by Leslie Karst
“It’s okay. I had to get up anyway to answer the phone.” His laugh turned into a cough—that early morning smoker’s hack so common in restaurant workers—and then he cleared his throat. “So what’s up?”
“I’m down here at Gauguin, going through some of Letta’s things, and . . . well . . . I found something weird. I was wondering, did she ever mention to you anything about receiving anonymous threatening letters?”
“No, she never told me anything about that. Why? Did you find some?”
“Yeah. And they’re kinda creepy.”
“So, uh, what exactly were they threatening her about?”
“Food.”
“Food?” Javier sounded incredulous—and surprised, too, as if he been expecting a different answer.
“Yeah, food. Whoever wrote the letters wanted Letta to stop serving factory-farmed meat, endangered fish, you know, stuff like that.”
“Oh, those people. Huh.” Javier lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then coughed again. “You know,” he said, “we did talk about putting some of that—what’s the word?—grass-fed meat on the menu a while back after some customers had complained to her about it a couple times. I guess one of them was a real jerk. But when she found out how much it cost, she decided not to do it. Our entrées are already pretty expensive, even with the regular meat, and it woulda pretty much doubled the price.”
“You remember when that happened? How long ago?”
He took another puff. “Sometime last fall, maybe? It’s been awhile.”
Right around the time of that first letter. “Did you get a look at any of the people that complained?”
“Nuh-uh. But Letta told me about it afterward.”
“Well, did you ever see anyone strange at the restaurant—you know, visiting Letta or hanging around the back of the house—around that time or between then and now?”
“No, not that I can think of,” Javier answered. “So what? You think the people who complained might be the ones who wrote those letters, or even who killed her?”
“I dunno. But it sure seems like something worth checking out.”
After we’d hung up, I sat at Letta’s desk, staring out the window. Hopefully, this new evidence would help get the cops off Javier’s back and prompt them to start investigating other possible suspects. But there was no reason I couldn’t do some snooping around as well. How could I find out who’d sent them? And who the hell was that woman in the photo, and why was it with the letters?
My only lead was Escarole. Letta must have had some reason for stashing the letters and picture in that cookbook. And the restaurant was in San Francisco, which was where the envelopes had been postmarked.
It seemed like a good place to start. And maybe I could finally get that dinner I’d wanted for so long.
Chapter Eight
Letta looked fabulous—in a waxy, dead kind of way. Yes, she did have on more makeup than she would have liked had she been around to notice, but then that was what funeral homes always seemed to do with the women.
I’m not being callous or cavalier; it’s just that I’m used to being around open caskets. I saw not only my mom’s body after her death (she too looked beautiful) but also my grandfather Salvatore (a little shriveled but not bad for ninety), my great-uncle Luigi (pudgy, as always), my second cousin Francesca (simply gorgeous), and Nonna’s neighbor Carla just a few months ago (very sweet looking). We Italians just do death better than a lot of other folks.
Nonna had insisted on a two-day wake. In the old days, they called them vigils, but it’s still the same thing: where friends of the deceased come to view the body and pay their respects to the family. So at seven o’clock on Thursday evening, I joined my father and Nonna in the viewing room at the funeral home to wait for people to start arriving. Dad hadn’t been happy about the two of us being gone at the same time from Solari’s—for two nights running—but there was really nothing to be done about that. No way could we not both be present for all of Letta’s wake.
I hadn’t spoken to my father since our argument that morning. The restaurant had been crazy busy at lunch, and after the rush was over, Dad left the building before I had the chance to track him down to talk.
Well, this was certainly not the time to work out our problems. Any speaking above a muted murmur would be deeply frowned upon during the wake. It would just have to wait.
Letta was laid out in her bronze casket, dressed in a salmon-colored suit I’d never seen before. I have to admit, it did look nice against that cream-colored lining. She was surrounded by a horseshoe of gaudy flower arrangements, heavy on the lilies, carnations, and chrysanthemums. The majority were regular spray types, but there were also several in the shapes of wreaths and crosses with black and gold banners declaring such things as “Beloved Daughter” and “My Loving Sister.” Yes, I sent one as well, which stated simply, “Dear Aunt.” I would have been hounded out of the family had I neglected this vital detail.
As I gazed down at Letta in her casket, I was taken back to my mother’s wake two years earlier. It had been in this same room at about the same time of year, the late-afternoon sun streaming through the leaded glass windows, casting mosaics of yellow and red across the hardwood floor. After enduring months of chemo and radiation, her face had become thin and sallow right before the end. But in death, she’d once again appeared young and vibrant. The irony of cancer. I bit my lip and turned away, pushing the image back into the recesses of my brain.
Tony was the first to arrive after us. He walked over to where the casket rested upon its bier, knelt down, crossed himself and said a quick prayer, and then came over to where we were sitting in the front row of wooden chairs set up in the chapel.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmured, taking Nonna’s hands and leaning over to kiss her on both cheeks. Jaw set, he gave me a hug and then turned to shake hands with my dad. He took the end chair next to mine, and the four of us sat there silently, no one willing to disturb the reverential atmosphere that hung over the room.
