“So, Mrs. Crawford, what have you got for me?”
She unfolded the newspaper and held it out to me. “Is this the gentleman who expired in your restaurant?”
Two lady shoppers in boiled wool jackets and Hush Puppies gave us a terrified look as they passed.
“You do know it had nothing to do with the food?” I shrilled at Mrs. Crawford—and them.
“Yes, of course.”
My eyes swept over the lead story in the Bucks County
Courier Times
. There was the photo of local businesswoman Maria Pia Angelotta and her escort, “murder victim” Arlen Mather. I thought “escort” sounded kind of cheesy. But that was probably less important than the fact that the two festivalgoers looked bleary, as if the wine at the Food and Wine Festival had met way too much with their approval.
The news story didn’t have much to add—found dead, suspected foul play (unless, I suppose, Arlen had curled up on the floor for a nap and the mortar had fallen on his skull—repeatedly), persons of interest, ongoing investigation. Nothing much about the man himself—no background, no work history—since the extent of my nonna’s helpfulness seemed to end at handing over a picture.
I looked up at Mrs. Crawford, waiting for her to divulge … whatever.
“The gentleman was a friend of this Maria Pia?” she asked, her eyes glimmering.
I was thankful she didn’t call him an escort. “My grandmother, yes.”
She narrowed her eyes at the clouds. “And not much is known about him?”
“Apparently not.”
She met my eyes. “I believe I may have seen him before.”
Aha! “Where?” I blurted. Following up astutely with, “When?”
She looked at me squarely. “I played a gig about eight months ago. He was there, this Arlen”—she glanced at the newspaper—“Mather, although I never heard the name. I played during the champagne reception and before the auction began.”
My heart rate picked up. “What was it?”
“It was a fund-raiser at the Academy of Music, on Broad Street. For the Opera Company of Philadelphia.”
So the mysterious Mr. Mather attended opera fund-raisers. No, Mrs. Crawford had no recollection whether he bid on anything during the auction. But he was wearing a tuxedo and his daughter wore a mixed strand of pearls and a feathered boa that proved more tasteful than one would think.
His daughter?
After telling Mrs. Crawford I’d call her about her start date once the police let us open, she handed me the
Courier Times
and clicked back up the street in her coral pumps.
I had just speed-dialed Nonna when the Culiform Supply panel truck pulled to a stop at the curb. Our uniform service. Hell, I forgot to head
them
off at the pass. So I hung up on Nonna when I heard,
“Pronto?”
and dialed the carpet cleaners, the linen service, and the food wholesalers. Between calls, I explained to the Culiform Supply driver—the bodybuilding Carly, according to her name pin and wingspan—that homicide had temporarily dampened our need for restaurant wear. Much paperwork and many sighs ensued.
While Carly fumed and blustered, several neighbors wanted updates.
Mr. von Veltheim, the baker, presented me with some complimentary kugelhopf, which I accepted.
Sasha Breen, looking especially whippetlike, said she heard it was a mob hit. From her lips, it sounded like foreplay. I assured her that unless the mob’s preferred method of extinction these days was kitchenware, she had nothing to worry about.
Akahana mentioned that Emperor Hirohito was an excellent ballroom dancer.
Weird Edgar from the Quaker Hills Service Department unloaded the trash can in front of Sprouts, and said he moonlights as a bodily fluids cleanup guy. Reasonable rates. He actually handed me a business card that said Gross-B-Gone, No Guts, No Gory.
A ponytailed fourth-grader pulling a pink backpack on wheels told me her daddy said my granny was going to fry. At that, I wished I’d paid more attention to Nonna whenever she worked up a good evil eye. And, really, I started to say something high-road, like the only thing my “granny” fries is heavenly
gnocchi fritti,
and such a nice little girl as she was should stop by sometime for one.
But what came out was that her daddy was an ignoramus, and that she should get her Little Debbie Cosmic-Brownies-loving butt out of there before I called the school to report her as a truant. So she did.
Cradling the kugelhopf, I crossed the street to Providence Park at the center of the commercial district, waving at Dana and Vera, who were coming toward me from the eastern end of the park. While I melted onto a park bench and waited for them, pondering the clues about Arlen Mather’s love of opera, I called Maria Pia. “Did Arlen have a daughter?”
