Why was I always finding this man on my property? Was there some weird trespassing karma going on between us? One day he’s violating my compost bin, another he’s glommed against my office wall offering up prayers to the gods of likely stories that the CSI guys won’t take it into their heads to check out the office.
Which led me to believe that Joe had arrived on the scene before they did.
Now, I may not have a well-thumbed copy of the Pennsylvania Penal Code on one of those bookshelves next to Joe’s very nice shoulder, but I was reasonably surprised his morning was including breaking and entering. Was he not what he seemed?
Angry, I stepped in front of the window and waved my arms like I was a castaway and he was a low-flying plane. Finally, he noticed, and then the conversation got interesting.
He pressed his lips together and gave me a wry look.
I thrust my arms at him in a gesture meant to convey something along the lines of
ya-ha
?
He jerked his head toward the closed door. Twice.
I smiled wickedly and folded my hands in plain sight.
He sagged dramatically.
I widened my eyes at him.
He widened his eyes at me.
I gave him a carefully crafted look of disgust and indulgence. Then, with a stony glare, I jabbed a thumb at myself, made a yakking-it-up gesture with my hand, pointed to the CSI team, rippled an eyebrow at the hapless Joe Beck, then shoved a finger at him and showed him two fingers running away. He seemed keen and grateful.
I walked to the back door, limboed under the yellow tape, and let myself into the kitchen, leaving the back door slightly ajar. With a quick glance at the closed door to the office, I noisily stamped my feet and exhaled like I had just made it to Everest base camp. When a couple of unfamiliar heads appeared in the round windows of the double doors, I gave them the full personality.
“Hey! Hi! I’m Eve! This is my place!”
“Listen, this is—”
Skirting the taped body outline on the tiles near my prep table, I motored over to them. “I found something!” I declared, brandishing the crumpled wrapper from Sprouts.
“You can’t be in here—”
“Do you think it’s important?” I pushed my way into the dining room. “Is it a clue?” Perturbed but curious—like dogs in training wondering when the hell the treats were going to make an appearance—they followed me away from the double doors over to the bar, where they had set their crime scene kits. I gave the team my most riveting expression—which I hoped wasn’t coming across as psychopathic—and launched into a tale of my walk around the side of the building, as told by Edgar Allan Poe.
To hear me tell it, the crumpled wrapper was capable of spells, boils, the evil eye, and choking you with a tasteless vegan sandwich. I dropped the offending clue into the gloved palm of one of the team, who thanked me through gritted teeth and reminded me to please not cross the police tape again.
At that moment, I saw Joe stroll past the front windows, giving the wandering Akahana a pat on the back. I suddenly lost interest in the CSI team, mumbled a thanks, and slipped out the back. In the short time it took me to hit the street, he was gone. I stormed two doors up to the florist shop, where the red-and-white Open sign hung lopsidedly on the inside of the door.
You bet you’re open
. I was so mad, I felt like I had lockjaw.
Joe was half collapsed against the counter, his head in his hands.
“What were you doing inside my restaurant?” I demanded.
He looked up. “Thanks for getting me out of there.”
“You’re welcome,” I said like I had just granted him an audience with the queen. “But you didn’t answer my question.” I crossed my arms, taking in his nicely creased charcoal pants and pale pink shirt. A burgundy-and-gray tie was neatly coiled near the register.
Looking good, Beck.
To stay focused, I was going to have to force myself to recall the floral swim trunks.
“Visions of disbarment danced in my head. Since when do CSI teams show up this early?”
This appeared to be rhetorical, so I pressed on. “Did you have a key?” Like half the population of Albania. “Or did a set of lockpicks come with your law degree?”
“The door was open.”
“Oh, right.” I snorted attractively.
“It was,” he said with some energy. “I thought my wedding ring might be in the couch.”
Then he fished around in his pants pocket and pulled out a gold band, looking triumphant.
I don’t know why it all chose that moment to come crashing down, but it did.
Nonna would be suspected of murder.
I had fallen off the stage of the New Amsterdam Theatre. Only once, but it would feel like every night for the rest of my life.
And I would die manless, hunched like a
strega
over an onion-anchovy sauce.
