T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 03 - Southern Peril (3 page)

“No problems with the takeover of the restaurant, then?”

His eyes went back to the elevated corner table, and he seemed to be staring at the bright day outside. “As I said, no.”

I pointed to the corner. “I’ll bet that’s the most popular table in the place.”

His head jerked my way. “What about the table?”

I drank more tea, imagining that it would go well with the cashew-ginger fresh greens salad and a loaf of hot bread. And the broiled wild-caught Alaskan salmon served on a bed of dill mashed
potatoes, garnished with white truffle slices. I’d seen both on the evening specials board when I’d first walked into the restaurant. Taste buds watering, I pointed to the far corner. “That table over there. I imagine that everybody wants that table when they make reservations. It has the best view and its own little room, sort of.”

He forced another chuckle. “You’re right. We call that the Green Table. Jonathan Green was a friend of my father’s and his all-time favorite artist. Those two paintings you see are original oils. Worth a chunk of change, I’m told. The other three in the matching frames are signed lithographs.”

“Bold and colorful.” An art critic I’m not, but the portraits of women in big hats and children dancing emanated a delightful, genuine feel. Something a person could gaze at, on and off, for hours.

“Green is known for creating cross-cultural fine art.” Morgan smiled and for an instant looked like an ordinary business owner with no worries. “Between the ornate kidney-shaped table, the artwork, and the view of the boats, it does make for a unique dining experience. Everybody asks for the Green Table, but we keep it on reserve for our more well-known patrons.”

I tried to read the thoughts behind his near black irises. “Well, you certainly sound like a seasoned restaurateur, even though your past career was corporate accounting.”

“Luckily, all the staff stayed on after Garland passed away. Even the servers. And I’m a quick learner. Basically, I keep the books and pay the invoices, which
is
accounting. And of course, I get out and greet arriving customers. Like Garland and Mom used to do. Piece of cake.”

While the judge referred to their father as “Dad,” Morgan preferred to use the elder man’s first name, Garland, as though the two were acquaintances instead of family. Interesting. Although the judge had said that father and son were estranged before Garland died.

Somebody in the kitchen had begun prep work, and the smell of onion and spices made my stomach growl. “Do you get along well with your sister?”

“Of course. Always have.”

“Why do you think she’s worried about you?”

He shrugged. “Probably because I look worn out, I guess. I’ve been working long hours to learn the business. And of course moving and getting settled into a new place has been a chore.”

“What about the break-in at your apartment?”

“What about it?”

“Do you know who did it?”

He gave me an are-you-stupid-or-what look. “If I knew who did it, don’t you think I would have reported it to the police?”

“You didn’t file a report?”

“Nothing was taken. And I hadn’t yet bought renter’s insurance, so replacing what they broke is out of my pocket anyway. Why bother with the police?”

Morgan politely answered my questions until I ran out of things to ask. I learned that he’d worked long enough at his prior job to accrue a nice chunk of change in a 401(k) plan and that he was vested in a pension plan. He’d never been married and didn’t have kids. He did have a girlfriend, who had moved to Wilmington with him. He’d purchased a ring and was planning a marriage proposal when she’d suddenly broken it off, claiming the relationship had become stagnant. That was just after they’d moved, and she hadn’t bothered to unpack her boxes of clothes. She’d simply showed up with a local moving truck and two men, who carried her stuff out of their rental. Morgan professed to be over the breakup. He had met plenty of new friends, he said. It was a declaration he couldn’t quite pull off.

Overall, I didn’t learn much, except that the judge was right. Her brother was soft-spoken and introverted to the point of being shy. And he was hiding something.

I went to the restroom before leaving and, on the way, took a bound journal from the host stand. The women’s bathroom was elegant and clean and fresh-smelling. On the way out, I returned the journal, minus the past two weeks’ worth of reservations and patron phone numbers. I had no idea how I’d use the information, but maybe a name on the list would connect with something else. Then I’d have an actual clue.

Smelling savory cinnamon
rolls, I awakened from a dream that I was standing in line at a bakery. I sniffed the air to make sure it wasn’t a lingering olfactory trick and surmised that my father’s girlfriend had delivered breakfast. Either that, or Fran had spent the night and was now baking cinnamon rolls. Even though our kitchens are connected and Spud usually comes and goes through my place, his apartment has its own stairwell entrance that leads directly to the Barter’s Block parking area. The building used to be a trading post in the early 1800s and at one point in history after the Civil War had served as a brothel. I imagined Fran sneaking in through Spud’s private stairwell, much the way satisfied men used to exit by the same wooden stairs.

