Sykesville, Andrea Norr had said when she called out of the blue this morning. Go see this guy in Sykesville. Despite five decades in Baltimore, Sandy needed a moment to remember where Sykesville was. Those towns between Baltimore and Frederick kind of blended together for him-Sykesville, Westminster, Clarksville. Sykesville was the closest of the three, it turned out, not even twenty minutes from the Beltway, and Sandy took the exit with something akin to regret. He’d like to keep going, driving on this straight, uneventful highway, past Frederick, into the mountains. And he could. No one would notice, no one would care.
But there’s no point in running away when no one wants you back, so he might as well go interview Chef Boyardee.
“Bayard,” Andrea Norr had said. “Chet Bayard. I was reading Chowhound, and it turns out he has a new place after all these years.”
“Reading what?” She had called Sandy at 8:00 A.M., which probably seemed late on a horse farm, but Sandy enjoyed taking his time in the morning, inching into the day. He had worked midnights much of his life and was still barely on speaking terms with the hours between six and ten.
“It’s a website for people who are interested in food.”
“I know that.” He did. He thought about the woman he had met. Short, stocky, but it had seemed like her natural build, not a body nourished on particularly good or bad food. She had made that god-awful tea, too, and gone back for seconds. Someone who ate for fuel, someone who didn’t pay attention to restaurants.
“He was on the Eastern Shore ten years ago,” he said, the file alive in his mind. “When the body was found. Cops took a statement then.”
“Well, he’s in Sykesville now, got a new place.”
Hadn’t Tubman suggested that Andrea Norr had reasons to divert attention away from her? “So you just happened to be reading this website and you just happened to see this guy’s name and you just happened to remember he was the last person to talk to your sister that day and, bam, there he was?”
“No, I did a Google search on him and he came up. I’m surprised you haven’t done that.”
“He was on my list. There are a lot of people in that file. And I thought he was all the way down to Cambridge or something.” And I have better sources than Google, for Christ’s sake. Everyone with a computer thinks they’re so slick.
“That place in Cambridge closed a few years ago, but he’s trying his luck again.”
“Poor sap.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” He would humor her, go out there. He didn’t like relatives telling him what to do. Usually, he had already done it. But he wanted to keep Andrea Norr as his ally in this. She knew something. He just wasn’t sure what it was, or if she even realized she had something of significance to share. He’d prefer that she be a liar, actually. You could break a liar down.
Poor sap. Sandy couldn’t help evaluating Sykesville as a location for what was supposed to be an upscale French restaurant. The heart of the old town was charming, but it wasn’t a destination. The way Sandy understood it-and he had learned much of what he knew about the restaurant business in hindsight-you really needed an inn to make a go of a place like this, either one that was connected to the restaurant or a place within walking distance. The Inn at Little Washington, or even Volt out in Frederick. That had been Julie Saxony’s business plan when she disappeared-add a big-time restaurant to a B and B, then people would have a reason to come to the B and B. But she had been in Havre de Grace, which had the river, things to do. Sykesville struck Sandy as too close in for a weekend getaway, too far for a big night out.
But the place looked nice enough, and the posted menu was promising. Very traditional French, so old-fashioned as to feel new again. Coq au vin, daily fish specials, lentils, cassoulet.
He tried the heavy wooden door, found it unlocked.
“We’re closed,” a young woman said without looking up. “No lunch during the week.”
“I’m not here for a meal. I’m here to talk to”-he squinted at a piece of paper in his hand, although he knew the name-“Chester Bayard.”
“Chester-oh, Chet.” She called back to the kitchen. “Chet, some guy for you.”
The man who came out of the kitchen wore a chef’s coat with his full name embroidered on the breast pocket: Chester Bayard. Cocksman, Sandy thought. Sandy could always tell. It was in the tilt of the head, the predatory nature of the man’s eyes. He was probably sleeping with this girl, who was much too young for him. He probably screwed every attractive woman with whom he worked. He had probably screwed Julie Saxony, or tried. He was one of those guys. It was what he did, automatic as breathing.
“I’m an investigator with the Baltimore City Police Department.” When he came in cold like this, he never said homicide, not first thing.
“A detective?”
“Once, but I retired. I’m a consultant now. I do cold cases.”
“Murders.”
Everyone was so goddamn savvy these days. Or thought they were. Yet this guy, this chef, would probably be appalled if Sandy presumed to know his trade based on watching a couple of shows on the Food Network.
“Yes, Julie Saxony in this case. I’m going to assume you remember her.”
Bayard nodded. “I’m glad you’re taking an interest. She was a nice lady, gave me my start as a chef. You want to sit?”
He indicated a table, then picked up a bottle from a pine buffet-Ricard. He poured the yellowish liquid into a small glass, added water from a ceramic pitcher. He was way too into the ritual, which meant he was either a show-off or a boozer. He offered Sandy a glass, but he passed. He drank with friends. Well, he used to. He hadn’t really kept up with any of the other detectives after he retired. Bayard then waggled his fingers at the girl, her signal to leave. She flounced out, clearly miffed, although Sandy couldn’t tell if it was the fact of being dismissed or the way it had been done.
“Why now?” Bayard asked. “It’s been-”
“Twenty-six years since she disappeared, eleven since a homicide was established.” Sandy was aware that he was finishing the sentence, but not answering the question.
“Has something happened?”
“Not really. Sometimes cold cases are nudged back into being by new information, but sometimes we just look at the file and decide there are things that were never properly explored.”
“Is there new information?”
“I wouldn’t tell you if there was.”
“The detectives, the first time around. Small-town cops, didn’t know what they were doing. They did a shit job, no?”
“No. They did okay. It’s hard without a body. Not impossible, but hard. Havre de Grace police don’t work a lot of murders, but their file was complete. Woman drove away, was never seen again. They talked to a lot of people, followed every lead they had. They talked to you.”
“Well, I was the one who reported her missing. They kept asking me about the boyfriend.”
“You mean Felix Brewer?”
“Yeah. That guy. Stupid waste of time.”
Sandy couldn’t help himself. “Everyone thinks everything’s a waste of time when it’s not the thing that leads to an answer.” He paused, taken by his own turn of phrase, considered its larger implications. It could be a philosophy, almost. Then he realized it was a variation on that hippy-dippy shit about life’s journeys. Still, it was a good rule in police work. Ruling stuff out was a kind of an answer. “It would have been irresponsible not to consider it, given the world in which he moved.”
“She never spoke of him.”
“Really?”
“Not to me. Never mentioned him or her past. She was hurt when the business became successful and he was always part of the things that were written.”