“Look,” I said, my chin quivering, “I want you to stay off my property. Thank you for yesterday with the keyboard and all.” I started to back away. “But I don’t want to find you climbing out of my compost or hiding in my office or—or—dancing the tarantella in my dining room, okay? You want to come in for a great thank-you meal sometime, once we’re back open and my nonna’s safe and the only thing my crazy cousin Kayla does”—I glared at him, dialing up the volume—“is … her
job,
then fine, you come, and I’ll make you and your poor wife a saltimbocca so good, it’ll fool you into thinking you’re still in love—”
“You’re a little late,” he said, his mouth twisting. “We’ve been divorced a few years.”
“Well, then,” I said grandly, “dinner for one.” He was still getting the risotto. “But until that time, stay away from my property. And stay away from me.”
If Nonna wants to hire him,
she
can make the phone call.
I didn’t know why I was so agitated. Maybe it had something to do with feeling like my life was flying out of control. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that pink shirts on hot men are strangely sexy.
I turned on my heel and left. Halfway to the door, I felt a hand slip around my upper arm. “Hey, I’ll make you some tea. Come on, Eve, you can’t go solving crimes looking like you just committed one yourself—”
“Oh, look who’s talking.”
He pulled me around to face him. “Look,” he said, his hand lingering on my arm. I was hoping it was far enough away from my heart that he didn’t feel it pounding. After an indecisive moment when I wondered whether his hand was going to do something more interesting, he finally gave my arm a squeeze and let go. “Just one cup of tea.”
“Don’t you have someone to go defend, or something?”
He checked his watch and headed toward the workroom. “Not until later.”
I followed him into the workroom, which was the heart of the Flowers by Beck operation. The classroom where I’d auditioned Mrs. Crawford had a “public face” polish that was missing here in the back. Aside from two sinks and a threadbare blue-and-green-checked couch, there were large worktables, shelves holding pretty vases of various shapes and sizes, wall-mounted rolls of green florist paper, plenty of wire, and enough Styrofoam to float Venice.
I sat on the couch and hugged my knees, watching Joe pour from the hot water carafe on a two-unit coffeemaker. Into a mug emblazoned with
Failure Is Not an Option—Kennedy Space Center,
he plunked a tea bag, a teaspoon, and a drizzle of honey. Then he handed it to me. “This will set you right up.” He patted my back in a
there, there
sort of way.
I sipped what turned out to be chamomile, and eyed my host.
Joe pulled up a chair, swung it around, and sat. We looked at each other for a while, the way I’ve seen people look when they’re standing in front of cubist paintings, then he scratched his head. “I’m sorry we’ve gotten off to a bad start.”
“Me, too, I guess,” I mumbled. Graciousness, thy name is Eve.
“Anything new on the murder?” said Joe, his eyes wide with curiosity. The blue was pretty dazzling.
I gave him a shrug. “Maria Pia let the guy into the restaurant, so she may be calling you up about that good-neighbor discount.”
Joe leaned back, looking pensive. “Opportunity, then.”
I heaved a sigh.
“Motive?”
“Are we really going to do this?” I raised the mug for another soothing sip.
“I think we should.”
I felt myself blushing. That last time I had that exact exchange, I ended up in the back office with the FedEx guy. Strangely, it was all I could do not to run a thumb along Joe’s cheek to see just how close his shave was.
I shook my head like I was trying to clear a three-beer buzz. “On the motive issue,” I said finally, “none known, but she’s hiding something.”
Joe let that sink in, then he said, “Means?”
I made a vague gesture. “She can swing a mortar with the best of them.”
“So where was it?”
“The mortar?”
He nodded. “Where do you keep it? In a cupboard? Out on the counter? Where?”
I dimly got why this was an interesting question. If the mortar and pestle were kept in a cupboard, the killer had to know where to find them—a totally creepy thought, since it let out all the wait staff, and narrowed the field to those of us who knew how the kitchen worked. After all, if I suddenly needed a tool for stirring the polenta, I automatically knew just where to reach for a flat whisk. But since I hadn’t killed Mather, that left Landon, Choo Choo, Li Wei the dishwasher, and Maria Pia.
Not good.
