Murder and Marinara: An Italian Kitchen Mystery (Italian Kitchen Mysteries)

by Genova, Rosie

  “We don’t have weeks.” And I had only twenty-four hours before Nina descended. “Memorial Day is right around the corner,” I told him. “And I knew all this already. Isn’t there anything else you can tell me?”

  Danny looked out over the water, then back at me. “I’m not on the investigation, Vic, and even if I were, you know I shouldn’t be telling you anything.”

  “That’s not an answer. I know your brothers in blue are keeping you posted on this case.” I gripped his arm. “Please, Danny. I have to figure out what happened to this guy.”

  “And what are you gonna do with that information? Besides put yourself in harm’s way?”

  I bit my lip. “I don’t exactly know. Maybe force a confession? Get somebody to incriminate himself? Or herself?”

  Danny blew out a loud breath. “That only happens in your books, sis. You’ve gotta be careful here.”

  “I won’t do anything stupid. I promise.”

  He cracked a smile for the first time. “Because getting yourself locked in the pantry wasn’t stupid.”

  “Gimme a break here, will ya? Okay. What if I ask you a couple of questions and you just answer them?”

  He sighed. “Hell, I know I won’t get any fishing in otherwise.”

  I pulled out my notebook and a pen. “Was he on any meds? Maybe something he accidentally overdosed on?” The hope in my voice was pathetic.

  “He was on beta blockers for his heart. But it wasn’t an overdose.”

  “He’s on heart meds, yet he dies of heart failure.” I scribbled the medication on my pad. “So Parisi must have been given something that caused his fatal heart attack, correct?”

  My brother nodded, tight-lipped.

  “Okay, the question is, how was it delivered?”

  He raised one thick brow over his sunglasses, but remained silent.

  “You are maddening—you know that? All right, we know everything he ate from went through the dishwasher. What about the San Pellegrino bottle? It tested negative, right?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I figured as much. Listen, I found out he was drinking from a water bottle up on the boardwalk, one he brought from home. Was that bottle tested, too?”

  “Yes,” he said quietly, “and it was clean.”

  My heart sank like a penny dropped into the bay. “That means he most likely ingested whatever killed him at lunch. In the restaurant.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and that one syllable was laden with meaning.

  “But the kitchen trash turned up nothing?”

  “Right.”

  “But we don’t know what might have been in the garbage that was already outside.”

  A muscle in his jaw tightened. “Don’t remind me. The CP wants my chief’s ass on a platter for that one.”

  I thought of the portly Chief O’Brien and grimaced. “Now there’s an image I won’t be able to shake.” I jotted a few more notes and then looked up at my brother. “Wait. Does ‘CP’ stand for county prosecutor?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Crap. There must be something else you can tell me about that autopsy.” I waited, hearing only the slap of the water against the side of the boat. “C’mon, Danny!” I wailed.

  He suddenly grinned. “You sound just like you did when you were ten. Next thing I know, you’ll be threatening to tell Mom.”

  “Funny.” I nodded toward the water. “Bet those fish are starting to bite. Too bad you’re not out there.”

  “Okay,” he said, holding up his palms. He shot a quick glance across the marina and lowered his voice again. “Listen, they won’t know for sure for weeks, but the ME’s hunch is that a natural substance was used to kill him.”

  “A natural substance? Like . . . from a plant?” My stomach thumped with a terrible foreboding. He nodded again, and a kaleidoscope of impressions swirled around my brain. The herbs in the pantry. Iris’s words about poisonous plants. Cal’s joke about the salad. And fresh bunches of greens laid out in the kitchen delivered by Mr. B. Was Parisi’s lunch a crazy salad of arugula laced with poisonous leaves?

  “This is not good,” I whispered.

  “No,” Danny said. “It isn’t.”

  “But there’s more. If we go under, do you know that the mayor already has a buyer lined up for the restaurant? A buyer who wants to turn it into a Starbucks.”

