The Body in the Landscape (A Cherry Tucker Mystery Book 5) (5 page)

Seven

I
let my stomach guide me toward the kitchen. A pass-through blocked entry into the long, narrow area. Behind the stainless steel window, a thickly mustached man in a white chef’s jacket and hat paused to look up from his task. Before him, a collection of plates held dry toast points sprinkled with tiny leaves and globs of mush. Even the pretty Gamboge Yellow Lake color could not disguise the globs as anything but goo. While I gaped in abject horror, the chef returned to shaving slices of what looked like a hunk of dirt on the plates.

“Are you Viktor?” I asked.

“Da,” he said, his focus on the dirt. “What are you doing in these kitchens? We are busy with the dinner.”

“Is that what you’re serving the hunt contestants?”

He nodded, confirming my fear. Much worse than foie gras eggrolls.

I abandoned my line of questioning for stomach self-preservation.
“I heard you were good. But I was wondering if you had something simpler. I’ve got real simple tastebuds. They like chicken and waffles. Shrimp and grits. Ribs and pulled pork. That sort of thing. Chicken nuggets, even
.
”

Viktor’s icy blue eyes cut me a scathing glance before returning to his hunk of dirt. “I have the carefully planned menu. You will enjoy.”

I tried a new tact. “You sound just like my friend. Same accent. Where are you from, Viktor?”

“Friend?” Viktor’s eyes narrowed. “Where is your friend from? What is his name?”

“I always get those countries over by Russia confused. But he’s from one of them.”

“I see.” He set the dirt clod on the counter and crooked a finger to beckon me behind the pass-through.

Knowing full well the importance of following orders from someone at the head of my food chain, I trotted around the stainless steel shelf and stopped a few paces away. Beyond Viktor’s station, three more cooks worked in the back of the kitchen. One dredged fish fillets in a flour mixture. Another stirred a pot that smelled like Brunswick stew. The last wielded a spatula over the griddle. My stomach barked its approval, but I refused it service to fix my attention on Viktor.

Folding his arms over his chest, he stared down the length of his nose. “You are friends with Maksim Avtaikin?”

“You know Max? He doesn’t associate much with—” I stopped myself from saying “fellow foreigners.”

“What does he not associate with? The cooks? Or the honest citizens
?”

Max seemed to be losing a popularity contest on this trip. First with
Bob
Bass and now Viktor. I didn’t care for the hostility that showed in the white-knuckled grip on Viktor’s arms. I hated to think of what that negativity did to his food. Perhaps that was why he stayed away from the deep fryer.

I sought a new subject that might move his emotions in a different direction. “Viktor, did you know Abel Spencer? I suppose you heard about his unfortunate death. I wanted to express my condolences.”

“I don’t know him.”

My best customer service skills did not seem to work on Viktor. “What about the contestants? They’re an interesting bunch. Did you get to meet
Bob
Bass or Rick?”

“Not yet. I am accompanying your party to the bunkhouse in order to cook for the weekend. I will meet soon enough.”

I opened my mouth to ask about specialized food requests when Viktor grabbed a sizable, gleaming knife. My mouth shut.

Viktor glanced at the knife, caught his reflection, and smoothed his mustache. He lowered the knife. “Tell your friend, Avtaikin, I’ll be very close.”

“How do you know Mr. Max?” I quickly prayed Viktor hadn’t lost significant sums in the Bear’s backroom gaming industry.

“You ask the Bear.” With a flick of his wrist, the knife tip pointed at my belly line of jiggling reindeer. “And tell him I will watch him carefully this weekend. You too. Any of the funny stuff and he will be reported.”

“Be reported to who?”

“To whom. Your English is not so good.” The gleaming knife flashed and
aimed
toward the door. “Now I must be preparing the dinner. Out.”

Ba
ck
in the dining room, I found a seat between Max and Todd at the long table for the hunt contestants. I nodded at
Bob
and his entourage sitting across the table.
Bob
flashed me a smile, then continued his story involving a politician, a flamethrower, and a bag of marshmallows.
Lowering my voice, I spoke to my untouched plate. “The chef knows you, Bear.”

Max raised a heavy eyebrow, scooped the orange mush onto a small piece of toast, and layered it with the dirt and tiny leaves. “Who is this chef?” He popped the bite into his mouth.

“A Viktor from your home country.”

He chewed for a long minute. “I do not know any chef Viktor in Georgia.”

“He sent a message warning you to watch your back this weekend.” I cut him a sharp side glance. “Via knife blade.”

“He must be the mistaken.”

Todd poked at the orangish blob with a fork and opted for plain toast.

“Maybe Viktor’s got Mr. Max mixed up with another Max.”

“Lord, I hope so.”

