Death of an Italian Chef

by Lee Hollis

  Hayley realized what she was doing and stopped. “Oh, this? It’s nothing.”

  “Did you tell Randy what happened?”

  Hayley lowered her voice. “No, and I would appreciate you not mentioning it to him. He’s worked up enough already about what he saw, and I don’t want to make it any worse. Besides, what happened in the parking lot may have had nothing to do with anything.”

  “You can keep telling yourself that, but we both know it does,” Mona said matter-of-factly. “But mum’s the word, if that’s what you want.”

  “It is,” Hayley said. “Now if you think of anything else you need, just give me a call at Romeo’s.”

  Suddenly a voice boomed out of nowhere. “Mona?”

  Mona spun around, like a dog chasing his tail, trying to figure out where the disembodied voice was coming from.

  “It’s Randy,” Hayley tried to explain.

  Mona stopped spinning around and slammed her bottle of beer down on the kitchen counter. “Where the hell is he?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Why does he sound like he’s right here with us in the kitchen?”

  Hayley pointed to a round black device, blue lights glowing around the rim on top next to the breadbasket. “It’s Alexa.”

  “Who?” Mona asked, dumbfounded.

  “Alexa. She’s a smart assistant. Bruce got one for practically every room in the house. You know what a tech geek he is. It also conveniently serves as an intercom system. Randy is actually talking to you from Gemma’s room upstairs.”

  Mona stared at the device.

  “Mona!” Randy tried again, this time louder.

  “What?” Mona snapped. “What do you want?”

  “I’m a little cold. There’s a gray velvet quilt blanket on the couch in the living room. Can you bring it up to me, please?”

  Mona frowned. “Is this how it’s going to be all night?”

  “It is a little chilly, Mona,” Hayley said with a shrug.

  Mona sighed, marched into the living room to grab the blanket, and then trudged up the stairs to Gemma’s room. She could hear Randy yell from his bed, “You don’t have to throw it at me!”

  A few moments later, Mona came lumbering back down to the kitchen.

  She picked up her beer to guzzle the rest of it down when Alexa lit up in blue again.

  “Mona?”

  “What, Randy? What is it this time?” Mona snapped.

  “I’m thirsty. I think there is a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice in the fridge. Can you bring a glass up to me, please?”

  Mona stared daggers at Hayley.

  “He just had surgery, Mona. He really shouldn’t be going up and down the stairs, and he did say please.”

  Mona grimaced, yanked the pitcher of juice from the fridge, poured some in a glass from the cupboard, and slogged back up the stairs.

  Hayley waited for Mona to return back down to the kitchen again before checking the time on her phone. “I’m running late, I better get going. Thanks again for doing this, Mona. I’m sure Randy appreciates it as much as I do.”

  Mona mumbled something inaudible, but Hayley had no desire to hear what she said, so she ignored it and turned to go.

  Alexa lit up again. “Mona?”

  “For the love of God!” Mona screamed.

  Leroy scurried out of the room, hind legs skittering and slipping across the floor.

  “Mona, please don’t shout, you’re scaring Leroy,” Hayley said calmly.

  Mona leaned over Alexa and shouted, “What now?”

  “Hayley has a can of mixed nuts in the pantry. I was wondering if you could bring them up to me so I can snack on something until dinner,” Randy explained.

  “No! This isn’t the damn Olympics! I’m not running the steeplechase! Now shut up and watch TV and leave me in peace so I can make you dinner!”

  “Well, excuse me, Nurse Ratched,” Randy sniffed.

  “Hold on, Hayley, I’ll be right back,” Mona said, pushing past her toward the front door.

  “Where are you going?” Hayley asked.

  “I have to run home for something.”

  “Mona, no, I have to leave. What’s so important that you need to go home and get it?”

  “I’ve been suffering from insomnia lately so the doctor prescribed me some sleeping pills. They’re in my medicine cabinet. I can go home and be back in ten minutes.”

  “Mona, I don’t want you falling asleep while you’re supposed to be watching Randy.”

