by Maria DiRico
“I’m just the hired hand,” Mia said. “You and Minnie get all the credit for the party.”
“I’m glad it’s going well. For Nicole’s sake.”
Linda smiled, but with a hint of sadness Mia couldn’t ignore. “We’re already an hour into the shower,” Mia said. “Maybe Tina won’t come.”
“She’ll come,” Linda said. “I want her to. With a baby almost here, there has to be peace in the family.”
Cammie tottered over, wearing a pair of pink heels she’d proudly tell anyone who asked that she bought in nineteen-eighty-six. “Food’s out.”
Mia gave her a thumbs-up. “Thanks.”
They began herding the guests toward the tables. The double doors of the Marina Ballroom suddenly flew open and Tina Iles-Karras strode in. She wore a rayon jumpsuit in fire-engine red, which Mia now pegged as her signature, attention-getting color, and once again her arms were loaded with the coveted rainbow bracelets. “Am I late?” she asked, all innocence. Mia knew this was a rhetorical question. The event’s time frame was crystal clear on the invitation. Tina was a woman who had to make an entrance.
“Your timing is perfect,” Linda said, her tone gracious. “We’re just sitting down to tea.”
“Thank you, Linda.” Tina motioned for Nicole’s mother to precede her. “Oops. I almost said, ‘age before beauty.’” She said this to Mia and Cammie under her breath with a half-grin.
“You did say it,” Cammie pointed out. She motioned for Tina to walk ahead of her and flipped off the woman behind her back. Mia bit the knuckle of her index finger to keep from laughing.
The energy in the room shifted with Tina’s entrance. Tension permeated the air. Minniguccia fixed Tina with a glare so white hot that for a second Mia wondered if the octogenarian Italian possessed some strega-like power to reduce her to ashes. Nicole stood up and came to her stepmother. “Tina, thank you so much for coming.” She kissed her on both cheeks.
“We saved you a spot at the table with the best view,” Linda said to her replacement in Ron’s affections. She led Tina to the table closest to the ballroom’s expansive glass window and farthest away from Minnie’s location. The tension dissipated and happy chatter returned as everyone turned their attention to tea. Guests devoured the finger sandwiches, and no one questioned the pasta puttanesca side dish, to Mia’s relief. Photos of Evans’s adorable cake garnered so many social media postings that Mia thought it had a shot at trending. There was one dicey moment when Mia feared the party might take a dark turn. The waitstaff delivered a three-tiered dish of pastries and cookies to each table. In a break with traditional treats like pecan squares and lemon tarts, all the sweets were Italian-themed, including a top tier of trecolore—three-color cookies—which also went by another name.
“Rainbow cookies!” Delighted, Tina held up a cookie. Then she held up a bracelet-loaded arm. “A tribute to her step-mama—who is me—from the beautiful mother-to-be. Tina—or Tino—would be a good name for a baby, huh?” She held up a hand to a nonplussed tablemate, who gave her a tentative high-five.
“Ucciderò quella puttana di vita bassa,” Minniguic-cia muttered, which Mia translated in her head as a threat to murder the despised Tina.
Minnie made a move to get up, but Linda pulled her back. “Mama, basta. That’s enough. We need to make nice.” Linda waved and forced a smile at her rival, and her mother dialed back her rage to a simmer.
The meal over, Nicole hied herself to the giant stack of presents. Tina waved a large, thin package in the air. “Before you start with those, open this.” She made her way across the room, the skinny heels of her designer sandals making a rhythmic clicking sound as she walked.
“Tina,” Nicole said, embarrassed, “you already gave me a wonderful present.”
“That was from your father and me. This one’s just from me.”
Trapped, Nicole unwrapped the package. Her mouth dropped open. “I-I-I don’t know what to say.”
“What is it?” Justine Cadeau, who was sitting at Mia’s table, called out.
Nicole held up a replica of a check resembling the graphic from a Publishers Clearinghouse giveaway in the amount of ten thousand dollars. The room gasped.
“That amount has been deposited in a savings account for Baby Whitman.” Tina shared this with an attempt at a wide smile. Her upper lip didn’t move.
Botox, Mia thought to herself.
