“Yes. Unfortunately.”
“I heard that the medical examiner’s report indicated a heart attack. True?”
“Yes, well, a preliminary report. It was cardiac arrest. But I don’t have any knowledge of Antonio’s heart condition. I mean, what caused his heart to stop.”
“I see. So you’re spending the afternoon down here?”
“I’m a born and bred shore girl. It took Hurricane Sandy to drive me up north,” I said ruefully. “I miss it.”
“I would, too,” she said.
I needed to get to the point. “Brianna, I’m wondering about a few things having to do with Antonio.”
“Oh?”
I didn’t know how much I could trust her, but I had little choice. She was the only link available to Antonio’s past. “I happened to be checking Antonio’s history. Research for the theater,” I added when she frowned. “I found some East Coast reviews from 1998 to 2000 and then nothing until 2013. But I was curious about his career before 1998. And between 2000 and 2013. I couldn’t find any mention of him on the Internet for those years.” I smiled in what I hoped was an open, sociable manner.
“Why not just check his résumé? I’m sure the theater received one when they hired him.”
Why hadn’t I thought of that? “Good idea. I was just curious.”
“In the nineties he was in Los Angeles doing a variety of things. As all young directors do on their way up. As I said, we were separated by the late nineties. I haven’t seen him much in recent years.”
This line of questioning felt like a dead end and I had the feeling I was overstaying my welcome. I stood up and hitched my bag over my shoulder. “By the way, did you notice a young woman at the funeral in jeans and a green jacket? She was the last one to place her flower on Antonio’s casket.”
Brianna studied me. “Are you looking into Antonio’s death?”
“No. I was just struck by the woman’s . . . demeanor. She was less than mournful, you might say.”
Brianna shook her head. “I didn’t see anyone by that description.” She crossed her arms. “If the authorities are investigating what happened to Antonio, I would like to know,” she said firmly.
“Of course.” I backed up to the door, pivoted, and brushed against a showy evergreen plant with gorgeous pink flowers.
Brianna stepped to my side and pushed the pot into a corner. “White oleander. Mostly grows in California and out West. I have a customer who loves them.” She smiled and opened the front door.
I dropped into the café two doors down from the flower shop for a bite of dinner before I got on the road. Tomato soup that could not touch Henry’s and a grilled cheese that was too brown on one side and too mushy on the other. I contemplated my disappointing conversation with Brianna. Nothing new, except for the fact that she handled poisonous plants. Surprisingly, she neglected to mention how dangerous white oleander bushes could be. Several years ago I visited my younger brother Andy in San Diego. One day I reached out to pick a flower from a striking bush in his neighbor’s yard. Andy slapped my hand and pulled me away. Stay away from the oleander. Every bit of it is poisonous, he’d said.
* * *
The sun was setting as I scanned the side streets for a gas station with reasonable prices. On the outskirts of town I found one, requested a fill-up, and rapped the steering wheel as a young man pumped my gas. He made me think of Pauli and the pictures he had taken for the website, which I had yet to see. Hmm . . . Pauli! I’d bet he could find something on Antonio’s past.
I forked over thirty dollars and drove off. Being Sunday evening, traffic was light on the access road leading to the Garden State Parkway. I was a mile or so from my entrance when the car behind me seemed to speed up, then jam on its brakes. I supposed it wanted to go around me, so I slowed down to let the driver pass. The car dropped back and I focused on the road ahead, keeping one eye out for the parkway entrance. Again, the car zoomed up, nearly rear-ending me, its bright lights blinding in my rearview mirror. I couldn’t see the make or model and definitely could not see anyone in the front seat. I needed to get away from this jerk, so I hit the gas. The automobile kept pace. My speedometer needle touched sixty, way too fast for a two-lane road, even in this sparsely populated area.
I kept my foot on the accelerator, praying for the sudden appearance of a flashing red light, the entrance to the parkway, or an open, well-lit store. In that order. My hands were clammy on the steering wheel; I felt a lump of anxiety sitting squarely in my chest.
