Beat Until Stiff Read online

  No matter how tired I am, I love entering the kitchen first thing in the morning before anybody else comes in. All the mean and nasty thoughts I’d had about lashing Thom’s and Mrs. Gerson’s bodies to Coit Tower and letting seagulls feast on their remains vanished.

  Everything’s dead quiet, the gleaming stainless steel tables polished and pristine, stovetop black, pots and pans hanging in their proper places, tile swept and mopped. In spite of the air of desertion and regimental order, there’s a sense of expectancy. The soft chortle of boiling water hovers, the hint of vegetables hitting a hot sauté pan teases, the whack of knives on the chopping block waits. It’s a wonderful tension of suspended sounds, sounds that in three hours would approach cacophony, but in the early morning light are waiting for the orchestra to begin. I feel as if I’m the only one in the theater and the orchestra is waiting to play the culinary version of the 1812 Overture.

  I threw my knife roll on a stainless steel table, made coffee, and went to the laundry closet in the back to get a chef’s jacket and apron. Thursday is laundry delivery day and bags bursting with dirty laundry were piled all over the floor waiting to be picked up later that morning. God, the stench was terrible.

  What in the hell had the janitors been cleaning up?

  It smelled, well, fecal.

  Breathing through my mouth to avoid the smell, I stepped on the laundry bags to reach the chef’s jackets hanging up along the wall. No jacket in my size. Pulling on a size forty-four that hung on me like a shroud, I rolled up the sleeves and looked around for an apron; the only clean ones left were stacked on a high shelf above the jackets. I’m five foot nine, and I still couldn’t reach them. Grabbing the wooden bar that held the jackets, I planted my foot on a laundry bag propped up against the wall and began to hoist myself up.

  I stopped in my tracks.

  Dirty laundry is spongy and gives when you step on it. This bag felt hard. Somebody probably put a few hams in there and planned on discreetly hauling them out the door with the rest of the laundry pick-up. How sneaky.

  I knelt down to see what was inside. I held my breath; the stench emanating from the bag was rank enough to wilt lettuce.

  The bag was closed tightly and elaborately knotted. Running back into the kitchen, I extracted a big chef’s knife from my knife roll. Before entering the laundry closet I took a big gulp of fresh air and using the knife, sliced neatly through the knot. Placing my knife on the floor, I pulled open the bag with both hands. On top were a couple of kitchen towels that I quickly threw aside.

  A human head filled the top of the bag.

  I fought to keep my breakfast down while my mind spun round and round, trying to invent a rational explanation for why someone would be crunched up in a laundry bag.

  I got down on my knees and slowly eased down the sides of the bag.

  A small male Latino sat neatly folded into a cube inside the laundry bag, legs pinning his arms to his body in a compact vee, chin resting on his knees. An apron encircled his neck like a muffler. The apron strings had been wrapped around and around and then pulled tight, strangling him. I touched a shoulder. Hard as metal, cold as ice. His face, puffy and black with bruises, was unrecognizable. Except for one thing.

  I’d know that haircut anywhere. Last week he’d come into work grinning from ear to ear with his black hair buzzed and streaked with blond stripes so that his head resembled a tiger. But he was proudest of a different part.

  I knew what I would find, but I had to look. Razor-etched in the buzz cut across the back of his head was his name.

  Perez.

  I threw up my breakfast.

  Once my stomach stopped heaving, I locked myself in the bathroom. First, I wanted to make sure that whoever killed Carlos Perez had left, and second I was debating whether or not to call my ex-husband, Jim.

  Jim’s a cop, a homicide inspector with S.F.P.D.

  I wasn’t sure whether the nasty cramps in my stomach were related to the retching or the thought that my ex-husband might be investigating this murder. Jim would be on my turf, my one haven where I could banish any thoughts of him with mind-numbing labor. My reaction to the divorce had been bitter and angry, something I’d refused to analyze in any depth despite months of therapy.

  Common sense told me that it would be a plus to have Jim assigned to the case. It might save me from hassles later on. As I listened for any sounds that might be the noises of the killer roaming around the kitchen, I did some mental volleyball: “Do I call him?” “Should I call 911?”

  After some minutes of silence, punctuated by ugly flashes of Carlos folded up like a bloody chicken, I made a decision. I’d call 911. I’d probably have to sign a statement and that would be the end of it. There were lots of homicide cops in S.F.P.D.; the likelihood of Jim being assigned to the case was nil.

  I washed my face a dozen times and used my finger to brush my teeth with bacterial soap. I eased the bathroom lock open and stuck my head through the door opening.

  Silence.

  I slunk along the corridors of the restaurant, my ears on high alert for any sounds other than my own shallow panting.

  When I was sure I was alone, I sprinted across the dining room and called 911 from the reservation line. The phone kept slipping from my sweaty palm. It took me five attempts before I was able to punch in 911 and another five attempts to speak coherently. After the dispatcher ascertained I wasn’t hurt and that the murderer wasn’t on the premises, she told me to open the doors and wait for the beat cops.

