Hope Hadley Eight Book Cozy Mystery Set

by Meredith Potts

  After the movie, Daniel figured we’d follow up the movie with a great meal. He’d brought me to Mario’s Italian Restaurant on Beach View Boulevard. We’d been here before and always had wonderful service. The staff was a highly professional bunch and always seemed to be on top of things.

  Only, that night was different. Antonio, our rotund, goateed, twenty-eight-year-old server, had just brought a cup of orange juice and a glass of milk to our table. That would have been fine, had we ordered either of those things. In truth, we were expecting a glass of house white wine and Chianti respectively.

  I would have dismissed that as just a simple misstep, had it been the first mistake of the evening. It was not. When we first arrived, while the hostess was away seating another party, Antonio led us to a table by the restroom when we’d specifically requested a booth that was as far away from the restrooms as possible. Antonio’s mind was clearly on other things, which had prompted Daniel to ask him if everything was all right.

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” Antonio replied.

  Even if Antonio hadn’t stammered his answer, it would have been clear by the shaky tone of his voice that things were not going well.

  To be fair, it wasn’t just Antonio’s head that appeared to be in the clouds. There was a general sense of uneasiness in the air. All of the restaurant’s staff looked tense and on edge. The question became, what was the cause of all of this anxiety?

  Usually, I was the nosy one in the relationship. This time, Daniel took the lead. “Really? Then why did you just serve us a glass of orange juice and milk when we ordered wine?”

  Antonio looked down at the table and appeared genuinely shocked to see the orange juice and milk there. That was how distracted his thoughts were that he was only just noticing his error right now, after Daniel had pointed it out to him.

  Antonio’s face went as red as marinara sauce. “I’m so sorry. Your wine will be right up.”

  We didn’t care so much about the apology. The wine, we’d get soon enough. What concerned us more was getting to the bottom of this string of mistakes that kept cropping up.

  “Now, do you want to tell us what’s going on?” I asked.

  He gave a meek answer. “I’m not sure that I’m supposed to.”

  “Antonio, it’s okay. You can tell us,” I said.

  He looked to the left then to the right to make sure no staff members were passing by. Then he leaned in and gave us an explanation.

  “Claude Giraud was just here.”

  Daniel had a visceral reaction that manifested itself as a gag reflex. “The food critic?”

  As a fellow restaurateur himself, my boyfriend had plenty of experience with Claude and his ability to make a restaurant staff’s hairs stand on end. When Claude had come to Daniel’s place a few months before, it almost caused my boyfriend to have a panic attack. Luckily, that story had a happy ending. Claude’s review of Daniel’s restaurant ultimately turned out to be favorable. The same could not be said for a number of the other local restaurants in town.

  Antonio divulged further. “Claude completely eviscerated the place. He told Mario to expect a scathing review.”

  Mario Donatelli was the owner and head chef of this restaurant. The man had an ego the size of the country of Italy. The only thing he had a higher opinion of than himself, was the food he cooked. So for a noted local food critic to rip him apart was not just a blow to his ego, it could also have a drastic effect on his bottom line.

  If Claude’s review ended up being as scathing as he threatened it would be, it could really hurt sales here. And with a cut in revenue, it could mean laying off staff, or worse, possibly even closing. That was all projecting well into the future, but it had happened before to other restaurants in town that had gotten on Claude’s bad side.

  “No wonder everyone is so on edge,” I said.

  “Yeah. Business has been slow enough around here already. If this review tanks things even further, I may not be able to pay all my bills.”

  “That’s awful. Did Claude say what was so wrong with his meal?” Daniel asked.

  “As far as he was concerned, nothing was right about it. The pasta was too bland, the sauce was too lumpy, the garlic bread was undercooked, and the meatballs weren’t flavorful enough,” Antonio said.

  “That seems ridiculously harsh,” I said.

  “Mario must be beside himself,” Daniel added.

  Antonio nodded. “Oh, he was absolutely crazed. So much so that he started having it out with Claude.”

  “When you say he had it out—”

  Antonio took Daniel’s lead and filled in the blanks.

  “Mario started railing against Claude, claiming his review was completely biased because this was one of his estranged wife’s favorite restaurants in town.”

  “I’m sure Claude took that well,” Daniel joked.

  “Mario wasn’t done there. He argued that ever since Claude and his wife separated, he’s been letting his frustrations about his divorce trial bleed into his reviews,” Antonio said.

  “Nothing like accusations of bias to stoke the fires even more. What kind of tongue-lashing did Claude give him after hearing that?”

  “He told Mario to shut up and take some cooking classes before trying to pass off any more mediocre meals on the public.”

  I grimaced at that statement. To me, it sounded as much like a personal attack as it was a line from one of his future reviews.

  Daniel took a bite from the basket of bread that Antonio had previously brought to the table. “The food doesn’t taste bad to me. But what do I know? I’m just a fellow restaurant owner.”

  Antonio muttered under his breath. “I wish you were a reviewer instead of Claude.”

  Daniel extended his sympathies. “I feel bad for Mario. Tell him to hang in there.”

