Murder Al Fresco (3 page)

"Well, you have to make pasta or, at the very least, Italian. It's your shtick," Donna told me as she scratched at a bite.

I huffed out a breath. "I can cook other things you know."

"Of course you can. I'm just saying you flamed out while making a pasta dish, you should ride to victory on one."

I set my still-full wine cooler on the kitchen counter. "I definitely like that idea. I'll see you tomorrow?"

Donna nodded. "Do yourself and everybody else a favor, and just call Jones if you want to talk to him. Men are idiots about phone etiquette until you break them in. I'm still training Steven."

I winked at her. "I make no promises."

"Stubborn," she muttered and shook her head.

I trotted down the steps and out to Mustang Sally. The moon was hidden behind clouds, and I was thrilled to ride with the top down all the way back to the rental house I shared with my grandfather and his sugar mama, aka my Aunt Cecily. What at first had been an uncomfortable relationship for me to witness had become almost funny. In truth, I was glad they had each other, even if they did bicker constantly. Pops had needed someone after my grandmother died, and Aunt Cecily was the type of woman who saw it as her duty to take care of her sister's husband. Rosetti women did for family—even after death.

The lights were still on outside, and Pop's ancient town car was nowhere in sight, a clear indication that they weren't home yet. It was poker night at the senior center, and no one could bluff Aunt Cecily. I carried the cooler I'd brought home from work, filled with Italian wedding soup, out of the backseat and unlocked the door. Dropping my keys, I kicked off my shoes and padded inside.

Roofus didn't get off his dog bed to greet me, which was usual for the lazy beagle.

I'd just transferred the soup to a pot on the stove when my cell rang. I didn't recognize the number, but it was local, so not Jones. Although I was tempted to let it go to voicemail, I picked up anyway. "Hello?"

"Andy, how are you?"

I froze, wincing when I recognized the male voice. "Fine, Jacob."

"Good. How's the arm doing?"

"Better. Thanks for asking." I cleared my throat.

"And business is good at the pasta shop?"

"Yup." Look up the word awkward in the dictionary and there would be a transcript of this conversation.

 There was a pause, but if dear old dad thought I was going to reciprocate and inquire after his health and business, he had another think coming. I didn't want to encourage him in any way because I really didn't have room for him in my life.

Jacob coughed. "Well, the reason I'm calling is that Kaylee's coming over tomorrow, and we wanted to extend the invitation to you. Malcolm is welcome too, of course."

"He's out of town," I said flatly, not touching the invitation portion at all.

"I see." Jacob did sound disappointed, probably because Jones was the calm and reasonable member of our dynamic duo.

More silence. "Well, Kaylee will be here and Kyle, and we thought it would be nice to have dinner together as a family."

Enough already. "Look, Jacob. I appreciate the thought, but the truth is that we aren't a family. My family is Pops and Aunt Cecily, Kaylee, and Jones. Kyle knocked me up in high school, and his parents hate me. So this little vision of a nuclear family with you as the patriarch isn't going to happen. If you wanted that, you should have thought about it before you bailed on my mother." Bitterness coated my every word.

Jacob sighed. "I see you're not ready to hear my side of it. Okay, I'll give you time."

He hung up before I told him that time wasn't the issue, and more of it wouldn't make a difference. So much for my positive attitude.

I dropped the phone on the counter and braced my hands on either side of it. Rage made my whole body tremble. Anger was good. It kept me from feeling sad or hurt or any of those other gooshy emotions that changed nothing and caused me to want to curl into a ball and weep like a weenie. I was related to Aunt Cecily, who had lost her entire family, except for her youngest sister, to illness and immigrated from Sicily to America when she was only sixteen. Compared to that, my daddy issues were small potatoes.

Headlights shone through the front windows, and Roofus rose, stretched, and waddled to the door. Only for Pops would that dog bother to get up and move voluntarily.

I could hear Aunt Cecily muttering in Italian through the open kitchen window and Pops making soothing noises.

"Lui è così sciocco!"
she barked, and I wondered who the fool was who'd crossed her and if he knew he was essentially doomed.

