“Just happened to have those measurements on you, huh?”
“Sure did.” They were fresh in my mind because I’d been measuring leather scraps for the new book box. If I wanted to cover it in black leather, I had enough in stock. But if I wanted to repeat the dramatic dark red I’d used for Baxter’s gift, I would have to order more.
“Okay, thanks, Wainwright,” Lee said. “Talk to you later.”
“Wait,” I said. “What’s happening with the investigation? Did you talk to the other chefs yet? Do they all have alibis? Have you arrested anyone?”
There was a pause, and then she asked, “Did you graduate from the police academy and forget to tell me?”
“No,” I said, drawing the word out. “But my sister’s involved, so I’m curious. Besides, I thought we were friends.”
She snorted a laugh. “Good one. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Promise?”
She was still laughing as she hung up.
Chapter Eight
To test the freshness of an egg, hold the great end to your tongue. If it be warm, it is new; if cold, it is rotten.
—The Cookbook of Obedience Green
The next day Savannah called me. “I’ve invited the chefs to Arugula for dinner next Monday night. You’re coming, too.”
I was puzzled but pleased by the invitation. “Are you having some kind of a wake for Baxter?”
“We’ll do something more official later in the week. But this dinner is just a chance for us to get together for old times’ sake.”
Who was I to turn down dinner at Arugula? Savannah did the most amazing things with veggies, even for a die-hard red-meat fan like me. “I’d love to, but I’ll have to check with Derek first. Can I call you back?”
“Derek already knows,” she said.
Well, that was weird. “You already talked to him?”
“Yes.”
Now I was just plain puzzled. “What’s going on?”
She huffed. “You know how that detective told me not to leave town and then Derek told him I live up here in Dharma and I own a restaurant so everyone knows who I am and where I can be found most of the time?”
“Yes.” I remembered all too well what Jaglom had said.
“Okay. So I thought it would be nice to invite everyone up here to see my place and have dinner. I called Kevin first and found out that the cops told her and the others the same thing. Like, don’t leave town. So nobody is allowed to leave San Francisco, which is a complete drag. So I called Derek.”
She called Derek before calling me? I guess I couldn’t blame her. I would’ve called him first thing, too. It was sort of like having a doctor in the family. If you were having sharp pains in your side, you called your brother-in-law the doctor, right? So if somebody in my family was having trouble with the cops, who else would they call but Derek? It made perfect sense.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Well, Derek calls the detective and next thing I know, Kevin calls me back and says the cop called her to say they can all come for dinner, as long as Derek is here as our chaperone.”
“Interesting,” I said, wondering what Derek thought about babysitting a roomful of murder suspects. Knowing him, it would probably strike him as just another day at the office. “I’ll call you right back.”
A minute later, Derek confirmed the story. “That’s right, I spoke to Jaglom for quite a while. He’s allowing the dinner to go forward as a favor to me.”
“So you’re playing chaperone.”
“I prefer that term to babysitter.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “But it’s not a bad assignment, all things considered. Your sister is an excellent chef.”
“Good point,” I said. “And you don’t mind staying over in Dharma Monday night?”
“If Savannah is cooking, I absolutely insist. But I’ll probably have to spend half the day on the phone with my office.”
“I don’t mind if you don’t,” I said, then changed the subject. “Did Jaglom give you any hints about the chefs?”
He knew what I was asking. “As a matter of fact, he wanted to give me a heads-up on who to watch out for.”
“That’s right, you’ll be in charge of the whole gang. So what did he say?”
Derek hesitated, then said, “Margot says she heard Kevin threaten Baxter.”
I scowled. “I don’t believe it.”
“I didn’t think you would, but that was her statement. She claims that she followed Kevin back to the kitchen after Baxter opened Savannah’s gift. And she overheard Kevin say to Baxter, ‘I’m going to kill you for that.’”
I pondered the statement, then sighed. “Oh, hell. Kevin really did look angry enough to kill him.”
“Yes, she did.”
“Did Jaglom say anything about that?”
“He thinks Kevin’s hiding something from the police. She mentioned that Baxter was given an old cookbook and she thought maybe someone wanted it. But she wouldn’t go into detail about it.”