Murder at Veronica's Diner

by J. D. Griffo

  “She could have committed a crime,” Joyce said. “And was avoiding punishment.”

  “Or she simply wanted a fresh start to life,” Helen added.

  Only Alberta noticed the wistful tone of Helen’s voice. She knew her sister was talking about herself and not merely Teri Jo, but she kept quiet and fought the urge to question her sister further about the true meaning of her statement. It didn’t prevent her, however, from making a comment of her own.

  “Senza il tuo nome non hai nulla,” Alberta said.

  “You’re right about that, Berta,” Joyce agreed. “Without your name you have nothing.”

  “But now that we know Teri Jo’s real name, we still don’t know anything about her,” Jinx said. “Like where she’s from.”

  “Yes, we do!” Alberta shrieked. “Brooklyn!”

  They all turned to look at Alberta as if she had screamed “Fire!” in a crowded bingo hall. But when she demonstrated the logic behind her theory, they felt like they hit the jackpot.

  “If her first name was fake, her last name was fake too,” Alberta said. “Reverse Linbruck and what do you get?”

  “Kcurbnil?” Jinx replied.

  “No!” Joyce cried. “The reverse of Lin-bruck is Brook-lyn. That’s genius, Berta.”

  “Now all we have to do is find out where in Brooklyn this Theresa Josefina Rizzoli came from,” Alberta said. “And, yes, I know Brooklyn is big, but it’s not like it’s all of New York, just un piccolo pezzo.”

  “That little piece is still pretty huge, Berta,” Joyce declared. “Let’s start searching.”

  Pushing aside the antipasto tray to make way for Jinx’s laptop, the women began their search into the newly discovered Theresa Josefina’s background. Since Rizzoli is a common Italian name and Brooklyn is populated by thousands of Italians, the search was frustrating, with lots of dashed hopes and dead ends. By the time Jinx wrapped the last piece of prosciutto around the last chunk of provolone, she’d uncovered what could be a break in their investigation.

  “Check this out, here’s a really old food review of a restaurant in Brooklyn from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle,” Jinx announced.

  “What’s that have to do with Teri Jo?” Alberta said. “I mean, Theresa Josefina.”

  “Let’s simplify things and call her Teri from now on,” Helen suggested. “That’s how we all knew her.”

  “To simplify things even further,” Jinx added, “the restaurant in question is Rizzoli’s Diner in Brooklyn.”

  “Davvero?” Alberta asked.

  “Yes, really, Gram,” Jinx confirmed. “According to the review, which is from about twenty years ago, the reviewer’s waitress was a teenage girl named Theresa, the daughter of the owner.”

  “Bugiarda!” Helen cried.

  “Helen! Don’t call Jinx a liar, she’s only reading what she found online,” Alberta said.

  “I’m not calling Jinx a liar, I’m calling Teri a liar,” Helen clarified, shaking her head in disbelief. “She told me she had never been a waitress before, but she couldn’t find another job so she settled for working at the diner. I thought I knew her, but with all these lies she obviously wasn’t the person I thought she was.”

  “Or maybe she was trying to protect you,” Joyce said. “Read this article I found.”

  Helen took Joyce’s phone from her, and the more she read the more her eyes widened.

  “What is it, Helen?” Alberta asked.

  “Teri wasn’t lying, she was trying to stay alive,” Helen said.

  “What are you talking about?” Jinx asked. “Was she on the lam?”

  “Sort of,” Joyce interjected. “The Rizzoli family is linked to lots of crime. They’re not Mafia per se, but their family members have been arrested and jailed for everything from money laundering to insurance fraud to arson. Even someone named Little Lulu Rizzoli was charged with murder, though she was eventually acquitted.”

  “If I’ve learned one thing since we started our new unofficial occupation as undercover detectives,” Alberta said, “it’s that a coincidence is a clue in disguise. And Rizzoli’s Diner is one big fat clue.”

  “Suddenly I’m having a craving for a BLT and disco fries,” Helen announced, grabbing her pocketbook from the kitchen counter. “Who’s up for a road trip?”