“You should widen the palette,” said Max. “Try the uni.”

“I prefer to use a palette for paint, not for sustenance.”

Across the table, Peach giggled.

I eyed her, wondering if extreme cleavage only caused the appearance of a drop in IQ points. “Where are you from?” I asked.

“California,” she said.

“Had a gig at a gun rally,” said Bob, dropping an arm on the back of her chair. “Peach snuck into my dressing room. Isn’t that cute? She’s been with me ever since.”

“A long time then?”

Bob searched the ceiling rafters. “A couple months?”

“Since August.” Peach switched her strained tones to a lighter octave. “Almost four months, Bob.”

“Sorry, babe,” said Bob. “Long time. Just think, the first time you met me you wanted to kill me and now you’re going to star on
Rockin’ The Hunt
. Must be love.”

I dropped a dry toast point. “Peach wanted to kill you?”

Bob’s laugh bounced around the roof timbers. “Peach snuck into my tent with a lil .38 Special. Told me hunting animals was mean. I said holding guns on people was just as mean. My bodyguard disarmed her and we’ve been together ever since.”

“That was pretty funny,” said Peach.

I didn’t understand the humor, but maybe it was a California thing.

A glass clinked and we turned our attention to the head of the table where Mike stood with Viktor and a line of Big Rack staff.

“Excuse the interruption,” said Mike. “I wanted y’all to meet the folks who will be serving you this weekend.” He introduced each guide, housecleaner, and cook.

At Viktor’s introduction, I poked Max, who showed no indication of knowing the disgruntled chef.

While Viktor ushered in the next course—another gelatinous goo, this time black, on a bed of lettuce declared by Jenny Sparks as the newest superfood—I popped from my chair with a ladies room excuse. Looking as pale as I felt, Risa the publicist scooted out of her chair and followed.

We stopped at the hall to the restrooms. “Not a superfood fan?” I asked.

“I go to the gym so I can eat burgers.”

I laughed and left Risa to head to the bar.

“You’ve got to get me something to eat,” I told the bartender. “Something edible.”

He poured me a bowl of nuts.

“Where can I find the cook named Jessica? They didn’t introduce her in the dining room. I’m desperate to meet her.” I left off the part about desperate to try her food.

“Jessica’s here. She’s cooking tonight. You must have missed her.”

Disappointed, I grabbed a handful of nuts, tossed them back, and ordered a beer. Politely turning from the bar, I spied a young woman with a large bakery box struggling with the vestibule door. I hurried to the front door to help her and her appealing-looking box.

“I need to find the hunt contest party,” she explained.

I blasted her with a huge grin. “I’m with that party. Is this dessert?”

“I guess so. It’s a cake. Was told to deliver here at six sharp.”

“Regular cake? Made from flour and sugar and butter?”

“Red velvet, actually.”

She looked surprised at my touchdown dance.

“I can take this to the table if you’d like.” I trotted back to the dining room with the heavy cake and slid it onto an empty table. “Special delivery for our party.”

Mike scooted from his place at the head of the table. “I wasn’t aware of a bakery order. We try to make everything here.”

“Is it gluten-free?” asked Jenny Sparks.

“Hope not,” I muttered and flipped open the lid.

I froze for a moment, trying to get my senses to correlate the opposing sensations. The sweet scent of sugar, vanilla, and cream cheese triggered my drool glands, but the image hurt my gut and caused goosebumps to prickle my flesh. I slammed the lid shut and turned my back on the cake.

Mike reached for the lid.

I shook my head. “Don’t open it.”

“Wrong address? Although how anyone would get the lodge mixed up, I’ve no idea. Looks like it’s from the bakery in town too.” He turned toward the contestants. “Did one of y’all order a cake? That was real sweet of you.”

I pulled on Mike’s sleeve. “I don’t think anyone here ordered this cake. And I need to talk to you privately.”

“What’s wrong?” he said, and before I could stop him, flipped back the lid.

“Is that dessert?” Returning from the bathroom, Risa strode up to the table and glanced into the box. Then screamed.

Eight

As
the contestants crowded around the bakery box, Bob’s manager helped Risa back to her room.

A cake shaped like a rotting pig’s head complete with bloody looking jam,
white chocolate maggots
, and spun sugar flies was enough to make me lose my appetite too.

“Is this someone’s idea of a joke?” LaToya’s teenage toughness had lost its swagger. “That’s disgusting.”

“Almost too disgusting to eat,” said Todd.

“We shouldn’t eat this.” I stepped aside to give Peach room to take a cake selfie. “The police might want it as evidence.”

“Evidence?” said Mike.

“There’s a knife stuck in the hog’s head. The cake says, ‘Death to Pigs.’ No one here sent it. Don’t you want this investigated?”

