A Dinner to Die For (12 page)

She nodded slowly. Now that they were no longer busy, her hands were shaking. I decided to ease into the point at issue. “Tell me about Frank Yankowski.”

She looked up, surprised. Doubtless it was an odd-seeming question to someone who didn’t know about Yankowski’s disappearance. I held my breath, mentally backpedaling to prepare for her questions. But the moment passed. She didn’t demand to know why. With a sigh, she picked up the coffee cup and held it an inch above the table. She had taken off the sweater. Her short-sleeved white shirt was blotched with tomato and oil stains. Her arms rested on the edge of the table just below the elbow, the surprisingly muscular flesh barely spread by the pressure of the table. “Frank has been with us about six months,” she said in that near-hoarse voice. “He’s the best dishwasher we’ve ever had. He never misses a day.”

“Where was he before?”

Eyeing the cup, she considered. “He must have had references. We don’t hire without them. We have enough problems
with
them.”

I checked her hands. Was the shaking greater? How much time would I have? I didn’t want to jar her fragile concentration. I’d go with her train of thought. “What kind of problems?”

“Some pilferage, but it’s not a big problem with Mitch handling the checks. Mostly, it’s just irresponsibility. Like tonight, the
sous
-chef didn’t turn up. He said his tires had been slashed. We’ve heard that one before. We’ve heard them all. He didn’t call till four
P.M.
”

“Couldn’t you get a replacement?”

“Not that late. If it had been noon, Mitch or I would have gone through the list.”

“Does that happen often?”

“Sometimes they don’t call at all. It’s one of the inherent problems in the business. In a way, I’m not surprised,” she said with a shake of her head. Moving the cup to her lips, she took a long swallow of coffee, and set the cup down with a sigh. This was not the “survivor” exhaustion she had exhibited a few minutes ago, but the in-the-business weariness of one who had dealt with, and complained about, employee problems on a day-to-day basis. Routine—making coffee, or serving coffee, or sitting here in her kitchen where she had had this discussion many times before—was taking over. “There are plenty of responsible salad chefs around. But restaurant work attracts transients. People are always deciding they want to go to L.A., or back to school, or they want to work in the place their lover does, or someplace where they get better money, or better hours, or which is closer to home, or has a different atmosphere. Or they’ve had a fight with their lover who also works there; then neither of them shows. If you don’t feel like coming in one day, well maybe your boss will just have to lump it; if not, there’s always another job—if you’re young and reasonably presentable.”

“What will happen with this
sous
-chef?”

“I’ll hear from him; he’s got nearly two weeks’ salary coming. Then I’ll see if his story is legit. If not”—she shrugged—“I’ll have to start calling around.”

“So you’ll keep Paradise open then?”

“For now, I suppose. I haven’t thought about the future.”

I took down the name and address of the missing
sous
-chef, then said, “Frank Yankowski seems like a bright guy.”

“He is.” Her voice was sharper.

I could almost see the demand forming in her mind. Quickly, I said, “He doesn’t seem like someone who wants to spend the rest of his life in the dishpan.”

“No question.”

“But he said he didn’t want to be a waiter. Why?”

Her eyebrows pushed in, creating a hump above the bridge of her narrow nose. “Why are you asking me these questions? Why about Frank? My husband is dead. Why are you asking me about Frank?”

“Because he’s disappeared. He ran out of Paradise before I finished questioning him.”

“Oh, no.”

“We have to find him.”

“But you don’t think … but of course you do, you think he was involved in Mitch’s death, don’t you?”

“He didn’t make himself look good.”

She pressed the sides of the coffee cup. “I can understand how you see things, but if you knew Frank … he’s not a man who would kill. Mitch wasn’t holding him back. He wanted him to be a waiter. He told Frank that he could make four or five times what he did now.” The hoarse quality was gone from her voice, replaced by a sharp urgency.

“Then what was?”

“I hope this won’t cause Frank problems,” she said; then, realizing the ludicrousness of that possibility, she said, “I guess things are so bad now, whatever I say can only help him.”

I smiled.

“It’s Frank’s ex-wife—Sarah, her name is. She dragged him into court four times over her alimony. Frank didn’t like to talk about it.”

