by Harper Lin
“Hello!” she called before she had quite seen us. She gasped when she did. “Fran! Matt! What brings the two of you in today?”
I saw Matt look at me, so I smiled and stepped forward. “Hi, Mary Ellen!” I did my best to sound light-hearted and happy. “How are you today?”
“I’m good, I’m good,” she replied.
She really did look good for her age. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she were ten years younger than she really was. Her clothes were still fashionable, and she either had amazing genes or she dyed her hair to keep it a warm chestnut. She stood behind the counter, looking completely comfortable in her skin.
“How are you?” she asked.
“I’m good,” I said, smiling. I walked over to her, Matty close behind me. “I’m wondering if you could help us with something.”
She wrinkled her forehead and frowned slightly. “I’d be happy to, if I can.”
“Matty—”I needed to stop calling him Matty, at least when I was talking to other people. People had to think I sounded eight years old when I called him that when everybody else just called him Matt. “Matt and I were taking care of some of his dad’s things the other day, and we found his cell phone. We noticed there were quite a few calls to your number.”
She blushed and looked at the counter. She took a deep breath, and when she looked back up, tears were welling up in her eyes. “Gino—your dad,” she said, looking at Matty—Matt. “Your dad and I had been spending some time together before he passed away.”
“You were dating?” I prompted.
She looked back down. “Well, I wouldn’t say—I suppose—it was casual. I was—I was also seeing another man.” Her voice got very quiet as she said the last part.
My independent spirit reared up, not wanting Mary Ellen to feel bad for dating two men at once. As long as she wasn’t cheating on one or the other, there was nothing to be ashamed of.
“Were you exclusive with either of them?” I asked. “I mean, did either of them think you were?”
“Oh, heavens no!” she said quickly. “No, no, I would never do that. See one man behind another’s back, I mean. I suppose I would be exclusive with a gentleman under some circumstances, but I haven’t since my husband passed. I haven’t felt like I wanted to tie myself down that way again. No, they knew about each other. They despised each other, but they knew about each other.”
I nodded sympathetically. I understood her wanting to maintain her freedom, and I wanted her to feel as though she could continue to confide in me. I glanced at Matt, who was making himself busy inspecting some magnets emblazoned with “Cape Bay.” My ears had latched onto Mary Ellen’s comment that Mr. Cardosi and her other suitor had despised each other. It seemed like the right moment to bring the conversation around to Mr. Cardosi’s cause of death.
I lowered my voice and leaned across the counter toward Mary Ellen. “Have you heard that Mr. Car—that Gino was murdered?” I used his first name to make her feel as if she was speaking to a peer. It seemed like something the good cop in a good cop/bad cop scene might do.
The blush that had covered Mary Ellen’s face disappeared, and she went ghostly white. “He—he was—” She mouthed the final word then covered her face with her hands. Apparently she hadn’t known.
When she removed her hands, tears were spilling down her cheeks. I felt bad. I could have found a more delicate way to break it to her if I’d realized she hadn’t heard yet.
“I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you,” I said quite sincerely.
“No, no. No.” She turned slightly away from me as she tried to gather herself. “No. No, not at all. Don’t feel bad, Fran. I’m glad you told me.” She had regained her voice, but tears were still pouring down her cheeks. “What happened?”
“He was poisoned,” I said reluctantly. Playing detective had suddenly lost some of its allure.
Mary Ellen gasped. “Oh, good heavens!”
I saw Matt poke his head around a display of earrings then disappear again when he saw Mary Ellen’s tears.
“Mary Ellen, since you were a friend of his, I was wondering if you might know of anyone who had a grudge against him, someone who might have wanted to—to hurt him.”
She choked back a sob. “No, not a soul. Gino was such a kind man. I-I know he could be abrasive and he rubbed some people the wrong way, but his heart was good. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to harm him.”
I nodded agreeably and waited until Mary Ellen seemed a bit calmer to ask my next question. “You mentioned you were seeing someone else? What was his name, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“His name?” she repeated. Then I saw understanding dawn on her face. “Oh, you don’t think Karl—!” She seemed to visibly crumple.
I reached across the counter and rested my hand on hers. She grasped onto it and held it tight.
“Mary Ellen, I’m sorry to even suggest such a thing, and it’s not that I even think he may have done it. It’s just—Matt’s been my friend my whole life, and I’m doing everything I can to give him peace about what happened to his father. I’m trying to talk to everyone I can to see if they can give us any idea who would have done this. If I could just talk to this—this Karl, you said his name was? Since he knew Gino, even though he didn’t like him, maybe he could give us a little more insight into his life. I guess Gino wanted to protect Matt from the news that he was dating, so we’re discovering this whole other part of his life Matt knew nothing about. We just want to understand him better.” I hoped Mary Ellen wouldn’t pick up on my somewhat fuzzy, meandering logic.
Mary Ellen straightened her spine and cleared her throat. “His name is Karl Richards. Karl with a K. He’s fairly new in town. He works at Paul Hamilton’s electrical shop.”
“Thank you,” I said, squeezing her hand quickly before letting go.
