So there was security. It just came in a different form than expected. “I was hoping to talk to Mr. Farrand. I’m a friend of Kristen Jurek’s. She owns a local restaurant, the Three Seasons—it’s on your short list for being featured on the show—and I was hoping to put in a good word for her. I’m sure you hear this all the time, but her restaurant is something special. The only thing is, she thinks the Three Seasons is good enough to speak for itself. She’s too proud to come out there and promote herself.”
“And you’re not?” Scruffy asked, raising his own eyebrows.
“Not when it comes to asking for help for my friends,” I said seriously. “And it’s an outstanding restaurant—it really is.”
Scruffy picked a piece of invisible lint off his shirt. “Outstanding restaurants are a dime a dozen.”
“Sure, but how many of them are only open three seasons a year so they can offer only fresh and local ingredients?”
“That cuts it down quite a bit.” He squinted down at me. “You got anything else?”
“She grew up in Chilson, went away to multiple colleges, got a Ph.D. in biochemistry, hated every second she worked for a large pharmaceutical company, and came back home to open a restaurant.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “Now, that’s a good story.”
I beamed at him. “Isn’t it? But she doesn’t like talking about it. She’s annoyed that she wasted all that time and money.”
“Education is never wasted,” he said. “After all, you never know when you’ll need to know Avogadro’s number.”
“Six-point-zero-two-two times ten to the twenty-third, the number of atoms in a mole, but I have no idea why anyone would need to know that, or even what it means, exactly.”
He laughed. “If you want to talk to Trock a minute, he’s over there.” Scruffy nodded at a large, very round man who was mopping his forehead with a towel. “And you’ll have my undying gratitude if you can point him back to grilling pork tenderloin. Tell him we can do the whitefish some other episode. Just not today.”
I squared my shoulders and saluted. “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best, sir.”
He gave me a sharp return salute. “Good luck to you.”
Smiling, I made my way through the snaky maze of cables and wires, staying behind cameras and trying very hard to stay out of everyone’s way. At long last I reached the table where Trock Farrand had seated himself. He’d crossed his oversized arms and slid down in his chair far enough that a strong breeze would have pushed him onto the bricked floor of the massive patio.
“Mr. Farrand?” I asked. “Scruffy sent me over here. He—”
“Whitefish,” he growled. “I will not listen to another lackey sent by Sir Scruffy. I suppose you have yet another point to make in favor of the porcine product?”
“Nope,” I said. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”
“Eh?” He lifted his head. “You don’t have an opinion on pork tenderloin versus whitefish?”
“Not really, sir.”
He sat up and lost his sulky expression. “Ye gods, a woman of pluck, discernment, and wisdom. Give me your hand, young lady. I would press your flesh but lightly.”
I blinked and held out my hand for shaking purposes.
“Milady.” He took my hand gently in his and kissed the back of it. “I am your devoted servant, yet I don’t even know your name. Sit, please.”
Suddenly I understood the attraction to his show. It wasn’t the food; it was him. Sitting and laughing, I said, “Minnie Hamilton. I’m a librarian. I drive the bookmobile and—”
“Ah, a bookmobile!” His pudgy face lit up. “What a glorious conveyance. I have seen your bookmobile whilst out and about, and now I’ve met its beautiful young driver. What luck!”
“I’m glad you think so, sir.”
“Trock,” he said, patting my hand. “No sirs on this set. Makes me feel as if I’m about to get paddled by my sixth-grade teacher. Now tell me why the bookmobile librarian is on my set.”
I told him about the Three Seasons and about Kristen and about how good she’d look on his show.
“Attractive, is she?” He smoothed his eyebrows.
“If you think a slender, blond, and almost six-foot-tall woman could be attractive, then yes.”
“Hmm.” He kept smoothing his eyebrows. “I will send young Scruffy to investigate. Meanwhile, since you are not making any movements regarding leaving, methinks you have more to say.”
Bumbling he might be, but Trock Farrand was also perceptive. I used the looking-for-bookmobile-donations spiel again and got about as far as I had with Hugo Edel. And that was my link to divert the conversation.
“I asked Hugo Edel for a donation,” I said, sighing, “and got about the same level of excitement.”
Trock smiled. “Dear Minnie, you need to find an emotional connection. Intellectual appeals are all well and good, but you need to tug on the heartstrings.”
An excellent tip. “I think Mr. Edel’s heartstrings were a little damaged,” I said, mostly, but not completely, lying. “He knew that woman who was killed a couple of weeks ago.”
“Carissa,” Trock said, and the name came out almost as a curse. “I wish I knew nothing of her. She was nothing but a pain in the behind. It’s situations like hers that might drive me to have a closed set.” His voice grew loud. “This show has enough troubles with timing and schedules and I’m the one who has to—” He stopped. Breathed in and out. Sighed. “But I’m sorry she’s dead, of course I am. Especially since she seemed to have found a new love interest. A new man who, I hoped, would make her very happy indeed.”
I’d been sitting up fairly straight, but my spine suddenly went even straighter. “Do you know his name?”
“Dear heart.” Trock gave me a pitying smile. “I barely remember my own.”
“Trock!” A wild-haired woman in shorts, canvas sneakers, and a tie-dyed shirt appeared in front of us. “We need a decision and we need it now.”
He sighed heavily and turned to me. “Which do you think, Lady Minnie? The exquisite whitefish creation I so long to bring to platter, or the staid pork tenderloin that will do nothing for the history of culinary arts.”
Out of Trock’s view, the woman clasped her hands and got down on her knees, mouthing a single word over and over: Pork!
I gave her a tiny nod. “What do you think about doing your whitefish some other day?” I asked Trock. “With a little time to plan, you could make a show around it, maybe go out on the boat and help catch the fish.”
Trock’s eyes opened wide. “Minnie, that’s an outstanding idea, simply outstanding.”
I wasn’t sure it was a good idea at all, but maybe I was wrong.
“But…” He hesitated. “The pork. So bland. So basic. So blasé.”
“Not after you get done with it, I’m sure.”
His sudden smile was wide and deep and he looked sincere as Santa Claus three days before Christmas. The man had charm out the wazoo. Maybe I’d ask Kristen to record some of his shows. It was possible I’d even learn something about cooking.
On my way out, Scruffy pulled me aside. “I heard you talking to Trock,” he said. “That Carissa? She was a big fan. We all liked her.”
I eyed him. Was he trying to establish that no one from the TV show had anything to do with the murder? “Okay,” I said, “but Trock seemed to have some issues with her.”
Scruffy shrugged. “Trock has issues with everyone. And that new guy she was seeing?” He glanced away as Trock started shouting orders to fetch the pork. “Hallelujah,” he muttered. “Anyway, I don’t know his name, either, but I know he used to play some sport. A professional sport.”
“Football?” I asked as casually as I could. “Basketball? Baseball? Hockey? Tennis?”
But he was shaking his head. “No idea. I’m not into that kind of thing. Sorry.”
• • •
Eddie and I had a late lunch out in the sunshine of the houseboat’s front deck. Or rather, I ate a nice lunch of grilled cheese and a salad while Eddie batted around the three cat treats I gave him.