“A—daughter? Where did you hear this?”
“From Mrs. Crawford, our new pianist.”
“We have a pianist?”
“Yes. Three nights a week to start.”
“Italian?”
“Actually, hard to say.” Among other things … “But I think you’ll like … her.”
Nonna gave me one of her florid grunts that covers everything from
The pope just got rid of another saint
to
Customers will break their teeth on this ravioli dough.
“About this daughter … ” she said languidly, “I know nothing. Such a person never came up.”
She asked where this pianist got the information and I mentioned the fund-raiser for the Opera Company of Philadelphia eight months ago. So—I pointed out—not only did Arlen Mather have a daughter, he may have had some interest in Miracolo’s opera memorabilia.
She said that just because he died on the great Caruso, it didn’t mean he loved him. As I tried to make sense of her point, she started to rev up with alternatives to the daughter theory—it could have been a stranger, an opera singer, an escort.
Then Dana and Vera were approaching.
“Gotta go, Nonna—”
“You know, come to think of it, my poor Arlen was dating someone when he met me.”
That stopped me in my tracks. “Wait, what?”
Maria Pia went all airy on me. “Just someone. Of course,” she purred, “he broke it off.”
*
Stranger, opera singer, escort, girlfriend.
Ah, the possibilities. I wondered whether Sally the detective had heard about the female with the pearls and feathered boa.
“Chérie!”
Dana kissed me on both cheeks, then chafed my upper arms as if trying to start a fire. She had clearly slipped back into one of her French phases, so we could expect a staggering amount of Edith Piaf during her late-night gig at the restaurant. Her cork platform heels jacked her up about four inches in her beige stretchy leggings, and the bat-wing tunic top sported a stained-glass design. There was just something irrepressible about her that I liked.
“Hey, Dana. Vera.”
Vera was wearing a white hoodie and jeans. No manicure, ever, and no jewelry today, just a tightly rolled orange bandana tied like a headband in her mass of red hair. When Dana explained that she had met with Vera to give her some guidance about her investigative role, Vera shot me a tolerant look.
I couldn’t resist. “So, what’s your own part in the operation, Dana?”
“Coordinator,” she said serenely, reminding me of Maria Pia whenever she has to explain why she keeps her recipe for osso bucco in a safe deposit box at the local Wells Fargo Bank.
We stood in a tight little group, taking in the Wednesday-morning crowd on Market Square. What had started out as weakly sunny was now clouding over. “Have the cops taken your statements?” I asked them, watching Weird Edgar round the corner in his red Service Department truck mounted with a megaroll of white trash bags.
“Not yet,” said Vera. “I’m supposed to stop in sometime today.”
“Dana?”
“Oh, yes,” she said with a smile, “I went to the station house first thing yesterday.”
“So how was it?” I shifted my weight.
She laughed, tucking her chin-length black hair behind her ears. “I’ve been asked tougher questions when I get my driver’s license renewed.” The stained-glass bat wings fluttered. “Name, address, occupation—”
“Alibi,” I threw in.
“Of course! I was working at the office that morning. There’s always lots to do.”
I nodded. Though Dana sings for us four nights a week, mainly she manages her husband’s office—Cahill Enterprises—on the second floor of the Ashbridge Building, the redbrick colonial that dominated the eastern end of our Quaker Hills commercial district. Dana Cahill née Mahoney had hit the husband jackpot ten years ago when local businessman Patrick Cowan Cahill fell for her.
He had great hair, great skills, and great taste in everything except shoes and—excluding Dana—women. We’d dated once, but the tassel loafers were a deal breaker for me. And my double-pierced right earlobe was a deal breaker for him. We had a good laugh over it. All of Quaker Hills had suffered through his fling with the alcoholic mud wrestler, his affair with the strident tattoo artist, and his engagement to the hysterical single mom with three small boys.
So, when he married Dana Mahoney, word went out around town that she wasn’t an embarrassment or a lunatic and that chances were really pretty good that she wouldn’t put undue strain on Quaker Hills’s mental health resources.
I felt a pang as Dana made off with the agreeable Vera, promising to check in later. Just as I was wondering whether Vera would become Danacized, which would lead to aberrations such as gold lamé slides worn with herringbone pants, my phone rang. It was Landon telling me he was just walking into the Quaker Hills Police Department with Nonna, who, apparently, was channeling Anne Boleyn in that final walk across the grassy yard at the Tower of London toward the guy in the black hood.