She sniffled, pulled a tissue from underneath the counter, and dabbed at her nose and eyes with it. “I just can’t believe someone would do something like that to Gino.” She looked past me and out into the store. “Matt? Are you still here?”
Matt appeared from behind some postcards. “Yep, still here.” He came toward the counter.
“Matt, Fran here just told me that your father—” She fought back a sob. “That your father was murdered. You can’t believe how sorry I am. Gino was just such a wonderful man, and he loved you so much. He talked about you all the time and the important work you did. Fran said that you didn’t know he was dating. I’m sure that was just because he didn’t want you to think he was trying to replace your mother. I never knew her—I moved to town after she’d passed—but I understand that she was lovely, and I know your father still loved her very much. We would often talk about our late spouses and how different our lives had been since their passing. You know, you’re what kept your father going all those years. He loved you more than anything.”
Matt was speechless. I didn’t think Mr. Cardosi had ever been openly affectionate with Matt, and that was likely the first time he’d ever heard such an enthusiastic expression of his father’s love for him.
I saw Matt’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard.
“Thank you—” He stopped to clear his throat. “Thank you, uh, Mary Ellen. That means a lot.” He raised his hand to his face, probably to wipe away a tear.
I rubbed his shoulder, and he gave me a weak smile of appreciation.
“Do you want to go?” I asked softly. I wasn’t sure if Matt would cry in front of me, but I was certain he didn’t want to do it in front of Mary Ellen. If we got outside, it would be easier for him to brush it off as the wind blowing something into his eye.
“Yeah,” he said quickly.
I turned back to Mary Ellen. “Thank you for your help, Mary Ellen. I know Matt and I both appreciate it.”
“Of course, dears. Come back any time. And Matt? If you ever want to talk about your father with someone who cared for him also, please feel free to come by or call me.” She handed him a
business card with her cell phone number on the bottom. “I also text, if you prefer that. It’s something I was trying to teach your father to do, but Gino was rather set in his ways.”
“Yeah, he was,” Matt said with a chuckle as he put the business card in his wallet. “And thank you again.”
We left the shop and walked slowly toward the beach. I didn’t say anything, leaving Matt with his thoughts of his father for the moment. We sat on a bench facing the water. I inhaled the salt air, enjoying the feeling of the breeze trying to pull my hair out of its loose chignon.
“So do you think this other guy Mary Ellen was seeing may have killed my dad?” Matt asked after a while.
“I don’t know, but I want to talk to him. She said he works for Paul Hamilton, so I may have to go by there, at least to see what he looks like.”
Matt nodded but didn’t say anything. His elbows rested on his knees, hands folded, as he stared at the ocean.
“You okay?” I asked.
He nodded again. “Yeah, just hearing Mary Ellen say all that about how much my dad loved me and my mom—you know, that was stuff he never said to me. He wasn’t affectionate like that. I guess he thought he had to be a manly man for me. I could have used that growing up—hearing he loved me. I was never sure if he really loved me or just tolerated having me around.”
I didn’t really know what to say. My mother and grandparents had always been warm and affectionate, giving lots of hugs and kisses and “I love you”s. But I was a girl. Maybe that was the difference. I rubbed his forearm, and he reached across with his other hand and squeezed mine. We stared at the crashing waves, each of us lost in our thoughts.
Chapter 14
I didn’t pursue the investigation much more that weekend. I needed to think about how I was going to handle the next step. Since this Karl Richards fellow was new in town, I couldn’t rely on my prior knowledge as I had with Mary Ellen. I’d have to do some genuine sleuthing this time. I knew where he worked, but the store was closed on the weekends, so I couldn’t go over and poke around until Monday. Monday was when I would see Sammy again and could bring up Karl without seeming overly curious. Matt was the only one who knew I was investigating his father’s death, and it seemed best that I keep it that way, at least for the time being. So I lay low.
Matt and I went back to our respective houses after we left the beach on Saturday. Finding the owner of the phone number his dad had been calling had been our only purpose for getting together. It wasn’t as if we were dating or doing anything that required spending much time together. And I was absolutely not going to let him pay for a third meal in a row, so not eating together was an easy way to avoid that debate. I spent the rest of Saturday and most of the day Sunday going through my grandparents’ things in an effort to start my revamp of the house.
I started in their bedroom partly because that was the room I wanted to move into and partly because they’d been gone long enough that I didn’t think it would be as painful to sort out their belongings as it would be my mother’s. It was one thing to go into her room to borrow a shirt or some shoes, but to decide which items to throw out or donate to charity? That seemed nearly impossible. Her room still smelled like her. Most of her life had been spent sleeping in that bed and spraying her perfume between those walls. There was even still a stain on the carpet from where she’d spilled nail polish as a teenager. I had every intention of going through her room eventually, but for now, it seemed unbearable.
I started out with the plan to keep one box each of my grandmother’s and grandfather’s possessions, but as soon as I ran into joint belongings, like the sampler my grandmother had stitched with their names and wedding date, I decided on three boxes—one for her, one for him, and one for them together. Then I made a separate box for items I might want to use to decorate. I’d already decided that I’d never want to or be able to stop feeling their presence and that of my mother in the house, so I wanted to fill a whole wall in the living room with mementos—pictures, samplers, shelves with some particular favorite trinkets. My four-box system resulted in me keeping a bit more than I had planned, but my Donate and Trash piles were substantial enough that I didn’t judge myself too harshly.
