Punch, Pastries, and Poison

by Harper Lin

  “No. That was actually the subject of the second cornering. The virtues of temperance.”

  I gasped. “You don’t think she—”

  “Poisoned everyone? Nah, she’s a personality, but I don’t think she’s gone off the deep end. She actually seemed more offended that people were smoking.”

  “Smoking? At the party?” I may have been sick, but I wouldn’t have missed the smell of cigarette smoke. It wasn’t something you smelled much anymore, especially not indoors. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen—or smelled—someone smoking indoors.

  “Vaping, I think,” Rhonda clarified. “I didn’t see it, but she said something about ‘those newfangled cigarettes.’” She slipped into a pitch-perfect imitation of Mrs. D’Angelo’s upper-crust New England accent. “‘They think they’re getting away with something, but, mark my words, those things are just as much cancer sticks as the old kind.’” She dropped back into her own distinctly Massachusetts tones. “I mean, she’s probably right. We’ve already talked to the boys a couple times about it. Not like they hear anything I say—in one ear and out the other. Dan has better luck, but that’s because he mostly talks to them about sports.”

  We chatted for a few more minutes before hanging up. I wrote Mrs. D’Angelo’s name down on my notepad in neat letters then stared at it for a while, tapping my pen on the paper. I had my list. Now I just needed to decide what to do with it. The right thing to do was to give it to Mike. He couldn’t possibly be upset with me for making it when all I’d done was call my friends and ask them who they remembered seeing, could he?

  I stared at the notepad a little longer and picked up my phone again. Slowly, I opened my list of contacts. My finger hovered over Mike’s name. I knew I should tap it, but I did so only after a good bit of deliberation. There was no point in having made the list of names if I didn’t turn it over to him, was there? It wasn’t like there was anything I could do with it.

  My call went straight to voicemail. I hung up without leaving a message, knowing that he’d see the missed call and call me back if he was so inclined. And if he didn’t, that was his fault.

  Still holding the phone, I looked at my list. Then back at the phone. I knew Mike didn’t want me meddling in the case, but surely it couldn’t hurt if I just made a couple of calls... Could it?

  Chapter 21

  Mrs. D’Angelo answered on the first ring. “D’Angelo residence,” she said in her clipped tones.

  “Hi, Mrs. D’Angelo, this is Fran Amaro—”

  “Francesca! How lovely to hear from you! How are you, my dear? I heard about the incidents at your café! How awful! How terrifying that must be for you! I can’t imagine what you must be going through! And that poor girl! Persephone, the paper said her name was. Such a lovely name but so tragic. You know your Greek mythology, I’m sure—”

  She went on for several minutes about the ancient story of Persephone and how she was the cause of winter, and wasn’t it just so poetic and her poor mother—Demeter, of course, not our Persephone’s mother. She barely paused for breath and certainly not long enough for me to get a word in.

  I started to worry that Mrs. D’Angelo would just hang up when she was done, as she did when she snagged you for one of her speeches out in public. She’d show up, grab onto your arm with her long nails, regale you with whatever she was thinking, and then disappear, leaving behind only the nail imprints in your arm and a cloud of heavy floral perfume.

  “But I’m just on my way out to my Ladies’ Auxiliary meeting. We’re working on a fundraiser for the Cape Bay Historical Society—which I’m also a member of, of course. We’re doing such good work. It was lovely talking to you, Francesca—”

  I cut her off before she could hang up on me. “Actually, Mrs. D’Angelo, I wanted to ask you about my birthday party the other day.”

  The line went silent, and I thought that maybe I hadn’t caught her in time—or that she’d hung up on me anyway. I had just pulled the phone away from my ear to see if the call was still connected when she finally spoke.

  “Well, yes, dear, that’s what we were just talking about. You received my donation, didn’t you? I wrote quite a generous check—”

  I interrupted her again, not wanting to give her the chance to really get going. “I don’t know, actually. The police are holding it as evidence until the end of their investigation—”

  She started huffing and puffing, but I didn’t let her interrupt.

