A Cookbook Conspiracy (30 page)

Savannah, meanwhile, had piled some of her cookbooks and several issues of
Cook’s
magazine at the opposite end of my worktable and pulled a high chair over to get
some work done. She was compiling new menu selections, a job that was more
difficult than it sounded, since it involved a lot of research, then experimenting
and cooking and sampling and figuring out wine pairings.

Okay, that didn’t sound difficult in the least. In fact, it sounded like a dream job
to me.

Savannah, though, worked night and day to maintain the level of quality that kept
her at the top of the list of great chefs in the country. So I guess I could cut her
some slack.

I got back to my own work and finished sewing the
Jane Eyre
signatures to the linen tapes, then cut the text block loose. I trimmed the tapes
and then put my sewing frame back in its cupboard. After that, I prepared a batch
of polyvinyl acetate. PVA was strong and water soluble and it stayed flexible for
a long time. Plus, it didn’t yellow or crack, so that made it the glue of choice for
discerning bookbinders everywhere.

I slipped the text block, spine side up, into a wood block press and tightened it
carefully. Then I picked out a fat, round wooden glue brush and began to slather glue
onto the spine edge of the signature block, saturating the linen tapes and threads
and making sure the mixture got into every seam.

The glue would take a while to dry, so I washed out the brush and straightened up
my work space.

At that moment, Dalton waved the clutch of cookbook papers at me. “What do we know
about Obedience Green?”

“Just what I’ve read in her journal. You’ve got the pages right there.”

“I’ve only seen the pages with the encryptions.”

I took the pages, flipped through them, and handed him the journal section. “This
is her life, right here. She traveled to America, where she worked for an English
army general who was unmarried. She met all sorts of Americans here and I think she
was influenced by some of them. After six years, she returned to England and continued
to run the general’s household until…she died?
I’m not sure. It just sort of ends with her trip back to England.”

“Did you ever Google her?” he asked.

“No.” I frowned and asked myself why I’d neglected to do that. “I have no good excuse.
I’ll do it right now.”

“Let me know what you find,” he said. “I have some ideas, but your results will give
me some perspective.”

I moved my laptop over to the worktable and powered it up. Once online I looked up
every source I could find on Obedience Green. Unfortunately, those two words combined
brought up a million different odd links, such as
dog obedience training in Green Valley, Montana.

I added the word
cookbook
to the search and after combing through every last link, I found something enlightening—and
chilling.

The short article posted from the
Gipping Gazette
told of a theft of several articles from the local historical society museum, including
a cookbook written by Obedience Green, a resident of the village from 1788 until her
death in 1836.

The article was sixteen years old.

I printed out the news clipping and handed it to Dalton. He skimmed it and stared
at me. “That shines a rather different light on the subject, doesn’t it?”

“You bet it does.”

“It doesn’t do squat for my encrypting work, but it certainly could affect your murder
investigation.”

“I’ve got to call the police.” I took a breath. “No. I want to talk to Kevin. I’m
going to call her.” I started for the phone, then stopped. “No, I’ll call Peter. Or
maybe I should…oh, hell. I don’t know what to do.”

Dalton grabbed my arm. “Call Derek. He’ll come home and we can plan our next move.”

“Right. Absolutely.” I rubbed my forehead, where a headache was forming. “You know,
before I do anything else, I’m going to go to the market to buy stuff for dinner.”

I needed to get outside, let the wind blow through my hair and maybe, just maybe,
blow all of my random thoughts into some kind of order. But that wasn’t the only reason
I needed to get out of my apartment.

“Savannah,” I said, “come with me.”

She glanced up. I could see she was about to decline my request, but then she read
my expression and said, “Yeah. Okay.”

I patted Dalton’s shoulder. “Will you be all right on your own for a while?”

“Of course,” he mumbled, already wrapped up in his squiggly cryptographic world.

*   *   *

“W
hat was that all about?” Savannah asked as I rushed her to the elevator.

I gave her a shortened version of what I’d found out online.