“But he did,” I prompted.

“Well, he had to, to explain why he didn’t want to be a waiter. He didn’t want anyone to recognize him.”

“His divorce was local then?”

“No, it seemed like it was in the Midwest, St. Louis or Chicago, maybe. I don’t know that he ever said.”

“Why would anyone spot him here? Back alimony isn’t a crime they send sheriffs across country for.”

“Someone might have come across him by accident. His isn’t a face you’d forget.”

“That could have happened on the street, unless he’d stayed inside all the time.”

She sighed. “I guess so. But this Sarah sounded like the type who would make it a point to find him.”

“Because there was so much money involved?”

“I don’t know.” She stared down at the coffee cup.

“He lives in the Hillvue Hotel, right?”

She nodded.

The Hillvue was not the type of place that anyone who could afford to live elsewhere would choose. And no Hillvue tenant would merit a nationwide search for back alimony. The whole thing sounded fishy.

“Is he using?”

Her pale eyes widened. “You mean drugs?”

I nodded.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

Now her eyes narrowed and in that expression I could see the woman who directed the running of a successful restaurant. “Detective, I make it my business to recognize the signs. Sometimes, I’m wrong. But I’m not wrong for six months. Frank has missed only one night’s work. Every other night he’s been here, on time. He doesn’t take his breaks in the bathroom. He doesn’t drop the china. If he’d been using, he’d have been gone five months ago, leaving half the dishes on the floor and the till empty.” The force of the statement seemed to exhaust her and she sank back into the director’s chair, letting the cup rest on the table.

“What does he do with his free time?”

“Movies,” she said quickly. “He has a pass to the U.C. Theatre. He sees both features on his days off.” The U.C. changed its bill daily.

“Regardless of what they are showing?”

“He just loves films.”

I made a mental note to send someone to the U.C. They should remember Yankowski. Like Laura Biekma said, he wasn’t someone you’d forget. Perhaps he was there to pass his hours innocently, but a large dark theater may provide not only entertainment but also a good place for commerce.

Still, he wouldn’t be at the U.C. at six in the morning. Trying another tack, I said, “Who is Yankowski friendly with?”

“He’s not friendly. He takes a long time to know.” The hoarse quality had returned to her voice. How much longer could she hold up?

“What about the staff? The cook?”

She lifted her cup and sipped slowly. “A lot goes on in a kitchen. People are thrown together so much; we’re always racing to get the food out. Everyone’s wired. It’s like the volume’s all the way up all the time. Every attraction is great romance, every cooling of affection is tragedy. But Frank was different. He washed his dishes and kept his back to the melodrama.”

“Mrs. Biekma, he’s running from something. He’s making himself look real bad. If we have to spend days looking for him, it’ll be worse. Where would he hide?”

She stared down into the cup.

“When they’re desperate, people do dangerous things, things that are harmful to themselves. You would be a friend to Frank by helping us find him. You said yourself that he couldn’t have killed Mitch. So there’s nothing to be gained by his hiding.”

Slowly, she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know.”

But she had hesitated too long. I felt sure she had some idea. Yankowski had tossed me aside like a used junk-food bag—twice. I wasn’t about to leave him on the loose. “Mrs. Biekma, this is your husband’s murder we’re investigating. You do want his killer found, don’t you?”

She sighed. “Of course I do. But it’s not going to change anything. Mitch will still be dead. I’m so tired. I’ve got so much to do. I’ve got to talk to Adrienne. We’ll have to close for a few days. There are notices to get out, reservations to cancel, orders to cancel so we’re not inundated with rotting vegetables. So much to do.”

Her eyes were losing their focus. She wasn’t one of the ones who would suddenly become hysterical; she would just drift further and further from the topic. I’d get only a few more answers. “Who would want to kill your husband?”

“I don’t know. The inspector asked me that. I don’t know.” She clutched the cup. “Things were just beginning to click for Mitch. He was so excited about his talk show shots. He loved that. And he was good. Have you seen him?”