  “Oh, they’re not for me. I thought I could crush a few up and spread them around Randy’s lasagna to knock him out.”

  “Mona, I forbid it,” Hayley warned.

  “But he’s going to drive me crazy—”

  “No, Mona!” Hayley said forcefully.

  Mona sighed. “Okay, fine.”

  Hayley was about to rush out to her car when she caught a glimpse of Mona reaching to unplug the cord on Alexa.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Hayley said.

  Mona dropped the cord and threw up her hands in surrender.

  And then, as if on cue, Alexa lit up yet again. “Mona, the juice is a little too sweet. I think Hayley has some herbal tea bags; can you start heating the kettle?”

  Hayley dashed out the door before Mona could utter another word.

  Chapter 25

  When Hayley pulled into her driveway hours later, the house appeared still and quiet. Mona’s pickup truck was still parked in front of the house and Hayley could see the glow from the television flashing through the downstairs living room window. She glanced up at Gemma’s bedroom window on the second floor. It was completely dark. She hoped Randy was getting some much-needed rest. Either that, or he and Mona had killed each other and she was about to wander into a grisly crime scene.

  The clock on her dashboard read 11:37.

  It had been a long, grueling night. Unusually busy for a Monday. Every table full. The staff working their butts off. After ushering the last customers out the door around ten-thirty and sending the staff home after cleaning up, Hayley retired to Chef Romeo’s office to go over the books. The restaurant was still in the red and would be for months, but it was definitely on a fast track to making a profit by the end of its first summer in business. The question was, who would be the one to benefit? As an investor, Connie would be entitled to recoup all the money she laid out for Romeo and enjoy a good return on her investment. But who else? As far as she knew, Romeo had no will, no wife or kids, just Cousin Alonzo back in Brooklyn.

  Who was she working so hard for?

  The answer kept coming back to the staff.

  They were very grateful to be making money in this tough economic environment. Every time Hayley tried to dance around the subject of shutting the restaurant down, just the worried looks on their faces was enough for her not to bring it up. But there was no way she could keep up this pace, not considering her other responsibilities. She had initially agreed to run the restaurant just on the weekends; Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings, but because of the demand for reservations from both locals and tourists, she now had the place open seven nights a week. It would be foolish to close a business in Bar Harbor that was performing so well.

  There was much to think about.

  Hayley sat back in her seat and closed her eyes, taking deep breaths, trying to clear her mind and come down from the frenetic, nonstop evening at Chef Romeo’s. When she finally opened the door and crawled out of her car, she felt every weary bone in her body aching. She made her way up the wooden steps of her side patio and into the house through the back door.

  In the kitchen, some dishes were drying on a towel set out on the counter, and Hayley counted three empty beer cans ready to be disposed of in the recycling bin outside.

  Leroy scampered into the room, jumping up and down, happy she was home. But that’s the only greeter she was going to get tonight. After feeding him a treat, Hayley wandered into the living room where Stephen Colbert was deli
vering his nightly monologue on The Late Show. Mona was stretched out in Hayley’s recliner, mouth open, snoring loudly, sound asleep, her hand splayed open and the TV remote on the floor where she had inadvertently dropped it when she dozed off.

  Hayley walked over and bent down, picking up the remote. She shut off the television and Mona slowly stirred awake.

  “What time is it?” Mona moaned, wiping the dried spittle from the sides of her mouth with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

  “Going on midnight,” Hayley said.

  “I better be getting home,” Mona said, struggling to lift herself up out of the recliner, but having trouble. Finally, she managed to push down the footrest and haul herself forward.

  “How did it go with Randy?”

  “It was touch-and-go right after you left. He didn’t think his herbal tea was hot enough, and I refused to take it back downstairs and microwave it, but he calmed down once I fed him.”

  “Our family has a history of low blood sugar that can adversely affect our moods on rare occasions,” Hayley said matter-of-factly.