When I was finished, she nodded and said, “We need to talk to Kevin and Peter. They’ll
know what happened.”

I valet-parked at the Campton Place Hotel and we hurried inside and found the elevators.
On the tenth floor, we tried Kevin’s room first, but there was no answer.

“Let’s try Peter’s,” I said.

His room was two doors down. I started to knock on the door, but then realized it
wasn’t closed all the way. An icy chill slithered across my shoulders, causing me
to tremble. A door ajar was never a good sign.

I knocked first, then nudged it open a few inches. “Hello? Peter? It’s Savannah and
Brooklyn.”

I hesitated, waiting for a response, but Savannah waved her hand anxiously. “What’re
you standing here for? Just go in.”

“Okay, okay.” I shoved the door open all the way and walked into the sitting room
of Peter’s elegant suite. It was identical to Kevin’s suite, except Peter’s was a
chaotic mess. Sofa cushions were tossed on the floor. The entertainment hutch was
open and DVDs were scattered across the carpet. Several chairs around the dining table
had been tipped over.

It looked like a very messy burglar had been at work. My nerves screamed at me to
back out of the suite and call the police, but I ignored my instincts and stood my
ground. What if Peter was in trouble? Needed help?

“What happened here?” Savannah’s voice quivered. “Where’s Peter?”

“We’ll find him.” I moved cautiously into the bedroom, where the first thing I noticed
was another door leading out to the hallway. An escape route?

There was a big black suitcase lying on the bed. A backpack was splayed open next
to the suitcase and many of Peter’s cooking tools were scattered across the bed. A
few had been tossed onto the floor.

I wasn’t surprised to see all these utensils in a chef’s room because I knew Savannah
traveled with many of her own, too. But I doubted that Peter had thrown them every
which way like they were now.

“Men can be so messy.” Savannah bent down to straighten up a pile of wooden spoons.
My sister, the good little housekeeper. Obviously she hadn’t considered the violent-intruder
theory yet.

“Savannah, honestly,” I whispered impatiently. “Do you really think Peter made all
this mess?”

“Well, who else would—” She blinked. “Oh, crap!” She dropped the spoons as if they
were on fire. “Somebody else was in here tearing this place apart.”

“That’s right.” I checked the suitcase zipper. It wasn’t locked.

“So let’s call the police and leave.”

“Not yet,” I said, unzipping the small front pocket of the suitcase.

“What are you doing?”

I felt inside, but nothing was there. “Look, someone was here searching for something.
They probably made a run for it when they heard us come in, so maybe they didn’t get
a chance to finish their search. I just want to take a look around for a minute or
two. Then we’ll call the police.”

“Do you know what you’re looking for?”

There she went, getting all logical again. “Not really.”

She looked around anxiously, as if half expecting some masked marauder to leap at
her from the closet. I shivered. It could happen.

She whispered, “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“You might’ve mentioned it a time or two.” I unzipped the larger section of Peter’s
suitcase and flipped it open. And lying there on top of Peter’s neatly folded clothes
was my burgundy leather book box. “Oh, sweet Mary Jo.”

“Hey, that’s my cookbook,” Savannah said.

“Yes, it is.” Although in my own mind it was
my
cookbook. I reached for it slowly, reverently, and finally held it in my hands. In
my imagination, the
Hallelujah Chorus
rose in the background.

I could tell by the weight of the box that Obedience Green’s cookbook was still inside.
But just to be sure, I lifted the panel and checked. There it was, neat and snug,
tucked on top of its matching suede pouch and resting in its perfectly carved-out
cubbyhole.

“I did a really good job on this,” I murmured, gliding my hand across the smooth dark
morocco leather.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Savannah groused. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“I want to call Derek first,” I said, pulling out my cell phone.
“If Peter stole the cookbook, he’s probably the one who killed Baxter.”

“No,” she moaned. “Not Peter. He didn’t do it.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” I said. It hurt me, too, to think that Peter was a coldhearted
killer, but the evidence was damning. I pressed Derek’s number and seconds later I
heard his phone begin to ring.

