French Pressed

“Where are we going, exactly?” Mike asked.

“Tenth Street and fifty-second.”

“Hell’s Kitchen?”

I nodded. “Joy moved into the two-bedroom about six months ago. It’s not too far from Restaurant Row—a prime location for two aspiring chefs.”

Mike laughed. “Two chefs living in Hell’s Kitchen. Funny.”

“Believe me, the irony was not lost on Joy’s roommate. Yvette’s family owns the Ice Castle ice cream franchise, and they subsidize her lifestyle here in New York and in Paris, where she’s interning now.”

Outside, the sun was bright, and the air was crisp but thankfully not too cold. It was Monday morning rush hour pretty much everywhere on Manhattan Island, but once we were in the car, the trip wasn’t too heinous, owing to the fact that Mike seemed to know exactly how to get around most traffic snarls. The man had skills. And apparently a penchant for conjuring parking spaces because, miraculously, we found a spot right in front of Joy’s building.

I paused in the large lobby to pick up my daughter’s mail, which had piled up in her box since Friday. I noticed a large envelope in the mix. The return address was Solange. A rubber-stamped note indicated the missive was hand-delivered by messenger service this morning. I tore into the envelope and found an invitation inside.

Mike peered over my shoulder. “What’s it say?”

“‘Dear employee or vendor of Solange,’” I read. “‘You are cordially invited to a memorial dinner to celebrate the life and legacy of Chef Thomas Keitel. A four-course meal will be prepared by Chef Robbie Gray and his staff. As part of this celebration, hosts Faye Murray Keitel and Anton Wright will make an exciting announcement concerning the bright new future of Solange, New York, and its sister restaurants.’”

“Sister restaurants?” Mike said.

“There are no sister restaurants. And since when has Solange been called Solange, New York?” I faced Mike. “This is it! “This is why Tommy Keitel was murdered! Anton Wright and Faye Keitel are going to franchise Solange. That must have been their plan all along—”

“Whoa, Clare. Slow down.”

But I was too pumped to slow down. “Don’t you see, Mike? Wright spent millions opening three restaurants, but Solange was his only success. Naturally he’d want to capitalize on it. He probably told Chef Keitel his plan, and Tommy went ballistic. He wasn’t interested in French cuisine anymore. Tommy wanted out. He wanted to move to Russia. He just wanted to be free again.”

“But other chefs can cook Keitel’s dishes, right? Why did Anton even need Keitel?”

“They’re signature dishes. According to Tommy’s contract, he owned all of Solange’s recipes, not Anton.”

“Why couldn’t Anton buy them?”

“Because Tommy was too much of an egomaniac to sell! Billy Benedetto told me that Tommy refused to sell him the Italian recipes he’d invented for his eatery, even though Chef Keitel never used them again.” I shook my head. “If Tommy wasn’t attached to a restaurant any longer, he simply didn’t want them serving his dishes. Period.”

I waved the invitation in Mike’s face. “Don’t you see? Anton wanted to expand, Tommy didn’t, so Anton murdered him, then made a deal with Faye Keitel to use Tommy’s name and recipes for his franchise.”

“You could be right, Clare, but you don’t have any proof—”

“I have a theory! That’s more than I had an hour ago. Now I have to get the proof.”

“You have to build a case. Which means you’ll have to go to this memorial dinner, for starters. When does it take place?”

“Tonight at eight o’clock.”

Mike looked at the invitation. “This must have been sent out as part of a mass mailing.”

“For sure.” I nodded. “Someone in Anton Wright’s office probably just used a staff list. Joy was still on it, so she got the invite.”

Mike grabbed my arm. Only then did I notice that others had gathered in the lobby. “Let’s go,” he said. “We’ll talk upstairs.”

We climbed four flights in silence. I unlocked the door, and a blast of stale air hit us. I crossed to the window and opened it. I was relieved to find the place neat and tidy. Joy used to be a real slob when she had me to pick up after her, but it was apparently different now that she had her own place. I took the neatness as a sign of her budding maturity and I said so to Mike.

“I just wish she’d been this tidy in her personal life, then she wouldn’t be in so much trouble right now.”

On my way to the bedroom to gather up some clothes, I spied a blinking light in the living room: Joy’s and Yvette’s answering machine. The digital display indicated there were nine messages.

I sighed and pressed Play.

“Message one. Thursday, twelve fifty-five p.m.,” the electronic voice announced.

“Bonjour, mon amie,” chirped Yvette. “I’m sitting in an outdoor café on the Left Bank, up to my chin in hommes, hommes, hommes. More fool you for interning in New York City, where all the men are married or unemployed actors. Oo-la-la! I’ll take Paris. Call me—and don’t forget to water the herb garden.”

“I’d better do that before I go,” I reminded myself.

“Message two. Thursday, eight nineteen p.m.”

There was a pause. I heard breathing on the digital recording, from a man who was no longer breathing. Then came the voice of a ghost. A dead man. “Hey. It’s Vinny—”

“Mike, listen!” I cried.

“I’m here,” he said.

“Joy, I have to talk to you,” Vinny said. “I left a message on your cell, too. When you get off work, come out and see me, okay? Something happened last night when I stayed late to do all that prep work Brigitte assigned to me. I was in the walk-in fridge for a long time, so long that Anton Wright thought he was alone. Well, I overheard Mr. Wright in the kitchen—”

There was a long pause, and my heart stopped, thinking the time had run out on the message.

“Anton was talking to someone on his cell,” Vinny continued. “He and this person planned on doing something bad. Stuff you wouldn’t believe. Listen, Joy, you have to come see me. I can’t go in to the restaurant. When Anton saw me, I ran. And now I’m scared to go back. Chef Keitel is, like, never there anymore, and I don’t have his cell number, so I don’t know how to warn him what Anton’s planning, but I know you see him. You have to warn him. He’ll listen to you. Then maybe he can tell me what I should do, too! You have to talk to him before it’s too la—”

“End of message,” the digital voice declared.

“There’s the proof,” I said. “Vinny heard Anton plotting the murder of Tommy Keitel. He tried to tell Joy so she could warn Tommy.”

Mike shook his head. “That’s what you thought you heard, but to anyone else, that message is inconclusive.”

“You’re crazy—”

“Listen to it again, Clare. Then imagine how a jury might hear it. And how a defense attorney might spin it as referring to something completely innocent.”

I played the message again, and my shoulders sagged. “You’re right, Mike. There’s no real proof here.”

“No, there isn’t.” Mike folded his arms. “But I think I know how we can get it.”

“How?”

“Last night you went out on a limb for me. Do you think you could do the same thing for Joy?”

My eyes met Mike’s. “I think we both know the answer to that.”

I arrived at Solange at seven fifteen, almost an hour before the festivities were to begin. I flashed Joy’s invitation to the man at the door.