Here Comes the Body

by Maria DiRico

  * * *

  Mia ended the day with a win, locking down a lavish engagement party. But with the cloud of what she considered an unsolved murder hanging over Belle View, she couldn’t enjoy the booking. She went into the kitchen for a comfort snack and found one pignoli nut cookie left from the La Guli assortment. Clearly, she wasn’t the only employee who felt a need to self-soothe with food.

  She left the catering hall and economized by taking the bus home. It dropped her at the corner of her street. But rather than go to Elisabetta’s, Mia took a detour down the street to Andrea Skarpello’s house. She rang the doorbell and saw an eyeball through the peephole. There was the familiar sound of a half-dozen locks being unlocked. Then Andrea threw open the front door.

  “Glykiá píta!” Andrea said, which Mia remembered translated to “sweetie pie.”

  “Come in, come in.” The 46th Place residents had a habit of offering this invitation twice, possibly because they assumed their elderly neighbors didn’t hear it the first time.

  Mia took Andrea up on her invitation and followed her down a short hallway, then through the living room. “I’m so sorry about Stavros. He was a lovely man.”

  “Thank you, sweetie. I hoped we’d see our sixtieth anniversary together, but that wasn’t God’s plan.” They arrived in the kitchen and Andrea motioned to Mia to take a seat at the room’s small table. “Your nonna said you might stop by, so I made spanakopita and baklava.”

  Andrea pulled a baking pan of spanakopita out of her circa 1970s avocado green oven and cut a large slice that she placed in front of Mia. Mia took a forkful of the spinach and feta pie. The crispy phyllo dough crumbled in her mouth. “Amazing,” she said.

  “It’s nice to have a visitor,” Andrea said. “I miss that.” The widow’s tone was wistful, her loneliness palpable. Her children had dispersed to other parts of the country, with one son posted to Japan through his job in the State Department. Elisabetta had told Mia that Andrea moving in with any of them wasn’t an option, at least not at the moment.

  “Didn’t you have a couple living upstairs?”

  “They saved and bought a place in Jersey.” Andrea took Mia’s empty plate and replaced it with a plate of fresh baklava. Mia vowed to increase her bicycling to burn off the calories she was enjoying, courtesy of Andrea.

  The older woman sat down across from her. She put an elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. “Such a lovely couple they were. I felt safe with them here. Now, it’s not the same.”

  “It’s a wonderful space, Andrea. You could find another great tenant. Wouldn’t that be better than uprooting your whole life?”

  “I don’t know. The real estate lady had a point when she said I’m—”

  “Not getting any younger,” Mia chorused with her.

  “It’s true.”

  “Nobody is. You’re not, I’m not, the real estate lady isn’t. Unfortunately, we can’t age backward.”

  “It’s so quiet here now. At least in assisted living, there’d be people around. Until they die. But then, new people come in. Rotate out, rotate in.”

  Mia put her fork down on her second empty plate of the night. “Andrea, please don’t do anything yet. I’m going to find you a great tenant. Give me a little time because I have to solve a murder first—”

  “I understand.”

  “But then I am all about keeping you on this block.”

  “Eísai énas ángelos pou stálthike apó ton ouranó. You’re an angel sent from heaven.” This effusive statement was accompanied by a hug and the requisite cheek pinches.

  Mia left with spanakopita and baklava in a to-go container, which was de rigueur on 46th Place. To send a guest off without a healthy second meal of leftovers was considered terrible form. As she walked down Andrea’s steps, she noticed the slim, well-dressed woman she’d seen before at Rose’s old house, deep in conversation with a workman. Time to meet the new neighbors and maybe welcome them with Andrea’s delicious food, Mia thought. She crossed the street and waited politely while the woman and workman completed their conversation. He got into a pickup truck and drove off; the woman turned her attention to her phone.

  Mia stepped forward. “Hi, I’m Mia Carina. I live up the street.”

  The woman looked up. “Hi. If you’re worried about construction noise, we have a permit for work to take place from seven A.M. to four P.M. We’ll respect those hours.” She flashed a dismissive smile, then refocused on her phone.

  Mia steamed at the woman’s attitude but remained polite. “Thank you for that.”

