by Maria DiRico
Mia summoned up the courage to approach the scene and pushed the cake out of the way. John Grazio lay on the floor, eyes closed. Mia dropped to her knees. Please be alive, please, she prayed. I don’t think I can deal with another dead body. She placed a tentative hand on his chest and was relieved when it moved up and down. Grazio was unconscious, not dead. “Don’t worry, I’ll get help,” she told the prostrate man.
She stood up. But before Mia could make a move, the world went dark.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mia groaned as she came to. It took her a minute to figure out why she was having trouble breathing—her mouth was covered with gaffer’s tape. She went to take it off and discovered her hands were bound, as were her feet. Mia tried to adjust her cramped position but found she could only move a few inches. She was imprisoned inside the small confines of the pop-out cake.
There was a whirring noise and she felt herself descending. Her stomach went up as the elevator flew down. Mia felt like throwing up, then panicked about what might happened if she vomited while her mouth was taped shut. She willed her stomach to settle. The elevator thumped to a stop, tossing her upward. Mia hit her head on the underside of the cake lid and was overwhelmed with dizziness. As she fought to regain her equilibrium, she felt the cake being rolled along. She tried calling out and throwing herself back and forth to get someone’s attention, but her movement was limited by the small space and street noise drowned out her muffled cries for help. She could hear music from the party. Considering it was on the building’s top floor, Mia wondered if Dee had purposely ramped up the sound to cover any possibility of her being heard and saved—for she was convinced her kidnapper was Dee, an assumption based on more than Mia’s failed poker face when she realized he’d lied to her. She couldn’t think of another suspect at the party who had a reason to knock out John Grazio.
The cake rolled upward, and she heard a truck door slam. An engine roared to life and the truck took off at a high speed. It hit pothole after pothole, sending the pop-out cake careening back and forth against the walls of the vehicle, jerking Mia with it. She was overcome with pain and humiliation. Ravello’s subliminal “eyes in the back of your head” training of her childhood had failed her. Or she’d failed it—and her father.
After about fifteen minutes, the road grew smoother. Judging by the short amount of time and infrequent stops for traffic lights, Mia figured they’d transitioned to a major road and were heading east, not west. The truck veered right and soon the road grew bumpy again. We must have gotten off the highway and back onto local streets, Mia thought. The truck rumbled along for what felt like forever. Eventually it made a left onto a street where the potholes were so large, they felt more like craters when the truck hit one. As Mia rattled around, she wondered what the vehicle’s final destination was—and hoped “final destination” wasn’t literal. The truck suddenly came to a screeching halt, hurling Mia and the cake forward into the wall separating the cargo space from the driver’s cab. Mia’s head slammed against the cake’s inside wall, leaving her dazed. She heard the truck’s back door being rolled up. Then someone climbed into the back of the truck and gave the cake a push. Before Mia could make any move to get someone’s attention, the cake went flying down a ramp, rolling out of control until it finally came to a stop. There was the sound of muffled voices, a door slamming, the truck roaring away—and then silence. Wherever Mia was, she was now alone.
She leaned back against the cake and took a few deep breaths as best as she could, hoping they would relieve some of the pain from her bumps, bruises, and pounding headache. The breathing helped. Mia felt slightly better, or at least more alert. She contemplated her situation. Step one would be getting out of the pop-out cake. She looked at the cake lid above her and saw that its hinges had been loosened by the constant jolts in the truck. Steeling herself for pain, she stood up and banged the lid open with the top of her head. Knocked off its hinges, it clattered to the floor. Mia, head throbbing, examined her surroundings. She was in an old warehouse that was either abandoned or looked that way. The only light in the vast, empty space came from an incandescent lightbulb swinging overhead on a wire. Her bound hands and feet rendered climbing out of the cake impossible. But the ancient building had a slight rake to the floor—and the cake was on wheels. Mia faced the warehouse’s battered wooden doors. She bumped the cake forward with her body, rejoicing when it moved a few inches. She bumped harder; it moved farther. She bumped with all her might and the cake took off down the rake, bursting through the doors onto an alley outside, where it hit a crater, tumbled on its side, and broke apart. Mia crawled through the pop-out cake wreckage, then somehow managed to pull herself to her feet. After another deep breath, she began hopping toward the street in front of her, still bound by tape.
