I told her Fina Parisi was a friend of mine. Which, the second I said it, I realized was true.
Sally Fanella grunted. “Sheriff brought us up to speed, of course, since it’s our jurisdiction.”
“And the caller?”
If I could see her, she’d be shrugging. “Male. Nervous. Clocked in at ten forty-five. What more can I tell you? But now you can tell me—why the interest? Got something to add to your statement?”
As if.
Did I need to put a call in to Joe Beck? And if so, was I calling on him to do his lawyer thing for me, whatever that was? Or was I accusing him of something—something other than questionable taste in women, if he was still sneaking around with Potato Blight Girl? Because it was Joe Beck who knew about Anna T.’s hysterical blog. And it was Joe Beck who knew about the suspicious “death” at the Belfiere meeting two years ago, after which a scared—okay, hysterical—Anna Tremayne disappeared underground, going so far as to have her tattoo removed.
And it was Joe Beck who knew that Anna was threatening to publish an exposé of the two-hundred-year-old secret cooking society called Belfiere. Had she waited it out, she might have discovered that the worst that could happen from the “poison game” was suspension from the club, and being cut off from the traditional homemade hooch.
It was Joe Beck.
But why? Why would he set the authorities on Belfiere—without telling me?
Did he have something to hide that did not include my cousin Kayla?
Could he have had something to do with Anna’s murder?
Even worse: Was all that kissing part of a plot to throw me off the track?
And as I walked in circles around the office at the back of Miracolo, I felt colder than anyone had a right to feel in the third week of June in Quaker Hills, Pennsylvania.
“No,” I said with a sigh a little bigger than I expected. “Nothing to add, Detective Fanella.” Somehow I got through the routine workday at Miracolo Italian Restaurant without any detectable goof-ups. At one point in the prepping process for the beef braciola entrée special, I think I dozed off while I was rolling the sliced and pounded and seasoned flank steak. There was something just a little too lulling about the rolling action to keep me conscious. Fortunately, enough neurons fired off to jolt me awake before I slid off the stool and landed my face in a meaty patch of fresh diced garlic.
While Choo Choo worked, huffing, on some zabaglione for the dessert special, he called back to me that he had seen Lanners walking into the law offices of Patty Pantuso, Nonna’s estate attorney, earlier today. When I pinned him down—always difficult with the mountainous but slippery Choo Choo—he thought it must have been before eleven o’clock.
“Guess he wasn’t too sick for that,” said Choo Choo in his uninquisitive way, then added: “Although not for nothing is Patty Pantuso called Hot Pantuso.” At that, my cousin grinned and nodded, privately enjoying whatever visions of Patty were dancing in his brain. The fact that Landon is gay didn’t seem to enter into his deliberations on that score.
I gnawed on some flavorful toothpicks while I considered this bit of information. Best-case scenario, Landon was just running an errand for Maria Pia. Yes, that was it. Only, when our Nonna arrived, slightly the worse for wear after her Belfiere induction, it wasn’t the case. Nothing like homemade hooch topping off an evening of costumes and attention to make her facial features look like they’d slipped a little. Even her outrageously thick and buoyant hair looked like it didn’t have the will to spring very far from her face.
Still, Maria Pia Angelotta was nothing if not a trouper, even when it wasn’t required. She winced and kissed Choo Choo and me, fluttered a vague hand at Paulette, and cast a shuttered eye around the kitchen. Had it been in flames, she might have noticed. But as it was, she slunk down the hall to the office, where I followed her and poked in my head. “Hey, Nonna, been in touch with Patty Pantuso lately?”
As she sank into one of the leather couches, she sent me a look like I had just asked her to find the square root of a prime number. “No, why would I? She’s a vegetarian.” Which gives you a sense of just how much sense Nonna was making the day after. Still, I decided it meant she had not deputized Landon to pay a call on Hot Pantuso.
Which meant that Landon Angelotta had business of his own with her. First I’d ever heard of it. What could it be? Choo Choo, when questioned closely as he groaned over the zabaglione—he likes making desserts in inverse proportion to how much he likes eating them—didn’t have a clue. But he shrugged, which on Choo Choo looks like the kind of mudslide villagers fear, and added that maybe it had something to do with Uncle Dom’s estate.
