You Cannoli Die Once Part 6

If Nonna wants to hire him, she can make the phone call.

I didn't know why I was so agitated. Maybe it had something to do with feeling like my life was flying out of control. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that pink shirts on hot men are strangely s.e.xy.

I turned on my heel and left. Halfway to the door, I felt a hand slip around my upper arm. "Hey, I'll make you some tea. Come on, Eve, you can't go solving crimes looking like you just committed one yourself-"

"Oh, look who's talking."

He pulled me around to face him. "Look," he said, his hand lingering on my arm. I was hoping it was far enough away from my heart that he didn't feel it pounding. After an indecisive moment when I wondered whether his hand was going to do something more interesting, he finally gave my arm a squeeze and let go. "Just one cup of tea."

"Don't you have someone to go defend, or something?"

He checked his watch and headed toward the workroom. "Not until later."

I followed him into the workroom, which was the heart of the Flowers by Beck operation. The cla.s.sroom where I'd auditioned Mrs. Crawford had a "public face" polish that was missing here in the back. Aside from two sinks and a threadbare blue-and-green-checked couch, there were large worktables, shelves holding pretty vases of various shapes and sizes, wall-mounted rolls of green florist paper, plenty of wire, and enough Styrofoam to float Venice.

I sat on the couch and hugged my knees, watching Joe pour from the hot water carafe on a two-unit coffeemaker. Into a mug emblazoned with Failure Is Not an Option-Kennedy s.p.a.ce Center, he plunked a tea bag, a teaspoon, and a drizzle of honey. Then he handed it to me. "This will set you right up." He patted my back in a there, there sort of way.

I sipped what turned out to be chamomile, and eyed my host.

Joe pulled up a chair, swung it around, and sat. We looked at each other for a while, the way I've seen people look when they're standing in front of cubist paintings, then he scratched his head. "I'm sorry we've gotten off to a bad start."

"Me, too, I guess," I mumbled. Graciousness, thy name is Eve.

"Anything new on the murder?" said Joe, his eyes wide with curiosity. The blue was pretty dazzling.

I gave him a shrug. "Maria Pia let the guy into the restaurant, so she may be calling you up about that good-neighbor discount."

Joe leaned back, looking pensive. "Opportunity, then."

I heaved a sigh.

"Motive?"

"Are we really going to do this?" I raised the mug for another soothing sip.

"I think we should."

I felt myself blushing. That last time I had that exact exchange, I ended up in the back office with the FedEx guy. Strangely, it was all I could do not to run a thumb along Joe's cheek to see just how close his shave was.

I shook my head like I was trying to clear a three-beer buzz. "On the motive issue," I said finally, "none known, but she's hiding something."

Joe let that sink in, then he said, "Means?"

I made a vague gesture. "She can swing a mortar with the best of them."

"So where was it?"

"The mortar?"

He nodded. "Where do you keep it? In a cupboard? Out on the counter? Where?"

I dimly got why this was an interesting question. If the mortar and pestle were kept in a cupboard, the killer had to know where to find them-a totally creepy thought, since it let out all the wait staff, and narrowed the field to those of us who knew how the kitchen worked. After all, if I suddenly needed a tool for stirring the polenta, I automatically knew just where to reach for a flat whisk. But since I hadn't killed Mather, that left Landon, Choo Choo, Li Wei the dishwasher, and Maria Pia.

Not good.

Although . . . that scenario left out the possibility of premeditation. If the killer had arrived before Mather and had murder in mind, he could have spent an interesting hour browsing the possibilities: knives galore, rolling pins, bread boards, skewers, meat thermometers, and gas ovens. Suddenly the field blew wide open.

I was the happiest I had felt in the last day and a half.

But the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that the mortar had not been inside a cupboard the night before the murder. I had ground some nutmeg to jazz up my spinach alla piemontese that evening, and I was pretty sure Li Wei hadn't washed it before he had to leave.

No, the black marble mortar and pestle were sitting out overnight on the counter near the prep table. I looked up at Joe, who was waiting patiently. "It was out. The mortar was out."

He said nothing.

I went on: "Which means my grandmother could still have done it."

"Eve, it means anybody could have done it," he said with a smile. "I could have done it."

I narrowed my eyes, remembering my a.s.signment in Operation Free Maria Pia. "So where were you that morning?"

"In trial."

I sagged. "Plenty of witnesses?"

He gave me a smile. "Try the county prosecutor. She's the one most likely to remember me. I got the case dismissed."

Well, at least it felt good to eliminate somebody.

"Listen, I know I've been a nuisance. Let me make it up to you," he said, sounding like he'd come up with the answer to the melting polar ice cap.

The chamomile tea with honey had pretty much taken care of it, but Joe didn't know that. "What do you have in mind?" I sat up straight, in negotiating mode . . . and noticed that his dimple appeared even when he wasn't smiling. Feeling suddenly charitable-or cynical-I had a glimmer into why cases got dismissed.

"I've got contacts. If your cousins don't turn up anything on Mather, then come to me."

"Okay."

He stuck out his hand, like we were striking a deal.

I said fine, and shook.

Holding my hand a couple of seconds too long, he said great.

And just as I was thanking him, the bell of the front door tinkled insistently, and Joe left to sell some posies for his absent brother.

6.

"Chef Angelotta?" came the deep, nasal voice.

"Yes?" I had just turned onto Callowhill Street, on my way to Full of Crepe to grill Eloise Timmler, when the call came, and I fumbled at my phone. "Mrs. Crawford?" I guessed.

"Yes. Are you in the neighborhood?"

Which neighborhood? "Of the restaurant?"

A beat. "Of course."

"Just around the corner," I told her. "Why?"

"Meet me out front. I may have some information." And she hung up.

