by Maria DiRico
“Does not look good for anyone,” O’Dwyer acknowledged.
“NYPD is a great law enforcement agency—except when they’re arresting one of my relatives, of course—but they also got a lot going on. I figure if I can be boots on the ground and pick up stuff I can share with them, it’s not the worst thing in the world.”
“I’m guessing people have told you to be careful.”
“Yeah, I hear that a lot.”
O’Dwyer, pensive, sipped his doctored coffee. “Thinking. . . thinking . . .” His face brightened. “Yes! I remembered something. Tina was having a fling with one of her airline’s pilots. I even remember his name because it’s so classy. Hugo Herold Hartley. Elegant, huh?”
“Uh huh,” Mia said, distracted, her eyes on the diner’s front door. Pete Dianopolis and his partner Ryan strode in, the expressions on both their faces telegraphing that they were on duty. Pete flashed his badge at one of the restaurant’s younger waitresses, who looked scared. The girl pointed to Ron, who was ringing up a customer’s check. Mia stood up. “I’ll be right back, Liam. I need to check on something.”
O’Dwyer turned to see what was going on. “Oh, boy. That looks familiar. And not good.”
Mia hurried over to the counter, the ex-con on her heels. They arrived just in time to see Ryan pull out a pair of handcuffs and Pete say to Ron, “Ronald Karras, you’re under arrest for the felony assault of Castor Aegeus Garvalos.”
CHAPTER 13
There was a clatter as the diner’s patrons dropped their silverware. The entire restaurant fell silent. They listened to the officers recite Ron his Miranda rights and watched him be cuffed and escorted out of Aquarius.
“What the f—” waitress Alexa said, breaking the silence.
Mia shook off her shock. “Alexa, you’ve been here the longest. Take charge of the others. Tell them to act like everything’s normal. Finish serving everyone here. When anyone asks what’s going on—and they all will—tell them you have no idea.”
“Which is the truth,” Alexa said, gaping in the direction of the building’s front door.
“Put out the CLOSED sign so no new customers come in. As soon as the last one leaves, lock up. But tell everyone it’s business as usual. I’ll call my dad. We’ll get our lawyer on it. If Ron’s not out by tomorrow, run the place yourself. I’ll make sure Ron knows and promotes you to assistant manager.”
Alexa waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t need that. I’m old. I got one foot out the door of this place. I’ll do it for Ron. He’s a good guy. The only thing he’d ever murder is a slice of our foot-high chocolate layer cake.”
The waitress took off. Mia turned her attention back to her meal mate, Liam. “Sorry about all this. Thank you so much for talking to me.”
“Sure, no problem. You got any other questions, just give me a call.” The ex-con stood up. “You never forget your first arrest.”
He sounded more sentimental than traumatized.
Mia spent the cab ride home alternating between texts and phone calls. Ron’s ex-wife burst into tears at the news. His ex-mother-in-law responded with a triumphant, “I knew it!” Both women agreed that this latest dire development should be withheld from Nicole unless telling her became absolutely necessary. Mia contacted Mickey Bauer, the defense attorney the Carinas kept on retainer. Since the fees laid out by her family had paid for the lawyer’s summer place on the Jersey shore, his instant response was, “I’m on it.” She followed this with a group text to her father and grandmother alerting them to the development, and a plea to Cammie to find out whatever she could from Pete about the charges against Ron.
When the cab dropped Mia off, Elisabetta and Ravello were there to greet her at the front door. Mia gratefully accepted the glass of wine Elisabetta handed her. “Che incubo.”
“I know,” Mia said, following the others into the living room. “A total nightmare.” She collapsed onto the multicolored crocheted blanket that covered Elisabetta’s couch and kicked off her shoes.
“What happened?” Ravello asked. “What did Ron do that got him arrested?”
Mia threw up the hand that wasn’t holding a glass of wine. “No idea. At all.” Her cell rang. “It’s Cammie. I asked her to flirt any intel she could out of Pete.” She answered the call. “Hey. Any luck?”
“It took a little more work than usual, but I got something.”
“I’m with Dad and Nonna. Can I put you on speaker?”
