Authors: Meg Benjamin
Tom Ames gave her a cautious smile. “Hi, Kit. What can I get you?”
“Whatever beer you gave me the other night. It was great.” She gave him a smile that she hoped was reassuring.
No drama here—absolutely none. So help me.
“Kit, you came back!” Deirdre leaned on the bar beside her, grinning as she pushed her tray toward Tom. “Two Shiners and a house red,” she called and then turned back. “So how’s the Woodrose Inn?”
“Exhausting.” Kit grinned back. “I had no idea the Rose was so popular. I haven’t had a chance to eat anything since mid-morning. I was hoping you guys were still serving.”
“Let’s check—Clem’s still back there, I think. Let me drop off this order, and then we’ll go ask what’s around to eat.”
Kit wasn’t sure who she’d expected “Clem” to be—probably someone large and male, sort of like Joe LeBlanc. She was a little surprised to see a tiny woman with spiked black hair and a side braid, along with a pierced eyebrow and a harassed expression beneath her chef’s beanie.
“What’s up?” she asked. “I’m not serving anything to those assholes at the pool table. They don’t even know what they’re putting in their mouths anyway. And I saw Denny Steinbruner put his burger down on the table, right on the felt. Let ’em eat chips.”
Deirdre shook her head. “I just wanted to introduce you two and see if you had anything around we could munch on. Kit Maldonado, this is Clem Rodriguez.”
Clem narrowed her eyes. “Allie Maldonado’s niece? The one working at the Rose?”
“Geez, news travels fast around here.” Kit nodded. “That’s me.”
Clem shrugged. “People in the restaurant trade talk to each other. Joe’s a friend of mine. So’s your aunt. I saw them both at the market this morning. Sit down.” She waved a hand toward a table at the side of the kitchen. “You can finish off the risotto so I won’t have to figure out what to do with it. We’re not getting many orders for it.”
“I need to go wait on a few tables,” Deirdre said. “Save me a little and I’ll come back for it.” She pushed through the kitchen door into the dining room again.
Clem shook her head as she spooned up two servings of risotto. “Sooner or later she’s going to burn herself out running Coffee Delight and waiting tables. Tom’s been trying to get her to stop, but she likes hanging around the bar in the evening and she can’t just sit there for some reason.”
“So Deirdre’s his significant other?” Kit took a bite of risotto and her tense muscles relaxed. Parmesan, mushrooms, a little hint of sherry. Clearly Joe LeBlanc wasn’t the only outstanding new chef around Konigsburg.
“About as significant as you can get,” Clem said dryly. “Chico and I have a running bet going about when the wedding will be.”
Kit grimaced slightly, which wasn’t at all fair to the risotto.
Clem narrowed her eyes. For someone her size, she could look surprisingly menacing. “You got something against them getting married?”
Kit sighed. “Not really. Right now I’m just sort of anti-wedding in general. My Aunt Allie roped me into planning hers, and I don’t have a clue about what I’m supposed to be doing. She just gave me her budget tonight and I can’t tell if it’s realistic or insane.”
Clem shook her head. “You mean she still hasn’t married Wonder? For some reason I thought that had happened a long time ago.”
Kit shrugged. “She kept putting it off, and now she’s got some kind of phobia about planning for it. So she’s decided I can handle everything, even though I’ve got no experience doing anything like it. I don’t even know where to start.”
Clem leaned back in her chair. “Does she have a venue? Go for that first. Once you’ve got the place nailed down, you can usually build around it.”
Kit shoveled in a couple of bites. “What are the usual venues around here? I don’t think she wants to get married in a church.”
“People used to get married at Cedar Creek Winery,” Clem mused, “but they’re enlarging their patio right now, so it’s not available. If it’s a small wedding there’s always the party room at Brenner’s. Lee Contreras and Ken Crowder are friends of Allie’s anyway. They’d probably let her have it for free, or close to it.”
Kit frowned. “I don’t think the wedding’s going to be that small, given all the people Allie knows around town and the size of our family. I mean Aunt Allie and her sisters and brothers alone would fill up Brenner’s.”