Tina clicked her way back to her table, graciously acknowledging a round of applause for her gift. As she passed Linda, who was sitting next to Mia, she muttered out of the side of her mouth, “Top that.”
Linda waited until Tina was out of earshot, then whispered to Mia, “I’m providing free childcare so Nicole can go back to work after her maternity leave ends.”
Mia choked back a chuckle. “Linda for the win,” she said in a quiet voice. She and Nicole’s mother discreetly low-fived.
* * *
Nicole continued to open presents and a pile of wrappings accumulated as time passed. Mia left the ballroom to retrieve a new trash bag. She was distracted by the sound of women yelling in the ladies’ room. Her concerned ratcheted up when she recognized Minnie’s voice. Cammie came running out of the bathroom, a panicked look on her face. “Mia, thank God. Tina and Minnie are going at it. I’m afraid it’s gonna get physical.”
Mia dropped the trash bag and ran into the bathroom. Nicole’s grandmother and stepmother were in a face-off, screaming at each other. “Call me a puttana one more time and I will sue your shriveled-up old Italian butt!” Tina yelled at Minnie.
“Fine, I’ll call you other names!”
Minnie hurled a stream of Italian profanity at her nemesis, who gasped.
“How dare you,” Tina said, outraged. “I know exactly what you’re saying. You don’t live in Astoria without learning street Italian.”
“And you don’t live here without learning street Greek.”
Minnie shot this back at Tina, then switched to cursing in Greek. Tina responded with a stream of Italian invectives.
“Did they just switch languages?” Cammie asked. “I’m so confused.”
Mia thrust herself between Tina and Minnie’s walker. She held up her hands. “Ladies, please—”
The women ignored her. Justine Cadeau stepped into the room as Minnie and Tina continued their fight. “Bad time to use the bathroom?”
“Ya might wanna use the one upstairs,” Cammie advised.
“I can hold it in,” Justine said, unable to tear herself away from the drama.
Tina poked a finger in Minnie’s chest. “Yell at me all you want. It’ll just put you in the grave faster. Remember that, Minniguccia. I’ll be around long after you’re gone, you old bat.”
“Hey.” Linda burst into the room. She grabbed Tina’s collar, yanked her away from Minnie, and held her at eye level. Everyone froze—including Tina. Linda blazed with fury. Mia, who’d never seen Nicole’s mother lose her temper in any way, found it a frightening sight. “If you ever talk to anyone in my family that way again,” Linda said to her rival through clenched teeth, “I will yank the engine out of that fancy sports car you drive, tie it to your ankles, and drop you in Flushing Bay.” She let go of Tina’s collar and the woman stumbled backward. “This is my daughter’s baby shower. I don’t want her to know about this insanity. The party is gonna end on a high note. You got that? Get out there and pretend to be a human being. Then I never want to see your sorry, skinny face again unless it’s looking up at me from a casket.”
Mia, Cammie, and Justine all sucked in a breath. Tina regained her balance. She glanced in the restroom mirror and patted her black hair in place. “What insanity?” she said, then strode out.
Linda enveloped a weeping Minniguccia in her arms. The room was silent for a moment. “We need to get back to the shower,” Mia finally said. “If we’re gone too long, Nicole will figure out there’s a problem.”
“Si,” Minnie said. “You’re right.”
Linda released
her mother. “You sure you’re okay?”
Minnie nodded. She pulled a tissue from box on the vanity and wiped her eyes. “Andiamo. Let’s go.”
Linda took Minnie’s hand and led her from the restroom. Mia lingered behind. Disturbed by the altercation, she needed to regain control of her own emotions. She inhaled a shaky breath, released it, and then headed back to the baby shower.
Elisabetta spotted her granddaughter as soon as Mia entered the ballroom and pulled her aside. “Something’s wrong. I can see it on your face.”
“Can’t talk now,” Mia said. “I’ll tell you later.”
“You don’t look good.”
“I’m fine. Just a little shaken.”
Elisabetta patted Mia’s stomach. “Eat something. You’ll feel better.” She said this despite the fact everyone at the party had just enjoyed a hearty meal. In the Carinas’ Italian household food was a cure-all for everything from a hangnail to a heart attack.
