Slice and Dice (39 page)

“The evil eye?”

“No, dear. She was flirting. And,” she said, pausing for effect, “she looked distinctly predatory. Like a hawk zooming in on a mouse.”

“How flattering.”

“Just an observation.”

He shrugged indifferently.”We merely bumped into each other one night She realized she’d been on my radio show a few years back. We got to talking. She was really shaken up after she got that threatening note pushed under her door. Then Kenneth Merlin shows up to bribe her off the story. She was alone in town, Soph. I got drawn into the whole mess simply because I’m a good listener. And that’s the truth. I will say that when she finally came clean and told me she was working on a biography of Constance Buckridge, she caught my interest immediately. I mean, if it turns out this ex-boyfriend of yours comes from a long line of serial killers or psychopaths, I wanted to know about it.”

“Please,” Sophie muttered, leaning back in her chair. She wondered if she’d made a mistake by starting out the evening with the announcement that, on May 7, George Gildemeister had received a fax from someone at the Buckridge Culinary Academy instructing him to make his review — his second critique of the Belmont — even more vitriolic than it already was.

When Bram heard the news, he was appalled.

Sophie added that one could easily infer from the situation that George had sent a draft to Constance or one of her inner circle in order to obtain approval. Why? Very simple. Money had been offered in exchange for a scathing review. Sophie and Bram both agreed that it was disgusting. They also agreed that there was no reason why it shouldn’t have worked — unless, as Sophie pointed out, George suddenly came down with an attack of guilty conscience.

After reading all the interviews, Sophie was itching to know what had gone on in that family all those years ago and what impact it had on the present.

“It’s not impossible that Nathan’s behind it all,” said Bram, using his deep, authoritative radio voice.

“Is that your opinion or Walter Cronkite’s?”

He folded his arms over his chest. “Nathan could have been the one who murdered Gildemeister.” Nodding toward the interviews, he added, “He also could have poisoned Pepper Buckridge. After all, he took the antifreeze from the garage. We have an eyewitness to attest to that.”

“Bram, he was only nine years old.”

“So?”

“Behavior like that would make him a total sociopath.”

“And precocious, too. Look, somebody in that family planted a bomb in Sean Rafferty’s car, and it wasn’t Nathan’s dear old mama. I doubt Constance knows all that much about internal combustion engines. And now I find out that Nathan was in Gildemeister’s apartment the night he died — and that he might be part of a plot to sink the Belmont so that the Buckridges can add a new gourmet bistro to the growing list of academy-run restaurants. Maybe he’s behind everything, Sophie. He’s certainly in a pivotal position.”

She shook her head. “I can’t accept it.”

“Why not? Because you’re still in love with him?”

Now he’d gone too far. “Don’t turn this into something it isn’t, Bom. I’m not in love with Nathan. It’s just… I know him better than you do. He’s a good man. A gentle man. He could never murder anyone.”

“Most people who commit murder don’t have two horns and a tail. They look just like you and me. And they do what they do, not because they’re evil or sick, but because their backs are to the wall and they see no other way out.”

She knew he had a point. That’s when she recalled what Nathan had said to her on Wednesday night. He’d warned her not to get too close to him because she might get burned. She’d taken it as a veiled comment on the sexually charged nature of their relationship. But after what she had found out today, she wondered if he hadn’t been talking about something else. Perhaps he’d been referring once again to his “frustrated system.” In light of what she now knew, the comment took on an ominous portent. What if he had jettisoned his conscience, his sense of right and wrong? “Look, Bram, Nathan came clean about being at George’s apartment that night. He even told me why he was there.”

“Which could all be a lie. If he’d murdered the man, he’s hardly going to tell you the truth, especially if he’s trying to wheedle his way back into your life.”

“That’s not going to happen and he knows it.”

“For all I know, Sophie, he already has.”

She closed her eyes. This was a nightmare. Bram couldn’t know what had happened, yet he sensed something was different. But it
wasn’t
different. She’d slept with Nathan, but it would never happen again. “Please, sweetheart, just drop it. You’re making way too much of something that was over a long time ago.”

After a couple of tense seconds, his expression softened. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to upset you. It’s just… when I think of you spending time with that jerk, I get a little crazy. I never thought of myself as the jealous type, but I guess maybe lam.”

She reached across the table and took his hand. “I love you. You’ve got nothing to be jealous of. Nathan and I are just friends, and not even that. We hardly know each other anymore. But there’s still a connection. I can’t explain it. And he’s in trouble. I can’t just turn my back on the man.”

“My wife. Father confessor, psychologist, and social worker all rolled into one.”

She smiled, glad that he’d let her off the hook — for now. “Help me think this through, okay?”

“Should I make us a pitcher of martinis first?”

“Do you think it would help our thought processes?”

“No, but it might put me in a better mood.”

She patted his hand. “Why don’t we save it for a reward? We’ll enjoy it so much more when we’re done.”

“If you say so, dear.”

“Don’t grit your teeth, darling. It’ll wear them out. And don’t be angry.”

“I’m not angry. I’m thirsty.”

Still sputtering at each other, they adjourned to the living room. Bram sat down on the couch and patted the spot next to him. Once Sophie was seated, they put their feet up on the footstool and Bram entwined his arm around hers.

“There, now we’re at least more comfortable.”

“Don’t drift off on me, buster. We’ve got some heavy analyzing to do. Okay, we have two different threads we need to follow. One present tense, one past.”

“Let’s take the past first.” He sat up a little. “Marie Damontraville has uncovered some intriguing facts about Constance Buckridge and her family, starting with Arthur Jadek’s sudden disappearance in the late Fifties and his equally sudden reappearance in 1973. Also, we have a brief sexual liaison between sister and brother and the accusation that both Constance and Arthur sat by and let Wayne Buckridge die when they had it in their power to get him the medicine that might have forestalled his death.”

