Death on a Platter (26 page)

She sprinted to the women’s restroom and heard something in the hall. Josie ducked inside, cracked the door, and peered out.

Jeff the chef was in a full-body embrace with Henrietta, just inside the office doorway. Josie had never seen a kiss so passionate except on romance novel covers. Their eyes were shut and their lips were locked. They seemed to be sucking out each other’s souls. Jeff shifted his round body. Now Henrietta’s dark head was buried in his plump shoulder and Jeff was kissing her hair. One of Jeff’s hands was unbuttoning Henrietta’s white blouse. The other was working its way down the back of her slacks like a pink starfish.

Josie froze in shock and was glad she did. She could hear them now—hoarse whispers between hungry groans and whimpers.

“I don’t know how much longer I can stand to be away from you, baby,” Henrietta rasped.

“Just a little more time,” he said. “Think of his life insurance money.”

Life insurance? Josie nearly choked. That’s why Gemma wrote down “Hartford.” It wasn’t a street or a city. Gemma had stumbled on the motive for Clay’s murder.

“I wouldn’t have that two million without you,” Henrietta groaned.

“You don’t have it yet,” Jeff said. “But you will if we’re careful.”

“I can’t believe Gemma tried to blackmail me for half his insurance,” Henrietta said. “The way you got rid of her was perfect. It looked like a burglary.”

“We did it together,” Jeff said. “You marched into that shop and told her she wouldn’t get a penny. You kept her distracted until I took her out.”

“You were so strong.” Henrietta sighed. “You solved our problem in a couple of swings.” The memory of Gemma’s murder seemed to excite Henrietta. She groped the front of his white chef’s coat, fumbling with his buttons.

“Good thing that statue was strong,” Jeff said. “Once the old lady is locked up, it will be safe for us to come out and play. It will all be worth it. You’ll see. Soon I’ll have my new restaurant. Something cutting-edge downtown, maybe in the loft district. Or Clayton. Clayton would be good. Then I could have one of those celebrity chef shows.”

Jeff left a trail of kisses from her neck to her breast while he kept popping buttons on her blouse.

“My mother-in-law is driving me nuts over that stupid rosary,” Henrietta said. “She says it’s all she has left of her boy. She wants me to help her find it. Olive thinks it’s somewhere in her house. If I have to search her place one more time, I swear I’ll make sure she joins her boy.”

Jeff mashed his mouth against hers and she moaned quietly. When he came up for air, he said, “Humor her. Just a little longer.” His pink paw scuttled up her back. He rubbed her shoulders and ground his hips into hers. “Two million dollars is one hell of an incentive to pretend you’re looking for that rosary. Did you throw that thing out?”

“I hid it at my office,” Henrietta said. She was panting. “I can’t give it back to her. We used ten beads. Then you came back here and stuck them in his food. That was brilliant.”

“I had to crawl to that old witch,” Jeff said, “but it was worth it. She’s gonna get hers.”

“What am I going to do about his mother?” Henrietta whined.

“Get her another damn rosary,” Jeff said.

“But it’s a Mexican rosary,” she said.

“Buy it on eBay. You can get anything on eBay. You’ve still got the old one, so you know what it looks like.”

Gotcha! Josie thought. Motive and evidence. All I have to do is slip out of here, call 911 from my car, and the police will get a search warrant for that rosary.

The couple were twined around each other like jungle vines. Their bodies blocked Josie’s way out the back door, but she could make a quiet break for the bar and run out the front of the restaurant. She started inching her way out the restroom door when it squeaked like a stepped-on mouse.

The surprised couple jumped apart. Josie sprinted for the restaurant, looking for somewhere to hide. She looked over her shoulder and saw Chef Jeff reach into a holster. Was he going to shoot her? Josie was moving too fast to get a good look, but she saw a knife fly by her ear.

She dodged it and raced for the restaurant. Jeff pulled a second knife from his holster and threw it. The knife stuck in the molding near her shoulder with a
thwang!
Josie paused to try to pull it out, but saw the two of them gaining on her. She abandoned the knife and kept running for the bar side. In the mirror, she saw Jeff had a third knife, about half as long as the first, with a sharp, pointy end. He handed another, shorter knife to Henrietta.