“Sure. Tell them to ignore the noise. I’m in the middle of a mani-pedi, and Kanya is drying my tootsies with a fan.”
“Now? It’s like, nine o’clock at night.”
“Messina, dear.” Cammie adopted a patronizing tone. “If anyone you know was gonna track down the one twenty-four-hour beauty salon in Queens, who would it be?”
“You, Ms. Dianopolos,” Mia said in the sing-songy rhythm of a schoolkid. She pressed the speaker button on her cell phone. Elisabetta and Ravello moved closer to hear Cammie over the fan and the nail salon chatter in the background. “Ron went over to Versailles and got into a screaming match with this Garvalos guy,” Cammie reported. “A few hours later, one of Garvalos’s coworkers found him on the ground outside, unconscious, a bad gash on the back of his head like someone hit him with something. Since you pointed a finger at Garvalos, the police were already looking into him. They know he and Tina used to go out, and think they started seeing each other again behind Ron’s back. He found out, which led to him confronting Garvalos. And possibly Tina’s murder. The spouse is always the number one suspect.”
Mia felt sick to her stomach. “I put Garvalos on Pete’s radar. Ron’s arrest is my fault.”
“Mia, you have two guys going at it, and one of them is found knocked out. The cops would have picked up Ron no matter what, given the circumstances. Plus, different judge, different prosecutor than when your dad was arrested in the spring.” Mia glanced at her father, who grimaced at the memory of his false arrest. “They’re both new and looking to make their bones on a high-profile case. It is in no way your fault.”
“Thanks, but I still feel like I’m at least partly responsible.” Mia recalled Linda’s confrontation with Tina prior to the latter’s death. “Although it would help if the Kar-rases would stop being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Good point. I gotta go. Kanya needs my hands. She’s painting little leaves on my fingernails. I’m hoping it’ll send the universe a message to lose the hot weather and send us an early fall.” With this, Cammie signed off.
“I need more wine,” Mia said.
She got up and padded barefoot into the kitchen. “Don’t blame yourself,” her father called. “You heard Cammie. This was a gimme.”
Mia filled her glass and returned to the living room with the bottle. Nonna held out her glass. “Ecco.”
Mia topped off her grandmother’s wine, as well as her father’s, then sat back down. “I talked to Ron tonight. I never got any sense at all that he was threatened by Garvalos’s relationship with Tina. He basically said the guy plays for the other team.” Mia mulled over the conversation. “But he was definitely ticked off at him. Garvalos used Tina’s death as an excuse to hustle more money out of Ron for that insane baby shower Tina threw.” Her phone pinged a text. Mia read it, then announced, “Mickey was able to arrange Ron’s arraignment for first thing in the morning. You can bet I’ll be having another convo with Ron after that.”
Lunch the next day found Mia at the Aquarius Diner where, after posting bail, Ron had been welcomed back like a war hero by his staff. Given Ron had never received so much as a traffic ticket, the judge set the bail amount at twenty thousand dollars, despite the assistant DA’s posturing and demand for a much higher figure. Ron was able to post the ten percent of the bail amount required to release him, but the restaurateur was still recovering from his night in jail. “It’s an ugly, ugly place, Mia. I don’t know how your father and brother survived.”
“I guess if you’re there enough
, like them, you get used to it.”
Ron’s hand shook as he lifted his coffee cup to his mouth. “I didn’t touch Garvalos. Believe me, I wanted to. But I didn’t.”
“Why did you go see him at Versailles?”
“I had to. He blocked my calls.”
Mia curled her lip. “Yeah, he does that.”
Ron cast a pleading look at her. “I went to see him because of that stupid bill he sent me. That’s what we got into a fight about. Not a fight, an argument. I never touched him. I swear. He was fine when I left. His same old obnoxious self.”
“I believe you.”
“Yeah, but will a jury?” Ron motioned to Alexa. She came over, took out her flask, and added a splash of Ouzo to his coffee. “I don’t usually—”
“No worries, Ron. I get it.” She thought of Spencer Spaulding, who appeared to drink for a living. That wasn’t Nicole’s father. Except for plighting his troth to a questionable second wife, Ron had led a blameless life, although his one veer off track was turning out to be a doozy. “The question is, if you didn’t attack Garvalos, who did? And why?”
