After a second glass of Prosecco, I gathered my courage and went up to the woman in the big hat who was holding a glass in her hand just as I was. “My name is Rita Jewel—that’s bigiu in Italian,” I said.
“Yes, I know,” she said.
I didn’t know if she meant she knew who I was or she knew what “jewel” was in Italian.
“Are you named for Saint Rita?” she asked.
“Probably, although I’m no saint,” I added, in case she hadn’t heard.
“I am Gianna.”
I said I was happy to meet her, and then my mind went blank. I had questions to ask her, but what were they? Why did I think I could find out anything? Why did I bother? Jack was right: he was the expert. He’d been trained as a detective. I hadn’t been trained as anything except as a salesgirl by Dolce.
“I just want to say how sorry I am for your loss,” I said finally, even though I didn’t know exactly who she was or how big a loss it was. “I took a class from Guido, and I thought he was charming.”
“That’s what people say,” she said, “who didn’t really know him.”
I thought that was a pretty shocking thing to say at a funeral. Or didn’t I understand? Or maybe she didn’t understand. From her accent I knew she must be Italian, so I guessed she must be a family member. “Did you know him well?” I asked.
“I was married to him.”
“I see,” I said. So that’s the connection. “I understand all the great chefs are temperamental.”
“Have you ever been married?”
“You mean to a chef?” I asked.
“To anyone.”
“No, I haven’t.”
She gave me a piercing look. I didn’t know what it meant, maybe that she wasn’t surprised to hear that because from the way I looked I didn’t have a chance at marriage. And she didn’t even know me. Or maybe her look said it was good that I wasn’t married because it’s not an easy state to be in. And another thing, how many husbands would want their wives to wear an expensive feathered jacket to a funeral as I did? Us single girls can wear whatever we want and go anywhere we want, I thought. But that was just me being smug.
“Are you just here for the funeral?” I asked politely, though what I really wanted to know was, had she been here when Guido died and was she, by any chance, the one who’d killed him?
“I plan to stay a few days, but I came to see his body, to be sure he was really dead,” she said.
“You don’t mean you thought he might be a vampire,” I said with a smile to indicate how ridiculous that was.
“No, but there’s a woman here who told me she is.”
“I think I might know who you mean,” I said. “Is she wearing a long dress?”
“That’s her,” she said, pointing at Meera, who was holding a small plate in her hand filled with food. I thought she didn’t like Italian food.
“Do you have any idea who might have killed your husband?”
“Ex-husband,” she said. “It could have been anyone. He had more than a few enemies. That’s why he left Italy.”
“Oh,” I said. I had to say I was shocked to hear it, although maybe that was just her opinion. “But I guess all those enemies are still in Italy, so they couldn’t have killed him.”
“I couldn’t say,” she said.
I wanted to say “Go ahead and say,” but I didn’t. I wanted her to give me a list of those enemies, but she didn’t. Maybe because she was on the list too. And maybe she’d arrived in town earlier than she’d suggested. Early enough to have offed her ex so she could collect an inheritance? I looked at her, trying to picture her with a gun in hand, until she stared back at me. I then turned my gaze to the other people in the room with a new perspective. I was looking for an Italian who hated Guido for some reason but who had definitely been here the night he died.
“If you ask me who I thought killed Guido, as your detective did, I would say it was someone in his class. Someone who stepped up and asked too many questions.”
Meera, I thought to myself.
“Guido didn’t like to be challenged in front of the class by anyone. Or perhaps it was some married woman he was seeing and had a problem with. Maybe you haven’t seen that side of Guido.”
No, I certainly hadn’t. “Are you saying he was a player, romancing his students on the side?”
She laughed a mirthless laugh but didn’t answer.
“Where did you get your unusual jacket?” she asked in an effort to change the subject, which was fine with me. I loved talking about clothes instead of murder.
I took her question as a compliment, and I told her about Dolce’s. “You’ll have to drop in while you’re in town. We have lots of wonderful clothes.”
“I might do that,” she said. “Then the trip won’t be a complete waste.”
“But I thought you came to make sure Guido was dead.”
“That’s right. But now that I’m here, I might as well make the best of it and do some shopping. Everything is much cheaper than in Florence.” She gazed around the room. “For example, those Matteo and Massimo alligator-skin shoes on that gentleman over there.” She nodded her head toward a man standing by the window. “Do you know how much they cost?”
I shook my head.
“Twice as much in Italy, I can assure you.”
I didn’t want to discourage her from shopping at Dolce’s where she would surely find bargains compared to Italy, but maybe she should head for the mall instead for less-expensive clothing options. But I gave her my card anyway. For all I knew, she was rich enough to buy out the store and I’d get some points for steering her our way.
I thought this part of the funeral was simply Meet and Greet and Eat, but a few minutes later the Briscola-playing friend of Guido’s clapped his hands, tapped his glass with a spoon and took the stage where Guido had once given his classes.
“Ciao,” he said. “Everyone raise a glass to our friend Guido. As we say in the old country, “Oggi in figura, domani in sepoltura.”
A voice in my ear translated for me. “Today in person, tomorrow in grave.”