“Yes. He was a natural. I heard they were considering him for a guest host on ‘San Francisco Mid Day.’ ”

She nodded slowly. “That sounds a little more definite than it was. They did have researchers out here. But what the producers actually said was that Mitch needed a little more exposure to prove himself, to prove to them he could continue to draw an audience. Then they’d consider him. To Mitch it was definite, but, well, you know how those things are.” Her breath caught. She pressed her lips together. “It’s not fair that he should die. Why him? Why now?”

I shrugged. I’d heard those questions too often. There was no answer. Laura closed her eyes and breathed in—long, calming breaths. When she opened her eyes I asked, “What about the cook, Adrienne? She and Mitch didn’t get along any too well, did they?”

“Sure, Mitch and Adrienne fought. They both needed to be in charge. You can’t order a great chef around, and Adrienne is a genius.”

“Is she above anyone you could have gotten to replace her?”

“Oh yes.”

“Did Mitch think so?”

“Well …”

“Then if he wanted someone he could have more control over and he thought there were other cooks of her caliber around, why didn’t he replace her?”

She lifted the cup and seemed surprised to find it empty.”Well, it was financial. It takes a lot of money to open a restaurant, any restaurant. No less than a hundred thousand dollars. Paradise, with the building, and the garden, well, it ran a lot more than that. My salary was our biggest ongoing asset. Even with a loan from my father, we didn’t have enough. So Adrienne owns a third.”

“Of the restaurant and the building?”

“No, just the restaurant.”

“Isn’t that giving her a lot of power?”

“There was no way to avoid it. In the beginning, we thought we’d have enough money. That was before he finished cooking school in France. We were just naive then. We never considered taking a partner. But when we realized we’d have to, dealing with Adrienne seemed much better than with a stranger, with someone we couldn’t be sure would understand what a really fine kitchen required.”

“Wasn’t Mitch the chef for a while?”

“Both of them were. It didn’t work out. Too much conflict, like I said.”

“Mrs. Biekma, this conflict, how strong was it?”

She laughed, shrilly, wavering on the edge of hysteria. “Adrienne might kill him, but she wouldn’t poison him in her own kitchen.”

A
PATROL OFFICER SAT
at the desk outside Inspector Doyle’s office. “He’s waiting for you, Smith,” he said in a tone that suggested it would be tidy of me to take a box to catch my head.

I rapped perfunctorily on the glass door of the inspector’s office, looking through the window in the upper half. His head was tilted down, as if he were studying a microscopic clue poised on the edge of his desk. When I had first seen him his hair had been carrot red, but now, four years later, gray had muted it to unripe strawberry. His liver-splotched skin hung even more limply than usual, as if it were merely tossed over the flesh rather than being attached to it. Compared to him, Laura Biekma had looked ready for the Olympic Trials. Only his jaw showed life, and it was set in anger.

“I thought you’d be here an hour ago,” he growled.

“I was interviewing the widow. She could fall apart any minute,” I said quickly. Inspector Doyle’s tirades were legendary. His enraged voice had often been heard well down the hall, his face still red twenty minutes after his victim had slithered away. He was said to have chewed out two officers involved in a botched knifing investigation so thoroughly that they quit law enforcement altogether, one after nineteen years on the force. I didn’t believe that story, but my skepticism provided me little comfort.

“Sit down, Smith.”

I sat, careful not to give any sign of the pain that grabbed my back with each movement, or to twist enough to loose the hot, searing knife into my shoulder; I couldn’t disguise my reaction to that. I didn’t want to give him legitimate grounds to wonder about my health.

His gaze didn’t rest on me, and it didn’t change, but I suspected he had given me the once-over and made his assessment.

“Did you see the press outside, Smith?”

“I came around back.”

“Ah, well, I wish I could
come around back
and steer clear of that mob. The press conference isn’t for another hour. By then we’ll be renting a hall.”

I didn’t respond.

“And what is it I’ll be telling them then? My detective let a suspect, the chief suspect, wander off. I can tell them we’ve taken six cars off the streets, leaving our local burglars free to help themselves all over north Berkeley. And what have we turned up? Zip.”

I still didn’t reply. He wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t already told myself. Losing Yankowski was no one’s fault but my own.

He leaned forward onto the heap of papers that covered his desk. “Holy Mother, Smith, I asked you if you were well enough to handle this, didn’t I? If you’d only told me you couldn’t—”