Cooking Up Murder

Seventeen

WE WERE IN OVER OUR HEADS. WAY OVER OUR heads.

I knew it the moment I saw the names of those guns pop up on my computer screen. It took a little convincing and a little more explaining, but Eve (who before my minilecture on global politics and federal crimes was inclined to think that lawbreaking was lawbreaking whether we were talking guns or art gallery money) finally understood, too.

The trick now, of course, was to figure out what to do about it.

Did I go to the police and admit that I’d stolen vital evidence from the scene of a crime?

Did I hope that Yuri returned Eve’s phone call, and that he’d pick up the disc and we’d be rid of it?

Or did I stick where I had been stuck since I put that disc I my computer: my brain in a loop, my mind so muddled I’d actually given out the wrong change to a bank customer that day? Since it was something I’d never done before, I guess the loop and the muddle were winning.

By next evening’s Marvelous Meats class, I still hadn’t worked things through. Which of course didn’t explain the mess that was my cheeseburger pizza. I liked to think so, but I wasn’t kidding myself. Not anymore. As much as I tried to concentrate on the advice Jim tossed out to the class as easily as he flung ketchup, mustard, and other traditional burger ingredients onto pizza dough with the skill of a magician and the flair of an artist, I couldn’t turn my mind off.

Guns.

Smuggling.

Murder.

The words whirled around like the pickles, wine, and secret spices Jim tossed in a blender to make his own relish.

It was one thing playing detective to try to help Eve get back at Tyler. It was another to really consider the international implications of what Beyla was doing. And I wasn’t kidding myself: I knew I didn’t know the half of it.

It was that half that scared me half to death.

I was just scraping the burnt remnants of cheddar cheese off my pizza pan when Monsieur Lavoie stuck his head into the classroom and wagged one finger in Jim’s direction, calling him out into the hallway. “There is a phone call for you. They say it is important.”

It must have been. Jim was back in less than a minute.

“Have to skedaddle,” he told the class, but he was looking right at me while he said it. “Sorry to leave you high and dry. Going to need to cancel tomorrow night’s class, too. You’ve got your recipe for the pork loin marinated in orange juice and soy sauce. Try it at home. It’s fabulous. In the meantime…” He consulted his class syllabus. “I’ll see you all back here on Friday for Delightful Desserts. Can you believe it’s our last class?”

He headed into the back kitchen and came out carrying a motorcylce helmet and a jacket, mouthing the wordsI’ll call as he walked by.

And just like that, class was over.

“Well, that’s weird,” Eve chirped. If I wasn’t so busy being preoccupied, I might have rejoiced that for once, Eve’s culinary results were just as bad as mine. Her pizza crust was the color of the toffee twin set she wore with her black capris. “What do you suppose has gotten into Jim?”

“Obviously, it’s something important. He’ll let me know.”

“You’re very trusting.”

“Shouldn’t I be?” Until that very moment, it had never crossed my mind not to be. Not with Jim. “You don’t think-” My thought was interupped by the ring of a cell phone. It was Beyla’s. She grabbed her purse and headed out the door.

“I’ll bet she’s up to no good,” Eve whispered.

It seemed like a pretty sure bet.

I tossed down the towel I’d used to dry my pizza pan. “You up for tailing her again?”

“Are you sure you want to?” Eve’s voice was anxious.

I wasn’t. But I still hadn’t made up my mind about what to do with the disc and the information on it. Whatever we saw Beyla do, wherever she went, whoever she met with… maybe it would help me come to a decision.

I held onto that thought as we went outside. I clung to it as we dodged raindrops, following Beyla as she walked away from the parking lot, across the street, and a couple blocks up from Très Bonne Cuisine. By the time she got to a placed called Bucharest, I was hanging on to my hopes by my fingernails.

We’d played it safe and smart, staying far enough back so that Beyla didn’t see us, but when she went inside the restaurant, we dared to get closer. We huddled under the awning above the front door and watched her through the rain-spotted window. She said something to the hostess, who nodded and led her away from the door.

“Nothing.” Eve’s shoulders drooped. She spun around and leaned against the building. Her hair was as wet as mine. On Eve, slick and wet looked good. On me… well, my hair was so curly, rain almost never penetrated. And humidity only made it curlier. I suspected that right about now, I looked like I had a head full of rotini noodles, and one glance at my reflection in the window confirmed my worst fears.