  Danny swore under his breath. “That’s just great. That would kill Mom and Pop.” He shook his head. “Nonna would just kill the buyer.”

  “Please don’t joke like that, okay?” I tucked my pad and pen back into my purse and grabbed my keys. “Danny, thanks for talking to me. I know it’s a risk, and this will be the last time. I promise.”

  But as I turned to go, Danny put his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, Vic. Is Sofia involved in this little investigation of yours?”

  “What do you think? She’s like a cute little dog with a bone.”

  One side of his mouth lifted, and I had to smile back. “She’s smart, Dan. And she’s a tough cookie.”

  “Don’t I know it,” he said grimly.

  “Why are you so against her applying for the police academy? Are you worried about her safety?”

  “Of course, but it’s not just that. I’m just not sure about both of us on the job. I’ve seen what it can do to marriages.”

  I put my hand on his arm. “Would you say that you have a marriage right now?”

  “No, I wouldn’t. I want her back home with me, damn it.” There was sadness in his tone.

  “I know that’s what she wants, too. Look, I know how you feel about this, but why don’t you consider counseling?”

  He grinned. “No shrink would last an hour with us. Two hotheaded Italians in therapy?”

  “You forgot ‘hardheaded.’ Still, I wish you’d consider it. It’s better than this limbo you’re in right now.”

  “And what about you, sis? How’s it been, having to work with Tim?”

  “In some ways, really difficult.” I thought back to our near kiss in the kitchen. “In some ways, just like old times. Having Angie Martini in the picture sure threw me for a loop, though.” I searched my brother’s face. “Danny, you don’t think Tim . . .”

  He shook his head and spoke firmly. “Absolutely not. I’ve known the guy twenty years. He’s not capable of it.”

  But you could be wrong about him, Dan. We both could. “Mr. Biaggio was also there. Do the cops know about that Internet video clip from The Jersey Side?”

  “Yeah.” He crossed his arms, and his face hardened. “I’d like to bang those kids’ heads together.”

  “Me too. Imagine how Mr. B feels. He’s got at least one motive, maybe two. And in his line of work, he would have to know plants, right?”

  “I don’t know, Vic.” Danny pulled a cooler from a hatch along the side of the boat, and any minute I’d lose him to today’s catch. “I just don’t like him for this; I’m not sure why.”

  “Okay. Then who, Dan? Who do you like for this?”

  He shrugged. “Well, we usually look at the spouse. In this case, there’s also the mistress.”

  “Oh, you know about her.” But for some reason, I hesitated about telling my brother I’d spoken to Emily Haverford.

  “Trouble is,” Danny continued, “they weren’t on the scene.”

  “How do we know that for sure? It’s not outside the realm that one of them could have slipped into the kitchen or the dining room at some point. And my money’s on Angie.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “They both have an alibi.”

  “You’re kidding me. Where were they that afternoon?”

  “I don’t know specifics,” Danny said. “But I do know this: Neither of those women was anywhere within a mile of the Casa Lido when Gio Parisi was killed.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  I had just pulled my car door shut and was about to leave the marina when my phone rang. “You never called me back.”

  “Sorry, Sofe.” I clipped my seat belt
and cradled the phone against my chin. “That video freaked me out, and I thought it was time to break out the big guns.”

  “You went to see Danny.”

  “Are you stalking me?” I glanced out my car window, half expecting to see a trench-coated Sofia lounging in a nearby alley with a pair of binoculars.

  “Nope. I just got off the phone with him.” She dropped her voice in an approximation of Danny’s gruff baritone. “Interfering in police investigation blah blah, risking your safety et cetera, et cetera, sticking your nose in places you shouldn’t, blah blah blah. God, he pisses me off.”

  “I’d say you have that effect on each other. But cool down long enough for me to tell you what he said, okay?” After I was finished, there was only silence on Sofia’s end of the phone. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. I’m busy crossing off names. You know who we’re down to, don’t you, Vic? I mean, leaving out you and Lori—”

  “It’s Tim, Cal, and Mr. B who had access to Parisi’s lunch,” I said with a sigh. “I know.”