  CHAPTER 10

  La familiarità genera disprezzo.

  What a difference an hour makes.

  It took approximately that long to drive from Tranquility to the Holland Tunnel, but to Alberta it was as if they had driven through an actual time tunnel. Gone was the picturesque enclave she now called home, and in its place were the gritty city streets she was born into and where she started her adult life. Staring out the passenger-side window of Helen’s Buick as they approached the tollbooth, Alberta felt like she was a newlywed again.

  The Holland Tunnel was in Jersey City, but the landscape of the area was the same as Alberta’s hometown of Hoboken, which was walking distance away. The smells, the noises, the gray buildings were all the same, and when Alberta took in the sensory onslaught she was taken back to a much different time in her life. A time when she wasn’t in charge, when she was beholden to the people around her, and when her voice didn’t matter. She saw a young woman, dressed in workout clothes that were tight fitting and probably built to deflect the cool temperature, jogging down the street pushing a baby stroller in front of her. The woman was a mother, but she hadn’t lost her own identity; she was living her life—with her child, not for it. That wasn’t an option for Alberta when she was that age.

  Sighing lightly, Alberta acknowledged that she had taken part in her own submission, she didn’t fight back, she willingly retreated because she thought it wouldn’t do any good to speak up. Now, watching this stranger who Alberta assumed without any basis in fact was a strong-willed woman determined to be her husband’s equal, she wondered if it would have made a difference if she had started a one-woman revolution when she was first married. Would it have made Sammy look at her differently? Would her children have respected her more? Or would it have made her marriage implode before her first anniversary? She would never know, and, smiling, Alberta knew that was okay because at least she hadn’t stayed that same weak woman who was unwilling to take a chance. She had changed, thanks in large part to the women in the car with her. Women who were having their own trips down memory lane.

  “I remember Anthony had to drive through this tunnel some nights to pick me up from the office when I had to work late,” Joyce remembered. “He didn’t want me to take a cab because he said it was expensive and the subway and the trains were too dangerous late at night.”

  “My brother was a good husband,” Alberta said. “For a while.”

  Joyce laughed and leaned forward to slap Alberta on the shoulder in mock retaliation. “He was good for a good, long while.”

  “I still don’t understand why the two of you separated, Aunt Joyce,” Jinx commented.

  “That makes two of us,” Alberta added.

  Joyce grinned, but this time it was linked to special memories of her husband, private moments that she would never share with anyone, but the existence of which made her happy.

  “We grew apart, it’s that simple,” Joyce started. “We realized that we wanted different things out of the final years of our lives, and neither one of us was willing to compromise. He gets to fish in Florida and I get to solve crimes with some badass ladies in New Jersey. I think I got the better part of the deal.”

  The women were chattering so much they hardly noticed when Helen parked across the street from Rizzoli’s Diner. Helen, however, noticed much more than the restaurant, which took up almost the entire block, and recognized the row of shops across the street that were all in two-story buildings with flat, tarred rooftops. Looking to the left, the ten-story high-rise was clearly an old brick structure that had been updated and modernized to be reinvented as condominiums. Its architecture was sophisticated, but not familiar. The same couldn’t be sai
d for the advertisement that had been painted onto the building decades ago.

  “Is that Rice-A-Roni sign giving anyone else a sense of déjà vu?” Helen asked.

  “It does look similar to the block we grew up on,” Alberta said. “Minus the diner, of course.”

  “No, I mean do you have the feeling that you’ve been here before?” Helen corrected. “Because I do.”

  “When were you in Brooklyn, Aunt Helen?” Jinx asked.

  “The diocese moved us around to a lot of different places,” Helen explained. “We went wherever we were needed.”

  “I had no idea nuns traveled so much,” Jinx commented.

  “It’s not like we booked a cruise, Jinxie, or hopped a flight to Disney World,” Helen said. “Though I wouldn’t mind visiting Epcot. I’ve never been, and it would be cheaper than traveling the globe.”

  “I’ll look for a travel agent when we get home,” Alberta promised. “But first, could we do what we came here to do?”

