A Cookbook Conspiracy (12 page)

Could Kevin have been blackmailed? She didn’t seem overwrought as she discussed the
subject with Inspector Jaglom, but again, I couldn’t hear every word.

My eyes popped open. What if
Savannah
was the one being blackmailed? But wait. There was no way Savannah had ever done
anything sordid enough to merit being blackmailed. And if she had, she would’ve told
me or I would’ve guessed. Her ability to maintain a poker face was even worse than
mine.

I tried to shake off the lingering worry and focused on Kevin’s interrogation.

But now Jaglom was standing up, meaning the interview was over. What had I missed
while my mind was wandering?

“Thank you, Ms. Moore,” Jaglom said. “If we have more questions, we’ll contact you.”

Damn.
Cookbook
and
blackmail
was all I got from Kevin’s conversation and not much explanation of either topic.

So I came up with my own theory. I could only go by her reaction earlier tonight,
when Baxter revealed the cookbook. She had appeared shaken and angry. And just now,
in her interview with Jaglom, she’d said the word and seemed to feel actual physical
pain as she spoke it. At least, that’s what it looked and sounded like to me.

I didn’t think she could have faked that visceral reaction.
And to me, her unhappy reaction meant that she couldn’t have stolen the book from
Baxter’s kitchen. If she’d stolen it, she would have tried to look calm in order to
hide her smug satisfaction about getting it.

Instead, she was distraught, and I wanted to hope that it meant she hadn’t stolen
the book and, therefore, couldn’t have killed Baxter. At least, not in the scenario
I was currently imagining.

Did that make any sense at all? I would have to think about it later and talk it over
with Derek.

Jaglom waved to the cop across the room, who brought Colette over to be interviewed.

Jaglom couldn’t hide his admiration for the beautiful blonde as he stood and waited
for her to be seated. Then he sat down and asked Colette if she’d seen anything unusual
that evening.

“Nothing at all,” she said, her voice chirpy despite the late hour.

I had no difficulty hearing Colette talk. She had a distinctive, high-pitched voice
that carried halfway across town.

And in a heartbeat I remembered meeting the woman when I was in Paris. She had stopped
by Savannah’s flat, but I was the only one home. She’d stayed for a few minutes, strolling
around the apartment while making small talk. I asked her if she wanted to leave her
friends a note or something, but she said she would catch up with them at school the
next day. I didn’t see her again during my visit.

Funny that I would remember her by her perky voice and not her appearance. I was usually
good with faces and hers would be hard to forget; she must’ve altered her hair and
makeup drastically since then. But that voice was the same.

Now Colette told Jaglom the same basic story that we’d heard from Savannah. Raoul
had gone back to the hotel earlier than the others. He wasn’t feeling well and Colette
was worried about him.

Not so worried that she hadn’t stayed an extra hour to drink with her old buddies,
I thought.

“Frankly, I’m glad my husband left early,” Colette said, fiddling nervously with her
neck and the collar of her shirt. “He wasn’t himself tonight.”

“Why is that?”

“Well.” She seemed to weigh her next words, then decided to go for it. “It might’ve
had something to do with Baxter.”

Jaglom looked up from his notepad. “Why do you say that?”

She sighed. “Well, he sort of hated him.”

“Your husband hated Baxter Cromwell?” Jaglom said.

“Oh, I don’t mean he
hated
him,” she quickly corrected herself. “I mean, they were old friends. Well, friendly
rivals, I guess you could say. All during our time in Paris, the two of them were
in competition. You know, they were both good-looking and all the women were mad for
them. Even the teachers liked them. They both graduated at the top of the class.”

She was really full of it, I thought. Both men might’ve been considered handsome and
talented, but Raoul was also smart and nice, with a good sense of humor. He was so
well liked and so gifted that he’d been given several classes of his own to teach.

Baxter, on the other hand, was an opportunistic bastard who’d treated my sister shabbily.
In my book, that lost him plenty of points on the handsomeness scale.

