Toured to Death, page 21
Seven faces stared blankly, except for Marcus, who had already guessed. Vinny tried another hint. “The next course is scallops and mushrooms. Followed by a nice veal roast with a garnish of tomato and basil.”
“The opening night dinner,” Jolynn said but added no inflection, nothing to indicate pleasure or appreciation.
“Yes,” Martha gasped, clasping her hands. “And you re-created all the dishes? From memory?”
“Hardly.” Vinny ladled out the soup and passed the bowls to Holly, who passed them down the line. “French cooking is very standardized. A béarnaise sauce is almost always the same. As opposed to Italian, where you’ll rarely get the same marinara twice, even from the same chef.”
“Still, that’s amazing.” Martha turned to Burt. “Isn’t that amazing?”
“I can’t vouch that every ingredient is exact,” Vinny added. “And I didn’t use food coloring to write the team numbers into the shells of the strawberry tarts. Remember that?”
The meal turned out to be a pleasant one, given the situation and the cast. If the twins weren’t on their best behavior, they at least toyed with the concept, paying enough attention to Holly to make her feel grown up and worthy of attention.
At the adults’ end of the table there evolved a nice blend of subjects. The investigation did not go ignored. It was one of the few things they had in common, and the evening would have seemed stilted without it. But it wasn’t the only or even the main topic. The meal drew to a relaxed, natural close, and with ice cream on the tarts, at Holly’s request.
Amy fiddled with the crumbs of her shell, taking the time to observe her ex-guests. She was on equal footing with them, now that their complaints and problems were no longer the bane of her every waking moment. “It’s funny, this dinner.” She leaned diagonally toward Marcus, at the head of the table.
Marcus also leaned, the two of them forming a temporary island of privacy. “Funny how?”
“So many dinners. First night in Monte Carlo. That evening in Assisi. Georgina’s murder. Even the Carvel dinner five years ago. As if dinners are the center of it all.”
“Very much at the center.”
Amy started. “What do you mean?”
Marcus glanced uneasily down the length of the table. It was a slight thing, a bare movement of the eye. “Later.”
Yes, Amy reminded herself. This was yet another of those dinners. No matter how hard it might be to believe, one of them . . . one of them or Frank. She couldn’t let herself forget Frank.
“Later what?” Martha drawled. She was leaning over the table, with a wink that tried its best to be sensual and wound up looking like an eye infection. “What’s going on with you two? As if we didn’t know.”
“Know what?” Amy was a little slow on the uptake. “Oh, us?” She shot a glance at Marcus, then around the table, surprised to find herself facing down several sly little smiles. “Please, there’s nothing to know.”
It was Marcus who came to her rescue, deflecting the attention back to Martha. “Speaking of knowing something . . .” Marcus spread his arms wide, palms up, one in Burt’s direction, the other in Martha’s. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed the two of you.”
The jurist and the decorator paused, then exchanged a conspiratorial nod.
“Touché.” Burt laughed. “Caught red-handed. You see, unlike some, who neither admit nor deny, I will do the honest thing. Yes.” He waved a strawberry-stained fork. “You caught us.”
“Should we tell them now?” Martha murmured. She reached across the table, touching his free hand. “I know you wanted to inform your family first, but . . .”
“Oh, no,” Holly moaned, anticipating the blow.
Martha went on. “These are the people who know us both. The ones who brought us together, you might say.”
“Gag me,” Holly added, and Martha seemed to be considering it.
“You’re right, dear. Besides, from the way you’re talking, they already know.”
“I think we do.” Vinny chuckled and beamed. “Congratulations.”
“No, no. Let’s do this properly.” Burt pushed himself to his feet, his crutches hitting the edge of the linen-covered table. “My friends.” He lifted his glass. “I am happy to announce that Ms. Martha Callas has foolishly consented to be my bride.”
The suburban dining room echoed with a chorus of warm wishes. The twins whooped wildly, as if someone had scored a touchdown.
“You don’t congratulate the bride,” Jolynn said, chastising someone. “That’s for the groom. You say ‘Happiness’ or “Best wishes’ to the bride.”