Josie shot straight toward the bar and the tape-wrapped pipe Tillie kept under the cash register. She ducked down behind the bar, dialed 911 on her cell phone, and shouted, “Help! I’m at Tillie’s.”

She didn’t get a chance to say more. Jeff swung at her face with the knife. Josie swerved and Henrietta stabbed her shoulder with a paring knife.

Josie couldn’t feel any pain, but the blood ran down her arm and she dropped her cell phone. She picked up the padded stool that Tillie kept behind the bar and held it like a shield while she hurled a vodka bottle at Jeff. It smashed at his feet, but slowed him down. Josie choked on the sharp fumes, but flung a fat bottle of Baileys Irish Cream at Henrietta. Baileys was stronger stuff. The bottle clattered and rolled but didn’t break.

Henrietta and Jeff rushed her from the front end of the bar, blocking her way to the door. Josie dropped the stool in their path and ran out the other end, then realized she’d made a mistake. She’d left the tape-wrapped pipe under the bar. Henrietta pulled it out. Now she had the pipe in one hand and the paring knife in the other.

Josie was up against the back wall. Big mistake. She couldn’t see any way out. She was backed up against the bowling machine as Chef Jeff swung the knife. It buried itself in the wood on the bowling machine. He’d missed.

Josie ducked and saw Henrietta right behind him, swinging that pipe.

Josie found the grapefruit-sized bowling ball in the machine’s ball rack. She held on to it and delivered a knockout blow to Henrietta. She fell across the lane of the bowling machine. The knife skittered under a table away from Josie.

“Henrietta!” cried the chef and ran to her. She moaned in pain.

“You tried to kill her,” he shouted at Josie. “Now I’m going to kill you.”

He swung the knife in a wide arc as two River Bluff cops poured through the front door. Josie heard sharp barks coming from the back hall.

The chef saw the cops, dropped the knife, and sprinted for the back door. His exit was blocked by Jane and Stuart Little.

“Sic ’em,” Jane cried. The shih tzu sank his teeth into the chef’s ankle.

It took hours to sort out what happened at Tillie’s Off the Hill. The restaurant was chaos: Jeff tried to kick Stuart Little and Jane launched herself at the dog’s attacker. She pulled the long-handled metal sharpening steel out of Jeff’s holster and was beating him with it while she shouted abuse and Stuart barked and growled. A woozy Henrietta attempted to sit up. Josie tried to tell the police what had happened.

“Shut up, everyone!” Officer Zellman commanded.

There was silence, except for soft groans from Henrietta.

The police peeled an irate Jane off Chef Jeff’s back and pried the sharpening steel out of her hand. They saw the blood on Josie’s shoulder and called an ambulance and the crime scene van.

While they waited for criminal and medical help to arrive, they found Josie’s cell phone and determined that she’d called 911.

That’s when the crime scene van arrived, with the ambulance right behind it. The paramedics examined Josie’s shoulder first. Josie was more worried about her lousy health insurance than the damage from the cut. The paramedics were sympathetic. They asked if she had an updated tetanus shot, then said in their (non-medical) opinion that she didn’t need stitches.

Detective Brian Mullanphy arrived while the paramedics were cleaning Josie’s wound. The man looked gray with exhaustion. Josie almost felt sorry for him.

The crime scene techs took prints from Jane, Jeff, and Henrietta. The couple refused to talk without their lawyers present.

“I’ll be happy to tell you what happened,” Josie said. “Ouch. That stings.” A paramedic slathered orange Be-tadine on her cut shoulder while his partner bandaged it with gauze.

“Let’s wait till they finish,” Mullanphy said.

The paramedics advised Josie to see her family doctor while they cleaned the garbage off her face and hands with alcohol wipes.

Chef Jeff limped over next, with Officer Zellman standing close by. Stuart had taken a substantial bite out of the chef’s right ankle and it was bleeding heavily. Henrietta had a knot on her head as big as a baby’s fist, thanks to the bowling ball. The paramedics said Henrietta might have a concussion and a doctor should see the bite on Jeff’s ankle. They asked if anyone knew about the dog that bit him.

“Woof!”
Stuart said. He still didn’t look fierce, even with blood on his muzzle. Jane picked up her dog and said he had his rabies shots and the clinic would have the dates.

