wrong number.”

“The message began, ‘You have reached the apartment of Professor Vera Blue’.”

“Someone’s playing a joke on you.” Towel-wrapped, my husband inspected his beard in the mirror. “Do I need a trim?”