Chef's Special Ch. 02

"What is it?" asked Molly.

"Martha said what she always says, that she'll have to do more testing and get bloodwork results back," said Tanya, "but she said it looks like Lauren had an embolism, and that's what killed her... likely an air bubble was injected by the epi-pen, and when it got to her heart, it tore it up. She did find a small needle mark on Lauren's right hip, where the air bubble could've been injected through her pants and into her hip."

"That makes sense." said Phyllis. "We don't know exactly when she was injected, but if it was just before coming out to present her food, then she had a few minutes before the air bubble got to her heart. Sodium thiopental is very fast-acting, and should've knocked her unconscious immediately, and other fast-acting poisons would've worked quickly, as well. Slow-acting poisons might've given her time to realize something was wrong, to feel pain, and to react. An embolism fits very well, here."

"I have a question." said Detective German. "Would she not have felt the needle going into her and cried out or something?"

"It might not have hurt badly, or felt like she'd run into a tray's edge or something." replied Phyllis. "Or she could've cried out and no one noticed, and she just moved along to get herself in front of the judges."

"Anything else in the reports?" asked Lt. Paul Price.

"Expecting something else?" replied Tanya, fixing her eyes on him.

"I've been having an idea," said Price, "that there may have been more than one target."

"And you may be on to something." said Tanya. "Sodium thiopental is normally given intravenously, but one of the glasses of wine had appreciable quantities of it."

"Belonging to whom?" asked Molly.

Tanya looked up. "The one at Bruno Mensch's seat."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Chef Bruno Mensch strode into the room as if he owned it. He came up to the chair indicated for him, and surveyed the group of Officers as he sat down. Lt. Paul Price read him his rights from the card.

"Chef Mensch," said Tanya, "we appreciate your speaking with us today, and even more your waiting. And we're sorry for your loss of your chef."

"How may I be of assistance to you today?" said Mensch, his voice strong and with a touch of harshness.

"Chef," said Phyllis Troy, "do you know of anyone who would want to harm Lauren Fogle?"

"No. She was a lovely woman." said Mensch. "I don't know why anyone would wish to kill her."

"What about the competition?" asked Molly Evans. "Big stakes on the line: his or her own show, working with you almost constantly and therefore gaining huge experience, and what was the prize fund?"

"The prize was $25,000." said Mensch. "These chefs make plenty more than that, as it is. Hardly an amount to kill over."

"So you think one of the chefs did it?" asked Phyllis. "Not one of the sous-chefs or network people?"

"I... I don't know, I suppose it could've been anyone." said Mensch. "Even me, though it wasn't."

"Let me ask a different question." said Lt. Paul Price. "Do you know of anyone who might want to harm you, and Lauren Fogle's death was intended to be yours?"

"I... I can hardly believe that." said Mensch. "Killing me does no one any good! The network would suffer if I were lost."

"What about personal animosities, Chef Mensch?" asked Price. "Maybe a scorned woman, or a jealous husband or boyfriend?"

The light of understanding began showing in Mensch's eyes as he said "Nein! That little Frog punk Descartes does not have it in him to try anything. And that puny cuckold Alton gets his rocks off watching me fuck his wife in front of him. And the women... haven't had any complaints about me, especially in bed." He made a point to look at each of the women in the room as meaningfully as he could.

"So you had no issues with Lauren Fogle yourself?" asked Phyllis.

"No, of course not." said Mensch. "I will tell you something else: Lauren was going to win the competition finale. She would have to literally serve us burnt toast to not win. Why would I bring her this far, and the network take care of her like we did, only to kill her? It does not make sense!"

"I've seen plenty of murders that do not make sense, Chef Mensch." said Tanya Perlman, somewhat severely. "At least on the surface." Mensch looked shocked for a second, then willed his face into passivity.

"So Deborah Gordon was not going to win?" asked Phyllis.

"Well, perhaps if Lauren had indeed served us the burnt toast," said Mensch, "then maybe Deborah would win. But you should know that behind the scenes, nothing is ever left to chance. These five were meant to be the finalists all along, and Lauren had proved herself and was going to be the winner."

"Mr. Mensch," said Lt. Paul Price, deliberately not giving him the 'Chef' title, "are you the father of Deborah Gordon's unborn child?"