  “Unless—” Sofia paused.

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless we’re missing something.”

  “We must be,” I said.

  “Remember I said we needed to look at other people who might have wanted Parisi dead? I’m gonna follow up on Mikey G’s dad.”

  “Gemelli?”

  “He and that little turd of a son were holding out for more money. And it’s rumored that Daddy has some unsavory connections.”

  “People always say that about Italians with money.”

  “And sometimes it’s true, SIL. You said yourself he struck you as the type who might hire somebody to do the dirty work.”

  “Maybe. But could somebody have gotten into the restaurant that day without us noticing?”

  “That’s what we have to find out, isn’t it? I’m gonna do some digging. Speaking of digging, I can’t seem to find a thing on Mr. Down on the Bayou.”

  That would have been the moment to tell Sofia about my date with Cal, but I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture on getting involved with suspects. “Um, I’m working on that one. I’ll let you know what I find out.” I shifted the phone to the other side of my chin. “By the way, he has a nickname for you, too: Miss Firecracker.”

  “Ha. It’s fitting. I’ll say that.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Because you’re hot, colorful, and dangerous in close proximity?”

  “That works,” she said.

  “Listen, Sofe. It’s getting warm in this car, and I need to get out of here. So you’re gonna work on Gemelli Senior?”

  “Yeah. I’ll let you know what I find out. What about you?”

  “Me?” An idea was forming as Sofie asked me the question. “I’m planning to have a one-Martini lunch.”

  • • •

  “Thank you for meeting me,” I said as I sat down across from Anjelica Parisi in a quiet corner of the Cupping Room. The café was in nearby Belmont Beach; I didn’t think Angie wanted to be seen in Oceanside, and I didn’t want to be seen with her.

  She looked up from the menu, her face a bored blank. “I don’t have much time, and honestly, I have no idea why you want to talk to me.”

  I leaned across the table and looked steadily into the widow’s blue-violet eyes. “You know what I’ve noticed? That when people say ‘honestly,’ they’re usually anything but.”

  She frowned, and I noticed a telltale lack of lines between her brows; her forehead was smooth as well. Then she wrinkled her nose as though an offensive odor had just wafted past her. “Just tell me what this is about, please. Do I need to remind you that I lost my husband a week ago?”

  “Oh, no, indeed, Angie. I don’t need any reminding on that score. I saw your little video on the EC! Web site.”

  She shook out her napkin and placed it across her lap. “I’d like to know what happened to my husband,” she said without looking up.

  “So let the police force do its job.”

  She arched her fine brows until they disappeared under her side-swept bangs. “I could say the same to you, couldn’t I? I hear someone’s been going around asking questions.” She shook her finger at me. “Naughty, naughty.”

  “That restaurant is my family’s livelihood,” I said through my teeth. “I have a right to know what happened there.”

  A waitress appeared at Angie’s elbow. She closed the menu and trained a bright smile on the girl. “I’ll have a nonfat decaf iced latte, hon. And some herbal sweetener, please.”

  “Any biscotti or pastries?” the girl asked.

  “Not for me, sweetie.” She nodded in my direction. “It’s my friend there with the sweet tooth,” she whispered, sending our waitress into a fit of giggles.

  “Just a double espresso, thanks.” I waited until the girl walked away and turned my attention back on Angie. “As I was saying—”

  “You were saying you want to find out what happened to my husband. So do I. And if the police can’t help me, I’ll go to somebody who can.”

  And then bring a lawsuit against us. “Look, Angie—”

  “My name is Anjelica,” she said, lifting her chin.

  “Got it. As I was saying, Angie, the Casa Lido is very important to my family.”

  “So that’s why you’re playing detective. Because you’ve written a few books, you think you can jump in and save the day.” Her voice dropped, and she suddenly sounded like the Jersey girl she was. “Life doesn’t work that way, sweetheart,” she snarled.

