by Leslie Karst
“Really? Are you sure? How come you know so much about ocean currents?”
“I’m a surfer, remember? A huge part of surfing is understanding currents and tides. So, yeah, I’m sure.”
“Wow, that’s great! At least for my dad, anyway. Maybe he won’t now immediately be bumped up to suspect number one. Since it does make more sense for Gino to have knocked his head against the piers, which means he wasn’t in a boat at all.”
“Maybe,” Eric said. “But don’t you think for one second that this digression about where Gino’s body washed up is going to let you off the hook for suppressing that evidence, young lady. Where is the cap right now?”
“At home in my sock drawer.”
“What an original hiding place. Good thing no one’s broken into your house since you found it, or it would have been for sale on Craigslist by now.” Eric chuckled to himself before going on. “Now I know I don’t really have to tell you that as soon as we hang up, the next thing you’re going to do is take that cap down to the police station, correct?”
“I guess…”
“And that if you don’t tell them, I will?”
“Okay, fine. But if they haul my dad off to jail in handcuffs because of this, I’ll never ever forgive you.”
“Hey, once you tell the cops your theory about the copper poisoning and all about the super-professional online lab that procured the results, they’re going to get down on their knees to thank you for discovering such a crucial piece of evidence in the case. They’re gonna be so thrilled, in fact, that they’ll completely forget all about your dad.”
So much for the sweet, supportive Eric. “Ha-ha. Very funny.”
“That’s why I’m laughing.” And he was. A lot.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, after swinging by my house to retrieve Gino’s cap, I was standing in line at the Santa Cruz Police Department’s reception desk. As I waited for the woman ahead of me to finish her discussion about obtaining a permit for a protest march downtown, I sent my dad a text telling him I wouldn’t be at the restaurant for another half hour. Hopefully he wouldn’t ask me the reason for my delay.
“Hi,” I said when I stepped up to the counter. “I’m here because I have some evidence that may relate to the Gino Barbieri case.”
“What sort of evidence?” the woman asked.
I held the plastic bag up for her inspection. “This.” But then, realizing she’d have no idea what was inside, I added, “It’s Gino’s cap, which I found out on the wharf. I put it in this so it wouldn’t get contaminated.” The manner in which she was eyeing the dark green bag suggested she had a dog and knew what its normal purpose was.
“Okay,” she said, and picked up the phone. “Let me get a detective to come down and talk to you. What’s your name?”
I told her, and the woman spoke for a moment to someone and then replaced the receiver. “Detective Vargas will be down shortly.”
Great. I took a seat on the wooden bench in the lobby and waited, trying to keep my jimmy legs to a minimum. Why couldn’t it have been someone else? Anyone but him.
Sooner than I expected, Vargas’s burly frame emerged from the door that led into the police department offices. He stood there a moment without speaking and then motioned for me to come inside.
“When Erica said it was you, I thought it best that I come down,” the detective said as we mounted the steps to the investigation department. “Since I’m accustomed to your, shall we say, proclivity for trying to help us do our job?”
I didn’t respond to this, instead following him silently into the small interview room that I’d gotten to know quite well over the past six months.
“So what is this evidence you have?” the detective asked after we’d both gotten settled, me on the small couch, him on the armchair across from me.
I lay the plastic bag on the coffee table between us. “I found this on the wharf. It’s Gino Barbieri’s wool cap.”
Vargas took the pen from his shirt pocket and used it to open the bag. “How do you know it’s his?” he asked.
“Everyone knows that cap,” I said. “It’s a Genovese-style fisherman’s cap, and no one else wore one like it. Plus, you can tell from the faded color that it’s Gino’s.”
“Uh-huh.” The detective took the bag by its bottom and dumped the cap out onto the table. “Where exactly did you find it?”
“Uh … it was in my father’s skiff, the little boat he keeps behind our restaurant for fishing. I found it jammed under the seat.”
He poked at the cap for a moment with his pen and then sat back in his chair. “And when did you find the cap?”
“Well, it was a few days ago, actually. I’ve been meaning to bring it down to you, but…”
“When, exactly?” He’d now leaned forward again and was giving me a “cut the crap, lady” look.
“Last Saturday,” I said, almost in a whisper. The small room was becoming claustrophobic as I felt the heat build up under my long-sleeved T-shirt. Not a good time for a hot flash.
“Last Saturday?” he bellowed back, jumping from his chair. “It took you five days to turn over evidence relevant to a possible homicide investigation?” The detective glared down at me, and I did my best to shrink into the recesses of the couch. “Why the hell would you wait so long? Oh, wait, I get it.” He smiled, but the smile wasn’t of the jolly, friendly variety. “It’s because of where you found the cap—in your father’s boat. So, tell me: What do you know about your father that would cause that discovery to make you so nervous?”
I didn’t answer right away. It was one thing to merely fail to volunteer information, but to tell an actual, bald-faced lie to a police detective would be a giant step toward the criminal—as in, “making false statements to an officer of the law” kind of crime.
“I … well…”
“Yes?” The smile grew even broader. The detective was enjoying this.
