Silenced By Syrah (12 page)

Warm two 7-inch (small) sauté pans. Add olive oil to one pan. Season the scallops with salt and pepper. When the pan just starts to smoke, add the scallops. Cook for about 1 minute on each side, depending on the thickness of the scallop. When scallop shows a little color, turn. In the other pan, add butter and cook the butter until it begins to brown. Add the florets and cook for 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper. Add the capers, almonds, raisins, and parsley.

On warmed plates, put a small circle of the cauliflower purée in the middle. Add the raisin-caper ragout to the middle. Top with the scallops (they should be medium-rare). Drizzle the balsamic reduction and the extra virgin olive oil around the plate to garnish. Serves 2.

Marinated Yellowfin Tuna with
Roasted Beets, Radish, and
Lemon Oil with Robert Sinskey
Vin Gris of Pinot Noi r

Pair this recipe with Robert Sinskey Vin Gris of Pinot Noir. The grapes are delicately whole-cluster pressed and the juice is fermented off the skins. The wine is a gorgeous copper blush hue. This is a terrific rosé to drink with tuna.

 

LEMON VINAIGRETTE

 

Whisk lemon juice and olive oil together in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Reserve.

Trim beets of tops. Toss beets with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Place in a shallow roasting pan, cover in aluminum foil, and roast in a 325° oven. Roast until knife tender. Cool slightly. Peel while still warm. Cut into quarters. Reserve.

Have a fish purveyor slice tuna into 2-ounce pieces. Place tuna on a sheet of plastic wrap.

Moisten with extra virgin olive oil. Place another sheet of plastic wrap on top of tuna. Pound gently with a meat tenderizing mallet until evenly flattened. Repeat with all tuna.

Remove 1 layer of plastic wrap from tuna. Invert on a cold 12-inch plate. Season tuna with salt and fresh ground pepper. Drizzle lightly with lemon oil (
¹
⁄2 to 1 oz per piece).

Dress beets with diced shallots, chives, salt, pepper, and lemon vinaigrette. Spoon onto tuna in little piles.

Slice radish thinly on a mandolin or with a sharp knife. Drop onto beets. Drizzle a little lemon vinaigrette (
¹
⁄8 oz) over tuna. Finish with chives and cilantro chiffonade. Serves 4.

Optional: make tiny croutons. Dice white or sourdough bread into
¹
⁄
₈
-inch squares. Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Bake in 350° oven until golden. Sprinkle over finished tuna dish.

Chapter 11

Nikki didn’t suspect that Charlotte was a killer, not really. She wanted to speak to the aesthetician because in all likelihood, other than the killer, she’d been the last person to see Georges alive.

She had scheduled an olive oil and lemon verbena facial with Charlotte. The Malveaux Spa didn’t have anything similar, so she thought she’d not only gather what information she could from Charlotte, but also see if the olive oil and lemon verbena facial should be an item added to the Malveaux line. Problem was, she really didn’t feel like having a facial at all, especially after the lunch with Stacey that had taken such a bizarre twist.

The woman at the front desk showed her to a changing area, where she stripped except for her underwear and donned a plush terrycloth robe. Nice. She then slid her feet into a pair of thong-type sandals and headed out. Charlotte was waiting for her outside the changing area and introduced herself, then seemed to study Nikki for a moment, as if trying to place her. Nikki had seen her around the hotel and spa a few times. Charlotte was someone most people would definitely notice, even women. She was tall, striking in an Angelina Jolie way, with the lips that posed the question: collagen injections? Her hair was wavy, long and auburn and almost the color of her eyes. Sexy or hot were surely the words men used in describing Charlotte. Be-atch was probably the word—and said just that way—that many women used in regard to Charlotte. Nikki thought,
Now there’s a girl I don’t want hanging around my boyfriend
. And, which boyfriend would that be? The charming one ready to start a new life in Spain or the one with the aloof attitude and utterly to-die-for blue eyes?