  “I did know you attended, though, which I wanted to thank you for.”

  The huffing and puffing slowed down a little bit but didn’t stop entirely.

  “And I also wanted to make sure that you weren’t affected by whatever made everyone else sick.” On the spur of the moment, I decided to downplay my knowledge of the poison punch.

  “Oh, no, dear, I abstain from all alcohol. And tobacco. I try to limit my vices as much as possible. An occasional dessert here or there—such as one of your lovely baked goods—but nothing too heavy or indulgent. It’s not good for one’s constitution to give in to temptation.”

  I was about to interrupt her again, but she kept plowing ahead.

  “That was why I was so upset about those young people smoking! I told your girl about it, you know, the older brunette one, not young Samantha. Dean Howard and that Karli girl, Jack and Donna’s daughter. I would have thought they raised her better than that, but who knows with children these days. Dean always was a handful. A bit of a disappointment to his father, but his mother was a pushover and never could discipline him. But regardless of upbringing, it’s not appropriate for those people to be getting their nicotine fix in a public place, no matter how much they think it’s okay because the cigarettes have computers in them now instead of lighting them with a match. Drugs are drugs, and I simply cannot tolerate their use in my presence. That was why they outlawed it. Well, not because of me personally, but because drugs shouldn’t be used in public. It’s a terrible example for the children. Why—”

  I finally managed to get a word in. “Mrs. D’Angelo, didn’t you say you were going somewhere? I wouldn’t want you to be late because of me.”

  “Oh, goodness, yes! Thank you for reminding me! It was lovely speaking to you, Francesca. We really should catch up more often. Call me anytime. Bye-bye now!”

  She hung up, and I tried to catch my breath from the whirlwind conversation. Talking to her was always dizzying, but it was somehow even more overwhelming over the phone. Maybe it was just the sheer effort of keeping up with the flood of words.

  I took a stretch break and made myself a fresh latte with a swan as decoration this time. When I sat back down, I searched on my phone for the number for Todd’s Gym and tapped it.

  “Todd’s Gym, this is Karli! How may I help you?” Karli sing-songed into the phone.

  “Hi, Karli, this is Fran Amaro from Antonia’s. How are you?”

  “Oh.” Her voice lost its professional cheeriness immediately. “What do you want?”

  “Um, I, um—” I hadn’t really made a plan for the call, thinking I’d just engage in some friendly chitchat until I could direct the call the way I wanted, but Karli’s coldness threw me off. “I just wanted—”

  “Oh my God,” she muttered, her annoyance clear in her voice.

  I’d had enough of her. It wasn’t worth trying. “Could I speak to Todd, please?”

  “Does your boyfriend know how much you like to talk to Todd?”

  Before I could formulate a response, I heard hold music. At least she hadn’t hung up on me.

  “This is Todd.”

  I stammered out a greeting and asked him how he was.

  “Better than I was, that’s for sure,” he said, chuckling. “Whatever was in the punch was brutal! How about you? I heard about what happened to that girl who worked for you—what was her name? Emmy? Are you holding up okay?”

  My stomach twisted in a knot. “I’m—I’m okay. It’s a lot to deal with. It’s—”

  “H
ang on a second, Fran.”

  There was a clatter that sounded like Todd putting the phone down on his desk.

  “What’s up, Kar?” I heard him say. There was a pause and then a sigh. “You know I don’t like you doing that.” Another pause. “I know, I know.” Whoever he was talking to was far enough from the phone that I couldn’t hear what they were saying, only Todd’s responses. “No, I know. Look, I just wish you wouldn’t, okay?” A sharp exhale. “Okay, fine, just try not to be gone too long, okay? Yeah, I’ll cover the desk as soon as I’m done talking to Fran.” After another heavy sigh, his voice came back louder on the line. “Sorry about that, Fran, where were we?”

