A Taste Of The Nightlife Part 6

But whatever it was they were looking for, it apparently did not involve basil and garlic. Nothing beeped, flashed or blared as O'Grady led me and my lasagna into a spartan conference room where a whole set of manila folders lay in neat lines on the scarred tabletop.

I sat and put both pan and purse on the chair next to mine. O'Grady leaned across the threshold to say something to a woman going past and then locked the door.

I tried not to be nervous. I did not succeed.

The detective ran one hand over his scalp and looked at the folders. Without saying a word to me, he began piling them up. I tried not to squirm from impatience. I did not succeed in this either.

When O'Grady had all the folders but one stacked and squared off, he sat down.

He opened that last folder. "Now, Ms. Caine, you'll be glad to know that we do not at this time think it's likely that your brother killed Dylan Maddox."

"You don't?" The words jumped out. Of course I knew Chet had nothing to do with this. The relief I felt just then was only because I was so glad the police knew it too.

O'Grady politely pretended not to have heard me. "However, we are left with the question of who thought Nightlife would make a good place to dispose of Mr. Maddox's remains." He riffled through the papers and pulled out a stack of photographs, which he laid out in front of me. "Do you know any of these people?"

Six strangers, four men and two women, stared back at me, each of them thoroughly p.i.s.sed off at having to face a camera lens. I shook my head.

"And Dylan Maddox had never been in your restaurant before?"

"Usually I don't see the customers. Robert Kemp, our matre d', would know more, or the dining room captain, Suchai Lui."

"We've talked to them, and neither one remembers ever seeing him. Now, about your people . . ." My shoulders stiffened and O'Grady sighed. "n.o.body here cares about their immigration status, okay?"

"Okay."

What followed was long, but straightforward. How long had I known Suchai? Four years. He came with me from L'Aquataine when we opened Nightlife. Did I know that Nina, our weekend hostess, was being treated for recurrent possession? Yes. She saw her exorcist twice a week and wore her crucifix under her blouse so as not to disturb the customers. Had Pam Maddox ever been in Nightlife before? Sorry. I couldn't say. What about the vampire she was with? I was really sorry, Detective, but I spend my nights in the kitchen. Did we employ a man named Taylor Watts as a bartender? Not anymore. Fired him a few weeks ago because he couldn't keep his hands to himself and the high-priced liquor was vanis.h.i.+ng with suspicious speed. While he was with us did I ever hear him mention an Ilona St. Claire? No, but he worked the front of the house. For the day-to-day business, that was Suchai's territory.

"And your brother's?" the detective prompted.

Yes, and my brother's.

O'Grady frowned at the papers and photographs as if to let them know they did not meet expectations. Then he swept them all into a pile, put the pile in the folder, put the folder on the stack.

"Last question, Ms. Caine," he said. "What did Anat Sevarin want last night?"

I clenched my teeth just in time to keep completely useless exclamations from leaping out. Why would I think the police weren't watching me?

"He wanted to know if I'd heard anything from you about Dylan Maddox."

"And you told him . . . ?"

"That you hadn't said word one to me." I tilted my head at him. "I don't suppose you'd consider telling me now?"

"Sorry."

"I'd settle for finding out when we can get back into Nightlife."

"We're working on that, Ms. Caine," he said with an att.i.tude that would have made a brick wall seem like Kleenex by comparison. "You'll be our first call."

I don't like to plead. For one thing, I'm not very good at it. So I used the only weapon I had at hand. I picked up the lasagna pan and slid it across the table. "Detective O'Grady, I've got a walk-in with a couple thousand dollars' worth of fresh food going to rot. I'm not asking you to let us reopen. Just let me get some of my people into the kitchen to find out what we can salvage."

O'Grady ran one blunt fingertip across the edge of the lasagna pan, as if he could ascertain the quality of the sauce and cheese underneath by the crinkle of the foil. "I'll see what I can do." His voice was studiously neutral, but his spaniel eyes softened for the first time that day.

Never, ever underestimate the power of the killer lasagna.

"Detective . . ." I pushed the lasagna just a little closer.

