me to answer that?”
“No.” I rolled my eyes, glanced at the clock. “Listen, I better get dressed and get out of here. I want to shower and change back at the Blend. Then I have to go up to Joy’s apartment, pick up some of her clothes and personal items. She should be out of jail today, and she’ll be coming back to the Blend to stay with Matt and me until her trial. Even if the judge doesn’t put her under house arrest, I’m guessing she’ll just want to crash with us for the moral support.”
“I’ll go with you,” Mike said, rising from the table. “You can use the help carrying her stuff, right?”
“I’d love you to help me. But don’t you have to go in to work?”
“I do. But there’s no hurry.” He shrugged. “The ME’s office won’t get back to us for a few more hours, and it’s not like I have to rush in to interrogate Benedetto. The only investigator getting info from that scumbag now is the doc who’s performing his autopsy.”
TWENTY-SIX
“WHERE are we going, exactly?” Mike asked.
“Tenth Street and fifty-second.”
“Hell’s Kitchen?”
I nodded. “Joy moved into the two-bedroom about six months ago. It’s not too far from Restaurant Row—a prime location for two aspiring chefs.”
Mike laughed. “Two chefs living in Hell’s Kitchen. Funny.”
“Believe me, the irony was not lost on Joy’s roommate. Yvette’s family owns the Ice Castle ice cream franchise, and they subsidize her lifestyle here in New York and in Paris, where she’s interning now.”
Outside, the sun was bright, and the air was crisp but thankfully not too cold. It was Monday morning rush hour pretty much everywhere on Manhattan Island, but once we were in the car, the trip wasn’t too heinous, owing to the fact that Mike seemed to know exactly how to get around most traffic snarls. The man had skills. And apparently a penchant for conjuring parking spaces because, miraculously, we found a spot right in front of Joy’s building.
I paused in the large lobby to pick up my daughter’s mail, which had piled up in her box since Friday. I noticed a large envelope in the mix. The return address was Solange. A rubber-stamped note indicated the missive was hand-delivered by messenger service this morning. I tore into the envelope and found an invitation inside.
Mike peered over my shoulder. “What’s it say?”
“‘Dear employee or vendor of Solange,’” I read. “‘You are cordially invited to a memorial dinner to celebrate the life and legacy of Chef Thomas Keitel. A four-course meal will be prepared by Chef Robbie Gray and his staff. As part of this celebration, hosts Faye Murray Keitel and Anton Wright will make an exciting announcement concerning the bright new future of Solange, New York, and its sister restaurants.’”
“Sister restaurants?” Mike said.
“There are no sister restaurants. And since when has Solange been called Solange, New York?” I faced Mike. “This is it! “This is why Tommy Keitel was murdered! Anton Wright and Faye Keitel are going to franchise Solange. That must have been their plan all along—”
“Whoa, Clare. Slow down.”
But I was too pumped to slow down. “Don’t you see, Mike? Wright spent millions opening three restaurants, but Solange was his only success. Naturally he’d want to capitalize on it. He probably told Chef Keitel his plan, and Tommy went ballistic. He wasn’t interested in French cuisine anymore. Tommy wanted out. He wanted to move to Russia. He just wanted to be free again.”
“But other chefs can cook Keitel’s dishes, right? Why did Anton even need Keitel?”
“They’re signature dishes. According to Tommy’s contract, he owned all of Solange’s recipes, not Anton.”
“Why couldn’t Anton buy them?”
“Because Tommy was too much of an egomaniac to sell! Billy Benedetto told me that Tommy refused to sell him the Italian recipes he’d invented for his eatery, even though Chef Keitel never used them again.” I shook my head. “If Tommy wasn’t attached to a restaurant any longer, he simply didn’t want them serving his dishes. Period.”
I waved the invitation in Mike’s face. “Don’t you see? Anton wanted to expand, Tommy didn’t, so Anton murdered him, then made a deal with Faye Keitel to use Tommy’s name and recipes for his franchise.”
“You could be right, Clare, but you don’t have any proof—”
“I have a theory! That’s more than I had an hour ago. Now I have to get the proof.”
“You have to build a case. Which means you’ll have to go to this memorial dinner, for starters. When does it take place?”
“Tonight