“She’s going to dinner, that’s all.” Eve was disappointed. “She’s not going to lead us anywhere interesting.”

“Who schedules a dinner on the night of a cooking class?” I took the chance of peeking in the window again, but by now, the hostess was back at her station, and Beyla was nowhere in sight. “Beyla didn’t know Jim was going to cancel class. Jim didn’t even know that. He would have mentioned it to me if he did. And Bucharest…” I studied the lighted sign above the door. “That sounds mighty familiar. It might be-” I fished in my pocket for the piece of paper Drago had given me the night he died.

“Bucharest!” I exclaimed and held the paper up for Eve to see, my mind already spinning with the possibilities. “He wrote the address of the gallery on the back of a receipt from this place. That means he’d been here. I wonder if he ever met Beyla here. Maybe she’s meeting somebody again.”

Eve didn’t look convinced. “Maybe she’s just hungry.”

“Maybe we should find out.”

Just as I was about to head inside, she plucked at my sleeve. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked. “I’ve already gotten you into enough trouble. If it wasn’t for me, we would never have started this investigation. You never would have lied to the police. You never would have concealed evidence. You never would have stolen anything, either, because you’re the most honest person I know.”

“And I would have never stopped being such a sissy, would I? Come on, Eve. Let’s finish what we started.”

The grin Eve gave me in return was all the response I needed. We headed inside.

I guess I was hungry, but then, that was no surprise-I hadn’t been able to eat my cheeseburger pizza. It smelled really good inside Bucharest. Directly in front of the door was a desk, where the hostess was busy on the phone taking a reservation. To her right was a doorway into a dark, wood-panelled bar, and behind her was a long, narrow hallway. I’d seen the same setup in restaurants in other old buildings in the area, and I suspected the hallway led into a room in the back that was the main dining area. With a smile at the hostess, I pointed in that direction, like I knew where I was going and who I was looking for.

Actually, I did.

I just didn’t know who I’d find her with when I got there.

The hallway opened into exactly the kind of room I expected, but unfortunately, when it did, there was no place to stand back and stay out of sight. Eve was eager to get wherever we were going, and when I stopped to peek around the corner, she kept going. She bumped me from behind and, like it or not, I was catapulted out of the shelter of the hallway and into the room.

Even in the dim lighting that passed for ambiance, I saw Beyla immediately.

And she saw me.

She was seated at a table for two, her back to the windows that ran along that entire side of the restaurant. Though I could tell she struggled to keep her expression impassive and her eyes on the man seated across from her, one look at me and she went as white as the tablecloth she was clutching in her hands.

Naturally, the man seated with his back to me turned to see the cause of her alarm.

“It’s Yuri!” I grabbed Eve’s arm and pushed her back the other way before she even had a chance to peek into the dining area. “She’s with Yuri. Damn it! Something tells me we shouldn’t have come. He might be trying to get information out of her. Or-” I stopped dead. “Or they might be in this thing together!”

The very thought was enough to get me going again. With Eve leading the way, we raced toward the front of the restaurant. The hostess was nice enough to ask if we needed assistance finding the party we were looking for, but we didn’t stop to return the pleasantry. In fact, we didn’t stop at all. We had just made it to the front door and Eve was already outside under the awning when a hand clamped down on my shoulder.

I wasn’t surprised when I turned and saw that the hand belonged to Yuri.

“Ah, Miss Capshaw!” He smiled in a way that would make anyone watching us think we were old friends. “So good of you to take the time to stop by. You will join us for dinner?” He backed up a step and made a broad gesture, like a waiter showing a guest to table.

“No, thanks. I’m not very hungry.”

“But surely that is why you are here?” Yuri motioned toward the dining room again. I stayed put. “What else would bring you to Bucharest on such a rainy night?”

I peeked around Yuri’s shoulder toward the back dining room, picturing Beyla there.

“I might ask you the same thing,” I said.

Surprise flickered across his face. I couldn’t tell if it was because he didn’t expect me to come right out and ask why he was consorting with the enemy, or because of the nasty tone in my voice.

He lit a cigarette. Apparently the No Smoking sign above our heads (in English and Romanian) did not apply to him. As he slowly dragged in and let out a lungful of smoke, he narrowed his eyes just a bit, as if he’d never seen me clearly before and wanted to get a better look.

