Smoked (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) by Elaine Macko Page B

claimed a couple of minutes ago?” I asked.
    She had the good manners to look chastised. “No. Things are not booming. More like bombing. I thought you were a potential buyer. Do you know anything about the restaurant business, Alex?”
    “Ah, no, not really.”
    “It takes a lot of money and a lot of time to build up a reputation. Frank and I, that’s my husband, we’re both vegetarians. Raised our kids that way too. We always wanted to open up a vegetarian restaurant, grow our own vegetables and make a real go of it. How many people get to realize their dream?”
    “Well, I started up my own business, with my sister. So I think I can understand your desire to have something of your own that you started,” I said.
    “Exactly. And how is your business going?”
    “Fine. Good, actually.” I wasn’t about to tell Carol Corliss about my sleepless nights over We’re Just Your Type. After all, it looked like the woman was currently out of a job and she just might need to sign up at a local agency to find work. And I wanted that agency to be mine.
    Carol got up and walked to the window overlooking the front yard. “We put everything we had into that place. All our money, our time, our energy.” She turned and looked at me. “Thank God we didn’t touch the money we set aside for the kids. They’re both in college and that’s the one thing that’s going good for us. They’re doing great.”
    “But what exactly happened? Why do you blame Maria for…for what exactly? Why are you selling your dream?” I asked.
    Carol walked back to the sofa and took a look into her cup of coffee. “I need another. Can I get you more tea?”
    I followed her into the kitchen and watched as she turned the heat on under the tea kettle and got another tea bag from a canister on the counter. Behind her, through the kitchen window, I saw a large patch of yard that I assumed was the garden where she grew vegetables for her restaurant.
    She saw me looking outside and her face looked sad. “We were doing good. It was all starting to come together. After almost two years, we were getting a reputation for innovative food, fresh produce, a welcoming ambience. The New Haven Register did a story on the vegan movement and profiled us. We started to get a lot of traffic from students, professors. It was all good. And then that blog . It ruined us. And it wasn’t even our fault. Do you know what casein is?”
    I shook my head. Carol handed me my cup and we returned to the living room.
    “Neither did I. We make most of our meals in the restaurants. We use vegetables from our garden and I supplement with stuff I buy from local small farmers. But we serve a few things, mostly on the lunch menu, which I purchase through our distributor. We are primarily a vegetarian restaurant but have been adding quite a few vegan dishes to our menu. There are so many differences between the two and I’ve taken some classes, I do my research. I try to offer good food at good prices.”
    “So what about the casein,” I asked steering the conversation back to the blog.
    “It’s a milk protein used in processed foods. It’s vegetarian but not vegan, being milk. I get vegan burgers from our distributor and as it turns out, he’s been misrepresenting his vegan products. The burgers had fillers like casein and ground shellfish.”
    “And Maria Kravec wrote about this in her blog?”
    Carol nodded her head. “Yes, she did.”
    “But how did she know? Can you taste it?”
    Carol reached for the hair clip that had fallen earlier and twisted her hair back up on top of her head and secured it. Most redheads I’ve known have light eyes, usually blue, but Carol’s were a deep brown. She was a pretty woman, on the thin side, and clearly had a lively personality, but this business with the blog had clearly taken a toll.
    “How did she know? She hired someone to come in, order food, and then take samples back to a lab for testing.”
    “Why? Why would someone do