Dead Men Don't Get the Munchies Page 9

  One look at Tyler sent all of those thoughts spinning through my head, along with the realization that I was glad Eve wasn’t anywhere near the restaurant that night. Until I realized that Tyler Cooper—Lieutenant Tyler Cooper of the Arlington Police Department—didn’t have any reason to be barging into a cooking class in Alexandria.

  Not unless something was wrong.

  In one, heart-stopping instant, I remembered all those phone calls I’d made to Eve earlier in the day, and all the times she hadn’t answered the phone. My mouth went dry. There was a lump in my throat. I was up at the front of the room even before the kitchen door stopped swinging and—who could blame me—I didn’t bother with the niceties. I was suddenly too nervous, and besides, when it came to nice, Tyler didn’t know the meaning of the word.

  “What happened?” I asked him. “What’s wrong?”

  I hadn’t seen Tyler since we did the final wrap-up of our investigation into Sarah Whitaker’s murder. He didn’t look any happier now than he had been then. Then, the fact that I’d out-investigated him and solved a murder he couldn’t had soured his already acid personality even more. Now…

  “Miss Capshaw.” The way Tyler said it and the way he tipped his head in my direction wasn’t so much a greeting as it was simply his way of saying that seeing me again was his cross to bear. “I can’t say I’m surprised to find myself here again. There’s something about you and dead bodies—”

  Dead?

  The word sank way down deep into me and froze me from the inside out. But before I had a chance to ask what he was talking about—who he was talking about—Tyler turned toward Jim. “Can we talk somewhere? Privately?”

  “Sure.” Jim wiped his hands on a kitchen towel, turned the class over to Damien, and assured our students (who were more than a little curious) that he’d be right back. “We can go out into the restaurant.” He led the way.

  Tyler didn’t follow. He couldn’t, because I was still hanging on to him.

  “Looks like you’re coming, too,” he said.

  “I am. I will.” My blood was rushing so hard and so fast inside my ears, I could barely hear my own voice. “Only tell me, is it Eve? Did something…did something happen to Eve?”

  “Miss DeCateur?” In as long as I’d known him, I don’t think I’d ever seen Tyler smile. He didn’t smile now. He sort of smirked. “Why, I haven’t thought of Eve in months. You really don’t think I’d come all the way over here from Arlington to talk about her, do you?”

  I let go the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Until another thought hit. “But if it’s not Eve, why are you here?” I did a quick mental inventory. Jim was alive and well, thank goodness. So were Marc, Damien, and Monsieur Lavoie. I’d talked to Heidi, our only waitress, about a glitch in her paycheck earlier in the day, so I knew there was no reason Tyler would be here about her. That only left—

  “Brad?” OK, the name came out of me a little too loud. As if they’d choreographed the move, our students leaned forward.

  When he saw them staring, Tyler rolled his eyes. “That’s right,” he said and because he realized that whatever he wanted to say in private wasn’t going to be private much longer, he raised his voice. “It’s Brad Peterson I’m here about. I’ll talk to you all about him in a bit, when I’m done with Miss Capshaw here. Just so you know: Mr. Peterson, he’s not just dead. Heck, that would be too bad, but it wouldn’t be any of my business. This is. You see, this morning Brad Peterson was murdered.”

  Eight

  THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT THE WORD MURDER that demands attention.

  It certainly got mine. My stomach went cold, and my breath caught. I’d be the first to admit that Brad Peterson was no prize, but to think he’d been killed…

  The shock hit and, like a rock tossed into a deep pool, it caused a ripple of awareness that shivered through me along with thoughts I barely dared to consider.

  I wrapped my arms around myself and listened to Jim’s voice echo through my head as he told the class we’d be stepping out for a few minutes and that they should get busy with the night’s recipes. But even when he put an arm around my shoulders and tugged me toward the door, I found it hard to move. My memories kept me frozen to the spot.

  Valerie Conover said she wished that Brad was dead. So did Eve.

  Now he was.

  And Tyler was here at Bellywasher’s asking questions.