  “Is there something else?” The fake cordiality was gone, replaced by full-on annoyance.

  Mia extended the leftover container. “I thought you might like a treat. Homemade spanakopita and baklava from Andrea, who lives across the street. Sort of a ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ gift.”

  The woman gaped at Mia, then laughed. “Oh, you think I’m the one moving in here.” She raised her hands and shook them as if warding off germs. “No, no, no. I’m the interior designer. I live in NoMad. That’s in the city. It means North of Madison.” The woman said this slowly, as if Mia might be mentally challenged.

  “Queens is the city and I know what NoMad means.” Mia said this through gritted teeth. “I hope whoever is moving in here shows up with a lot less attitude.”

  She stomped back across the street and up the block to Nonna’s house. When she got inside, she slammed the front door behind her, eliciting a startled cry from Elisabetta and an equally startled bark from Hero. Her grandmother came into the vestibule. “Ma, cosa sta succedendo? What’s happening?”

  “The and-it-rhymes-with-witch across the street is not our new neighbor, thank God. She’s the new owner’s interior designer and a total horror.” Mia handed Elisabetta the container of leftovers. “Here. From Andrea.”

  “You stopped by and talked to her. Va bene. That’s my baby girl.”

  Elisabetta reached up to pinch Mia’s cheek, but she pulled back. “No more tonight. I need to let the bruises from Andrea’s pinching heal.”

  Her grandmother cast an angry look past her, to the street. “Interior designer,” she said in a mocking tone. “Design this.” She shook a fist in the direction of the new neighbors, then brought her other hand down on the crook of her elbow in a karate chop gesture that was the Italian equivalent of flipping someone off with a middle finger. “I bet whoever bought Rose’s place is gonna ‘fix it up,’ then sell it for more money. I’m telling you, the crummiest building in Astoria is worth a fortune to some developer. They knock it down and throw up these ‘luxury apartments’ no one here could ever afford. Your father’s lucky Belle View’s still standing. With those views, I’m surprised there’s not a load of condos sitting on that land, even if your backyard is the LaGuardia runway.”

  “Nonna, your blood pressure. You need to calm down.”

  “I know. I’m gonna take a shot of Amaretto. You want some?”

  “No, thanks. It’s been a long day. I’m gonna go upstairs and chill before I go to bed.”

  Mia kissed her grandmother and went upstairs to her apartment, almost tripping over Doorstop, who was in the doorway living up to his name. She fed the cat, changed into her jammies, then collapsed on the couch. She’d inherited a TV from Rose Caniglia, a twenty-year-old model that came with a remote and not much else. Mia put on the show she usually unwound to, a reality mash-up of travel and real estate that let her armchair-travel all over the world. However, given the current real estate turmoil of 46th Place, Mia didn’t find the show relaxing and she switched it off.

  She rested her head on an ugly decorative pillow that came with the couch and replayed her conversation with Elisabetta. She didn’t think her grandmother was exaggerating when she said the Belle View land was worth a fortune. If, as Posi said, the Koller brothers were sniffing around the Triborough Correctional Facility, which was in a much less scenic part of town, the thought of what they could park on the catering hall’s propert
y would make them salivate. Could Angie’s murder somehow be tied to a real estate deal?

  A few hours later, Mia woke up on the couch in the same position where she’d passed out. Her cell phone rang loudly and insistently. She turned it off and rolled over, too tired to move into the bedroom. Suddenly, the landline Nonna insisted on keeping let loose with a loud, even more insistent ring. She exclaimed a few choice words as she got up and marched to the phone. “What? And if this is a telemarketer, I swear, I will hunt you down.”

  “It’s your father.”

  “Dad.” Mia’s tone instantly switched to apologetic. “Sorry.” She noticed the time on Rose’s dusty old cuckoo clock. “Why are you calling me at one-fifteen in the morning? What’s wrong?”

  “Bad news,” her father said. His voice sounded husky. “There’s been a fire at Belle View.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The cab Ravello sent for his daughter arrived moments after she threw on jeans and a T-shirt. Fire engines were parked at the front of the catering hall, so the cab driver dropped Mia off in the parking lot. Mia was overcome with relief to see the building still standing, but the air was acrid with the scent of smoke. She looked around for her father but didn’t see him. A few firemen were next to the hook and ladder truck winding up hoses. “Is it safe to go inside?” Mia asked.