"Was . . . was Dylan Maddox bitten? I mean, we had a lot of nightblood guests when he stormed in, and that was a really nasty fire he tried to start. . . ." I would probably go to some kind of chef's purgatory for pointing a finger at my guests, but I did it anyway.

Lasagna or no, Little Linus took his time deciding to answer me. "No," he said. "It wasn't a real bite. Our guys think whoever did it might actually have used a syringe."

Can you say creepy? I sure could.

"Which leaves us with the questions of where'd he die and where'd the blood go?"

"And why did somebody go through the trouble of trying to make it look like vampires?"

"That one's on the list too, believe me." O'Grady got to his feet. "Thank you for your cooperation, Chef Caine. I'll be calling you as soon as I have something for you."

I wanted to try to ask more questions, but one look at the detective's bland face and I knew my lasagna had taken me just as far as we were going to go. So I also stood, and let him walk to the door.

But at least I had two pieces of new information. The first was that Dylan Maddox hadn't actually been killed at Nightlife. That was something, I guess. The second was that this was not a spur-of-the-moment act. I know enough about carca.s.ses to understand you couldn't exsanguinate somebody on impulse. Which meant at least one person had planned his murder, which meant it could very well be one of a set.

This understanding didn't make me feel better, because a murder with a plan and an infrastructure behind it is not an idea that puts you in your happy place.

It also meant O'Grady and I enouhared a couple important questions.

One: If a vampire didn't drain Dylan Maddox, where the h.e.l.l did all that blood go?

Two: If this wasn't the first murder, could we count on it being the last?

7.

When Detective O'Grady finally let me go, it was five thirty. Hunger and exhaustion robbed me of the ability to consider anything beyond an immediate need for food and caffeine. La Pet.i.te Abeille, a little Belgian place where they served big buckets of fries and mussels along with very good, very strong coffee, was only a few blocks away.

Etienne clasped my hand as I walked in the door, asked the bare minimum of questions about how Chet and I were doing, and got me a table in the back corner.

The phone rang the second he dropped the menu off. I checked the number and read BRENDAN MADDOX. Had I given him my number? I would have remembered giving him my number, wouldn't I?

Not even Trish could get on my case for taking this one.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Maddox."

"h.e.l.lo, Chef Caine."

"How's your hand?"

"Sore. Bruised. A little embarra.s.sed, but otherwise all right."

I thought about O'Grady's neat lines of folders and photographs and the strain of sitting through his long silences. "At least it was only a wall you punched."

"That's what I keep telling myself." Brendan paused. "I'd like to talk to you, if you're free?"

I thought about all the things I had to do before I could crawl into bed. I thought about how nice it would be to share a meal with a good-looking guy with a dry sense of humor and pretty blue eyes.

Then I thought about how his grandfather Lloyd wanted to make my brother illegal, if not permanently dead.

I told him where I was, and he said he'd find it. We hung up and I drank a whole cup of Euro-strong black coffee wondering if I'd finally lost my mind.

I also made the mistake of sorting through my voice and text messages. Unlike yesterday, I recognized most of the numbers. That was because they were coming from my employees, all of whom had one question.

When are we opening again?

"Hi."

I started so violently I almost dropped my phone. Brendan was standing by my table, and I hadn't even seen him come in.

"Hi." I switched my phone off and shoved it into my purse. "Please, sit down."

He did so, taking off his hat as he sat.

"You ditched the lasagna," he remarked.

"Turns out you were right. It was a bribe after all."

"Did it work?"

"I don't know yet. I hope so. If we don't open up in the next couple days, our people are all going to bail on us."

"That fast?"

I grimaced, thinking about all the still-unanswerevoits in my phone. "It's a tough business, and most of us live paycheck to paycheck. Restaurants come and go pretty fast, and when you've got kids, and maybe family back home depending on you, you lose your tolerance for extra risk. I mean, if your boss called up and told you 'it' was all going to clear up in a couple days, would you believe him?"

"I am my boss, but I get it."

Etienne showed up just then to take our orders. Brendan's restaurant French was solid, and he didn't shrink from mussels, fries with mayonnaise, or double stout beer.

"So, aside from yourself what are you the boss of?" I asked once Etienne left.

