by Maria DiRico
Mia took a break from the anniversary celebration to watch the Koller brothers arrive in a limo from Manhattan for the bachelor party. John Grazio worked in the security department of Koller Properties, one of the city’s most well-known real estate development companies. Bradley and Kevin Koller, WASP-y looking and in their mid-thirties, had inherited the company after their father died of a heart attack on one of his many golf courses. Mia considered personally welcoming the famous duo to Belle View, but she was put off by the air of arrogance emanating from the brothers. Their host, John, practically tumbled down the staircase in his rush to greet and fawn over them. “Guys, thank you for coming. I can’t tell you what it means to me. I’m honored. Deeply, deeply honored.”
“Glad to be here,” Bradley said, his tone patronizing. Kevin merely gave a slight nod. Mia wondered why the brothers even bothered to grace the outer borough and John’s party with their presence.
“The action’s upstairs,” John said. “It’s a good time. Except the drinks could be stronger, but we’re working on that.” He directed the last comment at Mia. She responded to his angry glare with a look of innocence. “You got the best seats in the house. You’re at the Playmate of the Year table. You gotta see the napkins. They’re a work of dirty art.”
John gestured for the brothers to follow him up the stairs, and Kevin started after him. “Uh, hello,” Bradley snarked. Kevin stopped where he was and let his older brother precede him up the stairs. A slideshow of expressions crossed the younger brother’s face: fury, resentment, embarrassment, and finally, a look of vulnerability. To Mia’s surprise, she found herself feeling sorry for Kevin Koller.
She shook off the moment and returned to the vow renewal reception, passing Felicity Stewart Forbes, who was handing out business cards to a nonplussed knot of senior citizen guests. “Like the saying goes, the future is now,” she fluted. “Especially when you reach a certain age, if you know what I mean.”
“We know what you mean. We’re old.” A man holding tight to the walker in front of him responded with asperity to Forbes, earning a chuckle from Mia.
She found the anniversary couple posing for photos in the outdoor gazebo where they’d renewed their vows. Flushing Bay lay in the distance, as did LaGuardia Airport’s air traffic control tower. Mia was helping their photographer find a camera angle that blocked out the tower when she heard a loud whoop coming from the Bay Ballroom upstairs. They must have wheeled in the pop-out cake, she thought. The photographer finished taking pictures of the anniversary couple and Mia was herding everyone back to the Marina Ballroom when her headset buzzed. It was Cody.
“We have a situation, ma’am.”
The tone of his voice alarmed her. “What’s going on? And feel free to call me Mia.”
“No one jumped out of the cake.”
“Did you look inside to make sure someone was in there?”
“Affirmative. I had one of the waiters double-check before we wheeled the cake out. Something must be wrong with the lady inside it.”
“I’m on my way.”
She hurried out of the Marina Ballroom into the foyer and was about to start up the stairs when an attractive woman in a trench coat burst through the Belle View front doors. “Sorry I’m late,” she gasped, out of breath. “They switched the N and R trains and I wound up in Forest Hills.”
Mia stared at her. “Who are you?”
The woman opened her coat, revealing a sequined bikini. “Park Lexington. I’m working the bachelor party.”
“You’re the stripper? Then who’s in the—”
Mia’s stomach clenched. She raced up the stairs and burst into the Bay Ballroom. John’s guests whooped and cat-called. “Yeah, baby, finally!” one yelled.
“I’m not the stripper!” Mia yelled back.
Cody helped her climb to the top of the cake. She threw open the lid and peered inside. A woman lay crumpled on the bottom. It was Angie, the call girl who’d paid Ravello Carina a visit only days before. Mia prayed she was unconscious, but the blood pooling under the knife sticking out of the woman’s chest told a different story.
She’d been murdered.
Chapter Four
For a moment, Mia stood frozen. Then she regrouped. “Push this thing into the back hallway, then call the police and report a suspicious death,” she whispered to Cody. His eyes widened but he gave a slight nod. He reflexively lifted a hand to salute the order but caught himself halfway.
