by Maria DiRico
“Absolutely. Do I see sfogliatelle? Yum.”
Mia took one of the empty metal chairs that comprised the circle of mourners. She handed her La Guli breakfast sweets to Vivien, who took a custard-filled pastry and then passed the selection on to Betty. “Gerald, you were saying?” Vivien prompted after taking a big bite of her treat.
“Yes, um . . . I looked into cloning Willie, but it’s over a hundred thousand dollars. And they can’t guarantee they’ll create a pup with the same personality as your fur baby. That’s what made Willie so special. He was all personality.”
Gerald’s lower lip began to quiver, and Mia felt her own tears start up. She took a tissue from a box being passed around. She made a mental note to provide more tissues. One box wasn’t going to cut it for these meetings.
“Some people decide they can never replace a beloved pet, and that’s a perfectly respectable choice,” Vivien said. “But a lot of us in this group have lost before and adopted again. It doesn’t make the loss any easier, but there’s comfort in a new addition to the family, and in knowing you’re providing a sweet creature with a loving home.”
Gerald nodded and wiped his eyes. “I think that will be me. I need time to get there.”
“Take as much as you need. Mia, do you want to share anything today?”
Mia sniffed and nodded. “I had a real disappointment this week. A phone call from some scam artist claiming to have Pizzazz. This loser wanted the reward money.” As she recalled the incident, she became more indignant. “Who does that? Who lies to someone about their beloved pet? What was he gonna do, go out and buy another poor little bird and try to pass him off as my Pizzazz? Like I wouldn’t know my own wingbaby. Is that a thing? A wingbaby ’cuz it’s a bird and doesn’t have fur? Is featherbaby better? Maybe. Wingbaby kind of sounds like wingman, which is a little ooky when you think of a bird. Where was I? The scam artist, right. I’m sure this a-hole recognized me from when I was a suspect in my husband’s disappearance or he saw my name and thought, ‘Hey, her father’s in the mob; she’s good for some cash.’”
The group members exchanged nervous glances. A few paled. “M-m-m-mob?” Gerald stammered.
“Disappearance?” Betty said with a look of shock and a little fear.
Vivien put a hand to her forehead, knocking her glasses askew. “I knew that Belle View had new owners, but I had no idea—”
“Please, don’t worry,” Mia rushed to assure the group. “This is a totally legit business. Yes, technically it’s owned by the Boldano Family—”
“The Boldano Family?” Vivien repeated, her voice squeaky.
“We might wanna relocate,” Betty said to the others.
“No!” Mia cried out. “My father would be so upset.”
“For the love of God, don’t upset her father!” Gerald yelled this.
“I was going to tell you I adopted a new kitty, so I don’t need the group anymore, but now I’m not going anywhere,” said the young woman Mia remembered from the first meeting. “No way am I upsetting your father.”
Ravello suddenly stuck his head into the room. “Ciao, all.” Startled, several of the support group members shrieked. “Mi dispiace, didn’t mean to startle you. I was looking for my daughter.”
“Right here, Dad.” Mia rose.
“I need to talk to you a minute.” Ravello addressed the group. “We haven’t met yet, but I want you to know that our home here at Belle View is your home for as long as you need it, rent-free. Please consider yourself part of the family.”
“Is that family with a capital F?” Mia heard Gerald whisper to Betty, who elbowed him in the ribs to be quiet.
Mia left the room with her father. They went into his office and he shut the door behind her. “I got some news from the Cammie-Pete hotline,” Ravello said. “The cops released Giorgio last night. They didn’t have enough to hold him on the murder charge.”
“I knew it. Not to toot my own horn, which of course means I’m gonna toot my own horn, but the cops around here could learn a thing or two from me.” Mia paused. “But . . . does this mean Pete’ll be breathing down your neck again?”
“Until someone—anyone—else is made for the murder.”
This was it. Mia’s chance to put the hardest question of her life to her father. Rather than dance around it, she’d resolved to come at him point-blank. Mia knew her father. She’d be able to tell from his spontaneous reaction whether he was telling the truth. “Dad, did you kill Angie?”
