She took a deep breath. Nobody. There was nobody here.
You’re a mean woman, Nedda. And meanness comes back to bite you in the end.
Her shoulders felt suddenly stiff, her hands contracting into fists at her side. “Harmon,” she whispered. It was what he’d said to her the last time they’d spoken, almost two years ago now.
She closed her eyes for a moment, rubbing her fingers across a faint pain in her chest. At least the voice was in her head. That should be some comfort—nobody had dared to say such a thing to her after all.
Only her brother. Three months dead.
She flexed her shoulders and marched back the way she’d come.
An hour after the kitchen had been broken down and the instructions for tomorrow’s prep copied and posted, Joe was still wondering if he was wasting his time. He had a theory, and it seemed credible, based on what he’d found that afternoon. On the other hand, his current position squatting on a stool in the darkened kitchen wasn’t exactly comfortable.
He also felt vaguely like an idiot. He was wearing black jeans and T-shirt, with his black chef’s beanie on his head to keep it from catching any reflected light. He suspected that he looked like an incredibly inept burglar, but he was really hoping not too many people would see him anyway. Only one person in fact.
From his position at the corner of the room, he could see out one of the kitchen windows, the one closest to the sink. Placido and his cousin, Albert, who’d just been hired last week, had finished the last pots and pans and loaded the dishwasher for its final run a half hour ago. He could hear the sound of the vacuum cleaner in the dining room as the busboy, Gabriel, took care of the last clean-up in the main room.
Placido wanted to move into food prep. He’d already talked to Joe about it. Fairley was against it since he was trying to line up another extern. Externs worked for free. On the other hand, constantly cycling inexperienced people through the kitchen who only stayed for a few weeks caused a certain amount of unavoidable chaos.
All in all, Joe leaned toward promoting Placido. Particularly now that they had Albert to replace him in the cleaning department. It was true that Plac was on the list of possible thieves, but Joe didn’t believe it. Plac was solid. And he deserved to move up.
He dragged his wandering mind back to the matter at hand. Kitchen staffing could wait until they solved the current crisis. Particularly since they’d have MG back if everything went as planned.
Outside, Albert pushed a garbage can on a dolly toward the rack where the other cans were waiting. He positioned it next to the other two cans at the edge of the building near the driveway where the garbage truck could pick it up tomorrow morning. It was the recyclables bin that contained the kitchen’s waste paper and cans and bottles, the stuff that they sold to a company in Marble Falls. One of these days he really needed to start checking into the whole herb garden with composter deal. An herb garden would let him try some experiments fresh herbs, provided they could find somebody to tend it.
Joe sighed. His mind kept wandering. This was quite possibly the most boring job he’d had since his potato peeling days, and already this stake-out seemed to be lasting longer than his time as a prep cook. He folded his arms and leaned back against the wall behind him.
After a few more minutes, Albert and Placido walked back along the edge of the parking lot. Plac paused long enough to lock the outer door to the kitchen, then the two headed off toward the lot, carrying on a complicated discussion in Spanish that was way beyond Joe’s rudimentary knowledge.
He blew out a breath.
Showtime.
Maybe. Probably. Of course, he still had no idea how much longer he’d have to wait.
Around a half hour, as it turned out. In fact, he was just beginning to wonder if he’d outsmarted himself and picked the wrong night when he saw Dietz walk around the corner of the building. If Joe had been careful to conceal himself in black, Fishhead seemed to have no similar concerns. He wore a white T-shirt, which made him stand out starkly in the dim light.
Joe moved carefully through the door, keeping his focus on Dietz’s white shirt.
Fishhead seemed momentarily uncertain. He opened two of the garbage cans, shining a flashlight inside. Then he closed them and moved on to the container of recycled paper Albert had wheeled out just before leaving.
Joe leaned closer, careful not to make any noise.
But right then Fishhead wasn’t interested in anything other than the garbage. He reached into the recycling bin and pulled out something around two feet long, wrapped in foil. Then he reached in again. When he had three large, foil-wrapped objects at his feet, he closed the can and stooped down to load them in his arms.
