Page 21

As promised, Michael did indeed give Detective Howard hell when they arrived. The three agents stormed into the Prime Cut Steakhouse and headed directly for the cordoned off area where Howard stood talking to a uniform.

“Why the hell are we just hearing about this now?” he shouted. “It’s been fourteen hours since he died! We should have been on the scene last night!”

Howard said something to the uniform, and the officer nodded and walked away. Then Howard turned to Michael. “The chief wanted to avoid a media circus, so he said not to tell you until we’d cased the scene and gotten the witnesses to sign NDAs. I didn’t expect it to work, to be honest, but the fact that it’s not all over the news says it did, so there’s that.”

“Do we look like the media?” Michael thundered.

Howard lifted his hands placatingly. “Look, this wasn’t my call, okay? It came right from headquarters. It’s…” he shifted his gaze to Faith, and her jaw tightened.

“Because I’m in the media, the city didn’t want the cameras on me?”

“It’s not a credit thing. We don’t care who makes the collar. A psycho out poisoning people in public is a bad look for us too. We just didn’t want this to turn into a zoo if reporters got wind that you were here and showed up asking questions.”

Faith’s frown deepened. She hadn’t considered that before. It hadn’t ever really been an issue in her career. For a little while with West, the media wanted press conferences and interviews, but after the initial circus following his arrest, things had died down again.

But not anymore. She was a celebrity now. Wherever she went, the media would want to know what she was doing so they could have their analysts pick it apart on national TV.

She could understand why the Bureau wanted her out of the field now. Howard was right. She wouldn’t be able to work if everyone was following her every footstep.

Michael understood it, too. He pressed his lips together and let the argument drop. “Where’s the body?”

With the argument over, Turk trotted away and began sniffing around the scene.

“Coroner’s. Preliminary report confirms the presence of the poison in his system.”

“Do we have a name?” Faith asked.

“Yeah, Samuel Klein. Sixty-two. Minor celebrity in the food world, but more major than anyone else so far. He used to run the Rose City Steakhouse. I guess that’s a big-name steakhouse in New York. He retired from the restaurant business two years ago and now runs a podcast called, uh…” He consulted his notepad. “Perfect Bites. Not so much a critic as a food philosopher.”

“A food philosopher,” Michael repeated drily.

“Hey, I don’t judge.”

“Well, our killer sure did,” Faith said. “What were the symptoms this time?”

“Same as Lila Vance. Started sweating and salivating profusely. Tried to stand, then dropped. Dead by the time the ambulance got there.”

“And this didn’t get out to the media?” Michael asked. “No one texted their friends or family or posted on social media?”

"I don't know about the texts or phone calls, but we haven't seen anything pop up on social media. We know we're sitting on a time bomb with that, though, so I know we'll end up seeing something before the end of the day. Mainstream media won't be kept in the dark for long either."

Michael sighed. “Okay, well, let’s take advantage of the time we have. You said CSI’s been here already?”

“They have. Nothing on the server or in the food, just like the other times."

"Okay. In that case, I'm going to let Turk case the scene. I'm going to review the security footage. Faith, you can work with me or with Turk."

“Actually, I have the wife outside if you want to talk to her,” Howard offered.

“Klein’s wife? She’s here?”

“Yeah, she’s out back.”

Michael sighed. “Man, you really need to work on communicating things to us right away. All right, Faith, do you want to interview Mrs. Klein?”

Faith nodded. “Sure. I can do that.”

“I’ll take you to her,” Howard offered.

He led Faith away, probably just happy to be away from Michael. He confirmed Faith’s assumption a moment later when he said, “Christ, is he always in such a bad mood?”

“He tends to be unhappy when a critical development in a case is withheld from him,” Faith replied coldly.

Howard wisely chose to keep his mouth shut until they reached the back of the restaurant. He led Faith to a woman in her late forties who sat at a small table probably used for staff breaks by the restaurant. She was smoking a cigarette, and Faith couldn’t tell if she was sad or angry. Grief often manifested both emotions.

“Mrs. Klein?” Howard said, “This is Special Agent Faith Bold of the FBI. She’s investigating your husband’s murder. She’d like to ask you a few questions if that’s all right.”

Mrs. Klein looked Faith up and down. “You’re the one that’s all over tv now.”

Faith tensed slightly. “Yes, ma’am, that’s me.”

“You have time to work with the whole media circus over Franklin West?”

“I assure you, ma’am, this case has my full attention.”

Mrs. Klein nodded and took another drag from her cigarette. “All right. I’ll talk to you. I’m Millie, by the way. No need to be so formal.”

“Thank you, Millie.”

Faith sat across from the widow and looked pointedly at Howard, who took the hint and said, “I’ll leave you two alone.”

When he walked inside, Faith said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Millie nodded once more and took another puff. “Thank you.”

Her voice was toneless. Perhaps she wasn’t angry or sad right now. She could still be in shock.

