Hot Fudge Murder

by Cynthia Baxter

  “How about some coffee?” she asked. “I’m ready for a break.”

  “Coffee sounds great,” I said. Of course, all the coffee I’d just drunk at Pippa’s house was sloshing around in my stomach like the water in a Los Angeles swimming pool during an earthquake. As for the caffeine . . .

  “I don’t suppose you have any decaf,” I said.

  “I do,” Marissa said.

  She stood up and began bustling around the huge kitchen like the lady of the house, measuring out coffee and pulling cups off the shelf. She stepped into the pantry, coming out a few seconds later with a box in her hand and a triumphant expression on her face.

  “We’re in luck,” she said. “I found a long-forgotten box of biscotti hidden away in back.”

  A few minutes later, the two of us were sitting opposite each other at the rustic wooden table.

  “So how long have you worked for Omar?” I asked conversationally.

  “Almost three years,” she replied, mixing two large spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee. “Before that, I worked for a cleaning service.” Wrinkling her nose, she added, “That was pretty awful. The idea of working for only one person on a regular basis sounded much better.”

  I nodded, meanwhile dipping what looked like a chocolate almond biscotti into my coffee. As I bit into it, I discovered that I was right. I also realized that I’d just come up with an idea for a brand-new flavor: coffee ice cream with pieces of biscotti in it. I could call it Coffee Break in Milano.

  Then I remembered that Federico had said he was from Milano. And decided that instead I’d call it Coffee Break in Rome.

  “Did you just work for Omar here in the Hudson Valley, or did you also work at his apartment in the city?” I asked. Maybe I should throw some extra almonds into my new Coffee Break ice cream, I thought.

  “I work—worked—at both places,” she said. She helped herself to a vanilla biscotti, dipping it into her coffee before stuffing half into her mouth. “Hey, these are really good!”

  Which made me wonder if I should develop several different flavors that used biscotti. Sometimes I was overwhelmed by all the possibilities for fun ice cream flavors. So many add-ins, so little time . . .

  I reminded myself that I needed to stop obsessing about ice cream and instead take maximum advantage of the golden opportunity that had fallen into my lap. After all, Marissa had spent three years getting a firsthand look at Omar DeVane’s life. And she was someone who a lot of people undoubtedly considered invisible, meaning they were likely to show their true selves in front of her without even thinking about it.

  “Working for someone like Omar sounds so glamorous,” I commented. “You must have seen him interact with all kinds of famous people. And probably some who aren’t so famous but are really powerful . . .”

  “To tell you the truth, a lot of those people are actually pretty disappointing once you spend some time with them,” Marissa said. “Some of them are amazingly rude, and some are egomaniacs. Some are just plain dumb.”

  “What about Omar?” I asked. “The one time I met him, he seemed really nice. Was he?”

  “He was a prince,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “He was amazingly talented, a true genius. The fashion empire he built is proof of that. But despite his success, he never became one of those people who are full of themselves. He was kind, generous, thoughtful . . .” Marissa’s voice had grown hoarse. “I always figured it was because he came from such humble roots.”

  “Humble roots?” I repeated, surprised. “But the biography I found online makes it sound like he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. I read that he grew up in New York City, where his father was a successful businessman and his mother was a high-society type, and that he went to the best schools before studying fashion in Paris and Milan. . . .”

  Marissa smirked. “You can thank his PR firm for spreading that pack of lies.”

  I had to admit that I knew exactly what she was talking about. When I’d worked in public relations, more than once I’d been assigned the task of reinventing some celebrity’s past.

  “Mitchell, who was in charge of things like that, decided that a glamorous upbringing would make a much better story than the truth,” Marissa said. “Starting with his name. Omar’s real name was Elmer. Elmer Szabo—that’s spelled S-Z-A-B-O. It’s Hungarian.

  “Omar’s parents were immigrants,” Marissa continued. “They had a second son, too. I never met him, but Omar used to talk about his brother all the time. His name was Arthur.” Laughing, she added, “As far as I know, he still has his original name.”