“What is that saying about the bees and the honey? You can catch more by being sweet, yes? You see what I mean? I am being sweet to Beyla so she does not think that I know what she has done. In the meantime, I try to find out what she knows. And what she doesn’t know.”

“Is it working?”

Yuri’s shrug was noncommittal. “It would be working better if I had all the evidence I need.” He raised his eyebrows. “Or perhaps that is why you are here? Perhaps you have been following me, and you saw me come into this place. You are here to give me the disc?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Not until I had the good guys and the bad guys straight on my scorecard. If Beyla and Yuri were in cahoots, it changed everything. Especially when it came to handing over the disc.

Yuri dragged in another lungful of smoke and blew it out in a stream in my direction. I held my breath. “I am sorry that I have not had a chance to return your kind phone call,” he said. “I should say, the call from your friend.” He peered out the front door to where Eve was looking at us, wide-eyed and curious. When she waved (ever the beauty pageant contestant), he waved back. “Miss DeCateur, she is very beautiful, but not very smart. I think you are not happy that she made that phone call. You are not thinking that you can get money for the disc, are you? That you will hold onto it until I pay you? That is your plan? I must tell you, that would not be smart. Not at all. Please, tell me you brought it with you. Then we can put an end to this business.”

I didn’t have the disc-I’d left it at home. In fact, before I left the apartment that morning, I’d switched the disc with a CD of Sinatra’s greatest hits that Ed Downing at the bank had once burned for me to thank me for saving him from the royal screwup that was his cash drawer.

Paranoid?

Maybe. But I wasn’t taking any chances.

I’m not sure exactly how I managed to return Yuri’s smile with one of my own. I sidestepped away from his grip.

“Eve was mistaken.” I backed up a step. Toward the door and away from Yuri. “You don’t know her. She gets a little carried away sometimes. We were talking about looking for the disc, I will admit that much. We talked about following Beyla, too, to see where she might lead us. And before you know it…” I snapped my fingers. “There’s Eve, jumping to conclusions.”

Yuri’s smile never faded. “I do not think so. I saved the message. Please, you will come to my home with me and I will replay it for you. Then you can hear for yourself what she said. She said you had it, not that you were looking for it. And I must tell you, I was so relieved to hear it. To hear that finally, we had proof of all that Beyla has done. Come. If you would come with me, you will hear the message for yourself. Then you will remember.”

He reached for my arm, but I wasn’t going to let him latch onto me. And I wasn’t going anywhere with him, either.

“I think I’ll stay right where I am.”

Yuri pulled his hand back to his side. Was it a trick of the light that made his eyes look hard? It must have been, because he was back to his old self in a moment. Suave and gracious in a very European sort of way. “But you never have said what you are doing here.”

Didn’t I? My mind raced, and I blurted out the first word that popped in my head. “Dinner.”

Yuri laughed. “But you said you were not hungry!”

“Hungry? Not yet. But cooking class was cut short. This seemed like a logical spot to stop. And I’ll tell you what…” I pulled in a long breath. “The more I smell the delicous aromas here, the hungrier I get.”

Yuri wasn’t convinced. “You will forgive me, but I do not think Romanian food is something a young American woman can appreciate and enjoy. But…” His eyes lit. “But perhaps I underestimate you. Perhaps your tastes are more sophisticated than most of the women I have met here in this country. You have been here before, yes? That is right.” He nodded, clearly satisfied with himself.

“If I am not mistaken, you showed me a receipt from this place. The one Drago wrote on the back of. You met him here, and this is where he gave you the address of the gallery, yes?”

The receipt was in my pocket, and I pulled it out. “That’s right,” I said, thanking my lucky stars. How often is there actual evidence to support a totally outrageous lie? I turned the receipt over, not to the side Drago had written on, but to the one that showed that there had been two for dinner that night, and what they ordered. “I have been here before. And it was the night I bumped into Drago and he told me to stop by the gallery. See, right here. My friend and I stopped by. We hadbors de -”

“Bors de berbec.” Yuri moved too quickly for me. Before I could pull my hand back, he plucked the receipt out of my fingers. “Who would think you would enjoy this sour soup with mutton. Such a pronounced flavor! Too strong for a girl like you. But Drago, he liked this soup very much. You knew he would order it that night, as he always did. You knew it has a strong taste, and that it would be easy to disguise the flavor of foxglove in it.”

