Death on a Silver Platter Read Free Page B

review. Her face was well known by restaurateurs in the Twin Cities, so camouflage was the only way she could get a sense of what the average diner would encounter. Tonight’s disguise would have to be better than usual because the owner and executive chef at Chez Sophia was, to put it politely, an old and intimate friend.
    “Come in,” she called, switching off the computer and standing up.
    Ben Greenberg, her maintenance foreman, entered carrying a box. As he stepped closer, she saw that it was made of metal, maybe eight inches wide by a foot long, and a good six inches deep. He set it down on her desk, then removed his cap.
    “What’s this?” she asked, fingering a rusted padlock that hung from the front.
    “One of the plumbers found it in the storage room in the subbasement. It’s got a name stamped on the side there. Eli Salmela. And the date, 1923.” He pointed. “It was on the floor, pushed as far back as it could go under one of the shelves. It looks watertight, but it’s old. I thought you might want to take a look at it—whatever it is.”
    “Eli Salmela,” she whispered, touching the top of the box. Eli Salmela was her mother’s uncle. He’d been dead for over forty years. What on earth was a box belonging to him doing in the subbasement of the Maxfield Plaza? “How’s the repair coming on the pipe?”
    “We’re still working on it. I’m afraid we lost a lot of paper products. Actually, I need to get back down there.”
    “Thanks, Ben. I’ll take care of the box.”
    “No problem.”
    If she’d had more time, she would have pried off the lock to see what was inside, but she had to hustle upstairs to her apartment and don her disguise. A restaurant critic’s job was a dirty one, etcetera, etcetera.
    The box would have to wait.

2
    In a specially made Lords of London suit and vest, Sophie stood next to the reception desk at Chez Sophia, waiting for the maître d’ to find the table assignment. Because she was a shrimp—a little over five feet tall—she liked to wear three-inch heels when she dressed as herself. When she was disguised as a man, as she was tonight, her lift shoes—cordovan leather wing tips—gave her added height. A dark brown wig covered her short strawberry blond hair. The addition of a beard lent her male persona a bit of class. Sophie felt she made a rather attractive man, albeit a short one. With an equally short female date on her arm, she might have pulled off the ruse, but standing next to the tall, elegant Elaine Veelund, Sophie felt like a dumpy fraud. Not the best way to start the evening.
    “If you’ll follow me?” said the maître d’. He’d been stealing glances at Sophie ever since she and Elaine had walked in. He probably figured Lords of London didn’t do size eight.
    Sophie had a round, suitably curvaceous figure, one that tended to overweight, but with a little help from some special undergarments and a good tailor, she hid it all under the jacket. The beard covered her smooth facial skin. It was her hands that were the dead giveaway. At times like this, she tended to keep them in her pockets. She felt the stance was both casual and sophisticated. Except Elaine wasn’t buying it any more than the maître d’ was. Both of them had amused little Mona Lisa smiles on their faces as they walked across the crowded room to the table.
    Chez Sophia, the creation of the eminent chef Nathan Buckridge, hadn’t been reviewed since it opened in June. Sophie had been putting it off, which wasn’t very professional of her. She could have made sure the restaurant was covered in a more timely fashion by passing the review on—if not to her son then to a guest reviewer. But that seemed like cowardice and Sophie wasn’t a coward. The truth was, she dreaded the dinner at Chez Sophia, but she was also curious. Just because Nathan Buckridge wanted her to divorce her husband and marry him didn’t seem like a good enough reason to ignore his new establishment. But