Page 47 of So Bleak

When he walked inside, Faith said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Millie nodded once more and took another puff. “Thank you.”

Her voice was toneless. Perhaps she wasn’t angry or sad right now. She could still be in shock.

“I’m sorry to have to ask you these questions,” Faith said, “but if you can answer me honestly, it could help me find the person who killed your husband.”

Millie nodded again and followed it with another puff. Faith wondered if the repetitive action helped her cope with the shock. “Okay. Sure, I’ll help if I can.”

“Was Samuel acting strangely at all recently? Any odd behavior or unexplainable emotions?”

Millie shook her head. “No, he was his usual arrogant, somewhat stupid self.”

Faith lifted her eyebrow. “You two didn’t get along?”

“Are you kidding? I loved that schmuck. People thought I married him for money on account of the age difference, but no, I was head over heels for the bastard.”

She put her cigarette out in the ashtray and reached into her purse for another. “He was arrogant, but he wasn’t an asshole. He just knew what he wanted, and he was confident he could get it. And he could. He could get whatever he wanted from anyone.”

“Did that make him any enemies?”

She shrugged. “No, not really. The cooking world is different. It’s competitive, but people have a lot of respect for each other. It might not seem that way to outsiders, but it’s true. You can get heated rivalries and even more heated disagreements, but there’s a code to all of it. No one would commit violence against each other. They’ll shout and spit and call each other all kinds of names, but enemies in food don’t go after each other the same way other enemies do. Samuel had a few people claim that he stole recipes from other chefs. That’s about as bad as it got.”

“Anyone in particular?”

She sighed. “He didn’t really talk much to me about it. He brushed those things off whenever I brought it up. I think he didn’t want me to worry.”

“So it’s possible he could have had an enemy out to kill him, and he wouldn’t have told you about it?”

“It’s possible, I suppose. But I couldn’t tell you who it was.”

Faith tried a different tack. “Did he express any interest at all in the ongoing poisoning case?”

She chuckled. “Not really. We talked about it, but that’s just because it was something to talk about. Seems like there’s always some whack job out there killing people lately.”

Faith nodded. “I know what you mean.”

“We didn’t think he was in danger. He definitely didn’t think so. I worried, but only as much as a wife always worries. You know, my sister’s husband was a police officer. It was kind of like that. You worry because you know they face danger every day, but you don’t really worry. You don’t really think that one day, they’re not going to come home, that one of these times will be the time, and they’ll be lost to you forever. That always happens to other people.”

She put out her second cigarette and reached for a third. “Haven’t smoked in three years,” she said. “I thought I’d finally quit.” She lit the cigarette. “Guess not.”

Faith imagined she’d never be able to quit now. “Samuel had a food blog, right?”

“A podcast. Yes. Perfect Bites. He wanted it to be a space to share his experiences with food and the experiences of others in the industry.”

“Did he happen to leave a particularly scathing review somewhere? Something that could have offended anyone or affected their career?”

She shook her head. “No, that wasn’t what it was about. He specifically didn’t want to be a critic. He wanted to focus on how food was experienced by different people in different places at every level of the economic spectrum. He'd review a five-star restaurant one week and a fast-food restaurant the next. It wasn't about comparing or competing anymore. He'd done that for forty years, and he was tired of it. He wanted it to be about food culture, not some pissing contest.

“He always hated that part. It’s odd to hear about him since he had a reputation as a forceful personality, but he really didn’t like the competitiveness of the industry. He used to complain to me that people were too concerned about Michelin stars and magazine articles and glowing reviews from food critics and not about what food was supposed to mean.”

“What did food mean to him?”

She sighed and stared wistfully out at the parking lot. “It was life.”

She fell silent and let her third cigarette burn to the filter without taking another drag. Faith didn’t interrupt her silence. This was the second time someone had told her that food was life. This was the fourth time Faith had seen food become death.

This was the first time the victim had refrained from critiquing others. The other three had reviewed places and occasionally left scathing remarks. Even Lila Vance had several videos where she labeled an eatery “gross” or “terrible” and told her viewers not to waste their money there.

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