Campari Crimson

by Traci Andrighetti

  Her eyes crinkled, and she exhaled a laugh. “I’ll pop out and say hello.”

  I followed her into the lobby, carrying my bowl and wondering whether the sugary coffins had cast a pall on my day.

  Anthony had wasted no time in making himself comfortable. He reclined on the couch in the wife beater, red track pants, and Italian-flag socks he’d left the house wearing the night before.

  “Eyyy, Ronnieee.” He gave her a bloodshot wink. “Lookin’ good, girl.”

  The odor of Bourbon Street wafted from his mouth.

  “Nice to see you too.” Veronica wrinkled her nose. “I’ll leave you two to chat.”

  I waited until she’d disappeared and then turned on him like bad wine. “Why are you here? Your interview isn’t until five, which is seven hours from now.”

  “The nonne are watchin’ Netflix, so I’m jus’ gonna crash heuh till then.”

  That statement was packed with problems, so I decided to pick it apart in order of utterance. “How many nonne?”

  “I dunno. Eight, nine. They all look the same.”

  I’d told my nonna not to have more than a couple of friends over. So something was up, and whatever it was would turn my life upside down. “What are they watching?”

  He nestled his head into a cushion and closed his eyes. “Dracula. Nonna said they was doin’ research. Prolly lookin’ for ideas to accessorize their death dresses.”

  Mannaggia. It wasn’t mourning fashion they were researching, but how to meddle in my case. “Since you’ve got the whole day free, I need you to do two things. First, go home and talk to Glenda about fixing a broken gutter. And then, so you don’t blow the interview, get some sleep.”

  “That’s what I’m tryin’ ta do, if you’d stop wit’ the naggin’.”

  I approached the couch and balled my fist, and not to fist pump. “I didn’t mean here. This is a business, and we have a serious case to solve.”

  An eye opened, and he grabbed my bowl. “Yo, gimme a bite o’ that.”

  “That’s it. I’m calling Mom.” I marched to my office.

  “Yeah, go tattle,” he taunted. “Real adult.”

  I might’ve been behaving childishly, but I sure as heck wasn’t going to take adulting lessons from him.

  Intent on telling my parents what I thought of the Anthony arrangement, I reached for my desk phone. It was ten a.m., so I dialed their work number.

  “Amato’s Deli. Larry speakin’.”

  The New York accent and name belonged to a seventy-something regular who worked in Houston’s Rice Village, where our family business was located. So it didn’t make sense for him to be answering the phone. “Larry from the Drycleaner’s?”

  “Now it’s Larry from the Deli.”

  I imagined him serving customers in his gray flat cap, gray clothes, and gray frown. “This is Franki. Can I speak to my mother, please?”

  “She ain’t here.”

  “Okay, then put my dad on.”

  “He ain’t here either.”

  I almost keeled over. At least one member of my family was in that deli at all times during working hours. “Where are they?”

  “At home gettin’ the place ready for a party.”

  My parents hadn’t had a party since I was ten. And the only preparation they’d done was put out chips and dip, mix martinis, and set out Yahtzee scorecards. “On a Thursday night? What’s going on?”

  “Life, baby. Life.”

  The phone slammed into the cradle.

  I stared at my cell. I didn’t know what was more disconcerting—the notion of my mom and dad actually enjoying their lives or the discovery that they’d replaced my brother with the likes of Larry.

  And then the confusion cleared. My parents didn’t care who worked at the deli as long as it wasn’t Anthony. And now that they’d stuck him with me, they were living it up.

  The cover popped off my phone from the sheer force of my squeeze.

  I didn’t begrudge my mom and dad a good time, quite the contrary. But I wasn’t going to pay for their parenting mistakes. One way or another, Anthony was returning to the nest. And he was taking Nonna with him.

  A buzz came from the lobby, followed by a door slam.

  I said a silent prayer that Anthony had left. And wandered into oncoming traffic.

  Then I asked forgiveness for that last part and threw in a couple of Hail Marys as an added precaution. After all, he was probably in danger, and I had to keep him safe.

  With my conscience clear, I reentered the lobby and found my brother still supine, showing David and the vassal the Forza, Itala! tattoo on his bicep.

