By Cook or by Crook (A Five-Ingredient Mystery) (7 page)

Chatty called out from the shop door. “See you Thursday, Val.”

Val glanced at two teenage boys who’d just entered the shop. She’d better get to the point fast before Darwin abandoned her for other customers. “I heard you fill special orders for older rackets. Do you ever get requests for wood rackets?”

Darwin frowned. “There’s a wood core racket with graphite—”

“I meant an all-wood racket, the kind people used to play with.”

Darwin looked like a decorator whose client demanded an avocado shag rug. “Wood rackets are heavy. The head size is too small. Even the best players wouldn’t be competitive with that kind of racket.” And you, lady, are not the best, his intonation said.

“So no one’s asked you to order one?” He shook his head, and she continued. “Where could someone buy a wood racket? Where did you get the ones hanging on the wall?”

He put back the high-tech model he’d tried to sell her. “Flea markets. Garage sales.”

Perfect places to pay in cash and leave no paper trail. Her hope of finding the source of the racket used in the murder dimmed. “I’ll have to think about what racket to buy. Thanks.”

She left the shop. The humid air outside carried aromas of fresh bread, tomato sauce, and garlic. She glanced at her watch. Seven-thirty. No wonder her stomach was growling. For the first time in months, she didn’t have to go home and make dinner for her grandfather. He was eating out. Why shouldn’t she? She followed her nose to Bayport’s newest restaurant, the Tuscan Eaterie, half a block away.

The restaurant had no free tables and a long waiting line. She snagged a seat at the bar, which offered the full menu. She studied it and ordered a risotto. The bronze-toned mirror behind the bar gave her an oblique view of the restaurant door, patrons leaving, others coming in. She glimpsed a couple as they exited, an older man in a white shirt shepherding a woman with a short gray pixie hairdo. From the back, the man resembled Granddad. Val swiveled to look directly at the door, but by then the couple had disappeared. The older guy couldn’t have been her grandfather. He wore white dress shirts only to funerals. Tonight he’d probably gone to the diner in his overalls to eat with his friend, Ned.

Val had to wait so long for her meal she was tempted to walk out. The noise in the bar gave her a headache. Her food, when it finally arrived, covered barely a third of a square white plate. Three brown commas of salad dressing punctuated the arugula sprigs decorating a corner of the plate. Finding the morsels of seafood in her rice would have required a magnifying glass. She ate slowly, trying to identify the ingredients in the risotto.

Midway through dinner she heard her cell phone ringing but didn’t bother climbing off the bar stool to fish it out of her bag. She couldn’t have heard the caller over the din anyway, and the ring was muffled enough that no one else at the bar noticed it. It rang again as she was wiping her plate clean with a piece of bread, and again she ignored it. By the time she left the restaurant, it was almost nine and darker than usual because of a thick cloud cover.

She retrieved her phone messages.

“Val, it’s Monique. Call me. It’s important. I’ll try you at home.” Click.

“Where are you, Val? I have to talk to you. I need your help.” Click.

Her cousin’s voice bordered on frantic. What could be wrong? She dialed Monique’s number. Maverick answered and told her that Monique was lying down.

“Is she sick?”

“No, she’s in shock. Can you come right away? She won’t talk to anyone but you.”

Val’s phone beeped a warning that the battery was low. “I’m leaving now.” What on earth had happened?

She rushed to her car parked in front of Darwin’s Sports. As she climbed in, she noticed Darwin locking the shop doors. She drove with the window open, her hair ruffled by the damp air. The peninsula road was even more deserted than when Gunnar had driven on it with her this afternoon. Deserted, except for the SUV looming behind her, its headlights in her rearview mirror like enormous penetrating eyes. She hated tailgaters.

She took her foot off the accelerator and steered as far to the right as she could on the road. The SUV made no move to pass.

She slowed to a crawl. The SUV slowed as well.

Maybe the tailgater was afraid to pass her on this road.

She pressed the accelerator and drove as fast as she dared. Her pursuer sped up as well. She slowed down again. The SUV did the same.

A pang of fear gripped her. She pressed the buttons to roll up her windows. How long before she’d see some houses, any sign of life? Nothing for miles except empty fish and tackle shops.