As Mia hopped along, each hop a reminder of how much her head hurt, she saw she was in an industrial area that seemed devoid of human life. Eight million people in this town and not one of them is around here right now, she thought, disgruntled. And what borough am I in, anyway? Ouch, my head. My legs. My arms. Boy, am I gonna feel this tomorrow. After half a block of hopping, she saw a welcome sight—an elevated subway stop she recognized as being in Queens. She began hopping up the stairs, taking breaks to rest.
When she reached the platform, her hopes of finding help from an attendant were dashed. The old token booth was closed, replaced by a couple of MetroCard turnstiles. She fell to the ground and crawled under a turnstile, then managed to get back on her feet. Mia leaned against a pillar and did the only thing she could do—wait for a train. Luckily, she saw one heading into the station. It came to a stop, the doors opened, and she hopped on. There was only one person in the subway car, a middle-aged man wearing a jumpsuit with a patch that read INTER-BOROUGH ROOTER AND PLUMBING. He’d fallen asleep, mouth open, head lolling to one side. The train lurched forward. Mia lost her balance. She fell against the man, then tumbled to the floor. The man, startled awake, saw her and screamed. “Mmm!” Mia mouthed through the tape. “Mmmmm!”
The man pulled Mia to her feet, then ripped the tape off her mouth. She yelped in pain. “Ouch, but thank you,” she gasped. “Please tell me you have a cell phone.”
Then Mia crumpled to the subway floor.
* * *
Mia woke up in a darkened hospital room. She had a vague memory of arriving by ambulance and being rolled into the room on a gurney. “Ow,” she said, putting a hand on her head, which pounded with pain. She made out the vague outline at the foot of her bed. “Dad?”
“No, he’s on his way,” said a woman’s voice.
Mia squinted and the woman came into view. She was not happy to see that it was reporter Teri Fuoco. “What are you doing here? How did you get past the nurses?”
Teri plopped down on the side of the bed. “I couldn’t decide whether to tell them I was your sister or wife. I went with wife because everyone’s too politically correct these days to question that.”
Mia, infuriated, let loose with a hat trick of bad words in English, Italian, and Greek. “Thanks a lot. Now, get out.”
Teri, still parked on the bed’s edge, swung her legs back and forth. “You should be nicer to me, since I pretty much saved your life.”
“Yeah, right,” Mia said with a snort.
“I did. I saw the truck barreling out of Koller’s loading dock and my reporter alarm bell went, ding, ding, ding! I alerted the police and tried to follow it but lost it on the Van Wyck. The reporter at the Trib who monitors our police scanner let me know when the police found you and brought you here. The cops caught the truck driver and his henchman, the ones who dumped you in the warehouse. A couple of guys with the last name Bouras.”
“The same as the man who owned Belle View,” Mia said.
“Yup. His nephews. That’s one big family. Big as an Italian’s. They arrested the party DJ, too.”
“Achi.”
“Gesundheit.”
“No,” Mia said. “Those were t
he letters on John Grazio’s cell phone. They’re the first letters of Dee’s real name.”
“Really? Interesting. Let’s see if we can find out what the rest of those letters are.”
Teri quickly typed on her phone with her thumbs. Much as Mia didn’t want to give the reporter the satisfaction of showing any interest in her, she couldn’t contain her curiosity. “What are you doing?”
“Checking with my sources. I’m in with a lot of the cops in the borough. Ah, here we go. Mister Music’s real name is Achilles. Achilles Bouras.”
“Aha!” Mia shot up in bed, then in pain, said, “Ow.”
“Need a couple of aspirin, wife?” Teri gestured to the chunky fanny pack around her waist. “I always carry some in my purse.”
“That’s a fanny pack, not a purse, and shut up. I had a feeling this whole thing could be solved if we found out Dee’s real name. He’s related to Andre Bouras.”
Teri checked her phone. “Not just related. His son.”