"I'm a paranormal security consultant."

"Is that security for paranormals, from paranormals or by paranormals?"

The corner of his mouth quirked up. "Depends who's asking and what they're paying."

Silence stretched out longer than I meant it to, but conflicting conversational imperatives circled each other in my brain. Brendan seemed to have the same problem, and we both sat there, elbows on the blue-and-white-checked tablecloth, sipping our beverages and sneaking glances at each other, trying to see if the other one was going to get something out first.

"Look . . ."

"I was just . . ."

And then, of course, Brendan's phone rang. He pulled it out and checked the number. "Sorry. I've got to take this. . . ." He scooted himself around sideways in the chair so he faced the wall and plugged his free ear with his thumb. "h.e.l.lo, Aunt Robin. . . . Yes, I did. . . . Yes, of course they had to come interview the family. I told you that would happen. No. No, please. More of us coming down here will just complicate . . . No. I'm taking care of it."

There are times when you're confronted with the other side of the story. I'd been so frightened about Chet, and so worried about Nightlife and the existential insult that was the murder of another human being, the fact that this was Brendan's family that had been violated had . . . not slipped my mind exactly, but it had never felt as important as all the other things being laid on the line.

The urge to drown yourself in coffee can be very strong some days.

"I was just down there today," Brendan was saying. "Tell Uncle Mike we're doing everything we can. No, I promise, whatever happened, it wasn't vampires. . . . Yes, I am positive."

You are? That made the security consultant, the cop and the vampire who were sure Chet had nothing to do with this disaster.

But was that the same thing as being sure this disaster had nothing to do with Chet? I suddenly found myself wondering just where he'd been on Sat.u.r.day.

". . . just have Grandfather call me if he wants to talk . . . All right . . . I'll call back in a couple hours. I promise."

Brendan listened a while longer and then said something softly, but a crowd of suits and cell phones poured into the narrow little dining room just then, and their noise covered his last words.

"Sorry," he said as he put the phone away.

"That's okay." I wanted to say something sympathetic, but nothing came except regret for my slow brain. Brendan looked tired. If there was one thing that could wear you dwn, it was family infighting, even when there wasn't a murder involved. "Do you need to go?"

"Not yet."

Silence threatened, but before it could move in for the kill, our food arrived, wreathing our table in steam and the scents of garlic, white wine and the ocean. Mussels are a food you get involved with. You have to go in after the little nuggets of sea-born goodness, but it is so worth it if they're cooked right, and these were. There was plenty of crispy baguette to sop up the salty broth, and of course a range of sauces for dipping the crispy fries-rich mustard, spicy curry, and their bacon mayonnaise, which I kept trying, and failing, to replicate.

Brendan and I spent the next half hour cradled in the uncomplicated glow that comes with sharing warmth and good food. We talked sh.e.l.lfish, sauces, imported beer, places we liked to eat, places we never wanted to go again. This is part of the magic of food. There's no problem it can't smooth over, at least for a while. We talked about eating in New York, in Chicago and Kansas City. Brendan had been to Morocco and Tokyo. I told stories from my summer stage-apprentices.h.i.+p-in Hong Kong.

He was watching me. It was subtle, but it was there. When you work with a lot of guys, you get sensitive to the weight and quality of the gaze. Is it a threat or a challenge? Friendly interest, romantic interest or just stupid l.u.s.t? If it is interest, is it about who you are, or just about the b.o.o.bs?

And believe me, guys, the first thing we notice is where you're looking. And no, you are not fooling any of us. Ever.

Brendan looked at my hair and at my eyes. He smiled at my smile, and, yes, he looked at my cleavage, what there was showing, but more than that, he looked at my hands-my scarred hands with their short, blunt, unpolished nails. When Brendan Maddox looked at my hands, the premature lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth softened, just a little.

My pulse fluttered at the base of my throat.

But reality had parked itself next to our table, and it wasn't going away.

"So." I dabbed at my broth with a piece of bread so I could plausibly avoid looking at Brendan. "You have a big family?"

He, of course, recognized the lame opening for what it was, but he also went along with it. "Pretty big, yeah. You?"

"Just my parents and Chet."