  “I guess Omar figured ‘Omar DeVane’ would look better on the label of an expensive designer creation than ‘Elmer Szabo,’ ” I said.

  “Exactly,” Marissa agreed. “And he really did grow up in New York City. That part, at least, was true. But he came from the Bronx. Not exactly Park Avenue or the Upper East Side. When he was a teenager, he got an after-school job working for a tailor to help his family make ends meet. That’s where he learned everything he knew about fashion—by altering men’s polyester suits and hemming cheap cocktail dresses.”

  I had to admit that while the real story behind Omar DeVane may not have been as romantic as the one he preferred to tell, I felt he deserved a lot of credit for pulling himself up from his humble beginnings. Yet I could see that he might feel the rich and famous folk he wanted to design for might not be as appreciative of his roots as I was.

  “Mitchell was his best friend back in those days, which is why Omar trusted him to manage his business,” Marissa went on. “He had the same modest upbringing. But he’s never pretended otherwise. With Mitchell, what you see is pretty much what you get.”

  “Interesting,” I commented thoughtfully. “Two men who truly lived out the American dream. Of course, Gretchen did, too, and she’s not even American.”

  “True,” Marissa agreed. “And like Mitchell, she played a key role in Omar’s career.” She shook her head sadly. “Too bad Gretchen and Omar had a falling out, and that Omar passed away before they had a chance to resolve their differences.”

  My heart immediately began beating faster. “What happened?” I asked.

  Marissa shrugged. “Apparently there was a clause in Gretchen’s agreement with ODV, saying she couldn’t launch her own line of clothing as long as she was under contract with Omar’s company.”

  “I knew she was interested in fashion design,” I replied, “but I hadn’t heard anything about being restricted by a legal agreement.” The wheels in my head were turning. So everything wasn’t peaches and cream between Omar and Gretchen, I thought. At least not lately.

  Needless to say, that immediately got me thinking about Peaches and Cream ice cream, and how it would be so much tastier with just a hint of almond flavoring . . .

  “And now Gretchen’s starting to get a little older,” Marissa said. “Not that she’s old by the real world’s standards, of course, but when you’re a model it’s a whole different thing. And she’s been thinking about creating her own label. Because of her contract, she couldn’t. At least, not without getting sued.”

  “Omar wouldn’t release her from that contract?” I asked. “Even though he was such a generous person?”

  “It was Mitchell who wouldn’t allow it,” Marissa said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I heard Mitchell and Gretchen arguing about it.”

  “When?”

  Marissa thought for a few seconds. “It must have been last week, since at the time we were all up to our ears in preparations for Omar’s party.”

  I was about to write off that bit of information as irrelevant, given the fact that it was Omar who had been murdered, not Mitchell. But then Marissa said, “Of course, now that Omar has passed away, she’s no longer bound by that contract.”

  My ears pricked up. If there was ever a motive to kill someone, that was it.

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  �
�The same conversation,” Marissa replied. With an odd smile, she added, “Maybe walls don’t have ears, but the hired help sure does.”

  And there’s clearly a lot going on in this house that’s worth listening to, I thought.

  “And Federico?” I asked. “What’s his story?” I could see that Marissa was in a mood to gossip, and since I was in a mood to listen to gossip, we were well-matched.

  Marissa laughed.

  “Federico the Great?” she said, smirking. “I think you mean Fred Miller.”

  “I’m talking about Federico,” I explained patiently. “Omar’s personal assistant . . .”

  “Right. Fred Miller.” That same cold smile reappeared. “It sounds as if good old Fred has you totally convinced that he’s exactly who he’s pretending to be. Now that’s what I call a first-class phony. He dyes his hair, he wears tinted contact lenses, his forehead is so smooth that he’s obviously had Botox treatments . . .”

  “What about his accent?”