“Okay. I found out my dad took his skiff out fishing the morning after Gino disappeared, and I was afraid you’d think he had something to do with Gino’s death since the cap was found in his boat.”
Vargas shook his head. “No matter how tiresome I might find your insistence on getting involved in police matters, I would never allow that to cloud my judgment in a case. And I hardly see how the mere fact that the hat was found in your father’s boat would lead us to suspect him of killing Mr. Barbieri. It could have just fallen off and ended up there.”
And then got itself miraculously hidden away, jammed under the seat? But since I’d already mentioned where in the boat I’d found the cap, I saw no need to repeat this tidbit of information.
The detective had finally sat back down, but he was still eyeballing me. “I’m thinking there’s something else, too. Am I right?”
I had to hand it to the guy. He did seem to have a knack for reading people’s thoughts and body language.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “There is one more thing. My father eighty-sixed Gino—you know, kicked him out of the Solari’s bar—the day before he went missing. And they kind of got into a scuffle over it. Gino was pretty mad and apparently threw a punch at my dad.”
Vargas frowned, then picked up a pad of paper that was sitting on the small table next to him. Clicking open his ballpoint pen, he jotted something down and set the pad back on the table.
Definitely not good that this merited a note. Time to divert his attention to something other than my father.
“So there’s another piece of evidence I need to tell you about, too, and this one I only just found out today.”
The detective leaned back in the chair, hands clasped behind his head. “Uh-huh?”
“Well, you need to know first that a bunch of people have been talking about how Gino had seemed to be drinking a lot over the past few months and that he was acting different in other ways, too. Picking fights with people—”
“Like your father,” Vargas said.
“Yeah, like my dad, and othe
r people, too. Anyway, as you know, there are witnesses who say he was acting drunk that night he came into Solari’s before he disappeared, but his tab from the meal shows he only ordered two beers with dinner.”
The detective glanced at his watch, and I decided I’d best get to the point quickly. “So I got this idea that maybe something else was going on with Gino, and then got to thinking about how he was always painting his boat, and it occurred to me that maybe he was suffering from lead poisoning.”
“Oh, boy.” Vargas sat forward impatiently.
“So I took some of his hair and sent it to this place to get analyzed.”
“You what?”
Now I had his interest back. I explained how the test had come back negative for lead (at which point the detective smiled) but how his copper levels were higher than normal. Pulling the report from my purse, I handed it to Vargas, who studied the paper while I went on.
“I heard from Bobby, the guy who’s been working for him, that Gino used to cook tomato sauce in his copper pots all the time, which could totally give him copper poisoning, and which would explain his weird behavior over the past few months.”
Vargas lowered the report. “I fail to see how his having copper poisoning, even if true, would help us determine how he was killed, which is all I’m really concerned about at this point.”
“But don’t you see? If Gino was all of a sudden acting totally irrational because of copper poisoning, that could have been the reason someone did it. So at least it gives you a motive for his killing.”
“Right.” But Vargas did not appear convinced. “Where did you get this hair sample, anyway?”
“I … from the cap. There was a ton of hair in it, so I figured it couldn’t hurt if I took a little bit…”
The detective stood up again and pointed to the door. “Out,” he commanded. “Get out right now, before I change my mind and have you taken downstairs and booked not only for suppression of evidence, but for tampering with it as well.”
Chapter 20
Well, that didn’t go well. But then again, I hadn’t really expected it to. At least Vargas hadn’t hauled me or my father off to jail. And he had kept that hair analysis report. Maybe he’d mention the copper poisoning angle to the coroner, who could then make sure they included that along with the other things they tested for in the tox report.
The rain was steady as I darted out to my car in the police station parking lot, but nothing like the previous deluge. Once inside, I checked my messages and, seeing one from my dad, tapped the screen to open it: “Can u stop by Ggn and pick up large heavy pot for gravy? We only have 3 here.”
“Will do,” I texted back and fired up the T-Bird.
It was a little after four by the time I got to Gauguin, and Javier and Brian were already in the kitchen prepping for dinner, along with a woman I recognized as Javier’s new flame. Brian was tending to the grill station, turning chicken quarters in a pan of marinade, and Natalie and Javier were at the line, whisking sauces and arranging the row of stainless steel inserts with ingredients for tonight’s mise en place.
“What are you doing here?” Javier asked, looking up from his sauce—our Thai curry, I guessed from its turmeric-yellow hue. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping your father tonight?”
“Yeah, but he asked me to swing by and pick up an extra pot on my way over there.” I turned to Natalie. “Hi, I’m Sally. Great to finally meet you. And thank you so much for coming in tonight and saving my butt.”
She let out a deep laugh and, after wiping her hand on her side towel, took mine in a firm clasp. “You’re very welcome. I think it’s going to be fun, getting to work in this gorgeous kitchen. And I have to say I kind of miss the frenzy of working the hot line, so I’m actually looking forward to the next three nights.”
“Even though you have to get up at like, what, four am tomorrow morning?”
“More like six, but yeah, that is one drawback of working back-to-back shifts. Luckily I can get by on not much sleep.” Natalie chuckled again, and I found myself understanding Javier’s attraction. From the streaks of gray in her dark, shoulder-length hair and the laugh lines around her eyes, I guessed her to be older than Javier, but there was an exuberance about the pastry chef that was almost irresistible.
