No Reservations Required (5 page)

9

Sophie was out on the balcony grilling salmon when Bram got home from the station. It was a warm October evening, what people often referred to as Indian summer. She called out to him to grab himself a beer and join her. She was already on her second. It had been that kind of day.

Sophie had spent the morning with her father, enduring his smelly cigars and his disgruntled comments as he made broad hints about “the list” he was working on to improve the hotel. Even though she owned the Maxfield now, she could hardly ignore her father’s requests, although she had a feeling that his ideas might be a tad out there. On the round-the-world trip he and Sophie’s mom had just returned from, he’d learned a thing or two about running a hotel
right
, he said. Sophie could tell they were headed for a major clash. The economy was far worse now than when he’d been running the Maxfield, but he didn’t seem to grasp that. If he continued to constantly look over her shoulder, he would force her to take a stand. For now, Sophie decided to let him dangle “the list” in front of her. Maybe, in time, he’d remember that he trusted her to take over the running of the hotel and that
that’s
what he should do.

Bram came through the double screen doors onto the balcony. He’d already removed his sport coat, socks, and shoes. Two years ago, when they’d moved to the Maxfield Plaza, they couldn’t seem to get enough of ordering in room service from the Zephyr Club, the gourmet restaurant on the top floor of the south tower. Now that Bram was watching his diet due to a recent heart surgery, they prepared their own food more often.

“How was your day?” asked Bram, giving her a peck on the cheek.

She groaned. “Better now that you’re home.”

“That sounds ominous.” He stood for a moment looking down on downtown St. Paul. “God but I love living up here. I feel like we’re on top of an urban mountain.” Their apartment was sixteen floors above the ground.

Sophie smiled at him as she basted the salmon with a fresh basil and balsamic marinade.

“What’s for dinner?”

“I made a cold orzo salad with lots of radicchio, roasted eggplant and red peppers, green onions, and pine nuts. The salmon goes on top. And I whipped up a quick coconut sorbet mixture and put it in the ice-cream machine, so we’ll have that for dessert with biscotti and coffee. We have to live a
little.
”

Bram snuggled up behind her. “Why don’t I open a nice pinot noir and we can sit out here and you can tell me all about how much your dad is driving you crazy.”

“You’re a mind reader. Actually, it’s more than that. I may have spent the morning with him, but this afternoon, I went over to the paper to work on a restaurant review. Rudy was there and boy did I get an earful about a scandal that’s just about to explode.”

“Oh, goody,” said Bram. “I love a good scandal. Be right back.”

When he returned, he carried two half-filled wine-glasses and the open bottle. Handing a glass to Sophie, he clicked his to hers. “To us.”

“To us,” she repeated. It felt good to be back on track with her husband. All the insanity with Nathan Buckridge was finally behind her. Thank God she’d kept the worst of it to herself.

“Now,” said Bram, sitting down on the chaise, “tell me about the scandal. Don’t leave out any of the gory details.”

As Sophie basted the salmon again, she filled him in on everything she’d learned about Del Irazarian.

When she was done, Bram sat for a few seconds, digesting the information. “You know, I can’t believe someone at the paper didn’t catch him in one of his lies. Who was his editor?”

“That’s the worst part. It was Andy.”

“Boy, talk about being asleep at the switch.”

Sophie flipped the salmon. Staring at it for a moment, she asked, “Bram? What if Andy felt his position was threatened? Not only his position, but his future.”

“You saying he had a motive to murder his brother?” Bram shook his head. “I’ve never met a guy who seemed more intent on making a good impression. If I were to put it less charitably, I’d say Andy did everything he could to brownnose. He wanted to please Bob at all costs.”

Sophie had noticed it, too. But she found it genuine. She felt strongly that Andy cared deeply about his brother, and about Valerie.

“Andy would have jumped through a ring of fire if he thought it would score him points with his brother.”

Turning her back to the grill, Sophie looked down at her husband. “Remember the night Bob and Ken Loy died? We were at the Rookery Club having dinner. It must have been right around the time it happened.”

“Sure I remember. Shepard Road is a stone’s throw from the club.”

