Immaculate Reception (12 page)

I
looked up at the information at the top of the e-mail to check the time it had been sent. “1514.” That meant 3:14 in the afternoon, East Coast time, which translated to 12:14 here. It must have been sent before the old man became ill and died.

A noise registered just beneath my conscious perception. I held my breath and listened. Was it something outside? I looked at the clock. 5:35. I listened hard, but could hear nothing. I remained in that heightened state, every sensation sharpened, until the clock moved to 5:36, and then, slowly I relaxed.

When we met, Monsignor Picca had told me that the documents from his time in Rome were kept in boxes in his sister's garage. Perhaps he had found something and wanted to show it to me.

I studied the e-mail. It gave his sister's name and address.

When Xavier and I began our investigation into Brother Ugo's note of confession, I believe we may have unknowingly kicked open a long closed door. It seemed impossible, but somehow our search in Los Angeles had upset the calm. Whom had we provoked?

What was that? A loud metallic sound, a scrape from down the hall, and, oh my God! I heard the front door open. Shocked, adrenaline rushing, I jumped up off my stool and dove for the wall. My hand flew to the light switch. Instantly, the kitchen was pitch black.

My heart was beating too loud. I eased the drawer open and reached for my eight-inch chef's knife, familiar in my grip as an old friend's hand.

A faint light flipped on down the hall, and then, footsteps.

Barefoot, I creeped silently toward the pantry. Clutching my knife, I slipped into the closet and closed myself inside. I heard the squeak of hinges as the pantry door shut behind me and my blood froze. Fingers clutching, I tried to stop the door from moving, stop the sound.

The main overhead lights were instantly blazing in the kitchen. Someone was there and they didn't care who knew about it. I tried to see out the crack in the door and felt, suddenly, foolish. What if Wes was stopping by? What if…

I caught a glimpse of a dark figure, and then he moved out of range.

My stomach flopped. Arlo was upstairs, asleep. Arlo could sleep through a train wreck. There was no chance he'd be awakened by any sounds from downstairs.

I had to do something fast. How long would it take before the pantry door was ripped open and I was exposed?

My house has been equipped with an old-fashioned dumbwaiter. It's a miniature elevator that goes from the kitchen pantry up to the converted dining room above. Food and dishes go up, dirty trays and leftovers come down. As quietly as I could, I pulled open the hatch, stepped up onto the counter and climbed into an opening that was only about thirty inches square. From the inside I slid the hatch shut.

Almost immediately, the door to the pantry swung open from the other side. Shoved into the dumbwaiter, its hatch shut tight, I waited and listened. My whole body vibrated with tension as I tried to slow my breathing down, desperate not to move a muscle. I clutched the chef's knife between my knees and its point was close to my chin. Squashed as I was in that awkward position, I couldn't tell
who was there and if they suspected I was inches away, behind that hatch above the counter.

Moments went by. Then darkness returned to the small pantry. The outer door must have been shut. Whoever was after me had moved on.

My muscles couldn't take being so cramped for much longer. Slowly, silently, I inched open the hatch to the dumbwaiter to catch some air. There was no movement and no further noise. In the safety of darkness, I began to move. But before I came out, I noticed the door between the pantry and the well-lit kitchen stood slightly ajar. The figure of a man wearing black could be seen moving around my kitchen, silhouetted against the white cabinets and tiles.

I couldn't risk scrambling down. I dared not stay where I was. I did the only thing I could think of. I hit the wall switch that sent the dumbwaiter up to the next floor and ducked my head and arm quickly back inside.

Problem was, the dumbwaiter moved horrendously slowly.

Second and more critical problem—the dumbwaiter's motor was horrendously loud.

Immediately, I could hear movement coming from the kitchen.

The dumbwaiter had not been built to carry a weight over seventy pounds, and I didn't make the limit. As the machinery groaned to lift me I could feel it slowing down.

Below, in the pantry, the door must have been opened again as a shaft of light from that direction brightened.

“Hey!” a man's voice called out, startled, as whomever it was managed to piece together what was going on and realized I was making my escape.

The dumbwaiter had made it up about five feet on its fourteen-foot climb, but then it just gave out. The smell of burned-out motor parts came down at me, and in my enclosed space I gagged.