  “If it means Go, Italy!,” the vassal said, “shouldn’t there be another ‘i’ for Italia?”

  “Yeh, but this ways it’s an Italian chick’s name, Itala.” Anthony gave a sly sneer. “Know what I’m sayin’?”

  A round of knuckle-bumps ensued.

  “Sorry to interrupt the bonding, but we have work to do.” I looked at Anthony even though I was talking to the boys. “I’m sure you two heard about the Todd Plank murder?”

  David gave a clinched-jaw nod in contrast with the vassal’s version.

  I looked at David, apologetic. “Per Veronica, you’re going to have to be my date to the Crimson Cotillion.”

  Anthony’s low brow lowered. “My brutha, you can do bettuh.”

  The boys snickered, and I wanted to knuckle-bump my brutha’s thick skull. Instead, I opted for more subtle revenge. “Vassal, I need you to stay on Detective Sullivan for the lab results on that wine. There’s a good chance it contained diseased human blood.”

  Anthony shuddered and rubbed his biceps, and I smiled inside.

  David cleared his throat. “So, we have a contact at Delta Upsilon Delta. He’s a freshman pledge named Andrew Maloney.”

  Given recent developments, I’d almost forgotten my suspicions about the frat. “That’s great. How do you guys know him?”

  The vassal stepped forward, hands clasped behind his back. “He’s in our coding course. As it turns out, he wanted to pledge our fraternity. But his brother was a DUD, so he’s a legacy.”

  And what a legacy it was.

  “When we saw him in class this morning, he told us their Halloween party is tonight.”

  I thought of my parents. “Why is everyone having Thursday parties when Halloween is on Saturday?”

  “Uh, part of the DUD credo is to maximize their party potential,” David said. “They have theirs tonight so they don’t miss the Friday and Saturday sorority parties.”

  Anthony’s church face reflected his somber respect. “Dem boys is smart.”

  Said the guy with the bad grammar and the misspelled tattoo. “Can you guys get an invite?”

  “We already received one.” The vassal glanced up at me. “You can be my date.”

  “Thanks, but the frat would be less than thrilled if I showed up.”

  “Damn straight,” Anthony exclaimed. “She’d kill the party.”

  The spikes in his hair had nothing on my stare. “Keep it up, and I’ll kill you.”

  The vassal, who had turned as red as my brother’s track pants, closed his mouth to swallow. “You would make an enjoyable guest, but that’s not why I invited you.” He glanced at David. “Andrew said there’s a room at the fraternity house that is off limits. With you there, we have a better chance of finding it and gaining access.”

  I pushed my brother’s feet off the arm of the couch and took a seat. “It’s probably their pledge initiation room.”

  David scratched the back of his ear. “Uh, in the frat world it’s known as a hazement, as in hazing and basement, and Andrew said he and the other pledges have been in there. Only Craig Rourke and Domenic LaVecchio have a key to the room I’m talking about. The freaky thing is that he heard Craig call it The Dungeon.”

  That was freaky. And frightening. Because The Dungeon was also the name of the local vampire bar.

  The one Raven had mentioned.

/>   Anthony straightened his oversized gold chains and raised the collar of his tracksuit jacket. “I look good, right?”

  He was nervous about the interview, so I searched for a tactful but truthful reply. “You look like you were born to work at Madame Moiselle’s.”

  “Got any advice before I go in?”

  Because he was applying at a strip club, it was the one time I could safely say, “Just be yourself.”

  “Cool.” He gave me a high five.

  “Oh, and did you talk to Glenda about that gutter?”

  “I’m on it, awright?”

  Something told me he wasn’t, but I kept my mouth shut. “Make sure you’re not just on it, but all over it, okay? I’ve got to get over to my cooking class.”

  He nodded. Then he pounded his chest and strutted inside, and I headed back to the office.

  No one doubted my brother’s employability more than I did, but after that display, I felt he might’ve finally found his career path.

  To avoid the tourists and the local happy hour crowd, I turned off Bourbon. I’d only walked a few hundred feet when I sensed I was being followed. At the Royal Street stop sign, I casually glanced around while waiting for traffic to pass. No one looked suspect—in terms of stalking, anyway.