And as far as graduating at the top of their class, Savannah had been up there as
well. The three of them had been the only ones of their group to go all the way through
to receive Le Grande Diplôme, meaning that they’d successfully completed all the classes
of all three levels of cuisine as well as the three levels required to obtain the
Diplôme de Patisserie. They had also received the Diplôme de Sommellerie, the Wine
and Management diploma.

So who was it that Colette was trying to fool? Besides the police? And why was she
trying to make Baxter sound like such a saint? Even more important, why was she throwing
her cutie-pie husband under the bus?

Jaglom turned the page in his notepad and looked across the
table at Colette. “Do you know if any other chefs have similar strong feelings about
Mr. Cromwell?”

Colette twisted her lips as though she was hesitant to tell the truth. “Well…there’s
Savannah, of course. You know all about her, right?”

My ears perked up as Jaglom leaned closer. “What exactly should I know about Ms. Wainwright?”

Colette bit her lip, then blurted, “She dated Baxter for a while in Paris, but he
dumped her. It was an ugly breakup.”

“I see.”

No, you don’t see!
I wanted to shout. Savannah was the one who had dumped Baxter. Why was Colette turning
it around? Why was she making Savannah sound like a woman scorned?

She was doing exactly what I’d warned Savannah about!

Colette whispered dramatically, “I think their biggest fight involved Savannah’s sister,
Brooklyn. She liked Baxter, too.”

“Her sister?” Jaglom said. “Are you referring to Brooklyn Wainwright?”

“Yes,” Colette said with a knowing nod. “Anyway, Savannah took the breakup really
hard and was upset for a long time. I’m not even sure she’s over it yet.”

You bald-faced liar!
Where was my laser gun when I needed it? That big mouth of hers had to be silenced.

I didn’t dare sit up and look in her direction; if I did, Colette would feel my lethal
vibes drilling into her devious mind. So I continued pretending to be asleep while
taking copious mental notes. She wouldn’t get away with incriminating Savannah. Maybe
she thought Savannah was too polite to strike back. But I wasn’t.

Even through my thin veil of hair, I could see Colette with both her elbows propped
on the table and a look of phony concern on her face. I knew she was faking it. Anyone
could see she was enjoying herself as she racked up the lies. I didn’t like the way
Jaglom kept nodding his head and scribbling rapidly. Great. He’d scored a major bean
spiller. What would she say next?

Jaglom flipped back a few pages in his notepad. “I’d like to return to the subject
of your husband’s animosity toward Mr. Cromwell.”

“Oh, no, there’s no animosity,” she said, running her hand up and down her neck. It
was a nervous gesture she’d done several times. “Raoul and Bax are great friends,
really.”

So she was backpedaling now? Colette was definitely getting on my nerves.

Jaglom stared at her hard. “But you did say that your husband still harbored some
negativity toward the deceased.”

“Oh, you must have misunderstood. The two of them were laughing and joking with each
other all night.”

Huh? Clearly, she was having problems keeping her own lies straight.

Colette continued. “I guess I was being overly sensitive about Raoul’s feelings tonight
because, well, Baxter and I used to have a little
thing
. Raoul’s still jealous about that, but he has no right to complain after he had his
affair with Margot. And I’m almost glad he did because it evens the playing field—you
know what I mean? Of course, Margot had an affair with Baxter, too. But then, who
didn’t? Oh, well, that’s all ancient history. We’re all great friends now.”

Friends?
This was how she dished about her
friends
? To the police? Did the woman have no filter? Ah, but at least she was an equal opportunity
slanderer. And yet, despite all her mean-spirited blabbing about philandering and
culpability, I wasn’t getting a killer vibe from Colette. All I got was a stupid,
disloyal, bitchy vibe. But again, I’d been wrong before.

Now I was wishing I could listen in on the men’s conversations with Inspector Lee.
Maybe if I invited Lee over for a glass of wine, she would share everything the male
chefs had said. Not likely to happen, so maybe I could convince Derek to try and get
the scoop from her.

Let’s face it—I was nosy. But why not? This was my sister’s life on the line, and
I was willing to do what I had to do to protect her.

I would’ve loved to hear Raoul’s responses to the same questions Colette was answering
so blithely. But I already knew that his basic good nature wouldn’t allow him to carelessly
incriminate another person. Unlike his wife.

