A Killer in the Rye (4 page)

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Authors: Delia Rosen

BOOK: A Killer in the Rye
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“I heard.”
“It would've worked itself out.”
“Maybe. Of course, you were the one who stormed off. I was trying to transition things from a crime scene back to neutral.”
“Well, I'm not very good at idling.”
“I know.”
“I make ninety-degree angles. Top speed.”
“I know that, too.”
“You're a knowledgeable guy,” I said. “Now, don't you have a killer to catch?”
“I'm waiting for the autopsy and forensics reports to come back.”
“Good. I . . . holy
crap!
”
“What is it?”
“Grant, I . . .
wow! Damn!
I've gotta wash my hair
now!
”
“What?”
I hung up. My scalp was burning up. I'd never gone blond before, but I was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to hurt. I tossed the phone on the couch, next to my laptop, and shuffled my way to the side of my bathtub, turned on the faucet, and knelt beside the tub, removing the skullcap and purging my head of toxic dye beneath the blessed running water. The initial coolness actually felt really great. I rinsed my hair thoroughly, reached blindly for my hanging towel, and wrapped my aching head in it.
Maybe I should've just taken Crystal's advice and paid for her hair services. And Grant didn't deserve what I had dished out, either, but I couldn't help myself. I'm still that much of a New Yorker: get out of my way, or I'll elbow you.
What I had to learn was that, in the process, I could also do serious damage to my elbows.
Chapter 5
Happily, I went through a scarf phase in college.
I had called Thom and had told her that we would be opening the next day, which she had already guessed, and that we'd regroup and reorganize for a catered affair on Sunday night. She didn't ask me anything of a cautionary nature, like “Are you sure you're up for this?” or “Can you really stand to be around all the committee members and rival restaurateurs?”
Thom was a friend, and she was a pro. She said she'd alert the troops.
I spent the rest of the day losing myself in some TCM movie with Charlton Heston and Eleanor Parker and an army of ants eating up a plantation. Heston won. So did Burt Lancaster in a movie about an Indian raid. I also tried to deal with the bad dye job. I finally gave up and slept a whole four hours that night. Upon waking, I gave in to the reality that I would have to spend the day with a sexy burnt-orange, canary-yellow head, all of it neatly tucked under a strategically placed head scarf. Throw on my finest pair of gold hoops to distract, and voilà! It wouldn't be so bad.
I decided to forgo my Starbucks latte and brew my own coffee that morning instead of doing my usual stop. I wanted to limit public appearances as much as possible until this whole dead bread guy, crazy hair thing blew over.
Which it would do, right? The thing would die down until they made an arrest.
Or not.
I parked my car as usual in the garage, reluctantly said hello to Randy, and as I rounded the corner of Union on foot, I was greeted by WSMV Channel 4 news setting up their camera equipment. It was too late to turn around and go through the back entrance. I had been spotted by the over-teased, big coral-lipped reporter Candy Sommerton. Sommerton clicked her too-high heels as fast as she could over to me, which looked a little tricky considering the tightness of her skirt and matching blazer, which strained to stay buttoned against her greatest asset. There was a rumor that she had actually been the test model for a 3-D newscast.
“You must be Gwen. I'm—”
“I know who you are, but I really need to get in and open up.”
“This will just take a second. Dave, come over here. Let's get a medium shot in front of the Murray's sign. Or better yet, can we set up in the back, where the murder took place?”
Murder.
It sounded so horrible used in a sentence. I guess I hadn't fully committed to the idea that Joe was murdered. Not that I believed his neck spontaneously combusted or anything, though I did feel like that was about to happen to me.
I pushed my way past Lady Longlegs and her goon and reached in my bag to put my key in the front door—the key I forgot that I didn't have. I rapped hard on the glass.
“Gwen, wait!” I heard more heel clicking. I wished I could've clicked mine and just disappeared.
The latch turned, and the door swung open. Thomasina was standing behind it, ushering me in with a protective arm and a body check, like this was Studio 54 in its heyday. The door slammed shut behind me, almost taking the lipstick off Sommerton's mouth.
