Death, Taxes, and a Chocolate Cannoli (A Tara Holloway Novel) (12 page)

“That’s right!” Jeb said. “I’d forgotten, but the man from Triple Seven had a Cajun accent.”

“He sure did,” Harold added. “Will that help you find him?”

“Maybe.” I stood. “Maybe not.” Texas had quite a few residents who’d come from Louisiana and vice versa. Not unusual for states that bordered each other.

“We’ll be in touch,” Lu said. “As soon as Tara solves the case.”

“
If
I solve the case.” No sense giving these people false hope. Con artists were like cockroaches. There were multitudes of them, and they knew how to hide themselves. They tended to stay out of the open. Besides, the Fabrizio investigation took priority. The crook who’d ripped off the good people of Whispering Pines might have taken their money, but Tino Fabrizio had taken people’s lives.

Lu waved a dismissive hand. “You’ll figure it out.”

I wished I could be as confident as she was.

Jeb and Harold walked us out to the car. Jeb even held out a hand to help Lu in.

As we drove away I said, “Jeb’s quite the charmer.”

“Yes, he is,” Lu said wistfully. “But he’s no Carl.”

chapter thirteen

M
y First Shift

Wednesday marked another night of fitful sleep. I felt lonely without Anne curled up by my side, and I wasn’t yet used to the new bed and the different sounds at the apartment complex. I hoped my insomnia would soon pass. My mind needed to be sharp for the Fabrizio investigation. A sleep-deprived agent could overlook evidence or make mistakes. This case was too critical. I couldn’t risk doing either.

I arrived at the bistro on Thursday morning at ten, ready to begin my new job. Benedetta took me back to her office and had me fill out the requisite employment paperwork. As I completed the forms, I glanced around the room. There was no security camera in the space, at least not a visible one anyway. I knew businesses sometimes used hidden cameras, but wasn’t that more for stores where the management hoped to catch employees pocketing merchandise? Perhaps there was no security camera in here because my suspicions were correct and this was where the money laundering took place. No sense in the Fabrizios recording themselves committing a federal crime. They’d risk the footage being seized by law enforcement and used against them in court. Tino had evaded arrest so far. He was obviously too smart to put a nail in his own coffin.
Eek. There’s that word again. Nail.

Benedetta’s home screen was pulled up, and I recognized an icon for QuickBooks, a popular bookkeeping software for small businesses. I wondered what clicking on that icon could lead me to. Evidence of tax evasion or money laundering? Or merely the bona fide records of a family-owned Italian bistro?

Could I be sitting within arm’s reach of the evidence the government needed to bust Tino Fabrizio?

The question had me nearly squirming in my seat. Things would be much simpler if we could just issue the guy an audit notice. But given that we didn’t want to alert him that he was under scrutiny, we had to hold off on that, at least for now. If nothing else panned out, we could audit him as a last resort. But I had a feeling the guy had done as good a job covering his financial tracks as he had covering his murder tracks.

I gestured to the screen. “I see you use QuickBooks. I’m familiar with that program if you ever need help with the bookkeeping.”

Okay, so it was a ploy to try to get Benedetta to let me into her accounting records. Sue me. It was my job to try to get into those records.

Benedetta laughed. “I just hired you as a waitress and already you’re asking for a promotion.”

I returned the laugh and shrugged. “Just trying to be as helpful as I can.”
And trying to bust anyone around here engaging in tax fraud.

When I finished filling out the work forms, Benedetta and I worked out my schedule for the next two weeks. Our tasks complete, she turned me over to her daughters. Over the next two hours, her daughters taught me everything there was to know about the restaurant.

Stella, the youngest, showed me where to take the dirty dishes and soiled napkins and tablecloths for washing. Luisa, the middle daughter, showed me where the clean silverware, plates, and linens were kept, and how to properly set the tables. Of course I’d learned how to set a proper table at Miss Cecily’s Charm School, but that had been years ago and a refresher course couldn’t hurt.

Elena, the oldest, explained the shorthand used in their orders. She showed me where to turn in the orders for the cooks and where to pick up the food when it was ready. She even showed me where the three fire extinguishers were located, one behind the bar in the dining area and one mounted on the wall at each end of the kitchen. She explained how to operate them in case of a fire. “Just aim and squeeze.”

