by Joanne Pence
She’d found, when working in a restaurant in the past, the staff sometimes got so tired of cooking, serving, dishing out, and cleaning up the food the customers ate that by the time they sat down to eat, they were sick of looking at and smelling it as well. Bruno’s food was quite good, but her fettuccine Alfredo, especially when served atop the freshest possible noodles, was a gift from the gods.
Bruno looked at her with renewed respect.
Luigi looked ready to cry over it—though whether it was because the food was so good or he was so jealous, she had no idea.
Cosimo stuffed his mouth until his cheeks were so full Angie wondered how he could breathe. He jumped up, and to everyone’s amazement, ran from the restaurant.
In five minutes he was back and handed Angie and Cat each a clean T-shirt, one white, the other yellow. “Mia moglie.”
“They’re his wife’s,” Angie translated for Cat. “We told Bruno about our problem with having no money, remember? He must have told Cosimo.”
“This is a joke, right?” Cat whispered, horrified.
“They are clean,” Angie pointed out.
Cat gulped. “That’s more than I can say about what we’re wearing.” She took the white one, and with a stiff smile at Cosimo, squeaked out, “Grazie.”
When Angie said she’d tidy up the kitchen after her fettuccine, everyone else fled. The doors to the restaurant were locked.
Even Cat, who had spent the morning cutting up vegetables and peeling onions for Luigi, which made her mascara run and her eyes red and miserable, left the restaurant to get away for a while. Angie almost went with her, but decided they could both use a little time apart.
As she washed the cookware she’d used and put everything away, she found she enjoyed the time alone, especially being in a restaurant.
Strangely, Marcello had been right about this place being a safe haven—good food and a place to rest her head. If she didn’t ache to go home to Paavo, she might even enjoy the admittedly strange camaraderie of Bruno, Luigi, and Cosimo. Beneath a brusque exterior, Bruno was a good-natured man; Cosimo more than a little dense, but helpful; and Luigi was . . . a cook. Temperamental, with an overblown sense of self-worth, he fit the stereotype perfectly.
Angie decided they could all use a treat, and made up a batch of her favorite orange-cinnamon biscotti. As the last cookies were about to come out of the oven, she brewed herself a thick, steamy cappuccino.
Rich coffee and warm cookies. The only thing that could make it better would be if she was home with Paavo and knew she had the job with Chef Poulon-Leliellul.
As she dragged a chair from the dining room to the kitchen, thoughts of her upcoming interview in San Francisco put her nerves on edge. Not only did she have to somehow get home in time for it, but she’d barely had a moment to think about what she was going to say. She could talk about herself and her knowledge of good food and its preparation easily, but she’d have to impress Poulon-Leliellul with her knowledge of his restaurants and his cuisines as well. Even more than good food, these chefs adored flattery. She was going to have to try to remember everything she’d ever heard about the man.
No sooner had she sat down to ponder this when she heard a rattling at the back door.
Heart pounding, she jumped to her feet. Was it whoever was following her and Cat? Or someone after Marcello? Whatever made her think a place like this could be safe?
From the knife rack, she grabbed a cleaver, and was about to turn and run out through the dining room when the door swung open. Marcello stood before her.
“I’ll be damned!” He sounded as surprised to see her as she was to see him. He looked at the weapon in her hand and gave a loud laugh. “You planning to hack me up like a fryer chicken?”
Warily, she didn’t move.
“Put it down!” he said, sounding tired. He tossed a light jacket on the counter. His black shirt was crisp, the cuffs rolled back far enough to display his thick gold watch. “I’m not going to hurt you. In fact”—he glanced at her cappuccino—“I came here to do the same thing, after I eat lunch. Man, those biscotti smell delicious!” His back to her, he found leftover tagliatelle in the refrigerator. “Luigi often leaves a plate for me.”
He put it in the microwave and whistled “Arrivederci Roma” as he poured himself a glass of Chianti. “You mind if I join you? Or do you still want to chop me into little pieces?” His voice boomed over the microwave. “I’m surprised to find you here. Usually, the restaurant is empty this time of day, and I can come in and be alone for a while.”