 "Easy," Pops said. "It's not that big a deal."

Aunt Cecily made a phlegmy sound, and I was fairly certain she spit. At least it was outside. More Italian broke the stillness of the night, too fast for me to even pick up. My eyebrows were practically to my hairline. Typically Aunt Cecily spoke in fractured English, seasoning her speech with enough of her native tongue to flavor the conversation. The fact that she was literally spitting mad and only speaking Italian meant we were at DEFCON 2 and war was imminent.

My gaze drifted down the hall, and I briefly considered dashing to my bedroom and perhaps climbing out the window. This wasn't going to end well, and I would rather not be in the vicinity of the fallout.

Then the front door crashed opened, and my tiny and furious aunt stormed in. She dropped her purse, which was roughly the same size as the overnight bag Jones had packed for New York, and it hit the wood dining table with a
thunk
.

I didn't dare speak to her as she marched past me, not wanting to draw her attention. Her clipped footsteps struck like death knells down the hall. For a woman who was maybe ninety pounds fully dressed and sopping wet, she could sure make her presence known.

Pops shuffled up beside me, and a moment later there was a slam along with the distinctive snick of a lock clicking.

I turned to Pops. "Okay, so who's the dead man?"

Pops grimaced. "My doctor. He said I need to change my diet."

I studied my grandfather. Even though he was in his eighties, Eugene Buckland appeared healthier than many men half his age. He looked just as robust as he had this morning and a wave of dread washed over me. "Why? Are you all right?"

"It's the darned arthritis." He held up his hands for inspection. The fingers were curling in toward the palms, the knuckles knobby and protruding through his thinning skin. "The hands are the worst, but my back is bad too. Remember when I had that spasm during the winter?"

I nodded. "He put you on medication though. Doesn't that make it better?"
"It helps the pain, but it's not a fix." Pops pulled out one of the ladder-backed chairs and gingerly lowered himself into it, the motion full of barely suppressed agony. "He suggested I change my diet to a nightshade-free one."

"Nightshade-free?" I sat in the chair across from him. "If I remember my first year CIA studies correctly, that's potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers." Some of his favorites.

Pops nodded. "Right. Doc says there've been studies done about people who've gone off those things doing better than with just the medication alone. He told me about it when I went in the winter, and when he showed up at poker tonight and saw what a tough time I was having, he reminded me about it in front of Cecily. That's why she's fit to be tied. I wasn't gonna try it anyways."

I frowned. "Why not, if it will make you feel better?"

Pops shot me an exasperated look then his gaze shifted to the still closed bedroom door. That's when I got it. "You didn't want to make things more difficult for Aunt Cecily, right? Oh, Pops." Classic Eugene Buckland—not wanting to cause a fuss and suffering in silence so as not to upset his family.

"Not just her. It's you too, Andy girl. You spend all day cooking, and I can't be asking you to make something special just for me."

I reached across the expanse of table and covered his gnarled hand with my own. "Of course you can. You think I wouldn't be thrilled to do something to help you feel better, especially if it's with food? And even though she's not reacting well to the news, I'm sure once she calms down Aunt Cecily will be happy to make some changes."

Pops rolled his eyes at me. "If you think that, you don't know nothing, Andy girl." He sighed. "Looks like I'll be sleeping on the couch tonight."

I cringed at the thought of my grandfather resting his sore body on that lumpy couch. He might not be able to get up in the morning. "You can sleep in my bed. I was going back to Jones's place anyhow. I just wanted to drop off the soup."
My grandfather's thin lips thinned even further. He liked Jones. More than liked him, but Pops was old fashioned, and he didn't approve of premarital, coed sleepovers. "He's in New York for the weekend, remember?"

His expression cleared. "All right then. Is that wedding soup I smell?"

I mentally ran down the list of ingredients then sagged in relief. "Naturally nightshade-free, and there's fresh Italian bread to go with it. And wine—you can still have wine, right? See, it's not so bad. Want me to fix you a bowl?"

Pops patted my hand. "What would I do without you?"

