Camilla T. Crespi - The Breakfast Club Murder

by Camilla T. Crespi

  THE BREAKFAST CLUB MURDER

  CAMILLA T. CRESPI

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  * * *

  Copyright © 2014 by Camilla T. Crespi.

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  * * *

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Crespi, Camilla T.

  Dying The breakfast club murder / Camilla T. Crespi. — First edition.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-4328-2805-9 (hardcover) — ISBN 1-4328-2805-3 (hardcover)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-2958-2 eISBN-10: 1-4328-2958-0

  1. Wives—Crimes against—Fiction. 2. Divorced mothers—Fiction. 3. Caterers and catering—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3553.R435B74 2014

  813′.54—dc23 2013038374

  * * *

  First Edition. First Printing: February 2014

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-2958-2 ISBN-10: 1-4328-2958-0

  Find us on Facebook— https://www.facebook.com/FiveStarCengage

  Visit our website— http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/

  Contact Five Star™ Publishing at FiveStar@cengage.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 18 17 16 15 14

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  * * *

  I thank Denise Dailey and Augusta Gross for their excellent advice; Judy Moskowitz for listening and encouraging me; Annette Meyers for introducing me to Five Star; Stuart, my husband, for his patience; and Diane M. Piron-Gelman for her meticulous editing.

  CHAPTER 1

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  The Park Avenue doorman stepped out into the windswept rain and blew his whistle while the tall couple waited in the comfort of the wood-paneled lobby.

  Tomorrow, Saturday, Robert Staunton—the new owner of apartment 7J and a partner in the law firm of Bellows, Stein, Jeffreys, and Berne—was going to be married to thin, beautiful, and successful Valerie Fenwick, DDS, a woman he had met while she drilled holes in his teeth. Many hundreds of dollars and dental sessions later, Rob had emerged from her care with healthy teeth and a great desire to sleep with her, which he succeeded in doing, as he succeeded in most things he set his sights on. The idea of marrying her only came up a year and half later, when he got careless and his wife of twenty years, Lori Corvino Staunton, found out.

  “You should get the car,” Valerie said as they left the lobby, tossing her slithery blond mane for emphasis. They were late for the dinner Rob’s partners were throwing for them at Nobu57. “We’ll never get a cab in this weather.”

  “The garage is four blocks away,” Rob said. Sitting through dinner with wet feet would probably give him a cold. “And I’ll never find a place to park.”

  Valerie gave Rob’s chest a soft punch. “I can’t believe I’m marrying such a wuss.” She waved to the doorman, whose name she hadn’t bothered to learn. “Forget the cab.” She wrapped her black silk raincoat around her and started sprinting to the corner in her high-heeled sandals.

  “Val, what are you doing?” Rob shouted, suddenly feeling abandoned.

  The doorman joined him under the protection of the building’s canopy. “I believe she’s getting the car, sir.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Rob ran after Valerie, who was now crossing the dark side street, dodging between a steady stream of cars. Despite the heavy rain, no one was stopping to let her by.

  “Come back, Val,” Rob shouted as a gust of drenched wind slapped his face. He plunged into the street toward his fiancée. “Wait up!”

  Valerie turned, saw Rob coming, and slipped under the shallow roof of the open phone booth on the corner to wait for him.

  Rob, halfway across the street, turned his head toward two glowing headlights speeding through the rain toward him. He stopped to stare, his brain suddenly empty of all thought.

  “Watch out!” Valerie shouted, running toward Rob. He felt the front of his raincoat being yanked. The air behind him whooshed. Tires splashed. As he fell on the curb, a wave of filthy water washed over him.

  “You almost killed him!” Valerie shouted at the red taillights as the car turned and sped down Park Avenue. Still holding on to the lapel of Rob’s raincoat, she contemplated her soon-to-be-husband for a moment. Anyone looking at her would have supposed she was having second thoughts. “Honey,” she said finally as she bent over Rob and helped him to his feet. “You’ve got to watch where you’re going.”

