Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow (36 page)

“Joan was convinced this would turn out to be another dead end,” Gordon replied, as if he’d read my thoughts. “She insisted that I was fooling myself. She kept telling me that sooner or later Cassandra would lose interest. In fact, Joan and I got into quite an argument about it, just a couple days before...”

He shook his head thoughtfully. “I know she’s sorry now. I’m sorry, too, that she’s got this weighing her down. Sometimes I think Joan doesn’t really understand how much she means to me. And how grateful I am for all the work she’s done, helping me raise those two kids. I can’t imagine a more thankless job, given how difficult they could both be.

“But this time, I’m sure Cassie was going to follow through. I’d never seen her so excited about anything. She was so full of plans for this new venture the two of us cooked up! Why, she talked about it nonstop.” Chuckling, he added, “Practically drove us all crazy the last few weeks. Babbling on and on about getting distribution all over the country and planning special promotions....She had a lot of good ideas, that girl. It would have really been something, sitting back and watching her succeed.”

The soft look had faded from his eyes. Instead, I saw the same dead look I’d seen the first time I met him, when he’d wandered around the kitchen, dazed.

“Thank you for telling me all this,” I told him, realizing it was time for me to go. “I know how difficult it must be.”

He’d already turned away, and I suspected that the words I was saying weren’t really going in. I mumbled good-bye, then slipped out of the barn and headed back to my van.

Once I was alone, the windows rolled down and the fresh air flying into my face, I didn’t know whether to feel exhilarated or defeated. Deep in my gut, I had a feeling I’d just found a major piece of the puzzle. Yet I didn’t begin to have a sense of how it fit in with all the rest of the pieces.

The fact that Cassandra had been murdered as she was about to embark upon an exciting new venture— starting her own winery—only made the whole thing that much more tragic.

I was contemplating calling Forrester to get his take on my discovery about the new path Cassandra Thorndike was about to follow when my cell phone rang. I pulled over to the side of the road and answered without bothering to check the Caller ID.

“Dr. Popper,” I answered crisply.

“Jessica? I’m glad I got you. Listen, I was wondering if you and I could talk.”

Even though I hadn’t checked to see who my caller was, I recognized the voice immediately. I tried not to sound surprised as I answered, even though this was the last person in the universe I expected to hear from.

Chapter 15

“I’ve met many thinkers and many cats, but the wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.”

—Hippolyte Taine

Robert Reese had called me from his restaurant on the South Fork, which was less than a half hour’s drive from the Thorndikes’ home on the North Fork. Still, the ride seemed endless as I agonized over his reason for getting in touch with me.

The possibility that he’d come up with a piece of evidence that pointed to his ex as Cassandra’s murderer put a knot in my stomach the size of one of Jean-Luc’s espresso-flavored crème brûlées.

I tried to act matter-of-fact as I strolled inside. I found him sitting at one of the front tables with a cup of coffee in front of him. It appeared to be untouched.

“Robert?” I said gently, not sure if he’d heard me come in.

“Thanks for coming, Jessica,” he said dully, glancing up only for a moment. “Especially since our last conversation wasn’t exactly the most congenial.”

“This is a difficult time for all of us,” I replied, telling myself to stop fantasizing about slugging him in the head with a Starsky and Hutch lunch box. Instead, I pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down.

“I’m not sure I trust you enough to talk to you about this.” He was silent for a few moments before adding, “But I don’t know who else to talk to. Look, I know you’re on Suzanne’s side. I understand that the two of you have been friends for years and that you’re trying to do what’s best for her.”

I simply nodded.

“Besides,” he went on pensively, “I don’t see how Suzanne could have anything to do with this.”

“With what?” I asked.

He took a deep breath, as if he wanted to brace himself for what he was about to say. “Someone’s been sabotaging the restaurant.”

I gasped. “Sabotaging Granite? How?”

Robert shook his head, as if in disbelief. “At first, I thought I was just imagining it. Or that the things that were happening were simply mistakes. Like that night last August, when one by one the customers starting spitting out their coffee, so outraged they practically stormed out of the restaurant. I tasted some myself and realized somebody had mixed cayenne pepper in with the grounds.

