Miranda Bliss - Murder on the Menu

Murder on the Menu

A Dinner Party Turned Sour

I was beginning to get the picture. Sarah wasnt home.

If I werent so thorough (some people might say anal), I never would have looked into the bathroom. It was at the end of the hal way, and I was right there. Besides, the door was closed, and I could see the glow of light from under it.

Call me crazy, but that struck me as a bit strange, considering no one was around but the dog. I knocked. Just in case. I didnt expect an answer, so I wasnt disappointed when I didnt get one. I turned the knob and walked inside.

Im not the dramatic type, so I dont think I screamed when I saw the body in the bathtub. But I guess I must have made some kind of noise. Eve and Foster came running.

Sarahs head was thrown back against the rim of the tub.

Her eyes were open and staring. Her skin looked waxy and pale. As if in some macabre, slow-motion dance, her body bobbed in the maroon-tinted water that fil ed the tub nearly to its brim.

The color struck me as odd. Until I saw the bloody knife on the floor next to the tub.

My own blood whooshed like a torrent inside my ears, but I could stil hear Foster say something about cal ing 911. And Eves scream.

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MURDER ON THE MENU

A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author Copyright 2007 by The Berkley Publishing Group.

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One

HE HAS SHIFTY EYES. AND THEYRE SET WAY TOO

close together. I read somewhere thats a sure sign of a criminal. What do you think, Annie? What do you suppose hes up to?

If I was a better/less-harried/not-so-incredibly stressed friend, I would have paid more attention to what Eve was saying. More than none, that is. As it was, I was staring at invoices from food suppliers, beverage distributors, and the janitorial service that took care of the floors and bathrooms in Bellywashers, soon to be Alexandrias best, trendiest, and (if only the culinary gods would smile on us) most successful new restaurant.

The part of my brain that wasnt taken up with being nervous about what would happen in a few minutes when we final y opened the doors for our first day of business was fil ed with numbers. Lots and lots of numbers. As quickly as they flashed through my head, I tallied them up and balanced them against how much I knew was in the restaurants checking account.

My stomach clenched. My breath caught.

We werent in red-ink territory. Not yet. But we were skirting the edges, pretty much like Bellywashers did, poised as it was on that invisible line that divided the upscale, gentrified part of Alexandria, Virginia, and the slightly seedier neighborhood farther from the Potomac River.

I tossed out an answer to Eves question, eager to appease her, because I knew that until I did, she wouldnt leave me alone. Criminal? Sure. Whatever you say.

I mean it, Annie. It didnt work. The beauty pageant Southern drawl Eve usually reserved for good-looking men and social occasions had a way of rearing its ugly head when she was miffed. Or, come to think of it, when she was under pressure, under the weather, or over the moon about anything. Im tel ing you, girl, hes up to something. And dont tel me Im imagining it.

I checked the clock hanging on the wall above my desk.

Thirty minutes and counting, and I still needed to double-check the change in the cash register. Youre imagining it.

Eve snorted her opinion. You dont even know who Im talking about.

I didnt, and I guess realizing that fact was what made me aware of how inconsiderate I was being. Harried or not, there was no excuse for that.

Im sorry. Eve was my best friend and Bellywashers one and only hostess. Wed been through a lot together, Eve and me. Good times and bad times. Middle school, high school, and now almost middle age. Any number of engagements (Eves), one disastrous marriage (mine), a divorce that wasnt as acrimonious as it was just plain awful (again, mine), and if we counted what happened the summer before at Trs Bonne Cuisine, where we went to cooking school together, a couple of murders, too.

I owed her better.

I pushed back from my desk and spun my chair around.

All right, I give up. Whos the shifty-looking one?

Shh! Not so loud. Hel hear you. Eve had been standing in the doorway of my office, and she shot inside, looking to hide. Easier said than done. As the restaurants business manager, I had the luxury of the biggest office in the place, but of course, biggest is a relative word.

The room was only ten by twelve, but thanks to the dark wood paneling that had been de rigueur back when Angus MacDonald first bought the place, it looked and felt even smal er. There was a desk jammed into one corner, and it was piled with so many papers, I could barely get to the keyboard of the computer Id brought from home. No big loss there.

The computer, it seemed, did not like the move from Arlington to Alexandria. It was fidgety and these days it liked to give me error messages and mysteriously reboot in the middle of important projects more than it did anything else.