“Well put.”

“By the way, if the D. A. thinks that last part could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it might qualify as ‘depraved indifference.’ They could both be indicted for murder.”

Sophie had no idea. “But it can’t be proved.”

“Not yet, but give Marie some time. Now, as harmful as these interviews would be if they made it into a book or a magazine article, you’re right. It’s still Constance’s word against Laurie Lippert’s as to whether the worst of the accusations are true. You mentioned to me earlier that Constance has already made a plausible case for why this ex-employee might lie. Since there were no other witnesses — at least none that we know of — Constance and Arthur have deniability on their side. My point is, I think it’s possible that Marie hasn’t unearthed the worst of Constance’s secrets yet. If that’s the case, she’s not safe as long as she’s working on that wretched book.”

“You’re referring to Pepper Buckridge’s death?”

“Exactly. To keep a potential poisoning under wraps, Constance, or someone in her family, resorted to murder. Whether or not Nathan is responsible for Raffety’s death, I’ll bet he knows who is, and that makes him legally culpable, no matter how much you want to deny it.”

Sophie tipped her head back and closed her eyes. “This is such a disaster,” she said, a hollow feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. Pulling herself together she added, “I won’t defend him, but I don’t think we should convict him without knowing all the facts.”

Bram conceded the point with a shrug.

“Okay, now it’s my turn,” said Sophie. “I’ll continue on with the present.”

“Gildemeister’s death.”

“I want to run through all the new information I’ve gathered.”

“I’d be happier if I was sipping a martini.”

“I’d be happier if we were sitting on a beach in Bermuda, but we’re not. Now Harry was arrested for George’s murder because he admits he was in George’s apartment that night, and he had a motive. He’d also threatened George in a note he hand-delivered to the paper, as well as in various other letters discovered at his house. But Harry swears that when he left George’s apartment that night, George was still alive. He further suggests that George was waiting for someone else to arrive, which meant he more or less shooed Harry out.”

“And we know that other person was Nathan,” said Bram, “because a woman across the hall saw him. Did you ever tell Nathan about her?”

“Actually, I did. But Nathan swears that when he got to George’s apartment, the door was open and George was already dead.”

“How convenient.”

She held up her hand for quiet. “Ada Pearson, George’s neighbor, said that Harry got there about six-thirty. She heard an argument a little while later. Then she went to the kitchen to eat her dinner. During dessert, she heard more arguing. Then it was quiet for about half an hour, so she looked outside to see what was going on just as Nathan left the apartment. If Nathan had arrived after Harry left — say, seven-fifteen or seven-thirty — and another argument ensued during Ada’s dessert, let’s say Nathan did murder him. If so, why did he stick around for another half hour? I saw him leave at eight.”

“Maybe he was looking for something,” said Bram. “That fax you found?”

She hadn’t thought of that. “I suppose it’s possible. But it’s equally possible that what he said was true. Someone else may have arrived while Ada was eating dinner. That person had the second argument with George. The murder wasn’t premeditated. Whoever did it just picked up whatever was handy, in this case a knife, and stabbed George in the back. Then he took off. Nathan arrives about half an hour later, sees George’s body, and hightails it out of there so fast he doesn’t even close the door.”

“But, Sophie, you’re forgetting something. Nathan’s job is to oversee all the B.C. A. restaurants. I’m sure part of his responsibility was to scout out locations for new acquisitions —

restaurants with significant potential but currently in trouble: situations they could manipulate to their financial advantage. That fits the Belmont to a T. Who knows? Maybe Nathan does this all the time. How many restaurants did you say the academy owned?”

“Nine.”

“I’ll bet more than one of them was damaged by a bad review before it sold out to the Buckridges. But the fly in the ointment this time was that, like you said, George’s conscience must have gotten the better of him. After all, he’d just seen Harry. They’d argued. Maybe Harry said something that hit a nerve, made George feel guilty about what he’d done. When Nathan arrived to pay him off, let’s say George refused the money, although I doubt that would have gotten him killed. Suppose he also said he was going to admit publicly what he’d done and tell who’d put him up to it. Nathan couldn’t allow that. It could have ruined everything. They’d be sued by so many people, they could have lost millions, not to mention the negative media fallout. Constance and everyone associated with her would have been vilified. So he does the only thing he can. He picks up the first weapon he sees and takes care of the problem.”

“But maybe it wasn’t Nathan,” insisted Sophie. “There had been enough time for someone else — Kenny, Paul, even Constance — to arrive, take care of George, and leave before Nathan showed up.”

“You know,” said Bram, scratching his head, “how come nobody ever mentions Arthur in any of this?”

“Because he’s not really part of the family business.”

“But maybe he is. He’s retired, right? Maybe he’s taken more of an interest in Constance’s affairs in the last few years.”

Sophie had never really thought of that.

“But back to Nathan for a second. When he told you he wanted to talk to George about New Fonteney, he was lying. It doesn’t make any sense. What could George do for him? If Nathan wanted someone to help him market a new cooking school, he would have gone to a marketing agency. I’m sure the Buckridges already employ several. One of them would do market research. I’m sure that’s all standard operating procedure.”

Sophie had to admit, Nathan’s story had seemed a bit thin. “Maybe he did lie, but that doesn’t mean he killed George.”

“It had to be one of the Buckridges,” said Bram. “Who else would know to make Harry the patsy? Harry had a serious grudge going against George, but not everyone would immediately think of that. The man was set up. It’s so damn obvious!” Turning to look at her, he added, “It’s time we take what we have to the police. We’ve got Ada Pearson’s testimony. The fax sent to George from the academy. The fact that he’d been bought off to write negative reviews. I’d say it’s an open and shut case. Let the police figure out the particulars.”