  “Yeah, the fire was contained to the back of the kitchen,” one responded.

  Mia dashed into Belle View and ran to the kitchen, where she found Ravello talking to the fire captain. “Dad,” she said, going to him. The two hugged. She stepped back and surveyed the room. There was a hole big enough to fit a man where a wall used to be. In the distance, Mia could see the blinking lights of the LaGuardia runway. The stove next to the new hole seemed to have sustained the second-most amount of damage in the room. The fire had spread to it, igniting the grease trap. The smell of burnt, rancid grease made Mia’s eyes water. She realized Ravello was talking to her and forced herself to focus.

  “. . . So he basically saved the place.”

  “Sorry, Dad, I missed that.”

  “I was saying that Evans was just leaving when the fire broke out. He called it in and then battled it with a couple of our extinguishers.”

  “Thank God for that. But what was he doing here so late?”

  “All he said was he had to finish some stuff. I don’t care. He’s a hero.”

  “Where is he? I’d like to thank him.”

  Ravello glanced around. “He’s not here? I guess he took off.”

  “We’ve got an investigation team on the way, but I’m not putting myself on the line when I say that if this isn’t arson, I should turn in my badge,” the captain said. “I have some paperwork I need you to fill out.”

  “We can’t do it in my office,” Ravello said. “It’s too close to the fire and reeks.”

  “Try my office,” Mia said. “Maybe the smoke didn’t get that far.”

  Ravello took the captain to her office. Mia stayed behind. She pulled a dish towel out of a drawer and held it over her mouth as she opened the kitchen windows. She did the same for every window in Belle View. She found a few large fans in a storage facility attached to the side of the building and dragged them inside, positioning each one so it blew any lingering smoke out of the building and into the chill of the night air. Then she went to her office.

  The captain was gone, but Ravello was still seated behind her desk. He was on his phone. “That’s great, Tulio, I appreciate it.... Sure, I’ll be here at seven. I don’t know if I’m even gonna go home.”

  Mia took the phone from her father. “Hi, Tulio, this is Ravello’s daughter, Mia. He won’t be here at seven because he’ll be getting some much-needed sleep—” She held up a hand to quell her father’s protest. “But I’ll be here. What will I be here for?”

  “Oh.” The man on the other end sounded nervous. “I’m uh, a friend of your father. I owe him a couple of favors. I’m gonna have a crew there in the morning to fix your kitchen wall. And, uh, there’s another friend of your dad’s who owes him a favor. He’ll be dropping off a new stove. We’ll hook it up for you. You should be up and running again in a day or two, once the plaster work on the new wall dries.”

  “That’s fantastic, Tulio. My dad and I are very grateful to you.”

  “Oh boy, I sure hope so.” Tulio didn’t sound any less nervous. “Tell your dad if he needs anything else, I am here for him. Very, very here for him.”

  “I will.” Mia ended the call and handed the phone back to her father. “Wow, he must owe you a bundle.”

  “Oh yeah. What he’s doing for us’ll put a dent in it. A small one.” Ravello rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I’m starting to think I had it easier running games for the Family.”

  “No!” Mia practically yelled this at her father. “You are not going back to that. We’re gonna make this work or die trying.”

  “Came close to that tonight,” Ravello said, his expression wry.

  “It’s a figure of speech. Luckily, we don’t have any midweek events. If what Tulio told me holds, the kitchen should be functional again by the weekend when we really need it. In the meantime, if anything comes up, we can improvise in the upstairs secondary kitchen. Now go home. Get sleep. I’m gonna spend the night here.”

  This energized Ravello. He stood up and slammed his fists on the desk. “Non c’è modo all’inferno! No way is that happening! What kind of father do you think I am, leaving my daughter alone in a dangerous place like this?”

  “The kind of father who recognizes that his daughter is a mature, grown woman who can take care of herself!”

  The two stubborn Carinas faced off, each refusing to budge. Ravello broke first. “Fine. But not until I make a call.”