I gave her a smile. “I think I can handle that.” After all, I could aim a gun, squeeze a trigger, and hit a target at fifty yards with no problem. Compared to a firearm, a fire extinguisher would be easy peasy.

Elena took me on a tour of the warm, steamy kitchen and introduced me to the small kitchen staff currently on duty. All wore white chef jackets and all were men.

An attractive twentyish Latino named Juan stood on the other side of the counter, using a small knife to chop a green pepper into tiny pieces.
Chop-chop-chop.
He lifted his chin in greeting, never breaking stride. “Hey.”

The pasta and desserts were in the hands of Brian, a white man who looked to be in his middle thirties. He wore thick padded oven mitts as he removed a pan of delicious-smelling garlic knots from the oven. He pulled off his mitt and stuck out his hand for a shake. “Good to know you, Tori.”

The last man, Dario, took care of the meat. Dario was a swarthy, beefy guy wearing a blood-spattered apron. He handled the large serrated knife like a pro, slicing through a thick slab of raw meat as if it were butter. He tossed the bone into a bin full of fat and blood and bones. When I became woozy and reached a hand to a counter to steady myself, his lip curled up in what looked more like a sneer than a smile. “This is how the sausage is made, sweetheart. Better get used to it.”

At the back of the kitchen sat one of those large, open brick ovens used for baking pizzas. Flames flickered inside the oven. I felt a sudden urge to make s’mores.

Our kitchen tour complete, Elena took me to a door at the back of the room. The door had a peephole drilled into it. “The kitchen staff enters here,” she said. “Never let anyone in without checking the peephole first. My dad says robbers sometimes try to sneak in restaurants the back way.”

“Your dad?” I feigned ignorance, an act I performed quite easily and believably. Better not to consider the implications. “Does your father work here at the restaurant, too?”

She shook her head. “Did you see all those green cars next door? They belong to his security company.”

“He runs, what’s it called? Cyber…?”

“Cyber-Shield. He’s owned that company since I was little. He started out selling and installing cameras all by himself, and now he’s got a whole staff to do all of that.”

Pride was evident in her voice. I realized then that even if Benedetta was helping her husband launder his funds, their daughters seemed to be in the dark. Or perhaps they had a blind spot where their father was concerned. It wasn’t unusual for parents to idealize their children and vice versa. I wondered how proud Elena would feel about her father if she knew he was an extortionist and a cold-blooded killer.

I realized then that while a successful resolution of this case would take Tino Fabrizio off the streets, it would also take a father and husband away from his family. But I also realized that Tino would be to blame for that, not me. When a criminal was put behind bars, collateral damage was inevitable. Still, I felt a small twinge of guilt. My dad meant the world to me. I couldn’t imagine how I’d feel if he were no longer a part of my life.

Elena unlocked the door and pulled it toward herself to open it. We stepped out behind the building. After the carnage in the kitchen, I was thankful for the fresh air. A catering truck was parked out back. The side was embellished with the words
BENEDETTA’S BISTRO
—
EATING WELL IS THE BEST REVENGE
.

“Great slogan,” I said.

“Our father came up with it,” she said.

Huh. At least he’d leave them with a good slogan when he went off to the slammer.

She walked around to the back of the truck and unlocked it with the keys her mother had given her, which hung from a key chain in the bootlike shape of Italy. She showed me where different food items would be stored for safe transport to offsite locations.

“Does the restaurant do a lot of catering?” I asked. The last thing I wanted was to end up at other places off-site when I needed to be here, keeping a close eye on Tino Fabrizio.

“Once or twice a month,” Elena said. “Mostly big Italian weddings, but we sometimes do business meetings or family reunions, things like that.”

She pointed off to the back of the lot, to a large green Dumpster with black plastic flaps covering the top of the bin. “That’s where the garbage goes.”

Our outside tour complete, she led me back inside and showed me to the automated time clock on the wall. “When you arrive for your shift and when you leave, you’ll punch in the last four digits of your social security number. The machine will keep track of your time automatically. You’ll also need to punch in and out when you take a lunch or dinner break.”