“Hey!” I heard again, although by this time my fright had started to play tricks on my ears. This time, the voice shouting at me sounded like a woman's. Could that be?
Could I have mistaken the body I saw dressed in black? Was a large, bulky woman after me? I was trapped between floors in a stifling wooden coffin, a knife between my knees, and stuck.

“Hey! Maddie!” the voice shouted at me, alarmed and louder this time. “MADDIE! ARE YOU IN THERE?”

I could barely breathe in the tight space. I couldn't lean an inch without stabbing myself. I was feeling faint from the heat and the fear. My brilliant escape pod had failed. And now, I was hallucinating that Holly was calling up to me.

“FOR GOD'S SAKE! ARE YOU OKAY? SHOULD I CALL THE PARAMEDICS?” Holly screamed.

“Holly?” I asked, but after holding my breath for so long, I could only let out a squeak.

“DON'T MOVE,” she called up to me.

As if I could.

The air was probably getting to me fine, but curled up in that tiny space, I started imagining that it was running out. I was faint, but luckily there was nowhere for me to fall. Except onto the point of the chef's knife.

“Holly, hurry,” I called.

 

Two hours later, I sat in my kitchen sipping a cup of tea. The fire truck had left. The paramedics had departed.

Sometimes when you least expect it, useful new information may come your way, virtually slapping your face with facts. There is no easy way to get out of a dumbwaiter that has become stuck with you inside it between floors. They are not equipped with safety devices and escape mechanisms because no fool is ever supposed to get into one. Note to self: replace burnt out and destroyed dumbwaiter motor with one that can lift my weight. P.S. Add a backup motor.

When Holly had arrived, my house had been totally dark except for the lights blazing from the kitchen windows. The front door had been left wide open and so she walked right in. She expected to find me up early baking, which she
would have done had I not decided to grab a big knife and climb into a tiny box and go for a ride.

Police patrolmen, fingerprint experts, frightened neighbors had come and gone. Arlo even woke up and joined the party. While the parade of humanity used my kitchen as its right-of-way, I sipped tea and finished baking my brioche. At that point, what else could I do? Wesley insists that I like to distance myself from emotional upset. If that's true, then this morning's events had sent me, emotionally speaking, to Nome.

While being questioned by a young officer, I greased my two-quart copper brioche pan. It was a gift and had come from the kitchens at Windsor castle, a royal comfort for those times when you're talking to the police about home invasion.

As I spoke on the phone to Wesley, catching him up on my night, one humiliation at a time, I punched down the dough, turned it out on the marble, and kneaded it for a couple of minutes, punching at it with perhaps more vigor than was actually required.

When Holly took charge and shooed everyone out of my way so I could have a little peace, I chose to spend my peaceful minute cutting off a section of dough that measured about one-fifth of the whole, which I set aside. Then I rolled the remainder into a ball and placed it in Queen Elizabeth's greased copper brioche pan.

My favorite part came next, and I didn't even mind that my neighbor's husband and Arlo were arguing over whether they should try to take apart the dumbwaiter's motor on my kitchen tile. I let them work it out as I took a sharp pair of kitchen shears and cut an X in the top of the dough. Then I shaped the reserved piece of dough into a teardrop and placed the pointed end into the X.

While I worked, Holly told me the entire story of
her
night. Naturally, she and Donald woke up as soon as Wesley drove them home and couldn't go back to sleep. As Holly described the rest of their evening, during which they did more or less what Arlo and I had been doing, I covered
the brioche dough with a blue tea towel to let it rise. For the full thirty minutes that Holly went on, graphically detailing just how spectacular her Donald was, I allowed the dough to sit. In the time it took to give Donald's prowess its full due, the dough had doubled in bulk.

By eight, when Xavier called and discovered to his shock what had occurred in the nighttime, I'd already beaten together an egg yolk and a tablespoon of milk. I was just brushing the prepared dough with egg-glaze as I told Xavier about my suspicions, that we may have gotten too close to a secret.

I told him, just as I'd told Arlo and everyone else, that I was mad as hell and humiliated beyond speaking. Of course, I was determined to get to the bottom of it all. But, yes, I agreed to be extra careful. I'd turn on my alarm, never go out alone, and sleep over at Wesley's until things were resolved. I'm not a fool, I repeated to Xavier before we hung up, and then I slipped the brioche into a 375-degree oven.

