Death of a Crabby Cook (6 page)

“Yeah, where is he, anyway?”

Aunt Abby shrugged as she donned a fresh apron and tied it around her waist with experienced hands. “I don't know. That boy. He's been acting strange lately.”

I wanted to say,
“You mean stranger than usual,”
but I bit my tongue. “Well, thanks for the break. You sure you'll be okay?” I was grateful for a chance to catch my breath—and get a breath of fresh air. I'd been nibbling on mistakes and leftovers throughout the morning and early afternoon, so I wasn't hungry, but I badly needed another jolt of caffeine.

“Go! I'll be fine.”

I wandered over to the Coffee Witch, ordered a magical potion called the Alchemy—a double latte with one pump of Belgian chocolate—and sat down on a nearby bench. Sierra Montoya, the thirtysomething woman who co-ran the Vegematic truck, joined me a few minutes
later, holding some kind of blended green drink. She looked more like she'd come from the gym than her truck, wearing tight shorts and a tank top on her toned body. Her face was bare of makeup and her short brown hair looked salon cut and easy care.

Aunt Abby had filled me in on most of the food truckers during serving lulls. She said Sierra owned the veggie truck with her partner, Vandy Patel. They'd named their business the Vegematic as a sort of homage to an old
I Love Lucy
episode. Both were avid supporters of PETA and protested regularly at various demonstrations around the city, bringing along signs that said things like
MEAT IS MURDER
!
, CARROTS ARE
COOL
!
, DRINK YOUR VEG
ETABLES
!
,
and
WHO KILLED
BAMBI
?
They'd even set out signs in front of their Vegematic truck, just to irritate Chef Boris. Aunt Abby said the two women had argued frequently with the Road Grill chef, and he'd taken to ruffling their feathers with his own signs, for instance,
RABBIT FOOD
IS
FOR
RABBITS
,
PLANT
S HAVE FEELINGS TOO
!
, and
PROUD TO BE A CARNIVOR
!
(misspelling the word “carnivore”). Unfortunately, their food trucks were parked right next to each other, and Aunt Abby said the heated glares between the two factions could fry an organic egg.

“Hi,” Sierra said after a long drag from the straw in her green drink. She glanced at my coffee.

Did she just wince at my less-than-healthy beverage, loaded with fat and sugar? Or was that my imagination?

I smiled and said, “Hey. Busy day, eh?”

She took another sip, then said, “I saw you helping out at Abby's bus.”

I nodded. “This food truck business is a lot harder than I expected.”

She snickered. “Tell me about it. Luckily it's not this crazy every day. But we need the business. New food trucks seem to be setting up shop all over the city. Competition is getting stiff.” She nodded at Chef Boris's Road Grill rig. “If only we could get rid of a few of the less desirable trucks, like that one. His food is disgusting! Alligator, black bear, elk, kangaroo, turtle. Meat like that should be illegal. And
he
should be locked up. Along with that guy from Porky's. What a stupid name.”

Uh-oh. I had wanted to sip my coffee quietly, but her mini-rant had piqued my interest. “Selling exotic meats isn't illegal?” I asked, curious.

“Fair game,” she said, adding finger quotes to the word “game.”

“Wow. Are there any animals that aren't legal to cook and sell, besides horses, dogs, cats?”

“Actually, there's no real ban on dog and cat meat—they're just frowned upon.”

Oh my God.

I thought of Aunt Abby's little dog, Basil.

“You can't sell haggis,” she continued. “It's made out of sheep's lung. You can eat the stomach, heart, and liver of a sheep, but not the lung. Go figure. Pâté is now illegal. And you need a license to sell fugu.”

“Fugu?”

“It's puffer fish—the stuff they use to create zombies, if you believe that sort of thing. Apparently it can paralyze you.”

Whoa. I was sorry I asked. Where did she get this morbid information?

“That's what's so crazy about this business,” she added. “It's not illegal to cook and eat antelope or
buffalo, or even lion meat, but it's just plain wrong, you know? Boris should be strung up by his prairie oysters for crimes against nature.”

Prairie oysters? I had a feeling she meant balls.

Sierra stood up and tossed her empty recyclable cup into a “green” bin. “Gotta get back to work and hopefully keep a few more customers from practicing animal cannibalism.”

“No crab dishes at the Vegematic truck?”

“Nope. We've got a great Seaweed Stew though. You should try it.”

I was beginning to feel guilty for enjoying the occasional burger and hot dog. While I ate my veggies like my mother had always told me, I just couldn't wrap my mouth around tofu wieners, cauliflower burgers, or seaweed stew.

“Sierra?” I called out to her as she started to head back. “I guess you heard about the death of Oliver Jameson. The chef from the restaurant across the street?”