As Cody wheeled off the pop-out cake, Mia faced the disgruntled party guests. She got right to it. “I have bad news; no one’s jumping out of a cake.” The chorus of boos was almost deafening. “But,” she yelled, waving her hands in the air to get their attention again, “I also have good news. We’re making the drinks way stronger.” This was met with cheers and a rush to the room’s two bars.
As Mia headed for the door, John grabbed her arm. “Hey, what the hell is going on? Where’s my entertainment? And how much are these stronger drinks gonna cost me?”
Mia detached her arm from John’s hand. “There’s been an incident but it’s under control. A reminder that you requested stronger drinks. But not to worry, we’ll cover any extra charge you incur.”
She bolted out the door, pretending not to hear John as he yelled after her, “What about my stripper?”
Mia ran down the stairs. She stepped outside as the police screeched up to the front of Belle View. Luckily, the cacophony of beats from DJ DJ coupled with the 1960s pop music from the anniversary party drowned out the sirens of the half-dozen cop cars. Mia glanced out a window at the boats bobbing peacefully in the marina. She resisted an urge to hop into one, hotwire it—a skill Posi had taught her when she was ten—and take off out of Flushing Bay. Instead she steeled herself for what she knew was coming.
Detective Pete Dianopolis, Cammie’s ex-husband, stepped out of an unmarked car that pulled up behind the black and whites. “Hey, Mia. Not exactly a great welcome home, huh?”
“My dad had nothing to do with this,” she blurted. “He’s not even here.”
Dianopolis gave her a skeptical look. He banged on the unmarked car, eliciting a surprised yelp from whoever was still inside. “Wake up, Hinkle, let’s go.”
“Coming.”
“My new partner,” Dianopolis said to Mia. “He and his wife had a baby two weeks ago.”
Hinkle emerged from the car. He was a younger, slightly leaner version of Dianopolis, who was in his mid-fifties and sported a paunch that looked like he’d swallowed a bowling ball. Hinkle yawned and rubbed his eyes as if he’d woken up from a nap, which Mia assumed he had. “We’re here already?”
“Yeah, we’re here,” Dianopolis said, annoyed. “This ain’t a road trip; the station’s two minutes away. Take the boys and secure the area.” He turned back to Mia. “So, what’ve we got?”
“Upstairs is a bachelor party. When the stripper didn’t jump out of the cake, I looked inside and discovered she was deceased, possibly by unnatural circumstances,” Mia said, trying to sound as businesslike as possible. She didn’t mention she recognized the woman as an unwelcome visitor to Belle View, having learned at an early age that when talking to law enforcement, less was definitely more. “Downstairs is a fiftieth anniversary party. I’m running both events with my staff.”
“Then we’re talking a hundred people, maybe more.” Dianopolis didn’t look happy about this, and Mia couldn’t blame him. They were all in for a very long night. “Gutierrez and Abadie, take the front door. No one leaves until we got their statement and contact info. You, let’s see the body.”
It took Mia half a second to realize the last comment was directed at her. “This way,” she said, motioning for him to follow her. She passed Park Lexington, who had seated herself in one of the chairs decorating the foyer and was checking her cell phone. “You want me to do my thing?” the stripper asked, barely looking up from her phone.
Mia shook her head. “Keep your clothes on,” she said. “For now.”
/> Dianopolis ascended the stairs behind Mia. “So,” he said, “Cammie here tonight?”
Mia saw right through the detective’s forced attempt at a casual inquiry into his ex-wife’s whereabouts. The detective had a second career—although he was the only one who ever called it that—as mystery author Steve Stianopolis. When he’d self-published his first novel three years prior, he foresaw the career of a Joseph Wambaugh or Michael Connelly for himself. Explaining to Cammie that he needed freedom to enjoy the fame and fans he’d soon garner, Dianopolis asked for a divorce. Cammie gave him one, along with a literal kick out the door. When neither F materialized for “Steve,” he begged Cammie to reconcile. However, it turned out she was the one who needed freedom from her self-centered husband, so the answer was a loud “no,” accompanied by a host of Greek expletives. Three years later, Dianopolis was still trying to woo her back. Convinced that every man found Cammie as alluring as he did, the detective was furious when she accepted a job with “that trolling goombah mobster,” as he called Ravello. While Cammie found this hilarious, Mia feared it put her father in the detective’s jealous crosshairs.
