I walked to the host/hostess station, where a thirtysomething woman in a stylish black suit typed into a computer. Checking reservations.
“Can I help you?” she asked in a light Italian accent, without looking up.
“Yes. I’d like to speak to your catering manager.”
“What does this concern?”
Showtime. I smiled. “I’m interested in the staff who put together the food for the Halloween party.”
“Oh. That.” She sniffed dismissively.
The hostess provoked my defend-Etonville hackles. “It was a lovely event. And the buffet was terrific.”
“So you needed…?”
“I’m Dodie O’Dell. Manager of the Windjammer.” She regarded me with curiosity as though I was an alien creature. Compared to the management of La Famiglia, I guess I was. Then, completely throwing me off-guard, she broke into a huge smile, shook my hand, led me to a corner table, offered me something to drink, and disappeared into a back room to fetch Marcello.
What?
Marcello, whose Italian accent was thicker than the hostess’s, with lustrous, wavy black hair, dreamy, deep brown eyes, and a sexy, sensuous mouth, was the sous chef, responsible for supervising catering for outside events. He seemed eager to connect with Etonville and its citizens. Truth be told, the clientele who frequented La Famiglia was a slightly different demographic than the Windjammer customers; they often came from surrounding towns as far away as the Pennsylvania border. The Windjammer was mostly homegrown.
I laid on the charm and informed Marcello that I was so impressed with his Halloween spread, we were thinking of attempting some of La Famiglia’s catering menu. Nothing works like flattery. I had him eating out of my hand in minutes, giving me secret recipes, explaining the logic behind food choices for the catering, naming serving personnel when I complimented their professionalism. Yet nothing I learned seemed out of the ordinary as far as the Halloween party was concerned. I made a mental note of names, especially the three servers who’d worked the bar and buffet, gushed over Marcello’s helpfulness, and regretfully declined to dine at the restaurant as his guest that evening. If I wasn’t engaged with a diamond on my finger, I might have taken him up on his invitation. I said ciao, he kissed me on both cheeks and begged me to come back to taste the house specialties—sautéed scallops with a butternut squash caponata and shrimp fra diavolo. Marcello was half Latin lover and half Emeril Lagasse. Boom!
My bruises were catching up with me, and I felt the need to take a bona fide break. I texted Benny that I was running late but would be at the Windjammer by six, then cut across town to Fairfield and drove down Ames. A half hour nap would do the trick. I had barely closed my eyes, drifting off on the living room sofa under an old blanket, when my cell rang. I counted the rings…let it go. Bill would still be in the air. It couldn’t be him. Whoever called could wait until later. Sinking into semiconsciousness, I snuggled deeper under the cover, my aching muscles getting a short reprieve. A burst of clanging from my phone woke me up again. Resigned, I threw the cover aside and swung my legs off the sofa. There was no escaping. I checked the caller ID. It was a number I didn’t recognize. I tapped on the Answer icon as the ringing ended. There was no message on voicemail. Couldn’t have been too important. A text came in from Benny: did you get a call from Bella V? she wanted your number…hope you don’t mind.
They surfaced! was my first thought. My second was, no mention of Carlos. A knot formed in my midsection. I texted Lola, asking if Carlos had shown up. One way or the other, she had to decide soon, if she hadn’t already. She returned my text: no…deciding on Dracula in next half hour…Walter angry and frantic.
For once, I sympathized with Walter. I didn’t blame him for being angry because he wasn’t privy to Carlos’s backstory. He had no way of knowing that his lead actor’s life might be in danger. What about Bella? The unidentifiable number could have been her. I had no idea what she could want with me. I called Benny.
“Hey. Did you get some rest?” Benny asked when he answered the phone.
“A little. So Bella wanted my number?”
“She came in here about an hour ago looking for you. I said you’d be back about six, but she didn’t want to wait to talk to you. Did she get in touch?”
“Maybe. I missed a call that might have been her. No voicemail.” I hesitated. “How did she seem?”
“Funny you ask. I remembered meeting her at the Halloween party. She was so…cool and calm, ya know?”
“Like she had the whole world under control when she read your palm. I know what you mean.”
“Anyway, she came into the restaurant, a scarf around her head kind of hiding her face. And she was plenty nervous today. Looked like she hadn’t slept in days.” Benny whistled softly. “What’s up with that?”
The knot in my stomach tightened. Something had happened to Carlos? I worked hard to keep my tone nonchalant. “Thanks, Benny. I’ll see you shortly.”
“Wait a minute. She said if she didn’t reach you to let you know she’d wait outside the theater until eight.”
The theater? Why would she go there? She must know Dracula could not go on without her husband. “Did she mention…Carlos?”
“Nada. Hey, Henry shifted the menu around tonight. He’s serving meatloaf instead of the chicken noodle casserole.”
“I’m on my way.”
In my MC, I tapped on the unknown number in my Recents. After a greeting from Bella, the call rang through to voicemail. I left a brief message letting her know I would be in the restaurant for the rest of the evening if she wanted to reach me. Short and to the point. I zoomed down Main and wedged my car in a parking space directly in front of the theater between a pickup truck and an SUV. My petite MC was dwarfed by the oversize vehicles.