  I tried to gulp down the sour taste in my mouth. Until I had time to think through everything that had happened and listen to whatever it was Tyler had come to talk about, I had to be careful. I knew Tyler well, and I knew that one mispoken word would send him chasing off in the wrong direction. Not that I cared a whole bunch. Unless that direction happened to be toward Eve. Until I knew what he was up to and why he was there, I had to play my cards close to my chest.

  Easy to say. Not so easy to do when I found Tyler watching me closely. OK, I knew he couldn’t read my mind. But Tyler’s got those cold, neon blue eyes. That square, chipped-from-granite chin. That etched-in-stone expression that never wavers, the one that just about screams, If you think you can get away with anything, you’re crazy.

  I’ve got Eve, I reminded myself, and Eve is the best friend in the world. She’s the kindest, gentlest soul I know, and yes, she can get a little operatic now and again, but unless someone did something to hurt Doc—or me—there’s no way she’d ever resort to violence. Not even where a Weasel was concerned.

  I knew this as certainly as I knew my own name, and I told myself not to forget it, pulled back my shoulders, and walked out of the kitchen at Jim’s side. He might be the one in charge, but the way I saw things, I had the most at stake here (namely, one best friend). I was also the one with the insatiable curiosity, not to mention something of a background in this sort of thing. Before Jim could say a word, and before Tyler could take over and manuever the conversation where I didn’t want it to go, I slid onto a barstool and got down to business.

  “What happened?” I asked Tyler.

  “I’m the one who’s supposed to ask the questions.”

  Didn’t it figure. If I expected that Tyler would ever cooperate, I was kidding myself. He looked down his Roman nose at me. “I’m following a lead, chasing down some details. I can’t say it’s a big surprise that they led me here.”

  No big surprise, huh? As in, You, Annie Capshaw, are involved in murder far too often? Or as in, I know Eve had it in for Brad?

  Tyler sent a laser look around the restaurant. “No Miss DeCateur tonight?”

  It was a good thing Jim answered, because at this mention of Eve’s name, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “We’re closed on Mondays,” he said. “So naturally Eve is off. She doesn’t help with our cooking classes. If you like, I can tell her you sent your best.”

  Big points for Jim. When it came to Eve and Tyler, he knew what was what. He also knew that Tyler wasn’t going to bite. At least not until hell froze over.

  Just as I expected, Tyler ignored the offer. “When did this cooking class start?” he asked, and though I think the question was meant for Jim, I stepped up with the answer.

  “This is the third class. Out of eight.”

  “And Brad Peterson?”

  I shrugged. “He’s not a very good cook. And he hates doing the flower arrangements.”

  “Which isn’t what I meant.” Tyler took a small, leather-bound notebook from his pocket, flipped it open, and reached for a pen. “Did you ever meet him before?”

  Jim and I exchanged looks. “Not until he walked in here the first night,” Jim said.

  Tyler’s gaze swiveled to me. “And you?”

  “Never set eyes on him before.”

  True, even though it was technically not the whole truth and nothing but. Tyler never asked if I’d heard about Brad, so I didn’t have to say that Eve had once worked for him. He didn’t ask if I’d seen Brad between classes, so I never had to tell him about the day Brad was out on the street arguing with Valerie
. At least until I understood more about what had happened and why Tyler was here, he was on a need-to-know basis. This, he definitely didn’t need to know.

  “How about the other members of the class?” Tyler asked. “Think anyone will be able to give me any information?”

  Again, I was home free in the truth department. Since Tyler had specifically asked about members of the class and neither Eve nor Valerie was in the class, it was easy to dodge this particular bullet. “A group of us went out for drinks after class last week, including Brad and Kegan,” I told him. Knowing Tyler, he was going to find out eventually, anyway, and it was better if he heard it from me. “Kegan is Kegan O’Rouke, the tall, skinny kid who’s in charge of drinks tonight. If you ask him, I’m sure he’ll say the same thing about the experience that I do. Brad was loud and pushy and rude to our waitress. He didn’t talk about anything but himself. He practically put me to sleep babbling about the years he lived in Colorado. It was boring, and I was uncomfortable. I could tell Kegan was, too. We had one drink and hightailed it out of there. Last I saw him, Brad was trying to pick up the waitress, and he wasn’t having any luck.”