After a few minutes, more people started to drift in: my second cousins, a great-aunt, Dad’s golfing buddy and his wife, Letta’s elderly next-door neighbors, and various other distant relatives and friends of the family. One by one, they filed by the casket—some kneeling, some just bowing their heads for a private prayer—and then came to pay their respects to our little foursome before taking a seat in one of the rows of chairs.
At first, I wondered at the lack of anyone from Gauguin but then remembered that it was a Thursday night. They’d all be hard at work right now—plating up orders of smoked salmon terrine, serving steaming dishes of coq au vin, scrubbing burnt Thai curry sauce off blackened sauté pans. Anyone from Gauguin, or Solari’s, who wanted to put in an appearance would have to come tomorrow afternoon.
***
Visiting hours on Friday, the second day of Letta’s wake, were scheduled from three to five and then again from seven to nine. At two thirty, as soon as the Solari’s lunch rush was over and most of the mess had been cleared from the dining room, I cut out, leaving the dinner setup to Elena. I really wanted to get those letters I’d found in Letta’s office to Detective Vargas before the wake, since the police station closed at five and wouldn’t reopen till Monday morning.
Standing in line in the lobby, I had to wait while a middle-aged couple complained loudly about a homeless camp that had sprung up near their house. The woman at the reception window listened for a few minutes and then picked up her phone. “Okay, an officer will be right out to talk to you,” she said after a brief conversation and then nodded for them to take a seat at the bench along the wall.
I stepped forward. “Is Detective Vargas in? Because I have some information relevant to the Violetta Solari murder case.”
“Let me check,” she said and picked up the phone again.
I glanced at my watch; it was already 2:50.
“He’s stepped out for a few minutes,” the woman said, replacing the receiver. “Would yo
u like to wait?”
“I actually can’t. I’ve gotta be somewhere in ten minutes. But here, can you make sure he gets these?” I pulled the letters and photo from my bag and, confirming they were the originals and not the copies I’d made, handed them through the window.
“Sure. No problem. And what’s your name?” she asked, sliding the papers into a manila envelope and printing “Detective Vargas” on the front.
“Sally Solari.”
“Oh.” The receptionist stopped writing and looked up. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. She was my aunt.”
“Well, I’ll make sure he gets these as soon as he returns.”
I threaded my way through the crowd that had now formed in the lobby and, once outside, raced down the steps to my car. It was only five past three when I got to the funeral home, but I could see Dad’s frown as I made my way to the chair he and Nonna had saved for me in the front row.
Javier showed up ten minutes later. I watched as he hesitated at the door, eyes darting about the room. I’d rarely seen him in anything but chef’s whites, and from the way he held himself, I’d say he felt a tad self-conscious in his dark suit and shiny black shoes. Catching my eye, he nodded and then walked over to Letta’s body.
I looked away, not wanting to intrude on his private moment. But when I saw Tony come through the door a minute later, I couldn’t help glancing back at Javier to see if he was still by the casket. He indeed was, head down and hands at his sides. I looked back at Tony just in time to see him take in this scene. I couldn’t detect any change in his expression, but he ambled slowly toward the front of the room to stand at Javier’s side. Now it’s not unusual for, say, family members or a husband and wife to view a deceased’s body together. But it is not normal for someone to just come up next to another person who’s already there. Especially if, as in the case of Tony and Javier, they’re not particularly close.
Javier jerked his head at the sudden appearance of another at his side and then went back to gazing at Letta. Tony leaned over and murmured something to him, but from where I sat—able only to see his backside—Javier didn’t appear to react to this in any way. He just continued to stand there for another minute and then turned and made his way over to where we were sitting. There were tears in his eyes.
Nonna, who clearly didn’t know who Javier was, accepted his condolences with a sad smile and then returned to her subdued conversation with a friend from church. My dad then shook his hand, but from his pinched expression, I could tell he wasn’t convinced of Javier’s innocence and was making an effort to be polite.
I was dying to ask Javier what Tony had said to him, but this was clearly not the time or place. I simply embraced him and told him how handsome he looked in his spiffy duds. (I had to explain this last phrase for him. Javier’s English is so good, I sometimes forget he’s not a native speaker.)
Javier sat down next to me, and we continued to make small talk. I started telling him about arrangements for the funeral the next day, but midsentence, he interrupted me and, with a quick look to his left, hastily excused himself. I followed his glance and saw that Tony was headed our way. What on earth could be going on between those two? I wondered as Javier slipped away and Tony came up and kissed Nonna’s cheeks.
***
In between the afternoon and evening visiting hours, we went for an early dinner at a steakhouse around the corner from the funeral home. It was just Nonna, Dad, Tony, and me, which made me conscious of how small our family had become over the past few years.
We didn’t have a whole lot to say to each other and must have looked pretty morose to the other restaurant patrons—Nonna in her severe black dress and Dad, Tony, and me in our dark suits. And add to that the fact that my dad and I were still barely speaking. I had finally succeeded in cornering him in the Solari’s office that afternoon, but even though he’d apologized for his outburst the day before, his curt language and stiff shoulders made it clear he was nowhere near over it yet.
