“And?”
“He and I haven’t seen eye to eye these last few years. Not since he decided to keep working for that tiny tyrant, Chef Clyde. But he’s still my father. If something has happened to Pilar, my father might be in danger, too.”
“Are you suggesting that Pilar’s been hurt, or worse? And your dad might be next?”
“It’s common knowledge that Clyde sabotaged competitors in the past in order to win cooking competitions. Who’s to say he didn’t take his shady behavior to the next level?”
Emmett’s daughter was looking down at her cradled purse. When she raised her eyes to meet mine, they were glossy with tears. “Pilar would not leave before showcasing her family recipes on national TV. It doesn’t make sense. Why not wait until after the Gastro Gambles to leave?”
She smothered her face in a wad of tissue and came up blowing her nose, then disappeared into my aunt’s office.
This P.I. stuff sure involved a lot of emotional roller coasting. Thank goodness Emmett’s daughter had brought her own tissue because I wasn’t equipped to offer my shoulder to every weepy person I encountered. Wasn’t too many weeks ago I was on my own amusement park ride to hell.
* * * *
The Gamble’s studio was in a section of mid-town Atlanta lousy with warehouses and wholesale storefronts. At the end of a string of concrete-block clones, it stood out as the only two-story structure in the queue.
The lobby’s appointments were spare and its glass abundant. The security officer looked like security officers everywhere. I had to sign in and show ID, then I was instructed to wait. After a few minutes, a girl in her late teens bopped up to me with her hand out, blue nails sparkling, to shake mine.
“Are you Nonni Pennington?”
“Yes.”
“I’m the production assistant. Come on down to the Green Room, and I’ll get the staffer handling support cast to go over the waivers with you.”
With that, she nearly skipped out of the room. I followed, trying to avoid the cables snaking this way and that, and to process what I was seeing as we sped through the hallways. Open crawl spaces and exposed duct work made the place look more like an electronics warehouse than the prestigious venue of a renowned cooking competition.
The Green Room was pale peach. A woman at a desk, hunched over a laptop, turned to us with an annoyed look that she didn’t bother to wipe off, even after Skippy the P.A. introduced me.
The sourpuss staffer’s name was Mare. “I’ll get you a copy of the script and some releases you need to sign,” she said. “Emmett emailed me that he’ll be the primary assistant and you’ll be the second. Hope you can take pressure.” She and the young girl walked off discussing the problem of teams poaching one another’s shelf space in the refrigerators.
Emmett had called to say he was on his way over to drop off overly large ingredients needing refrigeration, after which he wanted to show me around the studio kitchen. I needed to at least look competent. Later, we’d go do a dry run of the actual dishes back in Chef Clyde’s kitchen to ensure the recipes remained secret.
I plopped down at the desk in the peachy Green Room, thinking for a second of tossing the drawers. Before I could act, Mare walked back into the room, handed me the documents, and turned to leave.
“Wait,” I said. “I was hoping you’d answer a couple of questions.”
“Why would I help you help Clyde? He never did anything for me but put me down, work me to death, and take all the glory for himself. Seems that’s a habit of his, so watch out.”
“Nobody told me you used to work with Chef Clyde.”
“Used to, and I’d cover the show of every prima donna chef on this network before I’d work one more minute for Shelbee.”
“Look, I’m just trying to do a good job.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned her hip against the door jamb. “Hell, you seem like a nice person, but you are one soufflé away from a collapse if you don’t get out now. I’m deadly serious. Ask yourself why Pilar would disappear just days before a contest she worked her ass off to win.”
Less than a minute later, Emmett came through the Green Room door, brushing right past Mare. At the sight of him she began to sidle out of the room.
He saw her out of the corner of his eye. “Mare! Thanks for getting Nonni the releases.”
“I don’t understand how you can still work with him, Em. And drag this gal into it.” Mare was scowling and shaking her head.
Emmet set his packages on the counter. “We owe it to Pilar.”
“Don’t hand me this ‘we’ crap. How sick is it if she’s not here to enjoy the triumph won with her dishes?”
“We don’t know for sure that she won’t turn up before taping.”
Mare held up her hand. “I don’t have time to go into this with you right now.” She looked at me and said, “Good luck. You’re gonna need it.” Then she was gone.
“If everyone thinks I’m incapable of handling this,” I said as huffily as I felt, “why keep me on?”
“We all want to find Pilar. I’m too visible, too suspect, to be of real use. We need you to poke around and uncover the truth.”
In the back of my mind, I wondered if suspect might be the perfect word for Emmett. It had been his idea to step in as first assistant. How’d he put it? “Like back in the old days.” Did he maybe think he wasn’t visible enough?
* * * *
A couple hours later I had my first lesson in the chef’s kitchen: how to scrub my hands until they were raw and cram all my hair up under a hideous cap. The trouble began when they tried to teach me the difference between a utensil and a serving piece. If only the contest could be about the variable microwave warming times of say, frozen entrees versus leftover lo mein…
“I’ve already removed the entrails, glands, the head, and the tail.” Chef Clyde’s face was as red as the carcass on the counter. “I don’t understand why you won’t look at the ’possum. How do you expect to pass yourself off as my assistant if you won’t even look at it?”
Pissed, the chef charged out of the room. Emmett gave me a look of sympathy and then followed.
With my lessons apparently over, I wandered over to some nearby shelves with cookbooks, awards, and framed photographs, including several pictures of Pilar and of Pilar’s culinary school roommate. Denise wore a chef’s hat and was holding up a trophy, posing with Chef Clyde in what looked like a studio kitchen. Why hadn’t she mentioned she did the same job as Pilar? Was being an insider the reason she knew the chef was guilty?
* * * *
The next morning, I went to the studio early, hoping to get comfortable enough with the set that I wouldn’t screw up later during rehearsal. I approached the door to the dark lobby of the studio. The security guard and his desk, however, were lit like the display window of an anchor store at the mall. He kept his head down even as I popped off my last acrylic nail jerking on the door handle. I rapped on the glass with my car keys, and he let me in.
“The morning crew hasn’t come in yet,” he said as he returned to his seat and the electronic game he obviously found so enthralling. “They usually don’t turn on the lights until seven.”
“That’s okay,” I said, “I just wanted to get more familiar with the equipment before…”
I shut up and headed to the set because he was intent on the game again. I took this opportunity to slide into a couple of storerooms along the way, as well as some offices, but I didn’t turn up any clues to help me find Pilar.