Although … that scenario left out the possibility of premeditation. If the killer had arrived before Mather and had murder in mind, he could have spent an interesting hour browsing the possibilities: knives galore, rolling pins, bread boards, skewers, meat thermometers, and gas ovens. Suddenly the field blew wide open.
I was the happiest I had felt in the last day and a half.
But the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that the mortar had not been inside a cupboard the night before the murder. I had ground some nutmeg to jazz up my spinach alla piemontese that evening, and I was pretty sure Li Wei hadn’t washed it before he had to leave.
No, the black marble mortar and pestle were sitting out overnight on the counter near the prep table. I looked up at Joe, who was waiting patiently. “It was out. The mortar was out.”
He said nothing.
I went on: “Which means my grandmother could still have done it.”
“Eve, it means anybody could have done it,” he said with a smile. “
I
could have done it.”
I narrowed my eyes, remembering my assignment in Operation Free Maria Pia. “So where were you that morning?”
“In trial.”
I sagged. “Plenty of witnesses?”
He gave me a smile. “Try the county prosecutor. She’s the one most likely to remember me. I got the case dismissed.”
Well, at least it felt good to eliminate somebody.
“Listen, I know I’ve been a nuisance. Let me make it up to you,” he said, sounding like he’d come up with the answer to the melting polar ice cap.
The chamomile tea with honey had pretty much taken care of it, but Joe didn’t know that. “What do you have in mind?” I sat up straight, in negotiating mode … and noticed that his dimple appeared even when he wasn’t smiling. Feeling suddenly charitable—or cynical—I had a glimmer into why cases got dismissed.
“I’ve got contacts. If your cousins don’t turn up anything on Mather, then come to me.”
“Okay.”
He stuck out his hand, like we were striking a deal.
I said fine, and shook.
Holding my hand a couple of seconds too long, he said great.
And just as I was thanking him, the bell of the front door tinkled insistently, and Joe left to sell some posies for his absent brother.
6
“Chef Angelotta?” came the deep, nasal voice.
“Yes?” I had just turned onto Callowhill Street, on my way to Full of Crêpe to grill Eloise Timmler, when the call came, and I fumbled at my phone. “Mrs. Crawford?” I guessed.
“Yes. Are you in the neighborhood?”
Which neighborhood? “Of the restaurant?”
A beat. “Of course.”
“Just around the corner,” I told her. “Why?”
“Meet me out front. I may have some information.” And she hung up.
I must admit I felt a little frisson of … something. I think fear.
I didn’t trust that woman—or man. No matter if she—or he—played like Art Tatum. I turned on my heel and leadenly headed back in the direction of Market Square. Was it coincidence that Mrs. Bryce Crawford, pianist, showed up within an hour of my discovery of the murder victim on my kitchen floor? Don’t they always say killers return to the scene of the crime?
Some information
. Was it a trap? In broad daylight? With shoppers and a CSI team milling around? What did my brawny new part-time pianist think I knew? What
did
I know? Besides a toe-curling recipe for cannoli that my bigoted grandmother never let me put on the menu? (The whole Sicilian thing.)
But wait.
I had set up the audition with Mrs. Crawford two days before the murder.
But wait.
That could mean she was a pianist
and
a planner. A premeditating piano-playing planner.
But wait. As I rounded the corner, I saw her waiting for me on the sidewalk outside Miracolo. Today she was dressed in a coral cocktail dress with a Jackie Kennedy veiled pillbox hat and shoes dyed to match. A green clip in the shape of a lizard held back half of her wiry hair. Over her shoulders glittered a light silver crocheted wrap that would send Landon into a tizzy. She was carrying a Florida green clutch and a folded newspaper. Her chin was lifted, and she appeared mysterious and composed as she kept her eyes on a robin flying in and out of a space between the building’s gutter and the eave.
I stopped alongside her and asked, “What do you think of Etta James?”
A thinly penciled eyebrow lifted, although her gaze didn’t move. “Sadly underrated.”
I crossed my arms. “On a par with Ella Fitzgerald?”
“Yes,” she said with a veiled look, “but that’s not a popular opinion.”
It was hard not to like a woman who dolled up that much on a Wednesday morning. Someone who dressed retro without realizing it was retro. Was this the stuff killers are made of?