I turned to see it was Jack. “I didn’t know you knew Italian,” I said.
“Only a few phrases,” he said. Which I didn’t believe for a minute. I’d bet my aunt’s antique jewelry collection he knew more than he’d ever let on. “But it comes in handy.”
I’ll just bet it does, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut for once.
There were still more toasts, and then I was suddenly exhausted. There had to be even more information for me to find out, but I didn’t know who or what to ask. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was the food or the effort of concentrating, but after circling the room one last time, I’d had enough.
“Having a good time?” Jack stepped in front of me just when I was eyeing the door, wondering if it was time to go. He had a way of anticipating people’s actions, which is why he was such a good detective.
“Wonderful time,” I said. “Nothing like a funeral. But I have to leave.”
“Learn anything?” he asked me.
“I learned that I have a lot more to learn. First on my list is to have dinner at Eduardo’s where Guido’s brother works. Have you been there?” I did not want to share what I’d learned from Guido’s ex-wife. Or from Maria, Guido’s niece. If I said the ex-wife was suspicious, Jack would counter that she wasn’t in the country at the time of his death, but how did he know? Had he checked the passenger list from Alitalia? Or did he take her word for it? If I were a detective, I’d look behind every stone for clues.
“That up-scale place downtown? No, I haven’t. Why don’t we go together?”
“Well…” If I went with Jack, he’d take credit for the clues we’d uncover, the suspects we’d meet and the information we’d gather. On the other hand, if he was paying… “All right. When? I hear it’s hard to get reservations.”
“Let’s go tomorrow. I’ll see if I can pull some strings.”
“What does
that mean, you’ll use your police credentials to get us a table?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be going undercover, so I’d appreciate it if you’d treat it as a date, an ordinary evening out.”
“I’m not sure I know what that is,” I said. An ordinary evening out with Jack? It wasn’t possible. Never happened before and probably would never happen again unless… “You’re using me, aren’t you? You think I’ll play the role of your date when I’m really just a foil.”
“I hear the food is excellent,” he said.
“Oh, all right,” I said. “I’ll go.”
“Good,” he said. “Now what else did you learn today?”
“Not much. What about you?” I waited expectantly for him to make some offhand comment and then walk away.
“Most people say they liked Guido,” he said.
I couldn’t believe he thought that was news. “Sure, they would say that,” I said. “Isn’t it wrong to say anything bad about the dead, especially at their funeral?”
“You mean de mortuis nil nisi bonum?”
As usual he’d one-upped me. “I didn’t know you spoke Latin.”
“I don’t. I read it somewhere. A short story, or maybe it was Lawrence of Arabia.”
“I assume you’ve had a few occasions to use it, being in the detective line of work,” I said.
“I’ve been saving it to impress you,” he said with a half smile.
I tried to roll my eyes to indicate my disbelief, but maybe he meant it. So I’d impressed Jack? Really? On that note I said good-bye and headed for the door where Dolce was waiting for me.
Fortunately there were a couple of cabs in front of the place, so we got into one and headed back to the shop. On the way I checked my phone messages, and this is what I heard from Dr. Jonathan Rhodes:
“Rita,” he said. “You won’t believe this, but I’m at home sick today. I mean, I can’t believe: I have gallstones. I’ll never lecture my patients again for complaining. Because it hurts. I’m in agony.” He moaned loudly. “Give me a call. I’ve never been sick before and I’m going crazy. I need a distraction. Can you possibly come by?”
“Oh my God,” I said to Dolce after listening to the message. “You won’t believe this. My doctor is sick and he wants to see me.”
“Poor Jonathan,” she murmured. “You can’t turn him down.”
I punched in the number of his cell phone. “Hello?” he said, sounding groggy.
“It’s Rita,” I said. “What are gallstones?”
“They’re small stones, about the size of a pebble, and they’re located in the gallbladder.”
“I thought so,” I said. “But how did you get them?”
“I don’t know,” he said, sounding mournful. “Anybody else, I’d say it was too much cholesterol, but I’m pretty careful about my diet. I’m not overweight and I’m under sixty. I don’t get it.”
“What are they going to do? Take them out?”
“They’ve given me an experimental drug to dissolve the stones. If it works, then that’s it. I don’t want anyone cutting into me, so no surgical procedures. Not while I still have a breath left in me.”
“Of course not,” I said. But I wondered if he was afraid to go under the knife after what he’d seen in the ER.
“What can I do for you? I can come by and bring something. What can you eat?”
“The nurse told me to eat green soup and beets,” he said.
“What?”
“I know, it sounds gross, but that’s what she said. She heard about it from the dietitian. She gave me the recipe. The soup has parsley, zucchini, green beans and celery. Blend it up. That’s all there is to it.”
All there is to it? It sounded terribly complicated. “It really doesn’t sound very tasty,” I said, “but if that’s what you need…”
“I need to see a real woman, not a nurse, not a dietician. Someone who wears real clothes, not a uniform.”
“That’s me,” I said modestly. “I’ll be over as soon as I can.” I was afraid if I hesitated that beautiful blond nurse would beat me to it. She’d slip out of her uniform, and then she’d have an in with the hottest doctor in the city and I’d be out in the cold.