She placed the meat cleaver beside her cappuccino and sat back down. Commandeering a chair from the dining room, he sat beside her.
“Tell me,” he said as he began to eat, “how’d you like the food here?” His eyes were so dark they were almost black. They peered at her, not missing a thing.
His query about the food was unexpected, but perhaps he was trying to calm her jangled nerves. “It was quite good,” she said honestly. “Basic Italian food, fresh, properly seasoned. It doesn’t get much better than that.” Her breathing still came a bit too fast.
“Hey! All right! That’s what I want to hear.” He waved his fork as he spoke. “Did you try the scampi?”
“I took a couple of bites. Excellent.”
“It was my sauce,” Marcello said, gloating so outrageously she couldn’t help but crack a small smile. “I gave Luigi the recipe. I knew he was going to make it today, and I wanted to come by earlier to be sure he got the seasoning right. Of course, when I’m in San Francisco, he does it alone every day, but . . . ” He stopped talking. His eyes took on a momentary glumness as they drifted away from her and over the kitchen, at the shiny, clean professional appliances, the shelves of cookware, the food storage, and refrigerator.
What a curious man, she thought. “With all this strangeness going on, you wanted to check some seasonings?”
He had the sense to appear sheepish. “What’s a little strangeness between friends—or family?” He twisted a great amount of pasta around his fork and crammed it into his mouth, chewing and swallowing. She’d rarely seen anyone eat so fast. “It doesn’t mean I should stop living, and cooking is, to me, a metaphor for life.” Between mouthfuls he gulped his wine. “You choose the ingredients, cut them to size, season to taste, mix them together, right?” Before long, he put the now empty dish and glass in the dishwasher. “You let it blend and marry a bit, and hope it all comes out right in the end. And the spicier you make it, the better it becomes—unless, of course, you add too much spice and heat”—he gave a wicked grin—“and then the whole thing is ruined.”
Angie chuckled despite herself. As he spoke about something he so clearly loved, his face reflected every nuance of his emotions. He was loud and bigger than life, but she understood exactly what he was saying. “That sums it up, all right.” She regarded him seriously for a moment. “How on earth did you come to own a restaurant in Rome?”
Marcello walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door. Looking inside, he murmured, “Somebody had to die.”
Chapter 23
It was morning, and Paavo was in Homicide after a sleepless night. He’d made a number of phone calls to the hotel Angie was supposed to be staying at, but she was never there to receive them, and never answered his messages. On top of that, he couldn’t track down Charles Swenson.
A heavy foreboding filled him. Where was Charles? And Angie? And why did nothing in this case make sense? He heard footsteps and looked up.
His skin crawled at the sight before him. Let this be a dream, Paavo prayed.
Suddenly, the room became a beehive of activity among the other homicide inspectors. Yosh grabbed his coffee and headed out the door. Luis Calderon left, hot on his heels. Bo Benson picked up about a hundred sheets of paper to photocopy, and Rebecca Mayfield announced she was going to the women’s room for supplies. Many supplies. Only Bill Sutter, soon to retire, remained impervious at his desk, reading the morning Chronicle.
Unless it was bad news. He studied their faces. They were curious, worried, and upset, but not stricken. It was a minor relief.
He stood, adjusted his tie and buttoned his sport jacket. “Good morning,” he said.
All greeted him, then it was Bianca who spoke as she heavily plopped herself into the chair beside Paavo’s desk. She drew in her breath, shoulders stiff and her brow wrinkled with anxiety. “We’ve come here to find out about Charles.”
“Mamma said he’s missing.” Maria swiveled Calderon’s chair around to face Paavo, her mouth pursed in the sour-ball-sucking way she did so well.
“So sit back down, Paavo,” Frannie ordered, her expression more strained and her hair more frizzled than usual, “and tell us what the hell’s going on.” She eased back, half sitting, fingers drumming on a small bookcase.
