by Cleo Coyle
Enzo nodded, eyes glistening as my voice trailed off. “I’m afraid he was the last to admire it . . .” He coughed again. “I still want to meet your friend, see his work maybe?”
“You will, I promise.” I touched the man’s hand. His graciousness, despite his condition, was moving—and made me all the more determined to nail the monster who’d put him here, destroying his art in the process.
“Has anyone called your daughter yet?”
Enzo shook his head. “No. I don’t want that. What happened at the shop is enough of a shock without this, too . . .” He touched the IV tube in his arm. “I feel like a slab of veal.”
“Let me call Lucia,” I replied, reaching for my cell. “I can do it right now—”
“No,” Enzo said. “She looked forward to this weekend for a month. I might be out of here by tomorrow; then nobody has to call.”
I wasn’t comfortable with Enzo’s choice, but when I checked my cell phone’s screen, I saw there was no reception in the ICU.
“I hate being in this place,” Enzo said, eyes spearing the IV bag above. “I want to retire, go back to Italy to be with my two sisters . . . visit my Angela’s grave every Sunday . . .”
Retire to Italy? Back at the caffè, Enzo hadn’t once mentioned retirement. But then I considered the timing of his call to Madame, unearthing that photo album and wanting to give the Blend back its old roaster. Was that the reason he’d been cleaning out his basement? Had he been planning on moving back to the old country? If Enzo innocently revealed his plans to the fire marshals, what were they going to think?
I leaned closer. “What about the caffè, signore? Who is going to run your business?”
“Lucia,” Enzo replied. “When I leave this country, I’m signing it all over to my daughter. That was always the plan. Now my daughter’s going to have to rebuild . . . if she wants to.”
“You sound doubtful. Why is that? Don’t you think she’ll have the funds to give it a go?”
“It’s not the money. There’s plenty of insurance coverage on the building—”
(Exactly what I suspected.) “So what’s the problem, then?”
Enzo sighed, stared off into space. “My Angela . . . she was such a beauty . . .”
“Your wife, Angela?”
“We met in the park, in the spring . . .”
Enzo smiled weakly, turned his gaze back to me. “You are like her, Clare . . . like Blanche, too . . . such fire in your spirits yet still so good-natured . . .” He reached out to touch my cheek. “My Angelina came to my loft many times . . . I painted her . . . We made love . . . many times . . . so sweet . . . My best work, those portraits . . . I could not bear to sell them . . .”
Uh-oh, I’m losing him. I tried switching to Italian. “About the caffè, signore . . .”
“Angela indulged her, you understand?” he said in English. “Treated her like a baby doll, dressed her up, took her shopping, wherever she wanted to go . . .”
“Lucia? Your daughter? Is that who you mean?”
“If she wanted to stay home from school, she stayed—no questions. Never had to work. Just lessons—dancing, singing, whatever she desired. And then the boys started coming around.” He shook his head. “When she was young, Lucia had my Angela’s beauty, but not her heart. Her mother could not see it . . . back then, neither could I . . .”
“But now you can?”
“I looked at my daughter through my wife’s eyes. Now that Angela is gone, I see with my own eyes: Lucia is not like her mother . . .”
“You don’t think Lucia will rebuild the caffè?”
“She talks about marrying Glenn.”
The tone was disdainful. “What’s the matter with Glenn? You don’t approve?”
“What’s to approve? Lucia is a grown woman. She can make up her own mind about her life, about this . . . this boy . . .”
“A boy? Not a man?”
“You saw how she treats him?”
I nodded.
“Why do you think he puts up with it? He is still a boy. Lucia says they’re engaged. Eh. She won’t go through with it.”
“Because?”
“Because there is a man from my daughter’s past who still comes sniffing around . . . a real man, a grown one. Lucia has a special smile for this one. Glenn doesn’t know it, but she does. Love is a game to my daughter . . . she is not like her mother . . . to Lucia men are playthings . . .”
“And who is this man? The one from her past who still comes around to play with her?”
Enzo shrugged once more. “You don’t know him . . .” He looked away again, into space.