“Thanks,” I said.
I looked around at my full staff. They were relatively relaxed, except for Luke, who had his guard up a little.
“Nash, darlin', you okay?” A.J. half smiled.
“Yeah.”
Her twenty-year-old daughter sighed. “Sounds like y'all had quite an adventure. Sorry I didn't start a day earlier.”
“I will schedule the next homicide on one of your working days,” I told the nearly six-foot-tall Olive Oyl of a young woman.
A.J. Two was not amused. “Y'know, Gwen, I'm a psychology major. We would call what you just did displacement, or
Verschiebung
in German, which means to ‘shift' or ‘move.'”
“Sorry,” I said. “I was just trying to be funny.”
“
Try harder!
” said Luke, playing the role of the heckler. He'd heard enough of them to know what they sounded like.
“You need to confront whatever is bothering you head-on,” A.J. Two continued.
“I will, later,” I said. “All right, group, listen.” I ignored the tapping on the front door, did not even turn to scowl at Ms. Sommerton. “I will apologize to you all individually when I have the time. Right now, please accept a big, fat blanket apology so we can get to work. Deal?”
Everyone nodded or repeated the word in the affirmative. Except Dani.
“Are we opening today or just talking?” she asked.
“We're opening,” I said. “And we're preparing for a rescheduled catering gig Sunday night.”
“Okay, good. Because I went through the bread to make sure there wasn't blood on it,
then
went to the store and bought Wonder Bread, like Thomasina said, to serve people who might be a little sickened by the idea of bread truck bread. I don't want all that work to be wasted.”
“It won't be,” I assured her.
“She also bought Twinkies,” Thom added.
“I thought people might like something cheerful today,” Dani said.
I actually liked that idea. “Tell you what. Let's give them away to all the kids.”
New Yorkers would've been horrified by the idea of a free mega-sugar fix handed to their precious offspring. Down here that would be considered an act of great hospitality.
“Anybody know how long the reporters have been here?” I asked.
“Since last night,” Thom said. “I drove by to make sure the place was okay after they took the tape down. Our outside menus were all ripped off—souvenirs, I'm guessing.”
“We'll have to watch that today with our regular menus,” I said.
“Right,” A.J. the elder said. “Because they're not a hundred years old and shouldn't be replaced, like I've been suggesting.”
“Not the time,” I pointed out.
“Nash, we're all prepped, so I'm opening shop,” Thom said. “I'll tell the press they can't come in and film, but if they want to eat—”
“They'll shoot with cell phones, anyway,” Luke said.
“Can't prevent that,” Thom said. “I just don't want the bright lights.”
“Why not?” Dani asked. “Maybe we can get a tan.”
I hoped that was a joke.
Thom went to open the door. I heard her swear. I turned.
Sommerton was interviewing the Repeat Returners. The ones who had heard my argument with the dead man's wife.
“She was
yellin'!
” Blondie exclaimed. “She was sayin', ‘I better get my order first thing tomorrow or else' and ‘You will be sorry, lady baker woman!'”
Before I could stop myself, I elbowed past Thom and lunged at the camera. Clawing and ripping at the cables and pulling wires, I yanked a long, skinny black cord as hard as I could, ripping the mic from Sommerton's hand. I watched as it flew through the air like half a nunchuck. The cameraman lost his balance and fell backward into the white broadcast van, which pulled a cable that was still in my hand, so that I tumbled forward onto the sidewalk, my head scarf flying off to reveal my fried orangey-yellow hair. A crowd had gathered. Looking up from the ground, I recognized the hairstylist who had approached me just yesterday. She went from horror to manic laughter in about two seconds.
Cell phones were out; pictures and videos were being taken. I hoped some new technology came along soon, because I knew that from that moment forward I would have a posttraumatic reaction to the back side of a cell phone.
Luke and Newt ran to my rescue. Newt strong-armed the cameraman into quickly packing his gear and leaving. I saw Sommerton give her card to the three ladies as Luke untangled me and picked me up in one swift motion.