She reached for her cell phone, but dropped it in her lap when the SUV pulled out to pass her. Neck and neck on a narrow road. She glanced sideways. Too dark to see the driver. Her palms damp with sweat slid on the steering wheel. Her heart hammered against her rib cage.

The SUV edged closer. She eased the Saturn to the right. The car bucked on the rough shoulder. It scraped the bushes at the side of the road. She was dizzy, losing control, as she had on the icy highway.

No. She could manage the car this time. The road wasn’t slick. She just had to keep her head.

But a second later the Saturn lost the road and Val slammed on the brakes.

Chapter 7

Val’s car stopped with a bump, her seat belt harness tight across her chest. She’d hit something, an obstacle not visible in her headlight beams. She restarted the stalled car. The wheels resisted going forward. She reversed and touched the gas pedal lightly. The car limped back, hard to steer. Something was out of whack.

Up ahead, the SUV’s brake lights flashed on and the taillights moved to the right. It was pulling to the side of the road. She grabbed her cell phone, and fumbled to unlock the keyboard. As soon as she did, it shut off. No juice left.

Would the SUV driver come after her? Would she be raped, beaten, left for dead? Suppose the SUV driver was the murderer? Serial killers had targeted nurses and prostitutes, so why not tennis players? Should she run?

No. Better to stay in the car and try to attract attention. She leaned on her horn. Was anyone around to hear?

On the other side of the road, headlights lit up the darkness.

Val blew the horn again. The oncoming pickup truck slowed and pulled over near Val’s car. Seconds later, the SUV’s taillights grew smaller and disappeared. Gone, at least for the moment.

The pickup driver tapped on her window. “You need help?”

She nodded and flung open the car door. “Thank you for stopping. The SUV you just passed ran me off the road.”

The man stroked his grizzled whiskers. “He was probably just trying to get in front of you. You didn’t have to get off the road. There was plenty of room for both of you.”

The matter-of-fact tone and slow speech of the man exasperated her. “You don’t understand. He was trying to—I don’t know what he was trying, but—”

“Calm down, lady. Are you hurt?”

“No, but I think I have a flat.” She had changed a flat before, but never in the dark.

He took a flashlight from his pickup and walked around the front of her car. “I see what happened. You hit a fuse box that some idiot pitched on the side of the road. It split the sidewall on your right front tire. Long as you got a spare, I’ll fix ya up in no time.”

While the man jacked up her car, Val searched the dark road ahead. Suppose the SUV driver turned around and rammed her car? Would she have time to warn the man helping her? Only a motorcycle and a pickup passed by during the tire change. The bully with the SUV might be waiting for her between here and Monique’s house.

She watched the Good Samaritan load the flat tire into her trunk. “Do you live nearby?”

“Coupla miles back the way you came, there’s a turnoff. That’s my road.”

She could U-turn and follow him, but once he turned off, he’d leave her on a road as deserted as this one. “I’m only going a mile or two farther on this road. Could you drive behind me until I reach my cousin’s house? Just to make sure everything’s all right.” And the SUV wasn’t waiting for her around the next bend.

The man picked up his tools. “I gotta get home to the missus. She’ll call the Coast Guard if I don’t show up soon. Your spare tire’s good, but don’t drive real far on it. It’s one of them small ones.”

Val thanked him and offered him twenty dollars, which he refused. She pulled out on the empty road toward Monique’s house, her hands clammy on the wheel.

After a mile, headlights appeared in her mirror. They’d come from nowhere. Had the driver lurked off the road, waiting for her car to pass? She turned into Monique’s driveway and watched in the rearview mirror as the vehicle behind her slowed down and drove past. At least it didn’t follow her into the driveway. She ran to the house door and pounded on it.

Maverick opened it. “Glad you finally got here.”

“Me too.” Val stumbled into the hall. The air-conditioned house felt cold as a tomb. She shivered. “An SUV just ran me off the road. A few more feet, I’d have been in the water.”

“Probably a teenager. No driving experience.”

Those road maneuvers didn’t strike Val as the work of a novice. “I wish I’d gotten a look at the driver or the license number. I want to call the police.”

“Don’t do that.” Maverick blocked her from going beyond the hallway. “If they show up here, Monique will freak out. She’s had all she can take of the police for one day.”

Uh-oh. “What’s going on?”

