Murder After a Fashion

by Grace Carroll

  “That’s out of the question. No visitors are allowed in the morgue.”

  I nodded as if I understood. I supposed that Jack could get into the morgue. He’d probably already been there, examined the body, reviewed the bullet hole and made an assumption about how, when and who shot him. After all that drama, I got nothing out of her. I guess I wasn’t surprised, but I was disappointed. I shot her a cool look, then I went to the cafeteria to meet Jonathan.

  I loved going to the hospital as long as I wasn’t sick and I could eat in the cafeteria with the doctors and nurses. It made me feel like an insider, especially with Jonathan sitting across the table, his tray covered with enough food to sustain him throughout a long night of emergencies. I chose a meatball sandwich with provolone cheese and a dish of bright red Jell-O.

  I was glad I’d worn the print dress and the Puma sneakers when Jonathan told me I was looking good, and I knew it was true. He said he wished I could come every night because of the way I brightened up the cafeteria scene. Having dinner with a gorgeous physician like Jonathan was better than any medication. He made me feel charming and beautiful. We talked about his summer, his new apartment, his father, who was a doctor too, and he asked me lots of questions about me and my life. Honestly, he could have been a therapist the way he pumped me up, and I assumed he did the same for all of his patients, when they were not sedated, of course.

  Watching Jonathan eat his first course of chicken noodle soup reminded me of Guido. I don’t know why but it did. “Speaking of my cooking teacher,” I said, “I wonder how he got here from his culinary academy, and what time.” I figured even though he probably couldn’t tell me, it wouldn’t hurt to ask. “I stopped by to see Mr. Torcelli around seven and he was alive then.”

  “I’ll see if I can find out,” Jonathan said.

  See what a difference it makes to talk to someone who doesn’t have an ax to grind? That exact opposite other kind of person would be Detective Wall.

  Jonathan took his phone out of his pocket and punched in a few numbers. He mentioned Guido’s name and asked for some information. When he hung up, he put his phone back and said, “Ten o’clock. Does that help?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t tell me when he was murdered. It doesn’t get me off the hook.”

  “Off the hook?” He put his fork down. “Don’t tell me someone suspects you of killing him.”

  “Let’s just say I was at the police station this morning answering questions. I was one of the last, maybe the last person to see the chef alive. So the more I can find out about his last hours, the better off I’ll be. I have a strong motive for finding out who killed him. Which is why I’d like to know how he got here, who called the police, who brought him here or anything relating to his murder. Because I don’t like being a suspect. Some people might say I was meddling.” Like the woman at the front desk. Like Jack.

  “It’s not meddling if you’re helping solve a crime, am I right?”

  I was happy to finally talk to someone who understood me and my motives. I only wanted to help. That’s all. Well, maybe not all. I also wanted some excitement in my life. But not too much.

  “You say you’re going to the funeral?” Jonathan asked.

  “I think I should. Not that we were even friends, but still, I want to honor his memory. I feel terrible that I might have saved Guido. If only I’d insisted on coming into the school, but he closed the door in my face.”

  “And you let that stop you? I’m surprised to hear that, Rita.” He gave me one of his trademark smiles that warmed me even more than chicken soup.

  I blushed. Not sure if that was a compliment or not.

  “Jonathan.” A high voice interrupted our conversation. We both stopped eating and looked up at a very attractive blond nurse who was carrying a tray with a salad on it. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” he said. “Sally, this is Rita.”

  She didn’t look at me, that’s how unimportant I was.

  “Are you on tonight?” she asked Jonathan.

  “Seven to three,” he said.

  “Then we’ll be working together,” she said with a flirtatious smile.

  I was afraid she was going to pull up a chair and join us, but Jonathan didn’t invite her and neither did I, so she moved on across the room. I couldn’t help but think that every nurse in the place must be hot for him. I would be if I were a nurse. I wasn’t a nurse, but I was hot for him anyway.