  “You meana thees accent?” she said, doing a perfect imitation of Federico. She let out a loud guffaw that was so raw that the sound made me jump. “That’s totally made up. Can you think of a place anywhere in the world where people really speak English with an accent like that?”

  I guessed that Milan, Italy, wasn’t the correct answer.

  “His accent is as fake as everything else about his supposed life story,” Marissa went on, her voice dripping with disdain. “The real story is that Omar met him at a bar in Brooklyn. Once Fred realized the identity of the older man who was trying to pick him up, he latched onto him like a starving leech.”

  “Still,” I said thoughtfully, “you’ve got to admit that Federico—Fred—does have a sense of style.”

  “Ninety-nine percent of which he picked up from hanging around Omar and the other fashionistas in his entourage,” Marissa said. “Let’s just say he’s good at copying. But when it comes to having an original idea, I don’t think Fred Miller ever had one in his life. That is, aside from deciding to leave his postage-stamp-sized hometown in Indiana and moving to the big city to try to make a name for himself.”

  So absolutely everything about Federico was a lie. He’d certainly fooled me.

  I was trying to digest this fact when another thought struck me: If Fred Miller was so good at lying about his name, his background, and even his accent, what else was he good at lying about?

  By that point, our coffee cups were empty, and the plate of biscotti contained nothing but crumbs and the inspiration for some fabulous new ice cream flavors.

  Still, I’d gotten even more than I’d hoped for.

  What I was learning was that when it came to the world of fashion, nothing was the way it appeared. And binder clips and double-sided tape were only the beginning.

  * * *

  Just as I’d hoped, Arthur Szabo turned out to be an uncommon enough name that tracking down Omar’s brother was as easy as pie.

  Even easier than pie, actually, thanks to Google. No rolling out of a pastry crust was required. All I had to do was type the words “Arthur Szabo New York City Bronx” into the Google search page on my phone.

  I found his address and phone number easily. I jotted down both, but it was the first bit of information I was more interested in.

  A phone call wouldn’t do. Instead, I wanted to meet the man in person.

  Next stop, the Bronx.

  Chapter 13

  Dairy Queen’s “phenomenal story began with the 10-cent sale of a then unnamed product on August 4, 1938, in Kankakee, Illinois. A father and son partnership in Green River, Illinois, had been experimenting with a soft frozen dairy product for some time. They contacted Sherb Noble, a good friend and customer, who agreed to run the ‘all you can eat’ trial sale at his walk-in ice cream store. Within two hours, he dished out more than 1,600 servings of the new dessert.”

  —https://www.dairyqueen.com/us-en/Company/About-Us/?localechange=1&

  Getting to Arthur Szabo’s home turned out to be even easier than I’d expected. After an hour on the train and a short subway ride, I found myself standing in front of the address I’d found online for Omar’s brother.

  Yet I was certain there must have been a mix-up.

  “This has got to be wrong,” I muttered as I stood in front of the building. “There’s no way Omar DeVane’s brother lives here.”

  But both the name of the street and the peeling numbers over the front door matched the address I’d scrawled on a scrap of paper. And Marissa had claimed that Omar’s beginnings had been humble.

  This place, however, went far beyond humble.

  The five-story brick building looked like something out of West Side Story. The resemblance to the sets of one of my favorite movies ever was made even stronger by the zigzag of fire escapes along one side.

  Still, as I studied the building more carefully, I saw that while it was a long way from Greenaway, it wasn’t exactly awful, either. True, it looked as if it had been around for a long time, with little sign of renovation or even regular maintenance. But aside from being a tad shabby, its worst fault was being nondescript.

  I stepped up to the front door and studied the intercom. Next to each button was a name. Some were handwritten and some were typed. A couple of them were barely legible beneath the yellowing tape that protected them from the elements.

  Sure enough, there was the name Szabo. Apartment 4B.

  So I’d found an Arthur Szabo. I had yet to see if it was the right Arthur Szabo.

  I pressed the button, holding my breath and hoping this wouldn’t turn out to be a fool’s errand. Or something worse: something I’d regret having gotten myself into.