  “Order disco fries and grill a waitress for info?” Joyce asked.

  “Exactly,” Alberta replied. “Stick together, ladies, we’re not in Tranquility anymore.”

  When they were sitting in a booth in Rizzoli’s Diner, they didn’t feel like they were in Brooklyn either. The interior of the diner didn’t look anything like the retro design of Veronica’s Diner, but it did resemble the design of most every other diner scattered throughout the tristate area.

  Right in the entranceway was a glass case that housed a four-level, rotating dessert display. They watched as tiramisu, then lemon meringue pie, then a chocolate layer cake spun by. To the left was a huge dining hall filled with large round tables, to the right were smaller square tables, and all around the walls on both sides were booths.

  On the opposite side of the entrance was the counter, which ran almost the entire length of the diner and was complete with every type of industrial-strength kitchen appliance imaginable, all in high-tech stainless steel. Coffee, espresso, and smoothie machines, a high-speed blender, a dispenser for soft drinks, a fully stocked bar, and a refrigerator with glass doors. Where Veronica’s Diner was an homage to the past, Rizzoli’s Diner was embracing the future.

  The color scheme sought to be tasteful, but resulted in being aggressive because each individual element was vying for attention. Deep navy walls with silver and gold lighting fixtures competed with cherrywood furniture, while the fabric that lined the backs and seats of the booths alternated between burgundy with flecks of gold and emerald green dotted with silver, so it, in essence, competed against itself. The colors hardly melded together, but rather created a tense visual tug-of-war, but it could have been deliberate. If patrons didn’t know where to look, they wound up looking at the people they came with. Inadvertently, the décor was bringing people together.

  “What brings you ladies here?” the waitress asked. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you before. Though I’ve only been working here for six months, five and a half if you don’t count my first two weeks of training as real work.”

  The women had lucked out. They had been in the diner for less than three minutes and they already knew their waitress. Krista, according to her name tag, was blond, bubbly, and a chatterbox. While filling their glasses with water she informed them that the peas were frozen and the gravy for the open-faced turkey sandwich had so much salt in it she believed it was made in the Dead Sea. Helen was the only one who understood the joke.

  They had traveled across state lines for more than culinary tips, however, so when Krista brought over their coffee, Helen took a quick sip and moved their talk in another direction.

  “Is there a Mr. Rizzoli?” Helen asked. “Or a Rizzoli family?”

  “Yes, there is,” Krista replied excitedly. “I’ve never been formally introduced to them, but they come and go a lot around here, mainly at night. Which is, you know, when they get to do most of their outside work. If you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t,” Alberta said.

  “Me either,” Helen added.

  “Also too, are you talking about criminal activity?” Joyce asked.

  Krista looked around the diner quickly to see if anyone was within earshot of their chat. There was an older waiter behind the counter; the hostess, two other waitresses on the other side of the diner; and all the patrons were chatting so loudly they could hardly hear themselves, let alone a whispered comment.

  “Not real crime, just petty things that don’t get you thrown in jail,” Krista said. “It’s not like they’re connected to the mob or anything. They’re just loud like most Italians. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes, now we understand you perfectly,” Alberta said.

  “And like most Italians, we’re hungry,” Jinx said, snapping open the leather-bound menu. “Where are your gluten-free options?”

  “I’m sorry, we don’t have any,” Krista replied.

  “Vegan options?”

  “How about a salad?” Krista suggested.

  “I’ll have the Greek salad with lemon vinaigrette dressing,” Jinx said, slamming the menu shut.

  Alberta ordered a chicken parmigiana sandwich, and Joyce decided on minestrone soup and chicken tenders.

  “Disco fries and a BLT,” Helen ordered. When she saw the women looking at her with surprised expressions, she replied, “I told you I had a craving.”

  Halfway through their meal, Krista returned to fill up their water glasses and asked if everything was alright. It was the same question waiters had been asking guests at every restaurant from Chuck E. Cheese to Peter Lugar, and the only answer waiters wanted to hear was Yes, everything’s fine. Krista didn’t get her wish.

  “The gravy on the fries was a bit too salty,” Helen shared.