“To Burt and Martha.” Vinny lifted his glass. The others followed suit. Wisely, no one waited for Holly. “To the happy couple.”
“To the happy couple.” Amy raised her own glass and had an immediate, unsettling flashback to their last group toast.
But this time, no one died.
Amy watched them in her rearview mirror, Vinny and Jolynn Mrozek, caught in a circle of porch light. The twins framed the mismatched couple like a pair of burly bookends. A warmly pleasant picture: the cozy, perfect house, the freshly mowed lawn, the smiling, waving family.
Amy negotiated the spirals of nearly identical streets, all dedicated to trees or flowers or feminine first names. It was a confusing maze, made even more so by Marcus’s lack of skill in reinterpreting—reverse interpreting—Vinny’s original directions.
“When you get to Alice Avenue . . .”
“We’re on Alice Avenue.”
“Sorry. When you get to Hawthorne, make a right. No, that would be a left.”
They finally encountered a sign for the Palisades Parkway, and Amy knew where they were. “Okay,” she said and prepared to swing onto the leafy ribbon of road. “You were saying something about the dinners. How they’re important.” The evenly spaced streetlamps flashed a hypnotic pattern of lights and shadows through the Volvo’s dim interior.
“Ah, yes.” Marcus folded the sheet of directions and slipped it into the glove box. “I think I know why Fabian left the dinner table.”
Amy lifted her foot from the gas and steered them into the slower, non-passing lane. “All right. I’m listening.”
“Tonight wasn’t the second time this menu’s been served. It’s the third.”
Amy shrugged, not surprised. “The same dishes were served at the Carvel house five years ago.”
“Right. The only difference might be the green beans. I don’t remember . . .”
“Don’t worry about the beans.”
“Oh. Okay. Anyway, it was one of Otto’s little touches, using the same menu. I’d almost forgotten. I mean, how could it be important?”
“But it is important. That’s what you’re saying?”
“Yes.” Marcus twisted his body sideways, then propped his legs up in front of him, straining the seat belt’s shoulder harness. He stared at Amy’s profile. “Did you like the scallops in cream sauce?”
Amy gave him a fleeting glance, then looked back at the road. “They were fine.”
“Just like you remembered them in Monte Carlo? Nice and creamy.”
“I suppose.”
“I didn’t realize, either, until I thought about Mr. Carvel eating them.”
“Oh, damn.” Amy froze, her hands clutching the wheel.
“Pay attention. Amy, slow down.”
They were heading into a series of S curves. Amy came back to reality just in time to ease on the brakes. “So, five years ago there was cream in Fabian Carvel’s scallops. Do you remember that for sure?”
“Of course not. One dish? Five years ago? But there was cream in the scallops tonight. I saw Vinny put it in.”
“Maybe Fabian’s cook didn’t use cream. I mean, he had the same cook for ages. Mrs. What’s-her-name. She used some sort of cream substitute.”
“Mrs. Gray. Yes, probably. But what if she didn’t? It certainly would answer a few questions.”
Amy veered off the Palisades Parkway and onto the approach ramp for the George Washington Bridge. As she did, Marcus laid out the scenario.
“It’s like your mystery woman theory. Mrs. Gray was infuriated by Mr. Carvel’s decision not to give her the company stock.”
“So she put cream in his food.”
“Why not? I didn’t think about the scallops that night. If I had, I would have assumed it was a cream substitute. But Carvel knew. Why else would he have looked so odd just as he was eating it? Why else would he have left without a word? The woman who’d been his cook for decades had purposely made him sick.”
Amy was skeptical. “So he runs away from his cook, a harmless old woman. She doesn’t follow him, either. That’s established. But he stays on the road for a week, then gets killed in San Diego. . . .” She merged into an E-ZPass lane and eased through the toll barrier to the upper level of the bridge. “Outrageous.”
“It’s not so outrageous.”
“No. Sorry. I mean, thirteen bucks to cross a bridge.”
