Лори Касс - Wrong Side Of The Paw

“It’s early to be so cranky, isn’t it?” I asked. “How could so much have gone wrong when it’s barely noon?”

“You want a list?”

No, not really. “Would a gossipy question from me irritate you or make you feel better?”

She laughed. My best friend was nothing if not mercurial. “Depends on who you’re asking the question about.”

“Dale Lacombe.”

“Hmm. Hang on.” She covered the phone—pointlessly, since I could still hear everything—and bellowed, “Misty! Harve! If we can’t get that salmon, we’re going to have to come up with something else. Start thinking.”

I winced, glad I wasn’t Misty, her head chef, or Harvey, her sous chef. Of course, I was also glad I wasn’t Kristen, either, since if a “Least Likely to Own a Restaurant” Award existed, I would win it every year. But Kristen, in spite of her regular shouting sprees, also had an incredibly loyal and dedicated staff. I was starting to suspect her staff found a bizarre enjoyment in her hissy fits.

“Okay, I’m back,” Kristen said. “What about Dale Lacombe?”

“Tell me more about him.”

“Hmm.”

“What do you mean, hmm?”

“It means methinks you’re getting involved, once again, in something you don’t need to get involved in.”

Nothing new there. “Are you going to tell me about Leese’s dad or not?”

“Of course I am. But there’s no reason I can’t give you some grief first.”

“Don’t you have a kitchen emergency?”

“Well, sure, there’s that.” She covered the phone again. “We have four hours to come up with a new special, folks! And that includes getting the ingredients.” She came back. “Time is of the essence, so I’ll have to delay my grief giving.”

“So considerate,” I murmured.

“Yes. Anyway, like I said, Dale Lacombe was a jerk. From top to bottom, inside and out, backward and forward. Everyone I knew who worked for him hated the guy within a few weeks, and the ones who stayed with him longer than six months only did because they couldn’t find another job.”

Okay, but, “How did he manage to keep his business going if it was so hard for him to keep employees?”

“Because people are stupid,” she said. Then, before I could get on her for making sweeping statements that were statistically impossible, she added, “It helped that for about ten years his son, Brad, worked for him.”

“I didn’t know that.” None of the Lacombes had mentioned it. Was that weird? Or not?

“That’s because you didn’t live here five years ago when the you-know-what hit the fan. I wasn’t on the scene, but it’s kind of like that basketball game when Wilt Chamberlain scored all those points. More people say they saw the fight than lived in Chilson.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but somehow I knew what she meant. “So Brad and his dad didn’t get along?”

“Hello? Have you been listening? Dale was a jerk. How Brad and Mia ended up so normal with Dale for a father is beyond comprehension.”

And then there was having Carmen as a mother. But even as I had the thought, I felt ashamed. I’d met her in the days following her husband’s sudden death. Forming an opinion about someone’s character based on that time frame wasn’t fair. Or . . . was it?

I considered asking Kristen that question, but before I could, she said, “Misty just shoved me a note that she has an idea for the special. Can I go now, pretty please?”

“Sure. Thanks for the info.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll send you a bill at the end of the month. See you Sunday.” And she was gone.

Still walking, I tapped a few more buttons to call Rafe. “Are you busy?”

“Me? Are you kidding? If I wanted to be busy, I would have taken a real job.”

Why the man insisted on pretending that he didn’t work himself ragged during the school year, I did not know. “Got a quick question for you. What kind of person was Dale Lacombe?”

He made a rude noise. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I never met him.”

“The man’s dead, if you’ll remember. Why are you asking about him now?”

“Do you really want that answer?”

“Probably not. Hang on.” He covered the receiver and I heard muffled instructions to his secretary about an upcoming meeting. “Okay, I’m back.”

“If you have to go, I can call later.”

“This won’t take long,” he said. “Lacombe was an incredible jerk. People are saying the big question about his murder is why it took so long for him to get killed.”

I blinked. “That seems harsh.” And somehow, listening to Rafe be so unkind made me uncomfortable. It wasn’t like him.

“Hey, you asked. And I’m just repeating what I heard.”

After we disconnected, I made a few more quick calls, asking for people’s opinions about Dale Lacombe from Denise Slade, the president of the Friends of the Library group, to Chris Ballou, manager of the marina. The response that every single one of them gave was, “He was a jerk.”

But did it follow that being a jerk was what got him killed? Was it something else entirely? Or was it a combination of the two?

“What to my wondering eyes did appear,” I heard a familiar—and amused—voice say, “but a niece about to walk past her beloved aunt without so much as a hello.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it goes,” I said, coming to an abrupt halt, because my aunt and Otto were both standing in front of me so I couldn’t move forward without either walking around or over the top of them. “Your version doesn’t scan.”

“Give me a minute and I’ll come up with something,” she said.

Otto smiled. “We’re going to get some lunch. Would you like to join us?”

“Sure,” I said. “That will give Aunt Frances time to work on her mangling of A Visit from St. Nicholas .” I made a move in the direction of the Round Table, but they didn’t move with me. “Are you going to the deli?” I asked, turning to go across the street to Shomin’s.

“Dearest niece,” my aunt said. “You do realize there are other eating options in this town?”

Of course I did. I was a regular patron of the pizza place and the Chinese-Thai takeout, but I was pretty sure that Otto wouldn’t be interested in either of those. “There’s the bar down by the water,” I said hesitantly, “but I’m not sure . . .”

“It’s obvious that your horizons need expanding,” Aunt Frances said. “Come with us.”

Suddenly I knew what she was talking about and I was very conscious of the state of my checkbook. “If you’re talking about Angelique’s, I can’t . . . I mean, I don’t—”

“My treat,” Otto said. “Besides, since you have to get back to work, you won’t be drinking any wine, and that’s the expensive part.” He grinned, and I was reminded again what a handsome man he was, if you liked the elegant Paul Newman type.

After a short walk around the corner, we entered the new restaurant that had formerly been a boutique. Since the store had sold women’s clothing and accessories way out of my price range, I’d never set foot in the place. This meant I couldn’t compare then to now, but the current decor of mismatched antique chairs, white linen tablecloths, and fabric-covered walls hung with pastel-based landscape paintings combined to create an atmosphere of understated quiet style.

The hostess seated us at a table near the front, gave us hand-lettered menus, and departed, saying our waiter would bring us water in a moment.

“Competition for Kristen?” my aunt asked, taking in the black-painted ceiling and the wooden floor.

I shook my head. “Different niche.” I knew this because Kristen had obsessed ad infinitum about the new restaurant until I’d threatened to sneak diet soda into her glass of red wine. Only then did she grudgingly admit that a frighteningly expensive restaurant in town wouldn’t change her customer base.