Death Al Dente Page 13

  All that hard work, and everything was crashing down.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said out loud. “You didn’t create the problem and you don’t have to solve it. You don’t have to rescue her, and you don’t have to rescue this shop. You can go home, grab Mr. Sandburg, and ride off into the sunset.”

  My laptop sat on the desk and I punched it to life. Figures—the first icon I spotted was our mission statement, and next to it, the vendor list.

  I’d wanted to be the center of the wheel, not just another cog. But the spokes depend on the center. It must hold. If I walked away, the Merc would fail. Maybe I couldn’t keep my mother out of jail, but I had to try. And I had to keep the Merc up and running, and keep Tracy, Jo and Phyl, and all the other vendors in the game, too.

  Dang. I could really use a pound of huckleberry truffles right now.

  Lacking good chocolate, I needed a plan. First, find the real killer. I thought about Law and Order, and Homicide. Sure, they were made up, but TV writers understood what cops really did, didn’t they? Kept paid consultants on staff, even. And the true crime shows, like Dateline and 48 Hours—who hadn’t seen a few reruns, on sleepless nights? Or America’s Most Wanted.

  Dean Vincent, local bone cracker and Elvis Impersonator, hardly seemed to fit the killer mold, although Ted seemed convinced of his guilt, too. But didn’t those shows prove that you never knew the killer next door?

  I created a spreadsheet with a list of names and columns for motive, opportunity, means. I saw what the initial letters spelled, and reversed the last two labels. Dean first, then Linda. Motive, easy. Means? Kim’s questions made a knife most likely, though I couldn’t rule out a shooting. Consider everyone and everything, then narrow it down—isn’t that what Mark Harmon or Mariska Hargitay would do? If they were real and working homicide in Jewel Bay.

  Dean didn’t seem like the hunting type, but looks are deceiving. And plenty of men and women own guns for protection, especially if they live in the country or hike a lot. Though I still thought we’d have heard a bang if Claudette had been shot.

  Who else had Claudette dated? Any killers lurking in those shadows? Who could I ask, besides my mother? Why was I coming up with more questions than answers?

  Next column, opportunity. Which really meant: Could they have been in Back Street at 6 p.m. last Friday night?

  I had provided the killer’s opening, by bringing all these people together and inviting Claudette. But I hadn’t pulled the trigger or thrust the hilt or whatever had happened. Shake it off, Erin. Shake it off.

  I closed my eyes and tried to visualize all the people I’d seen come in the back gate. Gordy Springer, the pharmacist, who’d stayed with the body till the paramedics came. He’d come solo—his wife, an antiques dealer, had gone to a show in Missoula.

  The musicians had been in and out for a good thirty minutes. What about Sam and Jennifer? Jen and Claudette had clashed big-time, and I’d had to work hard, offering business advice and my sister’s design services, to calm Jen down. Murder, over that? Too ridiculous to contemplate. I input her name anyway. For all I knew, she could be an escaped serial killer hiding in plain sight.

  Talk about ridiculous. But the real point stuck out: Perfectly pleasant people have secrets they’d rather not expose. Unexpected tensions buzz just beneath seemingly smooth surfaces.

  And everyone gets their Jell-O up from time to time.

  In all fairness, I had to add Fresca to the list. And myself. People thought I had motive, and the point of this exercise was as much to rule suspects out as to rule them in. Tracy. Ned. According to Kathy at the Dragonfly, Claudette had quit work at Red’s abruptly and left Ned in the lurch. His kind heart aside, this was about opportunity. I couldn’t believe anyone on my list had killed Claudette deliberately, with malice aforethought—whatever that was.

  But in the heat of the moment, maybe.

  A new theme emerged. Claudette had made a habit of quitting jobs abruptly. Who else nursed a grudge? I added a note. I love spreadsheets.

  Speaking of notes, where was hers? I scribbled Fresca a reminder to look for it.

  One by one, I worked my way through the names and columns. What about Jeff? He and Ian made the five-hundred-mile drive—or two-hour flight—from Seattle regularly. Any viable list of suspects should include the spouse. At least on TV. I added him.

  The only other person whose whereabouts—now there’s a criminal word for you—I felt reasonably sure of was Tracy, who’d been standing next to me before I went out to the alley. And just before that, she’d been scurrying around the courtyard, doing Fresca’s bidding.