Thirty-five minutes later, I pulled out the beautifully golden, heavenly scented, perfectly done puffed crown of a brioche. By the time I'd transferred it onto a wire rack to cool, Arlo came back just to see if I needed anything. Then, Wesley dropped in to check on me and while he was at it, look at the dumbwaiter motor. And then, Xavier walked through the door to implore me to avoid any more investigating, at least until after the pope had departed from our fair city.

Holly had brewed some dynamite Guatemalan coffee and set out a fresh pot of tea, as this large, mostly uninvited group sat down to sample my baked goods.

It was not without irony, then, that at that very moment the doorbell should ring. I opened the door to see Lieutenant Honnett standing on my doormat. He walked right on in, pulled a chair up to the long pine farm table joining Arlo, Wes, and Xavier, and said, thanks, ma'am, to Holly as she poured him a cup of coffee.

The brioche was sliced and served with some cinnamon-
spiced orange marmalade I'd made a few days before. Cream was poured into tea. Cantaloupes were sliced and served with fresh raspberries and yogurt. As everyone was politely passing the honey and complimenting the bread, Honnett made a quiet announcement.

“We had a few officers check the area and one of them found this stuffed in a neighbor's trash can.” He pulled out a large plastic evidence bag that contained a legal-size burgundy leather folder with the initials M.O.B. in gold. “This yours?”

“Oh my God.” I stared at my leather folder. I'd left it on the kitchen counter yesterday, after I came home from visiting Monsignor Picca.

“The initials…”

“Madeline Olivia Bean,” I answered, stunned by the evidence that the break-in had been for real after all.

“The folder was empty when we found it. You remember what you had in it?”

“Yes. Directions to St. Bede's.”

“That all?” Honnett asked, alert.

“No.”

Wesley looked at Holly. Holly looked at Arlo. Arlo looked at Xavier, while Honnett just kept watching me.

“It held a copy of Brother Ugo's confession.”

W
ith all that, Honnett was not convinced we had any real leads. According to him, the burglar could have been after anything, and grabbed the nearest item when he heard Holly coming. There was no conclusive evidence that Monsignor Picca's death wasn't natural, and they already had the killer of Brother Frank in custody. He did intend, however, to track down any disgruntled caterers who may have had a connection to the pope's visit.

I suggested he might check Monsignor Picca's office, to see if the copy of Brother Ugo's confession note I'd left with him was still in his office, and Honnett gave me a look like I should know he'd have this covered.

And then, Lieutenant Chuck Honnett reminded us that there could be a much simpler explanation to the trouble I had had.

“Men break into houses when they're after something,” he noted. “Sometimes they're looking for stuff they can sell off to make a few bucks. Sometimes a jerk sees a beautiful woman in the window, alone, in the middle of the night, lit up like that with no one around. It happens,” he said.

Basically, he was implying that I was “beautiful” and that gave me a nice jolt. As for the weight of his argument, I was unimpressed.

“I know Miss Bean is convinced that the fellow we've arrested for the murder of Brother Frank del Valle is the
wrong man,” Honnett said, “which is her privilege. In spite of the fact that he
confessed
. Even so, I looked into it further…”

“You did?”

“…and it turns out this creep, Anthony Ramona, had both opportunity and motive to back up his confession.”

“No way,” I said, sure as ever that I had to be right.

“Ramona was on the Warner Bros. lot Thursday night. Did you know that? He was there filling a seat in the audience.”

Arlo looked up, startled. “Sitting in the audience at ‘Woman's Work'? Someone let a gang killer on the lot? That's impossible.”

“Apparently not,” Honnett said.

Producing situation comedies is a lively industry, but like any manufacturing process, cranking out a high volume of laughs isn't easy. The recipe is delicate. The timing in comedy is tricky. Audiences are crucial. Sitcoms need real people reacting to the jokes to help the performers get the beats right.

With nearly fifty-five comedy series in production, attracting enough people who are willing to sit all night from six to eleven is tough. Tourists are interested, but they're around in the summer when most sitcoms shut down. So, the studios rely on audience wranglers to round up live bodies to sit though all those long tapings.