  We both had coffee because Jonathan had to be alert for the many hours to come as he treated domestic violence victims, and patients with drug overdoses, flu, chest pains, fevers and heart attacks.

  “What’s up with your friend the gymnast?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I heard he had an accident at work involving some uneven bars, but I haven’t seen him in a while.” I could only hope that Jonathan was wondering if I was interested in Nick romantically. I wanted to be sure my favorite doctor knew I was free and still single.

  He glanced at his watch. “Give me a call if you want someone to try your new recipes out on. I can’t exist on hospital food alone, you know.”

  I felt awful that I hadn’t called Jonathan and kept in touch more often. He was really a great guy with a great job and an A-one beside manner. Jonathan gave me a big hug before I left the cafeteria, and said he’d be in touch.

  I stood outside the main entrance of the hospital wondering what I should do next. It was too early to go home and too late to call anyone. When I checked my messages, I saw that Nick had called me. I phoned him, and we made a date to meet in Cow Hollow near his house.

  He asked if I liked tea and I said, “Of course.”

  “What kind? Green tea, black tea, oolong, herbal?”

  “I don’t know,” I confessed.

  “We’ll go for a tea tasting. They know me there. I often bring some friends from my country or not. Like you.”

  I met him at the Hong Kong Tea Emporium, which sounded large and impressive but was a small cozy teahouse on Chestnut Street.

  He greeted me European style with a kiss on each cheek. There is something so different about being with a suave European man. His accent, his manners made me feel like I was in a foreign movie. I almost forgot to ask about his aunt, like did he know where she was last night. I told myself to hold off and asked him how he’d been.

  “Very well,” he said. “I have completely recovered from my accident, and I am ready to plunge headfirst into the social life again.”

  “That’s good news,” I said. Because I too was only too ready for some social life. Then I asked him to explain the different teas to me.

  First he introduced me to the hostess, who wore a long silk Oriental gown. I felt underdressed in my denim jacket. I didn’t like the feeling.

  “It is my pleasure to introduce you to Yum Yum, the tea hostess. I have learned from her everything I know about tea, so now I know more than many people. So very oftentimes I am the one who needs the explaining about your country, but not tonight.”

  I sat back on the bar stool and watched Yum Yum pour hot water over tea leaves.

  “You will see,” Nick said, “that tea tasting is not like wine tasting. No bitterness, no slurping and no spitting.”

  I was glad to hear it.

  “And also,” Nick continued, “the food that goes with the tea is much more strange than at a wine tasting.”

  That had me a little worried. I like to think of myself as an adventurous eater, but I draw the line at certain things, like pigs’ feet. I didn’t need to worry. Our hostess started by immersing white and green tea leaves in boiling water.

  “Three minutes is enough,” she said. “Anything longer and you will have bitterness.”

  With the tea she served nori rolls. She kept pouring different teas starting with green. With oolong tea we nibbled on tea eggs. I was glad I hadn’t overeaten at the hospital cafeteria.

  “What do you taste?” Nick asked me when we were drinking the oolong tea. I swirled the tea ar
ound in my mouth, then I took a guess. “This one has hints of honey and gardenia,” I said. It turns out I was almost right. But it wasn’t gardenia, it was rose hips. Nick smiled proudly, and even the tea lady was impressed I’d come so close. She brought out two more for us to taste. A high-quality white tea and a long-leafed green tea on the sweet side. I loved them both.

  “Your friend has good taste,” the hostess told Nick.

  I reveled in the compliment. After the day I’d been through, I didn’t mind hearing even more good words than those I’d heard at the hospital tonight.

  “High-quality tea at a high price,” she told us. “But worth every penny. These are teas you will not find anywhere outside China except for here.”

  “Delicious,” I said. “I have to have some to take home.” I bought a couple of tins, which I’d save for special occasions or maybe gifts, although I thought I deserved those teas more than anyone I knew who might be just as happy with something off the shelf.

  “Would you like to have your tea leaves read?” the hostess asked us.