“And cousin to Giorgio, who he probably killed. Now all we have to figure out is why.”
“I like that you keep saying ‘we.’”
Teri said it with an impish smile, which irked Mia. “I mean it as the . . . what do they call it? The royal we. It has zero to do with you. Nada. Niente. Whatever zero is in Greek.”
“So . . .” Teri adjusted her position, moving closer to Mia. “What do you think about all this?”
Mia gave her a steely stare. “You’re not allowed to record me without my permission in the state of New York.”
A guilty look flashed across Teri’s face and disappeared. “Fine.” She held up her phone and made a show of turning off the voice app. “Off the record?”
Mia, energy flagging, leaned back against her pillow. “To be honest, I have no idea what to think right now. Everything is in bits and pieces. It’s like one of those word jumbles where right now it’s just a bunch of letters. I can’t make out the words hiding inside it. You’re gonna write what you write, anyway. Just make it the truth.”
“You said exactly that before. And again, I’m all about the truth. Even when people don’t wanna hear it.”
Teri went to put her cell in her fanny pack, but Mia reached out to stop her. “Wait. Can you find out from one of your sources what I got hit over the head with?”
“Sure.” Teri thumbed a few words and waited. “A turntable. Courtesy of Tyler, Achilles Bouras’s accomplice.”
“Another piece of work,” Mia said with a yawn. A nurse stepped into the room. “Visiting hours are over, miss,” she told Teri. “Your wife needs her sleep.”
“Yes, right.” Teri hopped off the bed. “Get some rest, honey. You’ll need it for that couples cruise I booked us on.”
Teri sauntered out of the room, leaving Mia wishing she had the strength to flip off the reporter.
* * *
The next morning, a nurse pushed Mia down the front hall of Jamaica Hospital Medical Center as Ravello kept pace with them. “I’m fine,” Mia protested. “I don’t need to be in a wheelchair.”
“Standard hospital procedure, honey,” the nurse said. “You come in on a gurney, you go out in a wheelchair. Or a box.”
The glass doors opened, and they emerged from the building. Jamie jumped out of his Prius and ran to them. Ravello helped Mia to her feet. “Your concussion was mild but keep an eye out for any changes in your vision or balance,” the nurse said.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be taking good care of her,” Ravello said. “Mille grazie. Thank you.” He shook the nurse’s hand.
“Sir, I can’t take—” She looked at what Ravello deposited in her hand. “Oh, it’s a gift card. That I can take.” She and the wheelchair disappeared back into the hospital.
“Nobody wants cash no more,” Ravello explained to the others. “Now, bella mia, let’s get you home.”
Jamie pulled open the rear passenger side door. Mia fended off the men as they tussled over who would guide her into the car. “Will you two stop it? I’m not an invalid. I know how to get into a car.”
“How do you feel?” Jamie asked, concern etched on his face.
“Like I’m getting over the flu, but much better than yesterday,” Mia said, buckling herself in.
Jamie pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward Astoria. “So,” Ravello said as Jamie drove, “Pete Dianopolis did me a favor and let me see Achilles Bouras. We had a little talk.”
Mia knew better than to question the euphemism. She also knew Ravello’s “little talks” were extremely effective. “I don’t believe this whole thing was about getting revenge on behalf of his father. Dee, or whatever name he’s using now, is too self-involved. So why did he do it? And why was Ty the one who bonked me on the head? Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. What did he have to do with Belle View?”
“Nothing,” Ravello said. “Jamie, you wanna take this one?”
Jamie pulled onto the Grand Central Parkway. “Your dad already filled me in. Seems the two DJs had a side gig going. During breaks, they’d take turns lifting cash or valuables from the women’s purses. Not enough to call attention to it. They targeted women who were drunk and might not remember what happened to the fifty-dollar bill in their wallet. Tyler thought you were on to them, panicked, and took a turntable to the back of your head, saving Bouras the trouble.”