Detective Mullanphy read Jeff his rights and then Henrietta. The guilty lovers were handcuffed separately but taken in the same ambulance to the Holy Redeemer emergency room. Officer Zellman rode with them. Mullanphy said when the hospital released them they’d be taken into custody at the River Bluff jail.

A harried Lorena arrived as the ambulance was leaving in a burst of flashing lights. She pushed past the officer at the door and said, “Who’s hurt?”

“Your chef got bit by a dog,” Detective Mullanphy said. “The dog’s fine. The chef needs to be looked at.”

Lorena stared at the bedraggled Josie and sniffed. “You smell like a garbage dump.”

“I know,” Josie said. “Could I buy a T-shirt?”

“Have one on the house,” Lorena said. “You want red or green?”

“Either one will smell better than this shirt,” Josie said.

Mullanphy waited outside the women’s restroom while she changed into a green GET TOASTED AT TILLIE’S shirt. Her slashed and smelly blouse was bagged as evidence. Josie figured it would be really ripe by the time Jeff and Henrietta went to trial.

She was stuck wearing the malodorous pants. Every time she moved her head she caught a whiff of decayed shrimp in her hair. The cat would love her new perfume.

When she came out of the restroom, she saw her mother on a chair in the kitchen, petting Stuart Little. “Who’s a good dog?” Jane asked. “Who’s a brave dog?”

“Woof!”
Stuart said, and thumped his tail.

Once Josie had on a fresh shirt, Mullanphy made her sit in the restaurant office for their talk. She told the detective what had happened. The crime scene told its own story and backed up Josie’s tale with hard evidence. The techs found a ten-inch kitchen knife stuck in the doorjamb, a boning knife jammed in the bowling machine, and a paring knife under a table. The techs reported that the knives all sported clear sets of fingerprints.

The uniformed officers had removed the black knife holster Jeff wore on his hip. It still held a short black-handled peeling knife, a meat thermometer, and tongs.

The crime scene techs discovered the teddy bear that was actually a nanny cam. It had caught Jeff and Henrietta’s attack on Josie behind the bar and would confirm that part of her story.

Josie was telling Detective Mullanphy what had happened for the second time when Ted arrived. The uniformed officer refused to let him inside, but Josie could hear him on the sidewalk, demanding to know how she was.

“I’m fine, Ted,” she shouted, and hoped he could hear her.

“Ms. Marcus, if I may have your attention, please,” Mullanphy said.

“What time is it?” Josie asked.

“It’s almost two o’clock,” he said.

“My daughter! I have to pick her up at school.”

“You can’t leave now,” Mullanphy said.

“What about my mother? Could she get her?”

“I still need to talk to her,” Mullanphy said.

“Dr. Ted Scottsmeyer is right outside. He can pick up Amelia, but I’ll have to write him a note. He hasn’t been cleared in advance by the school.”

“You write the note and I’ll call the school,” Mullanphy said.

The detective called to the uniform guarding the door, “Let Dr. Scottsmeyer in. Make sure he comes around the back.”

The uniform made Ted stand outside the back door and cautioned him not to say a word.

Josie recited the school’s office number and said, “The principal is Miss Apple.” She scribbled a permission note while Mullanphy punched in the Barrington number. She heard the detective say, “That’s my shield number. Here’s the main number for the River Bluff dispatcher, Miss Apple. You can call it and confirm this information.”

He listened a moment, then said, “Your policy is admirable, Miss Apple, and our children would be safer if all schools had one like it. Ms. Marcus would pick up her daughter if she could, but she and her mother, Jane, are witnesses in a murder investigation and I need to talk to them. No, Ms. Marcus hasn’t done anything wrong. Quite the opposite. Would you like to talk to her? Your secretary has already confirmed my information? Good. Ms. Marcus’s note is on lined paper torn out of a pocket-sized notebook. I’ll witness and date it if you want and put my shield number on it. The note authorizes Dr. Ted Scottsmeyer to pick up Amelia Marcus. He’s driving an orange 1968 Mustang. Do you want the license plate number? No, I guess you don’t have any other vintage Mustangs in that color.

“Here’s my cell phone number. Ms. Marcus will stop by the office and fill out the official paperwork first thing tomorrow. Dr. Scottsmeyer is leaving now.”

He pressed END on his phone and said, “That’s one tough woman.”

“She has to be,” Josie said. She could hear Stuart Little yapping and barking while Jane praised and petted him.