French Fried Read online

  Some of the articles had landed near Declan and he reached for those that were nearest. “I guess that’s no surprise. Rocky was obviously interested in the Statue of Liberty. Except this article . . .” He came up holding it. “This one’s dated three years ago, long before that Statue of Liberty book was published.”

  It was all he said, but to tell the truth, Declan didn’t need to say another word. I could just about see the wheels turning inside his head.

  “You know something,” I said.

  He shook himself out of whatever thoughts had frozen him to the spot. “No, I don’t know something.”

  It was such a lawyer thing to say!

  “But you suspect something.”

  “I might, but I can’t say—”

  “Just like you couldn’t say if Rocky was a client or not? Come on, Declan! She’s dead, and we both know she was murdered. Doesn’t that get rid of attorney-client privilege?”

  “She was never a client. I mean, except for her will. She just . . .” Thinking about it, Declan glanced over at that empty chair where Rocky had taken her last breaths. “She came to me four years ago,” he said. “But not for legal services. She just wanted advice.”

  “Four years. Then not about someone prowling her property or breaking into her house.”

  He shook his head. “She was trying to find someone and she wasn’t sure where to begin. She thought because I know the legal system, I might be able to point her in the right direction.”

  “And did you?”

  He looked down at the article in his hands, one from some obscure newspaper in some little town in New York. The headline said something about how native son Andrew MacLain had just been hired to work on the restoration of the famous statue in New York Harbor.

  Declan shrugged. “I don’t know if I helped her or not. She never said another thing about it after that and though I was tempted, I never asked. I figured if she wanted to talk, she’d talk. Maybe . . .” There were more articles, all of them about MacLain and one by one, he plucked them off the floor and handed them to me. “Maybe I did help her,” he said.

  I riffled through the articles, everything from a notice from a college publication when MacLain got his Ph.D. to more recent articles about his book, his cross-country speaking tour, his expertise when it came to everything from the cleaning of the statue to how big Lady Liberty’s toes are.

  “Was she looking for Andrew MacLain?” I asked Declan.

  “I don’t know. I wish I did. She was . . .” Ever the attorney, Declan searched for the word to describe exactly what he remembered. “She was evasive. I asked her, of course. I told her it would be easier to help if I knew exactly what she was looking for. Who she was looking for. But, well . . . you know Rocky!” He managed to smile at the memory. “She was a great lady, but she could be headstrong and stubborn. She told me flat out that it was none of my business.”

  “And how long ago did you say this was?”

  “About four years.”

  “Before Yesterday’s Passion was published. After what happened at the bookstore, do you think she might have been looking for Aurore Brisson?”

  His shrug was not the answer I hoped for.

  “Then what about Andrew MacLain?” I asked, glancing down at all those articles about the man. “Maybe she was looking for him.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And maybe when Rocky left us that voice mail message and said how she was overwhelmed by the past . . .” I wanted so much to have answers, I felt like screaming. “Maybe that message had something to do with one of them. Something to do with this person she was looking for.”

  He spared me another maybe, and for that, I was grateful.

  I would have been even more grateful if I could figure out what the heck to do next.

  Chapter 7

  The way I saw it, I had a few avenues to explore:

  There was Aurore Brisson of the too-white smile and the too-plump lips, who stood there at the bookstore with her jaw flapping when Rocky accused her of stealing Yesterday’s Passion from Marie Daigneau.

  There was Marie herself. Sophie remembered Rocky talking about her friend from France, but who was Marie, really? Had she written a book? One that Rocky could have mistaken for Yesterday’s Passion?

  Then, of course, there was Minnie Greenway, she of the questionable personal-grooming habits, the unquestionably unusual mental state, and what sounded like a big-time grudge against Rocky.

  And let’s not forget Andrew MacLain. Aside from the fact that he was apparently one smart cookie and a nice-enough-looking man, what was it about the scholar that had turned the usually levelheaded Rocky into a fangirl?

  Tantalizing possibilities, every one. But my questions didn’t end there.

  I also had to consider Rocky’s date book with its curious entries, along with the safe deposit box key and the fact that Rocky had asked Declan for advice about finding someone who may not have been lost, but was obviously missing from her life.

  When it came to investigating, this was all good news. There were lots of people to talk to and that meant lots of possibilities for a break in the case.

  From a practical point of view, it was as frustrating as hell. Especially when Sundays are traditionally one of our busiest days at the Terminal and once I returned from Pacifique, I didn’t have a moment to myself.

  “Tartines!” Sophie waltzed into the kitchen to the rhythm of Maurice Chevalier singing “Thank Heaven for Little Girls” over our sound system and waved a stack of customer orders in the air. “Lots and lots of people want tartines. Can you handle it, George?”

  George grumbled, but I knew he’d come through. He always did.

  In the meantime, I whipped up a few more quiches, a bittersweet smile on my face when I chopped the griselles Rocky had brought over on Friday night. I got those into the oven and went out front, and since Inez and Misti, our newest waitress, were both busy, I took over the duties behind the cash register so they could concentrate on serving.

