Death on a Platter (31 page)

Roper’s Ribs, 6929 West Florissant Avenue, won the Steve Harvey Hoodie Award for Best Barbecue and the
Travel and Leisure
2009 America’s Best Barbecue. Roper’s has snoots, ribs, and more (
www.ropersribs.com
).

It would take another book to list all the St. Louis barbecue places. St. Louis barbecue sauce is tomato-based and thinned with vinegar. Brown sugar often adds sweetness. Horseradish or red pepper may spice it up. Many St. Louisans buy Maull’s Barbecue Sauce (
www.maull.com
) and doctor the sauce with their own ingredients, including chopped onion, spicy mustard, or beer.

Beer is a major ingredient of backyard barbecues. Some beer goes into the sauce and the rest goes into the chef. Many St. Louisans brush sauce on the meat while it cooks, then keep the cooked meat in a pan of sauce on the grill. St. Louis–style ribs are specialty cut spareribs. Locals also love pork steaks, which are cut from the pork shoulder blade. The meat tends to be tough, so it helps to slow cook it.

Check the local magazines, including
Sauce
(
www.sauce-magazine.com
),
St. Louis Magazine
(
www.stlmag.com
), and
Feast
(
www.feaststl.com
).

Another good place to find St. Louis restaurants is the
St. Louis Riverfront Times
. Pick up a free copy or go to
www.riverfronttimes.com
.

How could I leave out Ted Drewes Frozen Custard and its iconic concrete? What about Dad’s Cookie Company? Or Gus’ Pretzels, with its hot dogs on pretzel buns? Or Tony’s and the city’s other gourmet restaurants?

I gave you some clues to the city’s fine eating. You’ll have to discover the rest yourself.

“That woman is murdering my father,” Violet Zerling said. “We’re sitting here while she’s killing him. And you—you’re letting her get away with it.”

Violet Zerling jabbed an accusing finger at attorney Nancie Hays. Violet was no delicate flower. She was twice the size of the slender lawyer and obviously upset.

Nancie wasn’t intimidated by the large woman. The lawyer was barely five feet tall, a hundred pounds, and thirty years old, but tough and adept at handling difficult people. She had faced down—and successfully sued—a slipshod homicide detective and the small South Florida city that employed him. She’d fought to keep an innocent woman out of jail. She didn’t back away from Violet.

Nancie was all business, and so was her office. The carpet was a practical dark blue. Her plain white desk was piled with papers and folders. A workstation with a black computer, printer, and fax machine was within rolling distance of her desk. Seated next to the workstation were two private investigators, Helen Hawthorne and Phil Sagemont. Nancie had called in the husband-and-wife PI team to help her new client.

Helen felt sorry for Violet, sitting rigidly in the lime green client chair. Her beige pantsuit was the same color as her short hair. The unflattering cut and drab color turned her face into a lump of dough.

Violet’s clothes and shoes said she had money and spent it badly. Despite her sturdy build, she seemed helpless. Helen thought Violet could be pretty. Why did she work to make herself unattractive?

I’m not here to solve that mystery, Helen told herself. We have to save a man’s life.

Nancie did not humor her client. “Violet, we’ve discussed this before,” she said, her voice sharp. “Your father did not leave any medical directive or sign a living will. In fact, he doesn’t have any will at all. Your stepmother—”

“That witch is not my mother,” Violet said. “She is Daddy’s second wife. She married my father for his money and now she’s killing him. She wants his ten million dollars. He’ll be dead soon, unless you do something. I need to save Daddy. Please. Before it’s too late.”

Violet burst into noisy tears. Helen had seen women turn weeping into an art form, shedding dainty droplets as if they were Swarovski crystal. Violet’s tears seemed torn from her heart.

Helen would bet her PI license those tears were genuine. Nancie, Helen, and Phil waited out the tear storm until Violet sat sniffling in the client chair. Then Phil handed her his pocket handkerchief. Helen loved her husband for that old-fashioned courtesy.

Violet liked it, too. She dabbed at her reddened eyes, then thanked Phil. “You don’t meet many gentlemen these days,” she said. “I’ll have this laundered and return it to you.”

“Keep it,” Phil said. “That’s why I carry one.”

Violet stuffed Phil’s handkerchief into a leather purse as beige and shapeless as its owner. The ugly bag was well made. It would probably last forever. Unfortunately.

“May I ask a question?” Phil asked.

Violet nodded.

“How does the rest of your family feel about your fight to keep your father alive?”

“There is no one else,” Violet said. “I’m an only child. Daddy is the last of the Zerling family. He doesn’t even have distant cousins.”

“And you’re not married, I take it?” Phil asked.

“I’m divorced,” Violet said. “My husband married me for my money and the marriage was not happy.” She looked down at her smooth, well-shaped hands. They belonged to a woman who did not work for a living.

“I might as well tell you,” Violet said. “You and Helen are detectives. You’ll find the whole sordid story of my divorce on the Internet. My marriage was miserable. My ex-husband drank and beat me. I had no idea he was like that when I fell in love with him. I was only twenty-one. Daddy opposed the marriage, but I had a trust fund from my grandmother, and I was determined to marry. My ex slapped me around on our honeymoon, and the marriage went downhill from there.

“I tried to hide the bruises, but I couldn’t fool Daddy. He knew why I wore heavy makeup and long sleeves in August. He never said, ‘I told you so.’ He was there for me. It took me more than a year to walk away from my marriage. After my ex put me in the hospital, I got the courage to leave him.