“Because that’s not why you were a threat to Achilles Bouras,” Ravello said. “Before Andre Bouras lost Belle View at the poker table, his son Achilles was working on a secret deal to sell it to Bradley Koller. Once the family lost the place, Achilles came up with a new plan. He’d torch Belle View, making it useless to us. Koller would swoop in with a lowball offer and Achilles would get a flat fee, a piece of which would go to his cousin, Giorgio. The original plan was to set it on fire the night of the bachelor party. But when Angie showed up at Belle View to take a stab at blackmailing me—”
“Ouch re: that play on words, Dad.”
“Mi dispiace. Sorry. While she was wandering around the place, Angie happened to overhear Achilles Bouras confirming the arson plan with Giorgio. And she had a new mark who could offer up a much bigger payday than your old dad—Achilles. Giorgio was telling the truth when he said he didn’t know who Angie was and didn’t kill her. That was all on Achilles. Giorgio saw his cousin hiding Angie’s body in the cake and used it to frame me and get revenge for ‘stealing’ Belle View from the Bouras family.”
Mia rubbed her head. It was aching, either from her injury, the tale of two murders, or both. “It sounds like Giorgio should be the Bouras family hero. How did he end up dead?”
“When Giorgio was arrested, he didn’t turn on his cousin,” Jamie said. “Instead, he used what he knew—that Achilles killed Angie—as leverage to squeeze more out of him. Then, after Achilles tried torching Belle View himself, Giorgio raised the price tag for his silence even higher. Which finally doomed him.”
“Did anyone talk to Felicity Stewart Forbes? I’d love to know how she suddenly got on the party guest list after getting axed by the Kollers.”
“Pete had a sit-down with her,” Jamie shared. “She may be a bottom feeder, but she knows the real estate business. It occurred to her that her conduit to the brothers was through Bradley’s assistant. She never even spoke to Kevin’s assistant—or to Kevin himself. She did some research on a shell company set up for Koller Queens’ acquisitions and figured out that the name was a variation of a fraternity motto. Bradley’s frat, not Kevin’s. The older Koller was going to cut the younger one out of the deal. She confronted Bradley about this, threatened to tell Kevin, and she was on the party guest list and back in the Koller real estate game.”
“Pete’s pretty excited about all the twists and turns this case took,” Ravello said. “He’s already got a title for his next Steve Stianopolis mystery: ‘Real Estate Dead.’ It’s a play on words. ‘Dead’ instead of ‘Deal.’ Get it? I think it’s clever.”
“I get it, Dad.”
“Oh, I
almost forgot. I got your phone back from the Kollers. I charged it, so it’s ready to go.”
Ravello pulled Mia’s cell out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her from the back seat. “Thanks.” She typed in her password. As soon as her home screen opened, an alert from the Triborough Tribune popped up. Mia clicked it open. The newspaper’s home page blazed the headline “Murder and Mayhem Color Koller Party,” with a photo showing a handcuffed DJ DJ, aka Dee, Achilles Bouras, being escorted from the Koller Properties building by a phalanx of police officers. Mia skimmed the post, stopping to read one sentence in its entirety: “Ravello Carina, owner and manager of Belle View Banquet Manor, has been cleared of all suspicion in the deaths of Angie Pavlik and Giorgio Bouras.” Mia typed three words into the Comments section: “Truth. Thank you.” A second later, [email protected] liked her comment.
Traffic on the parkway slowed to a crawl, courtesy of the chronic backup from LaGuardia Airport. Mia glanced out the car window. She could see the second floor of Belle View, with the bay behind it. She still had questions about the events that transpired at the catering hall, including the mystery of why Evans was camping out there. But she didn’t have the energy to ask them. She leaned against the window and closed her eyes. “I’m going to rest today, then get back to work tomorrow,” she said. “I have a wedding to throw.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Once again Mia’s head throbbed, but not because of an attempt on her life. The cause of her pain was the hour she’d spent listening to Alice Paluski and John Grazio argue about their wedding, which was only a few days away.
“What do you mean, you don’t like vanilla?” John put the rhetorical question to his fiancée in an exasperated tone. “Who doesn’t like vanilla? It’s vanilla.”
“I hate vanilla and always have.” Alice crossed her arms in front of her chest and glared at John. She tossed her own rhetorical question at him. “How could you not know this about me?”