Nicole continued opening gifts. Mia tried to focus. She oohed and ahhed with the rest of the women, but without commitment. She was concerned that the animosity between the Karras family members had become toxic. It’s not my family, she reminded herself. Still, she couldn’t shake the ugly scene she’d witnessed.
The mom-to-be finally reached the last gift in the pile, a flat, rectangular package wrapped in a black-and-white polka dot patterned wrapping paper and a gauzy, sparkling silver ribbon studded with rhinestones. “Tina, no. Another gift? You have to stop.”
The smug look that generally colored the expression on Tina’s face disappeared. She looked stunned. “I did. That’s not from me.”
Nicole wrinkled her brow. “There’s a card with your name on it.” She unwrapped the present, revealing a painting. A buxom woman sat atop a cow, depicted in a style that Mia, who’d taken an art history class in high school because it was rumored to be an easy A, recognized as cubism. Nicole held up the painting and Tina paled. “It’s lovely,” Nicole said politely. “Although it might be a better fit for our living room than the nursery.”
Justine Cadeau jumped up from her chair. “Let me see that.” She took the painting from Nicole and examined it carefully. “This painting is called Cow and Woman. It’s by the late Spanish artist Ferdinand Vela, and was stolen from the Malcolm Miller Art Collection about twenty years ago in one of the most famous art heists of all time.”
Nicole looked mystified. “Why would someone give me a copy of that painting? And say it was from Tina?”
Justine turned the painting around and checked out the back of it. “This isn’t a copy. It’s the original painting.”
Tina Karras let out a shrill scream. Then she collapsed to the floor.
CHAPTER 4
Mia dropped to the floor to help Tina as the party erupted into a cacophony of confusion. “Nobody leave!” she yelled to the guests while slapping the prostrate woman to revive her. She considered this the best part of her day.
“We’re not going anywhere,” one of the guests responded. “This is like some awesome reality show.”
“I got smelling salts,” Elisabetta said, pulling them out of her ancient handbag. “Because you never know.”
Mia grabbed the smelling salts and waved them under Tina’s nose. Nicole’s stepmother coughed and choked her way back to consciousness. “The painting,” she murmured as Mia helped her to a chair. “Where . . .”
“Justine has it.”
Cammie ran up to Mia. “The police are on their way. Pete said they also asked Manhattan to send over the NYPD art cop.” Detective Pete Dianopolis was Cammie’s ex-husband who lived in the hopes of correcting the mistake he’d made by divorcing her. Cammie figured they’d eventually get back to together but for now she was having too much fun making him work for it.
Mia handed Tina, who was weeping, a napkin. She followed Cammie into the Belle View foyer. “NYPD has an art cop?”
“Yeah. Apparently stealing pricey artwork is a big thing. Even ugly stuff like that.” Cammie used her thumb to gesture toward the painting Justine Cadeau clutched in her arms. “I’m not into modern. I like my cows to look like cows.”
“Why?” Tina moaned. “Whhhyyyy?”
“The police are coming,” Mia said. “Hopefully we’ll find out why soon enough.”
To Mia’s relief, Pete and his young partner, Ryan Hinkle, arrived minutes later, along with several law enforcement officials she didn’t recognize. A man she assumed was the art detective immediately commandeered the painting. He briefly conferred with Pete, then headed out of the building, stopping to hold the door open for a young woman. Mia groaned when she saw who it was.
Teri Fuoco, ace reporter for the Triborough Tribune—at least in her own mind—marched into the building. A headband corralled her mess of dirty blond hair and her lumpy body was clad in its usual uniform of khaki chinos and pastel polo shirt. She looked more like someone who’d hand out towels in a golf course clubhouse than a crack investigative journalist. “What I wouldn’t give to do a makeover on that girl,” Cammie muttered to Mia.
“If by makeover you mean make her disappear, I’m all for it,” Mia responded with asperity. Teri lived to dig up dirt on the Boldano Family. She and Mia had struck a wary truce after Teri helped rescue her from the clutches of thugs, but Mia still didn’t trust the reporter.