She nodded. “Bones 'n' Brew? Who hasn't? Not sorry to see him gone. He was always hassling us about our vegetarian menu. I'm sure he felt threatened by us—thought we were converting people to vegetarianism and causing him to lose business. I doubt he served a single vegetable beyond decorative parsley.”

“Why do you think he felt threatened by you?”

“One morning our signs had all been torn down. I immediately thought it was Meathead Man—Boris—but the next time it happened, I'm pretty sure I saw someone in chef's whites running toward Bones 'n' Brew. I swear, if I'd caught him, I would have beat the crap out of him.”

“Sierra!” a voice called from across the food truck area.

We both looked in the direction of the Vegematic. Sierra's partner, Vandy, stood outside, hands on her hips, scowling at us. From a distance she looked like Sierra's sister. Both had warm latte skin and dark hair and eyes. But Vandy wore her hair long, and makeup enhanced her dark eyes. When I thought they were related, I was surprised to learn they were a couple. I smiled and waved at Vandy; she didn't smile or wave back. Either the sun was in her eyes, or she was dissing me on purpose.
But why?
I wondered.

As I watched Sierra walk back to her truck, I didn't doubt she could beat the crap out of Oliver Jameson or anyone else. Those muscles in her biceps and triceps hadn't come from eating her veggies. She'd been working out and was probably strong enough to strangle an ox. Not that she would, of course, being a vegetarian.

Then again, you didn't need muscles to poison someone. Boris and Sierra, and perhaps scowling Vandy, all had a reason to dislike Oliver Jameson. Enough to kill him?

Unrest among the food truck community?
I wondered as I headed back to Aunt Abby's Big Yellow School Bus. Were there too many trucks invading the city, as Sierra had said, providing a glut for gluttons? Or was it just competitive jealousy—too many cooks spoiling the profit margin? All I knew was, things were heating up now that murder had been added to the menu.

One thing was clear: Oliver Jameson had more enemies than just Aunt Abby. Boris, the weird-meat guy, had had run-ins with him. So had Sierra and Vandy, the vegetarians. Willow the Coffee Witch didn't care for him either, even though he had frequented her truck for his morning jolt. I wondered if Jameson's coffee had tasted a little bitter of late, perhaps with a hint of almond?

All this speculating was getting me nowhere. None of these people seemed like killers. But the cops still had Aunt Abby on their list of suspects, thanks to that public fight she'd had with the Bones 'n' Brew chef. Jeez, she'd even brandished a knife at him, in front of witnesses, no less. Now that Oliver Jameson was dead, the cops seemed to be taking her threats seriously. Were there other suspects on Detective Shelton's list besides my aunt?

Boris, Sierra and Vandy, and Willow might have had strong enough reasons to murder Chef Jameson. But it could have been another one of the several food truck owners parked at Fort Mason. Then again, someone close to Jameson could have done it—a disgruntled employee? A jilted fiancée? A former friend? A secret stalker turned killer?

Or was it just a random intruder?

It couldn't be random though. Not if Jameson was really poisoned. That took planning, not to mention opportunity.

My generic list was beginning to look endless. I had to go about this in a systematic way, much like I did when reporting a story for the newspaper. The “five
W
s”—and “sometimes
H
”—almost guaranteed a complete news report. Maybe that would work for me now.

I made a list of questions based on the five
W
s and filled in what I already knew:

Who
is the story about? Chef Oliver Jameson

What
happened? He died, poisoned from eating soup (accidental food poisoning or deliberate murder?)

When
did the event take place? Yesterday, between lunch and dinner

Where
did it take place? In his office at the Bones 'n' Brew restaurant

Why
did it happen? Good question . . .

I added an
H
.

How
did it happen? Did an unknown subject enter the restaurant, poison the soup, and give it to Oliver
Jameson? Or did the killer leave it there for Jameson to find . . . ?

 

Underneath the list, I jotted down the names of possible suspects that came to mind: Boris, Sierra, Vandy, and Willow. Reluctantly I included Aunt Abby's name, but only because the police had her on their list, and I didn't want to forget how serious things were.

Anyone else? Dillon crossed my mind.

Maybe he'd killed Oliver Jameson to protect his mother? He didn't have anyone to verify his alibi for the time of the murder. Nah. Neither Dillon nor Aunt Abby had it in them to kill someone. If I was going to include him, I might as well add Dream Puff Guy as well. And that was just silly. Wasn't it? To my knowledge, Jake Miller didn't have any beef with the Bones 'n' Brew chef. But at this point, I didn't know that much about Jake, just like I didn't know much about Willow, Boris, Sierra, and Vandy. Perhaps the more I dug into Oliver Jameson's life, the longer my suspect list would grow.