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Yeah, just—” He groaned. “Between you and me, Karli started vaping, and I hate it. It’s a bad look for the gym to have her standing outside, sucking on a vape pen. Not to mention it’s terrible for her. But her excuse is always that she’s a grown woman and can do what she wants. How can I argue with that?”

  I could think of a few things, but I wasn’t sure any of them were in line with what Todd was thinking. Instead, I said what I was thinking. “Todd, are you and Karli seeing each other again?”

  There was a long pause, during which I was sure I had offended him. Then, finally, “Don’t tell her parents.”

  That sounded like something that would come out of the mouth of a sixteen-year-old rather than a thirty-six-year-old. Of course, sixteen was far closer to Karli’s age than thirty-six.

  “Why on earth would I tell them?” I asked.

  “I dunno,” Todd mumbled, again sounding more like a high-schooler than a successful businessman. “They’d just be furious if they found out.”

  “I won’t breathe a word,” I said.

  I gave him a few more assurances and then managed to get off the phone. I wasn’t sure what I had been trying to achieve with these phone calls—a spontaneous confession, maybe?—but so far I’d been chattered at by an elderly woman and then depressed by a middle-aged man. I still had a few names on my list, but I wasn’t sure if it was worth hoping that those calls would go any better than the ones I’d already made.

  Common sense (in other words, Matt and Mike) would probably tell me to give up, but common sense was something I was lacking in, so I used my phone to do an internet search for lawyers in Barnstable named Paul. Unfortunately, a name and a job weren’t much to go on, especially when I wouldn’t have recognized him in a picture. I gave up after about ten minutes.

  I looked at the rest of my list and decided to call Melissa. She was fun and pleasant. A call to her would, if nothing else, boost my flagging spirits. Unfortunately, when she answered, the first words out of her mouth were that she was headed into her obstetrician’s office. I let her go and continued down my list.

  As I made my way through it, I refined my explanation for calling. I wanted to check in, see how they were feeling, thank them for coming to the party. Everyone was warm and pleasant, and to my chagrin, no one spontaneously confessed.

  I was down to one name. Dean Howard. I’d been putting off calling him because of how unpleasant our last interaction had been when I bumped into him at the café and almost spilled his coffee on him. I pulled up his number, took a deep breath, and tapped the green button.

  “Howard!” he barked through the phone.

  I put a smile on my face. “Hi, Dean, this is Fran Amaro, I just wanted to call and—”

  “And what? Ask if I had gotten over the nasty case of food poisoning you gave me yet? Yes, I have. No thanks to you, of course.”

  I would have preferred to have all these conversations in person, but I was glad Dean couldn’t see my face now. I had a feeling my smile had turned into a snarl. “I know, I’m so sorry about that—”

  “And now the place is shut down again because someone died. Is that right?” Dean had always been a little rough around the edges, but now he was being surprisingly abrasive.

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “You know, maybe it’s a good thing your little café is shut down. It seems like it’s a dangerous place to be right now.”

  My mouth dropped open. I was stunned speechless.

  “So, if you’re not calling with an apology for all my lost time, I’m gonna go. I have more important things to do than chitchat with you.”

  He hung up before I could splutter that I’d just apologized. And if that wasn’t enough, I would be happy to apologize again.

  I stared at the phone’s screen until it went black and then put my head down on the table. I had spent the whole afternoon questioning people, and I had nothing to show for it. Well, nothing except a list of names that the police probably already had. I closed my eyes to rest, just for a minute. Matt would be home soon with dinner.

  Chapter 22

  I heard footsteps and screamed. I grabbed hold of the first thing my hand landed on and jumped up, wielding it at the intruder. “Get out!” I screamed.

  “Whoa, Franny!” Matt jumped back with his hands raised in the air, a white plastic bag dangling from one. “It’s just me! With dinner! Put down the—phone? Why are you threatening me with a phone?”

  I looked down at my hand and realized that the threatening object I’d grabbed from the table was a cell phone. Not the best weapon to use to fend off an intruder.