  Safely on the sidewalk, Rob tried to wipe his face with his handkerchief. More rain wet it. One knee throbbed. The palms of his hands burned. He felt anger grip his bones, make them brittle. Anger and fear. When he had crossed the street, there had been a wide gap between cars. The car that hit him—well, would have hit him if Valerie hadn’t been so quick to pull him away—the driver had come down on him on purpose, he was sure of it. Was it a warning?

  “Did you get the license plate?” he asked Valerie.

  She shook her head and pulled at his arm. “Come on, honey. I’m getting soaked to the skin.”

  Inside the lobby of the apartment building Mike O’Connor, the head doorman, watched the scene with his second in command. He was well aware that duty dictated he run out with a sturdy umbrella and help the new tenants, but Mike considered himself a shrewd judge of people after years in the business. He had this couple pegged. No matter how much he and his colleagues put themselves out, the Christmas envelope of Mr. Staunton Esquire and his toothpick dentist wife would be meager. Besides, he’d had enough of getting wet for one night.

  CHAPTER 2

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  Lori took a bite. There was nothing more sensual than good food. Sensual. Reassuring. Uplifting. Utterly redeeming. Her tongue pressed the tiny pillows of dough against the roof of her mouth. Butter, Parmesan, creamy tomato slid across her taste buds. Tomorrow it was back to the States and a future punctured with question marks, but now, sitting under a canopy of stars and wisteria in an elegant Roman restaurant, with a breeze lifting the ruffles of the silk dress she had splurged on that afternoon and the best gnocchi she’d ever tasted warming her mouth, Lori thought she was doing just fine.

  “That looks good,” the craggy-faced, bespectacled American at the next table said, just as she swallowed. Up to now, she had welcomed the Italian restaurant habit of bunching Americans together, but this evening, for her last meal here, she wasn’t in the mood to compare travel notes and make chitchat with a stranger, even if he was American.

  “What’s the Italian name for it?” the stranger asked. Lori shook her head, pret
ending her mouth was still full of gnocchi. What it was full of was a luscious aftertaste that should have made her nice enough to answer. She took another bite instead, and this time didn’t swallow right away.

  “I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself. Alec Winters.” The man smiled.

  Lori pointed to her mouth, truly full this time, and went back to basking in the taste of the yummy gnocchi, trying to memorize it. Whisking from her purse the small leather-bound notebook she’d bought on her first day in Venice, Lori started writing. Fresh tomatoes, a little onion, butter, a hint of nutmeg, basil, lemon zest. What else? There was an extra richness she couldn’t decipher. Some kind of cheese.

  “Are you a restaurant critic?” the man asked.

  He has a kind face, Lori thought. “I’m not,” she said. Her husband’s face had looked kind when he announced he was turning her in for a newer model. She waved to the waiter, who sauntered over. “This dish is fabulous,” she announced.

  He bowed, taking credit. “Gnocchi della regina. Gnocchi fit for a queen. A house specialty.”

  “I’m a food journalist for the Greenwich Dish,” Lori said, handing him her business card. Real name, real address. Fake job. “I would love to write about the restaurant and give my readers this recipe.”

  It was a ruse her friend Beth had suggested during their last lunch together on Beth’s deck. Lori had made tuna and fennel sandwiches on focaccia and brought a bottle of an expensive Chardonnay.

  “I don’t like dishonesty,” she had protested as she crunched into her sandwich.

  “Here, drink up and get over it. You’ll come home with fabulous recipes to start off your catering career.”

  “Not a start, a re-launch,” Lori corrected. After sixteen years it wasn’t going to be easy, but she was determined to prove to herself and to her daughter, Jessica, that she could stand on her own. “I know you mean well, Beth, but I’ve had enough of lies.”

  For revenge, Beth drank most of the wine and then offered instant coffee.