Well, okay, but Uncle Dom, Landon’s father, died several years ago and his estate had long been settled. It’s what made my darling cousin/brother/best friend a wealthy young man.
So, why now? And then my fingers paused mid-toothpicking the braciola when my brain flipped the whole thing and I saw a totally different possibility. Landon was out sick—maybe he wasn’t malingering—he had too good a work ethic—maybe he was really and truly sick. As in very sick. As in seeing Hot Pantuso for a Last Will of his own.
After that extremely disturbing thought, I finished all my preps in a wooden way. No more dozing. All the servers—including Corabeth—turned up. So did the enigmatic Mrs. Crawford, a vision in pale yellow taffeta and a Kate Middleton kind of hat with a veil. I had a half-hour break before the customers showed up, and when Maria Pia did appropriate coddling things with Giancarlo Crespi—she had lured him back to Miracolo simply by reminding him with a kiss on his cheek just how far back they went—I closed myself in the office and paged through the documents of Anna Tremayne.
Dividing up everything into little piles across the desk, I had ended up with categories I loosely called Identity, Relationships, and Professional. The last was by far the least interesting, what with unenlightening résumés, clippings, publishers’ replies, tax returns, and so on. Nothing new there. At the top of the Identity pile I set her birth certificate. And in the Relationships pile I put any correspondence that seemed more personal than anything else. I paused over a few jotted notes from a wine merchant named Claude, who seemed to be feeling her out about how she felt about his wines, his prices, his wonderful self. On top of Claude’s feelers I set what was clearly a torrid love letter, dated nearly forty years ago. No envelope, just a one-page, handwritten, combustible kind of document that began with “My Darling.” From there, it got more inventive.
Sadly, the only person ever mentioning “tender loins” to me was my butcher, and this fellow was always pretty clear that, make no mistake, what we were discussing was bovine. I waved the love letter I’d discovered in Anna T.’s things, gently cursing the writer for not naming names, but maybe I had never had the kind of relationship where names weren’t necessary. This notion, plus the one that Landon’s bucket list might include—“See Hot Pantuso about Last Will and Testament”—was downright depressing.
Setting down the love letter, I studied the birth certificate. From that pink, rectangular document I learned that Baby Girl Anna was born in Philadelphia County on October 4, 1975, mother Annelise Tremayne, father Donald Tremayne. I quickly checked the signature on the love letter from nearly forty years ago: scribbled, but it looked like “Don.” So the love letter was written by Don to Annelise. And out of their romance came Baby Girl Anna, who went through changes, from celebrity chef to glove salesclerk, from Belfiere hysteric to . . . murder victim in the foyer of my Miracolo.
Was I getting anywhere at all in my investigation?
So her parents were crazy about each other.
So I had her birth date.
Were these even baby steps?
I was just about ready to clean up the piles until I could pore over them after my workday was done, when Paulette Coniglio knocked and entered. Looking for a quick, quiet update on my crashing of t
he Belfiere induction, she perched on the edge of the desk. When I told her I was busted by the zipper on the gown she had so kindly made me, Paulette slapped her forehead and muttered some Italian swear words not even my nonna knew. Then I filled her in on the moonshine and tinctures that were the biggest and baddest that Belfiere has to offer, which made her laugh that throaty laugh that always reminded me, first, of Lauren Bacall and, second, how stupid my father was.
Finally, I waved my hand over the piles of Georgia/Anna’s documents and explained them with one word: “Georgia.”
Paulette cast big, mascaraed eyes over the stacks, and then they settled on the love letter, where her expression changed. She seemed startled. “Whatcha got here, Eve?” She turned the letter gently with her fingers until it was facing her.
“What do you mean?” I said, sitting up just a little bit straighter.
‘Well,” she shrugged, “Isn’t this Georgia Payne’s stuff? Isn’t that what you just told me?”
“Yeah, but—”
And in the very next moment came a comment that gave me the lead I was looking for.
