Page 4 of Wham Line (The Last Picks #10)

“Mal and I have—had—an unusual relationship.”

“What does that mean?”

Sparkie tittered again. “Not like that. The divorce happened years ago, and we’re friends now. We move in the same circles. We have to be amicable.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“No, no, no. I’m here because I’ve got a fantastic idea for a restaurant, and Mal would be perfect for this project.”

“Like, as the chef?”

“Mal? Oh God, no. He’s not a chef; he couldn’t boil water. He’s an investor. A restaurateur.” A dark edge entered her voice. “And trust me, I’d go into it with both eyes open, not like a certain chef who thinks so highly of herself.”

“Talmage?”

Sparkie threw me a smile I was sure was meant to be charming, but her next words jarred me back to high alert. “You didn’t see anything when you found Mal, did you? The murder weapon? Footprints? Anything? Did it look like he’d been robbed?”

Indira, standing under the eave, her gun in her hand.

Somehow, I said, “I don’t know. I was only out there for a few seconds. What did you mean, you wouldn’t be like Talmage?”

“Mal’s a shark,” Sparkie said airily. “He invests in a business. If it’s successful, more often than not he finds a way to make sure he’s the one who walks away with all the money. There are some chefs in Seattle who’ll tell you all about how Mal stole their life’s work if you buy them a drink.”

“That doesn’t seem possible,” I said. “How does he get away with it?”

“Lots of ways. Sometimes, the investment is a loan with ridiculous repayment terms. Sometimes, he’s got a buyout clause in the contract.

You’ve got to remember, most chefs don’t care about business stuff; all they want is to have their own restaurant.

So, they’ll sign whatever you put in front of them.

I know a couple of chefs who got fired when Mal was tired of them.

They thought they were owners right up until he pulled out the paperwork.

Let me tell you, it took Mal a few years to get it right—at the beginning, he ran his first few investments into the ground.

Awful stuff. One of the chefs killed herself.

But eventually, he perfected the art of making money off other people. ”

“Sounds like you know a lot about it.”

“If you work in the industry long enough, you’ll cross paths with him, or somebody he stabbed in the back. Everybody who ever met Mal wanted to kill him. Everybody.” The charming smile was back now, and she’d ramped it all the way up to kill mode . “I know what you’re thinking.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“ I didn’t kill him,” Sparkie said, smile sharpening.

“I didn’t say you did.”

Sparkie opened her purse and removed a small tin. She opened it and applied some sort of balm or ointment to her cracked lips. “You saw Talmage with him tonight. Larry hates his guts. And poor Jethro’s his personal doormat.”

“Who’s Jethro?”

“Tall kid.” Sparkie pointed across the room.

The young man I’d seen earlier stood there, still wearing the jacket Mal had given him (damp now from the rain), talking to the chef—Talmage—and the sallow-faced man with the bristly hair—presumably Larry.

“Bad skin. Sweet kid, but he’s an absolutely terrible personal assistant.

He gets me confused with another of Mal’s exes all the time. ”

I barely heard her.

Mal and Jethro standing near the kitchen doors. Mal holding the younger man by the arms in a way that seemed, at best, too familiar. Mal slipping out of his jacket, pressing it on the boy. And my own thought, in that moment, that some men liked younger partners.

It wouldn’t have been the first time that a boss’s sexual advances built to a fatal conflict; even puppies bit back eventually.

Or—

As soon as I thought the words, a memory drifted up: Mal’s white shirt in the dark alley. It had practically been the only thing I could see.

Two men, around the same height and build, both with dark hair and white shirts. Mal had given Jethro his jacket.

I mean, was that even a possibility?

Sparkie must have sensed my deliberation because she said, “What? What is it?”

I fumbled for something to say. “And you said the other man’s name is Larry?”

Rain pattered at the windows. An eddy of air shifted, bringing the smell of the candles’ hot wax. Low voices filled the dining room with the rolling swells and troughs of murmured conversation.

When Sparkie spoke, her tone suggested she hadn’t missed my evasion. “Larry Lizard.” She nodded to where he stood by the door, hair wet and bedraggled; I wasn’t sure when he’d come back inside. Sparkie gave me a moment and then added, “ Live with Larry Lizard .”

Then it landed. “Oh!” I tried to come up with something and finally managed, “I love that show.”