  “Who’s there?” a male voice came through the intercom a few seconds later. It was barely audible through all the static.

  “Um, I’m a friend of Omar’s,” I began, yelling back at the device. “My name is—”

  But he had already buzzed me in.

  The entry hall was completely without charm. The walls were painted a dingy shade of yellow and were clouded with so many scuff marks I found myself wishing I’d brought along a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels. I had the same reaction to the cracked black-and-white tile floor, which was caked with what was probably decades’ worth of grime.

  I trudged up three flights of stairs, instinctively holding my breath amidst the tsunami of smells. Cooking smells, mostly. Some were fresh, but some were old, as if they’d been lingering in the air the whole time that the grime in the foyer had been accumulating. But I also picked up on the distinct odor of oldness. To me, it seemed to come from a lack of fresh air, if it’s possible for the lack of something to have a smell.

  I was pretty much out of breath by the time I reached the fourth floor and spotted 4B on a metal door that was painted dark green. I paused, waiting for my pulse rate to get back to normal. But before that happened, the door opened.

  Peering out at me was a man about Omar’s age. I knew immediately that I had the right guy. While he didn’t exactly look like Omar, he had the same stocky build, the same round head, and the same basic facial structure.

  But that was where the resemblance ended. When it came to his demeanor, he and his dapper brother were a million miles apart. Arthur Szabo was wearing a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt with a pair of baggy black sweats. The front of his pants was sprinkled with orange dust that had probably come from nacho-flavored tortilla chips. Possibly Cheetos.

  I was about to concoct a recipe for nacho-cheese-flavored ice cream—perhaps with real bits of tortilla chip mixed in—when he spoke.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, his tone both cautious and friendly.

  “I hope so,” I replied. “My name is Kate McKay. I live in the Hudson Valley, not far from where your brother has—had—a weekend house.”

  “Ah,” he said with a nod. “So you’re a friend of Elmer’s. Or Omar, as you probably know him.” He opened the door wider. “Please come in.”

  I half-ex
pected to be astonished by the interior of Omar DeVane’s brother’s apartment. I thought it might be sleek and modern, like Pippa Somers’s place. Or possibly tasteful English Cottage, with flowered chintz fabrics and lots of charming touches like masses of ruffled throw pillows or a tea cup collection displayed in a glass cabinet.

  Instead, I felt as if I’d stepped into a time warp. Suddenly, I was back in the 1970s.

  Immediately to my left was the kitchen, where the glory days of the avocado refrigerator and the harvest-gold dishwasher were preserved with all the accuracy of a well-curated museum. The furniture that was crowded into the tiny living room just beyond the front door consisted of a well-worn La-Z-Boy chair and a sagging couch upholstered in brown chenille. A clear-glass coffee table with a silver metal frame sat on top of an orange shag rug. The lamps were so ornate they bordered on gaudy. As for the personal touches, those were more along the lines of a collection of Star Wars action figures crammed onto the shelves of a faux-wood wall unit than Staffordshire cups and saucers.

  This was not a home that had moved into the twenty-first century with the rest of us. In fact, I would have been astonished to learn that it had Wi-Fi. Or even cable TV.

  Arthur appeared to be amused. “I can tell from the look on your face that this isn’t what you expected,” he said.

  I was about to protest, then realized there was no point. Even if he hadn’t noticed me lurking outside, hesitant to ring the bell, he had undoubtedly faced the surprise of others who learned he was the famous designer’s brother.

  “No,” I replied. “I guess it’s not.”

  “I like it this way,” he said with a shrug. “I grew up here. It’s my childhood home, the place where my parents lived their entire adult lives. And since it’s so comfortable—so familiar—I never saw any reason to change anything.”

  Glancing warily toward the kitchen, he commented, “Although I don’t know how much longer that dishwasher is going to last. Every time I run it, a mysterious brown liquid oozes out of the bottom.”