Two Cooks A-Killing (12 page)

The next morning when Angie went down to breakfast, not even cold cereal awaited her. Or coffee.

No one was in the breakfast area or the patio. She went into the kitchen. It, too, was empty. Mariah stood alone, looking helpless.

“Where's Goetring?” Angie asked.

“I don't know. I told him we'd cater lunch and dinner, but that he should put out a light breakfast spread for everyone in the house. He understood he was supposed to have coffee ready by seven
A.M
.”

“No one else is here, either,” Angie added, perplexed.

“I guess nobody's hungry,” Mariah said. “They were all pretty upset about last night.”

“Oh, really? What happened?” Angie made her expression as guileless and innocent as she could.

Mariah hesitated. “I'm not sure. I wasn't there either. In any event, if the cook doesn't show up, can you help with breakfast?”

“Of course.” Angie was pleased with the oppor
tunity to show off to one and all, and especially to Tarleton, how well she cooked.

Serefina walked into the kitchen. “Good morning, Mamma,” Angie said.

Serefina eyed Angie, Mariah, and the pristine kitchen. “There was some trouble here last night, eh?” she asked. “No breakfast. No cook. Everyone's upset.”

Mariah confirmed it.

Serefina nodded. “Let's make breakfast for them, Angelina. Nothing fancy. Maybe a little egg, a little toast. It'll cheer them up.”

“We can do better than that.” Angie began pulling ingredients from the pantry. “Want to help, too, Mariah?”

“Not me.” She showed them her back. “I'm out of here.”

Angie rummaged through the freezer while Serefina pulled out a few bowls, pots, and pans. Before long they began to work on a meal of Angie's poached eggs with crab and hollandaise sauce, and Serefina's frittata of pancetta, avocado, and chilies. With it, they planned biscuits, strawberries, coffee, tea, and a variety of juices.

As they cooked, Tarleton entered the kitchen. “Food. Good. Everyone's hungry.” He turned to leave again.

Angie hurled herself in front of the exit. “Do you still want the traditional Christmas dinner from the last show Brittany played in?”

“Of course.” He gave her a who-are-you-to-question-me glare. “The crew's returning, and we'll start shooting day after tomorrow. Two days after that, we need the dinner.”

“Just one?” she asked, thinking about the three separate dinner scenes she'd witnessed.

“Yes, of course. What do you mean?”

Since she wasn't supposed to have heard anything from last night's rehearsal, she couldn't question him further. “Fine. In that case, I remember the show—”

“You do?”

“I remember the roast goose, but the trimmings are all vague.”

“Whatever,” he said, stepping to the side to get past her.

She stepped to the side as well. “I was thinking the roast goose should be maple glazed. It makes a beautiful centerpiece.”

“Good, now—”

“With it, I'll serve corn pudding with smoked oysters, yams in orange cups, mushroom and parsnip soup, heart of romaine and persimmon salad—”

He took a few steps backward. She moved toward him.

“—Spinach with tasso ham, braised pork backs with bourbon gravy, green onion biscuits, a relish tray, pear-onion-fontina strudel—”

He backed further. She followed.

“—Little sweet-potato pancakes with caviar, broccoli with fennel, apple-filled acorn squash rings, cranberry sauce—”

He bumped into the far wall.

“—A Waldorf salad, and pumpkin chiffon and pecan pies for dessert.”

“Stop!”

“That's it,” she said with a smile. “What do you think?”

“I don't care. You fill the table with good food and Waterfield wines. That's all.”

Her face fell. After hours of worry and planning…“You don't care?” she repeated, stunned.

“
I don't care!
As long as it looks pretty, Miss Amalfi, I…don't…care.”

Anger, embarrassment, and frustration warred. It was all she could do to keep her tone civil. “If you don't care, why did you want a gourmet chef to cook it? You could have used plastic food, just like everything else in this house!”

Out of patience, Tarleton bellowed, “That's exactly what I told Waterfield! He said you needed to get away from the city for a while.”