“This kind of thing happens to me all the time,” said
Bob.
“Don’t
bother the authorities
.
No harm, no foul.”

“People send you dead animal cakes with threatening notes all the time?”

“Hell, if I had a dollar for every time some activist threw red paint on me, I’d be a rich man.”
Bob
laughed. “What am I saying? I am a rich man.”

“So you think this was done by activists?”

“Sure, honey. What else could it be?”

“Wouldn’t they want to advertise? Like stage a rally?”

“Usually,” said LaToya. “Sometimes anti-gun people demonstrate at my rifle tournaments. They want the publicity.”

“They’ve been at some of our hunt tournaments too,” said Clinton Sparks.

“But those were bigger venues,” said Jenny. “Big Rack is much more private.”

“Don’t forget
I’m
here,” said Bob. “I am your bigger venue.”

“I
just thought activists demonstrated to draw attention to their issues. Not that I have any experience with activists; my art isn’t that controversial. Except for one local woman, Shawna Branson, who’s hated me since time immemorial. But she’s more drama queen than activist.” Realizing my digression, I continued. “So what’s the point of sending this cake? Besides ruining a perfectly good red velvet?”

“Perhaps the idea is to remind us of our own mortality.” Max’s Eastern European intonations produced a group shiver. “I like this cake. It is circle of life. The hog gives us life in his death. We have respect for his sacrifice because one day we are also covered in maggots.”

Hopefully not with a knife stuck through our heads, I thought.

“That’s a bunch of bull hockey,” said Bob. “You make Hogzilla sound noble. You didn’t sign up for this tournament to protect the countryside from a dangerous predator. You’re here to win, just like me.”

“Perhaps it is why you are sent disgusting cake,” said Max. “A good hunter respects life. And that is why you will not win this tournament.”

“Man almighty,” I muttered to Todd. “There’s a knife and threatening message and they’re still trying to out-piss each other.”

“Competition’s fierce,” he whispered back.

“Maybe Bob’s right,” said Mike. “Let’s just ignore the cake and move on.”

Bob reached for the knife, sawed off a chunk of cake, and shoved it in his mouth. “This is what I think of their message.” Bits of red spittle and crumbs sprayed from his mouth. “Delicious.”

“I think I’m done with food tonight,” I said. “And I think that’s the first time in my life I’ve ever uttered those words.”

At
the guest lodge vending machine, I decided to skip the pork rinds. I hoped my food trauma would soon pass. I also hoped to figure out who sent that cake. If I was forever put off red velvet, I would need vengeance.

But I also couldn’t shake the weird feeling I’d had since arriving at Big Rack Lodge. Before I had found Abel Spencer’s body, something had seemed off. Even the staff seemed tense. In Georgia, you could usually count on amiable service, particularly out in the country
.
Generally you had to drive to Atlanta for tense.

I had written off my foreboding feelings to the
troubles
at home I’d hoped to suppress. But then I had found Abel. And now there was this wacky cake. One and one didn’t make two in this situation, but one and one did cause me to search for a three.

I called Rookie Holt. She answered right away, once again proving her rookie status, as the law enforcement I knew generally let my calls roll to voicemail.

“Rick Miller didn’t come to dinner,” I said.

“That’s why you called me?”

“Just thought you should know since you find him suspicious.”

“I didn’t say I found him suspicious.”

“Someone also sent our party a cake. A cake with a threatening message.”

“Threatening the party?”

“Not sure. But it had to do with the hunt. Check with the local bakery, but someone ordered a decomposing pig’s head with a knife stuck through it. By the way, Swinton’s bakery is pretty talented.”

“I’ll send someone over.” Her reply sounded automatic.

“What are you thinking?
Bob
Bass and the other hunters say it’s a protestor, but there was no credit taken by any group.”

“I can’t say without seeing it for myself. Are you always this familiar with law enforcement?”

M
y
cheeks
warmed. “
My Uncle Will—
”
 

“You told me about him. Anything else?”

“I just can’t shake this odd feeling I have.”

Holt’s voice softened. “You saw something very disturbing today, it’s understandable.”

“It’s not just that—” I stopped, knowing feelings didn’t count as facts, particularly with police. “Has the coroner seen Abel Spencer yet? I just thought if your coroner is like ours, it’s not like they have a lot of bodies to examine. Did they give a cause of death?”

“Blunt force trauma. His head struck the rocks in the creek when he fell.”

“Was he drunk?”

“If you know procedure so well, you’ll know it takes much longer for the BAC report to come back,” she snapped.

“Sorry. Everyone thinks Abel took a drunken spill. I just wondered if they were right.”

“Not everyone thinks that.”

