by Leslie Karst
“Sorry. A big bash, celebration.” Javier had been in the States for years now and spoke fluent English, but there was a lot of slang he didn’t have down yet. “Which means I might be gone from Gauguin more than I’d like, especially during the week right before the dinner.”
“When is it?” The chef didn’t look happy. His fine features were pinched into a scowl as he leaned toward me, hands gripping the desktop.
“The second weekend in October, so two weeks from tonight.”
“Great,” he said.
“I know. Lousy timing, what with that review just coming out. And the last thing I want to be doing right now is working at Solari’s again, but my dad didn’t really give me much choice. I swear I’ll make it work, though.”
“If you say so.”
* * *
The discovery of Gino’s body was the front-page story in Sunday’s paper. One of the gawkers crowding around the pile of kelp the day before had clearly been an intrepid reporter who’d heard the call from dispatch over the police scanner and immediately raced down to the scene. Not only that, but once the journalist had gotten wind of Gino’s identity—had he heard me say his name?—he’d obviously headed out to the wharf to do some investigation regarding the Italian fisherman. And he’d hit the jackpot.
“Gino Barbieri, an eighty-year-old bachelor with no known family, was apparently last seen dining Monday night at Solari’s on the Municipal Wharf,” the story read. “According to a witness, he was noticeably intoxicated as he left the restaurant. The police have as yet declined to state whether they are treating the death as a homicide, but given the large abrasion on the fisherman’s head, it seems possible.”
And, as if that weren’t bad enough, underneath the lead story about Gino was a sidebar—set off in its own little box—about me:
“The body was sniffed out by the dog belonging to Sally Solari,” this secondary, below-the-fold piece read, “whose family runs the iconic Italian seafood eatery of the same name, where Gino Barbieri was last seen dining. A former lawyer, Sally Solari is now the proprietor of Gauguin, the restaurant started by her aunt, Violetta Solari, whose brutal murder last April the niece helped solve. And only two months ago, Ms. Solari was involved in the investigation of yet another death—that of talented local singer Kyle Copman. One therefore has to ask: Do we now have our very own Jessica Fletcher here in Santa Cruz? And will she take on the Case of the Fisherman in the Kelp?”
No, no, nooooo … I smacked the newspaper down on the red Formica kitchen table, startling Buster, who had assumed his usual position underneath as he waited for dropped toast crumbs and his daily after-breakfast plate licking.
I’d never hear the end of this. And although some folks say any publicity is good publicity, I was pretty sure neither my dad nor Javier would be all that happy about Solari’s and Gauguin being so closely identified with the string of deaths recounted in the story.
Well, I was going to find out in just a few minutes how my dad felt, since I’d promised to meet him at Solari’s that morning to discuss the menu for the sister-cities dinner.
After bribing Buster with a dog biscuit as I left the house, I backed my T-Bird out of the garage and then, setting the parking brake, climbed out again to swing the wooden garage doors shut. It was not yet ten in the morning, but I could tell we were in for another warm day. The Diablo winds were still coursing down from the hills and the air felt as if it were charged with an electrical current.
Adding to the heat were the remnants of the hot flash that had descended upon me while reading that newspaper article. At least the drive down to the wharf should cool me off.
I cruised down Bay Street with the T-Bird’s ragtop down, my shoulder-length hair flying about in the wind. My phone buzzed a few times in my pocket, but I ignored it. Punching up KPIG radio on the tuner, I heard Robert Earl Keen’s nasal twang come through the car’s tinny speakers. Maybe listening to the Texan sing about his famed five-pound bass would take my mind off that damn article.
It didn’t work for long. No sooner had I dropped my handbag on the metal desk in the Solari’s office than Dad followed me into the tiny room, brandishing today’s rolled-up newspaper like a truncheon. “Did you see this?” he bellowed.
“It’d be hard to miss,” I said. “I got four texts just driving down here, and I bet every one of them has a snarky reference to Jessica Fletcher.” I tapped open the first message. “Told you so,” I said, displaying the screen for my dad. “I knew Eric wouldn’t miss the chance.”