  “Oh, is that the excuse you’re going with?” Mona asked with an arched eyebrow before continuing her recap. “He was pretty quiet up there while he ate his lasagna, but then he called down for those chocolate oatmeal cookies you had in the Tupperware container next to the coffee maker. Well, I had to break the news to him that I already ate those while I was watching ESPN. How was I supposed to know he even knew they were there? He must have spotted them when they were sitting in the kitchen after you brought him home from the hospital. Anyway, that obviously didn’t sit well with him. I told him that maybe he shouldn’t be stuffing so many sweets into his face if he’s going to be lounging around in bed all day and night with no exercise and packing on the pounds.”

  “I’m amazed the White House hasn’t recruited you to help with world peace,” Hayley said, shaking her head.

  “I know, right?” Mona agreed, opting to ignore Hayley’s intended sarcasm. “Anyway, that just made him madder, but luckily all the yelling finally tuckered him out and he passed out around eight and hasn’t made a peep since, thank you, Jesus,” Mona said.

  “You’re a regular angel of mercy, Mona,” Hayley cracked.

  “I like to think so,” Mona said, once again glossing over the sarcasm. Something else popped into Mona’s mind. “Oh, I do have to admit I did get a little impatient with him when I served him his lasagna. He wouldn’t shut up about what he saw in the hospital, that big dude taking out Chef Romeo, and how he was worried so much time was passing by, and he was concerned nobody but you would ever believe him. So I told him you were on top of it, and if anybody can prove he was right and not just hyped-up on the pain meds, you can.”

  Hayley felt a twinge of guilt. “Well, so far I’ve been doing a pretty lousy job of it. I’ve got two witnesses, Randy and Leonard, both of whom claim to have seen a large man in the hospital that night. But unfortunately, both of them were heavily sedated at the time, and so neither are entirely reliable, not to mention they both said he was wearing a mask that hid most of his face. Sergeant Herrold won’t divulge any information about the cause of Romeo’s death, so I’m not even sure this is a homicide yet. I showed the photo of a possible suspect, who could be this mysterious man, around the hospital, but no one who was working that night recognized him. So I can’t be certain he was ever in the vicinity of the supposed crime. I keep hitting dead ends, nothing I try seems to be working, but I don’t have the heart to stop now because Randy will be devastated.”

  “Who’s this suspect you found?”

  Hayley shrugged. “Someone connected to Romeo’s past in New York. A hired thug working for a man who had it out for Romeo, goes by the name of Big Hugo.”

  Hayley unlocked her phone and brought up the photo. She turned it around so Mona could see it.

  Mona casually took a quick glance, but then her eyes bulged and she snatched Hayley’s phone out of her hand. “Wait, let me see that!”

  “Mona, what is it?”

  “I know him!” Mona cried, tapping her index finger on the screen. “This is the guy I was telling you about!”

  “What guy?”

  “That night at the restaurant when I was waiting tables, the one who made my life a living hell by sending his entrée back so many times. Don’t you remember?”

  “Yes, but I spent most of the night in the kitchen. I never saw him.”

  “This is definitely him! I’d swear on my ex-husband Dennis’s life! Okay, I know that doesn’t mean much since I despise him, but it’s the first name that popped into my head!”

  Hayley took back her phone from Mona, then suddenly gasped as a wave of panic washed through her. “Connie!”

  “Who’s Connie?” Mona asked, confused.

  Hayley didn’t have time to explain. She quickly looked up the number on her phone that Connie had given her in case she needed to contact her, and then frantically called it.

  Hayley raised the phone to her ear.

  “Hi, this is Connie . . .”

  “Connie, it’s me, Hayley Powell!”

  “. . . I’m off living my best life and can’t take your call right now . . . So after the beep, you know what to do.”

  “Voice mail!” Hayley wailed, impatiently tapping her foot, waiting for the beep.

  Beep.

  “Connie, this is Hayley Powell. You were right. I just got confirmation that Big Hugo is here in Bar Harbor. Please, be extremely careful. Your life could be in danger. Call me back just as soon as you get this!”

  Hayley prayed Big Hugo would not find Connie until she could be warned, because after seeing all three Godfather movies, she knew exactly what to expect.

  And the thought sent a shiver up Hayley’s spine.

