Death is Served - Part 1

It's been a while since I've written and even longer since I've written about the Hidden Ones.  To refresh you memory on who Katya is read this first.  You can also read this but you don't need to read it first. 

     It was very inconvenient that a man Katya wanted to kill was murdered.  Inconvenient because she wouldn’t have a chance to interrogate him or search his place for information about his Hunter friends.  And inconvenient because she ended up being a suspect in his murder.

     Katya had not come to the United States in 1948 to track down Hunters.  She had wanted to experience the life described by the American soldiers stationed in Europe.  America sounded so different from post war Europe.  The Americans had a vitality and optimism that intrigued her.  She had been thoroughly entranced upon arriving in New York City.  Ten years later she was still in Manhattan, modeling and doing a little acting. 

     She knew there were American Hunters.  During the war her guerilla band had encountered one and barely escaped.  She knew the risks of living a high profile lifestyle.  Her people called themselves Hidden Ones for good reason.  If Katya was discovered by the Hunters she would be lucky if she only suffered a quick body harvest and death at their hands. 

     There were small enclaves of Hidden Ones in New York scattered in the ethnically appropriate immigrant communities.  Katya stayed away from them by mutual agreement.  She wanted nothing to do with their insular ways.  The other Hidden Ones wanted no connection to her since they believed it was only a matter of time before she was discovered.  They did not want her leading Hunters back to them. 

     But there were a few Hidden Ones who sought her out, either old family friends or those intrigued by stories of Katya’s wartime exploits of hunting the Hunters.  Through them and her own resources she had learned the identities of a handful of possible Hunters in New York. 

     Katya’s theatrical agency put out a call for young women to serve food for a private dinner party.  Fifty bucks and a free gourmet dinner were enough incentive for her to apply.  Then she saw the guest list and found three of the eight diners were on her Hunters list.  That was simply too good an opportunity to discretely check them out.  As a serving girl Katya wouldn’t be noticed or remembered as long as she didn’t dump a bowl of hot soup on anyone.  But that same anonymity allowed her to observe the diners and perhaps even overhear their conversations.  Of course they wouldn’t be openly discussing Hunter business but she might pick up some sliver of useful information none the less.  At the very least she would have faces to go with the names.

     So that was how Katya found herself in the kitchen of an elegant house off Fifth Avenue on a March evening.  Like the rest of the servers she wore a purple stola, the women’s counterpart to a man’s toga.  Their host, Abner Crockett, had made it clear that the servers’ only function was to serve food and the evening would not end in any sort of bacchanal.  The group of eight met once a year to share a meal prepared by one of the top chefs in New York and the purple clad serving maidens were part of the group’s dining tradition.

     Most of the other servers were huddled together in a corner chattering away.  Katya was on at least nodding acquaintance with some of them but wasn’t feeling sociable.  Instead she was near the stove watching the chef prepare the meal.  He carried himself with calm confidence and Katya was looking forward to sampling the food when her serving duties were over.  Her thoughts were disrupted by a man’s voice.

     “Are you a connoisseur of fine food, Miss?  I can’t help but notice your interest in Fred’s handiwork.”

     She turned and faced the dark haired man behind her.  “There’s more to a good meal than a fancy kitchen and expensive ingredients.  But your chef handles himself well.”

     “He’s not exactly my chef though I am one of the owners of the restaurant Fred works at.  From your accent I’m guessing your interest is in the Hungarian fish soup.”

     Katya could speak English with a generic American accent when she wanted to but usually adopted a Central European accent with a mix of Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, and Serbian.  “When I was a little girl my grandfather would make halászlé in a kettle after fishing with me all morning in the Tisza River.  He made it spicy with lots of paprika and we ate it with grandmother’s fresh baked bread.  It was simple but a good meal none the less.”  She didn’t add that the memory was from the 1890s when the region was still under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

     “Perhaps you could share your grandfather’s recipe with Fred.  He’s always looking for new recipes to try.  An authentic Hungarian family recipe is just the sort of thing he’d love.”

     “Grandfather was quite secretive about the recipe.  He wouldn’t want me to share it with anyone outside the family.”  Katya took a closer look at the man.  “You are Newton Thorne, the author.”

     “You have me at a disadvantage, Miss…”

     “Ekaterina Bathory.”

     “That’s quite a mouthful.  What can I call you for short?”

     “You can call me Miss Bathory, Mr. Thorne.”

     Thorne was one of the eight diners.  He had written a novel loosely based on his experiences as a rifleman in the Pacific during the war.  The book had been a bestseller and called one of the greatest American war novels comparable to The Red Badge of Courage.  Now he wrote mysteries featuring a hard drinking private detective.  Thorne wasn’t on Katya’s list of Hunters.  But she would treat all of the diners as potential Hunters to be on the safe side. 

     Thorne didn’t miss a beat.  He grasped Katya’s hand, raised it, and brushed his lips across the back of it.  “Your humble servant, Miss Bathory.”

     Abner Crockett entered the kitchen.  “There you are, Newt.  If you’re quite done with the lovely lady, it’s time to be seated.”