I patted the folding chair sitting in front of a storage shelf jammed with office supplies and cardboard boxes. “C’mon. Let’s talk about the big dinner. There’s nothing we can do about those articles.”
Lying in bed that morning, I’d allowed myself to get progressively more angry at my father for roping me into coming back to work at Solari’s. I couldn’t help feeling that the sister-cities dinner was merely an excuse, or that maybe he’d even agreed to take it on solely as a way to bring me back into the fold of the family restaurant.
But now with that article in today’s paper, I didn’t have it in me to give him a hard time about the dinner. Not right now, anyway.
Dad sat heavily on the folding chair and I pulled a yellow legal pad from the desk—a vestige of my former life as associate attorney with the law firm of Saroyan, Davies & Lang. “First off, how many courses were you thinking of serving?”
“Okay.” Dad slapped his hands on his thighs and then leaned back in the chair, nearly bonking his head on a carton of plastic straws protruding from the shelf. “I think we should have a few antipasti for while people are milling around beforehand, and then some pasta, a couple different mains and sides, and then the dessert—or maybe two. What do you think?”
So he really did want my opinion. Well, that was something. “How much are you charging per person?”
“That’ll depend on what we decide to serve. I told the sister-city folks I’d let them know the cost by this Thursday. But some of the dinners will be comped, of course.”
“Of course.” That was the way it always worked with events like this. “You have any kind of theme in mind?”
“Italian,” Dad said, and then laughed.
“Duh. But are you thinking, like, to try to recreate a menu from the Sestri Levante area? Or going for a more Italian-American type thing?”
“I think we should do something traditional to our culture, not try to recreate theirs. That’s what I would want if I visited someplace.” He tapped a finger on his leg, contemplating the faded cycling poster of “Super Mario” Cipollini above the desk. “I was thinking, what if we did a menu based on what the Sixty Families would have eaten way back when? You know, as a sort of homage to the original Italians who settled Santa Cruz.”
“Like Nonna’s Sunday gravy?” I asked.
“Sure, we could do that. But also the old dishes like stoccafisso and Garibaldi cake.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You sure they’d want to eat salt cod and fried polenta? What about that stuffed veal pocket Nonna used to make for special occasions? Do you have the recipe?”
“No, but she probably remembers it. And I could fake it if she doesn’t. But we’d have to check on the price of veal breast. It’s not the cheap cut it used to be back when Nonna made it.”
I jotted a note to look up the price and ask Nonna about her recipe. “And there’s also that pasta you make sometimes when the bolete mushrooms come into season, which is now, right? You know, the tagliarini with porcini, brown butter, and sage? It’s amazing.”
Dad smiled. “Yeah, that’s a terrific idea. If I can round up enough fresh porcini.”
“I’ll talk to Javier,” I said, making another note. “He has contacts with the Santa Cruz Fungus Federation.”
“We could also do a chicken cacciatore,” Dad said, “which is a good autumn dish, and everybody likes that. And maybe stuffed cabbage for a vegetarian plate. We could use the same stuffing as for the veal
breast.”
“Good plan. What about dessert?”
“That I’ve already decided. I want to serve panettone, which is what we had for the holidays every year when Letta and I were young. And I can bake them in advance and freeze them, so it’ll make it easier the day of the dinner. We could serve it with gelato.”
I knew well these eggy cakes, studded with pine nuts, raisins, and other dried fruit. The store-bought variety tended to be dry and horrible, but Nonna’s home-baked version was always tender and moist, and I, too, had looked forward to them every year. Of late, however, she’d stopped making the panettone, so it had been a while since I’d eaten the yummy cake.
We discussed some ideas for sides—roasted broccoli and cauliflower, creamy polenta, baby spinach salad, maybe something with artichokes—and I played secretary and wrote everything down on my legal pad.