“The police came here and questioned us. Monique’s worried they suspect her of the murder. They knew about her harangue against Nadia at the club. The sheriff’s deputy, Holtzman, really leaned on her.”

“He leaned on me too, and all I did was find Nadia dead.” Oops. Val bit her lip as Monique emerged from the bedroom wing.

“You found Nadia?” Monique’s eyes and nose were red from crying, her face puffy, her long hair tangled. “Then you must know—how was she killed? Was it with a hatchet?”

“A hatchet?” Val shook her head. “Look, I can’t talk about how she was killed. The police put a gag on me.”

“Please, Val. They think I did it.” Her voice rose to a hysterical wail.

“Take it easy, Monique.” Maverick put his hand on her arm.

Monique jerked away from him. “Don’t tell me what to do. You put me in this mess.” She stumbled to the window seat in the living room, plunked down, and twisted herself into a pretzel, arms and legs crossed in front of her.

Val squeezed next to her cousin. “What happened with the police?”

“They came by, asked some questions about Nadia, and wanted to look in our shed. We said sure, we have nothing to hide.” Monique’s chin trembled. “Then they found our hatchet and took it away.”

Not good. The police don’t just willy-nilly remove tools. “Did they say why they wanted the hatchet?” When Monique didn’t respond, Val gestured with her palm up toward Maverick.

He wet his lips. “A hatchet can leave identifying marks on wood like a rifle leaves on a bullet. Ours has a flaw in the blade. The police ran some tests, came back here, and said our hatchet was used to shave the handle of the racket burned at Nadia’s.” He gestured toward his wife as if turning the mike over to a co-anchor. “Monique?”

Val didn’t need the words. Her cousin’s sagging face told her the bad news. “You burned the racket? God, I hope you didn’t lie to the police.”
The way you lied to me
. “What did you say to them?”

Monique huddled in the window seat and twirled her hair, tying it in knots. “At first I denied setting the racket on fire. Then I admitted it. I figured, what’s the big deal? I didn’t damage anything at Nadia’s, not even a blade of grass. I’m not a vandal.”

The police weren’t looking for a vandal. “What happened after that?”

“They treated me like a criminal. They asked me the same questions over and over.”

Val knew how it felt. Holtzman had used the same technique on her. “What questions?”

“When did I last see Nadia? Where was I on Monday night? I was home by myself. I can’t prove it, so they think I murdered Nadia.”

Who could blame them? Monique had a motive, no alibi, and a prior act of aggression with a wood racket. Val struggled to reassure her cousin. “Look at the bright side. The police haven’t arrested you.” Yet. They probably would have arrested her if they could have connected her to the murder weapon.

Maverick loomed above his wife. “You should have called a lawyer as soon as you heard Nadia was murdered.”

Monique aimed her index fingers at him like a pair of six-shooters. “You should have kept it in your pants.”

He rolled his eyes. “How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?”

His wife glared at him. She usually passed for younger than she was, especially with her hair in a ponytail, but now fear etched lines in her forehead and hollowed out her cheeks.

Val spoke quietly to Monique. “If I’d known you set the racket on fire, I’d have suggested you tell the police or get a lawyer. Why did you lie to me?”

A tear rolled down Monique’s cheek. “I didn’t want you to know. You thought I was wrong to stop playing on Nadia’s team. And here I’d done something much worse, something totally stupid and childish.” Monique uncurled her body. She covered her face with her hands, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed.

“I’ll make some coffee.” Maverick retreated into the kitchen.

Monique looked up. “He can’t stand it when I cry.”

“A lot of men can’t stand to see a woman cry,” Val said. But most of them try to console the woman. They don’t just leave the room.

“I didn’t kill Nadia.” Monique clutched Val’s arm. “You believe me, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Val’s inner skeptic reminded her that she’d fallen for Monique’s lie about the burned racket. Yet she gave her cousin the benefit of the doubt. She empathized with any woman whose partner cheated on her. She also felt bad about the way her grandfather had cut himself off from Monique’s parents. Despite the family feud, she and Monique had found each other years ago. They’d forged a secret friendship, two young teens dropped off with relatives in Bayport, where neither had any friends. Those summers meant enough to Val that she would treat her cousin as innocent until proven guilty and stand by her if she were guilty.