     Katya joined the rest of the servers at the side of the kitchen as Fred and his assistant prepared eight plates for the first course, shredded baked potato cups filled with caviar and topped with sour cream.  She grabbed a plate and headed for the dining room.

     She entered and went to her assigned guest at the table.  Mortie Ryan was a Broadway producer and one of the three names on Katya’s list.  There was a plate in front of him when she approached.  Terrific, she thought.  Someone made a mistake already.  Katya saw that the diner next to Ryan hadn’t been served so she set the plate down in front of him.  She noted in passing that she had served Newton Thorne.  She moved to the far side of the room where the other serving maidens stood as another server rushed out from the kitchen and joined them.  As each diner finished, his server whisked the plate away to the kitchen. 

     Katya was able to pick out Ryan among the dinner conversations.  He was in a foul mood, expressing his thoughts on the sorry state of the world, the declining quality of the Yankees, and the abysmal choice of floral arrangements on the table.  When Katya took Ryan’s plate he was complaining about the odd gritty taste of the caviar. 

     The next course was the fish soup.  A large bowl was brought out to the dining room and the chef’s assistant ladled out the portions.  It looks and smells like halászlé, Katya thought.  But I’ll wait until I taste it to pass judgment.  She set a soup plate in front of Ryan and moved back to her spot at the side of the room.  The diners engaged in small talk as they ate and mopped up the last drops of soup from their plates with bread. 

     During the next course, a roast pheasant with steamed vegetables, Ryan coughed, clamped a hand over his mouth, and hurriedly left the table.  Crockett followed him out of the dining room.  There was awkward silence until Horace Jameson, a corporate lawyer who was also on Katya’s list, tipped the remaining pheasant and vegetables from Ryan’s plate onto his own.  “I’m sure he wouldn’t want his food to go to waste.” 

Jameson left the table to check on Ryan after finishing his pheasant.  When he returned Jameson made an announcement.  “Mortie is sick and a doctor is coming.  But he wants us to continue.”

     The meal and conversation resumed, but a cloud hung over the table.  The remaining diners expressed satisfaction over the rest of the meal - Salade Olivier, Filet of Beef Wellington, and Dobos torte – but there was not much enthusiasm.  Katya had no one to serve so she stayed unobtrusively near the table to overhead the conversations and helped the other women serve and take away plates.  After coffee, brandy, and cigars were offered to the diners, the servers returned to the kitchen and served themselves. 

     Katya had to admit the food was quite good.  The fish soup was too bland for Katya’s taste but otherwise acceptable.  She was finishing a piece of the Beef Wellington when Thorne entered the kitchen.  He talked to Fred the chef and his assistant for a few minutes then addressed the room.  “I’m sorry, ladies, but I’m going to have to ask you to all stay here in the kitchen until further notice.”

     Angry protests rose until Thorne spoke loudly in a sharp voice.  “Mortie Ryan just died from what the doctor says is arsenic poisoning.  The police have been called and are on the way.  I believe the poison was in the first course served based on these points.  First, Ryan complained of grit in the cavier.  Second, the time for the onset of symptoms and the time it took for the poison to kill him.  Third, no one else is showing signs of poison so only Ryan was poisoned.  So this is the key question.  Which of you served Mr. Ryan the first dish?’ 

     There was silence as all eyes turned to Katya.  “I didn’t serve him his caviar.”

     Thorne gave her a hard look.  “I was looking right at you when you brought him his soup, Miss Bathory.”

     “I did bring him the second and third dishes,” Katya replied coolly.  “But he already had a plate when I brought the caviar out.  If you’ll remember, I served you your caviar, Mr. Thorne.”

     “You were my server,” Thorne said, pointing at a blonde woman. “Who did you serve your caviar to?”

      “I saw you had a plate so I took mine to the next man.”

     “Your name, please?”

     “I’m Peggy Murray.”

     “Did everyone serve one plate to one diner?”

     “No,” said a redheaded woman.  “I was in the john when the serving started.  When I came out, there were no more plates to take out.  I asked the assistant about it and he said not to worry.”

     Thorne turned.  “Carl, is that what happened?”

     “Yes sir, Mr. Thorne.  The lady came out from the john like she said.  She asked about the plates and like she said I told her not to worry.  I know for certain there were eight plates prepared and eight plates went out.  Someone must have grabbed two.”

     “Did you see anyone grab two?”

     “I wasn’t looking at faces.  I was just making sure all the plates went out.  I don’t know if someone came back for a second plate.”

     Thorne sighed.  “I am quite satisfied that one of you ladies poisoned Mortie Ryan’s serving of caviar when you brought it to him.  Through boldness and luck you haven’t been identified yet.  But know this.  I have helped the police in their investigations before and even if you fool them, you will not long fool me.”

     At that moment Crockett entered the kitchen, followed closely by a uniformed police officer.

     Terrific, Katya thought.  I can’t have the police, or even worse the Hunters at this party, looking too closely into the background Ekaterina Bathory.  She swore silently to herself in every language she knew.