Which was the kind of thing you said in public to a stranger, like, What a cute baby when it was one of those little old man babies, or Boy, he’s really high-spirited , when observing a budding psychopath.

Because even though I was clearly every cable food program’s target demographic (did you know they have multiple shows about people making cakes that look like things that aren’t cake ?), Live with Larry Lizard wasn’t one I watched.

Like, ever. For one thing, because the show wasn’t actually live, which annoyed me.

And for another, because Larry was well…

Larry. He talked over the people he interviewed.

He criticized their food right in front of them.

Once, he’d been interviewing a chef—super successful; her restaurant had reservations booked out almost a year—and on the air, he’d been so casually dismissive of her opinion of how to cook lamb, the kind of arguing-without-bothering-to-actually argue that arrogant people sometimes did, that she’d walked off the set.

“What’s he doing here?” I asked. I gave Larry a closer look.

He wasn’t exactly handsome, but he had one of those faces that made you feel like you knew him from somewhere—in this case, television.

His clothes looked like the kind of expensive you’re meant to know is expensive without actually dressing up—a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers so clean and white Bobby would have been proud. “Is he filming?”

Sparkie’s laugh was surprisingly scornful. “Hardly.” There seemed to be more to that answer, but Sparkie went on, “God knows why he’s out here. Middle of nowhere. Are you sure you don’t want that drink?”

She helped herself to it without waiting for a response. As she drank, she gave me a long, considering look.

I glanced around, but still no Fox.

“I couldn’t help noticing—” Sparkie said, and it had an easiness that was entirely too casual.

An alarm began to ring somewhere deep in my brain.

Whatever else Sparkie had wanted out of this conversation—her flirting, her probing about Mal’s death, the ham-handed way she had attempted to direct my attention toward potential suspects—it had all been building to this.

This was what she really wanted. The rest of the patter had been meant to soften me up.

“—when you came in you were with Indira.”

She knew Indira. She’d recognized her. She referred to her by first name.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“Now don’t be that way,” Sparkie said with another titter. “I’m in the same boat, you understand. The ex-wives club, and all that.” But she must have seen something on my face because she said, “I’m not pointing any fingers.”

I turned toward her. The heat on my back was blistering, even through my coat, and that hot wax smell clogged my nose. “I think this conversation is over.”

“I just want to talk to her. I’ve got the most wonderful idea—”

I got to my feet.

Sparkie sat up straight, words pouring out of her. “Now don’t be like that. It’s a perfectly reasonable request. This is what I do; I connect people. And do you have any idea what some people would pay to have her working back-of-house?”

I opened my mouth to tell Sparkie to screw off—only I wasn’t going to use the PG version—but before I could, the sheriff called from the kitchen doorway, “Mr. Dane?”

For a few seconds, I wrestled with my need to defend Indira. Or at least put this smug, manipulative woman in her place.

The echo of Indira’s words blew through my head, cold and clear. “Excuse me.”

When I reached the sheriff, she gave me a considering look and then held one of the swinging doors for me.

The kitchen was busy again, Talmage barking orders as the other chefs—or whatever they were called—worked.

Apparently murder wasn’t going to keep Mizzenmast from its opening night.

Was that strange? Maybe it was one of those situations where people simply didn’t know how to act in the wake of tragedy, and so they did what they thought was normal.

“What was that all about?” the sheriff asked.

“I honestly don’t know.” I told her about Sparkie. “God, I just sat there like an idiot, wondering why she was blabbing so much.”

The sheriff only nodded, though. “Dash, I’d like you and Bobby to go home.”

“Aren’t you going to interview everyone? Someone might have seen something.”

“Yes, I’m going to take statements.” She watched me, but whatever she was expecting to see, she must not have found it because she said, “I’m asking you not to get involved in this investigation.”

The pieces snapped together. “You think—” I glanced at the busy kitchen and lowered my voice so that it barely carried over the ambient noise. “You think Indira had something to do with this?”

“I think that this is a complicated, sensitive investigation, and I think your feelings could compromise your judgment.”

I couldn’t say anything. And then I could. “Sheriff, Indira didn’t kill Mal. She wouldn’t kill anyone.”

The sheriff cut her eyes away.

“If you don’t know that,” I said, “you’re—you’re a pretty lousy sheriff.”