“We’ve turned up nothing yet,” Paavo said, taking his seat. “He hasn’t contacted anyone at work for two days. No one has been able to give us any leads—”
“Mamma’s very upset,” Bianca intoned, her expression troubled.
“Are you trying to kill our parents?” Frannie blurted, leaping up. “You phoned our mother last night! Don’t you know how much old people worry about these things?”
Her sisters shushed her and pulled her back.
Paavo stared at her. Coldness welled in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t too surprised by her accusation. He knew very well the stress being placed on Angie’s mother, and could imagine her worry. It was bad enough that she had to deal with her wayward daughters, but she had to keep the situation from her husband as well. That was another reason why he had to find the killer soon, but to hear his concerns put into words was like a blow to the gut.
“If Mamma knew where Charles was, she would have told Cat,” Maria said, shaking her head, as if any idiot would realize that. “It’s obvious something’s happened to him. First Cat, now Charles. Why is so much being done to hurt our family? We haven’t done anything.”
Her question echoed his own. “We’re doing everything we can.”
“How could you let this happen, Paavo?” Bianca said crossly. She sounded like a mother completely dismayed by a wayward child, and Paavo hoped she didn’t say—
“I’m so very disappointed in you,” she added.
He cringed. “You need to all go home, and when there’s word, I’ll call you.”
“Hell no, we won’t go!” Frannie shouted. She was loud, and pumped her fist in the air as if holding a placard. “Not even if you call in the SWAT team!”
The urge to swat her right out of his office nearly won out over good sense.
“He’d never do anything like that to us,” Bianca said. Paavo was afraid she was going to reach over and pat him on the head.
Frannie wasn’t appeased. “We want action, and we want it now! You’ve got to tell Mamma that everything is fine. That you’ve found Charles, he’s safe, and that you’ve cleared Caterina.”
“I won’t lie to her,” Paavo said.
“It’s not a lie,” Bianca urged, “when it’s done to ease her mind. She’s frantic over Cat and Angie. We can’t have her fretting about Charles, too. Papa already suspects something’s going on.”
“And if he finds out, he’ll be on the next plane to Rome,” Frannie said, grimacing as if she couldn’t imagine anything much worse.
“Actually, it is a lie,” Maria chimed in, harkening back to Bianca’s earlier statement. “A sin, I’m afraid, but since it’s being done for a good reason, it’s venial, not mortal. I believe God would forgive you for it.”
Paavo held his hands up to stop them. “I’ll admit that Charles has me worried. The good news is that there was no sign of a struggle. The house was untouched, so we have to assume he wasn’t harmed.”
“Cat’s house always looks like that.” Frannie brushed off the comment. “Her cleaning lady shows up four times a week.”
That explained the newspapers and mail. Paavo had hoped Charles was the one who brought them indoors, but now . . .
Maria crossed herself. “Does Cat realize the seriousness of this? I thought she’d come home.”
Paavo shook his head. “I haven’t told her or Angie yet. The Tiburon police are on it and might track him down soon.”
“Give me a break.” Frannie’s lips curled derisively. “You bureaucrats . . . ”
Bianca scooted to the edge of her chair, nearer Paavo, her voice firm yet solicitous. “We want you to come to Caterina’s house with us. On the way over, we discussed it, and we want to go inside, but we hesitated to do it ourselves since it might be a crime scene. However, there could well be something that you missed but we would notice since we know Cat and Charles a lot better.”
“If I know Charles,” Frannie huffed, “he saw what happened, got scared, and he’s still running. But I can’t be sure until I go to Cat’s house and check it out myself. And I intend to do that.” She scowled at Paavo as if daring him to stop her.
“Frannie,” Paavo said. “Charles’s car is in the garage.” The implication of that wasn’t lost on them. Tiburon had almost no public transportation.
“That doesn’t change my wanting to see his house,” Frannie said as she rose to her feet.
Bianca and Maria looked at each other and nodded. “We’ll go with you, Frannie,” Bianca said, also standing.
Maria jumped up beside her. Three pairs of brown eyes, so much like Angie’s, yet so different, peered expectantly at Paavo.