A small crowd had already gathered in the Windjammer for dinner, and I stopped to chat with a few tables. Letting everyone know I was alive… Benny jerked his head toward my back booth before I could make my way through the swinging doors into the kitchen.
“She came back right after we talked. Kind of desperate to see you. I figured tuck her out of the way.”
Bella.
“Get her a cup of coffee?”
He shrugged. “I offered her something to drink. She refused.”
I walked slowly, not wanting to arouse any more suspicion than had already been aroused. After all, half of Etonville knew I’d fallen down steps in the Hanratty house and that neither of its temporary occupants was at home at the time. Bella showing up now had to raise questions among the populace. More so once Lola posted the cancellation of tonight’s performance. Somehow I had to get her out of here.
I approached Bella, startled to see her condition. A scarf was indeed wound around her head covering half her face and her hair. She looked up, her eyes rimmed in red with dark circles underneath, her face sallow, cheeks sunken. When was the last time I’d seen her? When Lola and I had come to grill Carlos and interrupted Bella’s gardening session. She’d been curious about our visit, but still warm and engaging.
“Hi, Bella. Sorry I missed your call.”
“No. I’m sorry to bother you.” Her voice cracked; she raised a hand grasping a wad of Kleenex to her eyes.
“That’s okay. What can I do for you?” I settled onto the seat, perched at the edge.
She paused. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“It’s about Carlos.”
If Bella was disturbed by my statement she didn’t show it. “Yes. He needs help. We…need help.”
“Right.” How much to admit to her? “You probably heard that I was at your house yesterday. And tumbled down the basement stairs.”
Bella looked confused. “At our house?” she asked, momentarily distracted from the crisis at hand.
I explained how, when Carlos hadn’t shown up at rehearsal, I offered to stop by t
heir place to see where he was. The door being ajar, I entered, calling out for them, and saw a light in the basement. I went down to check it out, then fell on a stair and bounced down a couple more.
Bella gazed at me in amazement. “Were you hurt?”
“Bumps and bruises. I’ll live.” I regarded her warily. “Carlos called into the theater with a story about a family emergency. No emergency, right?”
She waved off my question. “Not that kind.”
“Maybe we’d better talk.” I motioned for her to stay put and walked to the bar. “Benny…I need that night off after all. My back is starting to kill me.”
He glanced over at my booth, where the top of Bella’s head was visible. Benny was good about not being too curious. “Sure. I’ll take care of things.”
I smiled my thanks. A text came in from Lola: show canceled…might have to tie one on…you in? I responded that I wouldn’t be available until later, and I’d be in touch. No mention of Bella. She needed to be incognito for the moment. Which raised a good question: where to go with her? The Windjammer would be filling up soon, making it impossible to keep her presence hidden. No private nooks or crannies. Unless you counted the basement where Henry stored cases of wine and any produce that needed a cool environment. No, we had to get out of here through the back door.
Bella was nervously tapping her fingers on the table. “I need to get to the theater,” she said.
“But there’s no performance of Dracula this evening. Without Carlos—”
She nodded vehemently. “Of course. I still need to get there.”
I waited only a fraction of a second before grabbing my bag. “Let’s go.” I led her to the back of the restaurant, exchanging brief signals with Benny as the rear door closed on us. Outside, we stepped onto a small cement porch that overlooked Henry’s garden, where he harvested rosemary, thyme, sage, and basil, among other herbs. Which reminded me of Bella’s garden and the wolfsbane/aconite. There would be time to confront the murder later. Maybe I could figure out a way of working the plant into our conversation—
“We have to hurry,” Bella said abruptly. “Is that the back entrance to the theater?” She pointed to the loading dock next door, which held a half-full dumpster and two trash bins. It would be overflowing on strike night. Whenever that would be, given tonight’s cancellation. She started down the porch steps.
“Wait a minute. What are we doing here?” I grasped at her coat. “Anyway, the theater is closed. No one’s home.”
Bella hesitated, partly because I had a gentle hold on her arm and partly because it appeared as if that possibility hadn’t occurred to her. “Oh no.”
I brushed some dirt off the step and sat down. “If we need to hurry, maybe you’d better tell me everything. And fast.”
She glanced at the loading dock. Then sat down. “I hardly know where to begin.”
I’d been there often enough, trying to explain myself to Bill. “Pick a spot and let it out,” I said softly.
“I told Carlos doing this show was a mistake. Like some other decisions he made…”
“Leaving Colorado to come to New Jersey?”
Bella gasped. “You know?”
“About moving from Lennox to Etonville?”
Bella, stunned, bobbed her head. “I don’t understand how you—?”
“Changing your names.” This wasn’t a question.
Bella surrendered. “Choosing ‘Carlos Villarias’ as an alias was another mistake. Anyone who knew anything about the history of Dracula could figure it out.” She turned to face me straight on. “Anyone smart and perceptive.”
I had to leapfrog over compliments and drill down fast. “Where is Carlos?”
She wavered.
“Bella, if you want my help, you’re going to have to trust me. You have no one else to turn to, right?” I reminded her.