Clem buttered a piece of bread for herself. “Well, kid, if push comes to shove, you’re working at the biggest wedding venue in town. That event center at the Woodrose is wedding central.”
“Yeah, and it’s probably booked for the next five years,” Kit said gloomily. Plus it also probably cost more than Allie’s entire budget.
“Not necessarily.” Clem leaned back again. “They had this really lousy chef, Aaron Carville, for a couple of years. He ran the restaurant into the ground and that started dragging down the rest of the inn too. My guess is they’ve been scrambling to make up for the damage he did.” She took a bite of her own risotto. “Of course, that’s going to change fast now that Joe’s in charge. He’s already taking a major bite out of the lunch trade here in town. It doesn’t hit us because we’re not in that price bracket, but I’ve noticed that Kip Berenger at the Silver Spur has been doing a lot more lunch entertainment and special events than he did before.”
“Joe’s a really good chef. So are you,” Kit added hastily.
“Yes, I am.” Clem grinned. “But Joe’s more high powered than I am. He was sous chef at one of the biggies in New York and head chef at a restaurant in New Orleans. He’s definitely the real deal.”
“What’s he doing here?” Kit shook her head. “I mean, not that Konigsburg isn’t a good foodie town, but…”
“But it’s not one of the big ones.” Clem nodded. “He had some…problems. Personal problems. A few years ago. But now he’s pulled himself together again. If anybody can get the Rose back on its feet again, it’s Joe.”
Clem shoveled in a couple more bites of risotto. Kit considered asking her some more specific questions about Joe LeBlanc’s “personal problems”, but she figured if Clem thought it was her business, she’d already have told her.
Deirdre pushed back into the kitchen again, tendrils of her dark hair flying around her face. Depressingly enough, she looked even more beautiful when she was messy. “Back again. Did you save me some food?”
Clem handed her a plate. “Sit down. Do not go through that door again. Let Sylvia and Marilyn handle the tables.”
“Okay. For the moment.” She took a bite of risotto. “Really good, Clem. Up to your standard.”
“Yep,” Clem agreed. “Now about the wedding food.”
“What wedding?” Deirdre turned to Kit, wide-eyed. “You’re getting married?”
Kit shook her head. “Aunt Allie and Wonder Dentist. I’m the designated wedding planner, god help me.”
Clem continued as if there’d been no interruption. “If you get the Woodrose, you probably won’t have a choice—the food will have to come from their kitchen. But Joe would do a great job for you anyway. And he’d probably work with you on price. You should get some kind of discount since you’re working there.”
“You’re going to do it at the Woodrose?” Deirdre grinned. “That’s where Docia was supposed to get married. They had the reception there, anyway. All I remember is the champagne, which was first rate.”
“Nothing’s set up yet,” Kit said a little desperately. “I don’t know how Aunt Allie would feel about the Woodrose, or who she wants to do the food for the reception.”
Clem shook her head. “Doing it at the Woodrose would save you a world of hassles, believe me. If you do it anywhere else, you’ll be hip deep in the restaurant wars. Lee and Ken at Brenner’s would feel honor-bound to bid for it, and Allie might feel like she should do it herself, and I’d probably put in a bid too.” She grinned. “Not that I’d get it, but hey, I’d feel like I needed to stake my claim at least.”
“Won’t they get mad if Joe does it?” Kit took a quick bite of risotto. “I mean they’re competitors.”
Clem shrugged. “Like I say, if you do it at the Woodrose, you don’t get a choice. And then Lee and Ken can just be guests and Allie can relax.”
“Except she’ll probably want to do her own cake, and the groom’s cake too.” Kit chewed her lip. She wasn’t sure about that, but since baking was Allie’s profession, to say nothing of her pride and joy, she had a feeling her aunt wouldn’t want to turn it over to anyone else.
“Not a problem.” Clem grinned. “The Rose is already contracting with Allie for pastries and baked goods. Joe hasn’t found a pastry chef yet, and he probably won’t find one in time for this wedding, assuming he can get the okay to hire one.”
Kit leaned back in her chair, frowning. “It can’t really be this simple, can it?”
