French Pressed

Twenty-Two

There he was. Tommy Keitel. Larger than life. Smaller in death.

The big man was dwarfed by his own casket—a huge, expensive affair of heavy metal camouflaged with a veneer of polished cherry wood that appeared to be the same fine grain as Solange’s dining room tables. The handles were brass, the trim gold-plated, and the interior’s lining of warm yellow silk looked as sunny as his restaurant’s walls. It was quite a final resting place; but then why shouldn’t a four-star chef get a four-star send- off?

The mortician had dressed Tommy’s corpse in a dark suit. The terrible wound at the base of his throat was well covered by the starched white color of his dress shirt; and his tie was a beautiful royal blue that came close to matching the arresting blue of his eyes, which were closed now, so I couldn’t exactly check my opinion on the palette match.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you, Tommy,” I murmured, hands clasped together. “May you rest in peace. And I can only hope that wherever you are they’re smart enough to give you a few ingredients and a good-quality range…”

Janelle and I had arrived ten minutes earlier by cab. The evening viewing was crowded, and we’d waited in line to sign the condolence book. We moved to the casket, where she’d said her prayer beside me. Then Janelle went off to find her line cook colleagues, and I stayed near Tommy’s casket, contemplating my strategy for catching his killer.

The funeral home’s viewing room was very large, and jam-packed with people. It was also packed with flower arrangements that spilled out into a second sitting room beyond.

The aroma was cloying, and if Tommy’s spirit was really in that casket, it probably would have bolted upright by now to roar: The long-stemmed lilies can stay, but will you people please burn those damn carnations! I can’t breathe in this stink!

“…it’s a tragedy, I tell you. The art of the restaurant has been lost to the public relations racket. People who just want to make a quick buck…”

I overheard the familiar voice and turned to see a familiar face. The food writer and restaurant critic Roman Brio had entered the viewing salon. Roman was a heavyset man with the round, chubby-cheeked face and intensely luminous eyes of a young Orson Welles. I’d met him a month ago, at the same Beekman Hotel tasting party where I’d first met Tommy Keitel. He was a friend of Breanne Summour’s, owing to his frequent flamboyantly written contributions to Trend magazine among other publications.

“…there’s a term I often use called ‘palate fatigue,’” Roman continued to expound, his basso voice distinct over the buzz of conversations.

Palate fatigue, I repeated to myself. I’d heard the term before, but I wasn’t entirely sure what Roman meant by it. I stepped a little closer to eavesdrop.

“That was the key to Keitel’s greatness,” he continued. “He worked very diligently to see that his customers never experienced an overabundance of taste. It was the reason he put no more than five or six bites on a plate. ‘When there is too much food, the tongue isn’t tasting anymore,’ he once told me. ‘And when the customer isn’t yearning for just one more bite, boredom sets in with the dish.’ Yes, boredom was anathema to Tommy Keitel…”

The last line got to me. Boredom was anathema to Tommy. The words looped in my brain like a Buddhist chant.

Nick had told me the same thing in Brighton Beach, about Tommy getting bored with French cuisine. It seemed Tommy bored easily in his personal life, too. I thought of his affair with Joy, how he’d gotten tired of her in a few months.

In his cheese cave, he’d given me that whole pitch about realizing how “young” Joy was, but on reflection now, in front of his cold, dead form, I wondered if it wasn’t a quirk of his personality to find a reason, any reason, to dump a woman when he got tired of her. He’d described himself to me as a collection of unbridled testosterone— and then started hitting on me to prove it.

Now I began wondering about Tommy’s wife. How did Faye Keitel really feel about her marquee-chef husband?

I turned from Tommy’s casket, scanned the crowded room. I didn’t even know what Faye Keitel looked like. But I’ll bet Roman Brio does. I’ll bet he knows a lot of things about Tommy Keitel…

I approached the acerbic writer. By now, Brio’s audience had dwindled to a single young man with long sideburns and a shaved head.

“…to never again taste Chef Keitel’s tartelettes of rabbit liver on a brunois of young vegetables, or his panko-breaded escargot, deep-fried with parsley and star anise. It’s a tragedy, young man.”

“The king is dead,” I said.

Brio turned to greet me, but his smile faltered a little when he realized who I was.

“Clare Cosi. My, my. This is certainly awkward. Here I am speaking to the mother of the presumed murderess in this drama, yet I’m oddly delighted to see you.”

“I’m flattered.”

“My motives are not entirely unselfish. I’d planned to look you up, and quite soon. I want that book deal, you see.”

“What book deal?”

“Why, the inside scoop on the culinary crime of the century, of course.”

The young man had wandered away. I had Brio to myself now. I took his arm and led him to a quiet corner. “Wouldn’t you rather get the exclusive on how the culinary crime of the century was solved?”

Brio crooked his elbow and hugged his neck. “Now that’s intriguing. You’re saying the police have got it all wrong?”

“I’m saying my daughter is innocent, and I’m going to prove it.”

His face brightened. “Didn’t I hear about you and that dustup after the UN fellow ‘fell’ from the Beekman’s balcony? And before that, wasn’t there a scandal involving David Mintzer’s new Hamptons eatery?”

“Not me,” I said.

“Ah, well, not all news makes the papers, apparently. Yet word does get around.”

“A little information, please,” I said. “Faye Keitel is where?”

Brio extended his little finger. “Over there, beside Anton Wright.”

I followed his pinkie to a strikingly good-looking fortysomething woman in a black designer dress. Her upswept hair was a shimmering blond with golden highlights that reminded me of the color scheme at Tommy’s restaurant.

“Tell me about her.”

“They met during Tommy’s Italian phase. She was a talented young line cook. They married, and when he became completely bored with Italian fare, Tommy swept her off to France, where he studied and she had babies. It was all very romantic, or so they told me when I interviewed them.”

“Recently?”

Roman shook his head. “This was five years ago, right after Solange opened. They were living in Brooklyn Heights. I went over for a breakfast tête-à-tête. Tommy and Faye were there. I believe a child was present—I recall some irritating noise. Tommy served three homemade jams, freshly baked almond croissants, chilled ewe’s-milk yogurt, and prunes infused with tea—”

“You were talking about Faye?” And I thought I was food- obsessed.

“Oh, yes. Faye…She was Tommy’s roast chef, and a talented one, but their love was more important than her career, so she gave it up for him. They were still madly in love during those Brooklyn days. At least that was the story they told me.”

“And now?”