  I followed her instructions to the letter; I opened wide the front doors to the restaurant for a possible escape route, then ran to a banquette the farthest distance possible from Carlos’ battered body, and waited for the beat cops to arrive. I brought my knees up to my forehead and cried, shivering like a bowl of Jell-O during an earthquake.

  When O’Connor entered the restaurant my stomach did a threatening flip-flop.

  I was sitting in the banquette, packing and unpacking my knife roll, realigning the knives, small to big, taking them out again, sharpening them on the steel, putting them back into their slots big to small, over and over again.

  O’Connor was Jim’s partner.

  My face was still wet from tears, and I had streaks on my arms from where I’d wiped my nose. Seeing O’Connor staring at me across the room with a glare he usually reserves for murderers, I stopped dead just as I was about to scrape my cleaver against the steel. If Jim walked through that door, I’d slice my wrists.

  To my great surprise and relief, however, another detective named Chang followed in O’Connor’s wake. The two of them stood there for about five minutes, conferring with the beat cops. I saw O’Connor gesture with his head toward me and then hike a thumb in the direction of the laundry closet. Chang went into the kitchen and O’Connor came over to where I was sitting.

  With a brief glance, he slid into the booth. S.F.P.D. must have gotten some decent funding because O’Connor began setting up a laptop.

  Without looking up he began firing questions at me.

  “So, the dispatcher says you knew the victim. Who was it?”

  His large hands poised over the tiny keyboard keys looked cartoonish. O’Connor’s laptop made sharp clicking sounds in beat with the crisp tone in his voice.

  I slid the cleaver into its sleeve and rolled up the knife roll. “Hello, O’Connor. Nice to see you, too,” I said, dragging out the last “o.”

  O’Connor stopped typing and flicked a glance at me as if to say, you know the game, you can do better than that.

  “Yeah, he worked at the restaurant,” I mumbled to the tabletop. The reality of my co-worker’s murder nearly robbed me of speech. I grabbed my knife roll off the table and clutched it to my chest, seeking comfort, like a child clutching its favorite blanket. I closed my eyes.

  O’Connor’s fingers grazed the fabric of my chef’s jacket and I felt a gentle shake of my shoulder.

  “Come on, Ryan, wh
at do you mean? A lot of people work here. Did he work directly under you? What’s the story?”

  “His name is…” Carlos’ face, beaten beyond recognition, his name etched into the back of his head, flashed in my mind and the tears started rolling again. “O’Connor, I’ve just discovered an employee of mine beaten to a pulp and strangled with an apron. Cut me some slack. Please.”

  I turned sideways in the booth and curled up in a fetal position with my arms over my head to escape his questions, hoping this was a grisly nightmare, the outcome of too many fourteen-hour days.

  I didn’t notice he’d left until I heard the loud wheeze of the banquette as he sat down. I looked at him through the aperture of my armpit. O’Connor pointed to a water glass filled with brandy.

  “Drink it,” he ordered.

  “You’re n…not supposed to g…g…give alcohol to people in shock,” I sobbed.

  “You’re not in shock, you’re on a crying jag. I’m going to check out that laundry closet. When I come back, I want to find that glass empty. Then we talk.” He marched in the direction of the laundry closet, leaving a wake of heel marks on our highly polished wood floor.

  What O’Connor lacked in height he made up for in breadth. His broad shoulders, beefy arms, and stocky legs screamed Irish farmer. There are generally two types of Irish, the red-haired, blue-eyed variety, and the Black Irish, the reputed descendants of Spanish soldiers marooned on the Irish coast after the British defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. O’Connor is Black Irish. Although the Irish generally don’t spoil a good story by telling the truth, he certainly was swarthy enough to be the descendant of some Spanish sailor—dark eyes, black unruly hair, and an olive cast to his skin.

  The liquor was a stupid idea and I knew I’d pay for it later. I’d had five hours’ sleep the night before, discovered a dead body, and just thrown up my breakfast. But O’Connor had been right. The sugar content of the brandy broke the crying fit.

  By the time O’Connor came back I’d finished my drink and felt relatively calm. He carried a tray with a coffee pot on it and a couple of cups. Putting the tray down on the table, he filled the cups and handed me one.

  “Here. Drink some coffee or you’re going to get plastered from all that booze.”

  I hated myself but I had to ask. “Where’s Jim? Why isn’t he here?”

  O’Connor slid back into the booth and began fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers on the table. When he finally answered his voice was curt. “He transferred to Internal Affairs. His new wife didn’t like him working homicide.”

  His big hand caressed his jaw like he had a toothache. Looking at me, his hand stopped suddenly and fell limp on the table. “Christ, Mary, you look like hell.”

  O’Connor and I hadn’t seen each other in almost a year. Catching my reflection in the mirror above the bar, I saw a woman with angry green eyes glaring back at me. Attractively slender had morphed into haggard and gaunt. In an act of pure self-destruction, I’d gone to one of those haircuts-for-ten-bucks places and ordered them to chop off all of my hair. It looked like someone cut it with poultry shears. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn makeup.

  “I discovered a body. Lighten up,” I said.

  “This has nothing to do with that body back there, Ryan. You’ve lost at least twenty pounds. What in God’s name did you do to your hair?” he demanded.