“Got it.” I’d have to remember to use my new fake Social Security number.
Sheesh.
Going undercover required a lot of focus.

Elena’s eyes brightened as she looked past me, sending a smile over my shoulder. “Hi, Dad.”

Dad?

Gulp.

chapter fourteen

L
ike a Crime Boss

The already-warm kitchen where I stood suddenly felt hotter, the flames from the pizza oven burning like the fires of hell. Giustino Fabrizio, notorious mob enforcer, extortionist, and killer, stood so close behind me I could see the toes of his white tennis shoes on the floor just to the right of my own feet.

I forced myself to turn and face the guy, praying I wouldn’t piddle like a puppy.

Wait.

This was the infamous crime boss?

He’d looked like Humpty Dumpty when I’d seen him from afar earlier in the week, but I’d expected him to appear far more intimidating up close. I’d been wrong. Before me stood a man who had three inches on me at best, topping out at only five-feet-five inches, a relative peewee. His face was round with a pronounced forehead leading up to his bald head. Up close like this, he resembled a beluga whale, endangered but not at all dangerous. He wasn’t dressed like a mobster, either. He wore no gold chain around his neck, no fancy watch, no diamond-studded pinky ring. Instead, he was dressed casually in sneakers, chinos, and a neon-green short-sleeved golf shirt with the Cyber-Shield logo imprinted on the chest. His brown eyes took me in, bearing no hint of malice. His mouth was spread in a wide, almost goofy smile. “Greetings, girlies!”

Holy ravioli. I’d expected Tony Soprano but instead I got Tony Danza.

Elena gave her father a hug. “Dad, this is Tori Holland. She’s our new waitress.”

“Welcome, Tori.” Before I knew what he was doing, he’d put a hand on each of my shoulders, performed a European-style double-sided cheek kiss, and stepped back, still smiling. “You’ll enjoy working here. We Fabrizios treat our employees like family.”

Given that he’d killed a number of the men who worked for him, the sentiment gave me no warm, fuzzy feelings. In fact, the places where he’d kissed my cheeks burned as if seared with a branding iron. Even so, I was finding it hard to believe the unimposing, congenial man in front of me was a coldhearted killer.

Could it be possible that he’d left Chicago to get away from the mob game? That the disappearances of the men here in Dallas had nothing to do with him and were mere coincidences? I knew the FBI wouldn’t have put so many resources into going after this guy and wouldn’t have pulled the IRS into the investigation, too, unless they were certain. But given that they’d been able to prove nothing, could we be barking up the wrong tree here?

No.
I forced myself not to be taken in by his looks. Looks, as I knew, could be deceiving. Heck, when it came to deceptive appearances I was exhibit A. I looked like a harmless college girl who’d gone a little crazy with the hair color, when in reality I was a badass federal agent who’d gone a little crazy with the hair color.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Fabrizio.”
As if.

“Please,” he replied. “Call me Tino.”

Benedetta emerged from her office. “Hello, there.”

“There’s my Bennie!” he sang, spreading his arms as he approached her. “You look like a million bucks.”

As he grabbed her in a tight hug, she pretended to fight him off but I could tell she enjoyed every second of it. “Don’t you mean only half a million, Tino?”

My lack of comprehension must have been written on my face.

“That’s how much he’s insured Mom for,” Elena told me.

Tino reached out and ruffled Elena’s hair. “What’s next, Elena? You going to give Tori the secret family recipes?”

Despite the chuckle that followed, Tino’s words seemed to be a warning to his daughter to keep her mouth shut. Perhaps I’d been wrong and Elena did know something after all.

I chuckled, too, hoping to give the impression that I’d taken none of the exchange seriously when, in fact, my mind was going a mile a minute, processing the information. Half a million was not an excessive sum by any stretch of the imagination, especially given that the couple had three daughters who were not yet fully independent and relied on their mother’s restaurant for their incomes. Besides, it wasn’t unusual for businesses to insure their key personnel. Yet something about it gave me pause.

Tino gave his wife a two-cheeked kiss, too, following it up with a direct smooch on the lips. He cupped her chin with his chubby hands. “I could insure you for every penny in the world and it wouldn’t match what you’re worth.”