Angie felt the floor rock beneath her feet.

“What about the chef with the broken leg?”

“Broken leg? What broken leg? I don't know what you're talking about?”

From being flush with embarrassment, Angie suddenly felt as if all the blood drained from her face. She spun toward her mother. “What's going on?”

Serefina's gaze was sad and understanding. “Enough, Angelina,” her mother said gently. “You were given a job to do. You'll do it, and make the food special. You gave your word that you'd help. In fact, this morning, it looks like everyone needs help more than ever. Now,
signor direttore, scusi!
We are cooking here.”

As soon as Tarleton fled, Angie slumped into a chair. “What is Papà up to?”

Serefina measured flour into a sifter. “He has his little ideas. It's nothing.”

Angie placed her hands on the counter. “Does having a couple of bachelors in this house—rich bachelors—have anything to do with it? Is that why you're here, too?”

“Angelina, I love Paavo. He's a good man.” Puffs of flour billowed into the air as Serefina sifted too vigorously. “Your papà, though, he only sees money, or lack of it. He knows you won't look at another man on your own, so he suggested I come stay here a few days to help you realize what a fine man and good husband Silver would be for you.”

“
What?
You agreed to that?” Angie couldn't believe what she was hearing.

“Of course.” Serefina added eggs and milk. “I could use a vacation, and this is a lovely place for one. Also, Sterling has always been a little sweet on me. You don't know what fun it is to have a man pay close attention to me, like a woman, instead of a wife.” She sighed dreamily.

Angie gawked.

“Not that I would ever do anything about it, but it's good for the ego.” Her black eyes sparkled. She put down the whisk and wiped her hands. “Besides, when the day comes that I need a facelift, he might give me a discount.” She smoothed her hair, making sure not one strand was out of place.

Angie stared at her a long moment, then broke into laughter.
That
was the mother she knew and loved.

 

Ignoring blaring horns and dirty looks from fellow drivers, Angie swung into a parking space when she saw Digger Gordon walking along a sidewalk in downtown Napa. Although it was the largest town in the valley, if anyone went there looking for great wineries, they'd be sorely disappointed. A few upscale restaurants and “gateway to the wine country” establishments helped, but not much.

Since the grocery stores in St. Helena were miniscule, Angie took her shopping list of gourmet ingredients to Napa.

She rolled down the passenger window of her Mercedes and called to Digger, “What are you doing here?”

He approached, surprised to see her. “After what we witnessed last night, I need to check something out.”

She wanted to find out a few things as well, but didn't know where to start. It seemed Digger did. “What is it?”

“You don't want to know.” With a good-bye wave, he continued past her.

She locked her car and ran to catch up with him. “Why not? I know all kinds of things about murder investigations. Didn't I tell you my fiancé is a homicide inspector in San Francisco?”

“Several times. Sounds like you agree this is a good story,” Digger said without slowing down. “Maybe such a good story you want to steal it.”

Shocked, her step faltered a moment. “I don't want your damn story! I want to know what happened, that's all.”

“Maybe you want to sell the story, or make a book out of it.”

“Oh, for pity's sake! We've got a bunch of TV stars and others acting peculiarly. We both want to know why—you for your job; me because it's important.”

“Maybe it's important to me as well.” Digger turned into a small building with
Napa Press Tribune
stenciled on the window.

“The newspaper office?” Angie asked. “Are you going to tell the local press about this?”

“Nope.” He waggled his eyebrows. “If you must come along, keep quiet and watch an expert in action.”

Digger showed his press credentials, introduced her as his assistant, and was given access to the morgue—the newspaper's back copies.

“Surely you've already read the newspaper accounts,” Angie said as they entered a room filled with newsprint and microfiche.

Digger perused the dates written on the file drawers. “I've read the AP reports and those from a couple of San Francisco reporters who came up here, but I never saw the first stories from the site—what was written before it became big news.”