“Okay, good,” I said when I’d finished making my notes. “That’s a start, at least. After I talk to Javier about the boletes and check on the price for veal breast, I’ll get back to you. So, you need anything else right now? ’Cause I’d love to go home and just chill for a while before Sunday dinner.”
“No.” Dad stood and stretched his neck. “I’ll need to do some food-costing before we finalize the menu, and we need to get the tables and chairs rented.”
“And the tent, too,” I reminded him.
“Right. We can talk about all that this afternoon.”
“Sounds good. See you later at Nonna’s.”
I had almost three hours till our weekly meal at my grandmother’s house and planned to spend most of it flaked out on the couch watching the Giants baseball game, which—since they were playing the Mets in New York—had just started.
My car was across the street from the restaurant, but before climbing inside I leaned over the wharf railing to enjoy the view. Several fat sea lions were swimming about below, taking turns trying to jump up onto the lower pilings and failing in their efforts with dramatic splashes. Across the water, the stretch of sand fronting the Cocoanut Grove ballroom was starting to fill up with beachgoers, and I was surprised to catch snatches of delighted screams from the Giant Dipper roller coaster. Must be the offshore wind, I reasoned. Normally you couldn’t hear many sounds from the Boardwalk all the way out on the wharf.
Extracting my ring of keys from the depths of my bag, I opened the car door and folded my tall frame into the T-Bird’s bucket seat. I checked the rearview mirror as I started the engine and noticed two men with fishing poles who’d just climbed out of a big truck looking my way. They were no doubt checking out the car; I was used to guys ogling its creamy yellow paint job and retro-futuristic fins.
I backed out of my spot carefully so as to not hit their ginormous truck—which was sticking well out into the roadway—and then smiled and waved as I jammed the stick into first and let out the clutch. But although the men continued to stare, neither smiled back.
And then, after I’d pulled about a car’s length ahead, I heard one of them yell after me, “You guys killed Gino!”
Chapter 4
“Who were the men?” my dad asked that afternoon when I told him about the incident. We were at Nonna’s house, but I’d waited till she left the kitchen to go answer the phone before bringing up the subject. “Did you recognize them?”
“I don’t know which one yelled at me, but I’m pretty sure one of the guys was Stefano’s kid, Bobby. Didn’t he used to crew on Gino’s boat sometimes? That would explain his attitude.” Stefano’s family owns what used to be one of the bait shops out on the wharf but is now more of a T-shirt and gift store that sells a little bait and tackle on the side. His son was about five years younger than me and had always struck me as a bit of a bully. “I didn’t recognize his friend, though.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean, anyway: ‘you guys killed Gino’?” Dad grabbed a wooden spoon from the counter and poked impatiently at the pot of braised meat in red sauce—the Sunday gravy—simmering on the burner. “That we, what? Fed him dinner and then shoved him over the side of the wharf?”
“I doubt they meant anything like that,” I said. “They must have just heard about that article in the paper this morning and think we’re to blame for letting him get drunk and then leave the restaurant.”
Dad swore under his breath as he continued to jab at the meat.
Her phone call over, my grandmother returned from the hallway and took the spoon from his hand. “You gon’ break all the pieces up,” she said. “Here.” Nonna handed him a platter piled with rolled-up prosciutto and salami, marinated vegetables, and sliced provolone and mozzarella cheese. “If you want to help, you can take this out to the dining room. We ready to eat now.”
I could tell Dad wanted to talk more about what the guys on the wharf had shouted at me, but we held off while Nonna was present. No need to upset her. Though, had she been with me to hear the mudslinging, chances are the feisty eighty-seven-year-old would have come up with a colorful response.
It wasn’t until we were leaving after our meal that we got a chance to discuss what Bobby—or his friend—had shouted. “You think it’s possible what the paper said?” I asked my dad as he followed me across the street to my car. “That Gino really was drunk when he left the restaurant?”
“How would I know? I was in the kitchen the whole time.”
