Swan Dive (7 page)

Our shoes squeaked on the vinyl floor and I consciously avoided stepping on the lines between the tiles. The entire area smelled stringently medicinal and oddly chemical and I didn’t want to think about what the people in scrubs were doing on the other side of those walls.

Dr. Harry Fleet served as medical examiner for not only Sea Pine Island, but the entire county. Over one hundred twenty thousand people. Unfortunately, he was a very busy man. His desk faced the door and he had books piled, stacked, and heaped on every open and flat surface. The wall of bookshelves behind his desk, the desk itself, two visitor’s chairs, even the floor. A tall but thin plastic tree sat in the corner, heavy with ornaments. Harry added a new one whenever a child died during the holidays. The tradition started before he became M.E., but he continued it with both sorrow and celebration.

“What?” he growled by way of greeting. He sat behind the desk, scrawling notes on a file.

“Merry Christmas, Harry.” I went to set the box of caramels on his desk, but couldn’t find a safe spot. I settled for a semi-flat space on top of a heap of files and hoped they wouldn’t slide to the floor. “I brought goodies.”

“Uh-huh.”

“As you know, I’m working on the Lexie Allen case—”

“The Sea Pine Police are working on the Lexie Allen case,” he said without looking up.

“I’m
also
working on the Lexie Allen case in my official capacity as PI-in-training for the Ballantyne Foundation.” I lifted a stack of files and papers from one of the chairs and sat, keeping the stack safe on my lap. “I knew her, Harry,” I said softly. “So did Mr. and Mrs. Ballantyne. She was just a kid. She deserves
everyone
on the case. Even me.”

He looked up from his notes. “I suspect poisoning, as I’m sure you know. Won’t know for sure until the tox report comes back. The lab rushed the results on the berries from her kitchen. Confirmed as
Atropa belladonna
.”

“Deadly nightshade,” I said.

“The same. Consistent with her stomach contents. Looked like berries and cake. Won’t know until the report comes back after the holidays.”

“But no other obvious cause of death? No injuries or wounds?”

“No. Likely poisoning, but won’t know until we know.”

At least Ransom was honest with me on that front, I thought. Gave me more to go on.

“I know what you’re thinking, Lisbon,” Harry said.

“What? It can’t hurt for me to nose around.”

“It will when the Lieutenant finds out.”

“He already knows I’m looking into things.”

“I bet,” he said and went back to his scribbling.

“One more quick question and then I’m out of your hair,” I said. Harry was bald. “How likely is suicide?”

He shrugged. “She was nineteen and a drama major. Probably just as likely as an accident. Comes down to whether or not she knew those berries were deadly. Not for me to determine.”

“But more than likely a homicide.”

“Like I said, won’t know until tox comes back and the Lieutenant files his report.”

“Thanks, Harry.” I stood and put the papers back on the chair. I took the Sugar Plum Fairy ornament from my pocket and set it on his desk. Lexie may have been nineteen, but she was still a kid, and it still hurt.

Harry nodded once without looking up. With a final glance to his memorial tree, I walked out of his office.

SEVEN

(Day #3 – Saturday Afternoon)

I took a spin through the McDonald’s drive-thru and sat in the parking lot beneath a shady palm contemplating my next move with a cheeseburger (ketchup only), fries (with bbq sauce) and a Coke. Meeting with Harry Fleet served to motivate me to get this job done as quick as possible. Not that I lollygagged through my other discreet inquiry investigations, but Christmas was coming up fast. People took vacations, businesses closed, daily life shifted. I didn’t want this case to get caught in a holiday hold-cycle.

But which lead to follow first: Lexie’s dry cleaning stub, Vigo’s shot-up target, or Berg’s death sketches? I’d basically (or actually) obtained all three through ill-gotten means, so I needed to pursue prudently. A random dry cleaning stub didn’t seem like a priority. I might as well chase down a gum wrapper. I had no idea how to investigate a handful of sketches, and that target might as well have been from any sporting goods store in the South. I debated strategies, then went with the closest: the dry cleaning stub.

I tossed my lunch sack in the bin by the entrance, then zoomed onto Cabana toward Oyster Cove Plantation. Outside the gates, on the other side of the boulevard, was a strip center hidden behind a six-foot-tall berm covered in flowering shrubs and short palms. The QuickClean Organic Dry Cleaners was crammed between the Donut Hut and Olga’s Tailoring. Though the Hut was closed, the sugary fresh baked scents still lingered in the air. I spent enough time at the Donut Hut to now need Olga’s help expanding my waistband. I parked in front of the QuickClean and walked inside.

