Murder and Marinara (9 page)

I left the kitchen hurriedly, realizing my mistake too late. Tim was no fool. Aside from prepping messy food, there were few uses for gloves around here—unless someone didn't want to contaminate evidence, for example.
Gotta brazen it out, now, Vic.
Get moving.
I took the key to the pantry from its usual place on the row of hooks along the kitchen wall.

Opening the pantry door was like entering a portal into my childhood. The shelves of Mason jars holding bright orange tomatoes from the last harvest. The herbs hanging to dry from the open rafter beams, and the dusty bottles of my father's homemade wine. As my eyes got accustomed to the dimness, I took in the shelves of staples and canned goods and an old dresser that held our linens. It was all as I'd remembered it; more important, nothing looked disturbed. I made a note on my pad to ask Danny if the cops had been in here at all.

I started with the dresser, but the drawers yielded only my carefully pressed napkins and an old flashlight. The shelves held nothing more than restaurant supplies, with no bottles marked “poison” hidden behind the bags of semolina flour. Feeling ridiculous in my latex gloves, I turned to go but stopped at the sight of the dried herbs. There were some I recognized easily by sight or scent: rosemary, basil, and parsley. But there were others whose green leaves were blackened and, to my suspicious eyes, noxious looking. Nonna was big on herbal tisanes, and some of the stuff she used might have toxic properties. We used our herbs in the house dressing, and one dried-up leaf looks just like another.

I closed my eyes briefly and tried to summon my memories of Parisi's lunch order. He had asked for dressing on the side, and he had used some, because I remembered it dripping from his mouth. I was about to pinch off some leaves when I realized I had nothing to put them in.
Some detective, Vic. You don't even bring an evidence bag with you. Bernardo would not approve.
I grabbed a roll of plastic wrap from the shelves and tore off several pieces, then made three small packages of herb samples and tucked them into my pockets. I wasn't sure who I could get to identify them, but I would worry about that later.

I locked the pantry behind me, as my grandmother was convinced that strangers would come in and steal her tomatoes, and my father was certain that all of Oceanside coveted his spurious Chianti. I stuck the keys in my pocket and headed down the hallway for the most distasteful task ahead of me—searching the bathroom.

The last time I saw Parisi, he was heading to this room. But did he ever reach it? He had vomited outside before he died. If those broken blood vessels were indicators of poisoning, he would have been feeling really sick—likely nausea and stomach cramps. I felt a flicker of pity for the guy. Even jerks don't deserve to die like that. I looked around our cozy little unisex restroom, complete with Italian tile and prints of the Amalfi Coast. It was as spotless and sanitary as usual, smelling of the lavender my grandmother grew outside. The police had been over this room, and I wondered if Danny knew what they might have found. In the meantime, the cleaning service had been in here, followed by Nonna, who always cleaned again after they left. But even my eagle-eyed grandmother might have missed something against these patterned floor tiles. I stood staring at the toilet, my gloved hands on my hips, knowing there was only one thing to do: I dropped to my knees in front of that bowl.
Like Bernardo would ever do this
.
I had to smile as I thought of my elegant detective with his face inches from a toilet, scrabbling around a bathroom floor, looking for God knows what.

I turned my head sideways and squinted at a tiny white triangle sticking out from the back of the porcelain base. Reaching around, I tugged it out and scrambled to my feet. The paper curled in my hand, and I held the edges open carefully. A register receipt from the Tiffany store in Red Bank, it showed a $250 purchase for a silver necklace, paid by a credit card, the number x-ed out but for the last four digits. It also had Monday's date on it. Now,
this
was interesting, particularly if those last four numbers matched Parisi's credit card receipt from his lunch.

I slipped the paper into my pocket and washed my hands, gloves and all, and wiped up the sink with paper towels. I crumpled up a few more to take outside with me for the sake of appearances and sailed out of the bathroom exhilarated by my little search.

But what have you really got, Vic?
my rational mind asked
. A pocketful of herbs that are probably harmless and proof that someone—not necessarily Parisi—bought a necklace the day before he died.