“You can expect a bill for the equipment, Ms. Katz!” Sommerton said shrilly.
“Hey, come back when I'm playing on open mic night,” Luke said as she turned away.
Without a word I limped into my office, went into my top desk drawer, grabbed an “in case of emergency” cigarette, unlocked the emergency-exit bar, and I stepped quietly, shaken, out the back door. The cinder block was still on the ground, so I stood there with the door propped against my shoulder.
I sucked on my cigarette while staring at the empty concrete in front of me. Just yesterday I had found a dead body out here. It could have been a normal day. I could have been voted Best Mid-Range Restaurant. But no. Someone
had
to do this, and in my backyard.
Nash, someone is dead,
my brain reminded me.
Stop obsessing over the Best in Nashville Award!
Why?
I asked.
I want it. For me, for my uncle.
Fine, but you're losing it.
The award?
Your mind!
I blew smoke.
Touché, brain!
I stomped out my half-finished cigarette and made my way back in. I needed to dig into some paperwork while my staff did its thing. I also needed to find a new bread company, since I wasn't sure Brenda would want to send one of her trucks back into the kill zone. I also didn't really want to have bread trucked in from Brentwood, as I'd threatened. Perfect excuse to lock myself in my office.
I sat in my old, ratty office chair, which was missing a wheel, replaced instead by a tennis ball. I could have gotten a new one, but it was comforting that my dad had sat in this chair almost every day. What would he or Uncle Murray have done with all this madness?
Keep moving. Keep grooving. And Uncle Murray would most certainly listen to Johnny Cash.
I logged into my Pandora account and typed
Johnny Cash
into the search box. “Folsom Prison Blues” came on. I felt a chill. I really hoped it wasn't a foreshadowing of anything.
One hour and four decades of country classics later, I had locked down a new bread company for right now, and as a courtesy, they were delivering a few bags before the dinner rush. I wished I had known they could do same-day two days ago. Then I wouldn't be in this mess. I reached into my desk drawer for a celebratory Kit Kat as the phone rang.
“Murray's Deli,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could, expecting it to be a reporter.
“Gwen Katz?” said a stern, unfamiliar man's voice.
“Speaking.”
“This is Officer Jason McCoy. My brother-in-law Joe Silvio was found dead on your premises yesterday.”
“Oh. Sorry for your loss—”
“I understand you were supposed to meet him at your place that morning?”
“Actually, he was supposed to be here and gone by the time I arrived,” I said. There was a ball of something forming in my throat, like a hair ball. “Look, I spoke to the police about this yesterday. I don't see what—”
“What you see isn't important,” he said. “There's something you need to
understand
. This was a family member. A much-loved family member. He was like a brother to me.”
“Understandable. He was your brother-in-law.”
“Don't give me sass. I have some questions for you. How well did you know Joe?”
Sass?
That was the least of what I wanted to give him. “Officer McCoy, are you on the Nashville PD?”
“Seven years.”
“Then you know Detective Daniels?”
“Just answer the question. Either that, or you're going to have a thin blue line that doesn't answer your alarm when it goes off. And it will.”
I couldn't believe I was hearing this. We were in Nashville, not New York. And even in New York that kind of thing happened mostly in the Bronx.
“Did you just threaten me, Officer McCoy?”
“How well did you know Joe?”
I decided to see where this was going. “Like I told some not-so-thin members of your blue line, I
didn't
know him. We'd occasionally spoken by phone for business. And he called me that morning, but I wasn't here to take the call. The cops have a recording of that.”
“Hey, I don't like the term
cops,
” he snapped. “It's disrespectful. Call us police.”
“Call me Ishmael,” I said.
“What?”
“Call me a cab.”
“Lady, are you crazy?”
“
Call Northside 777
,” I said. “Crazy? I'm getting there.” I had to turn this into a game. If I took it seriously, I'd scream till my throat was raw.
“Lady, this may be a joke to you, but my dear sister, Joe's wife, has just lost her beloved husband. Her anchor. Her business partner. Do you understand the pressure that puts on a family? Her husband's dead, and you're making jokes.”

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