“I’m sorry to have to ask you these questions,” Faith said, “but if you can answer me honestly, it could help me find the person who killed your husband.”

Millie nodded again and followed it with another puff. Faith wondered if the repetitive action helped her cope with the shock. “Okay. Sure, I’ll help if I can.”

“Was Samuel acting strangely at all recently? Any odd behavior or unexplainable emotions?”

Millie shook her head. “No, he was his usual arrogant, somewhat stupid self.”

Faith lifted her eyebrow. “You two didn’t get along?”

“Are you kidding? I loved that schmuck. People thought I married him for money on account of the age difference, but no, I was head over heels for the bastard.”

She put her cigarette out in the ashtray and reached into her purse for another. “He was arrogant, but he wasn’t an asshole. He just knew what he wanted, and he was confident he could get it. And he could. He could get whatever he wanted from anyone.”

“Did that make him any enemies?”

She shrugged. “No, not really. The cooking world is different. It’s competitive, but people have a lot of respect for each other. It might not seem that way to outsiders, but it’s true. You can get heated rivalries and even more heated disagreements, but there’s a code to all of it. No one would commit violence against each other. They’ll shout and spit and call each other all kinds of names, but enemies in food don’t go after each other the same way other enemies do. Samuel had a few people claim that he stole recipes from other chefs. That’s about as bad as it got.”

“Anyone in particular?”

She sighed. “He didn’t really talk much to me about it. He brushed those things off whenever I brought it up. I think he didn’t want me to worry.”

“So it’s possible he could have had an enemy out to kill him, and he wouldn’t have told you about it?”

“It’s possible, I suppose. But I couldn’t tell you who it was.”

Faith tried a different tack. “Did he express any interest at all in the ongoing poisoning case?”

She chuckled. “Not really. We talked about it, but that’s just because it was something to talk about. Seems like there’s always some whack job out there killing people lately.”

Faith nodded. “I know what you mean.”

“We didn’t think he was in danger. He definitely didn’t think so. I worried, but only as much as a wife always worries. You know, my sister’s husband was a police officer. It was kind of like that. You worry because you know they face danger every day, but you don’t really worry. You don’t really think that one day, they’re not going to come home, that one of these times will be the time, and they’ll be lost to you forever. That always happens to other people.”

She put out her second cigarette and reached for a third. “Haven’t smoked in three years,” she said. “I thought I’d finally quit.” She lit the cigarette. “Guess not.”

Faith imagined she’d never be able to quit now. “Samuel had a food blog, right?”

“A podcast. Yes. Perfect Bites. He wanted it to be a space to share his experiences with food and the experiences of others in the industry.”

“Did he happen to leave a particularly scathing review somewhere? Something that could have offended anyone or affected their career?”

She shook her head. “No, that wasn’t what it was about. He specifically didn’t want to be a critic. He wanted to focus on how food was experienced by different people in different places at every level of the economic spectrum. He'd review a five-star restaurant one week and a fast-food restaurant the next. It wasn't about comparing or competing anymore. He'd done that for forty years, and he was tired of it. He wanted it to be about food culture, not some pissing contest.

“He always hated that part. It’s odd to hear about him since he had a reputation as a forceful personality, but he really didn’t like the competitiveness of the industry. He used to complain to me that people were too concerned about Michelin stars and magazine articles and glowing reviews from food critics and not about what food was supposed to mean.”

“What did food mean to him?”

She sighed and stared wistfully out at the parking lot. “It was life.”

She fell silent and let her third cigarette burn to the filter without taking another drag. Faith didn’t interrupt her silence. This was the second time someone had told her that food was life. This was the fourth time Faith had seen food become death.

This was the first time the victim had refrained from critiquing others. The other three had reviewed places and occasionally left scathing remarks. Even Lila Vance had several videos where she labeled an eatery “gross” or “terrible” and told her viewers not to waste their money there.

She supposed she should take Millie’s word with a grain of salt. She was his wife. It was possible that she was painting her husband in the best light possible, possible that she even saw him that way truly. But what was lovable arrogance to some could be insufferable arrogance to others.

She thought of the victims again, one by one. A food blogger. A food journalist. A food influencer. All food critics, none of them food professionals. Klein was the only one with any experience as a professional, but he had been accused of fraud. And he now ran a podcast where he treated fast food hamburgers as just as valid a cuisine as Michelin star winning dinners.

Maybe their killer was a food professional who was fed up with people he considered unqualified passing judgment on food.

Either way, she wouldn’t learn anything more from Millie. She stood and said, “Once again, I’m truly sorry for your loss. I promise you I’ll find the person responsible for this.”

That was the second time she had made this promise. This was the second time a grieving relative replied, “Doesn’t matter to me. It won’t bring him back.”

Faith lowered her eyes and stood silently for a moment before turning and heading slowly back into the restaurant.