The Cook Who Couldn't

“I cannot believe I won the drawing!” Bernadine said excitedly, as she knocked on the door of the large home.

Every week, Bernadine watched Mrs. Cook Cooks, the number one cooking show in the country.

Mrs. Cook was Melissa Cook, a former paralegal turned overnight culinary sensation specializing in traditional Norwegian food.

Bernadine had registered for a drawing when ordering some cookware and won a ticket to a live show and dinner party with Melissa Cook herself.

The door was opened by a distinguished butler wearing a white jacket, white gloves, black slacks and patent leather shoes shined to a mirror finish.

“Good day ladies, may I have your confirmation slip?” he asked, while Bernadine fumbled through her purse.

“My name is Bernadine Mills, I won the drawing,” she said, handing him a slip of paper.

The butler looked at Alvina, who Bernadine seemed to have forgotten.

“The rules said that we could bring one guest and this is my best friend, Alvina Johnson,” Bernadine told him.

“Of course, welcome,” the butler said, nodding courteously to each of them. Stepping aside to let them in, he continued, “I will be happy to take your jackets and hang them up.”

As they shrugged out of their new blazers, bought especially for this occasion, a slender woman with short, blond hair and dressed in a black shirt and slacks approached them. “Hello ladies, my name is Elna and I will be your hostess for the evening. Follow me.”

They found themselves comfortably seated at small round table with Lonnie and Joann, a young couple from Nebraska. After exchanging pleasantries, it became clear that Joann was the real fan of the show. “I’m afraid I prefer detective shows to cooking shows,” Lonnie told them. “I might have to agree with you sir.” Alvina replied.

According to Bernadine, this was to be a live broadcast of Mrs. Cook Cooks. The recipes would be cooked live. The attendees who had won the drawing would be served the dishes that were being cooked for the show.

“May I get you anything to drink ma’am?” Alvina found herself looking up at Elna, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere with a bottle of red wine.

Bernadine interrupted, “I’m afraid that Alvina is a teetotaler, even if the wine is one of the best vintages in the world.”

“What about mineral water?” Elna suggested.

“That would be lovely, dear,” said Alvina, polite to Elna while glaring at Bernadine.

“Honestly, I don’t know if we should even be drinking at all,” Joann said, “but I couldn’t turn down this wine. It’s older than I am!”

“What do you think we will start with?” Alvina asked Joann.

“There is a menu online,” Lonnie answered, looking at his phone.

“We will start with a salad and then the blue star steak soup, followed by….” Lonnie moved his finger over the phone screen to see more of the menu.

“Oh yes!” Joann interrupted, “steak soup with blue star mushrooms was the first gourmet dish she created; it is the reason she became a cook!”

As she often did, Alvina took the opportunity to make a mental note of her surroundings.

The wood-paneled room with small windows was large enough that several other small tables like their own were placed around a centered cooking area. This consisted of a long marble-counter with a built-in gas stove and oven. Various sizes and shapes of stock-pots, pans, casserole dishes and a Dutch oven sat near the stove. Behind the counter was a kitchen island that had been set up as a separate work station, where two young men stood, chopping assorted vegetables.

Guests were seated and making quiet conversation. Each table was covered with a lace table-cloth. A tasteful centerpiece on every table included white cala lilies, pink roses and a small silver tray that held a salt and pepper shaker.

A man stood up with a small microphone in his hand. The conversation around the room gradually died down.

“Hello all!” the man said.

“That’s her husband, Jason Cook,” Bernadine whispered.

Alvina turned in her chair to see Mr. Cook.

He was a large man, over six feet tall with short black hair. His clothes were expensive but still seemed like they were a bit rumpled. He was smiling awkwardly as he began to speak.

“Some of you here know me, but for those of you who don’t, I am Mr. Melissa Cook.” He joked.

A wave of chuckles filled the room as he continued.

“No really, my name is Jason Cook and I am married to the woman who made all of this possible for us. You know, three years ago, I was trying to be a medieval history professor, Melissa was working as a paralegal at a law office downtown, Wright and Wright, Wills and Estates.”

People leaned forward to hear more of the story. Jason Cook continued.

“…and I had an offer to teach at a small private school in Norway starting in December of that year. The thing was that we were going to need a loan from my dad to get set up there, Melissa would be quitting her job; so, we had the idea to invite my dad over to dinner and ask him for the money. Melissa decided to make a big pot of spaghetti,” Jason Cook told them.

Knowing, raucous laughter broke out in the crowd. Bernadine was giggling and nudging Alvina. This was a story the fans already knew.

Jason smiled and explained.

“For those of you who don’t know, Melissa wasn’t exactly a great cook back then. She put a plate of crunchy spaghetti noodles and unseasoned half raw ground beef with tomatoes on a plate in front of my dad….and he was so eager to get away from that plate that…. he gave us twice the amount of money we asked for! He said later he loved Melissa like a daughter but he wanted her cooking on another continent!”

The laughter grew louder.

Jason Cook held up his hand and gradually the room fell silent again, while he continued his speech.

