Killer Chef Read online

  “She ain’t exactly best friends with PETA,” JD says. “We get about two pieces of hate mail from them a week.”

  “PETA? The animal rights group?”

  “We do serve an awful lot of meat,” says Laurel quietly.

  But Caleb dismisses that idea fast. If it were only theft or vandalism, maybe he’d believe it. But Marty and Elizabeth were murdered. Worse, they suffered. That’s what keeps gnawing at him.

  “I gotta get back to the ovens,” JD says, walking away. “Be in touch, Detective.”

  Caleb takes a sip of his coffee and surveys the quiet dining room. Eventually his gaze falls on fateful table 24. A clean white tablecloth has been draped over it, and a small bouquet of flowers rests on top. But otherwise it’s bare. No place settings have been laid out. The chairs Marty and Elizabeth sat in are leaned against it at an angle, out of respect.

  “You were right about not seating that table for a while, Detective Rooney.”

  Caleb turns to see Patsy standing beside him. She’s wearing a dark pink sundress. Her hair, wet from a recent shower, is pulled back in a ponytail.

  “I wasn’t quite thinking straight last night,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

  Caleb isn’t sure if she means at the restaurant or back in her apartment, or both. Regardless, he answers with a gentle squeeze of her hand.

  “This kind of thing shouldn’t happen to people like you,” he says. “You’re good people.”

  Patsy leans into Caleb, and against his better professional judgment he slips an arm around her shoulders and pulls her into a half-hug.

  “Then again,” Patsy says, “it looks like we sure could use those two seats.”

  Caleb follows her line of sight to the front of her restaurant. On the sidewalk outside, reporters and would-be diners alike have already gathered. It’s an even larger crowd than on a typical weekday afternoon.

  Part of Caleb is relieved. His worry that Patsy’s business might suffer was clearly unfounded. Of course, he didn’t expect her business to actually increase. New Orleanians sure do love the grim and macabre.

  “Good luck today, Patz,” he says, walking back toward the kitchen to slip out the back entrance again. “We’ll talk later, all right?”

  Caleb takes a final look at table 24 as he passes it. Its stark emptiness reflects how little he knows about the couple that last sat there.

  Chapter 12

  Caleb has scarcely stepped foot back out into the alleyway when he decides to rectify that situation.

  He fires off a text to Janine Newby, his department’s hardworking office administrator, asking her to send him the victim dossiers on Martin Feldman and Elizabeth Keating. He knows Janine and a pair of junior homicide detectives worked late into the night compiling them, per standard department procedure.

  Within seconds, Caleb’s phone buzzes with a new e-mail. He opens it and downloads the attached file, which contains a trove of public and private information on the two victims.

  The late couple had apparently been seeing each other for quite some time, even though Marty’s divorce from his first wife, Andrea, had been finalized only two months earlier.

  Bam! Caleb thinks, clenching his fist in excitement. A real suspect; a real motive!

  Andrea Feldman’s address is listed in the dossier as well. To Caleb’s pleasant surprise, it’s not far, but it also isn’t what he might have expected. Marty was a modestly successful architect, but his ex lives on a stretch of Esplanade Avenue known as Millionaires’ Row, one of the wealthiest and most exclusive sections in all of New Orleans.

  Caleb pulls a jalapeño from his pocket and snaps it between his teeth, savoring its familiar zing. This case just got a lot more interesting.

  As he cruises past dazzling three-story town houses and elegant Creole mansions, Caleb’s mind is already on overdrive. The jealous, murderous ex-wife is one of the oldest clichés there is, but for good reason: they’re more common than many realize. If Andrea really was behind the deaths of Marty and Elizabeth—her cheating husband and his home-wrecking mistress—it makes perfect sense that she’d want them both to suffer horrendously. And she obviously has the resources to make it happen.

  A woman who must be Andrea is sitting on the second-floor wraparound balcony of her majestic, indigo-colored home when Caleb pulls up. She’s engrossed in a leather-bound book, taking a final deep drag on a fragrant clove cigarette.

