The Accidental Detective and other stories by Laura Lippman Page A

my food. And now the guy’s talking lawsuit. I’m gonna be ruined.”
    He gave the last word its full Baltimore pronunciation, so it had three, maybe four syllables.
    â€œDo you have insurance?”
    â€œYeah, sure, I’m so careful my liability policies have liability policies.”
    â€œSo you’re covered. Besides, I can’t see how Gonzales was damaged, other than by heaving so hard he broke a couple of blood vessels beneath his eyes. Those heal. Trust me.”
    â€œYeah, but he was on the last year of a three-year contract and had an endorsement deal pending. Local, but still good, for some dealership. Now they don’t want him. The only endorsement Bandit could get is for Mylanta.”
    â€œThat’s still your insurance company’s problem.”
    â€œYeah, they’ll take care of their money,” Marquez said, “but me and my restaurant will be left for dead. I gotta
prove
this wasn’t my fault.”
    â€œHow can I help you do that? I’m a private investigator, not a health inspector.”
    Herb Marquez walked over to the door and closed it.
    â€œI don’t trust no one, you understand? Not even people who worked for me for years. This is a jealous town and a jealous business. Someone wanted to hurt me, and they did it by pissing in Gonzales’s dinner.”
    Tess decided she was never going to eat out again as long as she lived.
    â€œNot literally,” Marquez added. “But someone doctored that dish. Forty people ate from that same pot Saturday night, and only one got sick. It’s not like I made him his own private batch.”
    â€œYou told the press you did.”
    â€œWell, it sounded nice. I wanted him to feel special.”
    Tess had a hunch that a handsome thirty-five-year-old man who made $6 million a year for throwing a baseball 95 mph probably felt a little too special much of the time.
    â€œI pulled your inspections at the health department after you called me. You have had problems.”
    â€œWho hasn’t? But there’s a world of difference between getting caught with a line cook without a hairnet and serving someone rancid meat. If I had any of the original dish left, I could have had it tested, shown it was fine when it left here. But it was gone and the pot was washed long before he took the mound.”
    â€œDid he eat here or get takeout?”
    â€œWe delivered it special to him, whenever he called. That’s why I wanted you. Your uncle says you do missing persons, right?”
    She didn’t bother to ask which uncle, just nodded. She had nine, all capable of volunteering her for this kind of favor.
    â€œI had a busboy, Armando Rivera. Dominican. He claimed to play baseball there, I don’t know, but I do know he was crazy for the game. Plays in Patterson Park every chance he gets. He begged me to let him take the food to Bandit. So I let him.”
    â€œEvery time?”
    Marquez nodded. “Locally. When he was on the road, we shipped it to him. I’m guessin’ Armando delivered the food at least six times. You see, the first time he came in, it was coincidental-like, the night before opening day, and he was homesick for the food he grew up with in Miami—”
    â€œI know, I know.” Tess wanted to make the rotating wrist movement that a television director uses to get someone to speed up. The story had been repeated a dozen times in the media in the past week alone.
    â€œAnd he pitched a shutout, so he decided to eat it every night before a start,” Marquez continued. “And he told reporters about it, and people started coming because they thought
ropa vieja
was the fuckin’ fountain of youth, capable of rebuilding a guy’s arm. And now he thinks it ruined him. But it wasn’t my food. It was the busboy.”
    â€œArmando Rivera. Do you have an address for him? A phone?”
    â€œHe didn’t have a phone.”
    â€œOkay, but he had