Conundrum (15 page)

“If I’m lucky,” Iris said staring at the hippos.
Had this nurse strayed from the
pediatrics
ward?

Iris’ vitals noted
,
the nurse swept out just as Ellie entered.
“Great hairdo,
darlin
’.
It looks like something Raven might have created.” She gently gave Iris a kiss on the forehead.
“Poor baby.”

“How bad do I look? I smell like an incinerator.”

“Don’t worry. I brought my hair-cutting shears. We’ll just give you some layers in the front.”

Chapter 25

“I
look like Karen Carpenter!” Iris moaned as she inspected herself in the hospital’s bathroom mirror. “Do you think I’ll bring back the ‘shag’?”

“Now don’t you be
dissin
your hairdresser, girl.”

“I’m sorry. I’m such an ungrateful wretch. Thank you for salvaging what you could. Can you believe someone sent me a letter bomb? It’s not that I was hoping to win Miss Congeniality, but it’s hard not to take this personally.” She slid back into the bed and her head started to throb again.

“Someone thinks you know something.”

“Maybe I do have some vital clue buried deep in my sub-conscious. I think I need a hypnotist.” Iris pried off an edge of the gauze bandage and peered at the burns on her upper chest. Even through the white salve coating her skin, she could see the ugly red blisters.

“I guess I won’t be showing a lot of cleavage for
awhile
.”

“How does it feel? Do they itch?”

“Not too bad yet.
They’ll probably itch when they dry out.”

“Luc said that Detective Malone was here. Who does he think is behind all this?”

“He said that the murderer hasn’t made any mistakes yet, but that sooner or later he or she would slip up.”

“Well, doesn’t that inspire
confidence.
We could all be butchered in our beds by then. Where’s Chief Inspector Jane
Tennison
when you need her?”

“The police said that Norman’s body was still slightly warm, despite the wine refrigerator being on, so he must have been killed either right before I drove up or while I was upstairs.”

“Ugh! What a creepy thought. But wouldn’t you have heard something or seen a car if it had happened while you were there?”

“I saw Norman’s Prius in the upper driveway, but the murderer could have parked in the garage on the side. I wouldn’t have seen it when I came to the front door. There was loud music on when I got there, so it was hard to hear anything. Since the garage is on the middle level between the wine cellar and main floor above, the murderer could have escaped through the garage while I was up in the kitchen. Come to think of it, I think I did hear a door slam.”

“Did you tell that to Detective Malone?”

“All
except
the door slamming.
I just remembered that.”

“You should tell him.”

“He’ll probably think I’m trying to divert suspicion from myself again.”

“Oh, come on. The police can’t possibly think that you killed Norman and stuffed him in the wine refrigerator. Think of all the valuable wine that might have gotten wrecked. You’d never do that!”

“Very funny.
True as well. Why didn’t I think of using the wine snob defense?”

“So our timeline doesn’t show us anyone who could have killed both Will and Norman.
Unless you actually
did
do it, Iris.”

“With my middle-age memory, I wouldn’t rule me out.”

Chapter 26

O
n Monday morning, as soon as she could convince her doctor to release her, she walked from Mt. Auburn Hospital to one of her favorite places in Cambridge,
Formaggio
Kitchen,
a
gourmet deli. Aside from being packed to the rafters with unusual food, its floor plan of three rooms laid out in a row had always intrigued her. Iris grabbed a basket and headed toward the cheese case. She studied the different choices. Stinky
epoisses
sat haunch-to-haunch with raw-milk
chevre
,
mimolettes
,
breb
is
, and a huge wheel of gruyere—
many of them aged in the shop’s own basement ‘cave.’ She lingered over two choices, discussing their merits with the salesperson, a skinny young man with an eager expression. After settling on a wedge of pecorino, she moved on to the cured meats that shared the glass-fronted display. She debated among the prepared foods, pates, exotic condiments, and the expensive but well edited wine selection.

With her basket half filled, she moved on to the store’s middle room, a ‘captive room’, accessed only through one of the other two. This tiny jewel box was filled with all things sweet. Pastel petit-fours,
madeleines
dipped in chocolate and a dozen different kinds of cakes and cookies were on display. But Iris delighted most in the exotic brightly-wrapped candies lini
ng the floor-to-ceiling shelves—
hand-cut sherbet-colored marshmallows, green apple lollipops, and sugary fondants. This room was straight out of her childhood fantasies. She hesitated,
then
had two fruit tarts carefully wrapped in a bakery box.

The last room was the largest. It was an elegant grocery with the platonic ideal of each category on offer. One could find perfectly ripe organic mission figs or tart bilberry nectar. Along the edges of the minuscule aisles could be found fresh brioches, burnt caramel ice cream, or eggplants so beautiful they might have been sculpted from wax. There was even a flower shop within the grocery space offering exquisite single blooms at impressive prices. She considered getting some flowers, but didn’t want to overdo her thank-you picnic for Luc and run the risk of embarrassing him.

It was just after noon by the time she returned home and it dawned on her that Luc might be overseeing the lunch shift at the café. She had never actually been at the Paradise during lunchtime, and realized she didn’t know his schedule. She had imagined the two of them enjoying this picnic in his apartment. She searched on line to find his home phone number and noticed that
he lived on Arlington Street—
Ellie’s street. She was surprised that they hadn’t ever bumped into him walking around the neighborhood. His building was on the odd side, not the even. Good. That meant that it wasn’t the condo building with the ugly modern entryways.