“What do you mean?” I tried to control the excitement in my voice. “Do you think differently
?
You know I didn’t smell alcohol on him.”

She pulled in a breath. “I think we’ve talked enough. Tell Mike one of us will come out to check on that cake.”

Her hang-up came before any goodbyes could be said, but I was too stunned to care.

Sweet drippings of bacon, I had a suspicion that Rookie Holt had a suspicion that Abel’s death was suspicious.

But were we alone in our suspicions?

Back
in my room, I nibbled on peanut butter crackers and Coke, my thoughts hopping between bloody cakes, dead bodies, and troubles at home.

In the next room, a TV kicked on, blaring the local six o’clock news loud enough for me to hear the weather report. I grabbed my own remote, slid back on the bed, and caught the three-day forecast for clouds, rain, and storms.

“Those poor dogs.” I wondered how quickly the police would find Abel’s pack dry and loving homes.

The weather forecast reminded me of my soaked art supplies. The police had returned my easel, tackle, and watercolors. I had left the easel to dry in the bathtub but left the waterlogged pad and paintings on the desk. A smear of blue among the greens and browns caught my eye. Lifting the paper, I realized I had painted Abel’s hat without knowing what it was. Just a daub of royal blue.

Lucky I chose that spot in the forest to paint, I thought, or no one would have found Abel’s body before the hunt.

Not that anyone would expect a visitor from the contest to park herself in a glen to do a bit of landscape painting. The area I had chosen wasn’t in the reserve across the road, but in the forested area ringing the lodge and its farm fields proper. Unlike Goldilocks, I hadn’t wandered far. Followed a path of cleared trees until I reached a spot I liked, not knowing fifty yards farther, the clearing dropped into a shallow ravine.

Maybe too lucky.

I walked the curling paper to the bathroom trash and returned to grab my phone from the rustic nightstand. I flipped it open.

Behind me, the newscaster announced breaking news on Big Rack Lodge. I spun around to watch. An aerial view showed footage of the lodge grounds, then panned out to show the surrounding woods and farmland. Tiny cows ambled in a field and the metal blades of a windmill caught the sun, obscuring the camera’s lens for a moment.

Old footage, I mused, since I hadn’t seen the sun since arriving at Big Rack.

The angle tilted, then steadied on the spot in the woods where I had found Abel’s body. The announcer described the tragedy that had temporarily suspended the big hunting contest. The view of the woods shrank a bit until it showed the triangulation between my landscape spot near the ravine, a small homestead of trailers, and the lodge cottages. Almost ninety-degree angles between the three places.

“One of those trailers,” the reporter announced, “was the last known place the deceased, Abel Spencer, had been seen before his death.”

I jumped as I saw myself leaving the Swinton police station, outed as the lodge guest who had found the body. More faces flitted across the screen. The Sparks, then LaToya with a brief description of her Junior Olympian status. Finally, several photos of
Bob
Bass were shown.
Bob
playing at a concert.
Bob
posing with his gun and guitar.
Bob
and a dead moose.
Bob
and Peach Payne. But no Max. And no Rick.

How did the Bear manage to get his name out of the local news? I pondered that detail but became distracted by a blurry night-vision video of a humongous creature nosing through a field. The massive hulking form, stark black against the white field, paused from eating the corn it had tromped and mangled. Twisting to face the camera, his small, piggy eyes glowed with an almost human malevolence. With an eerie abruptness, the giant pig disappeared, galloping out of the camera’s range.

I shuddered, glad I had skipped the pork rinds.

The short news story had no mention of the police calling Abel Spencer’s death suspicious. Only a sad fate. I sank onto the bed, tapping my phone against my knee, perturbed with the news story. Not just perturbed. Distressed.

The contest didn’t bother me. I had grown up with hunters. Rational, responsible men and women with a strong moral code. Not the type who were sent hostile baked goods.

However, Abel Spencer’s death troubled
me.
I thought his death also troubled
Rookie Holt.
But according to the news, no one else seemed troubled
.
Was the investigation of his death suppressed from the news or was there no investigation?

I didn’t think Rookie Holt would speak to me again unless I had something worth talking about. However, there was another deputy who might have some ideas
.

“Hell.” I glared at my phone. “I’m looking for more excuses to call. And I promised myself I wouldn’t.”

Our last hookup, just before my brother’s arrest, had started as a professional consultation too. But we both knew Luke’s investigative advice had been an excuse to see each other.

Commercial break over, the news turned to security footage of a fight between two wiry meemaws over the season’s favored Christmas toy at the local Walmart. I cut off the TV,
opened my
sketchpad
, and drew a cell phone.

Broken hearts flew from the receiver.

Dropping my pencil, I flipped open my phone. And pushed the number five. By accident. Sort of.