“You done in there?” Tim popped his head around the kitchen door, and I jumped.

“Yeah,” I squeaked out. Sleuthing was a distinctly unnerving experience. How did Bernardo stand it?

Tim frowned. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing.” I heard a muffled buzz from the kitchen and pointed. “Isn't that your phone?”

Without answering, he pulled his head back inside the doors, and some instinct told me not to follow. I stood on tiptoe to peek at him through the thick glass window. His phone was on the counter, still vibrating, but he only stared at it. I pushed through the door, and he turned to me, his cheeks pink. He swept the phone off the counter. “Gotta take this. Sorry.” His head down, he put the phone to his ear and hurried out the back door.

I replaced the pantry key and positioned myself at a window with a full view of the back lot and garden. Tim walked to a spot a few feet from the shed, realized where he stood, and suddenly wheeled around so that his back was to it. He spoke closely into the phone, his free hand cupped around it as though he were whispering. But there was no one to hear him. At this hour of the morning, the restaurant was—you should pardon the expression—
dead
. And much as I wanted to trail him out there, I couldn't risk it. Now he was agitated, stalking back and forth and shaking his head.
What's going on, Tim?
I thought.
Why are you acting so guilty? More to the point, who the heck are you talking to?

•   •   •

I took advantage of Tim's absence to search the kitchen, but I knew it was a fruitless effort. The police had been through every cabinet and drawer and over every inch of countertop. If there'd been anything to find, it was sitting in an evidence room at the county prosecutor's office. I tucked the herbs into my purse, but kept the jewelry receipt handy. I had to get into the office and check my mother's files before any of the other staff came in. It was 10:40, which meant that Lori would be arriving in less than twenty minutes. More than enough time to go through Tuesday's receipts.

But the minute I opened my mother's brown accordion file, I realized my mistake—there were no receipts for Tuesday, because the police had taken them. I shoved the file back into the desk drawer and slammed it shut. Unless . . .

Tapping my fingers while waiting for her computer to come to life and counting on my mother's mania for duplicates of everything, I clicked open the Casa Lido folder and sighed. There were dozens of subfolders with abbreviated names, in a code only my mother could understand. (It was her way of keeping my dad out of the accounts.) I could be here all day looking through this stuff, and Lori was probably on her way. I glanced at the clock and back at the screen, clicking on folders as fast as the computer could respond. After getting a virtual tour of all things Casa Lido, I finally found a folder of scanned receipts, and there it was—his credit card receipt for lunch.

Same bank. Same credit card. Same four digits. “Bingo,” I said. Parisi
had
been in Red Bank on Monday afternoon, and he
had
bought that Tiffany necklace. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

I stepped out of the office and caught the sound of voices in the dining room. When I rounded the corner, I saw Tim and a woman, their backs against the bar, their heads close together as they spoke.

She was striking, with side-swept black hair that was stark against her fair skin. In her four-inch heels, she was nearly shoulder to shoulder with Tim; her shoulder, in fact, was brushing his, a detail I registered but quickly suppressed. Standing across from me in my flats, she dwarfed my measly sixty-five inches, and I had the sense that she and Tim belonged to some superior race of tall, beautiful beings to which I could never aspire.

Straightening my spine and lifting my chin, I did my best to sound confident, in control, and not vertically challenged. “Were you looking for me?”

She reached out with a pale long-fingered hand. “I'm Anjelica.” She paused, and I watched in fascination as one tear gathered in the corner of each eye. What were the odds that those tears would spill over and ruin that perfectly made-up face? Only the kind my dad would bet on. Her voice was a whisper when she spoke again. “Anjelica Parisi.”

Uh-oh
. Parisi's widow? I raised my hand slowly to take hers, all the while staring at her creamy skin, arched brows, and dark blue eyes. Her nose was small and straight.
Either she's not Italian
,
I thought,
or she's had some work done.
And while I was sure I'd never met her, there was a vague familiarity about her features. I watched her closely, taking rapid mental notes to share with Sofia later on.
The silk blouse she was wearing revealed a willowy neck but a bare throat—no silver necklace.