“Hello?” His voice sounded ragged, tentative.

“Oh, God.
I’ve woken you
up. It’s Iris. Go back to sleep—
sorry…”

“No, that’s okay. I need to get up soon anyway. I’m up early to visit the markets, and help with the breakfast crowd, then come home to get a few more hours of sleep before starting the
dinner prep. I usually wake up around now. It’s good to hear from you. How’s the head feeling? Are you home now?”

“There’s no pain that Advil can’t handle at this point. I’m home, and I wanted to drop by with something for you.”

“Great. Come on over. Do you know where I am? It’s the corner of Mass Ave and Arlington
Street, above the Paper Source—
Building 3, third floor, door on the right. I can buzz you in. Just give me fifteen minutes to take a shower.”

Chapter 27

T
his was always the tricky part for Iris. Being so visually particular, she had a hard time being with someone with bad taste. What if Luc’s living room featured a clunky pleather sofa with floral wing chairs facing an enormous TV? More than one of her relationships had been scuttled when the guy’s place had spaghetti sauce encrusted on the stove’s burners or toothpaste spit on the medicine chest. But then Luc had designed the interior of the Paradise Café, and that was tasteful.

She got buzzed into a well-maintained lobby with an old-fashioned cage-type elevator. As she got out on the third floor, she heard a blues riff that she didn’t recognize seeping out from an open door.

“Luc?”

He came into his foyer wearing jeans and a white button-down shirt, drying his hair with a towel. His skin looked rosy from the warm shower. The open top buttons of his shirt revealed light brown chest hair. He looked vulnerable and sexy. Before she could think about it, she kissed him on the lips and felt his responding warmth. The same scent from the
ir kiss in the café reached her—
spicy and a little woodsy. Was it aftershave or an exotic Italian soap that he’d gotten in Rome?

“Iris,” he said.

“Hi,” she said softly. He would probably think she was a desperate cougar if she jumped him now. She winced, turned away, but was then drawn into an airy, inviting living room beyond. It had high ceilings, enormous windows and deep crown moldings. The furniture, however, was sleek and modern. Iris had always liked that juxtaposition of modern furnishings in a classic setting. But more impressive was the room’s balance between order and relaxation. She wandered over to an ornate wooden fireplace mantle flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookcases.
On the shelves personal things—
photographs and mementos, were interspersed with over a hundred books. Magazines and newspapers were piled on a coffee table alongside a pottery plate that read
Capri
. Luc watched her curiously.

“This place looks so European. I love it,” she said.

“That’s why I bought it
—the architecture reminds me of my place in Rome. You can’t believe how many boring, generic condos there are out there. Let me help you with these bags. What have you brought?”

“It’s some lunch things to thank you for being my
good
Samaritan last night.”

“
Di
niente
.
”
He bowed slightly. “All part of my job as bodyguard.”

She followed him into a large corner room where sunlight bathed the cream-colored walls. A formidable Aga range held court against a back wall of restaurant-grade appliances.

“This is the
main reason I bought the place—
the serious kitchen. But I never get a chance to use it with all the time I spend at the café.” He rested the bags on the marble counter. “Are these from
Formaggio
? I love that place!”

Iris relaxed at an ancient pine table, smiling as she watched Luc lift items out of the bags like a boy at Christmas. “
Aah
, real pecorino!” He held it up to his nose, inhaled deeply, and sighed. Then holding up the wine bottle to read the label he exclaimed,
“ I
didn’t know they exported this! You are transporting me back to Italia,
cara
.”

“And you don’t even have to cook.” She liked that he had called her
‘
cara
’
.

“You have to taste this wine—
a 2005
Tenuta
Migliardonico
‘Chateau de Novi’
Gavi
!” The ‘r’ rolled off his tongue convincingly. He opened the bottle and filled two glasses. “Did you know that the
Castello
Gavi
was once used as Napoleon’s headquarters?”

“Being French, I’ll bet he located his fortresses on the basis of the quality of the nearby vineyards.” She took a sip.”
Mmmm
. Dry and flinty is my favorite combination in a white.” She nodded toward the living room, “Have you read all the books out there?”

“Most of them.
I love reading. That was actually the hardest part about moving to another country. I had to leave most of my books here.”

“Are you glad to be back?”

“That’s a complicated question. But first, you owe me the story of your life.”

He arranged the food on plates. They sat in his cheerful kitchen pulling off hunks of focaccia and cheese and sipping the pale, golden wine.

“Where did you grow up? Any family other than this brother I’ve been hearing about?”

“I’m a genuine Yankee— grew up in Norwich, Vermont.
Just my one straight-laced, disapproving brother.
I was the kid with bright pink hair and thrift-shop clothes in high school who hung out with the artsy crowd. My father was an art history professor at Dartmouth, and my mother taught at the local elementary school. Then he got offered a position at Harvard around the time I started college, so they moved down here.”

Luc made a frame with his hands.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to picture you with pink hair.”

“I looked great. I may dye it that color again. It sure would liven up
Zoning
board meetings.”

Luc grinned as he broke off some tiny champagne grapes and added them to her plate.
“Go on, Pinky.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I stayed up at Dartmouth to major in Visual Studies. They had a good architecture program in
theVis
Stud department, and architecture had all the elements I liked about studio art, but it could actually affect people’s lives. I was so idealistic then. I was going to design beautiful low-income housing.” Iris smiled at the memory of her innocent idealism.