Chapter 12 #2
“It’s not a bad one,” agreed Cleavis with a C. “When you think about it, there has to be a reason for taking out two people. Unless it’s just to ruin the business, maybe as payback for when Old Man Dave ruined somebody else’s business.”
“But as you pointed out, the old man is gone.”
“Right, but we don’t know if the remaining Burgons were carrying on with the same business practices, in which case that could have stirred up some petty unpleasantness.”
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Nan interjected, but she sounded doubtful.
Doreen smiled at her. “I’m just tossing out ideas to see if we can find anything plausible,” she murmured.
“We don’t have a whole lot of Burgons we can ask any more, but with Alice now gone, …
I guess the next question would be, who’ll take over in her place?
Was somebody pressuring them to sell out or to close the restaurant?
And what were they prepared to do in order to get it? ”
“Oh,” Nan muttered, raising her eyebrows.
Doreen shrugged. “We can surmise all we want, but it doesn’t really help us until we can get those answers.”
Nan nodded. “I see what you’re saying. I always think of a restaurant as being lots of hard work, so I don’t know why anybody would try to take it over.”
“It’s also an expression of art, an expression of love,” Doreen noted.
“If somebody has a passion for it, and you thought you had a job there, where you could really work at creating dishes, something that really appeals to you. Then say the aunt decided to sell or something. You find out that not only are you losing your job but you won’t get a piece of the pie either—since the aunt will need it for her retirement. ”
“I’ve certainly seen those things happen,” Cleavis confirmed. “I sure don’t want to think of people killing each other over it, but it is a valid point.”
“You have to look at all the reasons people kill each other,” Doreen suggested, turning to give him half a smile. “We keep coming up with all kinds of doozies, but, at the core of it all, it’s usually jealousy, revenge, or greed. In this case, it could be any of those.”
“I don’t envy you the job of looking,” Cleavis stated, with a grimace. “It seems to me to be a job for the police.”
“It absolutely is a job for the police,” she agreed. “Yet the police are pretty overworked. That’s why I lend a hand every once in a while.”
“And a mighty fine hand it is too,” Nan stated, with a chuckle.
With that, Cleavis got up to leave. Then he looked back at Doreen and suggested, “You could always contact my grandson, who runs my business now. He might have some more current insights.”
Doreen nodded. “Either you can give me his contact information or send him a message that I would be interested in talking to him.”
“Will do,” he replied, “but remember that he’s got nothing to do with anything. Keep him out of trouble. He would just be a source in terms of how the industry is working today.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “It also would help to have an understanding of how somebody could sneak up on these people.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“When you’re alone in the restaurant, as the cook Barry was, all alone as far as I understood, except for his fiancée, Jillian. She got knocked out cold and, when she came to, she found him dead, where they had been working.”
He stared at her. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “Yeah, seriously.”
“That’s not a good way to go.”
“And think about the trauma to the young woman who found him dead but didn’t see or know what happened. Of course the cops are very interested in her involvement.”
“Of course.” Cleavis gave an eye roll. Then he added, “You should be looking at her. What if it would be her restaurant now? Was she connected to Alice just because she wanted the restaurant?”
“I don’t know,” Doreen replied. “We’re all still looking for answers yet.”
“Good luck with that.” Cleavis slowly made his way to the door. “You will definitely need it.” He looked back at Nan and said, “I’ll talk to you later.”
Nan waved and got up. Cleavis walked out the door, and she closed it behind her. They spoke for a few minutes in the hallway before Nan stepped back inside her apartment again. She looked over at Doreen. “Do you think that helped?”
“I’m not sure,” Doreen noted. “However, anything I can learn about the industry, anything I can learn about the people involved, is more than I knew before, so sure. … It helped. Did it help a whole lot? Maybe not, but we’ll take what we can get, particularly when we’re grasping at straws.”
She looked over at Richie, who was studying Nan’s face.
As Doreen stood up, the animals hopped up as well.
She smiled down at them and praised them.
“You guys were so good while we conducted our business, even though this visit was longer than we intended.” She looked over at Nan and added, “I’ll leave you and Richie to consider this.
Maybe by the time I get these animals walked home, some inspiration will have struck me, and I’ll have some insights into what’s going on. Meanwhile, you two need to talk.”
And, with that, she made good her escape.