“You must be Victoria.” She blinked, and her full raspberry-colored lips trembled. “I understand you served my husband right before he died.” She gave a shuddery breath. “Would you mind telling me about his last moments?”

I glanced instinctively at Tim, who swiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He looked as though he would rather be hanging upside down from the scariest ride on the boardwalk than standing between the two of us. What the hell was making him—quite literally—sweat?

“I'm sorry for your loss,” I said, and she nodded. “But I don't think there's much I can tell you.”
Or much I
should
tell you.
“He came in on Tuesday around four. He ordered a salad and some tea.” I did not add that his table manners were disgusting, as my mother has taught me not to speak ill of the dead. “At the end of his lunch, he looked pale and asked for the bathroom. That was the last time I saw him until—”

She gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she said. “You were the one who found him!” Her dark blue eyes widened and again filled with tears.

Given my debut on the local news, I found it hard to believe Anjelica Parisi didn't know that I was the one who discovered her husband's body.
Give her a break
, I told myself.
She's grieving
. Or was she? Despite the tears, her eyes held a canny expression, and I would swear the lip tremble was the result of years of practice. As Danny had recently remarked about our grandmother, this one didn't miss a trick. She was probably capable of a few of her own as well; she inched closer to Tim, her arm resting along the length of his. He, on the other hand, held himself stiffly, as though she had some communicable disease. As I watched them, my stomach gave a little thump of warning. Whatever my five senses wouldn't or couldn't tell me, my gut was screaming. Something was definitely off here.

“Yes,” I said. “I'm sorry. But I probably don't know any more than you do.”

Anjelica took a tissue from her purse and dabbed at her now-dry eyes. “The police won't tell me anything.”

“They don't know anything yet.” Tim's voice came out in a croak, a sound so unexpected, I jumped. When I looked over at him, he refused to meet my eye. My stomach thumped two more times, like an impatient person knocking at a locked door. It was a summons I'd have to answer sooner or later. I turned my attention back to the widow.

“I understand he had a heart problem?” That much had been on the news, so I figured I was on safe ground.

“Yes,” she said, sniffling and wrinkling her tiny nose in a gesture that was both pathetic and flirtatious. “But he was doing well.” As she spoke, she gazed up at Tim, who shrank against the bar, wide-eyed. I watched in sick fascination as her hand crept to his forearm, my eyes glued to the five pink ovals of her nails against his skin. Her hand still clutching his arm, she turned her attention back to me. “I can't help wondering,” she said quietly, “if it was something he ate.”

Well, there it was. The lovely young widow had just voiced the suspicion that hung over the Casa Lido like a dark cloud in hurricane season. I had a sudden image of Anjelica holding a press conference, and from there it was all too easy to picture the storm breaking right over all our heads. “No, Mrs. Parisi,” I said automatically. “There's no question of that.”
Except for the one looming in my mind, of course.

Anjelica took a deep breath, as though preparing herself for the answer to her next question. “Can you tell me who prepared his lunch, please?”

I was about to say I didn't know when my treacherous little eyeballs swiveled in their sockets, stopping only at Tim's face, now the color of ricotta cheese. Anjelica dropped her hand from Tim's arm.

“Oh, Tim,” she cried. “What have you done?”

“I didn't do anything! I made him a salad. I swear to God, that's all.” He turned and gripped her two shoulders tightly. “Angie, you have to believe me.”

Angie
.
Angie
.
Angie
. The blood pounded rhythmically in my head, those two syllables sounding over and over like a death knell. There was only one Angie. She was the woman who'd taken a wrecking ball to my life. The woman who'd sent me running off to New York without once looking back.

The woman Tim had left me for.

“W
ell, if it isn't Angie ‘Even One Is Too Many' Martini. I don't know why you bothered with introductions,” I said to the woman now calling herself Anjelica. I stared her down in my best imitation of Nonna. “You know very well who I am.”