Joe moved into the shadows behind him, waiting.
Come on, asshole, do it.
Dietz turned and looked carefully around the back of the building. For the first time, he seemed somewhat concerned about being seen.
Joe kept still, watching, suddenly very glad he’d bothered with the black clothes.
Finally, Dietz turned and headed toward the employee parking lot. His beat-up compact was parked at the far end, under a pecan tree that provided him with ample shadows.
Joe slipped out from behind the building and followed him, moving as quietly as he could in the parking lot gravel.
Dietz paused next to his car, placing the foil-wrapped objects on the ground while he unlocked the trunk. He pushed up the trunk lid, then picked up the objects, placing them carefully inside. When he reached up to pull the trunk closed, Joe stepped out of the shadows.
“Going somewhere?”
He had the satisfaction of seeing Dietz start violently. He whirled to stare at him. “Jesus. What the hell are you doing here?”
“I live here.” Joe gave him a fierce smile, as he pointed toward his cabin. “Right over there, in fact. Plus, of course, it’s my kitchen. I try to keep an eye on things.”
Dietz took a deep breath and blew it out, apparently trying to slow down his pulse rate. “I’m just heading home for the night. Didn’t see you around.”
“Oh?” Joe raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. Like I say, I try to keep an eye on things. And I saw you. That white shirt’s really visible.”
Dietz glanced down at his shirt and then back again. “Yeah, I just finished some work. Guess I better get home now.”
“What’s in the trunk?” Joe stepped forward, placing his hand on the trunk lid to keep Dietz from slamming it shut.
“What do you mean?” Dietz was trying for indignation, but he didn’t entirely make it. He sounded a little like a panicked five-year-old.
“I mean, what’s this?” Joe reached for one of the foil-wrapped cylinders.
Fishhead grabbed his wrist. “This is my car,” he squeaked. “You can’t…”
“Oh, don’t even try it,” Joe snapped. “I saw you take it out of the garbage can. And I already know what it is.”
He picked up one of the three objects, flipping back a corner of the aluminum foil to show the plastic-wrapped meat underneath. “A tenderloin? Is that what the others are too? You lousy son of a bitch, if you hadn’t gotten so greedy, you might have gotten away with it.”
Dietz’s breath whistled through his teeth. “You think I stole those? Me?”
Joe waited, letting his lips move into a grin. “Well, let’s see now. You took these out of the garbage can like you knew exactly what was inside—you didn’t even bother to unwrap them to check. And now here they are in your trunk. So yeah, I think you stole them.”
“Ezra,” Dietz spat out. “It was Ezra. That extern. He wrapped them up in the kitchen and put them in the garbage can. I saw him. And I came out here and got them back. I was going to tell Fairley about it tomorrow.”
“Uh huh. And the reason you put them in your trunk instead of taking them back into the kitchen now would be…”
Dietz stalled, pursing his lips. Then he shrugged. “I don’t have a key. I was going to bring them back tomorrow.”
“Well, that would be a problem. Seeing as how you waited until after the kitchen closed to get them back. Ezra leaves mid-afternoon.” Joe picked up the other two packages. At least they were still frozen.
Dietz shrugged. “Didn’t want anybody to see. They might have thought I did it.”
“They might. Which would have been right. I found them myself this afternoon after I saw you hanging around the cans. So far as I could tell, you didn’t say shit to Fairley about it.”
Dietz’s face suddenly looked slightly green in the mercury lights.
Joe’s jaw tightened so much it was almost painful. The strain of not grabbing Dietz by the throat made his muscles ache. “Asshole. How did it work? You hide stuff in the freezer, then wrap it up when nobody’s looking? Then you put the garbage can at the door so you can load stuff into it without being seen?”
Dietz swallowed visibly, but he said nothing.
Joe took another deep breath to keep himself from meting out any bodily harm. “I’ve got two questions for you. Just how much meat did you steal before this? And was anybody in the kitchen in on it with you?”