  Lori found the business cards tucked in her satchel after she boarded the flight. She had no intention of using them, but while eating a superb crabmeat risotto in Venice she could never duplicate on her own, accompanied by half a carafe of sparkling Prosecco, Lori decided she deserved a few lies of her own. White, innocent ones, nothing like the ones Rob had told her.

  Lori tried smiling at the Roman waiter, but didn’t bring it off. Either she’d forgotten how, which was entirely possible, or she didn’t want to be that hypocritical. She hoped it was the latter. “Can you please ask the chef for the recipe?”

  Out came the charming, full-of-regret smile she’d discovered was an Italian specialty whenever she asked for something they had no intention of giving you. “Mi dispiace, signora. It is a family secret.”

  Before Lori could start to plead, Alec Winters stood up and pushed himself through the small space between the two tables. Suddenly Lori saw her table tilt, watched helplessly as the plate of hot, sauce-laden gnocchi slid down and overturned on her lap. With a cry, she shot up from her chair. The plate crashed to the floor and every diner in the place turned to gape at her. Her mind flashed back to another evening in a fancy restaurant in Greenwich. She’d thrown a glass of red wine in her husband’s face. A roomful of diners had gaped at her then, too. Lori held back a scream of rage as the American leaned into her and put a hand on her elbow. She heard a mumble of words, saw his other hand wave a napkin in front of her. She shrank back. He pushed forward. The carafe fell over, splashing red wine all over both of them. Lori stayed rooted to the spot, fighting the humiliation of tears as the waiter offered more napkins, as the man, Alec Winters, offered to pay for the cleaning, offered to pay for the meal, offered to buy her a new dress.

  “I don’t want your money,” Lori cried out. She threw the napkins back at the waiter, fumbled in her bag for euros, dropped them on the table and ran out of there.

  Alec followed. “Please let me help. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Please. It was all my fault. Let me make it up to you.”

  Lori whipped around. “I’ve gotten really good at taking care of myself.” He was unexpectedly tall. She had to crane her neck to look him in the eye. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need anybody’s help. Got that?”

  He took off his glasses and nodded.

  “Great!” Lori walked away at as fast a clip as her high heels could manage on the cobblestones, her chest throbbing with anger, shame, hurt. She was a good person. She had given up work to be Rob’s wife, had cooked countless meals for the law firm’s partners, for his clients. When Jessica came along, she divided herself, her time, between the two of them. Everything had gone wrong anyway. She didn’t deserve this last humiliation. She didn’t deserve any of it.

  The pensione was a twenty-minute walk away through meandering narrow streets. Lori slipped off her heels and walked on the cobblestones still hot from the June sun. In the dark no one saw the mess her dress was in, the mess she was in. In the dark, Lori let herself cry for the first time since she and Rob divorced eight months ago.

  The pensione owner handed over Lori’s room key without giving her a glance. On the one hand, she was grateful. On the other, she resented being invisible. It was a familiar see-saw. Since she had found out about Valerie, her moods had gone from one day raging to be the center of the whole universe’s attention, the next shutting down and hiding from everyone.

  In the hotel room, Lori took off her new dress. She wiped off as much of the sauce and wine as she could with a towel. There was no chance it was going to come clean; the silk was too thin and fragile, but she wrapped the dress in the tissue from the store, making sure to fold over the front so that it wouldn’t stain her other clothes. She was going to keep the dress as a reminder of her past—irretrievably stained, but with its beauty still showing. Lori felt better after that good cry. Not everything had gone wrong with her life. She had Jessica, her independent, willful, and wonderful daughter, who was thirteen but vacillated between thirty-five and two. She had her home. Her friends, Beth, Margot, Janet. Her impossible mother. And soon, she hoped, she’d have herself back.