“Glenn rebuilds cars, right?” I prodded, trying to keep the man focused. “With his skills, maybe he can help Lucia rebuild the caffe.”
“Glenn Duffy is a mechanic, not a carpenter. He has no interest in running a caffè . . .” Enzo paused to cough. “I’ve heard him talk. He wants to open his own car shop in North Jersey, where he has family.”
“It takes money to start your own business,” I said. And I was willing to bet ten kilos of Kona Peaberry that a competent car mechanic would possess enough skill to rig a basic incendiary device with a timer.
“Enzo, where do you think Glenn Duffy is going to get the money to—”
“Excuse me.” The RN appeared again, a tall, slender woman of East Indian heritage. “How are you feeling?” she asked Enzo, her voice a sweet singsong.
Taking in the nurse’s dark, cat-shaped eyes and flawless dusky-skinned face, Enzo immediately perked up. “I died and went to heaven, that’s how I feel. Only this can explain the angel I see before me.”
The nurse laughed. “You’re still here on Earth, I’m glad to say, Mr. Testa.”
“You call me Enzo, okay? No more of that Mr. Testa stuff. Mr. Testa was my father.”
She arched a pretty eyebrow then turned to face me. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wrap up your visit. Mr. Testa has another family member waiting. As soon as you come out, I’ll show his sister in . . .”
“Sister?” Enzo and I blurted out at the same time.
“Yes, Mr. Testa, your sister Mrs. Rita Quadrelli.”
As the nurse turned and strode away, Enzo’s eyes widened in obvious panic. “Clare! A favor, please! I beg you.”
I already guessed.
“The widow Quadrelli is not my sister. She must have fibbed like you to get in here—”
“And you don’t want to see her?”
“When God made that woman, he left out the quiet! Five minutes with her babbling in my ear, and I’ll be pulling these tubes out to get away, even if it means certain death!”
I considered going to the nurse, but that had the potential to turn ugly, especially if Mrs. Quadrelli were confronted. After all, how could I accuse her of not being his sister when I wasn’t his daughter?
“I’d better deal with Mrs. Quadrelli directly,” I said. “What do you want me to tell her?”
“Tell her I’m sleeping. Tell her I’m drugged. Tell her I’m in a coma!”
I touched his shoulder. “I’ll think of something. And I’ll keep checking in with your nurse to see how you’re doing.”
Moments later, I spotted Mrs. Quadrelli just outside the critical-care unit. She was waiting in a small seating area, but the woman wasn’t sitting, she was frantically pacing next to the sliding glass doors. And when she saw me walking away from Enzo’s station, her expression morphed from impatience to outrage.
“What’s this? I was told Enzo was visiting with his daughter. But you’re not Enzo’s daughter!”
Okay, Clare, come up with something—fast.
NINE
ENZO had described Mrs. Quadrelli as a donna pazzesca, which is why I’d mentally cast her as a bug-eyed Phyllis Diller with a wild gray ’fro and a voice like Alvin the singing chipmunk.
Way off.
Impeccably tailored in a sleek black pantsuit, Enzo’s wannabe love interest was a handsome, slender lady in her midsixties. Her dark
hair was cropped short like Lucia’s, dead straight, and shiny as a beetle shell with enough shimmering red highlights to have been recently salon-glossed. A cloying cloud of flowery cologne floated around her. Like Lucia, she sported plenty of gold jewelry, which jangled with every fidget, and although she appeared upset to see me, she was far from what I would have described as a crazy woman.
“Let me introduce myself,” I began, trying to ignore the increasing itch in my nose. Lord, that cologne. She must have just doused herself! “My name is—”
“You’re not Lucia.”
No kidding. “My name is Clare Cosi and—”
“I don’t understand! The nurse told me Enzo was visiting with his daughter!”
“And she told me his sister was waiting to see him. We both know you’re not his sister.”
The woman’s squinting eyes collapsed another millimeter. “Who are you?”
“I told you, my name is Clare—”
“Who are you to Enzo?”