Monday rolled around, and I headed into the café for my shift, reminding myself that I needed to find a way to casually bring Karl Richards up to Sammy before she left. I needed to do it in a way that didn’t seem too suspicious. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and not too hot, so the café wasn’t very busy. During the summer, rainy days mid- to late-week were the ones that got us really busy. By then, each week’s tourists had gotten comfortable enough with the town to know where they could go to escape the weather and their families at the same time.
“Hey! How was your weekend?” Sammy asked brightly as I came in.
“Pretty good, and yours?”
“It was good. My sister was in town with her kids, so I mostly hung out with them. Compared to where they live, this is the big city, so they had a pretty good time just wandering around town.”
“I bet!” I laughed. Sammy’s sister lived in the back woods of Maine with her lumberjack husband and their two kids. I couldn’t imagine being that far away and out of touch with civilization.
Sammy and I worked for the next hour or so. I kept on the lookout for opportunities to ask her about Karl Richards, but we were both working pretty steadily, and I didn’t get the chance until she was almost ready to leave. The café was quiet. No one was waiting for a drink, all the dishes had been washed, and all the counters were wiped down. Sammy was in the backroom folding some dish rags, so I walked in the back and helped her fold.
“Hey, do you know a guy named Karl Richards?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as I could. “I think he’s new in town? I was talking to Mary Ellen over at the souvenir shop the other day, and she mentioned she was dating him. She said he comes in here sometimes, but I couldn’t place him, so I thought I’d ask you.” A little white lie surely couldn’t hurt.
“Karl Richards,” she repeated thoughtfully. “I think he works at the electronics shop, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, Mary Ellen mentioned something about that.”
“I think he’s been in here once or twice. Older guy, kind of nice-looking actually. He looks like he’d be the distinguished older agent in some spy thriller or something. That’s about all I know about him. He doesn’t say too much, kind of keeps to himself. That’s probably why I think he looks like a spy.” She giggled as she said it.
I folded some more towels. Quiet and nice-looking wasn’t much to go on.
“Oh!” Sammy said after a minute. “He plays chess in the park a lot! I’ve seen him there on my way home from work.”
That was something I could work with. My chess skills were rusty, but I’d be able to talk to him longer and get a better feel for the man from across the chess table than by trying to chat him up at work.
Sammy and I finished folding the towels, and she headed out for the day. The café stayed medium busy the rest of the day, enough so that I stayed on the move but didn’t feel frantic or fall behind on keeping things neat. As I walked home that night after closing up, I noticed that it was already getting dark. It always seems unfair that the summer solstice is in June, when the summer months are only just starting. By the end of the summer, it would be dark out long before I closed the café for the night.
That night, as I continued going through my grandparents’ things—there was a lot stuffed in that little bedroom!—I came up with my plan for how I would talk to Karl. In the back of my grandfather’s closet was an old radio that hadn’t worked for as long as I could remember. In the morning, I’d take that over to the electronics shop and talk to them about getting it fixed. Hopefully I’d run into Karl there and get a look at him. Then, later on, I’d just happen to run into him at the park and try to get myself into a game of chess with him. That would give me plenty of time to get him talking and ever-so-casually bring up Mr. Cardosi. With any luck, h
e’d slip up and give me some information I could use. It wasn’t a foolproof plan—lots of hoping and trying and lucking into things—but it seemed as though it had a decent chance of working. I put the radio by the front door, set my alarm for earlier than I would have liked, and went to bed.
The next morning, bright and early, I headed over to the electronics shop, ancient radio in hand. The door announced my presence with the customary jingle, but no one came out to greet me. I walked in and rested my grandfather’s radio on the counter while I waited. After a couple of minutes with no sign of life from the back, I leaned across the counter and looked around. I saw a bell tucked behind the register where it was virtually impossible for a customer to find it. I pulled it around toward me and tapped it rapidly three times.
From the back, I heard old men’s voices, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I could tell there were two of them though. I was getting ready to tap the bell again when an older man came out of the back. He had a thick shock of white hair carefully combed back, and he was wearing a neat black shirt tucked into his khaki pants. I noticed with pleasure that he was wearing a name tag with “Karl” printed on it. Sammy was right—he was pretty nice-looking for an older guy.
“Can I help you?” he asked. He didn’t sound as though he particularly wanted to help me, but he didn’t sound quite hostile about it either. It was the most neutral, perfunctory tone I could imagine. Certainly not the warm, inviting style of greeting my grandfather had drilled into me.
I smiled my biggest, friendliest smile. “Hi, um, Karl, is it?” I pretended I was just now reading his name tag. I thought I saw him give a brief nod, but it was clear that was all I would get. “I’m Francesca Amaro. I run Antonia’s Italian Café down the way.” I stuck out my hand.
He took it reluctantly and gave it one hesitant shake before letting go.