A Dinner to Die For Read Free Page A

country’s heard him on ‘Good Morning Whatever.’ I read an article about him and Paradise and the Gourmet Ghetto on the plane. His picture was on the first page. He looked amused.”
    “Well, he won’t again. Body’s still in the restaurant. Grayson’s out there supervising the scene. He’s got a couple of patrols bringing some of the witnesses in. I’ll handle things here. You check out the scene.” He sounded tired, not just one A.M. sleepy; his was the weariness of one who had long abandoned hope of refreshing sleep. He would be up all night tonight, but he wouldn’t catch up on his sleep over the weekend; he’d just sink down a notch toward lassitude. Many cops retire before they reach Inspector Doyle’s age. There are no desk jobs in Homicide Detail; being an inspector just means carrying your share and supervising. Why Doyle stayed on was a question batted around the squad room. It was one that none of us were about to ask. “Smith,” he said, pausing as if to reconsider.
    “Yes?”
    “Mitchell Biekma got a lot of publicity in the last year. He’ll get even more now. Every newspaper’s got his picture in their morgue, all the TV news crews have film on him and his garden. They’ll jump at the chance to pull it out and rerun it. This case is going to be a bonanza for them. You hear what I’m saying? Everyone in Berkeley, no, not just Berkeley, everyone in the Bay Area is going to have his eyes on you. It’s a situation we can look very good in, Smith, or very bad. If Eggs and Jackson weren’t snowed under. … You sure you’re up to this?”
    Was I? I had assumed I would ease back to work through a few days of paperwork; I hadn’t planned on starting with a murder. Maybe I wasn’t ready; maybe I did need some time.
    “Smith?”
    The inspector hadn’t wanted a woman in Homicide; but when I had handled a few murders he had changed his opinion. I wasn’t about to give him reason to change back. “I can handle it, Inspector! How much help can you get me?” There had been a time when beat officers did all the legwork for any case on their beat, be it shoplifting or murder. That was before the reorganization, before the staff cuts. Now homicide detectives did their own legwork, and getting a patrol officer assigned to assist was like winning the lottery. “How about Pereira and Murakawa? Or Parker?” I suggested without much hope.
    “I’m ahead of you, Smith. You can have Pereira in the morning. Murakawa’s already there and Parker’s on his way.”
    That, more than anything he had said, underlined the importance of this case. And his hesitations about giving it to me. “What about the particulars?”
    “Not much yet. The wife called an ambulance. But Biekma was DOA. Body’s still at the restaurant. Grayson will fill you in on the rest.”
    I hung up, took a shower (spigots on two walls) that was closer to a baptism, pulled out a pair of too-wrinkled, too-thin-for-this-weather brown cotton pants from a suitcase (my Berkeley clothes were still stored at Howard’s), and put on the beige turtleneck and tweed jacket I’d worn on the plane. I penciled eyeliner under my gray-green eyes, ran a comb through my hair, plucked two errant long brown hairs off my sweater, and headed out.
    The fog was thick enough for the wipers. I sat, letting the Volkswagen engine warm, staring at the wet windshield, fog-streaked like the helicopter’s, and seeing Mitch Biekma as he had been pictured in the airplane magazine—tall, with that spiked strawberry-blond hair and that amused grin. My stomach churned. I swallowed hard, but that didn’t help. There was a line of sweat at my forehead.
    Damn! How long was this absurd fear going to control me?
    I turned on the ignition and backed the Bug out of the driveway, slamming on the brakes inches from a dark car across the street. “Two blocks to Cedar and then down,” I muttered as I shifted into first and headed more slowly toward Cedar. Cedar was steep, but