Lou Jane Temple - Death By Rhubarb: When Her Ex-Husbands New Girlfriend Is Served A Deadly Dinner, A Dishy Chef Turns Sleuth To Save Her Restaurant.

DEATH BY RHUBARB

LOU JANE TEMPLE

Heaven Lee sighed and wiped the sweat off her brow. It was the beginning of the evening but she was hot and out of sorts already. Early May had brought a heat wave to Kansas City. The kitchen was steaming.

An exhaust hood over one stove had broken today, the dishwashing machine had gone berserk, spraying hot, soapy water everywhere and a bartender had called from jail wanting bail money. In other words, a typical Monday in the life of any restaurant. Unfortunately, all these crises were hers to solve. This was Cafe Heaven, her very own problem child.

Heaven peered out the small pass-through window where later she would push plates of risotto and lamb shanks and spicy hacked chicken to harried waiters. Monday night was busy at Cafe Heaven mainly because it was the night of the open mike. Poets, actors and musicians tried out their latest scene or song on Monday nights. Their friends rambled in to cheer or jeer, but that was three hours from now. As Heaven squinted into the dim dining room, she saw only four tables occupied.

Table One, a six-top near the window was filled with darling blue-haired ladies who lived in the neighborhood. They liked to eat early before, as they put it all the crazies came out. Tonight they were sharing three Blue Heaven salads, and a double macaroni and cheese.

Blue Heaven Salad

1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese

1/2 cup pecan halves fried lightly in olive oil

1/2 cup blueberries

Wash, drain and break apart the lettuce. Be sure to use the tiny butter colored leaves in the middle. Top with remaining ingredients and serve with raspberry dressing.

Raspberry Dressing

1/2 cup raspberries, fresh or frozen whole

1/2 cup raspberry vinegar

1/2 cup honey

Place berries, vinegar and honey in the food processor. Turn on and slowly add olive oil. The dressing will be slightly thick.

Table Seven, a romantic deuce near the wall, had been the ongoing rendezvous spot for a married surgeon from the nearby Medical Center. The newest member of his surgery team, a nurse with red hair and freckles was his current prey. They smooched over martinis before the doc went home to his wife and big house in Leawood, Kansas.

Heaven liked redheads, and she felt a pang of sisterly concern for this pretty young thing. Even though technically she hadnt been born one, Heaven had adopted red hair as her own so long ago she was almost surprised when her roots started to show.

Table Nineteen housed four artists from Hallmark, the giant greeting card company. They were sharing a bottle of Brown Brothers Family Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from Australia and some duck burritos, another house specialty. Hallmark artists liked to take meetings at Cafe Heaven because of the butcher paper on top of the tablecloths and the markers Heaven provided.

Heaven didnt like the crayons that most bistros supplied for tabletop art. The markers made much cleaner lines. They also cost a lot more, another reason she was always in the hole.

Table Twenty-four was hard to see from the kitchen but as she craned her neck to the left, a familiar face came into focus. It was Sandy Martin, her first ex-husband. He was with a woman Heaven had never seen before, a striking, dark, exotic-looking woman. The couple seemed very cozy, whoever she was. They were sharing a plate of risotto and a lamb shank and sitting close. The woman was feeding Sandy Martin risotto, and he, at least, had the sense to be blushing.

Bastard! Heaven thought. He just loves to show them off to me. As if I care after all these years. Shed deal with them later.

At the bar, a figure dressed all in camouflage was moodily nursing a scotch on the rocks. It was Jumpin Jack, a neighborhood character still reliving his own private Vietnam nightmare, a condition made worse by the fact that Jack had never been to Vietnam. Heaven was moved by something as she gazed at Jacks familiar back, was it empathy, guilt, a longing for the way things used to be? In the early seventies Jack had been a gifted painter, the darling student of the Kansas City Art Institute. Heaven and he had known each other then. Either the drugs or the turpentine fumes or both had changed Jack. Reality left and paranoia came to visit. And stayed.

Three stools down a well-dressed couple was drinking champagne and whispering to the bartender.

Sam, come here! Heaven called a waiter to the window. Sam was the son of a friend of hers and was just like a son to her. He had grown from a gangly boy to a handsome young man right in the restaurant. He had just turned twenty-one, was topping out at six feet two with blond hair and blue eyes to die for. All the girls had crushes on him. A lot of the men did too.

Sam, slip up beside Tony and tell him that if hes making a drug deal with those scumbags Ill throw him back to the cops I just rescued him from. Those two are bad news. They havent seen daylight for months. They stay up all night and sleep all day, just like fucking vampires.

But, Sam, be cool. Dont let them hear you. And tell him Im not buying their glasses of Vueve Clicquot just so he can get a free line of cocaine later.

Okay, eagle eyes. Sam grinned and headed toward the bar.

Hey, Katy, come and say hello. It was Sandy, holding up his wineglass in a mocking salute and waving at her as she peeked out the pass-through.

Heavens real name was Katherine OMalley Martin McGuinne Wolff Steinberg Kelley. She had taken Heaven Lee as her stage name during a brief stint as a stripper in the early seventies, and the name had somehow stuck. Just like the red hair. Sandy liked to remind her he knew her when her name was Katy and her hair was mousy brown. What a guy.

As Heaven steeled herself for meeting the new girlfriend, a flurry of activity bought her a little time. Joe Long and Chris Snyder, waiters at Cafe Heaven, artists and actors, and the two responsible for putting together the Monday night shows had just arrived.

Chris was decked out as Barbara Bush while Joe had on an early presidential years Hillary Clinton outfit, complete with blond pageboy wig and head-band. They were going to do their piece on the Peaceful Transference of Power tonight. It was dated, but it was a crowd favorite.

Hot on their heels was a group of four women with determined looks on their faces and baskets of clear plastic-wrapped fudge squares in their hands. They were the 39th Street League of Decency Fudge Patrol; moral guardians who normally held vigils down the street in front of the nude dancing juice bar, serving potential customers fudge to stave off their other, hungers.

Heaven could only assume that a flyer for tonights show had fallen into the wrong hands, and the photo of the boys dressed as girls had given the League ladies a new project.

Last but not least, in marched Jason Kelley, Heavens most recent ex-husband. All of a sudden, the restaurant seemed very small. Heaven headed for the back alley to smoke.

Angel Rodriquez peered through the blinds of his darkened second-story office down at Thirty-ninth Street.

A main, midtown, east-west artery, Thirty-ninth Street had suffered the victories and defeats of Kansas City in general. Like retired great boxer Muhammad All, Thirty-ninth Street showed that it had taken some punches, sometimes seemed confused, but still had its dignity intact.

Angel looked across the street at the string of businesses that revealed the mix of seedy trendiness that was midtown Kansas City. On one corner a dry cleaner had survived the ups and downs of the street for twenty years. Next to it, a vintage clothing store had just opened. Then came a biker bar, a leftover from the early 1980s when Thirty-ninth Street was neglected and overlooked by the city fathers, left to sink or rise to its own level. Nestled next to the biker bar was a hip fifties collectables shop; next to it a Laundromat, then a shop dedicated to selling cat stuff, things for and about cats, and things for cat lovers like cat earrings and socks. The strip was crowned by Cafe Heaven on the corner.