“Nope,” she said, “Cammie’s not here tonight.”
“And neither is your father,” Dianopolis said, glowering.
“Hey, did Cammie tell you Dad has a girlfriend? Someone he met on a cruise. I hear she’s great and he’s nuts about her.” Mia chattered anxiously as she led the man down the hall that connected the Bay Ballroom to a small secondary prep kitchen. “There.”
She pointed to the pop-out cake, which was already cordoned off by police tape. Dianopolis snapped on latex gloves and ducked under the tape. He climbed onto the first layer, flipped back the lid on top of the cake, and stared inside. Then he hopped down. “While CSI does their job, let’s you and me talk. Somewhere private.”
“We can go to my office. But I need to talk to my staff. We still have two parties here, which means two very unhappy, trapped groups of guests.”
Afraid Dianopolis might try and stop her, Mia darted out of the room and down the stairs to the foyer, where she ran into Cody. “The Marina Ballroom guests were asking a lot of questions, ma’am—Mia—so I told them what’s going on is all part of a big murder mystery event courtesy of Belle View Banquet Manor.”
“Great stall, Cody. I need to meet with everyone in the big kitchen.”
He responded with a half salute and spoke into his headset. “Ten-hut! All employees to the kitchen, repeat, all employees to the kitchen. Now!”
Mia dashed down the hall and burst into the kitchen as the banquet hall’s employees streamed in. She took a deep breath and then, trying to reveal as little as possible, she began to speak. “Thanks, everyone. We have a situation that required the help of law enforcement.”
“The stripper got stabbed dead with a knife and the cops need to find out who murdered her.” Missy, the nineteen-year-old kitchen helper, jumped in.
“You can relax,” Guadalupe said to Mia. “We all know. Everyone knows. Even the guests.” Evans, her sous chef, nodded.
Mia released a breath. “Okay then. It looks like we’ll be here a while. The police need to talk to everyone and get contact information. I have no idea how long it’s going to take.”
Giorgio, the unpleasant new hire, shrugged. “What do we care? We’re being paid by the hour.”
Mia found herself wishing it was Giorgio at the bottom of the pop-out cake instead of Angie. “Use those hours to give our guests anything they want. This is a crazy situation, but we need everyone to leave happy. Got it?”
“Got it,” the staff chorused.
“You’re the best,” she said, finding the restraint not to throw an “except for you” at Giorgio.
Mia left her employees and made her way back up the stairs and into the Bay Ballroom, where a sea of angry faces greeted her. She grabbed a mic from DJ DJ and plastered on a smile. “Hey, everyone, what a night, huh?” There was dead silence. Perspiration beaded on her forehead. Mia had never given the term flop sweat much thought. Now she was living it. “I’m sorry about everything. But look at it this way. Plenty of guys have bachelor party stripper stories. Boring. But how many guys have bachelor party crime stories?”
“Did you say bachelor party stripper stories?” chimed in Park Lexington who, unnoticed by Mia, had followed her into the ballroom. “I’ve got those, and then some. I’ll never forget the guy who rented a Ferris wheel . . .”
Seeing that the stripper had everyone’s attention, Mia handed her the mic and muttered under her breath, “Keep talking.” She slipped away to the back hall, prepared to meet her fate with Dianopolis. He was gone, replaced by a swarm of crime scene technicians. “Where’s Pete?”
A technician motioned with a gloved hand. “He brought a couple of guys downstairs to talk.”
This time Mia took the back stairs that connected the first and second floor work areas. If nothing else, she was getting in her steps for the day—and then some, as Park Lexington would say. She dashed through the kitchen and down the hallway that led to her office in time to see Pete Dianopolis escorting the Koller brothers out of it. “Thank you, both,” he said as he walked them toward the manor’s front door. “I doubt we’ll have any other questions, but if we do, I promise we’ll be respectful of your time.”
The brothers disappeared into the foyer without a backward glance at the detective. “All that sucking up wasted,” Mia said, shaking her head.
Dianopolis crooked a finger and motioned to her. “Your turn.”