Even though the seats are free, the people of L.A. have better things to do on a school night. Audience brokers end up paying fundraising groups to entice enough people to sit through each episode of all the crap that comes out of the studios' mills. Even hit shows like Arlo's end up buying audiences.

“You mean we paid a gang of crackheads to watch our show?” Arlo said, nonplussed. “No wonder we were getting such easy laughs.”

“Wait. We were in that audience,” Holly said, indicating Xavier and me.

“Naturally,” Honnett said, stirring his coffee. “But VIPs
get seated way down in front. They bus in the rest of the audience from wherever they can. That night they had a group in from South Central who were raising funds for their church baseball team. And a couple of gangbangers with brothers on the team apparently got on the bus.”

“So why did Ramona kill Brother Frank?” Xavier asked, in a low voice.

“According to the confession, Ramona knew Frank and his cousins from life on the street. There had been bad blood. Ramona says he spotted Frank in the audience, waited until he could get him alone, and that's it.”

I had to admit the pieces could be made to fit. If Anthony Ramona had been at the studio and saw Brother Frank…I drifted off, trying to rearrange the puzzle with this new odd-shaped piece.

Soon everyone had places to go and people to meet. I promised every man and woman I knew that I would pack a bag and get out of the house. Xavier was planning to move residences as well, since Honnett was in the mood to play things safe. If there was a chance that Xavier's life had been the one they were after, he needed to keep a lower profile.

Arlo had to go to the studio and Honnett gave Xavier a lift.

The pope was expected to arrive this evening, and with our big event only one day away, Wesley was in overdrive. He was going to a meeting with all the volunteers. I told him I'd pass and meet up with him later. We agreed to lunch at his place, since I had to bring some things over for my enforced stay. Holly agreed to baby-sit me until she could safely turn me over to Wes. I mean, really.

It was time to get back to our gig. We weren't actually going to be working the stoves for the reception for the pontiff, so this event had one less element than we were used to. After the frenzy of previous years, this little job seemed to almost run itself. Of course there were a million details to confirm, but unlike most events I'd worked,
everyone involved wanted to make sure things ran as smoothly as possible.

Perhaps it was the sheer awesome power of the pope, but everywhere a code or a permit or a problem could have gotten stuck, it didn't. Wesley said it was Xavier who was so unbelievably prepared. Xavier said it was God's path, so why shouldn't it be smooth?

Holly and I were astonished at the number of celebrities who were vying to be invited, even though the official invitations had gone out already. My message machine was loaded with big names I'd catered parties for in the past, who just needed this one little favor. Holly was hoping I'd pull strings and find a place for her personal favorite, Robin Williams, just so he could do five minutes of pontifical schtick. Holly enjoyed pushing my buttons.

I ran upstairs to change. Off came the leggings and on went a pair of black jeans and a white tee. I pulled a clean denim shirt out of a cellophane bag, buttoned it up, and grabbed my purse. Holly had traipsed around after me, taking down instructions on her notepad. As I put some finishing touches on my makeup she looked up.

“Where are you going?” she asked, suddenly realizing I was getting ready to depart.

“I want to visit Monsignor Picca's sister. He was going to show me something he had stored at her house.”

“But didn't he just die?” Holly asked.

“I know, but Hol, if we don't come up with some clue as to who this Brother Ugo guy is soon, I may wind up living with Wesley for the rest of my life.”

“Well, I'm coming with you.”

I looked at her, dressed head to toe in a floor-length purple sweaterdress.

“Fine. You can make your phone calls from the car and I'll drive.”

 

“Yes?” the woman said, as she opened the arched front door and peeked outside.

Holly and I stood on the shaded veranda of an elegant
old Mediterranean-style house, on a deep-lawned expanse of property, studded with Californial live oaks. My faithful black Grand Wagoneer stood parked on the sweeping circular driveway. There were several other cars parked there as well.

On this residential street, La Canada—Flintridge was a lush suburban oasis from the urban crawl that is most of L.A. Up and down Indianola Way, large well-kept homes sat on impressive lots, each exuding the quiet comfort afforded to the residences of doctors and investment analysts. The UPS truck, brown and squat, was making stops along the street, as the sound of gardeners and sprinklers kept up with the background music of the birds.