Marcus waited until they were safely on the upper roadway’s humming expanse. “Anyway, Georgina noticed the cream. She didn’t instantly connect it to his disappearance. But at some point, she put it together.”
Amy thought back to the dinner in Assisi. “Perhaps.”
“And that’s why she was killed.”
“By the cook?” She maneuvered the Volvo into the far right lane. “The cook who wasn’t in San Diego and wasn’t in Rome? That cook?”
“All right, all right. But it does answer some questions.”
Amy flashed back to that sunny afternoon on the roof garden when Georgina admitted knowing why Fabian had run off. “It wasn’t anything,” the heiress had said. A little inconsistency.
The car eased onto the mazelike exit ramp. “It answers some questions.”
Marcus turned to face front, then adjusted his seat belt and settled into the cracked leather. “So . . .”
“We should give this information to the police.”
“What information? You mean about an old cook and a milk allergy? Coming from their prime suspect? I think I’ll skip that meeting.”
They were on the Henry Hudson now, heading south along the New York side of the river toward the Village and home. “So we don’t tell the police. Or the team captains. If, by some miracle, we’re right, then we’re in just as much danger as Georgina.” Amy frowned. “Killing her because she remembered cream in the scallops.”
“That must be the loose thread. The loose thread that can unravel everything.”
“Oh, a knitting metaphor.”
“The killer knows that this thread will lead straight back to her. Or him. We must be close.”
“We may be close.” Amy glanced sideways. “Oh, and we do not tell this to my mother.”
“Why not? If it weren’t for Fanny, we wouldn’t be this far along.”
“Don’t let her hear that. You’ll be opening a whole Pandora’s box.”
“Now you’re the one with the metaphors.”
“It’s a Pandora’s box.”
“You know what was at the bottom of the box?” Marcus’s tone was playful and persuasive. Reaching over the gearshift, he placed a hand on Amy’s knee. Her leg jerked, and the accelerator kicked in. “I learned this from a grade school comic book. At the bottom of Pandora’s box, under all the troubles of the world, there was hope.”
“Hope? With Fanny?” Amy eased off the pedal. “You’re right. I used the wrong metaphor.”
CHAPTER 30
Marcus climbed the stairs from the kitchen to the bedroom level, a cup of coffee in each hand. “Light, no sugar,” he called out. “Right?”
By the time he reached the top, he could hear the shower running hard. On the far side of the bathroom door, Amy was singing. It was a cheery rock song from a million years ago about making love in a Mexican cantina.
Placing the steaming cups on a nightstand, he picked up his watch and slipped it on. He glanced around, then tiptoed to the center window of three and pulled down a slat of the venetian blind, just enough to see through. As always, except for a few hours twice a week, on the street cleaning days, Barrow Street was jammed with parked cars. But there weren’t any here now that hadn’t been here last night. Two grade school boys were running toward Seventh Avenue, dressed in uniforms and laughing. Other than that, the street was deserted.
He grabbed the moist bath towel draped over a bedpost. Toweling off his hair with one hand, he used the other to grab his phone and press a speed dial button. His roommate picked up on the second ring. “Terry? Me again.” Marcus tossed aside the towel and began to reach for his trousers, folded over a straight-backed chair. “Did they come back?”
“He was here a minute ago, just the one guy.” Terry’s voice seemed too loud, much louder than his own. Marcus cocked an ear—the singer was still on the floor of the Mexican cantina—then cupped a hand around the phone. “I can get into trouble, Marcus. He wants you to come in for questioning. That’s all.”
“Sure. That’s why he was waiting at my door at ten thirty last night. For questioning?”
“You’re going to have to come home sooner or later. I mean, if you don’t . . . that’s like being a fugitive.”
“Not if I don’t know about it. Did it sound like he was going to arrest me? Did he have a warrant? They can’t force me to come in without a warrant, can they?”
“How should I know? On TV the police bring people in. Stuff like, ‘You can answer my questions here or at the station house.’ It sounds like they can force you.”