  Getting ready for bed, Lori avoided the mirror over the dresser. She knew only too well what she’d see: an oval face, large hooded brown eyes, and a long nose that showed her Italian heritage. Full lips she had to stop biting. A forehead ruled with frown lines. A parenthesis of folded skin edged down from her nose to her mouth. She was ready to blame all her aging on Rob. After all, she’d lost her husband and her dentist.

  Lori brushed her teeth. Who in his right mind fell in love with a dentist? Sure, dental costs were very high, but Rob’s insurance included dental. To add insult to injury, Valerie was a year older than she was. Weren’t men supposed to leave their wives for young, sexy babes? All right, some people might consider Valerie beautiful in an anorexic, flat-chested way, but Rob always claimed, while they were grabbing at each other, that he loved Lori’s big breasts, her full ass. God, why was she going over this again? Lori stood up. “Don’t forget you’re great!” a self-help guru had decreed in one of dozens of How-to-Survive-Divorce books she’d devoured. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt she was great, if ever, but she had only herself to work with, so she’d have to do.

  As Lori moved, the bathroom light caught the prominent streak of gray cutting across one side of her thick, dark hair. She’d had it since her early twenties, a legacy from her now-dead father. That streak had made Rob give her a second glance when he’d spotted her at the party she was catering, and during the early years Rob would nuzzle against her, run his hands through her hair and call her his sweet-smelling skunk. She’d get all squishy inside, knowing he wanted to make love to her. The day the divorce was final she’d gotten a pixie cut, dyed the streak black. Jessica had burst into tears when she came home. “You don’t look you!” Now the gray was growing out, her hair covered her ears, and she was gaining back the weight she’d lost in the last eight months, which
pleased both her and Jessica. They were both used to a rounder woman.

  Jessica was with her father now. Today. His wedding day. Well, it was over by now, and Valerie was officially Rob’s wife and Jessica’s stepmother. Jessica had pleaded to be allowed to go to the wedding. The thought of it still made Lori tremble with hurt and anger. She’d wanted to forbid it, wanted to yell to her daughter, “I know you hurt, but I do, too. I need you. Stay on my side.” Instead she had told Jessica she was free to go if that was what she wanted, then picked up the phone and booked a flight to Italy. Lori felt betrayed, even though part of her understood Jessica’s need to be included in her father’s new life, her fear of being pushed aside by her father’s new woman. But Lori’s feelings were so raw she had no control over them.

  After a long shower, Lori finished packing, checked her airline ticket for the umpteenth time, asked the concierge to wake her at eight a.m. so she would have plenty of time to get to the airport and go through security. Once in bed, she tried to read the mystery she’d brought with her, but the bedside light was too dim, she was too tired. She turned the lamp off and found herself thinking about the tall American standing in the small restaurant piazza, taking off his glasses as if to show her how sincere he was, nodding to her. A cluster of wisteria dangling over his head had given him a comic look. Craggy face with sharp cheekbones, dust-colored hair limp across his forehead. A studious face. A kind face. A harmless man who tried to help. She regretted treating him badly, regretted even more showing her own vulnerability. Her list of regrets was so long she started counting them and fell asleep.

  Lori stands in her bedroom of the Connecticut house she’s lived in with Rob since she was pregnant with Jessica, all dressed up in her new silk dress and impossibly high stilettos. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asks Jessica, who is looking at her from the doorway. “You could never be beautiful,” Jessica answers and disappears. As Lori runs out of the room to find her, one of her heels catches on the edge of the carpet and she falls. When she picks herself up, her chin is bleeding down her dress and she is standing on an unpaved country road lined with poplars. In the distance she can see Jessica’s long legs scissoring the air. Lori kicks off her heels and runs after her.“Wait for me!” Jessica turns, waves and keeps running. A car speeds past Lori, covering her with dust. She starts to cough and recognizes Rob’s new Mercedes. The car overtakes Jessica and brakes to a stop. The passenger door flings open. Jessica jumps, the door closes, and the road is suddenly empty.