“I apologized profusely, passed out a round of free desserts, and put the incident behind me. But then, a few nights later, something else happened. Peculiar things kept turning up in the salad. The top of a ballpoint pen, a piece of someone’s credit-card receipt...Not only the kind of thing that upsets the Board of Health, but also instantly loses customers.”

Robert’s face sagged, as if the mere act of relating these unsettling events was aging him. “I started keeping an eye out for strange occurrences,” he continued. “And I noticed they were getting more and more commonplace. One night I got complaints that the pasta was too salty. I tasted it, and even I nearly spit it out. It was as if it had been boiled in water with an entire cup of salt in it. Another time, all the seafood in the refrigerators just vanished! Bay scallops from right here in Meconic Bay, local oysters and clams, flounder, striped bass—it all disappeared just before we opened for dinner. The financial loss was nothing compared to the fact that we disappointed one customer after another.

“It was amazing how quickly we started losing business. Nothing too significant at first, but I’ve noticed that over the past eight or ten weeks we’re down nearly fifteen percent compared to this season last year.”

“Have you spoken to your staff?” I asked.

“Sure. I brought each of them into my office, one at a time. Everybody from the busboys up. I like to think I’m pretty good at reading people. But I couldn’t get anything out of any of them.”

“What about the police?”

Robert shook his head. “First of all, no real crimes have been committed, at least nothing I can prove. But even more important, if I can’t get to the bottom of it, I can’t expect some outsider to figure out what’s happening here.

“At first I thought maybe somebody was playing a series of practical jokes,” he continued. “That maybe some members of the kitchen staff were just goofing around, or maybe up to something more onerous like trying to get somebody fired. But I’m starting to think it’s something much more serious. That somebody is out to ruin Granite.”

He looked at me expectantly, as if it were my turn to speak. But I was at a loss for words. In fact, I still hadn’t figured out why he was telling
me
all this.

Then he leaned forward. In a low, earnest tone, he said, “I saw you talking to Jean-Luc the first time you came in here. Did he say anything to make you believe he secretly has it out for me—or maybe even has some other reason for wanting to see the restaurant fail?”

My mind raced as I debated whether or not it was in my best interest to be completely honest with Robert. My first priority was finding Cassandra Thorndike’s murderer—and absolving Suzanne of guilt. I wasn’t particularly interested in solving the mystery of who was trying to grind Granite to dust, unless it had something to do with finding the killer.

On top of all that, I still didn’t know who I could trust. Was Robert the enemy? Was Jean-Luc? For all I knew, both of them had been involved in Cassandra’s murder.

“No.” I finally said, deciding to keep what I’d learned about the Jean-Luc-and-Preston connection to myself. “Not that I recall.”

“I hate to think anything ill of the guy,” Robert said thoughtfully. “I mean, Jean-Luc’s been with me since the beginning. I trust him like a brother—and I know him as well as I know myself.”

Bet you don’t, I thought. But I remained silent.

In fact, I’d actually begun to feel a little sorry for Robert. Someone was clearly trying to ruin his business, and I had a pretty good idea who that someone was. I also suspected that the jovial pastry chef who secretly loved whips as much as he loved whipped cream wasn’t acting alone. My theory was that Jean-Luc and Preston were working together to destroy Granite, for reasons I could only guess at but which I suspected were either monetary gain, personal satisfaction, or both.

“I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful,” I told him. “But I barely know Jean-Luc—and I don’t know anyone else on your staff at all.”

“I knew it was a long shot,” he said. “But if you find out anything, you’ll let me know, right?”

“Of course,” I told him, thinking, Around the same time I learn to make perfect puff pastry.

As I left the restaurant, I pondered all I’d learned about Jean-Luc’s duplicity. He had lied about so many things. Pretending to be as French as a
tarte tatin
when he was as American as apple pie—or a slice of New York cheesecake. Claiming to despise Preston DeVane, his employer’s number-one competitor, when the two of them were as tight as a leather thong. And now this: the revelation that he was doing his darnedest to destroy the business of a man who considered him a loyal friend.