“I don’t think so, not without a warrant.” Marcus cradled the phone in the crook of his neck as he slipped on the black trousers, followed by the black silk shirt from the other bedpost. He glanced around and was able to find only a small antique wall mirror. “She must be the only woman in America without a full-length mirror.”
“You’re in someone’s apartment? Where are you?”
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
Terry sighed. “What a mess.”
Marcus sighed back. “Maybe I should have stuck around. But when I saw his car out front, I panicked. I’ve already spent a week in jail. It’s no fun.”
“Did you have an okay night?”
Marcus glanced toward the bathroom door. The water had stopped, and so had the singing. “I had a very nice night.” He lowered his voice even more. “What did he say this morning? Same as before?”
“He asked if you came home at all and if I’d heard from you. His patience was pretty thin. He asked if you had a girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Someone named Amy. Is she the one who came over?”
“Damn. He must be on his way here. Gotta go.”
By the time Amy, wearing only a towel and fogged-up glasses, emerged from the bathroom, Marcus was dressed and combing his hair. Amy came and kissed him shyly on the forehead. “Oh, coffee.” Marcus watched as she strolled over to the nightstand, her face so open and warm and pleased. “Great. No sugar, I hope.”
“We should go. We’ll be late.”
Amy eyed him over the rim of steam. Why was he acting like this? Was it just the awkwardness of the morning after? “Plenty of time to sit down with a cup of coffee.” She smiled, hoping to put him at ease. “Don’t you think? Traffic out to Long Island shouldn’t be bad.”
“I have to get home first, to change.” And before Amy could object, he grabbed his coffee, still untasted, and his wallet and headed for the stairs.
Amy caught him by the arm, and a small wave of brown liquid sloshed out and onto the rug. “Sorry. Did it get you? Uh, I just wanted to say . . .” She had rehearsed this several different ways but never so rushed. “I’m glad you came over last night. I thought, after I dropped you off in front of the deli . . .”
“I told you. I needed milk.”
“I know. But I thought . . . I assumed it was just an excuse not to ask me up. Anyway, thanks for changing your mind. When I looked out the window and saw you ringing the bell . . .”
Marcus kissed her lightly on the cheek and headed once more for the stairs. “I’ll be downstairs talking to Fanny.” It was a phrase designed to get Amy moving.
“Okay, I’m coming. Just a minute.”
Fanny Abel was in the third-floor kitchen, Amy’s kitchen, filching the last of the coffee. Stronger than normal, she thought curiously. The sound of footsteps made her look up, and her eyes widened in momentary shock. A second later and all was normal, as if handsome men in black descended every morning from her daughter’s bedroom.
“Fanny, there’s no time to explain.”
“Explain? Sweetie, explain what?”
“No, no. This is an emergency.”
The doorbell buzzed, a tinny blast exploding from the intercom beside the stove.
“Damn. Okay, okay.” Marcus threw his hands to the sides of his head, as if physically trying to hold in his thoughts. “Okay. Quick. Yell upstairs. Tell Amy you’ll answer the door.”
Fanny barely skipped a beat. “Amy,” she crooned in her piercing piccolo. “Don’t answer that. I’m expecting Bernice Crenshaw. She hits your bell by mistake.”
“Fine,” came Amy’s voice down the stairwell.
Fanny turned to Marcus. “Who is it? What do I do?”
“It’s the police,” Marcus said, biting his lower lip. “They’re looking for me.”
“Do they have a warrant?”
“I think it’s just Frank Loyola. But Amy and I have some important things . . .”
“No need to explain.” Fanny pushed a button on the intercom. “Who is it?” she asked.
“Police,” a voice squawked almost indecipherably.
Fanny glanced up the stairs. “Bernice? Hello. Be down in a second.” And before the voice could respond, Fanny released the button. “I’ll get him into my living room. You and Amy take the stairs down. . . .”
“He may have another officer outside.”
“Good point.” Fanny began fixing her hair in the refrigerator chrome. “I know. Have Amy take you out through the garden. I saw Mrs. Pelegrino. She’ll let you go through her house to Grove Street.”