  Caleb makes eye contact and waves. “Hello—Mrs. Feldman?”

  With an audible, melancholy sigh, she shuts the book and heads downstairs to let him in.

  Andrea opens the door, and Caleb is surprised by her attractiveness. A brunette bombshell with high cheekbones and deep-set hazel eyes, she’s lithe but looks tough.

  “Mrs. Feldman? I’m Detective Rooney, New Orleans PD.” Caleb flashes her his star-and-crescent badge, but Andrea has already turned and gestured for him to enter.

  “Let me guess,” she says drily. “You’re here to talk about a couple of unpaid parking tickets?”

  She leads Caleb through her sprawling home’s wide central corridor. A series of framed Impressionist paintings of ballerinas line the walls.

  “Edgar Degas stayed on Esplanade Avenue when he visited New Orleans,” Andrea says, as if it’s only natural, therefore, that some of the master’s priceless pieces would now be hanging inside her home. She notices him looking. “Are you a fan of his dancers?”

  Caleb doesn’t quite know what she’s talking about, but he answers as honestly as he can without seeming like a total dunce. “I think these ones are all right.”

  Andrea smirks, leading him into the kitchen, which is unusually spacious and airy given her old home’s style. The design and cabinetry are vintage, but the appliances are all stainless steel professional-grade. This is the kind of display of wealth that impresses a chef like Caleb—and makes him just a little envious.

  “I’ll tell you anything you want to know about my ex-husband,” Andrea says, pouring steaming water for a fresh pot of black tea. “I read about his death this morning in the paper. I was stunned. But I won’t lie to you, Detective. I wasn’t sad.”

  Chapter 13

  Andrea begins the story of her marriage to the late Martin Feldman. When they first met, well over a decade ago, they fell madly in love. She had a trust fund, thanks to her great-grandfather—one of New Orleans’ most notorious bootleggers—and supported Marty as he finished graduate school and began a career as an architect.

  “But it was the usual story—over time we grew apart,” Andrea says. “It really came to a head about three years ago. That was when the…sexual side of our relationship all but disappeared. Our flame was completely snuffed out. Marty said he’d grown ‘bored.’ He wanted to do things, try things, that I simply didn’t have the desire for. Or the stomach for.”

  Caleb watches Andrea pour the tea into two antique Oriental cups. Eyeing this woman’s toned, slender body and cascade of shimmering hair, he wonders what kind of man could ever get bored with such a stunning creature for a wife.

  Andrea hands Caleb the scalding beverage. He takes it and blows on it gently—but is careful not to sip. He doesn’t want to come off as rude. But he doesn’t want to swallow one single drop of anything served to him by a woman who may know a thing or two about undetectable poison.

  “Before long, Marty met Elizabeth,” Andrea continues. “She worked for one of his firm’s corporate clients. They seemed happy together. And I was pleased for my husband. That may be difficult to understand, but it’s the truth. Of course, I knew our marriage had run its course. The divorce took a while, with so many assets to split, but it was amicable.”

  In addition to her family’s old money, she had become a highly successful novelist in her own right. Publishing under the pen name Juliet Benoit, Andrea is the author of a string of bestselling historical thrillers set in New Orleans during the Civil War. Caleb doesn’t read much fiction but recognizes the name from the shelves of bookstores, drugstores, even gas stations all across the city.

  The more Caleb listens to Andrea, the more he finds himself drawn to her. She’s beautiful, yes, but also has a reserve and vulnerability, as well as an obvious intelligence that only enhances her appeal.

  He struggles to keep his attraction from clouding his judgment. Part of him wishes they were sharing a bottle of Malbec at a bistro in the Lower Garden District instead of discussing the life and death of her ex-husband—a crime for which Andrea is still his number-one suspect.

  “Did your ex-husband have any enemies that you were aware of, Andrea?”

  “Hmm. Well, Marty was a strong personality. As I said, we’d grown apart, and that included keeping our funds separate, so I don’t know how his business was doing—he was self-employed as an architect. I know that he often took on projects with the city, and that his interactions with contractors could be a little…fraught. But we didn’t have daily cocktail hours to discuss his work.”