“Melissa started researching Norwegian cuisine. Within a week of our arrival in Norway she was sourcing wild blue star mushrooms in a forest near our house. From there she developed her trademark soup. Within a year, her cooking videos went viral and the rest is history.”

Jason Cook stopped as a brief applause began.

“Let me just say that marrying her was the best decision I ever made,” he continued, “and I am proud to introduce you to the woman of the hour, the woman who wants to feed all of you….my wife Melissa, the Cook who Cooks!!”

Just then a spotlight illuminated the cooking station and the tall auburn-haired woman behind the counter. The small crowd clapped and cheered.

Melissa Cook smiled and waved to everyone then began to speak.

“Hello all and thank you for coming to my dinner party. Without you, none of this would be possible.”

Someone from the crowd yelled out, “I’m addicted to your cinnamon cake!”

“We’re starving!” someone else said.

Melissa Cook replied, “I hope you’re ready for best meal of your lives. Just remember, this isn’t just a dinner party. It’s a live show and all of you are my co-stars today. Let’s get started!”

A flurry of activity began. Hostesses refilled drinks and brought salads. Several people with cameras began to move around the cooking station.

Melissa Cook looked at one camera while pouring oil into a pot on the stove. The young men had finished chopping the vegetables and had set up a number of bowls with the exact amount of everything she needed. As she was cooking, she narrated the recipe and process.

“First you sauté the steak, then you will add the onion, garlic, carrots and celery,” Melissa told one camera.

Alvina became aware of a delicious scent filling the air as the food sizzled in the pot. Her stomach began to growl.

Melissa stirred inside the pot with a wooden spoon, then turned to another camera to continue. “After your vegetables begin to soften and become translucent, you add the ‘secret’ ingredient, the blue star mushrooms.”

The mushrooms were in a large bowl and Melissa gestured to them, while speaking to another camera.

“You will see that we haven’t chopped these like we did the other vegetables,” Melissa explained, “that’s because these mushrooms are small enough to just add to the soup whole.”

“And,” Melissa continued while she demonstrated, “Add these gradually, I add a handful, then I stir, add a handful and stir.”

Suddenly, Alvina noticed something odd. Melissa Cook’s face began to get red, as if she were suddenly getting very hot.

Trying to recover herself, Melissa looked at another camera and began to speak slowly, “You know, I…sourced these…. in…in…Norway.”

She then held up one of the mushrooms to the camera closest to her and said, “These…are…great cooked but…. you can also eat them…raw.”

Melissa bit the top off of one of the mushrooms. Turning back to the stockpot that was steaming on top of the stove, she lost her footing and fell to the floor.

Some in the crowd screamed and gasped. Jason Cook ran across the room to his wife. “Melissa! Melissa! Are you okay?” He yelled.

“Is there a doctor?!” someone asked.

“I’m calling an ambulance.” Lonnie said, picking up his phone from the table.

When the paramedics arrived, they tried and failed to revive Melissa. Everyone was dazed with shock as the body was covered with a white sheet.

The butler entered to make an announcement. “Everyone, please stay where you are. Jason Cook has retired to his room. He is understandably, very upset. The police are on their way. They will be taking statements from everyone.”

Bernadine and Alvina glanced at each other.

“Maybe it was a sudden heart attack,” Bernadine said.

Alvina shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Just then she noticed that Elna, their hostess, was cleaning up the cook station, sweeping chopped vegetables into a garbage can, turning the stove off, putting the stock pot into a pan of water to cool.

The poor girl didn’t seem to know that this was now a crime scene and shouldn’t be touched.

“Lonnie,” Alvina said, “follow me and bring your phone.” Lonnie nodded and complied as Alvina walked toward the counter.

“I don’t think you should be doing that, dear, the police won’t want anything to be touched,” Alvina told Elna, looking at looking at the girl’s small delicate hands. She noticed then that Elna wore several small silver rings. Alvina frowned. She herself had always taken her rings off when cleaning or working with food.

Elna barely glanced up. “Please go back to your table and wait for the police ma’am, the show is over,” she said flatly.

Alvina and Lonnie walked a few steps away then stopped.

“Lonnie,” Alvina whispered, “do you think you could take a few pictures of the cooking area?”

Lonnie replied, “Better than that, I’m doing a video of everything, the police can look at it frame by frame if they need to.”

Alvina glanced back at the counter. Everything had been thrown away, except the mushrooms. A large trash bag was sitting next to the counter tied off at the top. Elna, now wearing yellow latex dish gloves, scooped the remaining mushrooms up and put them in an empty trash bag, knotting it tightly and placing it on top of the other bag at the end of the counter.

As Alvina and Lonnie returned to the table, she noticed Bernadine talking to a young man crying in the corner of the room. Alvina recognized him as one of the assistants who had chopped the vegetables.

Bernadine consoled the young man for a moment before one of the other assistants began to hug him.

“Miss Alvina, I think you should see this!” Lonnie said.

“I was able to pull out some of the frames from the video I made,” he continued, “I did an image search and look!”