  I forged ahead, attributing my unease to Anthony and the case. And to the evening’s menu at Bayou Cuisine.

  At the next intersection, I spotted a group of twenty or so people standing outside Harry’s Corner, a popular dive bar.

  A silver-haired gentleman in an expensive button-down shirt and slacks smiled as I approached.

  “Is there a special going on, or something?”

  His green eyes narrowed in mock conspiracy. “It’s a meeting of the Grande and Secret Order of the Obituary Cocktail. You should join us.”

  I flinched. According to the bartender at Molly’s, Thomas Van Scyoc was a member.

  “Nothing to be afraid of.” The man patted my arm. “It’s a spin on the gin martini, not a death warrant.”

  Not the drink, maybe, but Thomas might be. “A stiff drink is exactly what I need. No pun intended.”

  “None understood.” He bowed and gestured for me to enter.

  The bar was musty and dark, like a proper hole in the wall. I squinted until my eyes adjusted. Then shock dawned on me like an atom bomb.

  Thomas sat at a lone two-top in the back.

  And with him sat Craig Rourke.

  11

  “Tonight’s recipe is courtesy of deadfood.com.” Chef Mel beamed from behind the classroom computer. “Alligator Chili, Cajun comfort food.”

  Somehow, I failed to find comfort in the dish or the website.

  “Where’d you get gator meat?” Lou asked.

  “Out on I-10.”

  Under normal circumstances, I would’ve assumed he was talking about a grocery store or butcher shop located along the highway. But given the class, I knew he meant on the actual road, as in roadkill.

  Mel looked over his shoulder at the blank projector screen. “Uh-oh. We have a technical issue. While I work on getting the recipe up, go ahead and start on the alligator. And remember, this is a no-fry zone. Get it? No fry?”

  Unfortunately, we did.

  I poured oil into a sauté pan. While I waited for it to heat, I opened three cans of expired tomato sauce. And I thought about blood.

  And Thomas and Craig.

  I couldn’t imagine why the two men would’ve met unless it had to do with the murders. And yet, based on the evidence I’d gathered, Raven and Josh were the most likely suspects.

  There was no way around it. My best shot at identifying the killer was to decode Campari Crimson, and I wasn’t convinced it was a drink. The only other ideas that came to mind were a title or some kind of symbol, maybe related to voodoo. If that were so, it wouldn’t hurt to consult Father John. Catholicism and voodoo were inextricably linked in New Orleans, so local priests were well versed in the subject.

  Mel placed a stepladder beneath the ceiling projector. “Once you’ve got the alligator going, turn to the four special ingredients at each of your stations. And say, Seasoning’s greetings!”

  I wanted to greet him—with a cloud of the Slap Ya Mama seasoning.

  “For today’s cook-off, choose one of the four to flavor your chili.”

  Sara looked at Michele. “I only have three.”

  “I’ve got four.” Michele looked at me.

  Sara approached my station and tripped, knocking my bottle of Peychaud’s Bitters to the floor with a crash. “Sorry.” She knelt to pick up the glass. “I’m such a klutz.”

  Was she? The athlete? I narrowed my eyes like Eastwood. “That was going to be my special ingredient.”

  Michele glanced at Chef Mel, who was jiggling the projector’s power cord. “We’re not supposed to share since this is a competition,” she whispered, “but I could give you some of mine.”

  “Thanks.” I crouched to help Sara, and Michele poured Peychaud’s into my pan.

  “Hey,” I whisper-scolded. “I was supposed to do that.”

  “Well, I had to do it while Chef Mel wasn’t looking, otherwise you would’ve been disqualified.” She batted her big eyes. “I only put a couple of drops.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. The fishy-rot odor of the alligator had taken on a tutti-frutti licorice scent.

  After Sara and I cleaned the mess, I decided to engage Michele in a conversation about the contest to try to gauge her competitiveness. To keep it casual, I diced a bell pepper. “Did the chef say anything about the school’s Mardi Gras float during the first week of class?”

  She sized me up with a sidelong glance. “It’s a gumbo pot. And the winner gets to dress up like a piece of okra.”

  Chandra hadn’t mentioned the costume. “Sara, you’d look good in that.”