So how was I supposed to find out more about Oliver Jameson?

A thought popped up like a piece of hot toast from the toaster. I could use my recipe research for my “Food Truck and Festival Cookbook” as a red herring, so to speak. Or was it a MacGuffin?

It didn't matter. Under the guise of collecting recipes for the book, I could interview all the local food truck vendors and find out who else might have had a reason to kill the chef. As a bonus, I'd be gathering recipes for my book, killing two birds with one stone. A bad analogy, I realized, but apt.

Under normal circumstances, interviewing the food truckers would be easy, but with Jameson dead, they might not be cooperative. And how would I worm my way into the Bones 'n' Brew restaurant to question Jameson's employees? My cookbook was focused on food festivals and trucks, not competing restaurants.

So far, only a handful of people knew I'd been downsized at the newspaper. Maybe I could pose as a
Chronicle
reporter who was assigned to write a proper obituary for a “beloved” local chef. I still had my press pass, my credentials, business cards, trusty notebook, and fake Montblanc pen. I was sure whoever was in charge at the restaurant now would welcome a heartwarming story—and some good publicity. All I had to do was figure out how to spin murder in a positive way.

•   •   •

“So when's quitting time, Auntie?” I said around seven, exhausted from the first day of my food service career. In the late afternoon, the Crab and Seafood Festival crowds had surged again relentlessly, and lines for all the vendors had snaked across one another in the congested courtyard. I was surprised that so many people attended, what with the hefty admission charge, parking problems, and crowds, but attendees seemed to really enjoy the food, beer, music, and crabby specialties.

Now that the fog had rolled in and the masses had ebbed, many of the trucks were beginning to close down. Some had even run out of food, unprepared for the sheer number of people. A few of the attendees turned, shall we say, crabby when they learned their favorite vendors were closing. The most vocal were those who'd had too much beer and not enough solid food.

But overall, the day had been a great success for Aunt Abby's crab experiments—her Crabby Cheerleader Mac and Cheese, Crab Pops, and Crabtown Fry (bacon, eggs, and crab substituting for oysters, named after a dish famous during the California gold rush). She'd managed to keep her seemingly endless line of hungry folks sated. After all, she'd been a pro at feeding large groups during her high school cafeteria days, and she'd planned well. All we had left to do at the end of the day was clean up the mess and count the money. I'd never seen her cash register so full of dough.

“Let me do those pots,” I said to my aunt. “I'm sure you've got a million other things to do.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “I don't want you to burn out on your first day. You might not come back tomorrow.”

I assured her I would return, but secretly I worried that if I didn't sell this cookbook, I might never get out of the bustaurant business. I took over the dishwashing, leaving my aunt to prepare for the next day's menu.

I hadn't realized how much went into running a mobile business—and in such tight quarters. I didn't know how she did it, up nearly every day at the crack of dawn, ordering and collecting the food from the local bakery, deli, and farmers' markets, before pulling up behind her bus and transferring everything to her tiny portable kitchen. Then, after turning on the generator and propane tanks, she went to work pounding prime meats, mixing fragrant sauces, slicing fresh bread, and generally whipping up her brand of comfort specialties to serve throughout the day—often two to three hundred orders or more in the space of four to six hours.

When it was time to close up shop, she spent the rest of the day cleaning utensils, pots, and surfaces, tossing out garbage, and saving leftovers for the homeless shelters, before heading home to experiment with new recipes. No wonder she had a line of faithful customers when she opened her service window around eleven every morning. She was devoted to serving good-quality food and she worked hard to provide it. Her energy seemed boundless.

Me? I was ready to collapse after only one day.

“So are you really coming back tomorrow?” Aunt Abby asked as I dropped my spattered apron into the soiled linen basket.

“Unless I die of exhaustion,” I said. “We could have used more help this afternoon. Where did Dillon disappear to? He was only here an hour or so.” Aunt Abby's son had come in just in time to help with the lunch rush, then vanished for the rest of the event. What was up with him?

Aunt Abby shrugged. “He said he had something important to do and that you could handle his usual job. I think he might have been a little jealous.”

“Jealous?” I rolled my eyes. “I doubt that.” Most likely he'd returned to his bedroom, changed into his pajamas, and spent the rest of the day playing games on his computer.

I gave my aunt a hug and headed for my car, which was squeezed in behind the bus next to Aunt Abby's Toyota. I couldn't wait to get home to the RV and take a shower and a nap.