I could see a road sign up ahead signaling the entrance to the GSP. I glanced in the rearview mirror again. The car had crept forward until its front bumper was practically touching my Metro. Then it grazed my car. My heart jumped into my throat and I floored the gas pedal, determined to reach the parkway before my pursuer could bump me again.
I raced onto the highway as the car dashed past me; I moved into the middle lane where the stream of traffic was thickest and where I felt safest. My hands were shaking, but I was okay. My Metro and I headed home, never straying beyond the speed limit. I checked all of the locks on my doors and windows and lay down on the bed. Was I being followed?
* * *
I was still a little disturbed from yesterday’s encounter with the menacing car, but my Metro had only a minor scratch on the rear bumper. Of course, it had had a previous run-in with a fireplug on a warm summer night about five years ago when I’d lent it to my then-boyfriend Jackson. But that’s another story . . .
I had a full agenda Monday: first a trip to Snippets—before the Windjammer opened—to talk to Imogen and get information on her neighbor’s cousin; then a visit to the Etonville Police Department during my break; and finally, a meeting with Pauli after school.
I had just enough time to grab a caramel macchiato from Coffee Heaven before Snippets opened for business. I sat at the counter and Jocelyn brought me my regular.
She leaned into me confidentially. “I hear things are tough for the Windjammer these days. Too bad. This town can be so stubborn.”
“Hey, why don’t you come by for dinner? Henry’s making caramel chicken. Really great. With a vinegar soy sauce to cut the sweetness—”
“Sorry, hon. I have plans tonight. Maybe next week.”
I felt like I’d been dumped by a date as I watched Jocelyn make the rounds with her coffeepot, which made me think of Bill, which made me think of Antonio, which made me think of Snippets. I paid and got up.
* * *
The salon, having just opened its doors, was quiet. “Hey, Carol. Like a morgue in here,” I said.
“The best part of the day for me.” Carol cackled and took messages off the voicemail while she checked the day’s schedule.
“When is Imogen due in?”
“Any minute. Why?”
“I’d like to ask about her neighbor’s cousin who—”
“—works for the doctor? You think she might know something about Antonio? Because you know, nobody in Snippets thinks it was just a heart attack.”
I knew. “They all still think it was something from the food festival, right?”
Carol nodded. “Well, yes. All except the Banger sisters.”
I held my breath. “What do they think?”
“Anxiety over the show.”
“If everyone who had anxiety over this show died, we’d be holding funerals every day,” I said.
The chimes over the front door tinkled. It was Imogen, fully studded, one side of her head shaved, the other side sporting hair over her ear.
“New do,” I murmured to Carol.
“Every week. This one’s the most extreme,” she whispered back. “Hi, Imogen.”
Imogen dropped her bag on a seat in the waiting-area alcove. “I’m bushed.”
“Already? It’s not even nine and you haven’t started working yet,” Carol said.
“Big night last night.” Imogen plopped into a chair in a cutting station.
“Imogen, you remember Dodie O’Dell? F
rom the Windjammer?” Carol nodded to me and returned her attention to phone messages.
“Hi. I wanted to ask you a question,” I said.
She squinted at me. “I washed your hair last week.”
“Right. I’d like—”
“You know, everybody’s wrong about that director.”
Imogen caught me off guard. “They are?”
“I mean, like, I saw him drinking out of his own cup when he walked up to the bar that day. Maybe he was out bar-hopping before he showed up,” she said and tossed her head, flipping her hair out of her eyes. “I mean, like, sure I think he probably died from something he ate or drank but, like I said, he had his own cup.” She smiled proudly as if she’d solved the entire mystery.
“Come to think of it, I saw him with a cup in his hand, too, before Benny poured his wine from the bar.” I felt a bolt of excitement run up my spine.
“Uh-huh.” Imogen stuffed a piece of gum in her mouth as the front door tinkled again. The first customer of the day.
“I understand your neighbor’s cousin works at a doctor’s office in Bernridge and she saw Antonio a few days before he died?” Bernridge was another, mostly working-class, community next door. Smaller than Creston but larger than Etonville.
“Sure.” Imogen stood and walked to the back of the salon.