I leaned in a little. "I'll talk to Aunt Cecily too. Don't feel bad about this, okay? Lots of people have special dietary requirements…"

"Andy?" Pops asked as I stared off into space.

I grinned at him. "You've just helped me solve a problem, Pops, so I'm glad the cat got out of the bag."
He shook his head then looked back to the bedroom door. "Glad somebody's happy."

*   *   *

Nightshade-free Italian cooking. I grinned as I drove back to Jones's house. That was enough of a challenge that I could really show my culinary mad skills and possibly take home the prize. I hadn't told Pops about the cooking competition yet. He had enough on his plate, and I wanted to share the news when Aunt Cecily's dark mood wasn't looming over us all.

As the evening wind whipped through my hair, I contemplated my cooking challenge, in addition to the more personal investigation. I really needed to have a conversation with Jones since the burden of the sleuthing would fall to him. Donna was right. I did feel kind of guilty for volunteering his services without consulting him first. But Jones knew how much restoring my reputation meant to me. And I felt sure he'd want me to do everything in my power to get my career back on track.

At least I really hoped he would. If not…

I dismissed the doubt from my thoughts. As Nana used to say, don't go borrowing trouble. Positive attitude—had to remember that.

Jones's place was dark when I pulled up. I left Mustang Sally's headlights on so that I could unlock the front door and flick on some interior lights. That done, I drove around to the carport and parked my ride before making my way back to the house. Why had I never realized how isolated this house was from town?

Without Jones, the place was almost eerily silent. I checked to make sure all the doors and windows were locked. We should get a security system. Lizzy could afford it, and I'd pay her back as long as Jones and I lived under the roof. It wasn't safe for a woman living alone. I snagged my open laptop and headed into the bedroom, locking that door also for good measure.

Once comfortably situated on the bed, I pulled up my email and saw a message from Stu. There was an attachment with work history files for all the Flavor-TV-turned
-Diced
employees. Because
Diced
was owned by a major network and only aired during the summer months, literally hundreds of people were part of production staff. The Flavor TV people were the best place to start. The file was massive, so I went into the bathroom to shower while it downloaded to my hard drive. I'd just exited in my pajamas when I heard a crash from the living room, followed by a curse.

Someone was in here with me.

My heart thrummed like a manic butterfly. Who was it? My gaze slid to the laptop and for one insane second I wondered if I'd made myself a target for a maniac. Swearing under my breath, I scanned the room, looking for a weapon. Nothing. No standing lamps, no baseball bats or hockey sticks to beat back an intruder. There was no phone in the bedroom. I cursed my foolishness at leaving my purse—which contained both pepper spray and my cell—on the front hall table.

For the second time that night I considered climbing out a window. That thought made me cringe. Without my keys, also located in my bag, I'd be sans vehicle, and fleeing across the darkened landscape barefoot wasn't a stellar option.

And then my heart stopped as I heard a sound that was distinctive. A sound I hadn't heard in years. A sound that changed everything.

The unmistakable wail of a small child.

Stunned, I threw caution to the wind and opened the door to the living room.

There, looking more disheveled than I'd ever seen him, was Jones. His hair went every which way, and his chin was covered with dark stubble, eyes red-rimmed. His black shirt was wrinkled, his jeans marked with some sort of stain. I had a hard time believing I'd only seen him twelve hours ago. The change in his appearance was so drastic.

And in his arms was a small boy. He had a shock of red hair, and his face was scrunched up in indignant fury, small arms and legs flailing as Jones held onto him for dear life with a wild look in his eyes. Fear.

"Malcolm?" I took a hesitant step forward. "What's going on? Why are you back here?"

"Andrea," he rasped. "I didn't think you'd be here."

"Well, I am," I muttered rather stupidly. "Whose kid is that?"

But I knew. The guilt and unhappiness in his face told me all I needed to know even before he uttered the one word destined to change everything.

"Mine."

Italian Wedding Soup for the Soul

You'll need:

Meatballs:

1 small onion, minced

⅔ cup chopped fresh parsley

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon garlic, minced

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup plain bread crumbs

1 cup grated Parmesan