  “Sorry,” I said sheepishly.

  His lips curled up in a smile that turned my insides to goo and walked towards me. “No problem, gorgeous.” He pulled me close and kissed me on the forehead. “I brought burgers.”

  I had to get myself together before Matt killed us with an endless stream of greasy takeout. Even so, I was happy to tuck into the burgers sitting beside him at the kitchen table.

  I was popping the last bite into my mouth when I noticed Matt looking down at the table with a curious expression. I followed his eyes and realized that I’d left my notepad out.

  “What’s this?” he asked, turning it so he could see it better.

  “Just a list I made of people who were at our birthday party and at the café yesterday.”

  He looked at me.

  I busied myself scraping the melted cheese off the burger’s wrapper with my fingernail.

  “Why were you making a list of those people? Did Mike ask you to?”

  “Noooo,” I said, drawing the word out. I scraped up some more of the cheese and sucked it off my finger.

  “Franny.”

  I looked up and smiled hopefully. Maybe Matt would think the list was a good idea. Maybe he would be proud of me for showing initiative and being resourceful.

  His frown said otherwise. “Franny, you know the police are working this case. You don’t have to do it for them.”

  “I know. I just needed something to do. You told me not to just sit around!”

  “I didn’t mean to start investigating the case yourself.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry. That probably sounded harsh. I think when I said to find something to do, I just pictured you baking or knitting or something.”

  “Knitting?” I’d never picked up a knitting needle in my life. I wasn’t even sure if I’d know what one looked like if it was in front of me.

  “I don’t know. Something that normal people do. Something that’s not murder-related.” He reached out for the hand that hadn’t been scraping cheese. “I just worry about you. You know that.” He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my fingertips. “I like you safe.” A crooked smile crept across his face. “I guess that’s one good thing about Mike putting you on lockdown. You can’t go running around investigating clues and interviewing suspects.” He chuckled.

  I laughed, too, but it came out sounding a little awkward and strangled. I hoped that he didn’t notice.

  “I guess making a list isn’t too bad, after all. As long as you share the information with him. You are going to share the information with him, right?”

  I nodded.

  The pleasant, relaxed look on Matt’s fac
e slowly faded. “You were at home all day today, weren’t you?”

  I nodded again.

  “And all you did was make this list?”

  I looked down at the cheeseburger wrapper and studied it for any cheese I’d missed. “I called them,” I muttered.

  “I’m sorry? You called them?” I couldn’t tell whether Matt’s tone was one of disbelief or disapproval, but either way, it wasn’t good. He rubbed his forehead with both hands.

  “I wasn’t weird about it,” I said defensively. “I was just friendly! Asked how they were doing, apologized that people got sick, thanked them for coming. You know, nice, pleasant, neighborly stuff.”

  Matt looked doubtful.

  “Really, it would have been rude not to call them. They came to our birthday party, and neither of us even got to speak to most of them. And then they got sick! I know if that happened to me, I’d appreciate it if my friend called to check on me.”

  “You can justify anything, can’t you?” He undoubtedly had affection in his voice.

  I shrugged. “I do a good job of it, don’t I?”

  He laughed and leaned across the table to kiss me. “Yeah, you do.”

  We cleaned up the trash from dinner and then retired to the living room to watch a couple of episodes of the latest show we’d been bingeing. Before long, we headed upstairs to bed. I’d say it was because we were both exhausted from a busy, overwhelming week, but that wouldn’t be strictly accurate given how long it took for us to settle down to go to sleep.

  Matt, of course, dropped off immediately, while I lay awake with my mind racing. Latte was lying between us, and I absently petted him while I thought about the conversations I’d had that day. Had anyone seemed suspect? Dean had been irrationally angry. Well, was it irrational? Maybe it was fair for him to be upset that he’d gotten so sick after coming to our party. It wasn’t the way I would have reacted, but maybe it wasn’t so off-the-wall.