“I saw Anika in the lounge that night. I didn’t mention it because, well, something she said bothered me so I put it out of my mind because I wanted to have a relaxing dinner with my handsome husband.”

“You really think I’m handsome?”

“Don’t fish for compliments, dear. It implies desperation.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“But now I’m wondering what was going on.” She sat down on one of the chairs. “Anika had come to the club hoping to find Andy. He wasn’t there. She said she’d tried his cell phone, but he wasn’t answering. Her exact words were, ‘So what else is new.’ As if he made a practice of not answering her calls.”

“Huh,” said Bram. “That surprises me. They always seemed like the last word in happy coupledom.”

“So where was Andy that night? Why wouldn’t he take her call?”

“Maybe he had his cell phone turned off.”

“Maybe.”

Bram took a sip of wine. “Soph, you can’t honestly think Andy had anything to do with those two murders. He seems so . . . gentle.”

“I agree, but what’s underneath the gentleness?”

“More gentleness?”

Sophie looked up at the cloudless fall sky. “I hope you’re right.”

“Of course, I learned something pretty interesting this morning myself. Now that I think of it, it adds some credence to your theory.”

“Learned what?”

“That the police have a tape of a 911 call Bob made just before he died. He was calling to report a shooting on Shepard Road. And, although I don’t have all the details, he seemed to indicate that the shooter may have been his brother.”

Sophie was stunned.

“ ’Course, he didn’t finish his sentence, so he could have been about to say brother-in-law.”

“Phil Banks?”

“Or maybe he was headed somewhere else with the sentence. The police won’t know for sure until they figure out who was responsible for the two homicides.”

“I just don’t see Andy with a gun. Anika wouldn’t have allowed one in the house.”

As Sophie got up to check the salmon, the doorbell chimed.

An instant later, Margie, Bram’s daughter, breezed through the screen doors out onto the balcony.

“Hey, Dad. What’s up?” As an afterthought, she added, “Hi, Sophie.”

Sophie’s heart hit the floor. She’d been looking forward to a relaxing dinner with her husband, and then, well, the night was young.

Margie had moved into one of the apartments at the Maxfield right after she returned home from Texas. Bram wanted her to be close, and Margie was only too happy to take the offer of the apartment, with the rent paid by her father. Bram assured Sophie that when Margie and her friend Carrie got their wedding planner business off the ground, that Margie would be able to take over paying the rent. But she was still living at the hotel free of charge, even though her business already seemed to be booming.

Bram also assured Sophie that Margie’s continual presence in their lives, barging in anytime she felt like it—which was always at the most inopportune moments—would end when she reconnected with old friends and made new ones in the Twin Cities. That hadn’t happened either. Margie spent four or five nights a week at their apartment, sometimes arriving for dinner, more often banging on their door late at night, then letting herself in with her key. She would hold them captive in the living room as she went on and on and on about some minutia in her life. Sophie had tried hard to like Margie, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Margie wanted to see their marriage crumble. If nothing else, it was likely to hit the skids from lack of sleep.

Margie could stay up talking until the wee hours and still make it to work the next day. Bram could sleep late because he didn’t need to be at the station until late morning. But Sophie had to be up bright and early. Now that her father was home, breathing down her neck, it was more important than ever that she be in her office downstairs by eight.

“I ran into Henry downstairs on my floor,” said Margie, lighting up a cigarette, then tossing the match over the railing.

“Henry” was how Margie referred to Sophie’s father.

“Oh?” said Sophie.

“Yeah. He was replacing a lightbulb in one of the hallway wall sconces. Don’t you have maintenance men who can do that? I mean, God, that guy’s pretty old to be hauling such a
gargantuan
ladder around.”

Sophie knew that, where Margie was concerned, she was way too sensitive. But she felt as if Margie was accusing her of parent abuse. “Yes, we have a full maintenance staff.” As Margie well knew. She used them constantly, more than anyone else who’d ever lived in one of the Maxfield’s six rental units. The head of maintenance thought she was a pain in the ass. “She acts like she owns the place,” he often said. And that was part of the problem. Sophie felt strongly that Margie did see stars in her eyes when she looked at the hotel. She knew this was a community property state. If Bram and Sophie divorced, Bram would inherit half the hotel. And that meant that one day, Margie would be half owner herself. Bram had no other children.