  “And you haven’t seen him since?”

  “I haven’t. But Marc told me that Brad stopped in last Saturday. He came by to get the list of ingredients for tonight’s class. I guess you were busy.” I turned to Jim, because as far as I knew, he wasn’t aware of Brad’s visit. “Marc says Brad copied the list and left.”

  “And you can be sure I’ll confirm that with this Marc guy.” Tyler made a note of it. He flipped his notebook closed.

  I should have breathed a sigh of relief and left well enough alone; Tyler wasn’t going to ask about Eve or WOW or Valerie Conover. But remember what I said about insatiable curiosity? I couldn’t help myself: the whole situation was peculiar, and I had to know more.

  “I don’t get it,” I admitted. “How did you even know that Brad was a student here?”

  If not for the memory of those murder investigations I’d conducted—cases Tyler never would have closed if not for my help—I think he would have brushed off my question. Instead, he gave me a begrudging look. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you that the police know everything, would you?”

  “Of course not.” I slipped into private investigator mode even before I realized it and stepped through what must have been Tyler’s thinking process. “If you found that list of drink ingredients in his apartment, it wouldn’t tell you a thing except that he was making Bloody Marys. And Brad couldn’t have been killed anywhere near here, because we’re in Alexandria, and you’re on the Arlington force. That means you’re not just checking with the locals up and down the street to see if anyone can help. He was killed in Arlington which, the way I remember it from his class application, was were he lived. So what was it…one of our newsletters left in his kitchen? Or maybe a receipt?” I saw the momentary flash in Tyler’s eyes, and I knew I hit on the right answer. “You found a receipt for the class. In his apartment, right?”

  “Got you there.” There was a little too much satisfaction in Tyler’s voice and in the tiny smile that played around the corners of his mouth. “Mr. Peterson didn’t have an apartment. He lived in a town house. Over near the Clarendon Metro station. That’s where we found the receipt.”

  “In his town house.”

  “At the Metro station.” Tyler had already turned to head back into the kitchen, but I wasn’t going to let him cut me off so soon or so completely. There was still plenty I wanted to know.

  I slid off the barstool and stood in his path.

  “You found the receipt for Brad’s cooking class at the Metro station? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

  “It does if the receipt was in Brad’s pocket. Or should I say, the receipt was in what was left of his pocket.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. While I thought it over, I stood there at a loss for words. Of course, that’s the reaction Tyler was hoping he’d get out of me: dazed and confused. That’s why he left the information dangling.

  He didn’t expect me to, but it’s also exactly why I bit. “What was left? That must mean there was some kind of accident. But you said he was murdered. Are you sure?”

  As long as I’d known him, Tyler had never been Mr. Open-and-Sharing. It was one of the things that made him such a good cop and such a bad everything else. But since I hadn’t cringed at that what was left comment, I guess he figured he owed me the details.

  “He died at the Clarendon Metro station, all right. But it wasn’t an accident,” Tyler said. “Somebody pushed Brad Peterson off the platform. Just as the nine o’clock train was pulling in.”

  I tried not to picture the scene. It wasn’t easy. I knew the station well, and I could imagine the press of early morning commuters, the surge forward as the train approached. I shook my head.

  “Like I said, it must have been an accident.” I could see no other explanation. “Why do you think—”

  “Kind of hard to avoid the facts. And the tape from the security camera…well, I’ll tell you what. I don’t think that’s anything you could stomach, Annie, but it is one cold, hard fact.”

  Jim must have sensed that I felt light-headed. He rubbed my back with one hand and asked what I would have asked, if only I wasn’t imaging what had happened and feeling a little queasy because of it.

  Jim nodded thoughtfully. “You’ve got the murder on tape, then. That must make your job easier. Why come around looking for details if you know who did it?”