Paulette was smiling quizzically at the letter Don had written to Annelise. “What’s Georgia Payne doing with an old letter from Dominic?”
* * *
Dominic?
My uncle Dominic Angelotta?
Landon’s pop?
My guardian?
What was she talking about?
Could I trust a woman who would wantonly use a zipper instead of buttons?
Nay, I say, nay.
But she was unmovable. Certain that the letter—“Pretty steamy,” she admitted, giving it a quick once-over, adding, “Jeez, Dom,” to a guy who had been dead and buried lo these last eight years—had been written by the brother of her longtime squeeze, my dad, the great, disappearing Jock Angelotta. Paulette and Dominic had corresponded a lot after Jock had taken off from Quaker Hills and all his responsibilities, and Paulette, devastated, had moved out of town to forget. Dominic kept after her, trying to get her to come back to work at Miracolo, and finally, she relented.
“Sweet guy,” she said softly, “made a total pest of himself.” But it was handwriting she knew well. She pointed to the signature, “Even the splashy way he wrote his own name—it always looked like ‘Don.’ ”
No one knew better than I did just how sweet Dominic Angelotta was. He took over the dad role when my real one couldn’t stick it. But what about this Donald Tremayne that Annelise had listed as the father of Baby Girl Anna? Two different men? It had to be. Did Annelise have a passionate love affair with Uncle Dom? Was Aunt May still alive when it happened? Did I really want the answers to any of these questions? It’s funny how more light—anywhere—just ends up looking like more dark. If Dominic Angelotta had written this letter to Annelise, it just felt like the key to a closet where inside there was only darkness and l’uomo nero. All over again.
We took our battle stations and got through the dinner rush, deflecting as many questions about the murder as we could without getting annoyed or seeming unduly mysterious. Maria Pia had gotten a second wind and was circulating feverishly, stopping by each table, finding something to talk about everywhere she oozed. Corabeth came up with an answer about the origins of zabaglione I suspected she invented, but everyone was delighted.
Jonathan thought outside the wine bin and made some risky recommendations that paid off. Li Wei actually looked for extra things to wash whether they needed it or not. Mrs. Crawford stuck to jazz and, although I missed the “Hokey-Pokey,” I was grateful for what was predictable. Enough surprises for one day. That evening, not a single dish broke, not a single customer argued about the bill, not a single menu item fell flat.
Miracolo, in a word, was back.
Just as the crowd thinned out, the way it usually did around 10 p.m., and Dana Cahill and the regulars came in, carting their instruments and their Grief Week shrine, I slipped off my shoes in the kitchen and positioned one of the stools against the one little bit of wall free of any counter space. Choo Choo left the kitchen to corner Vera Tyndall in the dining room, near the table where Jonathan stood with his elegant arms folded over his tight-shirted chest.
I closed my eyes. The happy clattering sounds of Li Wei at work were soothing to me. As the regulars tuned up, making their nightly hunt for an A worth playing, they sounded different to my jaded ears. More acoustic, less electric. Maybe the tail end of Grief Week was entering a folksy phase that left out electrified music. Fine by me.
At the sound of the kitchen doors opening, I eased open one eye. Maria Pia. She fluffed her hair with all ten fingers, then pulled a small can of hair spray out of a dress pocket and spritzed it manically all around her head in a figure eight. I’m pretty sure some off it landed on what was left of the zabaglione. “Nonna,” I said quietly, not making a big deal out of it, “do you remember someone named Annelise?” I wanted to keep it open-ended and just see where the name took her.
The spraying stopped and she got a blank look. “Annelise? Why, cara?”
I made a face. “No particular reason, just wondering.”
“Annelise.” Then, again: “Annelise.” Saying the name the same way twice didn’t seem to jog her memory.
We fastened each other with a neutral look.
So maybe Paulette Coniglio was mistaken. Maybe that forty-year-old love letter to Anna T.’s mother was written by her husband, “Donald,” after all.
Just as I was beginning to find some comfort in that notion, Nonna said the fateful word, “Wait.”
“Wait?”
