Sleuthing for a Living (Mackenzie & Mackenzie PI Mysteries Book 1) (24 page)

"I'll look forward to it." With a smile, he was gone. I sighed like a silly schoolgirl as his taillights disappeared into the gloom.

Turning, I gasped at my reflection in the plate glass window. Bedraggled would have been a step up from the mess staring back at me. Hair plastered to my scalp, ripped flannel shirt worn jacket style, hole in the knee of my jeans. "No career, no man, no reason to get out of bed in the morning
,
"
the outfit screamed. I was a walking testament to a woman who'd given up. Add to that the lines of strain that had formed around my eyes and mouth plus that not-so-fresh-from-a-car-accident feeling…ugh. Not a pretty picture.

Vanity could take a backseat though, the way it usually did. Pulling open the door, I entered the pasta shop. The sound of the jingling bell above the door greeted me first, followed by the yeasty scent of fresh bread and the savory aroma of garlic, basil, rosemary, and oregano.

The Bowtie Angel had been an ice cream shop sometime during the fifties, until my grandmother and her sister, my great aunt Cecily, had bought it and turned it into their own pasta shop. The display case that had once held gallons of tutti-frutti and heavenly hash now housed rigatoni, ziti, angel hair, macaroni, and linguini made fresh daily, as well as an assortment of sauces and other toppings, like pine nuts, basil leaves, cherry tomatoes, black olives, and fresh Parmesan and Romano ready to be grated at a moment's notice. The food could be carryout or dine in, and the shop was oftentimes a gathering place for the townspeople on every day but Sunday. Sunday was church day in that international hotbed of intrigue, Beaverton, N.C.

The pasta shop actually felt more like home than Pop's Victorian on Grove Street. I'd worked there every day after school and almost every Saturday. The black and white tile floor, the plush red booths by the window, the gleaming chrome on the barstools, scents of fresh herbs, buzz of happy conversation, Dean Martin crooning from the jukebox, all of it was as familiar as my reflection.

The booths were jam-packed with patrons who'd decided to stay and eat a hot meal instead of dragging their food out into the cool spring rain. Aunt Cecily didn't encourage people to linger, not the way Nana had done for years. My grandmother had used the restaurant as the hub of her social life, but in the South, old habits die hard and then resurrect themselves like a freaking pasta-eating zombie.

"Andy!" Mrs. Getz waved to me from the booth to the left of the door. She'd been my fourth grade teacher, a cheerful plump woman who loved to gossip and can her own jam. For years she'd been hounding Nana and Aunt Cecily to offer her jams in the pasta shop. But as Aunt Cecily put it, "What is a lasagna going to do with jam? Nothing, because my lasagna, it is not stupid."

Aunt Cecily, queen of public relations.

I moved over to greet Mrs. Getz and her husband. "Mrs. Getz, Mr. Getz. How are you?"
Walter Getz looked up from his plate of baked ziti with a side of rosemary bread. "Just fine honey, can't complain. How about you?"

Irma Getz kicked him not so subtly under the table. "So sorry about your show, Andy. Such a shame. I had almost raised enough money with the Rotary Club for a sign with your name on it. Like that one in North Myrtle Beach, that says 'Home of Vanna White.' But then you poisoned all those people, and we decided to put it toward the St. Patrick's Day parade instead."

The smile froze on my face. The way she'd said that rankled, like it had been part of some master plan. No wonder Pops wasn't doing well. His friends and neighbors thought his granddaughter was some kind of homicidal lunatic. Was that a step up or down from a "poor child" turned "opportunistic gold digger"?

Before I could come up with a decent response, Aunt Cecily pushed through the swinging door from the kitchen, spotted me, and left the steaming pan of Italian meatballs on top of the register. "Come, I must look at you."

All movement in the diner stopped as though everyone feared they were the unlucky person she meant. Without Nana's sweet to balance out the sour, Aunt Cecily seemed more imposing than a four-foot-eleven-inch octogenarian ought.

I moved closer, presenting myself for her inspection. Her jet black hair fell long and straight down her slim back and was threaded liberally with white. She wore a band to keep it off her face, and I always thought it looked like a dish of black and white angel hair pasta. The perfect complement to Nana's rotini-shaped curls, which I'd inherited—though mine tended more toward Wild Man of Borneo, especially after spending a few hours in high humidity.

She surveyed me top to toe and then nodded crisply in what I hoped was approval. "Enough of this standing about. You will come to the kitchen and make the pasta."

Several forks clattered. I squared my shoulders and resisted the urge to look around and verify that the entire room full of patrons had born witness to Andy's Folly. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if a whole troop of Boy Scouts lurked in the kitchen, EpiPens at the ready, because the little buggers would do anything for a merit badge.

"Actually, I need to see Pops. Is he here?"

Aunt Cecily squinted her eyes, somehow managing to look down at me as though I'd disappointed her. "He is very sick, wrong in the head."

"I heard that, you old battle-ax," Pops grumbled as he emerged from the tiny business office.

"
Aricchi Du Porcu
." Aunt Cecily glowered while comparing her brother-in-law to the hair on a pig's ear. Though I was probably the only person in the joint who understood the insult, her tone clued the rest of the patrons in on her displeasure.

Everyone knew that dining in the pasta shop often came with a bonus floor show.

"Andy girl!" Pops shuffled over to me, intentionally ignoring the tiny seething Italian woman glaring daggers at him. Pops wasn't big on public displays of affection, but he wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and I pressed my face against his shoulder, inhaling the scent of peppermint and wood smoke.

His color was high, and though his skin was paper thin and mottled with age spots, he looked much the same as he had over the past five years. A sigh of relief escaped. Aunt Cecily must have been mistaken. He didn't look depressed at all.

Pops escorted me back to the office and shut the door. "Daniel Tate called. Said you vouched for some strange guy lurking about off Route 86."

Tattletale. "He's right on both counts, although the 'strange guy' is a transplant who gave me a ride here, since my car is wrecked." I didn't elaborate because I didn't want him to know just how worried I'd been about him. Pops would have considered it shameful to have his granddaughter fuss over him to such an extent.

Upon closer inspection he looked tired, with tight lines creasing around his mouth. "What's wrong, Pops? I can see it in your face."

With a grunt, he lowered himself into the leather office chair held together by duct tape. His shoulders slumped in as though he carried the weight of the world and was bowing under the constant strain.

"It's this place. We need to sell the Bowtie Angel."

MURDER AL DENTE

available now!