I pulled a cushy chenille robe over a La Perla chemise and followed my nose. Spud sat in my kitchen, reading the newspaper and slurping a chocolate Yoo-hoo. He’d never bothered to put a table in his own kitchen, and we’d settled into a routine of sharing our
mornings on my side of the French doors. He sported a brand-new mustache that looked like it had ambitions of growing handlebars someday. Undoubtedly one of Fran’s suggestions, it grew out solid white. Surprisingly thick. And currently covered with a thin layer of chocolate drink. Imagine Wolfgang Puck, shrink him down, age him twenty years, throw on the mustache, and you’ve got a pretty good mental image of Spud.

“Morning, sweetie!” Fran said to me, fluffing short, curly hair that was currently tinted orange. “You want some coffee?”

“Caffeine would be great, thanks.”

She served a plate of hot cinnamon rolls. Steam rose from their gooey icing tops. Since she wore a robe, too, I guessed that she’d spent the night and arisen early to fix breakfast. Fran is approaching eighty, and Spud recently surpassed the milestone. Ox thinks they make a cute couple. All I know is that Fran makes incredible pies. By the smell of things, her cinnamon rolls would be just as good.

Spud peeped over the top of the sports section. “Today’s paper is nugatory, for crying out loud.”

“Nuga-what?”

He eyed me above his reading glasses. “Nugatory. It means worthless or of no value.”

“Oh.” I wondered when my father had begun exploring the English language. He’s a retired cop, and his vocabulary is usually more direct and to the point. “Then why didn’t you just say ‘worthless’?”

Fran put a mug of coffee in my waiting hands. “I gave him a Word-A-Day calendar,” she said. “You know, the little square kind, where you rip off each day? It’s actually three new words a day.”

“Yeah,” Spud grunted. “I’ve got to keep my mind cuspidated.”

“Huh?”

“It means sharp, for crying out loud. Like a razor’s edge.”

I bit into a cinnamon roll, and the dough melted in my mouth.
Maybe having Fran around wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all. She could park her shoes under Spud’s bed every night for all I cared, as long as she kept fixing breakfast in the mornings. “I don’t think that word applies to your cerebrum,” I said.

“My what?”

“Your brain,” Fran told him. “Everybody knows that word.”

“Whatever. Learning new words is like exercise for your head. Use it or lose it, as Frannie says. And I’ve got to keep my head in shape.”

“Both of them,” Fran said matter-of-factly.

“Thanks for the visual.” I might have done a gross-out shiver.

We heard somebody jogging up the stairs from the Block, and Trish beeped her way into the kitchen after knocking once. “Hello? … Jersey, you here?” Trish is a local private investigator.

“Does everybody know my security code?” I asked.

“Probably doesn’t help that somebody wrote it on the wood handrail,” she said.

I shot a look at my father. The scolding kind.

“Wanted to make sure I didn’t get locked out after you changed it last time, for crying out loud. Besides, it’s in pencil. I can erase it once I memorize it.”

“What is that heavenly smell?” Trish asked before I could scold Spud. “I’m about to start drooling.”

Fran brought her a plate and Trish devoured a cinnamon roll standing up. She sat down for the second one. “Fran, you could open a shop and sell these things,” she said, and went for a third.

When she quit eating, I asked Trish to do a detailed background check on Morgan and tail him for a few days.

Spud pulled off his readers and squinted at me. “Who’s Morgan?”

“You want Trish to follow somebody around all day, sneakylike?” Fran asked.

“And why do you want to know this Morgan person’s business?” Spud’s mustache moved from side to side. “I thought you’re done with the dangerous work stuff.”

“Does this Morgan fellow know that you’re going to tail him?” Fran wanted to know.

I held up a hand to stop further ping-ponging. “It’s a favor for my judge friend, Spud. And you know I don’t discuss work details at home.” Meaning not in front of Fran. My father nosed into my business all the time, but I barely knew her.

He caught my drift. “I tell Frannie everything anyways, for crying out loud.”