"How the hell would I know?" asked Mensch, who then caught himself and calmed down. "Well... she has not said anything to me about that, so no, I have no way of knowing who the father of her child is. I've assumed it's her husband's, and if they are married when it is born, he's legally the father and obligated to it."

Tanya glanced over at Phyllis, who had pursed her lips and slightly nodded, as if seeing a puzzle piece falling into place. Then Phyllis noticed Tanya's glance and gave a barely perceptible shake of her head: she was not going to ask any questions to pursue that line of inquiry.

"So you are an integral part of the network, Chef Mensch?" asked Phyllis, derisiveness beginning to creep into her voice.

"Oh yes." said Mensch. "My programs are the highest rated, and I am one of the Executive Staff that decides everything."

"And Vanessa Brunson is the producer of your shows?" asked Phyllis.

"Yes." said Mensch. "We've worked together for many years. We were seriously dating at one time, but that dissolved into a friendship and a very good working relationship. We know what each other is thinking, and the high quality of our shows reflects that."

After a few more questions, they wrapped it up with Chef Mensch.

Part 8 - Iron Chef, Iron Crowbar, Iron Data

4:30pm, Friday, June 23d. After giving our names and SBI badge numbers to the NCPD Police Officer at the cordon to the now-restricted area of this wing of the Lakeside Inn & Suites, Cindy Ross and I came into the main room with two objects: a briefcase full of information, and a very large sack full of lunches from the Cop Bar.

"You guys eaten?" I asked, knowing they had not, which is why I brought the food. I take care of my people, and making sure my people get fed is the first item on the list. Napoleon Bonaparte himself said so.

"In all this excitement, I forgot all about eating." said Tanya, a sentiment shared by the rest of them. "Oh, hello Commander. How are you? And you, Cindy?"

"Wonderful, and you?" I replied. Tanya said she was doing well as I began handing out the to-go boxes of food: exceptionally delicious double cheeseburgers for Price, German, and Molly; and steak Caesar salads for Tanya and my mom.

Cindy hugged Tanya, my mom, and Molly and we greeted all the others. Then I suggested that I talk while they ate. We seated ourselves around the table.

"Okay, Mary really kicked ass getting us this stuff on all these people." I said. "But first, the autopsy: Martha confirmed it was an embolism from an injected air bubble that killed Lauren Fogle. There was virtually no sodium thiopental in her system, so those trace amounts in the epi-pen did not come from injecting that stuff into Lauren. There were also no other drugs in Lauren's system, but Martha says there were signs of chronic alcoholism."

"She was a recovering alcoholic." said my mother.

"According to Martha, I'm not sure how much she was 'recovering'." I replied. "I'll get to more on this later, but it appears Lauren never really stopped her drinking."

Lt. Price spoke up: "Maybe the sodium thiopental was injected into Bruno's wine, then the killer used the epi-pen to put an air bubble into Lauren."

"That's an idea." I said. "And if it holds, it means the killer knew how to re-charge an epi-pen."

"And maybe recharging it by shaking up some ice water then putting that in the epi-pen." said Tanya Perlman. As the water warmed up, the air came out and formed a bubble, which was then injected."

"That's an idea, also. You guys love to theorize." I said, and that was not really a compliment. I saw Molly arch her eyebrows, but she said nothing.

"Well, we did have a recent case involving an epi-pen." said Tanya. (Author's note: 'Lady Ironside'.) "So I've got some background knowledge from that."

"True enough." I said. "Okay, let's talk about these chefs. First, Alton and Deborah Gordon. Mary says their finances are separate and are relatively clean, they're making good money with the network, and most of their expenses on the road are covered by the network."

"Having said that, both have been building up some considerable reserves the last six months or so, and both have had some expenses." I continued. "Alton appears to be investing in a property in the Atlanta area, and a bit of digging showed it's for a restaurant. Meanwhile, Deborah has been paying lawyers in California for something."

"Ahhh." said Phyllis.

"What?" I asked.

"They both may be planning to leave the network." said my mother. "And I'll invoke a mother's prerogative to ignore your rule about theorizing without data, and suggest that Deborah is going to file for divorce from Alton, and Alton either knows it and is laying the groundwork for leaving the network, or he doesn't know and is still planning to leave the network."