Her father’s mouth dropped open. “What?” he said, his face colored with disbelief. “You think I could be a murderer?”
Mia threw her hands in the air. “Yes, no, maybe. Given how little you ever told me about what you actually do, I think that’s a fair question.”
“I . . . I . . .” Ravello paused. He stared at the ground for a moment. Then he looked up at his daughter. “You’re right. It’s a fair question and you deserve an honest answer. No. No, I did not kill Angie.”
His eyes begged Mia to believe him. And she did. This time. “Okay,” she said in a quiet voice. Then she balled up her fists. “Argh. This whole thing is crazy-making.”
“Agreed,” Ravello said. “But we can only do what we can do. I wish we had a booking this weekend. Anything you can do to keep yourself busy?”
“Yes, and I need to talk to Guadalupe and Evans about it. I finagled my way into being the event planner for Kevin Koller’s girlfriend’s birthday party. It’ll give me a chance to do a little spying on Koller-land. I told them Belle View caters off-site. Do we?”
“We do now.”
“Good. I’ll tell Guadalupe.”
“She’ll be happy to be doing something. She starts thinking about re-joining the military when she’s just sitting around.”
“I’ll talk to her, then make some hires for the waitstaff.”
“Make sure Giorgio’s on the list.”
Mia stared at her father in disbelief. “That’s a joke, right? Like I’m gonna hire the guy who set you up for murder.”
“That’s exactly what you’re gonna do,” Ravello said, a crafty look on his face.
It dawned on Mia that her father wasn’t being an altruist. His wiseguy radar was sending out an alert. “You think there’s more to what’s going on with Giorgio than the police have figured out.”
“Oh yeah. There’s something off about the guy. According to Cammie, even Pete thinks so. We’ll put Giorgio on staff at the Koller party, and I’ll keep an eye on him. See if I can pick up anything hinky. It’s like that saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. The closer Giorgio is to us, the more of a chance we have to find out what he’s up to.”
“What if he says no? You took his uncle’s business. He hates us.”
“He’s also broke,” Ravello said. “I had Carlo, Carmine Bellini’s son, do a little digging. He’s a computer whiz. Great kid. Got a scholarship to Fordham, a good Jesuit school. He’ll go straight, but like a lot of these computer kids, he likes the occasional hacking challenge.”
“Then we’ve got a plan,” Mia said. “I’ll call Giorgio, make him an—offer him a figure he can’t turn down.”
“I was afraid you were gonna say, ‘make him an offer he can’t refuse.’”
“I almost did, God help me,” Mia admitted. “I’ve been hearing it so much on the tours for potential customers, it got stuck in my brain. I’ll call him right now.”
“Eccellente. And cara mia . . .” Ravello took Mia’s hands in his own. “Thank you. For believing me. And understanding that there are things I’ll never tell you. Ti amo.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
Ravello released her hands, and Mia took out her cell. She searched her contacts, found Giorgio’s number, and tapped it in. “No answer. I’ll leave a message.” She spoke into the phone. “Hi, Giorgio, it’s Mia Carina. Glad to hear NYPD couldn’t hold you. I have a party coming up, a good one, with the Koller brothers. I’d like to hire you to work it. Give me a call
.”
Mia ended the call. “Argh, I forgot to tell him when it is.”
She redialed the call. Evans appeared at the door. “Hey. Have any of our guests called to say they’re missing their phone?”
“No,” Mia said. “Why?”
“I was throwing away a bag of garbage and heard ringing coming from the dumpster. I thought maybe someone’s phone got tossed accidentally.”
Ravello and Mia looked at each other. Their eyes widened as they had the same thought. Mia took off down the hall, with Ravello and Evans right behind her. She ran through Belle View until she reached the building’s back door. She threw it open and rushed to the facility’s dumpster, which was often used by residents of the marina who ignored the PRIVATE PROPERTY warnings plastered all over it. Mia used a corner of the dumpster to heft herself up to the edge of it, and began hurling out trash bags, heaving them to the ground.
Evans watched, confused. “What’s she doing?”
“Don’t ask; help her,” Ravello ordered.