“Mrs. Castiglione?” I asked. Her address and full name were on the e-mail from the St. Bede's assistant.

“Yes,” she said, smiling at me. Her white hair, which had been done in a salon, swept up in an impressive chignon. Although certainly in her late seventies, at least, she stood with straight posture, wearing a dark suit.

Stan, the gray-striped cat from St. Bede's, appeared at the entrance.

“May I introduce myself?” I began. “My name is Madeline Bean, and this is Holly Atkins.”

Stan walked up to me and rubbed against my ankle.

“It looks like Stan has found a friend. Would you two girls like to come in?”

“Thank you.”

As she opened the door to admit us, we could see the entry beyond the front door. We stepped into a cool, dark room. The grandfather clock that stood against the wall chimed the quarter hour as we passed.

The tiny, perfectly coifed lady tottered for a moment as she showed us into the spacious living room where forest green was the color. Large, old-fashioned sofas covered in green damask faced each other in front of the stone fireplace. Dark green and red were used in the slightly threadbare oriental carpet underfoot. The room looked as if it had
seldom been used and a slight musty odor clung to the upholstery.

As we sat, Mrs. Castiglione looked us over, but not unkindly.

“Madeline
Bean
. I know your name, of course.
Madeline Bean
,” she said again, and stared off, her petite head at a tilt.

“Yes, ma'am, I'm the…”

“I'll get it. I'll get it. Just give me a moment. Madeline Bean…” She spoke with a slight Italian accent, but the most notable quality to her voice was the dramatic emphasis she placed on the occasional odd word.

She paused in thought, and Holly nudged me. Stan circled my chair and sat near my feet.

“Oh! Are you the Madeline Bean who married
Antonio Banderas?
He's a
wonderful
looking boy.”

“That's Melanie Griffith,” Holly put in, dishing with Mrs. Castiglione. “She's the blonde.”

“Yes.
Right
!” the old lady said. And then she stared at me more carefully. “Well,
you
don't have blonde hair. You're a
red
.” She looked at Holly for confirmation.

“Reddish-blonde,” Holly suggested.

“Is
that
it? Perhaps I need my specs,” Mrs. Castiglione muttered.

Just then, a tiny middle-aged lady came to the doorway. She was dressed in black and carrying a casserole dish.

“Do you need help, Mama?” she called, not quite sure who the new guests might be.

“This is my daughter, Maria,” the old woman said.

“I'm not sure my mother is up to having visitors. Her brother just passed away and the family…”

“I like these girls,” Mrs. Castiglione said. “It's so much better when my mind is busy, Maria dear.”

Maria wanted to say something, but instead she turned and left.

“Mrs. Castiglione,” I tried to get back on track. “I met with your brother yesterday. I'm so sorry to hear…”

“We're really awfully sorry,” Holly added.

Mrs. Castiglione put a hand on Holly's purple sweater-covered knee and confided, “It is not such a shock, you know. Benny was eighty-seven years old. But I am going to miss him. He had a
good
life, a life of service to God. Yes, he lived a life which was blessed. He was always a star to me, from the days we lived in Italy and after when we came to Los Angeles.”

“We are sorry to bother you at this sad time, but we are most urgently concerned about information your brother intended to give us today.”

“Then we must see to it,” Mrs. Castiglione said, nodding her head, her grand hairdo sprayed so heavily that not a hair bobbed out of place. “The ladies from the guild will be coming soon. They are a help. The parish is planning the service. And my daughter told me there may be
a possibility
that His Holiness will come.” There may have been a tear caught in Mrs. Castigione's eyelash, but her small face was bright.

“Since my husband was taken almost twenty years ago, and my
grandchildren
are all grown
up
, this house seems quiet, don't you think?”

“It's a great old house,” Holly said, looking up at the wooden beams that spanned the twelve-foot ceiling.

“Perhaps you young
ladies
would care for a tour?” she asked us, trying to get to her feet.

“We don't want to bother you.”

“Nonsense. It will give me something to do.”

“Thank you,” I said standing quickly and helping to steady the woman who almost tripped over the monsignor's cat.

“Splendid,” she said. “Where would you like to start?”

I shared a look with Holly. “How 'bout the garage?”