"I'll buy that for a dollar." I said. "Okay, moving on. René Descartes. He's had some financial issues, especially the last year. It looks like he was trying to start up a couple of restaurants, one in New York City, and later one in Los Angeles. Both got stopped; it seemed he suddenly had problems with permits, especially liquor license applications being rejected. Mary got curious and glanced into that one, and it seems that local politicians overseeing those licenses have received very generous political contributions... from Bruno Mensch."

"Bruno's trying to stop René from opening a restaurant?" asked Molly. "Why? Seems he'd want René out the network and out of the way."

"Personal animosity?" asked Lt. Price. "They do seem to hate each other, and I suspect it goes both ways."

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," said my mom, "but I am going to have to disagree with you. Bruno hates René, of that there is no doubt, but he takes it out on René by seducing René's women, and then making life hell on earth for René. But he always dangles carrots to keep René with the network, such as being in this competition. René does want to leave, but Bruno is doing all he can to stop it."

"Why?" asked Molly.

"Because René was correct." said my mom. "Bruno Mensch has been stealing recipes and ideas from René."


"Well, that keeps René on the suspect list." said Tanya.

"And Bruno, too." said Detective German in a rare statement out loud. "If Lauren had some kind of proof Bruno was stealing ideas, he might've worked to silence her."

"All good ideas." I said. "Moving on: Celeste Spencer. Divorced several years ago, and we did find the record of her son's fatal accident in the City. Hit and run, remains unsolved to this day. She still owns the house in the City's southwestern suburbs, which she got from the divorce, and it's paid off. She has carried no debt, and had almost no expenses since joining the cooking network and traveling with Bruno and Vanessa's television crews.

I continued: "So it's odd that she fairly recently took out cash for $10,000, which triggered a bank notice to the Federal Government, and that money is not in any bank account of hers that we could find. No idea what the purpose of that withdrawal was."

"Bought a car?" asked Lt. Price.

"She doesn't own a car." I replied. "Network pays for Uber expenses when she flies into City Airport to get home, and they provide transportation while at other locations, filming their projects."

"When did that withdrawal occur?" asked Phyllis. I named the date.

"About the time they began filming the competition episodes." said Phyllis.

"Any ideas, Agent Troy?" asked Tanya, with her cherubic grin.

"Many ideas come to mind." said my mom. "But this is one where I'll follow my son's advice, and not theorize before getting more facts."

"Uh huh." I said quietly, with a sideways glance at my mom. "Okay, next up is Lauren Fogle herself. No real financial issues the past few years. The odd thing about her is that we could not find a scrap of anything about her past. She began working with the network about five years ago, but we could find no record of her education, whether college or culinary school, nor anything before that, like high school or even a birth certificate or passport in her name before joining the network."

"Many birth certificates are still in only paper form." said Lt. Price. "Especially if she were born in a rural area."

"But she has a passport." I said. "Usually a birth certificate is what gets us one of those, at least that's how I got mine." There was general agreement around the table.

"No record of her rehab stay?" asked my mother. "Anywhere?"

"No, and Mary did look specifically for that." I replied. "Anyway, Mary is going to dig deeper into that, and maybe Myron will take a shot at it." My mom, Tanya, and Molly knew that meant some serious hacking was about to happen.

"I'll ask Jack to look into it for us at the FBI level." Tanya said. "And that rehab thingy, too."

"I'd appreciate that help, too." I said. "Okay, Vanessa Brunson. She graduated from a New York college with a Journalism degree, and was a reporter for several stations in the New York City and Boston areas. Then she was one of the initial people that started up the cooking network, with Bruno Mensch and some others. They have a number of producers of shows, but Vanessa has always been the producers of Bruno's shows."

"Considering they were dating, that's not a surprise." said Lt. Price.

"Even beyond that, they have a very close working relationship." said my mother. "A symbiosis, like the Iron Crowbar and his various 'Angels'." That made Cindy and Tanya smile... especially Tanya. They fist-bumped as I continued:

"Vanessa's finances are so entangled with the network's, that it's going to take some work to separate them. Her prosperity is pretty much tied to the network's, so if they fail, she could face disaster. Just between all of us and the crowbars, she got poor legal advice, and has not kept herself separate enough from the network. She has one bank account, but pays everything through the network and then reimburses them for personal stuff. Nothing else jumps out, but Christopher Purvis is going to help the Mouseketeers with it; he's not 'The Abacus', but he's not bad at financial crimes."

