French Pressed

“She’s going back to Solange, of course.”

Fifteen

Inside of six minutes, I’d gotten the entire story out of Madame and was waving down a taxi on Hudson. Then I was off, my driver heading uptown, transporting me back to Tommy Keitel’s hellacious house of haute cuisine.

Madame stayed behind to lock up the Blend, and I was indebted to her for that. But I was even more grateful to her for telling me the one thing I’d been waiting all night to hear:

“Joy wasn’t upset with you, Clare, not in the least.”

According to Madame, when Joy had bolted away from that cheese cave and out of the cellar, she hadn’t been running from me. She’d been running from Tommy Keitel…

“She was mortified by Keitel’s behavior,” Madame had told me. “Seeing his hands on you in that small room, she knew instantly that he was making a pass. It was a tremendous blow to her ego. But she didn’t blame you. She blamed him.”

Apparently, after Joy’s long, tearful walk, she’d returned to her job. But as soon as she started working at her prep table, Tommy Keitel delivered the final cut.

“He loudly told her in the open kitchen that he’d made a decision. He no longer wanted to see her romantically. They were through. Not only that, as of Monday, she was to report to Robbie Gray at his restaurant downtown, where she’d serve out the remainder of her internship year.”

Listening to Madame’s tale, my whole body went rigid. I’d already known what Tommy had planned for Joy, but hearing the blow-by-blow made me sick to my stomach.

“Our girl was humiliated, of course,” Madame went on. “The entire kitchen brigade heard Tommy toss Joy away like a piece of substandard produce. Rather than break down in front of her colleagues, she fled the restaurant and took a cab to my apartment to cry it all out.”

My shoulders sagged upon hearing that. “Why didn’t she come to me?”

“Because, Clare, down deep Joy knew you were right all along about Tommy. Now she’s humiliated. But most of all, she’s ashamed. She didn’t want you to see her crying over Tommy. That’s what she told me. She simply wants you to be proud of her again—”

“But I am proud of her! She made a mistake. But for so many reasons, I’m still so very proud of Joy. She should know that.”

“She knows you love her, Clare. That much I can promise you. She only came to me because she knew I wouldn’t ask questions. I’d just let her cry it out. And my goodness, she did. She cried herself to sleep on my sofa. When she woke up, she told me the whole story.

“I invited her to stay the night, but she said no. She washed her face, brushed her hair, and announced she was going back to Solange to retrieve her knives and personal items. I thought it was rather late to do that, but she was quite determined. And she assured me that someone would be there…”

Of course, someone would be there—Tommy Keitel himself—which was why I was speeding toward his restaurant now. Joy wasn’t going back there to pick up her knives and personal items. I was certain she was really going there to see Tommy one more time, either to tell him off or make a last desperate attempt to win him back.

But if Joy was going up there looking for closure, explanations, or any kind of comfort, she was about to be severely disappointed because Keitel’s singular goal tonight was to leave her emotionally bloodied. I couldn’t let her go through that alone, but there was an even more vital reason I was speeding north. Solange was a minefield, and I didn’t want Joy anywhere near its ticking bombs, especially at this hour.

Tommy Keitel and Anton Wright were feuding about something. Who knew if that would lead to violence? And even though Brigitte Rouille had been fired, it didn’t preclude her returning to the scene to vent some rage. Then there was that glossy black envelope that made Tommy crazy. What was inside that thing? Was someone blackmailing the man? Would there be deadly repercussions if he failed to comply?

And what about Tommy’s creepy Russian friend Nick? The mysterious man in black from Brighton Beach had arrived at the restaurant late the previous night. If he really was a mobster, then any number of shady things could be going on in Solange’s kitchen after hours.

As my taxi sped uptown, I continued to fret, hoping the least I would find when I entered the premises was some petty scene—like my daughter in tears, begging her inappropriate lover to take her back; or Tommy Keitel desperately dodging Joy’s own personal choice of flying cutlery.

I can handle the situation either way, I told myself. I’ll just pull my daughter into my arms, and we’ll both wave good-bye to Chef Tommy Keitel for good.

Thankfully, traffic was light, and within fifteen minutes we were rolling up to the curb beside Solange’s signature burgundy awning. I paid the cabbie and approached the glass door. Beyond the window, the reception area was dimly lit, the only illumination a menu set on a glowing brass pedestal. My gloved fingers closed around the front door’s long handle. I pushed, and the door opened.

A little surprised that it was still unlocked, I stepped into the restaurant. With a quiet swish, the door swung closed behind me. I unbuttoned my coat.

“Hello?” I called into the darkness of the empty dining room.

The large, shadowy space carried a slight funereal scent of decaying lilies. With the crystal and copper chandeliers extinguished, the sunny walls now looked a sick, pasty yellow. The tablecloths, once the color of crème fraîche, now looked like gray ghosts. The gargoyles weren’t so whimsical anymore. From their high perches, their carved faces had turned grotesque, like cackling spies from the underworld. Their wooden eyes wouldn’t stop following me as I stepped around the gathering of shrouded tables.

My low boots were halfway across the room when a shrill scream froze me in place. The cry had come from the kitchen, and I instantly took off for the double doors. As I pushed from murky dimness into bright fluorescence, I heard a young woman’s voice wail.

“Oh, no! Noooo! God, no…”

The sound of sobbing came next, and I blinked against the glare, hurrying forward around the high service counter.

“Joy!”

“Mom, stay back!” my daughter cried, rushing to my side.

There was moist heat in the room, the scent of simmering stock. Why is someone cooking at this hour?

As Joy gripped my arm, I finally spied a figure in the center of the kitchen. The man was sitting on a metal stool, his body slumped all the way over a cutting board covered with purple cubes of freshly cut beets, coated now with his own blood. The victim had been stabbed in the same manner as Vincent Buccelli. Someone had plunged a chef’s knife deep into the shoulder at the base of his throat.

I gently removed my daughter’s clinging grip, stepped closer. I knew who the man was before I saw his face. I recognized the salt-and-pepper hair, the thickly muscled forearms under rolled-up sleeves.

The corpse was Tommy Keitel.

I swallowed and took another step forward, just to make sure.

When I saw the wide, sightless blue eyes, I knew he was gone. And I recognized something else. The murder weapon had a black handle and the familiar Shun symbol on the blade. This was a ten-inch Shun Elite chef’s knife, I realized with a jolt. It retailed for hundreds of dollars and was forged from powdered steel, allowing for an exceedingly sharp and durable edge.

It’s crazy the kinds of things that pop into your mind at a time like this. But these facts were stored in my memory because I’d purchased this very knife the previous December.

The evidence was undeniable. Tommy Keitel had been murdered with my child’s own personal chef’s knife, the one I’d given her last Christmas Day.

“Mom, come away,” Joy insisted, tears streaming down her cheeks.