I picked at my pork chop (it was way overdone; I should know better than to order them at restaurants) and tried to look attentive as Nonna recounted in minute detail a story about one of her fellow parishioners who had recently broken her hip while trying to reach for a jar of applesauce at the back of her kitchen cupboard.
After our plates had been removed and our coffees ordered, Dad turned to Tony. “So,” he said, “has Sally told you she’s now a restaurant owner?”
Nonna’s attention at that moment was taken up by a man with long hair and a skull-and-lightning-bolt T-shirt who had just been seated next to us (after forty-some years, she still hasn’t gotten used to the idea of hippies), so she didn’t react to this question. But Tony sure did. He turned to me, mouth agape.
“Wha—?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard?” A faint smile formed on Dad’s lips. “Letta gave Gauguin to Sally.”
“Though God knows what I’m going to do with a restaurant,” I hastened to add, shaking my head. This line of conversation, as well as the resulting sour expression on Tony’s face, was making me exceedingly uncomfortable.
Nonna had finally had enough of staring at the Deadhead at the next table and caught my last comment. “What restaurant?” she asked.
“Gauguin, Ma. Letta’s place. Sally’s going to take it over.”
“I’m not taking it over,” I responded testily. “I have no intention of running her restaurant. I’ve already got one restaurant job taking up plenty of my time, in case you hadn’t noticed.” I glared at my father, who just grinned. Sometimes that Italian proclivity for picking fights really gets on my nerves.
I changed the subject and asked who was going to drive Nonna to the funeral the next day. But I could see that Tony was still staring at me.
After dinner, the four of us headed out to the parking lot together. We stopped at my car, and I rummaged through my purse for my keys.
“I think I’m just gonna walk back,” Tony said. “I’ll see you over there.”
We watched him go down the street, and then I turned to my dad. “You can really be a brat sometimes, you know? I mean, I get that you have some sort of macho competition thing going on with Tony, but don’t you think that maybe now is not the greatest time to be teasing him like that?”
“It wasn’t him I was teasing,” Dad replied.
“Oh.” I unlocked the car and helped Nonna into the front seat.
My father climbed into the back. “So you like this Accord a lot?” he asked as I walked around to the driver’s side.
“It’s okay. Why?”
“How would you like something sportier?”
I opened the front door and looked at him, wondering if this was going where I thought it might be.
“I know Letta left me her car,” Dad said. He began to search for the receiving end of his seatbelt, which had fallen into the crack between the cushions. “But you know, I’ve never liked T-Birds. They’re a royal pain in the ass. The engine constantly needs tinkering, and I’m way too old and stiff to be climbing in and out of that tiny bucket seat. So I thought maybe you should have it.”
He dug into the front pocket of his suit pants and held out a set of keys on a ring emblazoned with a vintage Ford insignia.
***
I truly didn’t feel like going back to the funeral home for the last portion of the vigil, but since I was a close family member, I really had no choice. So once again, I found myself sitting in the chapel, smiling and saying, “Thank you so much for coming,” over and over again to people I barely knew.
At about a quarter to eight, Eric showed up, and for once, my smile was authentic. Finally, someone I could have a real conversation with. I tugged him away to the back of the chapel and told him in a hushed voice about the T-Bird. I knew this would make him jealous, since he’d long been an old-car enthusiast, and the 1950s were his favorite era.
“I guess maybe it’s Dad’s way of making a sort of peace offering. He was pretty upset when
I told him yesterday about inheriting Gauguin, and some things that he said were, well . . . not all that nice.” I toyed with the car keys, which I’d placed in the front pocket of my black slacks. “He’s never been much good at talking about his feelings.”
“Kind of a family trait, I’d say.”
I swatted Eric on the shoulder. “And there’s something else I’ve been waiting to tell you.” I described the letters and photo I’d found at Letta’s office.
“You have them with you? I’d love to see them.”
“During the wake? I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
Eric and I watched as a tiny, stooped woman with a cane murmured the rosary over Letta’s casket, crossed herself, and then tottered over to where Nonna was sitting. I could hear them converse rapidly in Italian.
“I made copies and could bring them by your office on Monday,” I said.
“Not such a good idea, actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just that . . .” Eric scratched the back of his neck and flashed a halfhearted smile. “It seems our friend Detective Vargas has gotten wind of my discussing the case with you and isn’t too happy about it.”
“Oh.” I’d been afraid something like this might happen. “So does that mean you can’t talk about it anymore?”
“Well, as much as it royally pisses me off to let that self-important cop dictate what I do, it does mean I’m gonna have to be a lot more careful from now on. Like, for instance, not having you come to the DA’s office to talk to me about the case. But maybe tomorrow I could stop by your place and have a look at the stuff you found.”
“Tomorrow’s the funeral and repast.”
“Oh, right.”
“But I guess I could bring them to the repast and you could check ’em out there.”
“Sure, that works. Have you shown them to the cops?”
“Yeah. I took the originals down to the station earlier today and left them for Vargas. So who knows? Maybe they’ll actually do some of their own investigating. You think?”