*
Over on Callowhill Street, I made it into Full of Crêpe (the place’s real name is Le Chien Rouge, but I believe in truth in advertising) before the downpour. About a dozen ladies who brunch were ogling the crêpe selections on the daily board over the open kitchen. The choices on Wednesday, May 28, included crêpes with raspberry glop, chocolate sludge, or apple pecan gruel. Full of Crêpe had opened last October, debuting a pumpkin purée crêpe that become strangely popular with the tourists coming out from Philly for the fall colors (since Philly doesn’t have trees).
Apparently the entrepreneurial Eloise had emigrated from Wilkes-Barre, where she had managed a Payless shoe store. Before that, she had assistant-managed a Family Dollar store. And sometime before that came her stint with french fries. This vast experience led to Eloise’s wanting to open her own “crêpe place”—from Eloise’s lips,
crêpe
rhymes with
grape
—in the tourist-magnet of Quaker Hills. So she opened Le Chien Rouge, moved her personal belongings into the apartment over the shop, and still had a PODS storage unit out front in the driveway.
A waitress with hair like Margaret Thatcher preened around the room dressed in Eloise’s version of a French folk costume—starchy white sashes and a “hat” that looked like a colors-of-the-French-flag version of Burger King’s large fries container. Eloise was visible in the open kitchen, her sandy-colored hair pulled back in a clip, her challenging orthodontics now down to a single wire across her top teeth.
“Hi, Eve,” Eloise called out. I watched her ladle something that looked like cherry-colored tar over a couple of crêpes. Amazingly, the music floating through the crêperie was a disco version of “La Marseillaise.” The whole operation was cheesier than Maria Pia’s
fonduta
.
I think what killed me was how popular the place was. We weren’t really competitors, but what made me so jealous was that she got to have this success without a Maria Pia arguing with her over the daily specials or dissing her wardrobe.
“So, Eloise, tell me,” I said, sauntering around the counter. I have to admit, I was just going through the motions. Her joint was a block and a half away from Miracolo; what were the chances she saw anybody skulking into the restaurant behind Arlen Mather? Huh—about as small as Maria Pia giving me the go-ahead to make cannoli at Miracolo. “You heard about the, uh, murder?”
“Yeah,” she looked up at me from slathering the cherry-colored topping around the crêpes, “and you found the guy, right?”
“That’d be me,” I admitted. “One of my luckier breaks.”
“Like falling off a stage,” she bleated.
There was nothing I could do about my burning cheeks, but I made a mental note of Eloise’s health code violations in her kitchen: open garbage can, unrinsed plates in the open dishwasher, fruit sauces in unlabeled mason jars, and an unnecessary person (me) in the food prep area. I smiled. “See anybody suspicious outside my place that morning?”
“You mean, aside from your grandmother?”
Happily, I had the Health Department on my speed dial. I cocked my head at this woman who will never know what hit her when they descend. “Yes, aside from my grandmother.” I even smiled. And it wasn’t fake.
She flung the plate on the counter and hit the bell. “Nope, nobody.”
“But you were in sight of Miracolo?”
“Yep.” She bared her teeth at me in the Eloise version of a smile. “I got a parking spot right on Market Square. How often does that happen, right?”
This from a woman who could park in her own driveway, if she finished moving in and got the PODS unit out of the way. “What time was that, Eloise?”
She thought for a moment. “Must have been nine twenty–ish.” Then she hammered the bell two more times. “Babette!” she hollered at the sole waitress, a woman I knew for a fact was named Dora.
“So you saw Maria Pia drop the man off in front of Miracolo—”
“Well, not exactly.”
“So,” I said slowly, trying to get the story straight, “you
didn’t
see her drop him off?”
Eloise grabbed a dirty apron from a stool and wiped her hands on it, violation number 5. “She didn’t drop him off.”
But Maria Pia admitted to dropping him off. Was she covering for somebody? Was that it? “What are you saying? Wasn’t she there?” I couldn’t make sense of it.
“Oh, yeah, she was there, all right. She pulled up, the old guy got out and let himself into the restaurant, and she parked the car.”