Read Sharpshooter for Free Online

dead,” she said to Rivka, who was working the grill behind her.
    “Not dead,” corrected Rivka, “murdered.” Before they opened, Rivka had changed into her checked pants and tied a triangle kerchief over her braids. Her ears were generously pierced with tiny silver hoops and posts. On the back of each slender brown biceps was a tattoo of a red and blue swallow, one swooping forward, the other back, which gave the impression of birds circling around her. She stood guard over the grill in her longwhite apron with tongs poised, watching a collection of husky salmon filets and pork chops sizzle. She repositioned one of the slabs of salmon precisely ninety degrees to the left to complete a neat crosshatch of black grill marks. “I always knew he would mix it up with somebody eventually. He was a troublemaker,” said Rivka, putting the accent on maker.
    “How do you know that? He seemed like an okay guy. Sort of snobby, maybe.”
    “Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean I have to start lying about him and saying a lot of phony bullshit. Why do you think so many people hated him? Why did somebody hate him enough to put a bullet through him? Even Alex didn’t like him; he said he was a nightmare of a boss.”
    Sunny was quiet. It seemed disrespectful to talk about Jack that way considering what had happened, even if he had been less than a model citizen.
    Rivka said, “I’m just saying that there were plenty of people out there who thought how nice it would feel to put their fingers around that fancy-pants neck of his and give a good squeeze.”
    “He was just a rich, snobby guy who went to a lot of parties,” said Sunny.
    Rivka pointed her tongs at her. “Alex says he was a hothead. You couldn’t do enough to please him. He was always yelling.” She went back to monitoring the grill.
    It had been the same all morning. They would work quietly for a while, then return to the shock of Jack’s murder, rehashing some new aspect. One of the waiters said there hadn’t been a murder in St. Helena in more than four years, nor one involving a man as prominent in the community as Jack Beroni for as long as anybody could remember.
    Sunny was having trouble concentrating. She hadn’t heardanyone mention Wade as being involved, but just the talk of murder was unsettling. She was mixing up her third batch of aioli, having ruined two already, when Rivka glanced over at her and asked, “How much of that stuff are you going to make?”
    “The usual. Those first two were for practice.”
    “Right.”
    In the seven years since cooking school, Sunny had gone from sous-chef at a San Francisco monolith to owner and chef of the tiny, best-kept secret in the Napa Valley. But today she couldn’t keep her mind on what she was doing, couldn’t even slip into that automatic efficiency that usually took over when she was distracted by ordinary concerns. She watched her hands as if they were someone else’s. Without any connection to what she was doing, she assembled plates of roasted duck breast with cranberry chutney, sides of grilled vegetables and Gorgonzola mashed potatoes, and shallow dishes of fettuccine with chanterelles. She dropped dollops of crème fraîche and chives into bowls of butternut squash soup and slipped a wedge of garlic crouton in beside it. She arranged slices of pear tart with vanilla bean ice cream and sent out platters of figs, dates, and tangerines for dessert. When the last espresso had been served and the last check put down, Sunny pulled off her chef’s jacket, exhausted.
    Rivka said, “Hey, it’s Friday. Are we still on for tonight?”
    Sunny looked up, stretching her arms. “Yeah. Maybe it will help get things back to normal.”
    “You want me to bring something?”
    “No, I’ll get everything from the walk-in. Is Alex coming?” “He’s working late. I’m meeting him after for a drink. What about Monty?”
    “He’s coming. And Charlie and Wade.”
    “This from the girl who says she