I followed her. “Did she say why he was there?”
“My neighbor?”
“The cousin,” I said.
“Nuh-uh. Just that he came in to see the doctor.” Imogen slipped into an apron.
“Do you know the name?” I asked calmly, trying to control my enthusiasm.
“The cousin? Tess.”
“The doctor,” I said patiently.
She thought for a moment. “Something Chinese. Sounded like ‘shoe.’”
I considered. I didn’t want to set off any gossip alarms around town so I decided to play it cool and resist asking any further questions. I’d find the doctor on my own. “Thanks.”
Carol signaled to Imogen to shampoo a customer. I waved good-bye.
* * *
I unlocked the front door of the Windjammer, turned on some lights, put on the coffee. I had half an hour before Henry and Honey would show, and I agreed with Carol—having a moment to myself at the top of the day to focus my mind was a treat. A pounding on the back door interrupted my reverie. I grabbed my clipboard, admitted the delivery guy, and began to check off items: squash for Henry’s soup today; zucchini for tonight’s special; onions, tomatoes, and corn for a handful of other dishes. I searched through the crates.
“Where’s the tilapia? And we’re thirty pounds short on the beef tenderloins. Again,” I said.
The kid pushed his Yankees cap farther back on his head. “Look, I only deliver. I don’t decide what goes in the delivery.”
I scrawled my name on the packing slip. “Tell your boss to expect a call,” I said sternly.
The driver assumed a “yada yada yada” expression and left.
Now I had to face Henry and redo the day’s menu. He hated change under the best of circumstances; since the food festival he was more inflexible than usual and cooking on autopilot. Without the customers raving over his specials, what was the point of racking his brain to create tantalizing dishes? I couldn’t listen to another rant about La Famiglia. I’ll bet they were swamped with customers.
I was midway through sorting the onions and potatoes into vegetable bins in the pantry when Henry and Honey strolled into the restaurant. “Hey, you two,” I said.
Henry grunted, Honey flipped her sunglasses off and perched them atop her head. “Dot, I can’t work late tonight. I have a date.”
Poor guy. “That’s nice. Carmen and I can cover.”
Honey eyed me suspiciously. I ignored her. “Henry, we’re all set with the zucchini pasta for dinner.”
He put on an apron, poured himself a cup of coffee, and listlessly headed for the refrigerator. “Whatever.”
A week ago he was keen to introduce a lower carb, gluten-free vegetable dish: zucchini noodles topped with fresh basil pesto. Etonville was ready for a counterpoint to the heavier meat-and-potatoes meals that we served. Henry agreed and we put it on the menu. But now...
He was rummaging around in the seafood. “Dodie? Where’s the—”
“Tilapia. Delivery mistake. We’ll need to substitute.” Panko-crusted tilapia was now officially off the menu for tonight.
The refrigerator door slammed. Henry trudged past me out the back door to the herb garden. He must really be frustrated. No threats to shut down the Windjammer, his default position whenever he was overwhelmed.
Lunch was as slow as it had been all week. Only the Etonville Police Department was as loyal as ever. “Make that two squash soups, a spinach salad, and one tuna on rye,” said Edna.
I wrote the order up and sent it back to the kitchen via Honey, who had been filing her nails and talking on her cell simultaneously. “So, the chief’s into squash soup,” I said, making change from Edna’s twenty and a five.
“Nope. It’s for me and Suki. Ralph’s on his own.”
“And the chief?” I asked.
“Gone. Probably on a 211 in Creston.”
“Let me guess. That’s a robbery, right?” I said.
“Bingo,” she said. “Confidentially, I think they’re closing in on the thieves.”
“Yeah?” Good news for me. If Creston was off Bill’s radar, not to mention the mysterious brunette, maybe Antonio—and I—could get back on. “I guess that means there’s been a break in the case.”
“You didn’t hear it from me,” Edna said and stuffed change into her wallet.
“10-4.”
12
My heart sank a little as I approached the Municipal Building.