Nikki followed Charlotte to the treatment room, and Charlotte waited outside while Nikki disrobed and got under the sheet. Charlotte came back in after a moment and tucked Nikki’s hair into a towel. “Do I know you?” Charlotte asked. “You look familiar.”

Nikki felt awkward addressing this while on the aesthetician table, but had no choice. “Actually you do kind of know me, or at least you’ve probably seen me around. I work at Malveaux. I’m the winery manager.”

“Oh.” Charlotte’s eyes widened. “I see. Okay, then can I ask you why you’re here? Are you really here for a facial?”

Oh good, at least Charlotte cut right to the chase. There’d be no trying to figure out the meaning behind nervous gestures or trembling hands. “Actually, a facial is something I need. I’m getting a few laugh lines.” She made an attempt to laugh. Charlotte kept on looking at her, which was really odd in a way, too, because she was leaning over Nikki, who was having to look back up at her. Oooh, she’d better
not
be a killer. Bad position to be in if that was the case.

“If you’re here about Saturday, I already talked to the police, and I e-mailed Simon this morning about my job at the spa. I can’t work there now.”

“Oh. Um, actually I’m kind of here to tell you that we know you had nothing to do with Saturday’s events and we value you as an employee.”

“You do?” Nikki nodded. “That’s very nice and I appreciate it, but I’ve been working here for a while and I started at Malveaux to kind of try someplace new and see how it worked. I’ve decided that Auberge is a better fit for me.” She took a steamy towel that smelled like eucalyptus and placed it over Nikki’s face.

Nikki breathed it in and for a second the thought that the woman might suffocate her crossed her mind, but then Charlotte removed the towel and began wiping off her face, then followed that with a cleanser, thoroughly washing her face. Then on to a scrub. This might not be so awful after all. “It is nice here,” Nikki replied.

“I think so, and no one was ever killed here.”

“Right. So, you said that the police came to talk to you?”

“A Detective Robinson. He asked me a lot of questions. I told him what I knew.”

“What’s that? I’m only asking because I knew Georges and I feel awful about his murder and I figure you had to have been the last person to see him alive.” Nikki didn’t know how Charlotte would react or if she would even respond.

“I took Mr. Debussey into the treatment room and explained the treatment to him. He asked for the Syrah splash, and basically, my only job was to fill the bath, explain the benefits, and be available when he was finished to get him water or tea. It’s a simple treatment for me.”

“And that’s what you did?”

“Exactly.” She mixed together in her hands oil from small vials and gently massaged them into Nikki’s face.

“Do you remember if you opened the French doors leading out to the balcony before leaving the room?” Nikki asked.

“I did open them.”

“Did you open them before Mr. Debussey came in for his bath or while he was already in the room?”

“Mr. Debussey had been there a few times before and so I did as he usually requested, which was to open them. I did so before he came inside.”

So, the killer had either already been on the balcony waiting, or had climbed up to the balcony somehow while Georges was in the bath. Nikki knew she’d have to go back to the treatment room and see if there was an area in which someone could have been hiding. If that was the case, then whoever killed Georges was aware of his schedule.

The aromatherapy oils of lemon and neroli mixed with olive oil smelled great. Yeah, this definitely wasn’t the worst thing a gal had to go through. Granted it could be a bit more relaxing if the talk weren’t focused on murder, or for that matter if there were no discussion at all. “But you left early, before Mr. Debussey was finished with the bath.”

Charlotte stopped massaging her face briefly, as if grappling with an answer. She began rubbing again as she spoke. “There is a timer that chimes when the bath is finished. So, the timer chimed, Mr. Debussey didn’t come out. I knocked. I waited. I left. I had to come to work here. Mr. Debussey was a bit of a pain, so I didn’t care all that much if he even left me a tip. I know that he was your friend, so I’m sorry to say that.”

Nikki opened her eyes. “It’s quite all right. But, how was he a pain, if all you had to do was what you explained to me? You know, to basically just run the bath.”