She nodded, trying hard to appear apologetic, but there was no mistaking the flash of triumph in her eyes. “I do,” she said. “But I wasn't sure you knew who I was.”

I leaned my head sideways and studied her more closely. “Your hair's longer—and darker. You're wearing blue contacts, and you've got some nice veneers in your mouth now.” I smiled, baring a few teeth of my own. “And your lips are a bit fuller than I remember.” I shrugged. “Then again, I'd seen you only in passing, and it's been a number of years. Right, Tim?”

Tim, who had dropped his hands from Angie's shoulders, flinched at the sound of his name. The misery on his face was evident, but it was nothing compared to what he'd caused me all those years ago. Standing in front of me was a pale, frightened-looking stranger with shaking hands. “Vic, please,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper. “You have to believe me.”

“It doesn't matter what I believe. It's the police you have to worry about.” I marched past them into the kitchen, my head, back, and neck so erect I should have been in uniform. Lori stood behind the door, her eyes wide. She pointed past the kitchen doors toward the bar.

“Isn't she—?”

“Yes,” I interrupted. “She sure as hell is.”

“Holy cannoli,” Lori said. “Tim's ex-girlfriend Angie went and married Gio Parisi.”

I plopped down on a nearby stool. “Yup.”
And she all but accused Tim of murdering him
, I thought. “Only now she's his widow.”

Lori nodded. “His very rich widow.”

I didn't say anything, but my mind was reeling with possibilities. And questions. If money was an issue, Anjelica certainly had a motive for wanting her husband dead. But she hadn't had access to his food. Could she have given him something at home? But he'd spent several hours on the boardwalk looking the picture of health, and he was fine when he came into the restaurant. The most logical explanation was that he ingested something that had killed him while sitting right there at Table Five.

I thought back to Lord Peter's dictum: If you know how, you know who. Well, we still didn't know how. But I was beginning to have a pretty good idea of who. And I wasn't sure it was a solution I could live with.

•   •   •

I spent the rest of the day and most of the evening helping Lori and avoiding Tim—not hard to do since there was no reason I needed to visit the kitchen. The Casa Lido was so quiet that Massimo and Nando didn't come in, and neither did my parents, much to my relief. It was too hard to look into my mom's worried face or listen to my dad's false cheer. All I knew was that another day without customers brought us closer to closing our doors for good.

By nine I sent Lori home, her apron pocket not exactly bulging with cash. While cleaning up behind our one table of the dinner service, I noticed that Cal was back and appeared to be packing up his tools.
He's finishing now?
This was a man who kept his own hours—that was for sure. And it was time I learned more about this stranger whose name was on the short list of those in the restaurant on Tuesday.

I stepped behind the bar and held up a bottle of our best single-malt Scotch. “You interested?”

“I wouldn't say no.” He dropped his toolbox at his feet and sat at the bar.

I poured him a generous splash and then filled a wineglass with pinot grigio for myself. I came out and took a seat next to him.

“So it's been a day around here,” he said. “I heard the widow”—or “widduh” as Cal pronounced it—“made an appearance.”

“It sure has, and, yes, she showed up.” I waited for a comment of some kind, but none was forthcoming.

I glanced sideways at him, keenly aware of his forearm resting close to my own, his large, work-worn hand resting on the table. He had taken off his hat, and his shaggy hair was tucked behind his ears; there were deep lines around his eyes that attested to days in the sun. He raised the tumbler, and I clinked my wineglass against his.

“
A votre santé
, Victoria.” He drew out all four syllables of my name in a low drawl, Vic-TOW-ree-uh, lingering over the second and softening on the last. It was an accent one didn't hear much in Jersey, and I couldn't help smiling.

“You're a long way from home, Calvin Lockhart.”

He nodded, still staring at the bar. “That I am,
cher
.”