“That’s for the police to figure out.”
Which they won’t do, Mia thought, as long as they think you’re the culprit.
After finishing with Ron, she checked in with work. “Everything’s good here because Benjy the idiot’s got the day off,” Guadalupe said, her tone venomous.
Mia felt a miniscule of sympathy for Benjy. Being in the chef’s crosshairs was a scary proposition for anyone. She told Guadalupe she’d be at work by three, then hailed a cab. “Versailles on the Park, please.”
The cab deposited her at Versailles’ palatial front entrance. She was about to skitter up the steps when saw a truck from Queens Quality Linens, the same service Belle View used, parked at the banquet hall’s side entrance. She took a brisk hike to the truck. Avron, a Queens Quality employee who often did Belle View’s linen runs, pushed a laundry bin out the Versailles side door to the truck. She called to him. “Avron, hi.”
Avron glanced her way. His face lit up when he recognized Mia. “Miss Mia,” he said, the greeting tinted with a Middle Eastern accent. “Hello. Nice to see you.”
“You, too.” Mia approached him. “I didn’t know you did Versailles’ service. I thought they used Quality Control.”
“Quality Control? I have never heard of them. And believe me, I know all of our competitors.”
Confirming for me that they don’t exist. “Avron, can I ask you a professional question?”
Avron, flattered, beamed. “Of course.”
“Do you service Versailles on a regular basis and if so, have you ever done a nighttime pickup here? That was two questions, even though I tried to pass them off as one. My bad.”
“Please, do not worry about that. To answer the first, yes, we’re contracted with Versailles to handle their linens. And to answer the second, are you kidding? These cheap S.O.B.’s pay overtime? It will never happen.”
Again, confirming what I thought. I’m on a roll here. “Thanks a ton. I’ll see you at Belle View.”
“A lot more of me, thanks to so many more parties there now. How do you say it here? Way to go? And bumping fists?”
“That’s right.” Mia held up a fist and Avron bumped it with his own fist.
She left the Queens Quality employee loading the laundry bin into his van and entered Versailles through the side door, heading straight for the kitchen. She wanted to get Sandeep’s take on what happened to Garvalos and had come up with an excuse for the visit that she hoped would fly with the chef. Mia pushed open one of the kitchen’s swinging doors. She found Sandeep sitting on a stool next to one of banquet hall’s massive stoves, absent-mindedly stirring a large pot with one hand while he used the other to scroll his cell phone. His demeanor reeked of exhaustion. There was a gray cast to his skin and dark shadows under his eyes. Intent on his multi-tasking, he didn’t seem to hear Mia enter, so she gave the doorframe a light tap. “Sandeep?” He stopped stirring, lifted his head from his phone, and gave her a blank stare. “Mia Carina. From Belle View Banquet Manor.”
A polite expression replaced the puzzled look on his face. “Ah, yes. Castor’s friend. Hello.”
He’d given her the miniscule opening she needed. She stepped inside the room. “Yes. I heard what happened to him. Horrible. I was on my way back to work after lunch and thought I’d stop in to see how you’re doing and if you’ve heard anything else about what happened to him.”
Sandeep shrugged a single shoulder. “I’m all right. Cooking settles me.”
Mia sniffed the air, redolent with a familiar blend of herbs and meats. “Ragu sauce. Beef and pork.”
Sandeep smiled. “Well done.”
Mia pointed to herself with an index finger. “Italian girl. If I can’t ID a sauce, I get kicked out of the tribe.” She closed her eyes and inhaled. “A hint of nutmeg. Nice touch.”
“Thank you.”
There was a tinge of dismissal in his response. Mia ignored it. “The hospital wouldn’t tell me anything about Castor’s condition since I’m not family,” she boldly lied, hoping Castor was still even in the hospital. “How is he?”
“Conscious, which is good, but disoriented. At least they got the guy who did this to him, although he’s out on bail, which is an outrage.”
“The thing is, I know him—Ron, the man the police arrested—and he swears he was only arguing with Castor about a big increase he threw into the bill for the baby shower that Ron’s late wife Tina threw, and that Castor was fine when he left.”