“Yeah.” Her head bobbed. “Ever since he almost killed me, we’ve been tight.”

Spud and his poker buddies had been hauling a bunch of thrift store purchases down the road when a life-size anatomically correct mannequin flew off the roof of Bobby’s van. Fran ran it over and damaged her scooter, at which point Spud asked her out on a date. He figured a dinner tab would be cheaper than the repair bill.

I updated the bumbling lovebirds on the judge, her brother, and Argo’s.

“Huh,” Fran said. “I wouldn’t mind going to Argo’s sometime.”

“Those fancy eatin’ houses cost too much,” Spud said. “They’re real proud of their food.”

Fran fluffed her hair. “We can go, my treat.”

“ ’Long as you don’t get involved with my work,” I cautioned.

“No worries there. This Argo’s thing of yours is kind of vapit.” Spud turned his attention to the sports section.

“You mean vapid,” Fran said. “That was one of last Tuesday’s words.”

“Whatever,” Spud said. “It ain’t one of Jersey’s more interesting assignments.”

The house phone rang, and Fran got to it before anyone else had
a chance. Apparently, she’d made herself at home. “It’s Ox,” she mouthed to us before launching into a detailed conversation about life in the Jersey and Spud household. “Okay, sweetie, hold a sec. She’s right here.”

Fran smashed the handset into her stomach in lieu of pressing the mute button. “It’s Ox,” she yelled, as though I were in the next apartment instead of five feet away. “That man is pining away for you, don’t you know. And you’re not in such great shape yourself. Anybody who bothered to take a look-see couldn’t miss the sparks flying between the two of you before he left.” Fran stopped to throw back a swallow of coffee. “I’ll tell you this much. If I was younger and more limber, I’d be all over him myself!”

“Not if you had a taste of me first, back when I was younger and more limber,” Spud says.

“Good grief. Just give me the phone.” I pulled the handset from Fran’s grip and headed outside to the privacy of a balcony off the kitchen. Fran and Trish didn’t bother to hide the fact that they planned to watch me through the glass doors. At least they couldn’t hear.

“Hello?”

“I see things are just as entertaining around there as usual.” The sound of Ox’s voice was a shot of warm brandy to my insides.

“You heard all that?”

He chuckled, and the sound seemed to come from mere feet away instead of Bristol, Connecticut. “I miss you, Barnes.”

“I miss you, too.” The understatement of the month. “A lot.”

“Five more weeks.” The sentence conjured up all sorts of reunion images, and most of them didn’t involve clothes. Now that we’d finally slept together, I couldn’t quit thinking about him.

“How’s everything been going?” he asked.

The Block was plugging along as usual, with only a few minor glitches, and I told him everything, right down to the contents of
the latest mail delivery and the repair of three fluorescent overheads, broken by a couple of drunk sports fans who were tossing a football. I brought him up-to-date on the situation with the judge and Argo’s and Morgan. Listening, Ox was so quiet, I thought we’d lost the connection. When I finished, he filled me in on Lindsey’s classes, face time with the camera, and Chuck’s Steakhouse, Lindsey’s newest favorite restaurant that was built inside an old barn.

Last year, Ox’s daughter, Lindsey, got her mother’s okay to move from California to live with Ox in Wilmington. I’m five eight, and the girl is taller than me, even after I’ve strapped on my most salacious high heels. Her features are her father’s: mesmerizing cinnamon eye color, smooth olive golden skin, thick hair, and a wide smile. She has earned a nice chunk of college money by modeling, but her plan is to be a television sports announcer. She entered a contest to earn a six-week work-study program sponsored by ESPN and managed to win an all-expense-paid experience of a lifetime. There were only two stipulations. Her high school had to allow her to attend classes virtually, with the use of a tutor, and submit assignments via e-mail. The principal of New Hanover High quickly agreed, since Lindsey is one of his star students. The second stipulation of Lindsey’s participation mandated that a parent or guardian accompany the teen. Ox didn’t hesitate. Six weeks of concentrated time with his daughter was irresistible. Selfishly, I almost wished that Lindsey’s mother were the parent to take her to ESPN’s headquarters. Ox and I had just begun to explore our relationship on a level other than best friends and business partners. And then he was gone. Handling his normal duties running the Block was the easy part. Not having him in the same physical vicinity was proving much more difficult.