He knew when he was defeated. He wanted to do more digging into Len Ferguson’s background that morning, and ask his contact at the TSA if Marcello’s flight to Rome had turned up yet. All that would have to wait a while.
Right now, he was going to Tiburon.
“What?” Angie paled, her heart nearly stopping at Marcello’s murderous confession.
“I didn’t kill him! My God, you should see your face!” He roared with laughter. Angie didn’t find it humorous in the least.
“The truth is,” he said, taking a carton of half-and-half and heading for the espresso machine, “I got this restaurant after my uncle died. A natural death.” He poured some liquid into a stainless steel pitcher. “My uncle started out as the cook here, and ended up owning the place. He enjoyed being in the kitchen, and worked in it until he grew too old and had to give it up. He showed me his recipes and taught me how to cook.”
Something in his tone spoke to the cook in Angie. “Sounds like you enjoyed it,” she said.
He gave a very Italian “a little yes, and a little no” shrug. “It ate up all my time,” he said. “I didn’t have a life. My marriage broke up because my wife wouldn’t come to Italy with me. She stayed in San Francisco, near her family. She’d come here every so often, but she’d complain that Rome was too crowded and too dirty. Hell, I don’t know what she was looking at. Rome looks fine to me, and these days, San Francisco’s no model for spic-and-span.”
He flipped the switch, and the machine sounded loud in the quiet of the kitchen as he waited for the espresso to brew. He began to whistle the slow, plaintive “Ritorna Me.” The familiar Dean Martin song reminded Angie forcibly of her own parents. She blocked the pang of homesickness.
“You enjoy it here.” She called over the noise of the brewing machine.
“It’s that obvious?” The coffee made, he shut the brewer. Silence echoed.
“Of course. Especially since you kept the restaurant instead of the wife. You loved what you were doing here too much.”
“It might have been that,” he countered. “Or that I realized she loved me too little.”
Angie found his words surprisingly sad. Her confusion about him grew.
He steamed
some half-and-half. Like Angie, he made quite the opposite of the “skinny” drinks so popular in the U.S.
“I’ll admit,” he added as he ladled froth over his espresso, “that there is something special about creating a meal with my own two hands. You’re a chef, so you understand.”
She inclined her head in agreement, but didn’t speak, letting him continue.
“I’m the one who puts the ingredients together, who stirs and blends and tastes and adds until it comes out in a way that makes my customers sit up and say ‘Bellissimo!’ He sat down with his cappuccino, took a taste, and rewarded himself with a loud “Aaah.”
“You know, Angie,” he continued, reaching for a biscotti, “being a chef here is the only time I’ve ever made anything. I’d worked, sure. I was a salesman, or did ‘customer service.’ But you know what they are? One is selling something somebody else made, and the other is pretending to help someone with a problem somebody else created—when both of you know you can’t help, and that the one who caused the mess doesn’t give a damn anyway! Yeah, I was happy here. Maybe the happiest I’d ever been in my whole life.”
“Why did you leave?” Angie asked, for the first time feeling a spark of genuine interest and liking for Marcello.
He dunked half the cookie, waited a few seconds, then put the soggy end in his mouth. “Mmm, squisito!” He dunked, ate, and reached for another before answering her with, “Shit happens.”
“What do you mean?” She drank down her now cold cappuccino as she watched the reply churn in his mind.
After a second and third biscotti, he explained himself, his exuberance fading with each word. “My mother kept saying I was wasting my life in a tiny restaurant on the wrong side of Vatican City, where I couldn’t even overcharge the tourist trade. I was always the ambitious one, the one who said he was going to make big money. My mother was sure I’d had a nervous breakdown or something. She said I needed to concentrate on my furniture store in San Francisco—that it would be the thing that’d make me rich. I was a salesman, Mamma insisted, not a cook. I listened to her, hired Bruno to run Da Vinci’s, and left. I never told anybody this, Angie, especially not my mother, but leaving here damn near broke my heart.”