  Finally, Caleb asks point-blank, “So who do you think killed him?”

  “I honestly don’t have a clue,” Andrea replies. “We’d barely spoken in months, since deciding to divorce, except through our lawyers.”

  “What about last night? Where were you when the murders happened?”

  The corners of Andrea’s mouth curl into a tiny smile at the idea that he might actually consider her somehow involved in Marty and Elizabeth’s deaths.

  “On a date,” she says. “At the opera. Opening night performance of Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. A Tulane anthropology professor invited me. I’m more of a Verdi girl myself, but it was a pleasant enough evening. Here, have a look for yourself.”

  Andrea fumbles through her velvet purse until she finds and hands Caleb a torn ticket stub from last night’s performance. She shows him a picture on her iPhone to further confirm her alibi: she and the geeky professor posing on the opera house steps, both dressed to the nines.

  “See? I’m not big on photos, but Robert insisted. And I sure am glad he did!”

  “He’s your boyfriend?” Caleb asked.

  “No—it was our first date. He’s a nice man, but I don’t think I’ll be seeing him again. There wasn’t much of…a spark.”

  From the way she says it, and her gaze, Caleb has a feeling that her thoughts aren’t on Marty.

  Wishing they had met under different circumstances, he simply hands her his card—pleased that she seems to have a solid alibi, but annoyed that he’s reached yet another dead end.

  “If you think of anything else, Mrs. Feldman, please give me a ring.”

  Andrea twirls the card in her fingers. “Can I still call you even if I don’t?”

  Caleb sets down his untouched cup of tea. “Thank you for your time, ma’am.”

  Walking past the series of Degas paintings again on his way to the front door, Caleb can’t help but think what it might be like to be with a woman like Andrea, someone wealthy and sophisticated. She could teach him about art, opera, literature—all the finer things in life he never knew he wanted.

  Before getting back into his Charger, Caleb takes out another crisp jalapeño and pops it into his mouth. Eighteen hours into the case and he’s still at the starting line.

  And if he didn’t get back to the truck soon, Marlene would make sure he was the next body found.

  Chapter 14

  Laissez les bons temps rouler. “Let the good times roll!”

  Plastered on T-shirts, bumper stickers, shot glasses, even baby onesies up and down Bourbon Street, that unofficial motto perfectly captures the city’s contradictory spirit, Caleb thinks. Joyous and indulgent, yet gritty and tenacious.

  It’s been four days since Martin Feldman and Elizabeth Keating were murdered in cold blood, and the good times have certainly kept on rolling all across the French Quarter and beyond.

  The lurid story of the double homicide has slipped from the headlines. The reporters and rubberneckers camped out in front of Patsy’s have gone home. Business at the restaurant has settled back to its former levels. Even the bouquet of flowers on table 24 has been removed, and hungry diners are once again being seated there, most of them none the wiser.

  Caleb is running down every possible lead.

  Quincy has informed him that the lab tests conducted on the victims’ food and tissue samples were inconclusive. Traces of an advanced, fatal synthetic alkaloid were indeed discovered in Marty and Elizabeth’s bloodstreams. Shockingly, the chemical was also found in multiple dishes the couple was eating, including the jambalaya and oysters, which were prepared and handled by completely different staff.

  NOPD digital forensic experts have combed through hours of Patsy’s security footage from that night, frame by frame. But they’ve been unable to spot anyone tampering with the victims’ food.

  Intrigued by Andrea but still suspicious, Caleb assigned a pair of junior detectives to verify her opera alibi. It checked out completely. He also requested they look into her story that she and Marty separated on good terms and hadn’t recently been in touch. Those claims, too, seem accurate.

  As if Caleb didn’t have enough to deal with at his day job, he’s also had to pull some extra shifts at Killer Chef—all by himself.

  The day after he left her alone on that particularly busy night to race over to Patsy’s, Marlene came down with a nasty stomach bug, which of course she blamed on her ex-husband’s “selfish” behavior. With his partner in culinary crime still laid up in bed, it’s fallen on Caleb alone to keep their famous sandwiches coming and their demanding customers happy.