  Tyler’s smile was sleek. “We’ve got the murder, all right. But not the murderer. The tape shows a person in a beat-up hoodie who follows Brad into the station. That same person stands behind Brad and shuffles forward a little at a time. When Brad is close to the edge of the platform…” His palms flat, Tyler pushed both his hands out in front of him. “By the time the police got there in response to the frantic calls from the people waiting for the train, it was too late. Brad Peterson was dead, the hooded sweatshirt was in the nearest trash can, and now here I am, following one of the threads of my investigation. I’ll just take a couple minutes and talk to the people in your class.” He didn’t ask permission for this, just edged past me and went into the kitchen. “While I’m here, I might as well find out all I can.”

  It was too late to stop him, and what was the point, anyway? Tyler got what Tyler wanted. He had the badge to make sure of it.

  The closer we got to the kitchen, the more we heard the excited buzz of conversation. No big mystery what everyone was talking about. I heard Brad’s name mentioned and someone say, “He wasn’t such a bad guy.”

  Obviously, it was someone who didn’t know Brad well.

  The moment we stepped into the room, the place went dead silent.

  Tyler waved a dismissive hand toward the class. “You can continue doing what you were doing. I’m going to come around to talk to each one of you. Anything you can tell me will be helpful.”

  Margaret Whitemore had been deep in conversation with Jorge and Kegan. She turned toward the door and wiped her hands on her apron. Don’t ask me how I knew she was going to say something she shouldn’t; just believe me when I say I saw it coming. Otherwise, my heart wouldn’t have banged like a pile driver. My knees wouldn’t have turned to jelly. Before I could come up with a way to stop her, Margaret stepped forward.

  “We’ve been talking about it, of course,” she said. She looked around the room to include her fellow students. “And we’ve decided that you don’t need to take your time to talk to each of us. We can help you right now. We know who did it, you see.” As if she was giving a presentation, Margaret clutched her hands together at her waist. “It was that Eve girl. The one who was here the first night of class. You remember…all of you…” She looked around, and as one, the students nodded. “It must have been Eve. She knew Brad, and she came right out and said it. She said she wanted him dead.”

  “DON’T BE SO HARD ON YOURSELF. I KNEW EVE AND Brad Peterson were
acquainted before I ever walked in here.”

  I suppose Tyler was trying to make me feel better when he patted me on the back.

  It didn’t work.

  When our students were finished cooking—and done telling Tyler everything they remembered about Eve’s appearance at class that first night—I volunteered to stay in the kitchen and clean up. I was less than thrilled when Tyler stayed with me.

  I slanted him a look. “You could have told me right from the start.”

  He grinned. “What fun would that be? Besides, I was interested to see how far you would go to stick up for a friend. Are you willing to go all the way to prison for Eve?”

  “That’s ridiculous.” It was, and I reminded myself not to forget it and not to get bullied into believing anything else. That was the only thing that kept me from collapsing beneath the weight of my worries. “You know Eve would never kill anybody.”

  “I know that normally, Miss DeCateur wouldn’t be inclined to kill. But if she had a strong motive…” He whistled low under his breath. “There’s no telling what a girl like that would do if she felt she’d been wronged.”

  “She didn’t kill you when you broke up with her.”

  “Oo-wee!” Tyler threw back his head and laughed. “You have changed from the days when Miss DeCateur and I were seeing each other. You wouldn’t have dared speak up like that back then. Maybe that’s because you had a husband around then to keep you in line, huh?”

  With a nasty look, I warned Tyler to back down. Just in case he didn’t get the message, I was sure to tell him loud and clear. “You’re not doing anything to endear yourself to me. If you expect me to help you with this case—”

  “Hold on. Right there.” Tyler was a traffic cop when he first joined the force, and I guess old habits die hard. He held up one hand to stop me. “You don’t actually think I’m here to ask for your help, do you?”

  “There’s no other reason. It certainly can’t be because of Eve. She’d never resort to violence, and you know it.”