“Yup, between that Saints cap you wear and that
faux
French you just dropped—which, by the way, we Northern girls don't find so endearing—”

“I'll remember that.” He flashed me a grin that
was
pretty endearing, though.

“So are you from New Orleans originally?”

He winced. “Girl, don't ever say ‘Or-LEENS.' You sound like a straight-up tourist. I grew up in Baton Rouge, but went to the city when I was eighteen. You ever been?”

“Are you kidding? I love that place. The food, the music, just the feel of it.” I leaned my chin on my hand, dreamy-eyed as I remembered my trip there. “I went once after college and fell head over heels for that place.” I grinned at him. “That city is like a bad boy you can't resist—you know he's all wrong for you, and you'll hate yourself in the morning, but you just can't help yourself.” My eyes met his, and I was surprised by the little jolt of electricity that jumped between us.
Uh-oh
, I thought. He caught it, too; his eyes widened. They were a smoky, woodsy green in the bar's dim light.

“I know exactly what you mean,” he said, amusement coloring his every word.

I looked down at my drink. “So how long have you been up here?”

“A while now.” He ran his hands over his chin. “Goin' on eight years, I think.”

Eight years was long enough to establish connections up here. Might he have one to Parisi? But suddenly the import of leaving New Orleans when he did became clear. “So you must have left right after Katrina.”

He nodded. “I had a custom furniture business downtown.” He lifted his whiskey glass and swirled the dark liquid. “The workshop was a little old place, but everything at hand, if you know what I mean.”

I thought of my small office at home in New York and my room in the beach cottage where I did my writing.
Everything at hand.
“I do, yeah.”

He shrugged. “Well, then she hit. She did her worst, all right. I lost everything—the shop, the stock, all my tools. And after that, my wife.” He gave a small, twisted smile. “She didn't cotton to waitin' around for me to get back on my feet.”

I fought the impulse to touch his hand.
Don't pity him, Vic. Do not feel sorry for him. He's on the list.
“Sorry. I'm really not trying to pry.” But of course I was.

“It's okay, Victoria. It was a long time ago.” He looked up from glass. “So, what's the story with you and the Iron Chef in there?”

“Oh. Well, he was my first kiss. My first love. My first everything.” I sighed. “Tim Trouvare and I have been dancing this dance since I was fifteen years old.” And then, despite my determination to treat Cal like a suspect, I spilled it all. My girlhood crush on Tim. Our first real date the summer after I graduated high school, after which Tim left for Ireland and I didn't see him for a year. His decision to go to culinary school and the on-again, off-again nature of our relationship, which finally cemented itself when Tim showed up at my college graduation with a bouquet of flowers and a declaration of love. “Then things got serious,” I continued. I shook my head. “I hadn't planned to come back home, but Tim was here.”

“In town, you mean?” Cal asked.

I grinned and pointed to the floor. “No, here, in the restaurant. He was a line cook at the time.”

“What about you?”

“I had a shiny new business degree that my parents assumed I'd put to use for their business. But I got a job with a local marketing firm.”

“Did ya like it?”

I nodded. “I did. I had a job, an apartment, and Tim. I thought my future was planned.”

I drained the last of my wine. “And then Tim”—
left me for
the slut who showed up this afternoon
—“met someone else. And I ended up in New York writing mysteries.”

He gave a quick nod and then took another sip of his drink. If I thought my confession might move Cal to spill some secrets of his own—like whether he knew Parisi or “the widduh”—I was barking up the wrong magnolia tree. I studied his unreadable face. “You sure don't say much.”

“Actually, I got two things to say. First, you let that guy get to you. And second”—he knocked back the rest of his drink, then gestured to me with his empty glass—“you're much too good for him.” He set the glass on the bar, shot me a crooked grin, and tipped his cap. “G'night, ma'am,” he said. “And thanks for the drink.”

I couldn't help smiling as I watched Cal saunter away.

“What the hell was that about?” Tim's voice cleared the pleasant fog in my brain. Speaking of suspects.

“We were having a nice chat. And anyway, it's none of your business.”