“A friend in the coffee business. I went by his place this evening with my employer to look over an antique roaster. We were all caught in the fire.”
Mrs. Quadrelli fell silent. Her red lipstick was so boldly applied that when she twisted her mouth into a scowl, I flashed on my years taking Joy to the Big Apple Circus.
Finally she said, “You people shouldn’t have been there at all.”
“Excuse me?”
“Enzo closes early on Thursdays to play bocce. Everyone knows that.” She looked away then, as if a poster on flu prevention were in immediate need of study.
“I don’t understand. What does that have to do with—”
She whipped her head back around. “If not for you and your employer, he’d have been in that park with me. It’s your fault Enzo is in this hospital.”
I studied the woman. “What do you know about the fire, anyway?”
“Me? Nothing! Not a thing!” She threw up her hands. “I wasn’t even near Enzo’s caffè. It was Mrs. Mercer who told me about it. Mary saw the whole thing, and she came to the park with her dog, Pinto. Little Pinto is famous in the neighborhood. Do you know about him?”
“No, but if you—”
“He’s the dog who rides around in the red wagon. Pinto was featured in the Daily News last year. He has cerebral palsy or something and can’t walk. Or is Pinto a she? I forget. Anyway, Pinto’s vet is that new fellow on Steinway Street—”
“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, beginning to get a clue why Enzo was willing to choose a coma over this conversation, “but I think we should head downstairs.”
The glass ICU doors slid wide just then, and I noticed Enzo’s pretty nurse glancing curiously our way.
“Enzo can’t see you tonight,” I quietly told Mrs. Q.
“And why would that be? He saw you, didn’t he?”
“The doctors just ordered more tests, so no more visitors, not even family—”
“Tests!” Mrs. Q snorted. “I know all about doctors and their tests! Maria Tobinski, on Thirty-ninth Avenue, she has a husband who’s a conductor on the MTA. Works the F train—anyway, Maria went to her gynecologist for a routine checkup and they found—”
“You know what?” I said, cutting her off before I heard every private detail about poor Maria Tobinski’s medical history. “Let’s you and I go downstairs together—”
I was forming the plan as I said the words. Mrs. Q appeared to know every little happening in Enzo’s neighborhood, and Mike’s stories of his fieldwork hadn’t been lost on me. A source like this one was too good to pass up.
“I need coffee,” I said. “Let me buy you a cup . . .” (I had no idea where I’d get one at this late hour, but this was a hospital; they had to have at least four things: doctors, nurses, stethoscopes, and java juice.)
Mrs. Quadrelli frowned at my offer. “Maybe I should double-check with the nurse.”
“Don’t do that!”
“Why not?”
Why not? “Because, well . . . it’s a secret.” I motioned her closer. “I didn’t want to say anything, but . . .”
“What? What?”
The woman’s entire body came awake. Her head cocked, even her pupils dilated. A gossip addict, for sure.
“The truth is,” I continued, snaking my arm around hers, “it’s not pretty. Are you sure you want to hear?”
“What? Tell me!”
“Enzo is in trouble,” I whispered, guiding her away from the ICU doors, down the hallway, toward the elevators.
“What kind of trouble?”
“Officials are investigating whether or not the fire was deliberately set.” Not a lie!
Mrs. Quadrelli looked sufficiently horrified. “What makes them think that?”
“I don’t know. But Enzo will be their prime suspect.”
“Why!”
“Because he’s the owner, of course, and the beneficiary of the fire insurance payoff. Did you know he was planning to move back to Italy? It sounds incriminating.”
“That’s just talk! His daughter will tell you. He’s been saying that for years, but he never goes through with it!”
We actually made it to the elevators. I pushed the down button. “So you’re saying Enzo had no concrete plans to leave the country?”
“None. Not before the fire, at least. Now things have changed though, haven’t they? I mean, with the caffè up in smoke.”
“I see. So you think he’ll bank the insurance money and finally retire to Italy?”
“I certainly hope so because I intend to go with him.”
I gaped at her. “You plan to move to Italy? With Enzo?” This has to be news to him.
