Turn up the Heat

his finger up in a pile of bandages and taped it good and tight, so he had this big old sausage on his hand.”
    Snacker continued. “It was still bleeding a lot, though. So after a while, I went to change the bandage. When I pulled it off, all this blood started spurting out, and I guess I passed out.”
    Josh started giggling uncontrollably as he spoke. “So obviously I had to take him to the hospital. When we got there, I kept telling them that Snacker had been throwing up and that he felt really sick and all that.”
    “Why is this so funny?” Blythe asked. “This is a horrible story!”
    Snacker slammed his beer down with a smile. “Because Josh was trying to convince them that I couldn’t take any medication orally, and the only way to get any medicine into me was to stick it up my—”
    “No!” Blythe gasped.
    I leaned over and playfully pushed Josh. “Some friend you are!”
    “And that’s how I got this lovely scar.” Snacker held his hand up in the air, and we all clinked bottles again in honor of his kitchen wound.
    “On a serious note,” Blythe said once we’d stopped laughing at Snacker’s misfortune, “what do you guys think about Leandra? Can you believe that she was killed with an apron from Simmer?" Blythe’s speech was starting to slur.
    “Pretty freaky,” said Josh.
    “Who has keys and the alarm code and could have gone in and out of Simmer after hours?” I wondered aloud.
    “All of us do.” Snacker gestured to Josh, Blythe, and himself. “And obviously Gavin. Wade and Kevin. And Le-andra. What we don’t know is if she was killed inside and moved outside to the truck, or whether she was killed in Owen’s truck. Either way, it seems the killer ditched the apron with our laundry, because I don’t think the police found anything in the Dumpster in the alley.”
    “I can’t believe we have this memorial thing tomorrow. What a joke. But if you ask me, it was probably Wade who killed her,” Blythe offered up. “He is such a backstabber, I wouldn’t put it past him.” Snacker and Josh nodded in agreement.
    “Well, I don’t know if he killed her, but he is an asshole,” Josh said.
    “What’s wrong with Wade?” I asked everyone. The only thing I could remember to Wade’s discredit was Gavin’s having said that Wade was putting down Josh. Now, I had the feeling that there’d been more than that isolated incident.
    Josh put his arms on the table and leaned in. “Oh, he does shit like act like my best friend and then go and bad-mouth me to Gavin. For instance, one time, we had a small party for dinner, and I misread one of the orders, so things were about ten minutes late. Not a big deal, right? And the customers didn’t complain. But Wade took it upon himself to tell Gavin about it and say that I couldn’t keep up. Another time, I asked him to run to the store for me and pick up a gallon of scallops because we were low. Wade acted like it was no problem, that he’d be happy to help. Later I found out that he told Gavin that I was too lazy to do it myself, that I’d screwed up our ordering, and on and on. One minute he’s your best friend, and the next he’s shitting all over you. What’re you gonna do?”
    “Yeah, and I’m so sick of him kissing Gavin’s ass all the time,” Blythe said with a burp. “Wade talks crap about Gavin like we all do, but he’s Gavin’s faithful lackey. And meanwhile Gavin is running Simmer like it’s a chain restaurant or something, with his stupid management software.” Snacker said, “Gavin doesn’t know what’s going on at the restaurant most of the time. Josh, and even Wade, probably know three times more than Gavin does.” He nodded in Josh’s direction.
    I started carrying plates to the sink. “But mostly you guys like Gavin, right?”
    “A lot of time, he’s fine,” agreed Josh. “But then you’ve got the times he says stuff to me like, ‘I’d outcook you any day,’ or ‘How ignorant can you be?’ and ‘Can’t you get it through your thick skull?’ Yeah, he’s a dream. He thinks he can outcook me, and meanwhile he’s trying to have me precook and then freeze fish when it’s getting old. But the best is when he tries to jump on the line!”
    Snacker started laughing. “Yeah, any time Gavin tries to work with us, he gets all flustered and irritated because he can’t keep up, can’t deal with the chaos, and can’t keep from burning everything. Plus, he loses orders and just tries to cook