“I don’t know. They came to the house yesterday and grabbed us.”
Almost twenty-four hours ago. That explained Bella’s distressed appearance.
“We were blindfolded. We drove for about fifteen or twenty minutes and were taken into a building.”
Someplace not too far from Etonville. “Do you know who the driver was? What he looked like?”
“There were two of them. Only one spoke. They wore dark clothes with ski masks over their heads.” She broke down, crying.
“Why? What did they want?”
She wiped her face in the head scarf. “If you know about Colorado and Lennox and Villarias, you must know about the…”
“Witness protection program. The police in Chicago have been communicating with Etonville’s police chief—”
Bella darted up. “They said no police or Carlos wouldn’t live to see tomorrow morning,” she cried.
“Okay. No police.” For the moment. “Why did they let you go? What’s with the theater?”
“Carlos turned over information on…men he was working for.”
“I know. Organized crime guys.”
“Yes. And we went into hiding. I didn’t know that he kept a crucial piece of evidence as…insurance. I only found out about it a week ago. And now they’ve come to collect it. They are desperate to have it,” she exclaimed.
“What is…it?”
“A flash drive.”
Bill’s words came rushing back: …there’s something the runner has that implicates the crime boss directly…proof that he planned the murder of a politician. OMG! Carlos was sitting on that kind of evidence? No wonder they nabbed him. And were desperate to get their hands on the memory stick.
“They let me go…rather, they brought me back to Etonville and left me a few blocks away.” Bella twisted her hands. “I’m supposed to get it. They’ll call me and tell me where to meet.”
This was sounding more and more like a B movie nightmare. Mafia bosses, kidnapping, ransom for evidence, drop-offs and pickups…and no contacting law enforcement. Except that it involved people I knew. “And if you don’t have the flash drive…”
She let the implication hang in the air. “They’ll call at eight o’clock.”
It was six thirty. “So where is it?”
“Carlos said he hid it in the theater for safekeeping. In the scenery.”
“On the set of Dracula?”
My thumbs bounced around the keyboard of my cell phone. First I texted Lola: in trouble…need to get in theater on the qt…come to loading dock with key. Next I texted Bill: the crime boss evidence is in the theater…long story…come here when you land.
I paused. I should let Suki know what we were up to but I had assured Bella the police wouldn’t be dragged into the search. After we found the memory stick, all bets were off.
18
Within ten minutes, Lola’s Lexus flew down the alley behind the theater and the Windjammer, came to a noisy stop, gravel flying sideways from beneath the tires of her car. She whipped into a space beside the dumpster and threw open the car door. Her feet hit the ground. “Dodie, what the—?” Shocked at the sight of Bella, Lola grasped the car door to anchor herself. “What’s going on?” I’d caught her already dressed for the performance this evening: black tights, a long, royal-blue sweater that hugged her in all the right places, stiletto heels.
“We can explain everything later. Right now, we need to get onto the set of Dracula.”
Lola wordlessly opened the loading dock door, flicked on a light in the scene shop, and led us through the green room onto the stage. In another minute, she’d popped on the stage lights. “Now what?” she asked.
Because the show had been canceled at the last minute, Penny had left the stage set for Act One for tomorrow night. “Lola, I can’t go into detail now, but—”
Lola raised a hand to stop my explanation. “No need. What can I do?”
I squeezed her gratefully and turned to Bella, who stood
, bewildered, in front of the French doors. “Where is it? What did Carlos tell you?” I said, coaxing some action out of her. She stood transfixed, or maybe disconcerted, at confronting the Dracula set—the desk and trick chair, sofa, and bookcase.
“I’m not sure now. He said ‘Act One.’ As if I’d know what that means.”
“This is the setting for Act One,” Lola confirmed.
What the heck kind of clue was that? Why not give Bella more information…unless he was wary of saying too much in front of his captors. Still, his life, and almost certainly Bella’s, was at stake. “Bella, why didn’t they come to search themselves? I don’t get it. Why release you?”
Lola’s eyes widened as she grasped the gist of the situation.
“Carlos insisted I go for it. And he told the men either it was me or they could shoot him.”
Whoa. Something didn’t feel right.
“He told them there was a copy of the evidence in a safe location that would be released to the Chicago press if anything happened to me. He didn’t trust them. He barely trusts me,” she said bitterly.
“Is that true? That Carlos made a copy and left it with someone?”
She tucked her arms around her waist, distraught and overwhelmed by the task ahead of us. “I don’t know.”
Despite his bravado, Carlos was playing fast and loose with their lives. More of a gambler than I imagined. “Was there anything else he said, something that might give us a hint?” I asked hopefully.
She shook her head vigorously. “Only Act One,” she repeated.
We studied the set. There were potential hiding places everywhere. Doors, windows, furniture, even the trick chair and bookcase. And the thumb drive could be as small as an inch long. We had to begin somewhere. “I’ll work stage left. Lola, you search stage right. Bella, why don’t you head upstage to see if you can find anything around the doors and windows. Let’s move. There’s not much time.”
Killing Time Page 21