  Lots of customers and lots of business were all great, but dang, I couldn’t help myself; every time I glanced out the front window to where the French Tricolor waved from our flagpole, I thought of Rocky. And every time I thought of Rocky, my breath caught in my throat.

  I finally got a break around four o’clock and while Sophie and Inez and Misti invited me to sit down and join them for a cup of coffee in the hopes of recharging their energies before the dinner crowd arrived, I ducked into the office.

  Good thing I did. When my phone rang, I was able to take the call in private.

  I glanced at the caller ID and took a deep breath to calm my heart and squelch the rat-a-tat rhythm in my voice that might make me sound less professional, less organized, more harried.

  “Laurel Inwood,” I said when I picked up.

  “Ms. Inwood.” I knew who it was (hence that rat-a-tat rhythm), but he introduced himself anyway. It was how things were done in the strata of society where he lived and worked. “Fletcher Croft. I’m glad I caught you. I thought perhaps on a Sunday afternoon, you’d be out and about.”

  In Croft’s mind, I’m sure out and about was equal to watching a polo match. Or cruising on my yacht. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that in my case, it was more like handing out suckers to the kids who came up to the cash register with their parents.

  “I’m glad you caught me, too,” I told him. “I’ve been anxious to talk to you.”

  “And I’m pleased to tell you that Senator Stone is anxious to talk to you. She’s narrowed down her search to two candidates. You are one of them. I will admit, she was a little reluctant because of your Hollywood connection, but I managed to convince her that might actually work in her favor. You’re used to the limelight.”

  “It was hardly shining on me,” I reminded him, and toed the line between how much I kne
w I should disclose and what I thought he wanted to hear. “But I was often there with Ms. Cohan when the paparazzi descended. I can’t say I ever got used to it, but there is an art to handling them. Smile, and keep your mouth shut!”

  “Yes, yes.” He sounded distracted and I heard him shuffle papers. Croft and I had been talking for a couple of months now, and we’d had two face-to-face meetings. (Just for the record, both times I’d told Sophie I was heading to Cleveland for a day of shopping when instead, I was driving to Pittsburgh so I could hop on a plane.) I knew Croft was a tall young man who was prematurely bald. He was also loyal to his employer, thorough, and organized. I pictured him looking over the résumé I had sent in response to the blind job posting I saw on the Internet early that summer. Prominent family seeks personal chef. Talented, energetic, discreet.

  After all those years with Meghan, who was anything but discreet, and all these months at the Terminal, where energetic might be a requirement, but talented and discreet never entered into the picture, it sounded like heaven.

  As did the mansion in Newport.

  The penthouse in New York.

  The brownstone in Georgetown.

  Oh yes, I was talented and I was certainly energetic. I could be plenty discreet, too, as discreet as Senator Katherine Stone and her high-society family needed me to be, especially if it meant leaving Hubbard, Ohio, behind me.

  Fletcher Croft cleared his throat. “How does Wednesday look?” he asked. “Senator Stone has an hour in the morning. In D.C. If you flew in first thing—”

  Did I groan?

  I guess I did because something stopped Fletcher in his tracks.

  I knew it was up to me to fill in the uncomfortable silence. “A friend has died,” I told him. “Just last night. I’m not sure yet about the funeral arrangements.”

  There was another silence on the other end of the phone. Part of me wondered if Croft was trying to think his way through what I’d told him, because folks like him—and Senator Katherine Stone—never took time off from their busy schedules for things like the funerals of friends.

  Another part of me wondered if it was even possible for politicians to have friends.

  I shook away the thought when Fletcher said, “I’ll need to check her availability. I really thought—”

  “Yes, I’m interested.” Even I knew I sounded a bit too eager, so I forced myself to take a deep breath and play it cool. “I’m very interested. And I’m grateful that the senator is considering me for the job. But I’m sure both you and Senator Stone understand that I’ve got an obligation here.”

  I prayed he did understand.

  Right before I realized that what Fletcher Croft did—or didn’t understand—didn’t matter one bit.

  What his boss understood would make all the difference in the world.

  “Please let the senator know how sorry I am to cause her this inconvenience,” I said. “As soon as she has an opening in her schedule—”

  “Yes, we’ll talk then,” Croft said, and without a good-bye, he ended the call.

  I stared at my phone for a minute or two, torn between calling him back to tell him I’d changed my mind and that of course I could be in Washington on Wednesday, and being angry at myself for caving and considering my obligation to Rocky, Sophie—and Hubbard—before I thought about myself and my own future.

  Hadn’t I spent a lifetime learning that no one was ever going to look out for me but me?

  Didn’t I realize that I might be letting a golden opportunity pass me by?

  Was I crazy?

  I guess I was, because in the end, I didn’t call Croft back. I tucked my phone in my pocket, hoped the senator wouldn’t hold a funeral against me, and told myself that the dinner crowd would be here before I knew it.

  If I was going to get anything done in the way of the investigation, it was now or never.

  I set aside my disappointment and got on the Internet to search for Marie Daigneau.