“Don’t look so surprised, Miss Cosi, my husband was born in Italy, so I’ve been there quite a few times already. I just wish it had been more. For years, you see, we ran a restaurant together on Thirtieth Avenue—”
“You’re divorced?”
“Bite your tongue! I’m a widow. The restaurant business killed my husband! Put him into an early grave . . . But that’s behind me now. And the fire can be behind Enzo soon, too.”
She exhaled, gaze turning glassy. “It’s been years since I’ve toured Italy, but it is a beautiful place, and I know I’d love to retire there. Enzo and I could set up a very nice little home near his two sisters.”
“You don’t sound very broken up about the fire.”
“After Enzo gets out of this wretched place and we’re all settled in Italy, he’ll see it’s really a good thing his business went up in flames . . .”
I blinked, recalling the masterpiece of a mural the man had spent half a lifetime creating—not to mention his spotless floor, polished tables, meticulously maintained espresso machine—and wanted to punch this donna pazzesca right in the nose.
“Now, Mrs. Quadrelli,” I managed through gritted teeth, “why would you say such a thing?”
“The man is over seventy! He should retire already, enjoy his life, not spend every waking hour making silly coffee drinks!”
Bing! Bing! I had two words for this woman: “Elevator’s here!” Those weren’t it.
Four endless stories of pointless babble later, we reached the hospital’s ground floor.
“Come with me to the waiting room,” I said, deciding something that very second. “I’ll get us coffee and you can talk to the police officer.”
“Police officer!”
“Shhhh . . .”
“What’s a police officer doing here?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. I went up to warn Enzo that the officials were looking into the fire being suspicious, so he shouldn’t say anything to incriminate himself.”
“Oh! I see!”
“And you can help, too.”
“How?”
“Well, to start with, you can back me up when I tell this officer that Enzo can’t see any more visitors this evening.”
Mrs. Quadrelli’s head bobbed like an eager parrot. Inside of ten minutes, I’d transformed the woman from
suspicious shrew to co-conspirator. Even Mike would be impressed, of that I was certain—what I wasn’t so certain about was his reaction to the way I was about to use him.
TEN
“EXCUSE me, Officer?”
Amused blue eyes peeked over newsprint.
I never called Mike officer. I sometimes addressed him as detective in a teasing way, which was why I wasn’t surprised to see the beginnings of a smile behind the man’s New York Times.
“This is Mrs. Quadrelli,” I quickly added in serious staccato. “I brought her down from the ICU to verify that Enzo is not available for an official interview at this time.”
“That’s right! Ms. Cosi is right!” Mrs. Quadrelli’s beetle-brown head began bobbing again. “Lorenzo is undergoing tests. He can have no visitors. None at all, certainly not you.”
Mike shifted in his yellow plastic waiting room chair, set the newspaper down, and regarded us, his amused expression fading into one of guarded confusion.
Mrs. Quadrelli frowned at Mike’s off-track expression. “You are a police officer, aren’t you?” She turned to me. “Did he ever show you his identification, Miss Cosi? You can’t be too careful these days.”
I met Mike’s eyes. “Officer, let me explain: This woman is a friend of Enzo’s. As I told you earlier, I don’t live in Queens, but Mrs. Quadrelli here might have some ideas about who set that fire because I’m sure it wasn’t Enzo.”
“That’s right,” she said. “Enzo would never set fire to that caffè. He was attached to it. Too attached if you really want to know.”
I cleared my throat. “So, Officer, if you’d like to ask questions about who might have had a motive to burn the place down, Mrs. Quadrelli here might be able to offer you some leads.” Please follow me, Mike. Please!
A nano-flash of annoyance crossed Mike’s rugged features. It was instantly replaced with his still-as-stone cop mask. Slowly, deliberately, he unfolded his endless form to its full height. With his gaze holding mine, he said, “Have a seat, Mrs. Quadrelli. And talk to me . . .”
Oh, Mike, thank you . . .
“Tell me what you think is relevant,” Mike began. “Talk about anything you can think of—”