“You look pretty snappy tonight,” said Bram, nodding to Margie’s new red dress.

Margie twirled around. “Just got home from work. Carrie and I met with this family out in Deep Haven. Very wealthy couple. They want to give their daughter a
huge
wedding and they hired us to do it.”

“Congratulations,” said Bram, reaching up and squeezing his daughter’s hand.

“This is the break we’ve been waiting for. If we do this right, it will serve as a
humongous
entrée to other upscale jobs.”

Sophie detested Margie’s use of hyperbole. And yet, even the fact that she noticed it made her uncomfortable. It made her feel like a snippy schoolmarm. And that was another thing. Sophie hated the way Margie made her feel about herself. She wasn’t snippy, or nasty, or super-judgmental, or, as Margie put it once, “tight-assed.” But when she was around Margie, that’s exactly how she behaved.

“The bride-to-be picked out these, like,
hideous
colors for the wedding, but between Carrie and me— and her mother—we were able to talk her into something more elegant. I mean, green just
kills
a person’s complexion. Makes even the youngest skin look
totally
cadaverous.” Margie glanced over at Sophie and saw that she was wearing a jade green sweater set. She smiled.

Sophie thought it was more of a smirk.

“Hey, Dad, I thought maybe we could go for a swim before dinner.”

Dinner! thought Sophie, leaping up. “Oh Lord,” she said, seeing that she’d just incinerated the salmon.

“Oh, honey, don’t worry about it,” said Bram, climbing off the chaise. “It’s no problem. We’ll just have the orzo salad.”

“You really go for Italian food, don’t you?” said Margie, looking at Sophie.

Sophie was still so upset about the burnt salmon that she didn’t pick up on Margie’s drift.

“Speaking of Italian food,” continued Margie, “I saw that friend of yours downstairs this afternoon. It was just before I left for my meeting in Deep Haven.”

“What friend?” asked Bram.

“Her old boyfriend. What’s his name. Nathan?”

Sophie turned around in time to see Bram stiffen.

“I thought you didn’t see him anymore,” said Margie, tapping some of the ash from her cigarette over the railing.

“I don’t,” said Sophie.

Nathan Buckridge was Sophie’s high school sweetheart. He was also a chef with a restaurant just outside of Stillwater. He’d come back into her life shortly after she’d taken over the reins of the hotel, after an absence of some twenty-five years. She’d been dismayed, and also more than a little flattered, to find that he was still attracted to her. Actually, it was more than that. He’d asked her to marry him. The fact that she was married didn’t seem to matter. Nathan insisted that he’d found her first, and if it hadn’t been for a series of stupid mistakes, they’d be married.

Sophie had never confessed to Bram what had really gone on between them two summers ago. It was over and done with, so, in Sophie’s mind, there was no point in discussing it. And yet, even though she’d never given Bram the details, he apparently sensed that Nathan was a threat. Bram wasn’t normally a jealous man, but when it came to Nathan Buckridge, he reacted with the part of his mind that wasn’t entirely civilized.

“Maybe he found out my parents were home from their trip,” said Sophie, “and he wanted to say hi.”

“I suppose they thought of him as a son once,” mused Bram.

“Well,” said Sophie. “Yes, I think they did.”

“Nope,” said Margie. “When I saw Henry in the hall, I asked him if he’d seen Nathan. He said he hadn’t.”

“Ah,” said Bram. “Well then, maybe you better give him a call. Find out what he wants. Or maybe you can just talk to him tomorrow when he stops by. I assume he usually drops in when I’m at the station.”

“Don’t do this, Bram. Nathan doesn’t stop by. There’s nothing between us but friendship.” That wasn’t entirely true. Nathan did drop in from time to time, even sent flowers occasionally, though Sophie rarely spoke to him for more than a few minutes, never alone in her office—and she always made it clear that it was over between them. She tried to be tactful, hoping he’d get the message, but he never seemed to give up. He’d been dating one of Sophie’s friends for a while, but he still couldn’t seem to let go of the notion that, one day, he and Sophie would be together. It was starting to worry her a little, although Nathan was a good, sensible man. She put it down to simple stubbornness.