The “Reserved for Police Chief” parking spot was empty. They can’t catch that cat burglar too soon for my taste. I resolutely opened the front door, coming face-to-face with Suki Shung.
“Oh, Officer Shung.”
“Suki,” she said, with a mix of serenity and solemnity, no doubt the side effect of her being a Buddhist cop. “Are you looking for the chief?”
“I was.” I hesitated.
She slanted her head, her blunt-cut black hair swinging to the right side of her face. “Can I help?”
“Are you on your way out?”
“I have time.” She turned without another word, leading me past the dispatch window.
“Great soup today,” Edna said as Suki and I disappeared around a corner.
In the outer office, Suki took a seat behind her keyboard and monitors and placed a chair opposite. I sat down.
“I’m not sure where to begin. I did speak with the chief, but he didn’t think there was anything to follow up on. But now I’m sitting here with information that someone should have.” I waited.
“Go on,” she said as if I hadn’t just rattled on without saying much of anything. I guessed that was the Zen in her.
“It’s about—”
“Antonio Digenza,” she finished for me.
“How did you know?”
She smiled mystically. “The chief mentioned that you had concerns.”
“Oh. So I guess he told you about—”
“Antonio’s disappearances.”
“And his—”
“Ex-wife’s claims that he had some unhealthy habits, while he told Lola Tripper that he had the heart of a twenty-something.”
I slumped in my seat. Suki more or less took the starch out of my opening salvo. “Well, there’s more. At Antonio’s funeral there was a woman who looked as if she was happy about his death and I took down her license plate number. I gave it to the chief.”
Suki nodded and continued to gaze at me.
“And last night I was coming home from Rumson . . .”
She waited while I paused.
“Visiting a friend.” Brianna’s name stuck in my throat for some reason. “A car followed me onto the parkway. It actually bum
ped my bumper.”
“It was tailgating?”
“Yes. Well, no. It wasn’t just driving too closely to me. I think the car was stalking me.”
Her face was still a blank. “And you think it had something to do with Antonio’s death?”
My information sounded flimsy at best.
I produced the note encouraging me to leave Antonio alone, in its plastic baggie. “I found it on my windshield Friday night.”
Suki took the note and studied both sides. “Friday?” she asked. Her expression shifted from “om” to OMG.
“I had planned to show the note to Bi—Chief Thompson at the football game Saturday, but the rain came, the kids needed chaperoning, and Enrico and I had to clean up the picnic.” I couldn’t admit that I wanted to deliver it in person and prod Bill into action. “It might be a prank.”
“We can have it analyzed. I’ll make certain the chief sees it.” Suki’s eyes drifted to a clock on the wall.
There didn’t seem to be any point in mentioning Antonio visiting a doctor or a strange man dropping by the theater to see where he worked. All of my evidence was circumstantial. “Thanks for your time.”
“I’ll tell the chief you came by.”
* * *
I trekked back to the Windjammer, glad for the fifteen-minute walk to clear my head in the brisk air. I tugged my jacket collar up around my ears. Since my conversation with Suki had been so efficient—or futile, depending on one’s point of view—I had a half hour of break time before Pauli arrived to work on the restaurant website. Lola might be at the theater now; it seemed as though she was there twenty-four/seven these days.
The lobby of the ELT was empty but for a stack of plywood and two-by-fours that stretched from the box office to the entrance of the theater making it difficult to navigate. I knocked on the office door. “Lola?”
I peeked in. Two desks faced each other, one piled with props and costume pieces, the other, no doubt Lola’s, neatly covered with stacks of posters and programs. I picked up a program. Antonio received the directing credit on the cover, but the inside page recognized the assistance of Carlyle and Walter. I skimmed the cast list, crew, acknowledgments—including the Windjammer, bless Lola—and turned to the back page of bios. Antonio’s head shot was the same one that had appeared in the Etonville Standard. He was young and gorgeous. I supposed this was how he’d looked when he married Brianna. I read his bio, short and to the point. It listed plays that he had directed off-off-Broadway, and a handful of regional productions at small professional theaters in upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. But nothing in Los Angeles or New Jersey, until now.
Time Out Page 10