I heard what Yuri said, but honestly, it was so outrageous, I was too shocked to respond. All I could manage was a couple of weak laughs.

Was Yuri really suggesting that I was the one who-

My laughter faded. The blood drained out of my face. I stared at him, stunned. “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

Yuri took another drag on his cigarette.

“Have you taken the time to look carefully at this receipt?” Yuri held it up, careful to keep it far enough away that I couldn’t get it back from him. “Do you realize Drago was here? That night?”

“Thatnight?” I didn’t like the way Yuri said it, and it only took me a couple seconds to work out why. “You mean the night he was killed?”

“Look.” Yuri pointed to the date on the receipt, confirming my worst fears. He held the receipt toward the light to see it better. “I think it is just about right, don’t you? Twenty to thirty minutes, that is how long it takes for foxglove to take effect. You will know this, I think, because you carry that vial of foxglove with you. And if I am not mistaken…” He took another look at the receipt, drawing out the suspense. “This receipt proves that you and Drago paid for your dinners just about thirty minutes before he died.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I made a grab for the receipt, but I wasn’t quick enough. Yuri had already tucked it into the breast pocket of his polo shirt. “I didn’t have dinner with Drago that night. I’d never met Drago before that night. I’ve never been here before.”

Yuri patted his pocket. “That is not what you told me just a moment ago. You are confused, yes? We will ask Constanta, the hostess. I am sure she will verify the fact that she has seen you here before.”

“That’s impossible.” I spun away from Yuri, ready to head out the door. But he grabbed me so hard and so fast, I was facing him again before I even knew it.

“Nothing is impossible,” he said, his words quiet, like the hiss of a snake. “Not if I say so.”

“But you know I didn’t kill Drago.” Was that my own voice I heard? The one that wavered over the words? It sounded small and afraid. I didn’t like it one bit.

I raised my chin and looked Yuri in the eye. “Quit playing games. You know Beyla’s the one who killed Drago. What do you want?”

I didn’t really need to ask.

“The disc, you stupid woman.” His eyes flashed. But a moment later, he let go of my arm.

“But of course… You cannot realize how important it is.” His gaze whipped back to mine. “That is, unless you have looked at it?”

“I haven’t.” I was getting to be a skilled liar-I never even blinked. “Now here’s the deal: the disc in exchange for the receipt.”

Yuri didn’t expect me to drive a hard bargain. His lips curled into something between a sneer and a smile. “I hate to give up the receipt so easily, when I worked so hard to get it in the first place.”

“Worked?” I rolled my eyes. “You snatched it right out of my hand. Like a bully on a playground. You-”

Suddenly, I felt cold settle in the pit of my stomach. “You’ve been trying to get that receipt from me for weeks. That’s why I couldn’t find my purse that night I went to Whitlow’s with Jim. You snatched my purse and looked through it and put it back when you didn’t find the receipt inside. And my apartment-” The cold solidified into ice. “You were there. When Jim and I got there the night I followed Beyla, I thought my things had been moved around. You were in my apartment!”

Yuri shrugged. “I am not a dishonest man,” he said. “But you see how desperate I am. You see how very important this is to me.”

“OK, you wanted the receipt. But why? At the time, you didn’t know-”

“Does it matter?” he snapped. As he fought to calm himself, his teeth clenched and his jaw tensed. “We will make a trade,” he said more quietly this time. “The disc for the receipt.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t wrap my brain around the bits and pieces of everything Yuri had said. If he knew about the receipt, but he didn’t know if I’d ever find the disc…

I shoved the thoughts aside. Better to stick to one subject than to let Yuri know I was baffled. “So if the disc is that important, why not just let me take it to the police?”

“You will not do that.” The steel in Yuri’s voice made it clear that the subject was not open for discussion. “You will bring it to me. I will call to tell you when and where. And once I have it, I will deal with Beyla.” He turned to walk back into the dining room. “Me. Not the police.”

It simply didn’t make sense. At least not in my mind. “But why?”

When Yuri turned, the smile on his face was so icy, it sent a chill through my body. “Why? The best reason of all… Revenge.”