I knew I should have been happy for my head chef to have found this woman who held your gaze in a manner that suggested she truly cared about your thoughts, your feelings. But it just made it all that much harder. If she’d been a grouch or a shrew, at least I could have consoled myself with the prediction that he’d regret his decision soon.
“So tell me,” Natalie said, returning to her organization of the hotel pan inserts, “how many people are you expecting for this big dinner on Saturday night?”
“Over a hundred and thirty,” I said.
“Wow.” She dropped a pan of diced red onions into one of the slots and turned to face me. “I didn’t realize Solari’s could hold that many. Is there a banquet room I don’t know about?”
“No, we’re going to hold the pre-dinner reception inside, but the sit-down portion of the meal is going to be outside, behind the restaurant.” I slumped back against the stainless steel table that ran down the middle of the kitchen and stared at my feet, tasting the acid that had risen to the back of my throat.
“You still haven’t found a tent yet, have you?” Javier said.
I shook my head. “And now I’ve got to go over there and tell my dad the horrible news.”
“What tent?” Natalie asked, and Javier explained how Solari’s needed a huge party tent for the sister-cities dinner but that all of them were already rented.
“And so we’re going to be royally screwed,” I added in a moan, “especially if this storm keeps up for another two days.”
A slow smile was forming on Natalie’s face. Maybe there was a shrew aspect to her personality, after all, if she found my abject misery to be amusing. But, no.
“We have a tent,” she said. “The Full Moon Café, that is. We use it for special events, like big wine tastings and when we cater weddings.” She pulled a phone from the pocket of her black chef’s pants. “Here, lemme call the owner and see if she’d be willing to let you use it.”
Natalie stepped into the dry storage room to confer with her boss in private.
“Ohmygod,” I said to Javier. “That would be awesome!”
He grinned as he squeezed lime juice into his curry sauce and tasted it. “Yep, she’s a keeper,” he said, and added another squeeze to the pot.
Natalie emerged from the storage room nodding vigorously. “She said yes.”
I pumped my fist, then danced across the kitchen to envelope her in a hug. “Thank you. You have no idea the hell you have just rescued me from.”
“I actually think I might,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve worked in the restaurant business for many years.” She shoved the phone back in her pocket. “So here’s the deal. You can come get it tomorrow, and you’ll need your own truck to move it. We always rent a truck, because the thing really is huge, but if you know someone with one of those enormous pickups, I bet that would work. And you’ll also need at least three other people to help you set it up and take it down. Have you ever used one of these tents before?”
“No,” I said. “But I’ll figure it out.”
Because, as everybody knows, necessity is the mother of saving yourself from having to serve tagliarini and chicken cacciatore to scores of customers in the pouring rain.
* * *
“No, no, wait. You have the wrong part facing down.” I dropped my corner piece and trotted over to the opposite corner of the unconstructed tent. Sean, the Solari’s busboy, stepped back, and I showed him how the piece was supposed to sit as Bobby and Emilio, the line cook, looked on. “This part, with the B—for bottom—goes down,” I said, flipping the piece over and inserting the long aluminum pole into the short inward-facing pipe.
It was ten o’clock on Friday morning and we ha
d just picked up the Full Moon Café’s thirty-by-forty-foot party tent. It was a little smaller than I’d wanted, but at this point I was thrilled to have anything at all. We’d make it work.
Remembering Bobby’s mammoth-sized pickup, I’d stopped by his family’s gift shop before heading to Solari’s the previous afternoon to see about using it to transport the tent. He’d been reluctant at first, but had enthusiastically agreed once he knew I was offering two hundred bucks for the use of both the truck and his brawn to load the thing and help set it up and then break it down again on Sunday.
The rainstorm had finally blown through, and today was blustery but mostly clear. The forecast, however, was for another front to move in sometime tonight or tomorrow. Thank you, Natalie, I said to myself for the hundredth time since her offer of the tent.
The metal poles, corner pieces, and vinyl top and sides were laid out on the ground behind Solari’s in a rough approximation of where the enormous tent would eventually stand, and we were in the process of assembling the roof. Angelo and several bocce players were on the benches scattered around the area, following our progress with amused interest.
“So how come you know so much about putting together tents?” Sean asked as I returned to the corner piece I’d been working on before I noticed the busboy’s error. “Have you done it before?”
“Nah,” I said. “I just watched a YouTube video this morning is all.”
“You can learn a lot from those videos,” Angelo piped up from his spot on the wooden bench that sat against the Solari’s back wall. “I learned how to change the ink in my computer printer last week by watching one of them.”
The white-haired man seated next to him asked what YouTube was, and I bent down with a chuckle to attach my pipes as the fisherman showed off his knowledge of the Internet to his fellow seniors.
We’d just finished raising the roof, which now had its vinyl cover attached, and were about to start attaching the sides when the strains of a surf guitar sounded from my jeans pocket.
“Let’s take a quick break,” I said to my helpers. “I’d like to answer this.” The three guys had no complaints and wandered off while I took the call. “Hey, Eric. What’s up?”
