Italian Iced

by Kylie Logan

  “A photo. That’s right.” I was grateful he’d risen to the bait, but I didn’t dare show it, especially when he leaned a little nearer and I hoped for more information.

  “She told you about it, right?” The reporter chuckled. “That Dolly, she looks about as harmless as one of them . . . You know . . .”

  “Puppies.” His friend supplied the word.

  “Yeah, yeah. As harmless as a cute little baby golden retriever. But she’s got some tricks up her sleeve, eh? Must be something to work with a woman like that.”

  “Oh, it’s something, all right,” I assured him, though at that point, if I was working with Dolly—or if she’d just made the cut and been officially taken off our employee list—was something of a question.

  One I wasn’t going to consider right then and there.

  Instead, I took a step toward the kitchen. “I can check and see if she left something in the back for you. A photograph, right? It might help if I knew what it was a photograph of.”

  “What else? Meghan Cohan!”

  Silently, I prayed Dolly hadn’t somehow gotten near enough to take a picture of the body before it was removed from our freezer. I told myself it wasn’t possible. I told myself not to worry.

  Tell that to the spurt of sourness in my stomach.

  I swallowed it down. “You mean the photograph of Meghan’s car?”

  The reporter waved away the very idea. “Got that one from ol’ Dolly, and paid a pretty penny for it, too. No, no. This is something new. Something different. Something Dolly said will give me a scoop nobody else has got. Dolly, she told me she found it when she was doing a little undercover work for me.” He gave me a wink designed to make me believe we were in this together.

  Yes, I was shameless. I went right along with him.

  “Dolly was thrilled she was able to help you out. I mean, the whole thing was like something out of a James Bond movie, you know, with Dolly poking around in there and nobody . . .” It was my turn to lean closer and lower my voice. “And nobody figuring out what she was up to. She’s really good at stuff like that.”

  “And, believe you me, she’s going to get paid. You will, too,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “I mean, I’d cut you in. You know, if Dolly left the photo and you’d just go get it for me.”

  Oh, I was going to look for the photo, all right, and I told the reporter as much.

  Only he didn’t know that meant as soon as I left the table, I zipped into the office, looked up Dolly’s home address, and made a quick phone call.

  “Just closing up for the night.” On the other end of the phone, I heard the sounds of Declan’s computer shutting down. “My mom and dad said they’re coming by for dinner. I thought I’d eat with them.”

  “That’s terrific, but I need something more in the way of a waiter,” I told him.

  He considered it, but only for a second, and when he arrived, I gave him last-minute instructions and sent him out onto the floor and once he was busy, I took off out the back door, headed out on a little James Bond mission of my own.

  * * *

  • • •

  DOLLY LIVED AS far east of Hubbard as it was possible to get and still be in the great state of Ohio. There on the border with Pennsylvania, I pulled up in front of a small frame house with a chain-link fence surrounding it and pansies planted outside the gate, though since it was late and already dark, I couldn’t tell if the flowers were white or yellow.

  I couldn’t quite see the sign that hung on the gate, either, and I leaned forward and squinted, and when that didn’t work, I got out of the car.

  Though there was activity next door—the off-key sounds of a garage band that needed oh so much more in the way of rehearsals—there were no lights on inside Dolly’s house. The curtains were closed and there was no car parked out front.

  I pulled out my phone and hit my flashlight app, aiming it at the sign.

  It was red, maybe eighteen-inches square, and the entire left side of the sign was taken up by the cartoon image of a grinning orange cat with big green eyes. The rest of the sign was printed in gold letters.

  JUST KITTEN

  CAT RESCUE

  I had never pegged Dolly as the kitty cat type, but I checked the address again and, sure I was in the right place, I went up the front walk and rang the doorbell.

  The curtains on the window to my left twitched and encouraged, I rang the bell again.

  Another twitch and this time, the curtains parted to reveal a tabby cat the size of a raccoon. A big raccoon.

  Over its shoulder, I saw another cat appear, this one smaller and Siamese-looking. A black cat joined them to stare at me.

  I tried the bell a third time.

  From the other side of the door, I heard a chorus of meows and the scramble of claws against the floor, and from the window on my right, three more cats appeared.

  Cats, yes.

  But no Dolly.

  Just to be sure, I circled the house and aimed my flashlight into the back window and what turned out to be the kitchen.

  More cats—five . . . six . . . seven of them—but no sign of the Terminal waitress who might be the former Terminal waitress before the night was over.

  Sure, I was discouraged, but I would not be deterred. I promised myself another trip over in the morning and headed back to the restaurant. By the time I got there, the dinner hour was just winding down.

  Declan happened to be in the kitchen when I walked in the back door and he slanted me a look. “You were out.”

  “And returned safe and sound.” I dropped my purse and keys on the nearest counter. “Any sign of Dolly?”

  “Sophie said Dolly walked out. She said that’s why you needed my help.”