Evans shrugged, but joined Mia in tossing garbage out of the dumpster. “Call Giorgio’s number from my phone,” she yelled to her father.
Ravello did so. A loud ring emanated from the bottom of the dumpster. Evans tossed a bag onto the pavement and gasped. “Whaaaa . . .”
A very dead Giorgio Bouras lay at the bottom of the dumpster. Mia stopped pulling bags out of it.
“Now call the police,” she said to her father.
Chapter Sixteen
Once again, Belle View Banquet Manor was a crime scene. The parking lot quickly filled with police vehicles, their blue and red lights blinking on and off. Uniformed officers cordoned off the dumpster area with yellow crime scene tape. Crime scene technicians examined every inch of the surrounding area. A coroner’s van idled nearby, waiting to retrieve the body.
Mia broke it to the pet bereavement group that there was an “incident,” and the police had requested they stick around for questioning. They watched the action in stunned silence. “At least I’m not crying over Willy anymore today,” Gerald said. His fellow grievers nodded in agreement.
“The police won’t keep you long,” Mia said by rote. How many times had she uttered the same phrase to guests when Angie was found dead? She was starting to wonder if her father would be better off running numbers and illegal poker games. At this point, they seemed less dangerous. She noticed the young woman who’d adopted a kitten was missing. “Where’s Casey?” she asked Vivien.
Vivien held a finger to her lips. “She beat it. She has three hundred dollars in outstanding parking tickets.”
Cammie came from around the side of the building, sporting a fresh cut and color and carrying shopping bags. “The cab had to drop me a block away. These heels are for showing, not walking.” She saw the law enforcement activity. “Now what?”
“There was a body in the dumpster,” Betty said, trying unsuccessfully not to be excited by the extraordinary event. “Mia found it.”
Cammie looked at her askance. “And you are?”
“Betty. My Malti-poos Jackson Maine and Ally died within a week of each other.”
“You have my sympathy.” Cammie turned to Mia. She gestured toward the dumpster with her head. “Anyone we know?”
“Giorgio.”
Cammie’s mouth dropped open. “Noooooo.”
“Yeeeesssss.”
“Why?”
Mia, feeling as close to a breakdown as she’d ever felt in her life, mimed pulling out her hair. “If we knew that, this whole stupid business would be over.”
Pete Dianopolis saw Cammie and excused himself from the investigation. He walked over to them. “Hi, Cammie, I see you’ve been giving my credit cards a workout.”
“Nothing like the workout you gave your ‘personal trainer. ’”
“I’ve told you a million times, that’s over. Can’t a guy have a midlife crisis without getting beat over the head by it?”
Cammie ignored his whining. “What’s the deal here?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
She reached into a shopping bag, pulled out black lace thong panties, and held them up. “They were having a two-for-one sale on these lace thongs at Bellissima Lingerie. I’ve never worn a thong before. I can’t wait to see what I look like in them.”
“Guy hasn’t been dead that long, body’s still warm,” Pete blurted. “Strangled. Wallet’s gone, so either a robbery or faked robbery. My money’s on the latter. Too many coincidences with recent events at Belle View.”
“That’s better.” Cammie put away the underwear. “Now, interview the support group members so they can go back to mourning their pets in peace.”
Cammie and Mia walked off toward Belle View offices. “Check and see if he’s watching me walk away,” Cammie said sotto voce to Mia.
Mia sneaked a peek over her shoulder. “Yup.”
“Good,” Cammie said with a satisfied smile. When it came to Pete, Mia had no idea if her co-worker simply enjoyed torturing her ex or was playing a long game to let him back into her life. Either way, it was currently working for the Carinas.
Once inside the building, Cammie split off for her own office while Mia continued to Ravello’s. She found her father behind his desk, head dropped down, face in his hands. “Dad?”
Ravello lifted his head. He looked exhausted. “I asked Evans and Guadalupe to come here for a quick meeting. Can you let Cammie know?”
“Sure.” Mia stuck her head into the hallway and yelled, “Cammie, meeting!”
“Coming!” Cammie yelled back.