  Island Food & Spirits

  BY HAYLEY POWELL

  The recipe I will be sharing today is one of my absolute favorite pasta recipes! This one, I have to say, is very close to my heart, because it includes one of my all-time favorite ingredients in any dish—cheese! And this particular recipe boasts not one, not two, but three—count ’em—three different cheeses! Is your mouth already watering like mine?

  I have loved cheese since as far back as I can remember. My mother once said I ate so much cheese, she expected me to sprout whiskers, which reminds me of a story that happened last month. Bruce and I had driven down to Portland for a weekend getaway off the island. A must-stop whenever we take a road trip on the 95 freeway to southern Maine is at the Cheese Shop on Washington Avenue. Whenever I step into that shop, it’s like I have died and bypassed God’s waiting room, entering directly into heaven! What a wide variety of delectable cheese to choose from! Anyway, on that particular trip, in addition to the twelve blocks for me, I also picked up a nice Gouda for my brother Randy, who loves nothing better than to make a nice comforting Gouda mac-and-cheese casserole every now and then, especially when his husband Sergio is out of town, or working those long overnights at the police department.

  I already knew what I was going to make when we got home with my bounty of cheeses. It was no contest: My simple, but life-changing, three-cheese rigatoni. So a few days later, I got Bruce settled into his recliner in the living room with one of his favorite crime novels, so I could have the kitchen all to myself to prepare my rigatoni dish. I had just gathered my ingredients, when my phone started ringing on the counter. It was my brother Randy.

  “Hi, Randy! Have you tried the Gouda I brought over for you yet?” I asked into the phone.

  All I could hear was heavy breathing.

  “Randy, are you there?”

  More heavy breathing.

  “Hello?”

  That’s when I heard my brother frantically whisper, “He’s coming!”

  I was starting to get a little nervous.

  “Who, Randy? Who’s coming?”

  Before he had a chance to answer, there was a short scream and then the phone went dead. I ran for the back door, yelling at Bruce to g
et his butt out of the recliner and come with me! Something was seriously wrong at Randy’s house and we needed to get there right away!

  We broke speed records flying across town to Randy’s sprawling house off the shore path with breathtaking ocean views. Bruce screeched to a stop on the gravel driveway, and we both jumped out of the car and bolted toward the front door. I didn’t bother ringing the bell. We just charged inside, where I ran from room to room, yelling like a madwoman as Bruce tried catching up to me, huffing and puffing.

  Suddenly I stopped cold in the middle of the living room.

  I heard Randy calling for help from upstairs.

  Bruce and I bounded up the steps to the second floor to the main bedroom. The door was shut. Bruce pushed in front of me and tried the knob. It was locked. He began pounding his fist on the door, screaming Randy’s name. Before he got an answer, Bruce ordered me to step aside, and then he backed up into the hallway and charged like a bull, full speed ahead with his head down, shoulder out. He hurled his whole body at the door, just as the door was flung open by a relieved-looking Randy, who was so happy to see us. Poor Bruce went flying headfirst right though the doorway and landed with a loud thud on the bedroom floor, which unfortunately for Bruce, was made of hardwood.

  I hugged Randy, asking him if he was okay and what in the world was going on. Randy said he would explain over coffee, and we were halfway out of the room, when Bruce asked if we would mind helping him up off the floor first. We rushed over and hauled an achy Bruce to his feet before retreating down to the kitchen for pie and coffee and an explanation.

  Apparently Randy’s saga had begun a few days earlier, while he was enjoying his morning coffee, sitting on the couch in the living room and watching the morning news. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he spotted something scurry across the floor. When he got up to investigate, his eyes fell upon something very large and furry running around to the other side of the kitchen island.

  At this point Bruce interrupted Randy, and asked, “Large and furry?”

  Randy sighed. Maybe in hindsight, it wasn’t all that large or all that furry, but it really didn’t matter because anything running around in his kitchen was terrifying, especially since the house was built like Fort Knox and absolutely no woodland creatures of any kind were ever supposed to get inside.