“Great,” I said. “Are we still invited?”
“Of course,” she said. “By the way, Peter told me he’s been contacted by Baxter’s attorneys. Apparently Baxter had no living relatives, so he made Peter the executor of his will.”
“Really?” That surprised me a little. I knew Baxter had grown up in the same small village as Peter, but it had always seemed as though Peter didn’t like Baxter. Maybe they were closer friends than Peter had let on. “That’s interesting.”
“Is it?”
“I guess it depends on your point of view.” Realizing that the things Savannah and I found interesting were probably worlds apart, I changed the subject. “So tell me about the memorial party. Are you cooking?”
“I’m not sure yet.” She hesitated, then said, “I’m not even sure where we’ll have it. The thing is, Brooklyn, Peter swung by the restaurant earlier and it’s still a mess. Not only are there paparazzi lining the sidewalks outside, but there’s blood everywhere in the kitchen and that icky black fingerprint powder is smeared all over the place. Peter says it’s revolting, and the police aren’t even responsible for cleaning it up.”
“No, they’re not,” I murmured.
“So we’re not sure we’ll have our dinner there. I’m so bummed.”
“Look, tell him not to change plans,” I said. “I’ll call a cleaning service.”
“I doubt if a couple of housemaids will be able to handle it.”
I smiled inwardly. “I’m talking about a specialized cleanup service that deals with crime scenes and biohazard spills and stuff like that. These guys show up in hazmat suits and when they’re finished, you’ll never be able to tell that anything bad happened there.”
“You do know the most interesting people,” she said.
I had to sigh. Really, when had my life become so complicated? “I do, don’t I?”
We hung up and I put a call in to my buddy Tom, who owned the crime scene cleanup service I had used for my friend Robin’s house after that man was killed in her bedroom. Tom had been recommended by Inspector Jaglom and he really knew his stuff.
What I liked about Tom was that for someone who dealt with the grisly aftermath of violent death, he was one of the friendliest guys I’d ever met. Big as a bear, he was kindhearted and deferential to his clients, who, after all, were the loved ones left behind once the body was taken away. Tom took his job very seriously, especially when blood had been spilled. His cleanup crew would wear full hazardous material suits, covering themselves from head to toe in order to work in the biohazard environment of Baxter’s kitchen.
Tom and his crew were available the following morning, so I arranged for Peter to be at Baxter’s place to let them in. They would spend all day wiping down and disinfecting every surface of the entire restaurant, and by the time Friday night rolled around, all evidence of bloody murder would be gone.
If only it was that easy to wipe away the memory from all of our minds. But none of this would really be over until we found out who had killed Baxter.
I finished the call to Tom and immediately felt at loose ends. I had interrupted the intricate job of fixing the Jane Eyre book to call the crime scene cleaners and now I didn’t feel like going back to work. It was alarming to realize that despite my revulsion for murder and mayhem, the conversation with Tom had charged me up.
I thought about dashing off to visit Ian at the Covington Library, even though I’d seen him just a few weeks ago when I stopped by to show him Savannah’s old cookbook. I’d known that as a fellow book geek, he would be sure to get a kick out of it—and he had.
It was always fun to see Ian. I’d known him for years and loved him like a brother. At one point in our past, we’d even been engaged to marry for a brief time. Our plans were doomed from the start, however, and Ian was now happily gay and living with his cutie-pie partner, Jake. So much for my ability to choose appropriate men. Well, until Derek came along, anyway.
Now the only thing that kept me from driving over to the Covington Library was all the work I needed to get done. Namely, the work I owed Ian on the English authors’ books.
Then my gaze landed on my desk where the file I’d made for Savannah’s cookbook lay. It was filled with the photocopied pages of Obedience Green’s cookbook as well as all the pictures I’d taken of the book and the book box. I opened the file folder to study everything.