Tim pointed toward the doors of the restaurant. “We don't know anything about that guy. And you've known him, what, two days?”

“I've known you for more than half my life, and God knows you're still full of surprises.”

“I wish you'd let me explain.” He reached out a hand, and I fought the urge to slap it away.

“No, thanks, Tim.”

“Okay.” He sighed. He turned toward the kitchen. “You might as well head out. I'll go finish cleanup.”

As I watched him go, the front doors burst open, spilling my sister-in-law, Sofia, inside. She looked as though she had run all the way from the studio. “Vic,” she said, still huffing from her sprint and waving her red folder. “I finally found Parisi's wife, and you're not gonna believe who she is.”

I held my finger up to my lips and pointed toward the kitchen. “He's here,” I mouthed, leading her to a table in the far corner.

Sofia's butt had not even touched the chair before she spoke. “Do you have any idea who she is? She's—”

“You mean Tim's ex?” I asked. “Angie?”
Wow
, I thought.
I said her name without choking on the syllables.

“So you know.” She shook her head. “Angie Martini. Sure didn't see that one coming.”

“SIL, you have a gift for understatement. But there's more you don't know.” I took a breath. “She was in the restaurant earlier today, clinging to Tim like poison ivy. I met her.”

Sofia's large eyes were now two dark moons. “You're kidding me. What was she doing here?”

“Fishing, either for information or her old boyfriend. Maybe both.” I stopped, remembering her question to Tim:
What have you done?
“Then again, she all but accused Tim of killing her husband.”

Sofia dropped slowly into a nearby chair. “Oh my God.” She looked up at me, her eyes serious. “This gives him a motive, Vic. I don't care how long ago they broke up.”

A sharp little pang struck in the vicinity of my heart. Did he still care enough about this woman to kill for her? Was he jealous of Parisi? Did he want her back? Somehow that thought was almost worse than Tim as a murderer.

I took a chair across from her and sat down. “I know it does. He was here. He had an opportunity—maybe the best opportunity—to put something in Parisi's food.” Saying it aloud felt like a betrayal. And what if I had to say it again to Nina LaGuardia, perhaps on national TV? My stomach clenched at the thought.

Sofia opened the red folder and fished a pen from her oversized designer purse. She scribbled something on a legal pad and then reached over to pat my arm. “I know it wasn't easy seeing her.”

“It wasn't at first, but I'm handling it.” I shook my head. “Honestly, between her and this thing with Tim and Cal today—”

My sister-in-law eyed me sharply. “Cal? You mean the Southern dude working on the bar? Kind of cute but needs a haircut and a scrub?”

“He's clean, Sofie!” In fact, I had a clear memory of his spicy soap smell. “He's just a working guy, you know? A little rough around the edges.”

She frowned. “That's not usually the way you like 'em.”

“Who said I like him?”

“Your red face, for one thing.” She waggled her index finger in my face. “And you're shifty-eyed, all of a sudden.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “There's more to this, SIL. I can always tell, so you might as well give.”

“There's nothing to give. We had a drink is all.”

“And?”

“And nothing.” My cheeks
were
warm, come to think of it.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “You think he's cute.”

“Yes, okay, I think he's cute. Is that a crime?”

“Interesting choice of words, there, Detective. He's on the
list
, Vic. For all you know, he's trying to keep you off guard. And from that goofy look on your face, it looks like he was successful.”

“I get it, Sofe.” I rested my chin on my hand and replayed Cal's words in my head:
You're too good for him.
“But can I just enjoy a little attention from a man, please?”

She patted my hand. “God knows, you need a little fun.” But then her voice grew stern and she raised her eyebrows in a manner reminiscent of Sister Theresa, my sixth-grade CCD teacher. “But you can't go around flirting with suspects.”

“I didn't flirt with him. He flirted with
me
.”

“I don't care. We need to be objective.” She pointed the folder at me. “You'd better get it together, or I will take you off this case so fast your head will spin.”