He stepped into her office and took the seat behind her desk, forcing Mia to take one of the metal chairs. “I wonder if everyone’s getting that ‘respectful of your time’ line from you,” she said. “I hate when people get a pass because they’re rich.”
“Good-looking rich guys like that don’t need to knock off a stripper.”
“Seriously?” Mia said, irked. “There are a million books about rich people doing shady stuff like knocking off strippers and getting away with it because people like you let them.”
“Rich people . . . shady stuff . . . secrets.” Dianopolis scribbled in a notepad.
“I’m glad you’re at least listening to me.”
“Oh, that’s not for the investigation. I’m a little stuck on my next Steve Stianopolis mystery and”—he tapped the notebook—“there might be something here.” He stuck the notepad into one jacket pocket and pulled a different pad out of another. “So, tell me about our vic. Did you recognize her?”
It was the question Mia feared and hoped to dodge. But she knew it wouldn’t help her father if she lied. “Yes,” she said. “Angie showed up here out of nowhere a few days ago.” She filled the detective in on the late call girl’s bizarre accusation, ending with, “but I believed my father a hundred percent when he said he had no idea who she was.”
“Oh, you believed your father. Well, that does it for me. Moving on to the next suspect. That was sarcasm.”
“Really?” Mia said, then added, “So was that.”
Dianopolis ran a hand through a thick thatch of salt-and-pepper hair. He was so vain about this attribute that Cammie told a story about how she once threatened to shave it off during a fight and he retaliated by taking out a restraining order on her, despite the fact they shared a matrimonial bed at the time. “We have an accusation, a dead call girl, and a nervous mob boss.”
“Are you talking about a possible Steve Stianopolis novel?” Mia asked, hoping against hope.
“No, that’s the case in front of me. I’ll be putting a call in to your father.”
Ravello Carina appeared in the doorway. “No need, I’m right here.”
“Dad!” Mia, overcome with relief at the sight of him, jumped up and threw her arms around her father.
“Guadalupe called and told me what was going on. I figured I better get over here pronto.” Ravello separated from his daughter. “I told the anniversary party that everyone’s getting a bottle of Montepulciano from the Boldano f
amily’s Abruzzo vineyard. I’m going upstairs and offering the same to our bachelor party guests.”
“I have some questions for you,” Dianopolis said.
“And I’m happy to answer them. When I’m done.” Ravello’s tone was polite but with enough of an undercurrent to make the detective back off.
Ravello and Mia took the banquet hall’s small elevator to the second floor. They entered the ballroom, where they found a room of extremely drunk men entranced by Park Lexington as she worked the room like a professional comedienne, only one clad in gold spike heels and a sequined bikini. “. . . So I said to the groom, ‘You may be a lawyer, but you’re not the only one here who knows how to get people off.’” Her appreciative audience whoo-hooed and laughed as DJ DJ punctuated the joke with the sound effect of a rim shot.
Mia strode over to the stripper. “Thank you so much, Park. I hope, I mean, I’m sure you have a lot more stories. But first, my father has something he’d like to say.”
She turned the mic over to him.
“Hello, I’m your host, Ravello Carina,” he began.
There was a murmur in the room as his name sunk in. “Is he the Ravello Carina?” Mia heard one attendee ask another. His friend nodded. “Whooaaaa.” Both partygoers instantly sobered up.
“We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this . . . unfortunate situation,” Ravello continued. “I would personally like to make it up to you by gifting each of you with a free bottle of Boldano Family Vineyard’s world-renowned Montepulciano red wine. There’s a truck outside now. When the police have finished doing what they need to do, visit the truck for your gift. Thank you all for your patience.”
“Thank you, sir,” a voice called out, prompting a chorus of thanks, along with applause. Mia marveled at how much goodwill a cheap bottle of wine with notes of notoriety could buy. She took the mic from her father and handed it back to Park, who launched into another salacious bachelor party tale.
“Now take me to the body,” Ravello said to Mia.
She led her father through the swinging doors to the ballroom’s back hall. Guadalupe, Evans, and some of the waitstaff were already there, watching as Angie’s body was removed from the cake. “I don’t think whoever we rented that cake from is gonna want it back,” Guadalupe said.