Charlotte wiped off the oil on Nikki’s face, again with the steamy towel. She dried it and covered Nikki’s eyes with cotton patches and turned on a bright light. Immediately Nikki felt a pinch on her face. Ow. And another one. Ouch. She squirmed on the table. “I’m doing extractions, cleaning out your pores. You have some buildup there.”

Now this part of the treatment was far from relaxing. Nikki had to wonder if Charlotte was actually a sadist and getting a thrill out of torturing her, one pore at a time.

“Once Mr. Debussey was prepared to get into the tub, I of course left the room. However, I don’t know if you’ve had that treatment there or not, but if the client needs the therapist at any time they can buzz us with a dealy-bob thing, you know, like a buzzer on the side of the tub, and the therapist carries around one of those things like you get at a restaurant when it’s your turn to be seated.”

“A remote vibrator?” Nikki asked, sounding strange as Charlotte continued to torture the left side of her nose, making it difficult to breathe.

“Yes.”

Nikki thought her entire face might come through one little pore. How much buildup could there be? Yikes. “Did he buzz you for some reason?”

“He did.”

“What did he want?” Thank God Charlotte moved from her nose on to her chin. At least that was tolerable, and there must not have been the same amount of buildup, because she finished quickly and turned the overhead light on. The next thing she did was put a mask on Nikki’s face. It was cool and smelled a little like bananas.

“First he wanted me to change the candles in the room. He said that he didn’t like lavender, that he wanted vanilla scented candles, so I went to get those for him. Then, he wanted a phone, of all things.”

“Vanilla scented candles? Were the doors to the balcony still open?

“Yep.”>

“Then he wanted a phone?”

“Yeah. He said that his cell phone was back at the restaurant, so I offered him the spa remote phone.”

“Did he say who he was calling?”

“Nope.”

“Did you hear any of the conversation?” Nikki asked.

“He asked me to pour him another glass of wine, and the bottle was out of his reach from the tub, so I did. While I got his wine, he called someone and I heard him tell whoever it was that if it hadn’t been for the moronic agent, the first cookbook deal with the publisher would have been a better one, and that whoever he was talking to needed to do a better job with investments. He didn’t like losing money.”

Rick Moran. He had to have been talking to Moran. “Did you tell the police about this?”

“Of course I did. I got the feeling the detective was looking at me as if I might have been involved, but I took off after the phone thing and the other thing that happened.”

The mask was cool on Nikki’s face, probably refreshing if she could let herself relax, which was not likely going to happen, especially after Charlotte’s pinching fingers from hell. “What other thing that happened?”

“I don’t know if I should tell you this, it’s not like you’re a detective, and you
were
the man’s friend. You might not like it.”

Nikki removed the cotton patches from her eyes and opened them to look at Charlotte. “Okay, let me level with you. I knew Georges and I liked him, but I have more than gossip-type interest in this thing. I know someone who was close to him who could really be affected by this, and I am really concerned for this person.” Janie’s face flashed through Nikki’s mind as she realized the real reason she wanted to find Georges’ killer. Sure, it did have something to do with showing up Detective Robinson, but more than that, Nikki felt a connection to the young woman. There were similarities between the two of them, both losing parents at a young age, and also the fact that there was this protective instinct that had come over her the night Janie had shown up on her doorstep, her face tear stained.

Charlotte stared back at her as though determining if going on and relating this story to her was truly in her best interest. “I already told the detective, so I suppose it can’t hurt to tell you. After I gave Mr. Debussey the phone and wine, and let myself out, he asked if I could find some more candles. I went back into the supply area to see about getting him the candles, and a few minutes later when I came back to his room, I heard some noises through the door coming from in there, like moaning and splashing. I figured he was getting kinky in there and I really didn’t want to be a part of it. I was sort of feeling weird going in and out of his room anyway, and honestly, he wouldn’t be the first client to try and make a move on me.”

“Oh my God! Do you realize that you probably heard the killer in there with him, or maybe you heard him taking his last breaths?” Nikki watched as a horrified expression came over Charlotte’s face.