Two hours later, after I'd washed off the grease, fish smell, and sweat, put on the Minnie Mouse pajamas
Aunt Abby had bought me, and had a nap, I made myself a cup of herbal tea and headed for my laptop to plan interview questions for my murder suspects. As soon as I opened my computer, I had a thought. Something had been nagging at the back of my mind throughout my shower—something I'd read in one of the Internet articles when I'd done a search for Oliver Jameson. I keyed in the words “Bones 'n' Brew.”

There it was—a link to a story headed
CANNIBALIZING FOOD TRUCKS
. Essentially, the article had confirmed all the complaints among many brick-and-mortar restaurants regarding the increasing number of food trucks in the city. It was nothing new, I thought, but this time, instead of skimming the article, I read it carefully.

“We've had nothing but trouble since the food trucks began occupying the Fort Mason area,” said Oliver Jameson, chef and owner of Bones 'n' Brew, a city landmark for more than fifty years. “It seems like anyone who can boil macaroni, burn road kill, or blend a carrot can simply pull over and start serving food. It took my family years to build up this restaurant, and now all these squatters are trying to lure customers to their overpriced, subpar food. That's why I'm working on a petition to have them all removed.”

I glanced at the date on the article—it had appeared less than a week ago. I guessed the examples he'd cited were references to Aunt Abby's mac and cheese, Boris's meats, and the vegetarians' fare.

“He's overreacting,” said Sierra Montoya, co-owner and chef at the Vegematic food truck. “Most of us offer foods you don't normally find at the local restaurants. And since when has free enterprise been a problem in the United States? I say, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen business.”

Jameson says he plans to pursue a lawsuit against the food trucks and has repeatedly called the health department to look into these “roach coaches,” questioning their cleanliness and safety.

“When you cook for large numbers of people,” Jameson said, “you have to make sure everything is sanitary or you're apt to poison your customers. I've seen rats the size of cats running around those trucks at night. The owners don't seem to understand the need for pest control. I suspect one of the truck owners—I won't name names—catches those rodents and cooks them up in his ‘gourmet' kitchen, then calls them ‘exotic' meat. Disgusting!”

Rats the size of cats? My stomach lurched at the thought of Chef Boris grilling up freshly caught rodent meat. Surely he didn't! Aunt Abby claimed Oliver Jameson had planted rats in her kitchen to get her in trouble with the health department. I'd seen one with my own eyes, trapped under her stove. Had Jameson put it there? If so, how had he gotten inside?

I smelled a rat. A two-legged rat.

I returned to the article.

Chef Boris Obregar from the Road Grill truck argued that the rats were already in the area because
of the restaurants. “We're all careful about having a clean kitchen and a healthy environment for our customers,” he said. “Keeping vermin away is everyone's responsibility, including Oliver Jameson's.”

My head was spinning like a rat on a hamster wheel. Both sides were accusing each other of causing the infestation problem. But that didn't seem to be a strong enough reason to murder Oliver Jameson. I read the last line of the article:

“Everyone just needs to calm down,” said Jake Miller, owner of the popular Dream Puffs truck. “Eat a cream puff.”

I smiled at the words, which reminded me of my own mantra: “Stay calm, and eat a cream puff.” If more people did that, we'd probably have a lot fewer murders. But it didn't change the fact that Oliver Jameson was dead. Poisoned like a rat. As unpleasant as he was, he didn't deserve to die so horribly.

I had an idea and checked the Cheshire Cat clock on the RV wall: nine thirty p.m. Maybe it wasn't too late. I hastily changed out of my pj's and into my khaki pants, a long-sleeved black sweater, and my ballet flats. Grabbing my red leather purse and black leather jacket, I got in my car and drove over to the Bones 'n' Brew restaurant to see if I could get a little taste of Oliver Jameson's world.

•   •   •

The crime scene tape had been removed from the front entrance of the brick Bones 'n' Brew building, but a sign
on the door read
CLOSED
. I wasn't surprised. Not only was it late at night, but I figured most of Oliver Jameson's staff were either mourning his death—or celebrating the time off. I wondered when—and if—the restaurant would reopen for business. Nevertheless, I hoped I'd find someone inside, dealing with the daily demands of managing a large restaurant, even one that was temporarily closed.

The front door was locked, so I walked around to the back staff entrance, knocked on the door, then tried the knob. It opened. I let myself in thinking anyone could walk in here—even a murderer.

The kitchen was empty—and a complete mess. Dishes, pots, pans, and utensils appeared to have been left wherever they'd been when news of Jameson's death was announced. Half-cooked food was dumped in the large sinks or garbage pails, remnants clung to the pans and bowls, and sauces had puddled and gelatinized on the counters. The stench was overwhelming, and I was tempted to plug my nose at the cooking carnage.