“Darling,” he said. “I was just thinking about you.”

“Aw, that’s so nice.”

“Oh, my God, you’re flirting?” Savannah said in disgust. “Just tell him what’s going
on and let’s get out of here.”

“Is that your sister?” he asked.

“Yes. She’s in a mood.” Funny, but now that I had the cookbook in my hands, my nerves
were quiet. We could still be in danger and yet somehow I felt as if everything was
turning our way.

“What does she want you to tell me?”

I gave Savannah a dirty look, then said to Derek, “Okay, the thing is, we’re here
in Peter’s hotel suite, and we just found the missing cookbook. So I’m afraid Peter
might’ve had something to do with Baxter’s death.”

“Oh, just say it,” Savannah hissed. “You think Peter killed him.”

“I heard her,” Derek said, and let loose a string of expletives that shocked me. “I’m
calling the police and I want you out of there right now. Go downstairs and wait in
the lobby. I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, walking away from Savannah to the other side of the room. Derek
rarely swore, so it caught me by surprise. Without thinking much about it, I pushed
the door to the bathroom open.

“Hey, look what I found,” Savannah said.

I didn’t get a chance to see what she’d found because I had found something much worse.
My scream echoed against the tile walls and I moved out of the bathroom and slammed
the door behind me.

“What is it?” Savannah cried. “Brooklyn, stop it!” She grabbed me by the arms and
shook me, looking even more terrified than I felt.

“Peter,” I mumbled, dropping the phone. “Blood…ugh…” That’s as far as I got before
I slithered from her arms and crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

“Wake up! Damn you, wake up!”

It was sort of like déjà vu, only instead of a rich, deep, sexy British accent urging
me awake, it was my sister’s shrill voice bitching at me. And she was slapping me!

“All right, all right,” I muttered, and struggled to sit up while at the same time
pushing her hand away from my face. “I’m fine. Stop beating me.”

“Oh, thank God.” She grabbed me in a hug so tight it cut off my air supply. I was
about ready to pass out again, but I managed to smack her arm hard enough to break
the contact.

“Don’t you ever do that again!” she cried, as she stood up. “Do you have any idea
what it’s like to watch your eyes roll back and then see you keel over? You scared
the hell out of me! I almost fainted myself.”

“All right, calm down,” I said, pushing myself up off the floor until I was standing
again. The effort cost me. I slid onto a side chair and took some gulps of fresh air.
“What happened to Derek?”

“Derek?”

“The phone.” I sighed, bent over, and covered my face with my hands. Oh, man. I just
passed out while talking to Derek. “He’s going to kill me.”

“I might help him with that,” she grumbled as she reached for something on the floor.

“Hey, I have a little problem with blood. Sorry.”

Savannah handed my phone to me. “Here’s your damn phone. He hung up.”

I groaned. I could just imagine what Derek was thinking. He probably guessed that
I was out cold, which meant he was on his way over here, which meant that I was going
to hear all about this for days. “Okay, give me a break here. At least we found the
book. And Peter.”

“Yes, and I think you owe him an apology.”

“Who? Peter? Savannah, he’s dead.”

“Which means he’s
not
Baxter’s killer.”

“You’re right, and I’m sorry.” The fact was, Peter still could’ve killed Baxter, but
in the interest of sisterly agreeableness and the fact that Peter lay bloodied and
dead in the bathroom, I conceded. For now.

“Oh, wait,” I said, suddenly realizing something. “I’d better check to make sure he’s
not still alive.”

“What did you say?”

I grimaced. “He looked dead, but I didn’t check. He could be alive.”

“What?” she shrieked. Oh, dear God, that really was horrifying. “What are you talking
about? Are you crazy? You said he was dead in the bathroom!”

“Shhhhh,” I said, grabbing my head. Her voice had reached
an octave only dogs could usually hear. “The whole place will hear you.”

“I don’t care!” She stood before the closed bathroom door, hesitating. “Come on. You’re
coming in with me. We should check, but I’m not doing it alone. And you’d better not
faint again, because I’m not going to catch you.”