  He had a smudge of pasta sauce across the white apron he wore over a navy golf shirt, a splotch of olive oil on his jeans, and what looked like pizza crust crumbs stuck to his arm.

  I leaned closer and plucked away the crumbs.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “The bar exam was easier than waiting tables. And I’ve still got three people out there waiting for—”

  George rang the little bell that signaled the staff that an order was ready. “Your pasta’s up!” he called out to Declan.

  With a sigh, he grabbed the order and took it out front.

  “And how about you?” George glanced over to where I leaned against the prep counter. “You eat tonight?”

  “I’m not all that hungry.”

  “Which doesn’t answer my question.”

  I can’t say how he came by it so quickly or why it wasn’t destined for one of the patrons still waiting out front, but all of a sudden, there was a pepperoni and red pepper pizza on a dish in front of me.

  “Mangia.” George chuckled. “That’s what they say, right? The Italians? It means ‘Eat up.’”

  It did. I did, grateful to have the chance to sit and think for a while.

  “So, George . . .” He was just finishing cleaning the grill and he didn’t turn around, but I knew he was listening. George is always listening. “Have you ever noticed Dolly doing anything . . . anything odd?”

  “You mean other than obsessing about that Meghan Cohan?”

  “I mean here in the restaurant. Yeah, I know she took the pictures of Meghan’s car and the freezer door. And I know she’s been talking to reporters on the sly. But did you ever find her looking around, maybe someplace she wasn’t supposed to be?”

  “Except when you work here, where aren’t you supposed to be?”

  It was a valid question. Like I’ve mentioned before, we’re a team, and as a team, each of us pitched in to do what needed to be done. Sometimes that meant Inez and Dolly helped with seating customers. Sometimes it meant I rolled silverware or swept the floor. We tried to spare Sophie any of the hard work, b
ut sometimes (more than sometimes), she was only too eager to help, too, cleaning, toting, lifting, moving, chopping, washing, cooking.

  “But Dolly never helps with the cooking. Not that I’ve ever seen.” I said this more to myself than to George, but he acknowledged the statement with a grunt. “So if she was messing around in here . . .” I raised my voice when I said this because now, I did want his input. “You would have noticed, right? If she was doing something other than the something she was supposed to be doing?”

  “You mean like looking through your cookbooks?”

  The words sent a tingle of what I can only call electricity cascading through me.

  Cookbooks!

  Like the cookbooks Declan and I had meticulously searched when we tried to figure out what Meghan was looking for here at the Terminal the night she died!

  Because there was no room for error, I raced over to stand in front of George, the better to look him in the eye.

  “When?” I asked.

  He considered the question. “A few days ago.”

  “Why?”

  “I asked.” He pursed his lips and nodded. “Wondered why she’d want to mess with your cookbooks, only I didn’t exactly say it like that on account of you know how sensitive Dolly is. Just asked if I could help, you know. Just asked what she was looking for.”

  Exactly like Dolly had the time Declan and I were looking through the cookbooks and she walked into the kitchen and asked how she could help.

  “Which cookbooks?” I asked George.

  This time, he took a little longer to consider. But then, as I’ve already mentioned, I have quite a few cookbooks there at the Terminal. Fists on hips, I went to stand in front of the shelves where they were arrayed, looking from book to book.

  “Not those.” George wiped his hands on a towel and stalked closer. “She didn’t much care about those. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t even looking for them. She was really looking for a ponytail holder.”

  Yes, I was confused.

  George knew it. Since he never exactly smiled, I’d say the look he gave me was more of a grimace. “She came in here looking for a ponytail holder. Said something about her hair being messy. And she was looking through the drawers, and that’s when she found the cookbook.”

  “The cookbook!” I knew exactly which one George was talking about. I raced over to the drawer where I’d tucked the cookbook that contained the recipe for tagliatelle with asparagus and marjoram. I’d tucked it away because I knew I’d use the recipe again during our Italian food extravaganza.

  So Dolly had been rooting around in the drawer for a hair band.

  I wondered, what else had she found?

  I didn’t exactly have a chance to think through the question.

  That’s because the smoke alarm out in the restaurant started blaring.

  * * *

  • • •

  WE’D ONCE HAD a small fire in the Terminal. Luckily, there were no customers around at the time. Now, I knew we had patrons out in the restaurant, just like I knew that no matter how tempting it was to find out what Dolly was up to, those people were more important than any photograph of Meghan Cohan.

  George knew the drill, too. While I called 911, he hit the gas valve shutoff on the stove and made sure the back door was unlocked in case the fire department needed to get in that way. Like we’d practiced the times we’d staged fire drills for the staff, his next job was to head out the back door and circle around to the front of the restaurant to help with the evacuation.

  My job was twofold and I handled the first stage of it the minute I was back out front. Sophie was behind the cash register, her eyes wide with a combination of terror and worry, and because I knew there would be no way to stop her from trying to help in any way she could and that in helping in any way she could, she would slow the rest of us down, I latched on to her arm and pulled her out the front door.