Dad fiddled with the keys in the pocket of his brown slacks. “We couldn’t be held liable if he did drown because he was drunk, though, could we?” he asked. “You know, if we sold him the beer?”
“No, huh-uh.” I’d stopped practicing law several years back, but this was one thing I knew without having to look up, since it was so important for restaurant owners. “California got rid of that law a long time ago. You’re only liable for damages if you sell alcohol to an obviously intoxicated minor who then goes out and gets injured or hurts someone else.”
Dad nodded. “That’s what I thought. So it doesn’t really matter then, even if he did drink a bunch at Solari’s and then go out and fall off the wharf.”
“But it would matter for our reputation. Gino may have become almost a joke to a lot of folks over the past few years, but he was one of the last of the old guard. People who didn’t even know him are going to get all sentimental now that he’s gone, and if they think we were the cause of his death, well…”
“Oh, lord,” Dad said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You’re right.” He dropped his arm and let out a long breath. “Look, there’s something I guess I need to tell you. I know Gino always came in for just a beer or two in the afternoons, but I have actually seen him at Solari’s when he’s had too much to drink.”
“Oh, no.”
“Not often, only a couple times. And they were both in the last month or so.” Dad put his hands back in his pockets and returned to jingling his car keys. “And Carlo swears he’s never served him more than two beers and neither have I. So he must have been drinking before he came into the bar.”
“When was the last time this happened?” I asked.
“That’s the thing.” He rocked back on his heels and cleared his throat. “It was the day before he came in for dinner—so probably the day before…”
“… he died,” I filled in.
Dad nodded. “I was tending bar that afternoon and there were a couple girls in there, barely drinking age—I had to card them—and they struck up a conversation with Gino. But after a while he started getting really annoying. Coming on way too strong, you know?”
“Yeah, Dad. I’m a woman. I know.”
He ignored the sarcasm in my response. “So anyway, I asked him to cool it and leave them alone, at which point he got all belligerent. He came around to my side of the bar and grabbed hold of me, and when I tried to push him away he threw a punch—though he missed pretty bad. I ended up having to eighty-six him, and I can tell you he was not happy about that.”
I stared at my dad. “This is not good. Especially with the timing. He was
kicked out for being drunk and belligerent and then someone sees him lurching out of Solari’s the very next night?”
“I know. It’s why I asked you about what the law was.”
“But like I said, it’s not just about the law. It’s about our reputation. And about doing the right thing, like not serving liquor to a drunk old man.” It was my turn to rub my brow. “Oh, God. And now, with that sister-cities dinner coming up?”
Opening the T-Bird’s creaky front door, I rummaged through my bag for my car keys. “I guess I better talk to Cathy again to see if he really was acting intoxicated the night she waited on him. And who knows, maybe we can even find the bill for their dinner to prove we didn’t get him drunk.”
But then I thought of the antiquated Solari’s cash register, which didn’t record the table numbers, and our paper guest check system—a stack of carbon copies impaled on a nail sticking from a chunk of two-by-four my dad had painted red about twenty years earlier. It could be quite the undertaking to locate that receipt now, almost a week later.
“Good luck with that,” Dad said, reading my thoughts.
* * *
Nevertheless, the next day during the lunch shift I did ask Cathy about the receipt and whether she remembered what drinks Gino had ordered the previous Monday night.
The waitress frowned as she thought a moment. “He had a beer, or maybe two, is my memory. And I think the woman might have had a glass of wine. But I can’t tell you for absolutely certain. The police were here yesterday afternoon, you know, and asked me the same thing.”
Oh, great. I should have known the cops would have wanted to talk to whoever had waited on Gino that night. And there’s nothing like being interrogated by the authorities to make you start to waver in your story. “Well, could he have had something to drink before he came in? Did he seem drunk during dinner?”
The subject was clearly making her uncomfortable, and I could see why. For if the old man had been overly intoxicated when he left Solari’s that night, she’d definitely be among those in the hot seat.