“I didn’t…” Dietz folded his arms across his chest, raising his head defiantly. “You calling the cops?”
Joe considered bashing him with a frozen beef tenderloin, but he didn’t want to damage the meat. “That depends. I’ll ask you again—how much did you take and who else was in on this with you?”
Dietz shook his head slowly. “Right now I figure this is a misdemeanor. Three tenderloins aren’t worth that much. I’m not telling you shit. Go fuck yourself—unless you can get that little piece of ass from the kitchen to do it.”
Joe dropped the tenderloin to the ground and grabbed the front of Dietz’s shirt in one smooth motion. He yanked him off the ground, his other hand balled into a fist he held in front of his face. “I’m about thirty seconds away from taking out my frustrations on you, Dietz. I got half a mind to do a little damage on my own before the cops get here. Just something to remember me by.”
Dietz squeaked, his arms flailing. After another moment, Joe released his hold, throwing him back against his car. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket “I’m calling Nando Avrogado. You so much as move, and I will push your nose through the back of your head.”
Dietz stared at him, wide-eyed, then sagged back against the side of the car.
It took a few minutes to reach Nando and another half hour or so for a cop to arrive to collect Dietz. The kid looked barely old enough to drive, even though he was wearing a Konigsburg police uniform. His name tag said Delaney.
He gestured toward the three tenderloins in Dietz’s trunk. “That’s the meat?”
Joe nodded sourly. He had a feeling he knew what was coming next. “That’s it.”
Delaney narrowed his eyes, his mouth sliding into a slow grin. “You know that’s evidence.”
“Right. You have a freezer at the station?”
Delaney nodded. “We do. Also a grill.”
“Don’t even think about it. At least not until you get this asshole convicted.”
Delaney was still grinning when he left with Dietz and the tenderloins.
Joe stalked toward the kitchen without looking back. With any luck, he might be able to throw a punch at somebody else tomorrow because it had taken all the self-restraint he had to avoid stuffing Dietz into the trunk along with the meat.
Chapter Twenty
MG sat at her kitchen table, trying to savor Joe’s
crème brulée
. Or rather Darcy’s
crème brulée
, which Joe had taken out of the freezer before coming to the house. She’d have had fewer problems with the
savor
part if Joe himself hadn’t been sitting across from her, still almost vibrating with fury.
“Goddamn fucking son of a bitch,” he muttered for probably the tenth time. He wasn’t eating any dessert himself, maybe because he wasn’t in the mood for sugar.
She spooned up more
crème
. “Why meat?”
He rubbed a hand across his face, trying to calm down. “Protein’s the most expensive part of any meal. When I do the menus, I figure the per plate costs around the protein that’s the centerpiece. Stealing meat and seafood is way more profitable than stealing produce. Although stealing liquor and equipment can also add up to a tidy sum. Kit’s going to inventory the wine stock again tomorrow.”
“And he stole beef tenderloins? Are those that expensive?”
Joe nodded. “That’s filet. I can make a lot of forty dollar dinners out of a single tenderloin. And the packages weren’t all tenderloins. Turns out he also had a stack of porterhouse, which would have brought in even more.”
She reached across the table, touching his hand. “So it’s over now, right? Good guys win, bad guys gone, final credits and close.”
Joe grimaced slightly, then brought her hand to his lips, closing his eyes for a moment. “Part of it is over. And I’m sorry for dumping all of this on you.”
“You didn’t dump it on me.” She ran her fingers lightly along his cheekbone. “I’m glad you told me what was going on. What part isn’t over yet?”
He shrugged. “I still need to have a little talk with Fairley. You ready to take your job back?” He arched a brow.
She sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, I like working in the kitchen with Darcy and I could really use the money. But I need time to rehearse and I’ve got the two standing gigs at Oltdorf now. I don’t know if I can work six days a week, eight or nine hours a day and still do at least two shows a week too.” Plus, of course, Fairley still hated her for some reason.