He gave me his address and thanked me, then hung up.
“Dolce, have you ever made a green soup and beets?” I asked, with a feeling of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. It was my chance to take care of Jonathan, who’d done so much for me, but what a challenge. If I rose to this challenge, maybe he’d figure out a way to make me more a part of his off-time life.
“I don’t cook very much,” she confessed as the cab let us out in front of the shop. “But it sounds like a strange combination. If you’re going to make soup for Jonathan, you’d better leave now. I’ll run you to the grocery store.”
She assured me she hadn’t had that much alcohol to drink at the funeral, so we got into her car and went straight to the Safeway. I headed to the produce section while Dolce waited in the car. She said looking at all those groceries made her feel guilty for not making an effort to cook. With the green ingredients plus a bunch of beets in hand, I was grateful to my boss when she dropped me off at home.
“Rita,” she said as I got out of the car, “be sympathetic. Remember, all men are babies when they’re sick. Oh, they like to act macho, but deep down they want some TLC. And when he gets well, he won’t forget how you came through for him.”
I nodded and I wondered how she knew that. I knew so little about her past and even less about sick men. But Jonathan was worth cooking for and showing up when he needed me. He was what my aunt Alyce would call “a good catch.” Besides being a doctor, he was really a great guy, kind, generous and caring. Even toward those, like me, who weren’t even sick.
Once in my kitchen I spread the vegetables on the counter and stared at them, wondering how in God’s name I was going to make a soup. I had no cookbooks. My eyes filled with frustrated tears. Why had I volunteered to make something for Jonathan? I was going to screw it up by giving him something that tasted so bad he wouldn’t eat it. What was I thinking?
My doorbell rang. I wiped my eyes and pressed the buzzer. It was Meera. No matter my mixed feelings about her, I had to say I was glad to see her. Once I explained the problem of the green soup and the beets, she whipped out an apron from her large bag and tied it around her waist. Then she chopped up the vegetables, sautéed, blended, heated and seasoned the green soup with little packets she had in her purse. Don’t ask me what they were, I have no idea. As for the beets, she roasted them in my oven and doused them with olive oil and vinegar.
“So they don’t go together?” I said, pointing to the red beets and the green vegetables.
She shook her head vehemently as if I was too stupid to live or leave alone in the kitchen. Then I called a cab and she and I walked out to the front of my house. I was carrying the large pot of soup and the jar Meera had put the beets in. I offered her a ride, but she said no thanks. She wished me well and Jonathan a speedy recovery.
I never found out why she’d come to my house. If I’d asked, I had a feeling she would have said she knew I needed her. She was right about that.
The cab let me and my pot of soup and jar of beets off at a high-rise apartment building in the SOMA neighborhood. I stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the tenth floor. The man who got in with me pushed the button for fourteen. He looked vaguely familiar.
“You’re the woman from the funeral,” he said. “I recognize your jacket.”
That was the kind of remark I liked to hear. I knew it was a stunning, unforgettable jacket. Finally someone had noticed it. I had meant to change clothes, but I hadn’t had time. Luckily I hadn’t spilled any green soup or red beets on it. Not yet.
“Yes,” I said. “Are you a friend of Guido?”
“Was a friend,” he said. “You his girlfriend?”
“No, I’m not. I mean, I wasn’t. I didn’t know he had a girlfriend. Who was she?”
<
br /> “I don’t know. All I know is he was trying to get rid of her.”
“Really?” I felt like I’d seen a crack in a stone wall. Finally some decent information. “Why?”
“Oh, you know, the usual reasons.”
I wanted to say “No, I don’t know the usual reasons.” But I didn’t get a chance because we arrived at my floor, so I got out.
I found Jonathan’s apartment, rang the bell and heard him shout, “Come in.” He was lying on a couch, and even in sweatpants and a T-shirt with his spiky surfer-bum hair standing on end, he still looked to die for.
“Rita,” he said hoarsely, “thank God you’re here.”
I set my soup on a small table. “How are you?” I asked, standing at the end of the couch, looking down at his pale face.
Instead of answering, he groaned and said, “Ever have gallstones? No, of course not. Nobody our age has gallstones. Why me?” he asked.
I shrugged helplessly. If he didn’t know, how would I know? They say doctors make the worst patients, and maybe they were right, because Jonathan did not like being sick.
I tried to distract him by admiring the apartment, which was definitely upscale with ceiling-to-floor windows that offered great views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay. He said he liked the location, near restaurants, museums and clubs. After recounting his symptoms to me—nausea, vomiting and pain—he finally asked how I was.
“Things are hectic,” I said. “The shop is crazy busy, and I had to go to a funeral today.”
He shook his head. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned death to a sick man.
“What’s that you brought?” he asked. When I told him, he made a face but agreed that was what he was supposed to eat. He pointed to the kitchen and I went in, found a small pan and heated the green soup.
I went back to the living room and asked, “Do you feel like eating?” I sure didn’t.
“No, do you?” he asked.
“Not really. After the funeral, there was a reception at my cooking school.”
Murder After a Fashion Page 9