  It should come as no surprise that I am no whiz when it comes to computers. I never stayed in one school long enough to develop the background or the skills I needed to understand spreadsheets or word processing or how things like programming work. And even when I had those kinds of classes, I never paid a whole lot of attention. Who would hire a kid like me for a job that demanded brains? Sure, it was a lousy way of thinking, but foster kids can hardly help themselves. A healthy dose of self-esteem doesn’t exactly come with the territory.

  It should also come as no surprise that I’m plenty determined, not to mention resourceful. As Meghan Cohan’s chef, I’d had to pull a culinary rabbit out of a proverbial hat plenty of times, and if nothing else, I’d learned my way around cyberspace. Whether Meghan demanded Styrian pumpkin seed oil or insisted I cook with black truffle oil, whether she had a taste for sea cucumber or would accept nothing less than Persian musk rose syrup to serve chilled to her well-heeled friends, I made it happen with a few clicks of the mouse and Meghan’s credit card in hand.

  I called on the magic again and got to work, and found nothing at all. Whoever Marie Daigneau was, she led a quiet life that didn’t leave an electronic trail, at least not one that was easy to trace.

  After fifteen minutes of clicking and grumbling, I was finally rewarded for my efforts and found the one and only mention of Marie Daigneau anywhere on the Web.

  Her obituary.

  • • •

  WE WERE BUSY at the Terminal that evening, and I reminded myself over and over that busy meant profits and profits would be good for Sophie, especially once I left for the greener pastures of Newport, New York, and Georgetown.

  Yes, I was thinking positively and gearing myself up for when Senator Stone had an opening in her schedule, Croft called me back, and I could plan for what I knew would be the most important job interview of my life.

  The thought sent a thrill through my bloodstream all the while I made vanilla crème brûlée in little individual ramekins and gathered the sugar and butter, the orange juice and the orange zest and the Grand Marnier that would go into the crêpe suzettes we were featuring on that evening’s menu.

  Keeping busy and thinking about my plans for the future was a good thing, I told myself. It kept me from remembering how my heart sank when I learned that Marie Daigneau had been dead for three years. I’d been counting on having a conversation with her, asking her what Rocky could have been talking about when she accused Aurore Brisson. Now that would never happen.

  So much for that line of investigation.

  Of course I’d been unwilling to throw in the towel so early in the game, so before I came out into the restaurant and got to work again, I came up with a plan B.

  Aurore Brisson.

  In the hopes of speaking to her before she left town, I’d checked her website, and for the second time that afternoon, I met a brick wall.

  That day Aurore Brisson was doing a book signing in Cincinnati. In fact . . . I checked the time on my phone . . . she was no doubt already at the center of a crowd of fawning fans as far on the other side of the state of Ohio as it was possible to get.

  I will not report the word I grumbled. I will say that rather than follow a line of investigation that depended on someone else, I decided to rely on my own brain.

  And Rocky’s date book.

  Were the cryptic notes about mysterious phone calls, prowlers, and a burglar we’d seen noted on Rocky’s calendar real?

  As disturbing as it was to consider, I wanted to believe they were. Otherwise, those rumors I’d heard around town about Rocky—about her drinking and her mercurial personality and her erratic behavior that seemed to surprise no one—might actually be true.

  Though Declan and I had left the date book at Pacifique exactly where I’d found it, I didn’t need the book to remember at least some of what I’d seen in it. April 19 was the day of the first phone call,
a hang-up that had disturbed Rocky so much, she’d made note of it.

  “April 19,” I mumbled to myself. “What might have possibly happened in Rocky’s life that day?”

  With nowhere else to look, I went to the city of Hubbard webpage and checked past activities. There had been no town council meetings that day, no big gatherings of any kind, no school bake sales or recycling drives, and nothing in the police blotter more unusual or exciting than a couple of traffic stops.

  Just an ordinary day.

  A day on which Rocky began receiving harassing phone calls.

  “Crêpes for table three!” Misti called out from the order window, and intriguing mystery or not, I shook myself out of my thoughts and got to work. I whipped up the crêpes, made the beurre suzette (the sauce composed of that sugar and butter and orange zest and orange juice), and when I had it all plated, I told George to hit it, and he poured the Grand Marnier over the crêpes.

  George Porter is a man of few words and fewer culinary skills.

  He looked as pleased as punch when he put a flame to the liqueur and it lit up like the rockets we’d seen over Harding Park the night before.

  When Misti carried the crêpes out to the table, I heard the sound of applause from out in the restaurant.

  For a few minutes, it was quiet in the kitchen and while he was still pleased enough with himself and the magic he’d created with that drizzle of Grand Marnier, I told George I’d be right back and took the chance of ducking into the office again. Don’t ask me what I thought I’d find. Don’t even ask me what I thought I was looking for! I knew only that there was something I was missing, something important.

  Retracing my steps, I went back to the Hubbard website and from there, clicked on the link that took me to the website of the local newspaper and put in the date, April 19.

  And that’s when I found it.

  “The article about Rocky! The one that talked about her farm!” Yeah, I was talking to myself, but honestly, I was so amazed by the article in front of me on the computer screen, I didn’t really care. I remembered reading the article when it was published and thinking that it was a nice feature and because it was so complimentary to her, it was sure to increase her business. I also remembered seeing the article framed and hanging in Rocky’s parlor that afternoon.