French Fried Page 9

  I sat up and double-clicked to zoom in on the article, and I began to read, and when I was done, I read it again, this time with a pad and pen at hand so I could make a list of every detail mentioned in the story. Truth be told, it was pretty much what I remembered from when I read the story back in the spring, and none of it was very enlightening. During the interview with a reporter name Jane Sczarmak, Rocky talked about how she’d acquired Pacifique years before and how each year, she increased the size of her garden. She talked about what crops she planned to plant this year, how she loved living in the U.S. but how sometimes she still missed France.

  The reporter remarked on Rocky’s evening ritual—a trip out into the garden for the last of the day’s freshest veggies while a bottle of wine was opened and left to breathe in the parlor, her grandmother’s favorite wineglass at hand. There were questions about the upcoming peace symposium that Rocky would be speaking at because she’d been a student at Ohio State University back in the ’70s and had been involved in a group that preached tolerance and nonviolence. In light of her French heritage, Rocky even talked about how excited she was about Statue of Liberty week, and there were even a couple of little sidebar stories, one that listed Rocky’s recommendations for her favorite French foods and wines, and another of the ten things Rocky claimed every home gardener needed to know.

  All commonplace.

  All ordinary.

  But there was something there in that story that might have made someone—some coward on the other end of the phone who didn’t have the nerve to face Rocky and wanted to frighten her instead—sit up and take notice.

  I tapped, tapped, tapped my pen against the paper and read over my pathetically small list of hints I’d picked up in the article.

  Garden.

  Statue of Liberty.

  Food, wine, and more garden.

  Rocky’s habit of having a glass of French wine each night.

  I am, of course, not completely dense. I stared at this last entry and I planned to bring it up when next I talked to Tony Russo. To her friends, it was no secret that Rocky had a glass of wine (or two) each evening. But because of the article, the world knew, just as the world knew she drank that wine out of her grandmother’s glass.

  If I were a betting person, I’d put a million dollars on the fact that the person who killed Rocky was counting on her doing what she did every evening, opening a bottle of wine and going out into the garden. I’d bet that person put the cyanide into her glass while she was outside. Her gardens were extensive and many of them were pretty far from the house. How easy it would have been for someone to come and go undetected!

  Before I thought about it too long and my anger got the best of me, I went back to my list.

  Pacifique.

  France and how much she missed her homeland.

  Peace symposium.

  I made a note for myself to talk to the Professor Weinhart who the article mentioned was spearheading the “day-long examination of how we view peace, a look back at the origins of the college peace movement of the Vietnam era, and a look forward . . . can there be peace in the world?”

  I wasn’t so sure about the world, but I knew one thing: there would be no peace for Rocky.

  Not until I found her killer.

  Chapter 8

  Considering I left the Terminal, zipped over to Pacifique, then drove all the way back into Hubbard, I made pretty good time. I arrived at the library just as the woman in charge of programming was introducing Andrew MacLain and letting the crowd know how fortunate the town and its young people were because he’d be spending the entire week visiting classes at the elementary school, the middle school, and the high school.

  The main library meeting room was packed, but hey, it pays to have friends in high places. Or at least friends who arrive at popular events before the very last minute.

  When he caught my eye, Declan waved me over to the seat he’d saved for me next to his.

  “About time,” he whispered when I sat down, Rocky’s copy of the book about the Statue of Liberty clutched to my chest. “He’s about to get started.”

  “And what are you doing here, anyway?” I asked him in the same hushed tones.

  One corner of his mouth pulled into a smile that was less about amusement than it was a comment on how dense I could apparently be. “Same as you. I want to see what’s so special about this guy.”

  What was so special was that Andrew MacLain was a flat-out genius. He was articulate, he was knowledgeable. He had a way of engaging the audience that made each and every one of us feel as if we were sitting across the table from him, sharing a pot of coffee while he regaled us with stories about Lady Liberty.

  MacLain threw out facts and figures like a really good pitcher tosses a baseball. Sure, anybody can do it. But not with such finesse. Not in a way that left me and everyone else in the room hanging on every word, making us wonder what we’d hear next and how he’d phrase it and what photographs and drawings and schematics he’d show on the screen behind him to illustrate his points.

  Andrew MacLain was the bomb diggity.

  “Except Rocky didn’t know that,” I muttered.

  Declan had been listening to MacLain answer a little girl’s question about how restoration experts cleaned the statue, and he leaned nearer. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look.” I pointed at the flyer I’d been given when I walked in the door. It featured a photo of MacLain at the base of the statue and included a brief biography. “It says here that this is his first-ever visit to Ohio,” I told Declan.

  “And . . .”

  “And so how did Rocky know how fabulous he is?”

  Declan grinned. “Is he? Fabulous?” He stroked his bare chin. “Maybe I need to grow a beard.”

  “You know what I mean,” I said, even though he was a guy and thus, all tied up with his ego, which meant I was pretty sure he didn’t. “I just wondered how she became such a huge fan.”