  She locked her knees and dragged her feet. “But, Laurel!”

  “But nothing.” I handed Sophie off to George, who was already on the front sidewalk, and I darted back inside.

  Declan had never participated in one of our drills, but as I may have mentioned a time or two (or three) before, he is as smart as he is handsome. Calmly and carefully, he went from table to table, rounding up the patrons who sat there wondering what was going on and escorting them out to the waiting area. From there, I took over. I propped open the front door and ushered them all outside.

  “Got everybody?” He yelled the question above the clamoring of the smoke alarm and the sounds of sirens closing the distance between the local fire station and the Terminal.

  I did a quick turn around the restaurant, checking every corner and every table and every booth. There was a sheen of smoke in the air, but it wasn’t enough—at least not yet—to stick in my throat or sting my eyes.

  “I’ll check the restrooms,” I called out to Declan.

  “And I’ll look upstairs. Just in case.”

  We met back at the front door and, satisfied that the Terminal was empty, we joined our patrons outside.

  Declan’s parents, Ellen and Malachi, were in the crowd and as soon as she saw me, his mother’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Oh, honey, are you all right?” She wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

  Before I answered, I looked around, checking to be sure Sophie wasn’t trying to play the hero and had gone back inside.

  “I’m fine,” I told Ellen. “I just can’t imagine where a fire could have started. It wasn’t in the kitchen.”

  “Not out in the restaurant, either,” Declan assured me. There was an elderly couple standing hand in hand watching as the hook and ladder truck swung down the street, and carefully, Declan walked them to stand in front of the building next door so they wouldn’t be in the way.

  “The smoke wasn’t coming from the basement,” I said, sure I would have seen it curling under the door that led from the kitchen to the basement stairs.

  “How about upstairs?” Malachi pointed to the window above the front entrance.

  Declan was back in time to hear his dad’s question, and when he shook his head, a curl of inky hair dipped over his forehead. “I didn’t see a thing up there, either.”

  It seemed very odd to me, and considering it, I thought through the problem out loud.

  “It’s as if someone lit a piece of paper and held it up to one of the smoke alarms to—”

  The words might have frozen right there on my lips, but that didn’t keep my body from springing into action. Just as the first firefighters stepped up to the Terminal, axes and hoses ready, I pushed past them and into the restaurant. I heard Declan call out my name. I knew he was right behind me. But that didn’t stop me.

  Nothing could.

  At least until I put on the brakes just inside the kitchen door.

  But then, that was when I found Dolly standing at the prep counter, my Italian cookbook in hand.

  I’d bet a dime to a donut she wasn’t looking for the recipe for tagliatelle with asparagus and marjoram.

  Chapter 19

  There is something about a tall, hulking firefighter in helmet, boots, coveralls, and jacket reading the riot act to a woman and reminding her that arson is against the law that tends to turn said woman into a quivering mass.

  Quiver, Dolly did.

  She also cried, moaned, and got so pale and breathless, that same firefighter slapped an oxygen mask on her.

  While Dolly breathed in deeply, he turned to me. “I’m going to need to report this to the police.”

  This, I did not argue with. Aside from the fact that Dolly had panicked our customers, ruined any number of meals, and made poor Sophie’s blood pressure shoot through the roof (she was out front sucking oxygen, too), Dolly had betrayed the Terminal in the worst possible way.

  Still, her
hapless attempt at espionage had provided me with what I was looking for.

  Or at least the place to look for it.

  “If you could give me just a couple minutes to talk to her, I’d really appreciate it,” I told the firefighter, then added, “You guys have time for pizza?”

  I didn’t have to ask twice. While he went to collect his fellow firefighters and get them seated in the restaurant, I told George to get the ovens going again.

  Then I closed in on Dolly.

  For a minute, I watched her breathe in, then out. When one of those breaths finally staggered, it was time for me to make my move.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “That was incredibly stupid. What did you do, light a piece of paper on fire and hold it up to the smoke alarm in the ladies’ room?”

  She nodded, inhaled, coughed, before she unlooped the oxygen mask from around her neck and hung her head. “That’s exactly what I did, then I ran outside and hid in the back parking lot. I didn’t know how else I could get back here to find what I needed. I didn’t want anyone to see me. I didn’t want anyone to know. I’m sorry.”

  “You think ‘sorry’ covers it? We had customers in here, Dolly.” As if she didn’t know where the restaurant was, I swung an arm toward the kitchen door. “If it wasn’t for Inez and Declan handling the situation like pros and getting everyone outside quickly and efficiently, somebody might have panicked. Somebody could have gotten hurt.”

  “I never . . .” A single tear slipped down her doughy cheek. “I never thought of that.”

  “I guess you were too busy thinking about how much money you were going to make from that balding reporter.”

  This time when she sucked in a breath, it had nothing to do with needing air. “How do you—”

  “Does it matter? I know. I know you told him you’d get a very interesting picture for him. I know he told you he’d pay you for it.”

  She nodded.