“Sure it can.” Clem carried her plate to the sink. “Assuming you can get the event center, you’re in.”
“Assuming I can get the event center.”
“Maybe you could use their wedding planner too. Then you wouldn’t have to do everything.” Deirdre raised an eyebrow. “Surely they’ve got one.”
Kit considered the Woodrose’s wedding planner, one Mabel Morgenstern. “I think I’d rather do it myself, or let Aunt Allie do it once we’ve got the venue sewed up. It’s going to be hard enough to reserve the place. I don’t want to push my luck. Thanks for your help, Clem.”
Clem grinned. “Anytime. Just remember our catering services when it comes time for the bridal shower.”
Kit lowered her forehead to the table. “Oh hell, bridal showers. I have to find out how to run a bridal shower. And here I’d been feeling so good.”
Nando lounged on his barstool, nursing his beer. All in all, it was a shitty end to a shitty week, and he used the words advisedly.
They hadn’t gotten anything back from the county lab about the bookstore break-in yet, but that would take a while. Given that the county had some more serious crimes in the queue ahead of them, Nando figured they’d be lucky to get anything back in a month or so.
Meanwhile, Ham had actually begun a campaign to undermine him as assistant chief. He should have anticipated that move, of course, but for some reason he hadn’t. Ham might be dumb as a post, but he had a certain flair for sneakiness. And he’d clearly decided if he couldn’t get Toleffson’s job, he’d take Nando’s instead.
Unfortunately, so far he was waging a fairly successful campaign, although Nando was willing to bet that success was more accidental than planned. His current problems all centered around the crap sample he’d taken from the bookstore. Ham had spread the story of the sample around town, leaving out the part about DNA, calling him the “poop policeman.” Given that most people around Konigsburg had no idea that crap could be evidence, the phrase had definitely caught on.
Nando found himself facing grins where he’d never faced them before, and hearing snickers behind his back from men who were more accustomed to snickering at Ham Linklatter. Maybe he could have explained about the DNA and the importance of the sample, given that they hadn’t turned up any other evidence that could identify the perp, but he had a feeling saying anything more about it would just make things worse. He’d perfected an easy grin to mask the acid bubbling in his stomach.
The one saving grace in the whole debacle was the fact that at least Toleffson understood the importance of the DNA evidence. On the other hand, he had a feeling this wasn’t exactly what the chief had had in mind when he’d told him to keep his nose clean.
They hadn’t been able to find any witnesses to the bookstore vandalism. Nobody had heard breaking glass or seen flashing lights. And nobody was currently living upstairs over the store, so there was nobody there to hear the intruders. All in all, it had been one frustrating investigation.
Now he sat sipping his beer and facing the very sobering possibility that Ham could replace him as the assistant chief if he managed to make Nando look more like a moron than Ham himself. A few weeks ago, Nando would have rated the odds on that happening at near zero. Now it was looking somewhat more possible.
Tom Ames leaned on the counter next to him. “Anything new with Docia’s store?”
Nando shook his head. “Not a damn thing. And we’ve been pounding the pavement for a week now. I don’t suppose anybody’s mentioned anything in here?”
“You mean other than you and the poop?” Tom grimaced. “Nope.”
“The poop was legitimate evidence…” Nando began.
Tom shook his head. “Stow it. I know about the DNA. So does everybody else in town with half a brain. Right now you’re getting the grade school playground reaction—you know, ‘Dude, he said poop!’ Eventually people will sober up and remind themselves what a half-wit Ham is.”
“Yeah. With my luck it’ll happen after he’s pushed me out of the assistant chief’s job.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Tom took a breath, polishing a non-existent spot on the bar. “Kit’s here.”
Nando stiffened. He’d checked the room carefully when he’d come in, and he hadn’t seen her. “Where?”
“Back in the kitchen with Deirdre and Clem. They’re bonding.”
“Terrific. Does that mean I have to find a new bar?”
“Only if you’re tired of my beer.” Tom shook his head. “She doesn’t seem like she wants to make trouble. I don’t see why you can’t share the place.”
Nando blew out a breath. “Hey, I was here first.”