Miranda Bliss - Dying for Dinner

“That won’t be necessary,” I told him. “We’re just confirming the information. Tell me…” Considering that Bill wasn’t Monsieur, Monsieur wasn’t Bill, and Bill’s license had been stolen, a whole new world of possibilities presented themselves-all of them with fraud, felony, and identity theft written on them in letters three miles high.

Almost afraid to ask, I eased into a new avenue of questioning. “Your license, was it taken from your wallet? Or did the whole wallet go missing?”

“The whole wallet. You can read that part in the police report if you look it up. If they even keep reports as old as that.”

“And were there…” I told myself not to lose heart. Whatever Bill had to tell me, it might be important to the investigation. Even if I didn’t want to hear it. “Were there credit cards in your wallet? Were those missing, too?”

“Well, that’s the strange part, isn’t it? All the credit cards and the wallet itself… they were all returned to me. Sent right here to me at home in a big manila envelope. I called the police and told them. They came and took the envelope away. Never heard another word about what they did with it, or what they found out. But I guess you know that, too, right? The only thing I never found again was the driver’s license.”

I breathed a little easier. “And your credit card accounts… were there ever any charges associated with them from the dates they were missing? You know, purchases you hadn’t authorized and couldn’t explain?”

“Nah, nothing like that! I told the cops I’d call if there were. Believe me, I went over my credit card statements with a fine-tooth comb. Still do.” Bill took out a pocket watch and checked the time. “You will have to excuse me,” he said. “I’ve got to get over to Marye’s Heights before the photographer decides he can’t wait around any longer.” He checked his reflection in a nearby mirror and fluffed a hand through his beard. “You’ve got all the information you need?”

I did.

But notice I said that what I’d gotten from Bill Boxley was information.

I was still no closer to finding any answers.

THOUGH I WOULD HAVE BEEN HARD-PRESSED TO make a list of them, I guess there are some distinct advantages to working in a gourmet shop. I was able to prove it the next day when I used a pricey paring knife to slice apart the Bill Boxley license we’d found at Monsieur’s. My knives at home would have chewed through the plastic and left behind a mess. This one, with its handle of crafted African blackwood, full-tang blade, and double bolsters (I have no idea what any of that means, but I heard Raymond describe the knives that way to a customer), slipped through the license like magic, right under the lamination, and after that, right under the photo of Monsieur that had been carefully pasted over the one of Bill Boxley.

I’d recognize that beard anywhere.

Truth be told, I sat there for a while, staring at my handiwork, completely stumped.

Monsieur took Bill’s license and altered it to make it his own. But he didn’t touch Bill’s credit cards.

That was a good thing, right?

But it didn’t explain why Monsieur wanted to be Bill Boxley.

Because Raymond couldn’t help me out at the shop on Wednesday, I was working at Très Bonne Cuisine alone. I stewed over the problem (there I go, using cooking analogies again) all that day. But Raymond being Raymond, he felt awful about leaving me in the lurch. Me being me… well, I’m not usually one to take advantage of other people, but this situation seemed to call for serious measures. So I took advantage of Raymond’s good nature and his guilt and asked him to work on Thursday. He agreed-I knew he would-and, armed with the next most recent license in Monsieur’s stash, I got up bright and early that morning and headed north to Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Too bad Eve was feeling better (I don’t mean that to sound as callous as it does), because she was back at work at Bellywasher’s. That meant I had to make the three-and-a-half-hour drive by myself.

While I drove, I thought over what I was going to say when the man who owned this driver’s license, Fred Gardner by name, answered his front door. Would I ask all the same questions?

Have you ever lost your wallet?

Was the license taken?

How about your credit cards?

And whatever Fred Gardner told me, where would it get me?

And what would I do next?

I guess the entire experience should have been a lesson in not worrying until it was time to worry. Because when I went to the address listed on the license, I didn’t find Fred Gardner. Or a house, for that matter. All I found on the corner of two busy cross streets was an empty lot.

Curious, yes?

And while I thought it over, I stopped at a nearby mom-and-pop diner for lunch.

I already had my burger and fries in front of me when I realized I was wasting a perfect opportunity. My waitress was named MaryAnn. She was a thin woman with strikingly red hair and even more startling gray roots and since everyone who walked in seemed to know all about her and her family, I guessed she’d been around for a while.

“Excuse me.” She was walking away when I said this, and she held up one finger to tell me she’d be with me in a jiffy and fetched the coffeepot. It wasn’t what I wanted, but I didn’t object when she refilled my cup. “I wonder if you can tell me about someone who used to live around here. His name is Fred Gardner.”

“Fred Gardner, the music teacher? You bet I knew Fred. Everyone in town knew Fred. I played in the high school marching band back when he was the director. Clarinet. If it wasn’t for Mr. Gardner…” MaryAnn wore a red-and-white-striped apron. It was decorated with the kinds of pins school booster clubs sell, the ones with kids’ pictures on them. She touched a hand to a picture of a prepubescent young man with short, sandy hair and big ears. He was holding a tuba that was practically as big as he was.

“Learned to love music from that man,” she said. “And I passed that on to my kids and my grandkids. This is Jacob, my grandson. He can’t wait until he’s old enough to play in the same marching band as his granny did.” She smiled down at the button. “He’s a fine young man.”

“I’m sure.” I was. MaryAnn was just that kind of person. “Does Mr. Gardner still teach music at the high school?”

“Fred?” MaryAnn shook her head. “He’s been dead for twenty years at least. They knocked down his house just a couple months ago. His kids sold the property. You know how it is. They live out of town somewhere and they don’t give a damn. I hear they’re gonna be building a car wash over there where Fred’s house used to stand. Too bad. Used to be kids and music there all the time. Now, a car wash.” She shrugged, surrendering to the inevitability of progress.

“Then maybe you can tell me…” I’d made a copy of the picture of Monsieur-younger and thinner even than he had been on Bill Boxley’s license-from Fred Gardner’s license. I pulled it out of the file folder next to the plate where my burger and fries were getting cold and held it up for MaryAnn to see. “Is this Fred Gardner?”

She took the picture out of my hands and looked at it closely. “No way!” She’d already made a move to hand the picture back to me when she took another look. “But you know, it looks like…” She turned the picture this way and that, her eyes narrowed.

“I’ve lived around here for a long, long time,” she finally said. “That picture there… that looks like an older version of one of the boys I went to school with. He sat next to me in Mr. Gardner’s music class one year…” A lightbulb went on inside her head. I could see the glow of it in her eyes.