  Michele halved a jalapeño with a thwack. “I would too. I’ve been a princess every Halloween since I was born.”

  “What does that have to do with okra?”

  “Cinderella and the pumpkin? Snow White and the apple? Tiana and the beignet?” She raised the knife. “Shall I go on?”

  “No, no.” I took a step back. “I see the correlation.”

  “I’m glad you came around.” She dropped the knife and clasped her hands, and I half-expected her to break into song. “Can you imagine how wonderful it would be? A princess in a parade?”

  I imagined a stalk of okra in a tiara and a sparkly green dress. “I guess?”

  “I’d be the prettiest piece of okra you ever saw.” She grabbed the ends of her apron and twirled like Cinderella in her ball gown. But instead of a dreaminess to her tone, there was a determination that was decidedly Disney villain.

  Perhaps both women had been sabotaging Lou.

  “Okay, recipe’s on the screen.” Mel climbed from the stepladder. “I had to switch out a cable.” He wiped his hands on his chef’s pants. “I used to sell car parts, so I know all about that.”

  I wasn’t sure what cars had to do with projectors, and I didn’t ask. He was likely to explain it. In painstaking detail.

  Sara tasted her chili. “You know what would be good in this? Cynar.”

  Lou’s head popped up from his pan. “What’s that?”

  “Artichoke liqueur,” she replied. “But it’s actually made with a lot of herbs and plants. Like bitters, or Aperol and Campari.”

  Chef Mel strolled to her station. “Campari is made with sixty-eight herbs, fruits, roots, and spices. The recipe is secret, but I’ve got it mostly figured out because I trained to be a sommelier.”

  “Mel the sommelier.” Lou chuckled and bounced to his tiptoes in his toe shoes. “Fun to say.”

  The chef’s face lit up like the projector screen. “That’s right! So-Mel-YAY. It’s like ‘so Mel’ with a cheer.”

  Except that none of us were cheering.

  Mel settled onto Sara’s stovetop with a one-arm lean. “I have a super sensitive nose and palate. I’ve identified
sixty-one of Campari’s ingredients. There’s carminic acid, which gives it the red color, from the cochineal bug.”

  A bug? No wonder he knew about the liqueur.

  “And bitter orange, cherry, grapefruit, quinine, bay leaf, thyme, clove…”

  My stress level grew with the list.

  “…vanilla, rhubarb, cascarilla, ginseng…”

  And I wasn’t just tense because the chef was going to name all sixty-one of the ingredients he’d identified, although that was a huge part of it. There was something about the secret recipe that stressed me out. It was as though my body sensed something my brain wasn’t ready to grasp. But what?

  Did the secret ingredients hold the key to the case?

  “Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” I stood before Veronica’s bedroom mirror, scrutinizing my reflection in the black sleeveless shirt and red pleather pants. “You had fun with this, didn’t you?”

  She collapsed over the back of her vanity chair and vibrated in a silent giggle fit. After what was practically the length of a Buffy episode, she stood and wiped a tear from her eye. “I really did. But the case aside, it’s the perfect costume for the frat party. You look like a sorority girl in that blonde wig.”

  “Except that I’m six foot one in these boots, which is at least half a foot over the standard sorority girl size.” I turned away from the mirror. “Also, my biceps are disturbingly reminiscent of Anthony’s, and there’s a good chance a drunk frat boy will mistake my thighs for giant cocktail wieners.”

  Veronica’s Pomeranian, Hercules, licked his lips, confirming my fear.

  “That outfit is great on you. And they’ll all be so drunk they won’t notice what you look like.” She patted the back of the chair. “Now come sit down so I can do your makeup.”

  “Okay, but I’m starting to think that I would’ve been better off going to Glenda for a costume.”

  Our eyes met in the mirror, and we laughed so hard my pleather almost split. After a thorough check of the seams, I tossed my phone on the vanity and took a seat.

  Veronica sponged foundation on my face. “Have you thought any more about that secret recipe?”

  “I did some research on Campari. Apparently, only one man in the world knows the full list of ingredients. And he has some of the herbs delivered to the factory in unmarked paper bags, so the employees can’t figure out what they are.”