Evans and Guadalupe came from the kitchen, Cammie from her office. The small staff crowded around Ravello’s desk. “First, I want to thank you all for being so patient with the recent events at Belle View,” he began. “It hasn’t been easy for any of us, but I’m especially sorry to see such wonderful employees suffer any inconvenience or trauma. Which leads me to this. I would understand if any of you wants to quit. You’ll leave here with two weeks’ severance pay and a glowing recommendation. I’d miss you, that’s for sure. But I wanted to give the option. Mia, anything you want to add?”
Mia addressed the group, her tone somber. “Just that you said ‘I,’ not ‘we.’ We would both be very sad to see you go, but a hundred percent supportive if that’s your choice.”
Guadalupe was the first to respond. “If a couple of years in Iraq didn’t break me, you think I’m gonna let some low-life, small-time killer take me out? No way. If you want me to go, you’ll have to fire me.”
“Same here,” Cammie declared, quickly adding, “but please don’t. I’ll never be able to get such a cushy sitch anywhere else.”
“Thank you both.” Ravello turned to Evans. “Where do you stand?”
Mia couldn’t read the expression on Evans’s face. “I’m here,” he said, without the conviction of the others. Not for the first time, Mia wondered about him. Was he intentionally a cipher as personality choice? Or might he be hiding something?
“I’m relieved to hear you’re all sticking with us, but if you change your minds, that won’t be a problem.” Ravello managed a smile. “Grazie. Let’s all get back to work and stay out of the police’s way unless they have questions for us, which they probably will.”
Guadalupe, Cammie, and Evans departed, leaving Ravello and Mia alone. A thought occurred to her. “I was wondering, did the original employee applications come with this place when it was turned over to you?” she asked her father.
“I don’t know. I never looked. If they did, they’d be in that file cabinet.” Ravello pointed to a gray metal four-drawer cabinet. “Why?”
“I wondered about Evans’s background. I get a weird vibe from him.”
Ravello considered this. “I met with Guadalupe and Evans separately when I first got the place, to make sure we could all work together. Guadalupe only said great things about Evans. He’s an oddball, that’s for sure, but I wrote it off to one of those spectrum-y things everyone�
�s always talking about these days.”
“Could be that,” Mia acknowledged. “Still, I wouldn’t mind double-checking his background.”
Ravello gestured to the file cabinet. “Have at it.” He checked his watch. “It’s noon. I’m gonna be late to Roberto’s. If the police want to talk to me, they know where to find me.” He kissed his daughter on the top of her head as he passed her on the way out of the office.
Mia struggled to pull open the top drawer of the file cabinet, which was rusty and rickety. She stood on tiptoes to thumb through the folders, which were filed in no particular order. “Andre Bouras was a lousy gambler and businessman,” she grumbled as she blew dust and wiped cobwebs off files in the second drawer. Mia found what she was looking for in the middle of the bottom drawer: a fat file marked EMPLOYEE APPLICATIONS.
She extracted the file and retreated to her office, closing and locking the door behind her in case anyone in the casual work environment of Belle View chose to enter without knocking. Mia paged through years of applications that had been haphazardly shoved into the folder. She was about to give up when she landed on the application for Evans Tucker. Mia carefully perused the document. The sous chef’s contact information showed a home address on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. She Google-Earthed the building number and wrinkled her brow. It was hard to imagine the Evans she knew living in such a pricey town house. Under “Previous Employment,” he’d listed two restaurants near the address he’d listed for his home. Mia put a call into the first one, a place called Colette’s Brasserie. The familiar tone of a non-working telephone number came up, followed by the message, “The number you have reached is no longer in service.” She called the second restaurant, a place in Brooklyn with the pseudo-hipster name of The Diner, and got the same response.
Mia leaned back in her chair. The restaurant business was notoriously brutal. There was every possibility both restaurants had gone out of business, leading Evans to a less interesting but steadier gig at a catering hall. There was also the possibility he’d purposely listed restaurants where his employment would be difficult to verify without tracking down owners or employees of the closed businesses. Stymied, Mia closed her search engine and left to make herself useful.