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Christie narrowed her eyes. “Don’t take this wrong, chef, but what is it you want?”
“Christie,” cried Lori. “The man is being nice to us, treating us to what sounds like a lovely meal, and I love Malbec wine…”
“And has us in a back room where he can talk to us in private,” finished Fiona, biting into a fritter. “Jess is right. These are delicious.”
Christie and Lori took bites and agreed.
The chef chuckled. “I’m glad you like them, and I should have known better than to think I could sneak up on this. The fact is, ladies, I bought this building. One of the reasons is because of the local legends surrounding it. When we were doing the major renovations, we found all kinds of nooks and crannies that weren’t on the original blueprints. Some of them were in the basement; I’m pretty sure they smuggled booze through here and this was one of their hiding places.”
“There have always been rumors about the smuggling.”
“Just recently, I discovered another anomaly in the prints, only this one doesn’t have any kind of door. It’s bricked over…”
“In other words, nobody wanted to open it up,” offered Fiona, taking another fritter.
“How do you know that?” asked Lori, dipping the fritter in the whole-grain mustard and honey sauce that accompanied them.
“If you planned to open it, there would be some kind of door,” answered Christie.
“Do you know how deep it is?”
“Not very. Maybe three feet? Four at most. Probably five feet wide, and about six feet tall,” said the chef. “I was hoping before you leave, you might take a look at the place.”
“You seem concerned,” said Jessica.
“Jess is right. What is it that bothers you?” asked Fiona.
“He’s worried there’s a body,” said Christie.
“Is that it?” asked Lori.
The chef looked a little bit shamefaced. “I’m afraid so. I thought the stories about gangsters and smugglers were exciting, but the reality is that there may be somebody bricked up in there. But I don’t want to call the police in case I’m just overreacting. Would you mind taking a look?”
“Not at all,” said Fiona. “And you don’t need to buy us lunch.”
“It really is a pleasure. I meant what I said. I am a big fan of all of you.”
“Chef Stuart,” said Fiona, “we’ve finished the fritters. How about we go see the place that was bricked up?”
“Would you mind very much? If you ladies think I’m being silly…”
“Not at all,” said Christie. “We’re all mystery writers, and I’m an ex-cop. This is right up our alley.”
“Maybe this will be our cold case. I don’t think the local cops will have a lot of interest, and we do have friends with the Major Crime Unit,” said Fiona. Jessica had just gotten engaged to one of the detectives on the unit.
Jessica grinned as she stood up. “He does find it amusing that you all now consider him a personal resource for criminal procedures, and Kenny is having so much fun answering forensic questions.”
“Kenny is the best resource—no insult to Thorn,” said Lori.
“Well, ladies,” said Christie, “let’s go see Chef Stuart’s body, or at least the place he thinks may have been used to hide one.”
They followed the chef back through the kitchen and his office and into what had obviously been a place used to keep different kinds of booze. There were now temperature-controlled coolers for various wines, ales, beers, and the like. Towards the rear of the back room made of exposed brick was an arch that seemed to have been filled in until the bricks reached nearly to the very top.
“At first, I just thought it was a design feature,” said Stuart. “I didn’t think much of it. Then I realized the discrepancy in the blueprints, and it’s pushed forward from either side. So, I thought if I opened it up, we could get some more storage back here.”
“So, what stopped you from just ripping into it?” asked Fiona.
“I did use a drill to start a hole. I used a flashlight to peek in and I thought I spotted a kind of shroud. It looked to be dirty canvas, but it was closed up at the top, and I thought I could also see plastic under that.”