  “I will, when he comes back,” Antonio replied.

  My curiosity was piqued. “Wait a minute. He’s not here?”

  Antonio shook his head. “He stormed out after his confrontation with Claude. I haven’t seen him since.”

  Chapter Two

  Luckily, the rest of the evening was without incident. Then again, between Claude threatening to leave an eviscerating review and Mario storming out, there was already enough drama for one night. For the record, both my meal and Daniel’s were perfectly delicious. While we savored our food, we saw no sign of Mario anywhere. As far as we knew, he didn’t return to the restaurant at all last night. Apparently, he’d taken the news of the impending review even worse than I’d first assumed.

  After a dinner fraught with such tension, I hoped that my breakfast the following morning with my brother would be carefree. Unfortunately, I did not get my wish. As I arrived at Home Sweet Home Cooking Café to meet Joe, he was just getting up to leave.

  That left me puzzled. “Where are you going?”

  “I hate to do this to you, but I have to go right now,” Joe said.

  He clearly hoped that I wouldn’t push him for more information. The fact was, his answer had only made me more curious. “Why? What happened?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I can take care of it.”

  He was being particularly evasive this morning. That wasn’t like him at all. This obviously had something to do with work. Otherwise, he’d never pass up the chance to order a stack of fluffy pancakes. That being said, when he got a call about a shoplifter, vagrant, or basic robbery, he just came out and told me about it. There was only one reason I could think he was keeping this to himself.

  I voiced my suspicions. “Has there been another murder?”

  Joe grimaced but didn’t reply. What he failed to realize, was that by not responding, he’d just given me the answer I had been looking for.

  “Oh, dear. Not another murder. Who was killed this time?” I asked.

  Joe was still reluctant to give me any information. When he saw the resolve on my face, he sighed, knowing I wouldn’t give up until I got an answer.

  Finally, he came clean
. “Claude Giraud.”

  Chapter Three

  The timing of Claude’s incident with Mario and Claude’s subsequent murder made me as suspicious as could be. Given what Antonio had told me at the restaurant last night about his boss, paired with Claude’s assorted history of stirring up trouble with his reviews, I felt like I could be of great help in solving this case.

  My brother initially felt strongly about handling this one himself. When I told him everything I’d found out about Claude, he suddenly changed his mind. In previous cases, he’d put up a much bigger fight to letting me play amateur sleuth.

  With each case I solved, his resistance weakened. We still hadn’t reached the point where he completely embraced me investigating murder cases with him, but he was getting there. Joe decided to temporarily deputize me, then we headed off to Claude Giraud’s house.

  It was a single-story beige Spanish-style home. As we arrived at the scene, yellow police tape had already been strung up. A number of deputies were coming and going while the coroner’s van was parked out front.

  I followed Joe into Claude’s home office, where his body had been discovered slumped over in his desk chair. Phil Kelton, the coroner, was examining the body. The sight of dead bodies made me queasy. It was something I’d never gotten used to. To keep from gagging, I looked away. That’s when I saw an open laptop on Claude’s desk. There was a word processing document open on the computer.

  I would have zeroed in on it, but Joe’s conversation with the coroner drew my attention.

  “What have you got for me?” Joe asked.

  “Deceased male, early fifties. He died of blunt force trauma to the back of the head,” Phil replied.

  “Did you find the weapon that killed him?”

  Phil nodded. “You’re not going to believe this, but he was hit on the back of the head with his own Golden Critic award statuette.”

  The Golden Critic was the top honor a restaurant critic could receive. It was ironic—Claude had won the award based on his hypercritical reviews, but perhaps it was one of those reviews that led to his murder. The blood-stained statuette was in an evidence bag on the desk. I only gave it a cursory glance, mostly because I hated the sight of blood.

  “Were you able to pull any fingerprints from the statuette?” Joe asked.

  Phil shook his head. “Not one—from the statuette, or any other place in the house.”

  “The killer must have been wearing gloves,” Joe deduced.

  The coroner agreed. “That’s my guess. There’s no way the killer wiped this whole area clean before they left.”

  “Approximate time of death?” Joe asked.

  “It’s looking at between nine and nine thirty last night.”

  That answer gave me pause. Daniel and I had been at Mario’s restaurant during that time frame. One notable person happened to be absent, though—Mario Donatelli.

  “Anything else?” Joe asked.

  “The laptop was open when we got here. It looks like Claude was in the middle of typing up a blistering review of Mario’s Italian Restaurant,” Phil replied.

  If my suspicions of Mario weren’t strong enough before, they only seemed to grow with each piece of new information I received.

  “Who found the body?” Joe said.

  “The neighbor across the street.”

  “In that case, it’s time to talk to that neighbor. Let me know if you find anything else out,” Joe replied.

  Chapter Four

  Joe and I walked across the street to interview the neighbor, Gertrude Brotwick. She looked to be about seventy-five. The pair of glasses she was wearing was nearly as old as she was.

  Gertrude’s thick, oversized circular-framed glasses looked like they took up half of her face. It was almost as if she didn’t realize they had modern frames that didn’t look like goggles. Maybe she just didn’t care.