"And while I'm on this subject," I said, "I'll mention the network's finances. There's been ebb-and-flow over the last ten years, but in the past year things have started to drop some. That may be attributed to the paradigm changes in the media and content worlds, and the disruption of cable packaging. Cooking networks usually do very well vis-a-vis other genres, but this network has had a big ramp-up of extra spending costs the last few months, and those chickens may be coming home to rrrrroost."

"Explains why they want fresh programming." said Molly. "And to the point they still want to do tomorrow's filming, even with Lauren's body hardly cold yet." Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Okay, last but not least, Bruno Mensch." I said. "Very similar story to Vanessa's... he's tied into the network, heart and soul. But he has separate accounts not connected to the network, and he's made a fortune in book sales, appearance fees, his own restaurants, and other bonuses. And Mary checked for something else... paternity suits. He's never had one lodged against him. Ever."

"Does that mean anything?" asked Lt. Price.

"Oh yes." said my mother. "It could mean a great deal. A very great deal." We all peered at her, but no more would she say on the subject.

Part 9 - Shots in the Dark

"Okay, Vanessa," said Lt. Molly Evans, "you can order for the event tomorrow. There will be very tight security, and we're considering not allowing an audience, or having a very small one."

"That'll be fine." said Vanessa. "Thank you. And let us know if we can help you in any way."

"Oh you can." Molly said. "And that's about to happen now..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Lt. Evans took charge as she stood before the group of chefs and sous-chefs and network personnel.

"You all were going to be here tonight, anyway." said Molly. "So this should bring no additional expense to you. Tonight... you will be allowed to stay in your rooms, but you cannot leave them. You are all considered persons of interest in Lauren Fogle's death."

"Are we under arrest?" snarled Alton Gordon. "Are you detaining us? Where is your warrant to hold us?"

Lt. Paul Price, spoke up, his voice harsh: "We're trying to make this as easy as possible on everyone. If you want to go the route of warrants, we can and will make that happen. And if you don't want to agree to stay in your hotel rooms, we have jail cells ready and waiting for you to hold you overnight."

"If we're being detained, I want a lawyer!" shouted Alton. "And I want to see a warrant!"

"It's right here." said a very tall, broad-shouldered man in black shirt and pants, wearing a light beige trenchcoat... and carrying the unmistakeable implement from which his nickname was derived: a red crowbar. A tremor of murmurs went through the room.

I showed Alton the warrant. "All of your names are on it. As Lieutenant Price said, you can work with us and stay here, or you can sleep in jail overnight. For those of you who don't know me, I am SBI Inspector Donald Troy, and I am assisting these Officers in their investigation of Chef Fogle's murder. Mr. Gordon, if you want that lawyer, you'll be escorted to the Police Station to talk with him or her, and you'll remain there overnight... in a jail cell. Lt. Price, Lt. Evans?"

"There will be Police Officers on the hallways of your bloc of rooms." said Molly. "If you need anything, you can ask them. Room service will be delivered at no additional cost from normal dining room prices; you should thank the Hotel for their generosity in doing that. But once you go into your rooms, we expect you to stay there until tomorrow morning..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Once everyone was in their rooms and the NCPD and Nextdoor County Deputies were in their places of overwatch, we Detectives had a meeting. I was brought up to speed on everything. Tanya took charge.

"Okay," she said, "Commander Troy's dislike of idle speculation notwithstanding, let's go around the horn and get some ideas. Paul?"

Lt. Price said "I'm still wondering if Bruno was not the actual target, and Ms. Fogle somehow just got in the way and wasn't the intended victim. I know this sounds crazy, but maybe she was stabbed with the epi-pen by accident, and the sodium thiopental in Bruno's wine was meant to kill or incapacitate him."

"German?" asked Tanya.

"I don't have any answers yet." said German. "But I sure do have a lot of questions for the next round of interviews with these people."

"Don't we all." said Tanya. "Molly?"

"With all due respect to Paul," said Molly, "I do think Lauren might've been the target, or one among two. Maybe she knew something she wasn't supposed to, and was silenced for it. It's... weird."

"Phyllis?" asked Tanya.