As Bernadine returned, both she and Alvina looked at the screen. The mushrooms on the counter weren’t edible blue star mushrooms at all. Rather, they were a deadly variation called grey slipper. The article stated:

Grey slipper mushrooms look very similar to blue stars, but they are darker and lack the small blue design at the top of the cap. They cause dizziness and headaches if handled, death if ingested.

Bernadine sighed. “The assistant I was just talking to, he suspects the mushrooms. He noticed Melissa Cook’s strange behavior after she began adding them to the soup.” she said.

“I noticed that too, but there is something else that bothers me about the mushrooms,” Alvina told Bernadine.

“Besides the fact they were probably poison?” Bernadine asked.

“Didn’t Mr. Cook say that Melissa started sourcing them wild in Norway just after they arrived in December?” Alvina asked.

“I believe he did say that,” Lonnie chimed in.

“You’re right!” Joann remembered. “He said that he was going for a teaching job in December!”

“She didn’t source these mushrooms wild in Norway in December because it would have been too cold,” Bernadine said.

“Exactly, and there are other questions, like how did she not recognize that she was using the wrong mushrooms.? They are similar, not identical. Melissa Cook should have known the difference.” Alvina said.

“Yeah,” Joann agreed, “and who goes from not being able to boil a spaghetti noodle to being a world-class chef with the number one cooking show?”

“Maybe,” Alvina reasoned, “someone who has stolen another person’s recipes.”

Bernadine looked heartbroken. “You know, if you look at Melissa Cook’s website, she has over seven hundred detailed recipes. That does seem like a lot for someone to develop in just a couple of years,” she admitted.

“I don’t know,” Lonnie said, he was furiously typing on his telephone touch screen, “I am doing a number of searches and I can’t find any duplicates online. It all looks original to me.”

“Just because no one else posted them online doesn’t mean someone else didn’t develop them. Do a search for wills probated by the law offices of Wright and Wright,” Alvina told him.

Checking to make sure she was alone, Elna crept to the firepit in the Cooks’ back yard. The yellow dish gloves made opening the trash bag with the mushrooms a clumsy endeavor, but once she got them dumped in the firepit and lit them, she was home free.

She didn’t hear anyone behind her until Alvina spoke. “Elna is a name of Norwegian origin, isn’t it dear. A variation of Helena, I believe.”

Startled, she turned around to see Alvina, Bernadine, Lonnie and Joann. “I…you need to go back; the police will want to talk to you.”

“No Elna,” Alvina said, “I think they may be more interested in what you have to say.”

Bernadine looked at Elna’s hands. “Why are you still wearing latex dish gloves?” she asked.

Elna grew defensive. “I was…I was cleaning up.”

“I saw you cleaning up, and I immediately noticed the lovely silver rings on your fingers,” Alvina said.

“So???” Elna smirked at them.

“So, you didn’t have any gloves on your hands while you were cleaning up,” Bernadine told her.

Alvina continued, “You put those gloves on specifically when you needed to get the mushrooms off the counter. You knew that they were toxic to touch and so you couldn’t risk becoming ill, not when you still had to dispose of them, your murder weapon.”

“What are you talking about lady?” Elna asked.

“I’m talking about murder, Elna. I’m talking about a collection of secret recipes your grandmother left to you in a locked safety deposit box.” Alvina said.

Elna said nothing gripped the bag tighter and stepped backward, away from Alvina.

“Estates are public record my dear. Your grandmother, Annika Nielsen, immigrated to this country with a few coins and several generations of delicious Norwegian cooking, secret recipes developed by the women of your family over centuries.” Bernadine explained.

Alvina continued the story, “She cooked from memory, until she was diagnosed with dementia. Then she wrote her everything on notecards, placed them in a safety deposit box and gave the key along with her estate plan to her attorneys, Wright and Wright.”

Elna began to cry. “The lawyers gave me the key after my grandmother died, but by then Melissa had already stolen everything!! I only realized it when a saw her show a few months ago.”

“But Melissa did go to Norway,” Joann volunteered.

“Purely coincidence, by then Melissa already had the recipes, and the trip provided a perfect cover story for her sudden cooking ability,” Alvina said.

Lonnie looked at Alvina, “So Melissa Cook was able to steal the recipes from the safety deposit box? How?”

Bernadine explained, “They key would have been in the estate file along with the will. Melissa Cook was a paralegal for Wright and Wright. She probably typed up the plan and knew the recipes were there. She had access to the file and the key.”

“She was building a multimillion-dollar empire that should have been mine!” Elna sobbed.

The police entered the yard and Alvina stepped closer to Elna. “You and I both know it wasn’t the money. It was the history, the legacy, the labor and the love that your grandmother put into every bite of food that she served her family. And Elna, Melissa Cook could never take that. You yourself dishonored that when you decided to take another life.”

As the police approached Elna, Alvina thought about life and death and fame and money.

Most of all, she thought about the local drive-thru cheeseburger place that was advertising a five-dollar meal deal.

She would ask Bernadine to stop on the way home.

After all, they never did have dinner.