  Joe didn’t seem to be distracted by the size of her glasses, which was good for him, as it was much easier for him to focus. I had to work at it. Because of that, I was happy to let Joe ask the first question.

  “Mrs. Brotwick, I understand that you found the body.”

  She corrected him. “First of all, it’s Ms. Brotwick. Heaven claimed Mr. Brotwick four years ago, God rest his soul.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Brotwick.”

  A wistful look came to Gertrude’s face. Joe worried the conversation could slip away from him if he didn’t get back on topic right away. That’s why he quickly got back on topic.

  “Now, you were the one to find the body, correct?”

  Gertrude looked traumatized. “Yes, what a terrible sight. I’ve never seen anything so awful in my life.”

  Joe scrunched his nose. “I’m sorry about that, but I’m also confused. What were you doing at Mr. Giraud’s house in the first place?”

  “I can explain.”

  “Please do.”

  “I was out front watering my plants this morning when I happened to notice that the light was still on in Claude’s office. That didn’t make any sense to me. He’s never up that early in the morning. And he’s very particular about not leaving lights on. He’s complained about his electric bill to me nearly half a dozen times.”

  “All right. That still doesn’t explain why you were in his house.”

  “I gave him a call just to check in and see if everything was all right, but he didn’t answer. That’s when I figured something must have been wrong. He never let his phone go to voice mail. So I went over to his place and knocked. When he didn’t answer the front door, I walked around the front of his house to his home office where the light was on. That’s when I saw that the window was open. I looked inside, and that’s when I saw his body slumped over his chair with a big bloody gash on the back of his head. I haven’t been able to get that sight out of my head ever since,” Gertrude explained.

  “Again, I’m very sorry about that. We’re going to do everything we can to find out who did this.”

  Gertrude got feisty. “You’d better. I don’t want some crazy murderer running around town.”

  “No, of course not. Now, did you happen to hear any strange noises last night, especially ones that may have been coming from Mr. Giraud’s house?” Joe asked.

  She shook her head. “No, but then again, I don’t hear all that well anymore. Besides, I sleep like a rock. The minute my head hits the pillow, I’m out like a light.”

  “It is believed that the murder occurred between nine and nine thirty last night. You weren’t already asleep then, were you?” Joe asked.

  “You bet I was. Nine o’clock might as well be midnight to me these days. I was out like a light.”

  Realizing that he was getting nowhere, my brother wrapped things up with Gertrude, then let her go on with her day. At first, it seemed like Gertrude could have been good for a lead or two. Alas, that was far from the case.

  After the disappointing discussion with Gertrude, we checked with Claude’s other neighbors, hoping to get some kind of lead. All our legwork was for naught, as we came up empty-handed. No one else had any additional information for us.

  A number of Claude’s neighbors were out having dinner at the time of the murder. Some appeared to have left town for the weekend. Either way, despite our best efforts, it seemed like Joe and I were right back where we’d started.

  Chapter Five

  As Joe and I reconvened at the crime scene, my brother’s frustration was becoming palpable.

  “That wasn’t terribly helpful,” he grumbled.

  He was a master of the understatement. Whereas most people’s range of emotions featured wild extremes on both the positive and negative end, Joe never really got too high or too low. Normally, I was a fan of moderation, but in his case, it had a tendency to come off as humorous. While I envied his ability to never truly get too down on himself, conversely, he never really seemed to experience moments of unabashed joy either.

  In this particular case, his comment led to a much-needed chu
ckle on my part. The levity ended up being short lived as the gravity of the situation crept in again.

  My brother wasn’t the frustrated one. I had plenty of pent up irritation of my own. “I’ll say it wasn’t helpful. Even getting the gender of the suspect would have made a huge difference.”

  Joe sighed. “Instead, we’re right back where we started.”

  I tried to re-frame the conversation so I didn’t become discouraged. “Hey, we’re going to hit some dead ends every once in a while. No one said solving murders was easy.”

  “You can say that again. But it doesn’t mean it always has to be so hard. I’d kill for a nice open-and-shut case just once,” he replied.

  “You’d kill for one? Talk about a poor choice of words.”

  “As long as that’s the only poor choice I make today. Now, who had a reason to want Claude dead?”

  That was more of a rhetorical question than anything. A name immediately came to my mind. Judging by the wide-eyed expression on Joe’s face, we were probably thinking along the same lines.

  “I think we both know the answer to that,” I said.

  “Mario Donatelli.”

  I nodded. “Exactly.”

  Joe continued. “Not to mention everyone else at that restaurant.”

  There was no doubt where our next stop would be. “Time to see what’s cooking at Mario’s.”

  Chapter Six

  My taste buds were clearly unaware that we weren’t stopping into the restaurant for culinary reasons because my stomach started rumbling the minute we entered Mario’s restaurant. I had to shelve my urge to order a calzone. It was hard to go wrong with dough and ricotta cheese. When I finally put the lid on my hunger pangs, my brother and I started interviewing everyone in the restaurant that had worked last night.