  “You mean to predict the future?” I asked. I didn’t believe in that voodoo. It was the kind of thing Meera would do. I said, “No thanks.” But out of nowhere a woman wearing a long gown and a veil appeared at our table.

  “I am your seer,” she said.

  Uh-oh, a seer might tell me things I didn’t want to know. But I was strong. I was good at acting. I would listen attentively but not take anything she said seriously. I had enough to worry about.

  I thought I said, “We don’t want a seer,” but I’m not sure because she pulled up a chair to our table and began peering into our teacups. She paid no attention to Nick but told me to swirl my tea around in the cup. Then she said I should concentrate on my future destiny. As if I didn’t do that all day long.

  “The cup is divided into three parts,” she said. “The rim represents the present, the sides are the near future and the bottom the distant future.”

  I looked into my cup pretending to be interested, pretending that I believed whatever she said and wishing we’d left after we finished our tea. Nick was gazing into the leaves in his cup, and I wanted to say, “Tell his future if you want, but leave me out of this.”

  As if the woman sensed my lack of belief, she said, “Don’t worry, in this cup I see that good fortune outweighs the bad.”

  “That’s a relief,” I said. “I could use some good fortune.”

  “You will find love and happiness,” she assured me, tilting the cup back and forth. “I see a marriage here. Possibly your own.” She looked up at me to see how I took this news. I tried to assume a positive expression. But really. First a vampire and now a fortune-teller. Did I have “gullible” written on my forehead?

  “But first,” she continued, “you must spend time alone.”

  “Alone?” I asked. She didn’t mean that small prison cell from my dream, did she?

  “Not for long. You will have company in a few months or perhaps years, I am not sure.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I’d heard enough. I’d have more nightmares tonight for sure. “And now I really must go. Thank you, Nick. It’s getting late.” I was not in the mood to be told I was going to prison for killing Guido or for anything for that matter. I loved the tea, but the last part of the tasting left a bitter taste in my mouth.

  If Nick was surprised by my cool behavior toward the tea-leaf reader, he didn’t let on. We left and he walked me to my bus stop because he said his car was in the garage. Saying nothing about the seer, he asked if all the caffeine from the tea would keep me up at night. I didn’t tell him that I had plenty to keep me up at night, like worrying who killed my cooking teacher. But I did take the opportunity while we waited for my bus to casually ask how his aunt was.

  “But you have recently seen her more often than myself,” he said in his charming Romanian accent.

  “Yes, I saw her last evening. She appeared unexpectedly to surprise me at the bar across from the shop where I work. We had a discussion about my cooking class. She didn’t approve of the teacher.”

  “I know,” he said. “Because she is a chef herself and very proud.”

  “I’m worried,” I confessed. “Meera spoke quite harshly about Guido Torcelli, and later that evening he was murdered.”

  “Yes, she told me. Quite a…how do you say?”

  “A coincidence?” I prompted.

  “Yes, I think so. So you approved of this chef?”

  “He was very good, lots of energy, except for the last time I saw him.”

  “You yourself saw this man? And was he at that time alive?”

  Not again. How many times did I have to say it?

  “Yes, quite alive. Good night,” I said as my bus came around the corner. “I’ll see you soon. And thanks for the tea.”

  “I look forward to seeing you again soon,” he called to me. But he didn’t mention any date. That was my trouble. I had three men I was interested in, but I couldn’t seem to close the deal on any one of them. My fault.

  I slept well that night despite all the caffeine from the coffee with Jonathan and the tea with Nick and my men problem. And the disturbing fortune I’d been given. I like to think it was thanks to my strong belief that the woman knew nothing and that somehow soon the real killer would be found. I told myself before I went to bed that the answer would be clear at the funeral on Thursday. All l I had to do was keep my ears and eyes open.