Monique gnawed on her knuckles. “I feel like a spider in a web. Someone’s trying to make it look like I did it.”

And doing a darn good job of it. “I wonder if anyone watched you set the fire. When I drove Nadia home from the club Sunday night, I saw a jogger in a hoodie near her house.”

“That was me. I set up the racket and waited until I saw headlights on the road from the club. When the car turned into Nadia’s neighborhood, I lit the fire, ran off, and then backtracked through the woods to my car.”

Val stood up, leaving the window seat to Monique. “Where did you get the racket you burned?”

“From the garage. It was Maverick’s old racket from when he was a kid.” Monique twisted her wedding ring. “That’s why I burned it. It was this phallic thing that represented him.”

Val understood, recalling her own outrage at her fiancé for cheating. In one symbolic act, Monique had vented her anger at both Maverick and Nadia.

Maverick returned and strode to the liquor cabinet. “There’s coffee in the kitchen if you want some. I think I need something stronger.” He gripped a bottle of bourbon.

Monique stood up and rubbed her forehead. “I’ve got a splitting headache. I’m going to bed. You can sleep in the den, Maverick.” She turned away from him. “Thanks for coming by, Val.”

“Why don’t I spend the night here? In case you can’t sleep and need someone to talk to.” Besides that jerk of a husband.

Monique’s eyes glistened. “Thank you. Mandy’s bed has clean sheets on it. I’ll bring you towels and a nightgown.”

As she left the living room, Maverick poured amber liquid into a tumbler. “How about it, Val?”

“Not for me. I have to call my grandfather and tell him I’m staying here.”

Maverick pulled a phone from a pocket in his cargo shorts. “You can use this.”

She told Granddad she was spending the night at her cousin’s and cut him off before he could ask why. Cradling the phone in her hand, she watched Maverick getting his fix. He swirled the bourbon, sipped, and held his glass up, as if gazing through alcohol would bring him enlightenment. Had he ever before faced a crisis? On the tennis court, he anticipated shots so well, he never had to run. The ball gravitated to the sweet spot of his racket. Things just naturally went Maverick’s way, on and off the court, at least until his wife discovered his affair and his lover was murdered.

She handed him the phone and went into Mandy’s room. The bed’s ruffled spread and puffy shams reminded her of the girly décor she’d banished from her own room as a child, replacing the bedspread with a sleeping bag to her mother’s annoyance.

Her cousin came into the room, carrying embroidered towels and a lace-trimmed nightgown nothing like the sleep shirts Val usually wore.

Monique sprawled on a pink beanbag lounger. “I was just thinking about the fun we had those two summers. Your grandparents and my aunt had no clue when we went to the library, or the movies, or the town dock that we were meeting each other.”

Val sat on the edge of the bed. “My grandmother knew, but she never told Granddad.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, are you still planning to move back to New York?”

Did that question stem from the fear that Val would leave her alone to face a murder charge? “I’m not going to pick up and move in the near future. But part of me wants to go back to redeem myself after Chef Henri trashed my reputation.”

Monique shifted from lying on the beanbag to sitting on it. “If the other part of you wants to stay here and you go back there because of what he did, you’re letting him control your life.”

“That’s not the only reason to go back. I miss the museums, theaters, restaurants.” Yet she had more friends and family in Bayport than in the city where she’d lived for a decade, and she would miss them if she left. “What about you? Are you staying with Maverick?”

Monique fiddled with her wedding ring. “My father died when I was seven. My mother raised two kids on her own. I don’t want Mike and Mandy growing up without a father. Maverick and I will stay together until the kids are old enough to live on their own. Then, if he doesn’t change . . .” She stood up and gave the beanbag the kick that she probably wanted to give her husband.

“Kids make a difference.” Val counted herself lucky to have discovered Tony’s cheating before they were married and had children. Six months ago when she broke off their engagement, she’d faced the pain of knowing that their five years together meant nothing to him. If they’d had children, though, she’d have attempted to repair their relationship, and her pain might have become chronic.

Monique stifled a yawn and crossed the room toward the door. “How’s the cookbook coming?”

“I’m still working my way through Grandma’s recipes, trimming the fat and switching to fresh instead of canned ingredients. My own recipes are all organized. Now I have to write them up so someone besides me can understand them. Then I’ll need people to test them.”