  I looked in the mirror again and turned away. “It’s been rough,” I mumbled.

  We sat there for a few seconds in silence. O’Connor poised his hands over his laptop. “We’ll talk about you and Jim later. Let’s start over. Are you ready to tell me what happened?”

  Grabbing the coffee cup with both hands, I took a few tiny sips and began with brandy-inspired bravado. “You know this time of year is sheer hell. The restaurant has been closed for a couple of days for this bitch of a charity function tonight. I came in early to finish up the desserts.”

  Beginning with the simultaneous openings of both the symphony and the opera in the second week of September—known in the vernacular as “hell week”—the San Francisco social whirl continues at a frantic pace until after the New Year. Pre-symphony gigs, post-opera wing-dings, charity whatsits, most of which demanded show-stopping desserts. For me this meant working a slew of twelve- to fourteen-hour days. I went to work in the dark, came home in the dark, went back to work in the dark, an endless cycle. I literally never saw the sun. That was how it was going to be until after January 1st.

  “What time did you arrive?”

  “About six.”

  “Anyone else here?” he asked.

  “No, I was alone. I went into the laundry closet to get a chef’s jacket and an apron. I stepped on a bag of towels on the floor…” I stopped, realizing I’d been standing on a corpse. I bit my lip in an effort not to break down. “It…it didn’t feel like towels,” I said lamely. “I thought somebody had stolen something and concealed it in the bag. I couldn’t undo the knot, so I got a knife and cut the string. There were a couple of kitchen towels on top—”

  My bravado deserted me and I started crying again. My hands began shaking so badly that hot coffee spilled over the sides and burned my fingers.

  O’Connor took the coffee cup away from me and let me weep for a few minutes. Then he pulled a large white handkerchief out of his shirt pocket and handed it to me.

  “Here, wipe your eyes and blow your nose,” he ordered. “Then describe the laundry bag, where it was, and the position of the body.”

  I cleaned myself up, took several deep breaths, and recited mechanically, “The bag was against the far wall. I pulled down the sides of the bag and…found him. His face was bruised and distorted. Bad bruises, like someone had beaten him with a frying pan. The laces of the apron had been wrapped around his neck a few times and then pulled real tight. When I realized what had happened, I…I…threw up my breakfast all over the laundry closet, then somehow got it together to call 911.”

  “Okay, so that’s your knife on the floor and you used it to open the laundry bag, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Anything else?” he demanded.

  “That’s it,” I whispered. I picked up the coffee cup again, clutching it with both hands.

  “The dispatcher said you knew the victim. Did you look in his pockets for some I.D.?” The soft clicking of the computer keys was getting on my nerves.

  “I didn’t need to look for I.D. I knew who it was.”

  O’Connor stopped typing. He looked at me askance. “I saw the body, Ryan. His own mother wouldn’t recognize him.”

  I remembered the name cut into the hair. “It was Carlos Perez, one of my pastry assistants. His name’s etched with a razor into the back of his head.”

  Carlos was a chubby young man who, along with his brother Gilberto, had fled El Salvador to escape the war. Carlos always sang and joked his way through his shift, despite working two jobs to support his family. Carlos and Gilberto had worked with me previously at a couple of restaurants as dishwashers. When American Fare opened, he had been promoted to the pastry staff based largely on his willingness to do any job with a big grin on his face. Peel two cases of apples. Sure, no problema, Señora. Pit cherries for three hours. I’ll do it right now.

  I had liked Carlos very much.

  O’Connor scrolled up and down a few times. “Give me a rough time line.”

  Should I tell him about locking myself in the bathroom? It was perfectly legitimate to hide from the killer. I’d leave the part out about debating Jim’s involvement. The issue was moot.

  “I got here about six, made coffee, discovered the body, and then locked myself in the bathroom for awhile,” I said.

  The typing stopped. “Locked yourself in the bathroom?” The tiniest smile hinted on his lips. “For how long and why?”

  “Get that look off your face, O’Connor,” I huffed. “How was I to know if the killer was or wasn’t in the restaurant? If you�
�d just found a co-worker beaten to death, you’d have hightailed it to the bathroom, too.”

  O’Connor wiped the smirk off his face. “So how long?”

  I thought back to how long I’d perched on the toilet making sure my feet didn’t show. As if that would stop someone from beating me to death with a sauté pan. “I’d guess about fifteen minutes. It’s hard to estimate time when you’re nearly pissing in your underwear with terror.”

  The smile came back.

  “Fair enough, Ryan.” He scanned back a couple of pages and frowned. “Why were these bags all over the floor?”

  “We go through tons of laundry. There’s no place else to put it. It piles up until the laundry is picked up. Today’s delivery day.”

  “So why did you step on the bag?”

  My palms started to sweat again. It was hard to hold my coffee cup. The booze was seeping into my system, but instead of becoming drunk, I felt like I was coming down with an instant case of the flu. “I couldn’t reach the aprons, they were too high up.”

  “Think. Anything about the room strike you?”

  “The smell,” I said flatly. “It smelled like shit.”

  “Yeah, that happens sometimes. The body lets loose when you die. What door did you come in, front or back? Was the lock forced?”