  At that auspicious moment, our waitress returned with our drinks, and I took a deep sniff of my coffee. The rush gave me all the courage I needed, and I looked at Angie over my cup. “So where were you the day he died?”

  “Ha!” Her throaty laugh rang out across the coffee shop. “Barely five minutes,” she said, tapping the gold watch on her wrist. “I didn’t think you could hold out that long.” She pressed her fingertips against her lips and yawned. “God, this is getting so predictable.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t have to, do I? I’ve already told the police where I was. But I’ll play along, Nancy Drew.” She leaned across the table, her voice conspiratorial. “At the time in question, I was in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. I attended a yoga class, followed by a stop for one of these. They’re yummy.” She held up her latte and sucked deeply on the straw. With her pale face and dark red lips, she looked positively vampiric.

  Her story would be easy enough to check. Ocean Grove was a small community; how many yoga classes could they offer? And there were only a couple of coffee shops in town.

  “So that leaves me out, doesn’t it?” she was saying.

  “Possibly.”

  “Sorry, Victoria. I know you’d like it to be me, but no can do.” She patted my hand, and I recoiled from her icy touch. “After all,” she continued, “I loved my husband.”

  To the tune of millions. “Of course,” I said, smiling. “So you would have no motive, correct?”

  She took another sip of her drink and nodded. “Correct.” She motioned to me with her cup. “You should be looking for someone with a motive. Say, someone who didn’t want The Jersey Side filming in town. Or someone who had a grudge against my husband.”

  “Can you think of anyone?”

  Her lips formed a menacing red curve. “You mean besides people in your family? The person who was sending him letters, obviously. But I have no idea who that might be.”

  “Right,” I said.

  In the silence that followed, she played with the straw in her coffee and then looked up at me. “Poor Tim,” she said with a sigh.

  My shoulders tensed, and I leaned forward in my chair. “What does Tim have to do with this?” I desperately wanted to believe that “nothing”—not “everything”—was the answer to that question.

  “He’s just so gal-LANT,” she said with a French pronunciation, and I resisted the urge to groan. She tilted her head and blinked her thick l
ashes in a practiced way. “There isn’t anything he wouldn’t do for me.”

  I froze with the coffee cup halfway to my mouth. “Leave Tim out of this.”

  “I’m not sure I can, sweetie.” She shook her head in an approximation of regret. “You see, he’s very protective of me. And he knew Gio and I were, well, having some troubles. As all marriages do,” she added.

  It was time to play my trump card. “You mean Emily Haverford.”

  At the mention of Emily’s name, Angie’s pale face went even whiter. Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared, and in that moment, I thought, This is a dangerous woman. “How dare you even mention her name to me?”

  I lifted one shoulder and took a sip of my coffee. “She came to see me.”

  Angie gripped the edge of the table, giving me a full view of her new manicure—a deep red the color of blood. “Why would she do that?”

  “She has questions, too. She also wants to know how your husband died.”

  “She has no right to know anything about Gio.”

  I shrugged. “Well, to hear her tell it, she does. Apparently, they were together for a number of years.” I stared into her cold eyes. “Until you came along.”

  She curled her lip into a sneer. “He married me. I have no use for women who poach on another woman’s territory.”

  I nearly spit out my coffee. “That’s hilarious, coming from you.” I downed the rest of the espresso and held my cup to her in a toast. “And the hunting metaphor is fitting, by the way. Well done.”

  She raised her thin black brows. “Isn’t it funny,” she began, “how some people just can’t let go?”

  “If you’re talking about me, don’t flatter yourself, Angie. I got over what you did a long time ago.” Sure I did, which is why I’d like to reach across this table and strangle you where you sit.

  She laughed. “I wasn’t talking about you, sweetie.” She scrounged in her purse and brought out a mirror and lip gloss. After carefully applying another coat of Bride of Dracula Red, she snapped the mirror closed and shot me a feral smile. “I meant Tim.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” The words tumbled from my mouth. “He hadn’t even seen you until the week before your husband died.”