  Which is where the detective is now—working the 9:00 p.m. to midnight shift. The truck is parked on Rampart Street on the outskirts of Louis Armstrong Park. Despite some light drizzle, the line is around the block.

  Inside this sweltering metal box, Caleb is racing back and forth, sweating like a pig. He’s taking orders, throwing money around, slapping sandwiches together like a madman, popping jalapeños like an addict.

  But he is completely in his element, one hundred percent in the zone. He’s staying calm and focused—still managing to flirt with his female customers with professional charm.

  Caleb hands a pair of Hob-Gobblers—slices of hickory-smoked turkey breast slathered with habanero marmalade—to two drunk, platinum-blond older women. He winks at them, making the cougars giggle like schoolgirls. One even slips him a paper napkin with HOTEL MONTELEONE ROOM 217 written on it in ruby-red lipstick.

  But before Caleb can even entertain the offer, he feels his cell phone buzz in his back pocket and hears Céline Dion’s sappy “The Power of Love” start to play.

  “Damnit, Marlene!” he exclaims with a laugh and a resigned shake of his head. She must have changed his ringtone again last night. Nice way to repay his kindness in bringing over some Cajun-style spicy chicken soup.

  Caleb ignores the call and redoubles his sandwich-making efforts, but his cell rings a second time. Again he simply ignores it. But then it rings a third time.

  Caleb is starting to get a bad feeling deep inside his gut. He rips off the sanitary latex gloves he’s wearing and pulls out his phone.

  The three missed calls all came from Janine back at the station. She answers on the first ring.

  “Sorry, Caleb,” she says. “Got some bad news. I know you’re working tonight. But a sergeant on scene wants you working tonight.”

  He knows exactly what that means: a fresh dead body has just been discovered, a fresh case has been born, and for some reason, it involves him. As if he didn’t have his hands full already.

  “Well, shit, Janine,” Caleb huffs. “Why can’t one of the other Ds take it instead?” Caleb is proud to be among the NOPD’s finest homicide detectives, but he’s certainly not the only one.

  Janine exhales deeply before answering.

  “He thinks you’re going to want to see this.”

  Chapter 15

  “Sorry, folks, we’re closin’ early!”

  A chorus of boos and groans erupts from the line of waiting customers as Caleb starts hastily shutting down his truck. He latches the outside service windows. Flips off the deep fryer. Powers down the electric griddle. Padlocks the cash register.

  He hates that he has to shutter his business like this—and dreads the tongue-lashing he’s going to get tomorrow from Marlene. But duty calls.

  Because Caleb started making sandwiches right after his police shift ended that day, he still has his badge and service weapon clipped to his belt. But instead of a collared shirt, tie, and dress shoes, he’s wearing a grease-stained wifebeater and an old pair of rubber chef’s clogs.

  Oh, well, he thinks, locking the truck’s rear door and hurrying down St. Philip Street on foot. The French Quarter is so swarmed on this hot, drizzly summer night with tourists and locals, bikers, and horse-drawn carriages, that even with his siren blaring it would take longer to drive the half-mile to his destination than simply jog there.

  Caleb soon reaches it: Café Du Monde, the legendary open-air coffee shop on Decatur Street, nestled right along the banks of the Mississippi. It’s the location of his and Marlene’s first date all those years ago.

  Now it’s the backdrop for a heinous crime.

  Caleb notes the scrum of emergency vehicles and police officers blocking off the building from the boisterous crowds and gathering paparazzi. He shows his badge to a young officer standing at the scene’s perimeter. The cop raises an eyebrow at the detective’s odd attire but lifts up the yellow police tape to let him pass.

  Caleb is instantly struck with an eerie sense of déjà vu. Just like a few nights ago at Patsy’s, he sees clusters of shaken patrons speaking with police officers, who are preventing witnesses from leaving.

  And at a table over in the corner, strewn with knocked-over cups of coffee and a plate of half-eaten beignets, a forensic investigator is snapping pictures.