The chef blew a derisive pfft with his lips. “You believe that? Please. What else is he going to say?”
“Unless Castor officially identifies Ron as his attacker—and I pray he doesn’t lie and do that—the evidence is pretty circumstantial.”
“If the police arrested him, they must think they can make the charges stick.”
“You’re probably right.” Mia affected a thoughtful pose. “Although I keep wondering if there might be another reason for the attack. Something that involves Versailles.”
Sandeep’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”
There was a belligerence in his voice that made Mia nervous. She hurried to finish her thought. “This is gonna sound crazy, but we’ve had some weird stuff happen at Belle View. What if someone’s targeting local catering halls? You know, doing things that would get them the wrong kind of attention and chase away customers.”
Skeptical, Sandeep said, “Why would anyone do that?”
Mia had decided that if her father didn’t buy her theory about Vito using Benjy to devalue Belle View, it might come in handy with Sandeep. “To bring down the value of our halls and then buy them at a cheaper price.”
This was a lightbulb moment for the chef. “Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yes, that makes total sense. If the case against this Ron person falls apart, you should run that by the police.”
Mia picked up a note of relief in his voice. The man was eager to embrace any theory where Versailles played the victim. He made a show of checking his phone. “I didn’t realize how late it is. I have to host a tasting. If you don’t mind . . .”
“I’ll get going. When you see or talk to Castor, tell him I send my best.”
“I will.” The chef resumed stirring the ragu, his back to Mia.
Dismissed, Mia made her way to Belle View, accomplishing a few blessedly Benjy-free hours of work. She left Belle View for home, where she fed Doorstop and Pizzazz, and cleaned Doorstop’s litter box. The parakeet buzzed around the room chirping cheerily while the cat lay prone on the floor batting a toy mouse between his paws with a modicum of interest. Around seven P.M., Mia changed into an all-black outfit from sneakers to headband. Her long-sleeved tunic was problematic for a hot night but perfect for someone trying to blend into the evening’s darkness, like Mia. She opened the Pick-U-Up app and typed in Versailles’ address. Moments later, she was in a sub-compact sedan heading back to the catering ha
ll. “Come back for me in half an hour,” she told the driver after he dropped her at the top of the entry road to Versailles. “I’ll meet you here.”
Mia knew from her family’s past that when running a recurring illegal activity, continuity was key, so she timed her visit to the exact moment she’d seen the Quality Control linen truck pull up previously. She got off the road and traipsed through woods so no one would see her, then assumed position in a clump of bushes that gave her an eyeline to the establishment’s side door while hiding her from view. The front of the building was aglow with lights. A choreographed water ballet sprayed from the facility’s two fountains, although Mia noticed that one of the enormous half-clothed statue goddesses was missing a middle finger. Nice prank, she chuckled to herself. The parking lot was filled with cars, indicating an event in progress. This didn’t concern her. Rather than interrupt any nefarious doings, a party allowed for extra cover. Expelling soiled linens would seem a perfectly normal, event-oriented task. Minutes ticked by. Finally, Mia heard the rumble of a vehicle. She craned her neck to see where it was coming from. A van trundled down the road. As it passed, she saw the now-familiar Quality Control logo on the van. It pulled up to the building’s side door and the driver hopped out. Mia turned off the sound on her phone and snapped photos of him and the van. The side door opened, and Sandeep emerged, pushing a laundry bin. Mia continued shooting pictures. The van driver transferred the bin effortlessly, once again indicating it contained a light load.
Mia’s phone lit up. Her Pick-U-Up driver was not far away. She muttered a curse, then ran through the brush back to the top of the Versailles road. She was out of breath and dripping with perspiration by the time she got there. She checked the main road. Seeing no sign of her driver, she took a minute to run through the photos she’d taken and text the best of them to Pete with a brief explanation. Her heart pounded. Now that she was done spying, her goal was to make a quick getaway. She tapped a foot, impatient, then released a sigh of relief as her ride appeared down the block. Mia waved to the driver. Suddenly, an engine roared. Mia turned and cried out as the Quality Control van barreled down the Versailles road, gunning for her.