“Mia, hi,” Teri said in a tone that made them sound like old friends.
“What do you want?” Mia snapped.
“Word’s out about the Vela painting. Slow news day so when that hit the police scanner, everyone jumped on it.”
Teri motioned for Mia to follow her to the catering hall’s glass double doors, which she did with reluctance. The reporter pointed to news vans from local stations that were pulling up to the entrance. Mia muttered a few choice words, then texted Ravello. He’d left the all-women shower in her hands, but she’d need backup to fend off the media. “Cody,” she said to a part-time staffer dragging off a full trash bin. “Wait on tossing the trash. I need you to man the doors and keep out anyone who isn’t law enforcement.”
Cody, a former Marine, instantly let go of the bin. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, managing to restrain himself from saluting.
“Good thing I’m already inside,” Teri said cheerfully. “I get first dibs on the story.”
Mia unleashed a few more choice words. “I am so not talking to you.”
She headed back to the ballroom, Teri on her heels. “You do know that the Miller Collection art heist was assumed to be the work of the Boldano Family.”
“Yes,” Mia lied. If the heist happened twenty years prior, she would have been eleven at the time, and more worried about an impending set of braces than the crime syndicate’s activities.
“Donny Boldano swore on a bible—literally, he had it videotaped and sent to the media, he was very ahead of the curve on that one—he swore his people had nothing to do with the theft,” Teri said.
“Then I’m sure it’s true. If Donny swears the Family had nothing to do with it, then that’s usually the case.”
Teri looked skeptical. “Considering how many activities the Boldano Family denies doing, I don’t know how it stays in business.”
Mia scanned the ballroom. Pete and Ryan were divvying up the guests for interviews. “As you can see, I’m busy. Feel free to leave.”
“You’re kidding, right? I’m not going anywhere.” Teri noticed an uneaten row of sandwiches. “Ooh. Yummy.”
Teri sat down at the table and fixed herself a plate of leftovers. Pete crooked a finger at Mia. “I’ll take a group to the ballroom upstairs. Hinkle’s gonna do interviews down here. You stay and keep an eye on him. His baby’s got colic so he’s not getting much sleep. Cammie can come with me.” He smoothed down his thick thatch of salt-and-pepper hair. “I look okay?”
Mia, who knew Pete considered every male, including her father, a rival in his affections for Cammie, was determined to stay on the detective’s good side. “You look great.”
<
br /> “Thanks.” He stroked his chin. “Interesting case for Steve Stianopolis.” Pete, a mystery buff, wrote a self-published series under this pseudonym. It had yet to find the mass audience he assumed it would, instead selling in the ones of copies.
Pete marshaled his group of guests to interview and headed upstairs to the Bay Ballroom. Mia’s head pounded. The party had gone south in a big, unforeseen way. But, she comforted herself, at least it doesn’t involve dead bodies, like what happened in the spring.
She approached Ryan Hinkle who was deep in conversation with Nicole. Mia could see that her pregnant friend was fighting to keep it together. “You want the combination bouncer-walker,” Hinkle advised. “Don’t let anyone talk you into buying them separately. Oh, hey, Mia.”
Mia placed her hands on her friend’s shoulders. “It’s been a long day for Nicole. I’m thinking maybe you could finish up with her and talk to her stepmother Tina. She had a big reaction to the painting. Like”—Mia bent her arm at the elbow and bent it forward to mime falling over—“dead faint big.”
“I’m all done with Nicole.” Hinkle took out a card and handed it to her. “You got any questions about baby stuff, gimme a call. Believe me, by now I’m an expert.”
Nicole took the card. “I will. I appreciate that.” She hugged Mia and mouthed, “and thank you.”
Mia led the junior detective to where Tina had stretched herself out on four chairs shoved together. “Tina, if you’re feeling better, Detective Hinkle has some questions for you.”
Tina bolted up. “It’s them.” She dramatically pointed a finger at Minniguccia and Linda, who were huddled together at a table across the room. “They both hate me. They must’ve found that painting somewhere and used it to get me in trouble.”
“How so?” Hinkle asked.
“By making it look like I stole it. Wrapping it up, putting a card with my name on it. It’s a setup.”