“Hello, Miss Elliott,” said a tall woman with a bleached yellow military haircut. “You pick up?”

“Hi, Olga. Yes, but not for me.” I pulled out my phone and slid through the photo gallery until it landed on the dry cleaning stub from the condo. “It’s for Lexie Allen. Here’s the ticket.”

She placed a pair of readers on her nose and examined the photograph. She looked at me over the top of the phone. “Why you have picture?”

“I’m sorry to tell you this, but Lexie passed away on Thursday.”

“Oh no. A shame. From the ballet, yes?”

“Yes. A dancer. I’m here on behalf of her family. Would it be okay if I picked up her order?”

“Is only clothes. Nothing valuable.” She handed me my phone and went over to the automated rolling rack. With a push of a large red button, the enormous rack rotated around the room and up another story. Hundreds of plastic-wrapped clothes clicked by until she found the numbered slot she was looking for.

She hung it on a rod by the register. “Fifteen ninety-two.”

While she swiped my credit card, I checked out what Lexie had needed cleaned so urgently. Two white chef’s coats with WHARF embroidered in navy block print on the left chest. “Chef’s coats?” I said out loud.

Olga shrugged and handed me my receipt.

I signed, lifted the coats from the rack, and left.

After I laid them flat in my backseat, I buckled myself in. Chef’s coats? Did she spill on them? Maybe they were a friend’s. It might be logical to get them cleaned for someone very close to her. Otherwise if she spilled on a stranger, she’d just pay for the cleaning. How close was she to this Wharf worker? But wouldn’t the Wharf have their own laundry service? Maybe Lexie borrowed them to wear in her own kitchen. As I drove out of the lot, another thought hit me: what if Lexie stole them?

The north end of the island afforded residents and visitors picturesque vistas of the sound and the Intracoastal Waterway. I turned onto Old Pickett Road and drove three miles to the Wharf restaurant, situated right on the water with an amazing view of the Palmetto Bridge.

The upscale Wharf only offered a fine dining dinner service and a gorgeous spread for Sunday brunch. I was about two hours early for dinner, but I knew from past experience the kitchen would be bustling with prep work.

Two servers were folding the Wharf’s signature caramel-colored cloth napkins, placing them on four-tops facing a wall of windows. The waters of the sound gently rolled by, lapping against the trunks of the oaks near the window. It reminded me of the shoreline from the Jungle Cruise.

The clank of pans and pots greeted me as I swung open the wide door to the kitchen. Chef Carmichael barked orders to a staff of ten, all wearing white coats. One cook chopped whole red peppers, one sizzled oil in a pan, and another carried a tray from the steel island to the walk-in.

“Hey, Julia, bring the onions out. White, not green,” Chef Carmichael yelled. He was burly and arrogant and made the best she-crab bisque on the island. Or so I’ve been told. I wouldn’t eat it for all the chocolate in Belgium.

“Chef Carmichael, got a minute?” I said.

“Elliott! Are you here about Carla?” he asked. He sautéed some kind of vegetable in a hot pan, flicking his wrist so they flipped like pancakes. “She’s been impossible with the fig compote for the short ribs.”

The Ballantyne hosted an annual gala the week before Christmas called the Palm & Fig Ball. Distinguished chefs from all over the South bid for one of two spots to co-cater the lavish event with Carla, our head chef. This year, however, we only had one spot open since I’d cut a deal with Chef Carmichael to get Zibby out of a peccadillo in May. He bargained for the other spot, much to Carla’s hearty dismay. Carmichael was difficult to work with.

“Carla is difficult to work with, Elliott,” he said and squirted oil into the pan from an unmarked squeeze bottle. “She’s insisting on crispy lobster dumplings. Unoriginal and uninspired. More appropriate to present lobster consommé. And Chef Newhouse agrees. I’m sending two of my staff to the Big House to start prep tonight and they’ll be prepping consommé.”

I bet he agreed. Chef Newhouse ran a pair of restaurants in Savannah and had been trying to find the perfect spot on Sea Pine for his third. Chef Carmichael had been “helping” him scout buildings for four years now. Newhouse revered Carmichael to the point of near worship, and Carmichael strung him along like the popcorn garland hanging on the Ballantyne tree.

“I’ll speak to Carla,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll work this out. However, I’m here about Lexie Allen. I just picked up two chef coats with the Wharf’s name on them.”

“Rory, take this,” he said and handed off the crackling pan to a girl with short hair so black it looked blue.

Carmichael and I stood on opposite sides at the far end of a steel island near an industrial sink. “It’s horrible,” he said.

“You knew her?”

“Of course. She worked in my kitchen.”