“He wouldn’t let go of his meal ticket without a fight. He accused me of living a wild life. We were tabloid material for months. I couldn’t have made it through without Daddy. I changed my name back to Zerling after the divorce.

“My family’s money never brought me happiness, and I can’t trust my judgment about men. I’ve set aside that phase of my life.”

“Oh!” Helen said. She was a new bride and couldn’t imagine life without love, though her first husband had been a mistake.

“It’s better that way,” Violet said. “I can’t make any more mistakes.”

Now Helen understood Violet’s dowdy appearance. It hid a badly wounded woman.

“We aren’t here to talk about me,” Violet said. “My father helped me when I needed him. Now I have to help him.”

“Violet, I wish I could do more,” Nancie said. “Legally, Blossom is your father’s next of kin. She has the right to refuse treatment for your father. Brain surgery is risky at his age.”

“He’s only eighty-four,” Violet said. “That’s not old, not in our family. His father, Grandpa, lived to be ninety-seven. Grandma passed away at a hundred and two. Daddy could go on for another ten, twenty years, if he hadn’t married that woman. She murdered him for his money.”

“Mr. Zerling is still alive,” Nancie said gently.

“He won’t be for long,” Violet said. “He’s on a ventilator. My father is unconscious, wrapped like a mummy in tubes and wires. That machine makes the most horrible sound. I tried to see Daddy in the ICU, but that woman won’t let me in his room. She says I give off bad vibes.”

“That’s her right,” Nancie said. “Unfortunately, the law is on Blossom’s side. I’ve petitioned the court to hear your case. The hearing is tomorrow.”

“It won’t do any good,” Violet said. “She’s young and pretty and I’m a dumpy middle-aged woman. I know I look ridiculous, but I’m worried about Daddy.”

“It wouldn’t matter if you looked like Angelina Jolie,” Nancie said. “Judge Jane Curtis only looks at facts.”

“Then I hope she sees Daddy was strong and healthy until he married that woman,” Violet said. “Now she’s killing him.”

“Mr. Zerling has a heart condition,” Nancie said. “He used nitroglycerin pills.”

“He took Viagra,” Violet said.

“That’s not recommended for a man with a heart problem,” Nancie said.

“His doctor in Fort Lauderdale would not prescribe it,” Violet said. “He got the blue pills from India. That woman told him he was a stud and he believed her. No wonder he had a hemorrhagic stroke.”

“It’s not illegal to encourage your husband to take Viagra,” Nancie said.

“You didn’t see the way she flaunted herself at him,” Violet said. “I did. Daddy was taking twice the recommended dose when he had a stroke. Now blood is leaking into his brain. If that woman would let the neurosurgeon operate, I know he’d pull through. Daddy is a fighter.”

“Even the surgeon says your father only has a thirty percent chance of recovery,” Nancie said.

“That’s better than no chance at all,” Violet said. Helen saw tears welling up in Violet’s eyes again.

“Blossom said your father didn’t want to linger,” the lawyer said. “She told the surgeon that your father said, ‘If anything happens to me, pull the plug. I don’t want to be a vegetable.’”

“Look at him! Is this the photo of a man who would give up?” From the depths of her beige purse, Violet pulled out a photo of a white-haired man on a glossy black stallion and handed it to Helen. She saw a square-jawed older man with a straight back and strong hands gripping the reins. He looked fit and muscular.

“That’s my father on his eighty-fourth birthday, three months before he met her,” Violet said. “He barely looks sixty. Blossom has reduced him to a thing on a machine. Soon Daddy will be nothing at all. He’ll be dead. She’s murdering him so she can have his millions.”

Violet’s eyes burned with fanatic fire and her pale skin was tinged with pink. For a moment, Helen got a glimpse of the vital woman she could be.

“Violet,” Nancie soothed, “you must be careful what you say. That statement is actionable.”

“I’m saying it to you in your office,” Violet said. “I’m saying it in front of these detectives, but they work for you, right?”

“Yes,” Nancie said. “When Helen and Phil are working for my firm, their investigation is protected by attorney-client privilege.”

“Well, I want to prove she’s killing him,” Violet said. “If you can’t save my father, I want her in jail for murder. I have the money to get what I want. His millions may kill my father. I want my money to save him.”

Mystery shopper Josie Marcus’s report about Danessa Celedine’s exclusive store is less than stellar, and it may cost the fashion diva fifty million dollars. But Danessa’s financial future becomes moot when she’s found murdered, strangled with one of her own thousand-dollar snakeskin belts—and Josie is accused of the crime.

 

 

 

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by Ellen Byerrum

An up-and-coming stylist, Angie Woods had a reputation for rescuing down-and-out looks—and careers—all with a pair of scissors. But when Angie is found with a drastic haircut and a razor in her hand, the police assume she committed suicide. Lacey knew the stylist and suspects something more sinister—that the story may lie with Angie’s star client, a White House staffer with a salacious website. With the help of a hunky ex-cop, Lacey must root out the truth...

As makeover madness sweeps the nation’s capital, reporter Lacey Smithsonian interviews TV show makeover success story Amanda Manville. But with Amanda’s beauty comes a beast in the form of a stalker with vicious intentions—and Lacey may be the only one who can stop him.

 

 

 

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The Bestselling
Blackbird Sisters Mystery Series
by
Nancy Martin

 

Don’t miss a single adventure of the Blackbird sisters, a trio of Philadelphia-born, hot-blooded bluebloods with a flair for fashion—and for solving crimes.