  On Wednesday Dolce hung an “Out to Lunch” sign on the door before the funeral and we went through the racks looking for our outfits. It wasn’t like this was the first time we’d gone to a funeral together. It was the third. Each one was significant. One was for one of our customers, the other for one of our staff. Today it was someone Dolce didn’t even know and I’d only met twice. What they all had in common was that Detective Jack Wall was convinced I’d had something to do with the murders. It seemed like by now he’d give me a break, wouldn’t you think? I mean, as it turned out I’d had nothing to do with the other murders but something big to do with solving the cases.

  I was determined to continue to do what I could to protect the innocent (me) and bring the guilty to justice. I had no idea who that might be; I just knew it wasn’t me.

  “I appreciate your going with me,” I told Dolce while I stood in front of the mirror staring at myself dressed in a modestly priced black Joseph pantsuit with a frilly white Orvis shirt and a pair of Eric Rutberg Vallanta high-wedge sandals. I could see the expression on Dolce’s face in the mirror. She didn’t look pleased.

  “Too boring?” I asked.

  She nodded. “We both know the rules: dress up to show respect. Don’t wear red. Don’t call attention to yourself. Black is safe. But…” She didn’t need to go on. I knew what she meant. How to make a fashion statement while not saying “Look at me.”

  “I don’t want to call attention to myself,” I said, “and yet I want to make an impression so people will talk to me, spill some dirt so to speak, if that’s not disrespectful.”

  “You’re trying to find Guido’s murderer,” she said. “How much more respectful can you be?”

  “If only everyone saw it that way,” I replied ruefully.

  “Here’s something,” Dolce said, going to the rack of new fall dresses. It was a simple, long-sleeved black sheath from Tahari that hit me right below the knees. For a moment I was shocked. It fit perfectly, but it was almost ordinary. That’s when Dolce pulled out a bold (there she went again) metallic faux-fur jacket from Kate Spade. I tried it on, and she clapped her hands in delight.

  “I knew it,” she said. “With black gloves and sunglasses to hide your puffy eyes from crying, you’ll be sensational. I know, you’re not going to cry, but no one has to know that.

  “And after the funeral, another day perhaps,” she said, “you can wear the jacket with skinny leather pants and a tank top. How cool!”

  “You really think…”

  “I do,” she said. “I thi
nk it’s sensational. Wait until our detective sees you. I think I know what the verdict will be—too gorgeous to be guilty.”

  “So he’ll drop all previous charges?” I asked her as I walked around the shop in what I hoped was a runway strut just to see what it felt like.

  “Only guilty of looking fabulous,” she said.

  “What about you?” I asked, feeling guilty for focusing on myself so much.

  “I’ll wear my old black suit. It’s classic, and I’m not there to impress anyone. I just want to blend in and fade into the woodwork.”

  “And keep your ears open.”

  “Will do,” she promised, and then we were off in a cab to the classic Italian church, with its twin spires and gleaming white stone exterior, in the heart of North Beach. It was so Italian it was once known only as La Chiesa de Italia de Ovest.

  Standing at the entrance, Jack was dressed appropriately in a timeless, elegant black Italian suit, by Boggi if I wasn’t mistaken, a Versace silk striped tie and polished Calvin Klein slip-on dress shoes.

  “Good to see you, Rita,” he said solemnly. “You look very nice. You too, Dolce.”

  I looked better than nice in my feathery faux-fur jacket and sunglasses. I knew it. He knew it too. I could tell from the way he was looking at me. It gave me a warm glow under the faux fur.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” I said. “Nothing like an Italian funeral for tradition, last rites, prayers, mass, remarks and all that. Last chance to see Guido. Or…I mean, is he, um, available for viewing?” I stammered.

  “I believe so,” he said. “It looks like an open coffin.”

  “Good,” I said to myself. I wanted to see him, and most of all I wanted to see who else wanted to see him either to pay their respects or to be sure he was dead. Who would it be?

  “I thought maybe you’d come for the reception and the food afterward,” he suggested.

  “Well, there is that. I was glad to hear they were holding it at my cooking school.”