He certainly was turning out to be a complicated man. But did that mean he was capable of murder?

Jean-Luc wasn’t the only complicated man I’d encountered since this whole episode had begun. I hadn’t forgotten about the scissors incident that got Ethan Thorndike thrown out of the Sewanhacky School or my determination to find out more about it. Glancing at my appointment book, I decided I had time to squeeze in at least one more stop—even if going back to the North Fork from the South would take me a bit out of the way.

I made it to Theo Simcox’s house in record time. I knew he was at home, because his car was parked in the driveway.

As I peered through the screen of the back door, I could see him sitting at a laptop computer he had set up on his kitchen table. On the screen was a picture of a sleek, brand-new sedan.

So he’s finally decided to unload that tired old jalopy, I thought with satisfaction. Good. A man his age needs a reliable car.

“Mr. Simcox? Theo?” I called through the screen.

He turned around, looking surprised to have a visitor. “Dr. Popper,” he said warmly. “You caught me indulging in one of my vices: wasting time on the Internet.”

“Something many of us are guilty of these days,” I commented, smiling.

“I’m thinking it’s finally time to get myself a new car,” he explained, closing his laptop. “My Dodge wouldn’t start this morning. Again. It’s a big investment, but I guess I’ve got to bite the bullet.”

“Sounds like a wise decision.” I hesitated, wondering if we’d spent enough time making idle chitchat, then said, “If you have a moment, there’s something I’d like to ask you about.”

“Of course. Come on in. You don’t mind if I don’t get up, do you? Seems the annoying arthritis in my knees is acting up a bit today.”

After I’d sat down opposite him at the kitchen table and refused his offer of coffee or a cold drink, I got right down to business.

“Theo,” I began, “I know you’ve been friends with the Thorndikes for a long time. Do you know anything about an incident Ethan was involved in while he was at the Sewanhacky School?”

Frowning, he replied, “You must mean him piercing that girl’s hand with the scissors. Her name was Lisa or Liza—something like that.”

I nodded. Since Theo was such a close friend of the Thorndikes, I wasn’t surprised that Gordon and Joan had been open with him about what must have been a devastating episode. “How bad was it?” I asked. “Was it just two kids playing a game that got out of control or something more serious?”

He stared at me for a few moments, as if debating just how forthright to be. “The girl was stabbed thirteen times. She ended up getting something like twenty stitches.”

“And Ethan was responsible?”

“Yes. He came right out and admitted that he’d done it. Practically bragged about it, in fact. But to be fair, Ethan has come a long way since then,” Theo insisted. “He does pretty well as long as he takes his medication.”

He hesitated, then added, “Of course, when he doesn’t take it, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”

“I didn’t know about the medication,” I said, more to myself than to Theo. “Or that he’s not consistent about taking it.”

“That’s why Joan and Gordon keep him close to home. They feel responsible. Not only to make sure he’s safe, but to make sure he doesn’t hurt anybody else.”

“I understand Ethan was thrown out of Sewanhacky after that,” I said.

“He certainly was. But he finished up at the local public school. Ethan may have his problems, but the boy is smart as a whip.”

“He went to MIT afterward, right?”

“Almost graduated, too. And from what I understand, he was an outstanding student, at least in the subjects he was interested in. But for some reason, in the middle of his senior year, he just left. Nobody ever knew the whole story.”

“And what about the girl?” I asked. “Do you know what happened to her?”

He was silent for a long time before answering. “She’s dead.”

“Dead?” I repeated, not sure I’d heard him correctly.

“That’s right. She fell down a long staircase a few weeks after the incident with Ethan.” He paused. “Either that or she was pushed. It was never clear.”

My heart pounded as I wondered if I dared ask the obvious question. “Was Ethan anywhere near her when she fell?”

“As a matter of fact,” Theo said with a definite edge to his voice, “Ethan was spotted leaving the house shortly before the poor girl was discovered. The girl’s parents knew all about him being there. But for some reason, they didn’t pursue it. In fact, they never stopped insisting that her death was an accident.”