“In other words, the first and maybe second stories out of here,” Angie said, “before the big reporters took over and the Napa guys were shunted back to the obit page.”

He found the right year and began flipping through the microfiche. “I like the way you think, Angie. Like a journalist.”

“Actually, I was a journalist once.”

“Do I have a nose, or what?” He gloated as he
found one with the dates he wanted. “I wasn't so out-of-line when I thought you wanted to steal my story after all. I must have sensed the news-hound in you.”

“Actually, I wrote about food and recipes.”

“For the
San Francisco Chronicle
or the
Examiner
?”

“The
Bay Area Advertiser
.”

He stopped searching long enough to look at her and frown. “
Advertiser?
It isn't one of those newspapers delivered free with lots of ads, is it?”

“It was. I'm afraid it doesn't exist anymore.”

He pulled out a fiche. “And you looked down your nose at me writing for a national tabloid?”

“We must have standards, Digger,” she said, then added with resignation, “even if we don't live up to them ourselves.”

Digger chuckled. At a microfiche reader he searched for the date of Brittany's death—November 15. The record of the fifteenth showed nothing, which wasn't unexpected. But the sixteenth also reported nothing, and the seventeenth only ran an AP report out of Los Angeles with a local sidebar in which Sterling Waterfield spoke of what a lovely, talented young woman Brittany had been, blah, blah, blah—all the usual things said about any dead star.

The lack of first-hand news reporting made no sense. Digger was out of the morgue like a shot. Showing his press badge, he asked if the editor was available.

“Daniel Gordon,” Nicholas Clark said, extending his hand as Angie and Digger entered his of
fice. “Glad to meet you. I've admired your work.”

Angie couldn't believe what she was hearing. This newspaper had to be really small potatoes if the editor admired a
National Star
reporter.

“Thanks,” Digger said, looking somewhat embarrassed. He told Clark what he was looking for.

“That was before I got the job, but I was curious about it myself,” the editor said. “No one will say why or how, but the story was spiked. I can only speculate on what happened…and I won't.”

“What about the cops and the medical examiner?” Angie asked. “Reporters often question them.”

“They had little to offer.” Clark explained that, almost immediately, the death was ruled an accident. Sterling didn't want any kind of investigation done in his house. He refused to let the CSI check things out unless they could get a court order stating there was a suspicion of foul play, and he refused to allow the police to talk to anyone in his family, saying they were too distraught over the death to do so.

Sterling had been the one who'd broken into Brittany's room. Clark said his reporters speculated that more happened when he'd broken in than he wanted to say—or to let CSI discover. Everyone assumed the door was locked with a slide bolt because they found the bolt intact on the door and the doorframe portion of the lock ripped from the wood molding. Sterling never said if the lock had been previously damaged or if the wood was bad. It was never questioned, and without
the kind of investigation a CSI could do, no one would ever know if that was the case.

“He's my mother's friend…and my father's.” Angie shivered, disturbed by the news editor's implication.

“All I'm saying is there was no proof for reporters to get a handle on,” Clark explained. “Word of Keegan's death went out via press releases. All questions were handled by the studio's publicity department. A few reporters came nosing around and learned there was more to the story, but basically it was an accidental death. Whether she fell from her horse on her estate in Malibu, which was sad and romantic, or fell out of a window in St. Helena, which was clumsy and disgusting, the bottom line wasn't worth all the time, money, and effort to track down exactly where she fell. After a little speculation in the LA papers—even an eventual retraction of the Malibu story, I believe—the whole thing disappeared from the newsman's radar.”

“You know a lot about it,” Digger said.

“I'm a newspaper man. I want to know and print the truth—no matter what my predecessors did.”

Angie and Digger soon left. “It's a dead end,” Angie said as they returned to her car.

Digger pondered a moment. “Not completely. Rudolf Goetring seems to know a lot about what happened that night. I want to hear more about the two women who were fighting, and about Goetring, himself. His name is unfamiliar. I thought I'd checked out everyone connected with this case. I'll see what I can scare up on him.”