I must admit I felt a little frisson of . . . something. I think fear.

I didn't trust that woman-or man. No matter if she-or he-played like Art Tatum. I turned on my heel and leadenly headed back in the direction of Market Square. Was it coincidence that Mrs. Bryce Crawford, pianist, showed up within an hour of my discovery of the murder victim on my kitchen floor? Don't they always say killers return to the scene of the crime?

Some information. Was it a trap? In broad daylight? With shoppers and a CSI team milling around? What did my brawny new part-time pianist think I knew? What did I know? Besides a toe-curling recipe for cannoli that my bigoted grandmother never let me put on the menu? (The whole Sicilian thing.) But wait.

I had set up the audition with Mrs. Crawford two days before the murder.

But wait.

That could mean she was a pianist and a planner. A premeditating piano-playing planner.

But wait. As I rounded the corner, I saw her waiting for me on the sidewalk outside Miracolo. Today she was dressed in a coral c.o.c.ktail dress with a Jackie Kennedy veiled pillbox hat and shoes dyed to match. A green clip in the shape of a lizard held back half of her wiry hair. Over her shoulders glittered a light silver crocheted wrap that would send Landon into a tizzy. She was carrying a Florida green clutch and a folded newspaper. Her chin was lifted, and she appeared mysterious and composed as she kept her eyes on a robin flying in and out of a s.p.a.ce between the building's gutter and the eave.

I stopped alongside her and asked, "What do you think of Etta James?"

A thinly penciled eyebrow lifted, although her gaze didn't move. "Sadly underrated."

I crossed my arms. "On a par with Ella Fitzgerald?"

"Yes," she said with a veiled look, "but that's not a popular opinion."

It was hard not to like a woman who dolled up that much on a Wednesday morning. Someone who dressed retro without realizing it was retro. Was this the stuff killers are made of?

"So, Mrs. Crawford, what have you got for me?"

She unfolded the newspaper and held it out to me. "Is this the gentleman who expired in your restaurant?"

Two lady shoppers in boiled wool jackets and Hush Puppies gave us a terrified look as they pa.s.sed.

"You do know it had nothing to do with the food?" I shrilled at Mrs. Crawford-and them.

"Yes, of course."

My eyes swept over the lead story in the Bucks County Courier Times. There was the photo of local businesswoman Maria Pia Angelotta and her escort, "murder victim" Arlen Mather. I thought "escort" sounded kind of cheesy. But that was probably less important than the fact that the two festivalgoers looked bleary, as if the wine at the Food and Wine Festival had met way too much with their approval.

The news story didn't have much to add-found dead, suspected foul play (unless, I suppose, Arlen had curled up on the floor for a nap and the mortar had fallen on his skull-repeatedly), persons of interest, ongoing investigation. Nothing much about the man himself-no background, no work history-since the extent of my nonna's helpfulness seemed to end at handing over a picture.

I looked up at Mrs. Crawford, waiting for her to divulge . . . whatever.

"The gentleman was a friend of this Maria Pia?" she asked, her eyes glimmering.

I was thankful she didn't call him an escort. "My grandmother, yes."

She narrowed her eyes at the clouds. "And not much is known about him?"

"Apparently not."

She met my eyes. "I believe I may have seen him before."

Aha! "Where?" I blurted. Following up astutely with, "When?"

She looked at me squarely. "I played a gig about eight months ago. He was there, this Arlen"-she glanced at the newspaper-"Mather, although I never heard the name. I played during the champagne reception and before the auction began."

My heart rate picked up. "What was it?"

"It was a fund-raiser at the Academy of Music, on Broad Street. For the Opera Company of Philadelphia."

So the mysterious Mr. Mather attended opera fund-raisers. No, Mrs. Crawford had no recollection whether he bid on anything during the auction. But he was wearing a tuxedo and his daughter wore a mixed strand of pearls and a feathered boa that proved more tasteful than one would think.

His daughter?

After telling Mrs. Crawford I'd call her about her start date once the police let us open, she handed me the Courier Times and clicked back up the street in her coral pumps.

I had just speed-dialed Nonna when the Culiform Supply panel truck pulled to a stop at the curb. Our uniform service. h.e.l.l, I forgot to head them off at the pa.s.s. So I hung up on Nonna when I heard, "p.r.o.nto?" and dialed the carpet cleaners, the linen service, and the food wholesalers. Between calls, I explained to the Culiform Supply driver-the bodybuilding Carly, according to her name pin and wingspan-that homicide had temporarily dampened our need for restaurant wear. Much paperwork and many sighs ensued.

While Carly fumed and bl.u.s.tered, several neighbors wanted updates.

Mr. von Veltheim, the baker, presented me with some complimentary kugelhopf, which I accepted.

Sasha Breen, looking especially whippetlike, said she heard it was a mob hit. From her lips, it sounded like foreplay. I a.s.sured her that unless the mob's preferred method of extinction these days was kitchenware, she had nothing to worry about.

Akahana mentioned that Emperor Hirohito was an excellent ballroom dancer.

Weird Edgar from the Quaker Hills Service Department unloaded the trash can in front of Sprouts, and said he moonlights as a bodily fluids cleanup guy. Reasonable rates. He actually handed me a business card that said Gross-B-Gone, No Guts, No Gory.

A ponytailed fourth-grader pulling a pink backpack on wheels told me her daddy said my granny was going to fry. At that, I wished I'd paid more attention to Nonna whenever she worked up a good evil eye. And, really, I started to say something high-road, like the only thing my "granny" fries is heavenly gnocchi fritti, and such a nice little girl as she was should stop by sometime for one.

But what came out was that her daddy was an ignoramus, and that she should get her Little Debbie Cosmic-Brownies-loving b.u.t.t out of there before I called the school to report her as a truant. So she did.