  Declan shrugged. “She saw him on some TV show. She read the book and enjoyed his writing style. She found a website and—”

  “All right. I get it. But that doesn’t explain—”

  Before I had a chance to explain exactly what it didn’t explain—which was Rocky’s obsession with Andrew MacLain—Ben Newcomb stood up from his seat directly behind mine. His wife, Muriel, the furniture factory owner and aspiring politician, beamed him a smile and held on to his hand. “I think it’s great that you’re going to visit the schools here in Hubbard this week,” Newcomb said, and really, the way he stood there, all self-possessed and smiling and looking like a million bucks in a pin-striped suit, I couldn’t help but think that his wife wasn’t the only one in the family capable of schmoozing the electorate.

  “Our kids need positive role models,” Newcomb went on as if to prove my theory. “They need to know that they can have hopes and dreams and that those dreams can come true if they work hard. Tell us about your childhood. Were you interested in the Statue of Liberty even then?”

  “Always,” MacLain answered. “I’ve always had a fascination with the Statue of Liberty, partly because my father, William Scott MacLain, is an engineer, and when I was growing up, he talked about the amazing designs of everything we saw, from office buildings to churches to yes, the Statue of Liberty. I’m an only child.” MacLain grinned. “So I got the benefit of his knowledge and his expertise all to myself, all the time.”

  “William Scott MacLain.” The way Declan said it made me think that he’d heard of the man. “Big shot in the world of engineering. Plenty of money.”

  “Which explains how his kid could go to the best schools and concentrate on the one subject that fascinated him more than any other. He didn’t have to worry about making a living.”

  Before Declan could tell me I sounded as bitter as I knew I did, Ben Newcomb asked a follow-up question. “And y
ou’re from a small town in New York?”

  MacLain nodded. “Cassadaga, New York. You’ve probably never heard of it! But just because we lived the small-town dream didn’t mean we were unsophisticated. My father traveled the world working on projects for hydroelectric dams. When he returned, he always had wonderful stories to tell.”

  “I wonder if dear old dad ever visited France,” I said, though honestly, I wasn’t sure where I was going with the thought. So what if Rocky knew him? So what if she might have met him fifty years before when she was a teenage girl living outside of Paris? That might explain a passing interest in his son, Andrew, but not the full-out kind of fixation we’d seen with all those newspaper clippings, the ones I’d left at Pacifique when I came to MacLain’s program.

  “Maybe Rocky was just a woman with eclectic tastes,” Declan suggested, and when the program ended and he stood up, I did, too. “Maybe she was interested in MacLain the way she was interested in herbs. And wine. And French pastries.”

  “Except we didn’t find a stash of newspaper articles about herbs and wine and French pastries,” I reminded him.

  “Not yet.” With a smile, Declan went to grab us coffee and cookies provided by the Friends of the Library, and along with many of the people in the crowd, I queued up to have Rocky’s copy of MacLain’s book signed.

  “Great speaker, huh?”

  I turned and realized that Ben Newcomb had stepped into line behind me. He had a copy of the book, too, hoisted up under his left arm.

  “Interesting man,” I said.

  “And interesting is always a welcome thing, right? Especially in a place like Hubbard.”

  I was surprised that a stranger would be so candid, and apparently Newcomb realized it, because he laughed and introduced himself. “You’re the young lady from the restaurant, right? I hear you’re from Hollywood. I figured you’d appreciate my assessment of small-town life. Me, I’m from a little place called New York City, so you can see how life in Hubbard borders on culture shock for me.”

  I could. I could also see why the over-sixty crowd found Newcomb so appealing. He had style, he had grace. His tie was Italian silk. His aftershave was expensive and intoxicating.

  I may have heard the story, and I was sure it had something to do with his wife, Muriel, but I asked anyway. “So I’m here because of Sophie and the Terminal. How about you? How did you end up in Hubbard?”

  He had a broad smile and teeth that were totally straight and blindingly white. I couldn’t help but think he must have put his orthodontist’s kids through college. “True love! Met Muriel . . .” He glanced across the room to where his wife was chatting up a group of senior citizens. “We were both vacationing and met at a resort in Cozumel and when she explained how her life and her ambitions were here in Hubbard . . .” Newcomb shrugged. “I didn’t care about the advice I got from my head. I listened to my heart. And here I am.”

  I hadn’t listened to my head or my heart when I came to Hubbard, only to the hollow, echoing sound at the bottom of my checkbook, and Sophie’s impassioned pleas.

  That, of course, was about to change, thanks to Senator Katherine Stone, and thinking about it, I perked right up. But before I had time to savor the sensation, Newcomb lowered his voice.

  “So . . .” He leaned close enough to make it clear we were sharing a secret and kept just far enough away so as not to be ill-mannered. “I’ve heard that there was some excitement around here a few months back, before I got to town. A murder, right? Some TV reporter?”

  It was not something I wanted to think about, not so soon after Rocky’s death, but Newcomb wasn’t ready to let the subject go.

  “If my sources are right . . . and they usually are . . . you cracked the case!” he said, his eyes alight with admiration.

  “I helped,” I admitted, downplaying my role in the Lance of Justice investigation because, let’s face it, it sounds a little loony to stand around in a library and talk about how you’d solved a murder—well, okay, two murders—that the cops couldn’t. “Just a little.”