  “I warned you about the gravy,” Krista replied.

  “I know, honey,” Helen said. “It’s just that my friend Theresa and I would always get them so I took the risk. Do you know her? Theresa Rizzoli, she’s the owner’s daughter.”

  Alberta watched her sister’s face carefully and was impressed that her expression didn’t show a sign of breaking. She knew that it must have been hard for Helen to talk about Teri Jo as if she were alive and well in order to find out more information about her, but Helen didn’t show any signs of emotional stress. She was like a rock.

  “No, the daughter’s a bit of a mystery,” Krista confided. “Nobody really talks about her except in a whisper, because of the scandal.”

  In perfect unison all four ladies said the same two words at the same time in the same tone, which was definitely not a whisper. “What scandal?”

  Nervously, Krista once again surveyed the room, but the outburst hadn’t attracted any attention. It helped that Dean Martin was crooning about amore over the sound system and half of the diners had already left, so very few people were on the premises, but still Krista looked a bit shaken since she was talking about things she probably shouldn’t be talking about.

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Krista hedged. “From what I’ve, you know, overheard, the best I can piece together is that she ran away or maybe she was, you know, disowned.”

  “Dio mio,” Alberta cried. “That’s terrible.”

  “I know,” Krista agreed. “To be young and feel that you can’t even trust your family so you feel like you have no other choice but to run away.”

  “What about the brother?” Helen asked. “Do you know anything about him?”

  “Dominic?” Krista said. “Not really, he doesn’t live around here.”

  “Are you sure?” Jinx asked.

  “Yes,” Krista replied. “I remember a customer was trying to pick me up, he was harmless so I wasn’t annoyed, but when he found out I was an actress he told me that I better be careful not to wind up like Theresa or Dominic.”

  “Why would he say something like that?” Joyce asked.

  “Because he said they couldn’t make it in Brooklyn so they had to pick up and leave town,” Krista explained. “He was such a
sweet guy.”

  “Dominic?” Jinx asked.

  “No, the customer who tried to pick me up,” Krista said. “He didn’t want me to leave town either.”

  “That’s nice,” Alberta said. “Did he try to ask you out on another date?”

  “No, the next morning he died,” Krista said. “He wasn’t paying attention crossing the street and got hit by the B64 bus.”

  “Oh mio Dio è terribile!” Alberta cried.

  “What would make it less terrible is if you knew where Dominic moved to,” Helen said, grabbing the water pitcher from Krista and filling up her glass. “He might not have gone very far. Have you seen him lately?”

  “I’ve never seen either one of them, Theresa or Dominic,” Krista said. “They’re just names to me, and who can keep track with all the names? Aunts, uncles, cousins, godparents, there are so many Rizzolis I don’t even bother trying to remember their names, I’m too busy memorizing my lines.”

  “Are you in a show now that you’re rehearsing for?” Jinx asked.

  “No, but I have a big audition tomorrow,” Krista said. “For the tour of the musical version of The Godfather.”

  “That sounds like a ticket you can’t refuse,” Helen joked.

  Disregarding Helen’s clever spin on the movie’s most enduring catchphrase, Krista replied, “I take the show as an omen, because the owners of this diner used to own another one called, get this, Godfather’s Diner.”

  “Oh my God!” Jinx screamed. “It’s fate!”

  “I know! I’m even willing to dye my hair black for the job!” Krista screamed back. “You ladies have been fab, but I need to go over my lines again. I’ll get your check in a sec!”

  “Jinxie, you can’t possibly be that excited for Krista’s career potential,” Joyce observed. “What got you so fired up?”

  “You don’t remember?” Jinx asked.

  “No, tell me,” Alberta demanded.

  “I’ll tell you on the drive home,” Jinx said. “But we just scored ourselves a major clue.”

  They quickly paid their bill, left a nice tip for Krista, who wasn’t a great waitress but was a terrific, if unwitting, informant, and were heading out of the room when Alberta stopped short, causing the rest of the women to crash into her. Alberta pulled Joyce next to her and whispered, “Scarface is in the house.”