“She
worked
here?” I asked. “But she’s a ballet dancer.”

“She’s a chef. A star on my team.” He waved at the kitchen personnel. Only one person looked up. Rory, the girl flipping pan veggies. She glared as if Carmichael had insulted her and I realized her hair was actually blue. “She will be impossible to replace,” he said.

“Did you know her well?” I asked Chef Carmichael.

Rory answered under her breath. “Enough to know she was a better ballerina than cook.”

“She was brilliant,” Chef Carmichael said. “Loved to create new dishes. They weren’t always up to my standards, but she took initiative. Had the drive it takes to succeed in this business.”

“Did she ever use exotic ingredients? Like bizarre berries or anything strange or dangerous?”

“Not here at the Wharf,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“Just being thorough,” I said. “How long had she worked here? I thought she lived in Charlotte, at UNC.”

“Not unless she was commuting. I hired her the first week in November.”

“November? As a prep cook?”

“Sous chef. Training, anyway. She’d done prep work for a year at a top Charlotte restaurant. The chef recommended her and I’m grateful he did. A star.” He washed his hands and dried them on a towel. “You want to try tonight’s amuse bouche? An avocado crab cake on a tomato coulis.”

“Sounds wonderful, but I just ate,” I said, opting not to mention for the one hundred thirteenth dozen time that I didn’t eat seafood. I wasn’t sure if it was a chef thing or a Carmichael thing, but my seafood aversion didn’t stick in his memory. “I appreciate your time. I have those two chef coats in my car. Would you like them?”

“Yes, yes,” he said and pointed to a young prep cook peeling onions in the corner. “Julia, go with Elliott and grab the coats. Put them in my office.” He returned to the massive gas-burner stove, tasting sauce from a nine-hundred quart pot. “More salt, Rory,” he said.

Julia the cook and I walked through the restaurant and out to the deserted lot. “Did you know Lexie?” I asked.

“We all did. She was nice,” she said. “Always worked hard. Friendly, even when she didn’t have to be.”

“Oh?”

“It’s tough in the kitchen. One mistake and you could be out. She covered for me once, saved my butt. That doesn’t happen very often.”

“What about that other girl, the one with the blue hair? Rory? She didn’t seem impressed by Lexie.” I opened the driver’s side door of the Mini and handed her the chef coats in dry cleaning plastic.

She looked around, lowered her voice. “They hated each other. Hated.” She leaned in conspiratorially and spoke so fast, I barely kept up. “Rory felt she deserved the spot on the show over Lexie because she lived in Savannah. Which was kind of rational, but Lexie was the way better cook, so of course the show wants to see who fits best. A cook-off is about the cooking, right? But try explaining that to—”

“Hold up,” I said. “What show?”

“A local competition in Savannah. They were both auditioning for a place in the cook-off. It’s tomorrow, I think. Rory was mad because she almost had to miss it. She’s scheduled to work brunch.”

“Are you going?”

“I’m not ready.” At my raised brow, she elaborated. “I’m good, but I’d rather get another year of training. When I enter a competition, I expect to win. Besides, those two were practically killing each other over the spot.” She winced.

“It’s okay, I know what you mean,” I said. “One last thing. What’s the name of the cook-off?”

“Something like the Stream Kitchen? Like a dream kitchen, but not?”

“Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.”

“I don’t mean to be rude about Rory, but Lexie was nice to me and I really wanted her to get on that show.” She draped the coats over her shoulder and walked toward the restaurant.

Lexie Allen quit school to work as a sous chef at the Wharf and no one knew? Not her bff Courtney, not her boyfriend Vigo, not her death sketch stalker co-ed student friend Berg? And she was auditioning for a cook-off in Savannah while dancing the lead in
The Nutcracker
? That girl had one complicated life.

Said the woman nervously dating two men at the same time. And not just any two men, but a best friend and an old boyfriend. And I had professional relationships with them both. Matty served on the Ballantyne board, and Ransom worked at the Sea Pine police department, the department that signed off on my PI training.

So far neither of my dating/dates had gone smoothly. Adding romance made dinners with Matty awkward. A perpetual teenager’s first date where I didn’t know how to act or what to say and did weird things like laugh at the wrong moment or too loud or try to fill every natural pause with blather.

It was no better with Ransom. I put up an emotional wall, subconsciously protecting myself. Or fully consciously after he broke my heart twenty years earlier and it still hurt and I never wanted to feel that way again forever and ever amen.

I drove the short distance to my cottage with enough time to doll up before Matty picked me up at six. I hoped Ransom had to work late at the station. If not, he’d be home when Matty arrived. As it happened, Ransom was also my next-door neighbor.