  * * *

  “Are you comfortable? You don’t look it.” Mia addressed this to Jamie Boldano who, a half-hour after the call from Ravello, was stretched out on an improvised bed made of couch pillows on the floor next to the bridal lounge daybed where Mia lay. The room was dark, lit only by ambient light coming from the LaGuardia facilities.

  “I’m fine.” Two pillows separated as Jamie switched positions. He shoved them back together.

  “Again, you really don’t have to do this.”

  “I was afraid your father would hurt me if I didn’t.” Jamie said this with a chuckle. “He may be a legit businessman these days, but he’s still pretty intimidating.”

  “That may come in handy if any of our customers try to welch on their bills.” Mia pulled the plaid afghan that was meant for decoration up to her chin. “Are you cold? Do you want me to close the windows?”

  “I’m good,” Jamie said. “I like the air. You can’t smell the smoke.”

  Mia wrinkled her nose. “That smell is so hard to get rid of. Why did someone do this? Were they sending a message? Or did they want to burn the place down?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Do you think it’s related to the murder?”

  “Absolutely. Look at what we grew up with—the Life. A murder at a place, a fire at the same place. When would those two things not be related?”

  “Never.”

  “Exactly.” Mia said this with emphasis. “It lets Giorgio off the hook, the waiter the police arrested for the call girl’s murder. He’s sitting at Rikers right now, waiting for his arraignment.”

  “What’s the deal with that Evans guy?” Jamie asked. “What was he doing here so late?”

  “My dad was vague about that. Evans is a weird guy, but he doesn’t seem dangerous or anything. Still, who knows anymore?” Mia pondered the latest turn of events. “I think it’s all about this place. Not the building, the land it’s sitting on.”

  “It’s the land, Scarlett, the land,” Jamie intoned.

  “Huh?” Mia, confused, sat up. “What is that? And why are you talking with a Southern accent?”

  “It’s from the movie Gone with the Wind.”

  “Never saw it.”

  “Scarlett’s dad says i
t to her when she disses the family land. He says it’s the only thing worth fighting and dying for because it’s the only thing that lasts.”

  “Hmmm . . .” Mia thought about this. “Maybe it’s also worth killing for.”

  “Maybe.”

  The two lapsed into a companionable silence. “Remember our sleepovers when we were little?” Mia said after a minute.

  “Are you kidding? They were some of the most fun times of my childhood. My favorites were when we pitched my Cub Scout tent in the backyard and pretended we were camping in the wilderness.”

  “With your mother yelling to us every ten minutes, ‘You okay?’ And your father yelling at her, ‘Leave ’em alone, they’re playing!’”

  “Then he’d order food and have a guy deliver it to us in the tent.” The two laughed at the memory. “And we’d get bored and yell to my mother to bring us my computer. When the battery died, Dad would run an extension cord to the patio outlet, and we’d watch videos until we fell asleep.”

  “Sometimes I miss how easy life was as a kid.”

  “Selective memory.”

  “Uh-oh, here comes your psych degree again.”

  “Seriously. We handpick our memories and archive the ones we don’t want to dwell on. They’re not gone, they’re tucked away.”

  “I know. Like the times your father wasn’t around to order us food because he was off doing business. Or doing time. Like my dad.” They lapsed into silence again, both dwelling on the more painful memories of their childhoods. Jamie yawned. “You yawned,” Mia said. “Go to sleep.”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “Yes, you are. So am I. I’ll go to sleep if you will.”

  “Deal. ’Night, Mia.”

  “’Night, Jamie.”

  Within minutes, the rhythmic sound of Jamie’s breathing indicated he’d fallen asleep. Mia, however, was wide awake. She kept hearing Jamie’s words: “‘It’s the land, Scarlett, the land.’” The more she analyzed the recent dire events, the more it looked like the real estate developer Koller brothers might be the connecting link between Angie’s death and the fiery attack on Belle View. She needed to pay the brothers a visit and see if she could ferret anything useful out of them. Mia feared Belle View might not survive the wrong turns and glacial pace of the police investigation, now complicated by an added arson investigation. She’d call the Koller office in the morning and make an appointment with Bradley and Kevin, using the ruse of pitching the brothers on hosting future events at Belle View.