  “So this time . . . this woman who died. This Raquel. Everyone’s talking about it,” Newcomb said because I guess he thought I was surprised he’d brought it up. “Are you helping out this time, too?”

  “The police are sure it was a suicide.” How was that for being noncommittal and completely honest all at the same time? I swallowed down the bad taste the words left in my mouth and stuck with a truth I believed in my heart of hearts—even if I wasn’t complying with it. “There’s really no reason for me to help out.”

  “Except that you’ve been talking to the police.” There was a gleam in Newcomb’s baby blues. “Otherwise, how would you know what they think?”

  I gave back as good of a smile as he gave me. “I work at the Terminal, remember. And if there’s one thing I’m learning about Hubbard, it’s that if you want to hear the latest news or the latest gossip, Sophie’s Terminal at the Tracks is the place to be!”

  “I’ll remember that! And we . . .” Again, he glanced at his wife who was now shaking hands with each and every member of the library staff in turn. “Muriel loves the Terminal. I’m sure she’ll bring me over there sometime soon. I hear you’re featuring French food. Sounds terrific.”

  “It is,” I assured him. “Some of the recipes we’re using were Rocky’s . . . er . . . Raquel’s,” I added, since he might not have realized I was talking about the same woman whose murder he’d just inquired about. “She was a terrific cook.”

  Apparently, he saw the sheen of tears in my eyes. “And something tells me you were a terrific friend,” he said with just the right mix of personal concern and hey-we’re-practically-strangers formality.

  I could see that Newcomb would be an asset to his wife’s political future.

  I could also see that it was my turn to get my book signed.

  Unlike Aurore Brisson, MacLain did not have an assistant to grab books and open them to the proper page. He handled all the work himself. When I set the book on the table in front of him, he flipped it to the title page, pen poised, then glanced up at me. “Who would you like this signed to?”

  “Raquel Arnaud,” I said.

  And I swear, it wasn’t my imagination; he flinched.

  Before he could catch his breath, I commented, “She loves your work.”

  His smile was tight in the center but the corners of it wobbled and as quickly as he could, he scrawled out Rocky’s name and signed his own.

  I grabbed the book and walked away from the table but don’t think I didn’t make a mental note of the way MacLain had reacted.

  I made a mental note about something else, too.

  The way MacLain autographed Rocky’s book?

  Well, there was nothing odd about that, I suppose. From where I was standing on the other side of the table and reading it upside down, it looked to me like it said, For the love of Lady Liberty! But there was something plenty fishy about the fact that he got Raquel Arnaud’s name right—without ever asking me how to spell it.

  • • •

  MONDAYS ARE NOT typically our busiest days at the Terminal. Oh sure, the regulars show up, just like they always do, and that Monday like clockwork, Phil Plumline and his buddies, Dale, Stan, and Ruben, were at table three for lunch.

  According to what I’d heard from George and Inez, Phil and his buddies hadn’t missed a lunch at Sophie’s in three years, ever since the factory where they worked shut its doors and they were left with endless, empty hours to fill. These days, they sometimes showed up for dinner on the weekends, too, usually with wives and kids and grandkids in tow. They were nice guys, and except for Stan’s wife, Alice, and the woman Dale was dating whose name was either Betty or Debby (Dale was sometimes a little hard to understand, especially when he had a mouthful of food), they were a pretty basic bunch when it came to ordering. In other words, I was pretty s
ure they weren’t going to have tartines for lunch.

  In fact, when I zipped by on my way to the front door, Dale called out, “You’ve got meat loaf on the menu today, don’t you, Laurel?”

  I could just about hear the thread of fear in his voice. Soon after my arrival at the Terminal and before I discovered the appeal of ethnic foods in a town built by immigrants, I’d tried to change up the menu with the kinds of dishes I loved to eat and learned to cook in sunny California.

  The guys still hadn’t forgiven me for the lentil and quinoa salad.

  Looking back on it, I guess I couldn’t blame them. To attract new business (and it had worked!) we’d added ethnic specials and decorations that highlighted whichever country’s cuisine we were featuring. But for people like Dale, Phil, Ruben, and Stan, we’d kept the basic menu that had been served at the Terminal since time immemorial—things like fried bologna, meatballs and rice, and yes, meat loaf.

  I gave Dale the thumbs-up and was rewarded with a smile.

  That is, right before I headed out the front door so I could get back over to Pacifique. Until I finished looking around Rocky’s house for anything that even resembled a clue, I wasn’t going to be happy. Sophie knew it. The Terminal closed at five on weekdays, and like I said, we weren’t anticipating much of a crowd; she’d given me her blessing to leave for the day and her permission to look through Rocky’s things.

  She hadn’t told me she’d alerted Declan to the fact that I was on my way out.

  “What?” He was leaning against the flagpole where the French Tricolor waved in the early afternoon breeze, and one look at my face and he stood up tall, his arms crossed over the rusty-colored sweatshirt he wore with butt-hugging jeans. “What’s that look for?”

  He fell into step beside me.