“I don’t believe for one moment that you’re sleeping,” Derek said quietly in my ear,
startling the hell out of me.

I lifted my head slowly, hoping that anyone paying attention would think he had just
awakened me. Glaring up at him, I whispered, “Shh! I’m trying to listen to her.”

He slipped into the booth beside me. “I can hear her clear across the room.”

“You can? Is Savannah listening, too?”

“I’m afraid Savannah’s sound asleep.”

I leaned against him. “We should all be asleep.”

He put his arm around me and I got more comfortable, laid my head on his shoulder,
and closed my eyes.

“We can leave anytime you’re ready,” he murmured.

I thought about it. Did I really need to hear what Margot told Jaglom? Yeah, I really,
really did. She was the most suspicious one of them all, as far as I was concerned.
But if we stayed…ugh. It had to be three o’clock in the morning, but I didn’t have
enough energy to check.

I looked up at Derek, stifling a yawn. “I would love to stay longer, but I’m beat.”

“My sleepy little private investigator.” He gave me an affectionate squeeze. “Let’s
get you home.”

He was mocking me, but I was too tired to protest. “I’m just glad you heard what Colette
said. You can help me convince Savannah that she’s a lousy friend.”

“I’m not sure Savannah will believe you. She seems to find something positive in everyone.”

“And that’s a losing proposition.”

He whispered, “So cynical, my love.”

“I hate to be,” I whispered back. “But you heard Colette try to implicate her, didn’t
you?”

“I did.” His eyes narrowed. “And I didn’t like it.”

“Me neither.” I told him how I’d dragged Savannah into the ladies’ room earlier to
warn her against telling anyone what had happened tonight.

“That was smart of you,” he said. “She’s too naive for her own good.”

“What do you expect? She’s a vegetarian.”

He chuckled, then sobered as Inspector Jaglom finished his interview with Colette.

I glanced up at Derek. “Will you promise to talk to him tomorrow and find out what
everyone said? Especially Margot.”

“You know I will,” he said with a half grin.

We turned to watch Jaglom push his chair back and stand as Colette walked away. Once
he thought no one was looking, Jaglom stretched and yawned hugely. I couldn’t help
it—I began to yawn as well. Halfway through his yawn, Jaglom glanced over and saw
Derek and me responding in kind.

Jaglom cut off his yawn and chuckled. I felt punch-drunk, wanting to laugh and cry
at the same time.

Derek nudged me. “Time to go.”

Derek and I rose late the next morning. I was just starting breakfast when Savannah
tiptoed into the living room, carrying her shoes in her hands.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I called from the kitchen.

Derek leaned against the breakfast bar with his arms folded across his chest. “You
weren’t honestly thinking you could sneak out of the house, were you?”

“You’re staying for breakfast,” I added. “We need to have a little powwow.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Brooklyn, I don’t want to talk about it, all right? I’d rather
just put it out of my mind for a while and I can’t do that in San Francisco.”

I glanced at Derek, who nodded. “It’s on the news this morning. I turned it off.”

I grimaced. We always had one of the morning news programs playing in the background.
“We don’t have to listen to the news.”

“For how long?” she wondered.

“Never mind. You still have to eat breakfast, right?” I poured her a cup of coffee.
Once she’d had something to eat, she would be more interested in talking. She needed
to talk about it. I’d been waiting all night for her to talk about it.

“I’m not hungry.” But she took a big gulp of the coffee I offered. She wrapped both
hands around her mug as if she couldn’t get warm enough.

“Thanks for the coffee,” she said a moment later, setting the empty mug on the bar,
“but I’m not staying for breakfast. It’s just a ploy to get me to talk about Baxter
and in case you didn’t hear me, I don’t want to. Besides, I’ve got a restaurant to
run.”

I saw the vulnerability she was fighting so hard to hide, and it worried me. It took
a lot to shake Savannah. Derek simply ignored her words, reached for her arm, and
led her over to the dining table, where he pulled out a chair for her.

Resigned, she sat down. “There. Happy?”

“Yes, love,” he said.