Chapter Nine: A Name on a Poster
The waterfront exhibition was called The Taste of New England.
It filled a converted warehouse with booths, demonstration counters, and temporary dining tables overlooking the harbor.
Vendors paid steep fees for floor space, and ticket buyers expected presentations by well-known chefs.
North Quay had rented a corner pavilion for what its brochure called an exclusive woodland tasting.
The poster showed a forest photograph beside Walter’s name.
Beneath the photograph, a sentence claimed that every ingredient had been independently verified by him.
Walter examined the poster on Olivia’s laptop.
“I didn’t authorize this,” he said.
“Then we should contact the organizers immediately,” Simone replied.
Thomas called the exhibition director, Helena Baird, and explained that a named expert disputed the endorsement.
Helena asked for written clarification and the exact product involved.
Thomas provided the information and asked her to suspend the tasting pending independent verification.
She sounded alarmed but cautious.
“I can’t shut down a vendor based on another restaurant’s dispute,” she said.
Walter asked for the phone.
“I’m the person named in their advertising,” he explained.
“I can tell you directly that I didn’t examine or approve that lot.”
Helena fell silent for several seconds.
“That changes things,” she said.
She promised to instruct the pavilion not to serve the ingredient while she contacted the relevant food-safety officials.
Thomas ended the call looking slightly relieved.
Then Priya brought another brochure from the restaurant’s front desk.
“This arrived with the ordinary mail yesterday,” she said.
The brochure advertised a second tasting at a hotel across the city at six that evening.
It used the same photograph and Walter’s name.
Lily frowned.
“How many events did they sell his approval to?”
Nobody answered.
Walter sat at the nearest table and took out a pen.
He made a list of every event, product, and promoter named in the materials.
“Don’t assume two posters are the whole story,” he said.
“We need the distributor to identify where the product went.”
Thomas contacted the appropriate authorities to update the earlier report.
Simone called the hotel kitchen and advised the chef to hold any questionable wild mushroom stock until qualified review.
The chef was angry at first because the tasting had been promoted for months.
When Simone described the unauthorized use of Walter’s name, the chef agreed to check his supplies.
Lily walked to the back room to collect additional brochures from a locked advertising cabinet.
There she found Felix sorting stacks of printed menus.
“I heard Grant got suspended,” he said.
“Thomas is reviewing what happened,” Lily replied.
Felix gave her an unhappy look.
“Everyone’s acting like I arranged the shipments.”
“Did you?”
“I signed for boxes, because that was my job.”
“Then tell Simone which boxes you signed for.”
“I already did.”
He pulled a sheet of receiving notes from his pocket.
The paper included dates, quantities, and initials, but several entries bore a small triangle drawn beside them.
“What does the triangle mean?” Lily asked.
“Grant told us those crates didn’t go into the regular kitchen count.”
“Why?”
Felix swallowed.
“He said they belonged to a separate demonstration account.”
“Did you ever see anyone check the contents?”
“No.”
“Then you can say that honestly.”
Felix hesitated.
“I was told I’d lose my promotion if I asked about the separate account.”
Lily thought of her abandoned badge.
“I believe you.”
She did not promise he would face no consequences.
She offered to walk with him to Simone’s office so the facts would not disappear into another private conversation.
Felix agreed.
He brought the receiving sheet and the account number with him.
The list led Olivia to a billing address that neither Thomas nor Simone recognized.
It belonged to a temporary office rented under the name Forest Assembly Events.
At the bottom of the account was an approving signature from Grant Holloway.