“Wait, there’s something. Annelise.”
“That’s okay, Nonna, you don’t have to—”
She flipped a hand at me. I caught a glimpse of the Belfiere tattoo. “Do you want to hear or not? Why do you ask me if you don’t want to hear? Are you Little Serena?”
“So tell me, Nonna.”
Maria Pia Angelotta looked like she was attempting to communicate with the spirit world, all of whom were living in the twelve-inch jumbo fryer hanging from the rack suspended over Landon’s prep table. “There was a girl who worked for Dominic . . .” With that, my heart slid south. “A long time ago. An employee in his plumbing shop. Nice girl.” Nonna replaced the cap to the hair spray and seemed to reach the end of whatever she had to tell me about someone named Annelise.
“Is that all?” I tried not to sound as disappointed as I felt.
“Please,” she barked. “Of course that’s not all. It’s never all when it’s young love, and Dominic was young, just starting out. I remember being worried, now that I think about it.” Her voice softened. “Annelise Tomaine. Beautiful girl. Very fair.”
“What about Aunt May?”
Nonna made the half-cringing, Italian gesture that says I’m warding off a vampire only I left my garlic at home. “May! This was before Aunt May came into the picture.”
“What happened?”
She widened her eyes at me. “Thankfully, niente—nothing,” she said with a philosophical toggle of her head. “Before we knew it, Annelise was gone—some thought Baltimore, some thought Philly—who knew? And May Siever came on the scene, and”—she smiled—“my Dominic grew up.”
So why did I feel so sad?
“Believe me, Eve, now that it comes back to me”—here Nonna gripped me by the shoulders in a way that said she was letting me think we were two women of the world—“we were grateful that the worst thing that came from the Annelise thing was a little bit of a broken heart for Dominic.” She pulled experimentally at her hair and turned to head back to the music coming from the dining room. Maybe she could talk the Grief Weekers into thinking her signature song, “Three Coins in a Fountain,” was about a girl who drowned in it. Over her shoulder she flung, “Dominic got some experience—and a boy needs experience—but”—she gave a little laugh—“no lasting reminders,
if you know what I mean.”
With that she swept invisible lint from her charcoal-gray skirt with the pink belt, and murmured. “Little Annelise Tomaine. I had completely forgotten about her.” And she disappeared through the double doors, never pressing to hear where I’d heard the name Annelise. Lucky thing. Until I did some more figuring, I didn’t want to spring Uncle Dom’s steamy love letter on her. Reading it, she might have to reconsider whether the lovely Annelise was her sonny boy’s maiden flight into “experience.” He mentioned things I found myself hoping Joe Beck knew. But not from Kayla.
I took a deep breath.
Annelise Tomaine was how Maria Pia remembered her. But it wasn’t Tomaine, it was Tremayne. Which meant Tremayne was her birth name, not her married name. And as soon as I got home, I’d fire up the laptop and see how far I could get researching the elusive “Donald Tremayne,” Baby Anna’s father of record. Slipping off the stool, I went over to the double doors and peered into the dining room.
Dana Cahill, dressed for some reason in a catsuit, but without the ears, was trying out some patter on the four-person “crowd,” muttering suggestively into her hand mike. The crowd pretty much shot her the flat looks that restaurant models get when they interrupt your lunch and private conversation to tell you where you can buy the overpriced getup. If this four-person audience didn’t like the patter, just wait till Dana started singing.
The regulars, Leo the mandolin player and the others, kept vamping while Maria Pia tried to talk everyone into “Three Coins.” The only one it looked like she convinced was the dependable Giancarlo Crespi. Mrs. Crawford, who was packing up her sheet music and happened to look up—the woman always seems to know when she’s got my attention—crossed her eyes. A terse review of the entertainment. I grinned at her.
Leo’s mandolin, without the amps, sounded like, well, a mandolin, and the bass and guitar and clarinet were apparently performing three different songs. None of it, I decided, needed me, so I waved to Mrs. C., grabbed my little backpack, which held Anna’s documents, and slipped out the back.
Basil Instinct Page 21