  Where had Fresca been at the key moment? That blank cell on the spreadsheet dared me to find another explanation.

  Ned had been right there, too. Or had he? Truth be told, I hadn’t paid close attention. We’d each had our tasks, and I’d trusted everyone to get them done.

  Finding a killer would be a lot easier if there’d been a stranger in our midst. Someone who didn’t belong.

  I rubbed my eyes and put the computer to bed. On TV, the killer lurks in the shadows the whole time, where the cops barely notice him, thumbing his nose at justice until all the pieces fall into place, three minutes before the hour.

  In real life, no such script.

  * * *

  I knew I ought to run my mother’s phone out to her house, but I was still too peeved. Later, after we’d cooled off.

  Meanwhile, when in doubt, rule everyone out. If that wasn’t an official investigator’s motto, it ought to be. Maybe I’d suggest it to the Cowdog.

  I left the village by the back road and swung by Claudette’s house. Jeff sat in the front porch rocker, a beer bottle on Claudette’s white wicker table.

  “Hey, Jeff. Just wanted to say Fresca will bring a tortellini salad and fruit skewers on Thursday.” Lame opening, but this unobtrusive probing was tricky.

  “Thanks. Care for a cold one?”

  I shook my head. “So you and Ian were in China? Buying and selling antiques? That must be fascinating.”

  “We’d just gotten back to Seattle Thursday night. Thank God this didn’t happen earlier. I handle some antiques, some reproductions, working with local craftsmen and small factories. I go over a few times a year. Been great to have Ian traveling with me.”

  “I know it isn’t really any of my business”—though I’d been acting like it was—“but did Dean Vincent break up your marriage?”

  Jeff looked surprised. “No. Claudette and I were never right for each other. The travel didn’t help. She knew Dean, of course—our kids were friends, and it’s a small town—but I’m sure they didn’t get involved until we were through.” His eyes filled and closed. I sensed another presence, and spotted Ian standing at the open window. Bowls and plates filled with food, no doubt brought by friends and neighbors, covered the kitchen counter. How much had Ian heard? Jeff rubbed his eye with his left hand, drawing his fingers down to his square jaw. He opened his eyes slowly, gaze still focused on the past. “Claudette was like a baby bird. No matter how infuriating she could be, you’d never hurt her.”

  His description of Claudette was right on, but his conclusion wrong. Someone had hurt her, and I was no closer to knowing who.

  But violent crime has many victims. I glanced up. Ian was gone.

  * * *

  “Wise men say, only fools rush in . . .” Not a great soundtrack for an impromptu interview of a possible killer, but here I stood, on the sidewalk in front of Dean Vincent’s condo. The uncurtained window gave the neighborhood a full frontal view of his living room rehearsal. No question, he had the look—the tucked chin and earnest eyes, and the moves—those famous swiveling hips.

  Maybe the King had just needed a decent chiropractor.

  “I was in the neighborhood.” Thinking up excuses to drop in on people is tough. “Hope I’m not
interrupting.”

  Dean smoothed his hands over his royal blue hip-hugger bell bottoms, the shirt open way too far. “Rehearsals go better in costume. It sets the mood.”

  “You must have loved Vegas.” The living room looked like a designer’s sketch for a casino hotel lobby, circa 1970: a sleek black leather banquette-style couch, a pair of chrome chairs upholstered in white leather, a zebra-patterned shag rug beneath a glass-topped table. The only things missing were neon lights and a lava lamp. “Bet it was hard to come back.”

  He raked a hand through his gelled hair, not quite as rakish as Elvis’s. “We all need a break now and then. I’m lucky to have my work and my art.”

  Art. I supposed so, in a certain light. “So you didn’t intend to leave Jewel Bay? To give up your practice?”

  “Heck, no.” He sank onto the couch and waved me toward a chair.

  Surprisingly comfy. “Where’d you find this furniture?”

  “Vintage, mostly. Linda and I collected it over the years.” He reddened at the mention of his not-exactly-ex wife.

  “From the looks of things, I’m guessing you’ll be moving it all back to her house soon.”

  What was that line about building dreams on suspicious minds?

  “Did we all misunderstand Claudette? We thought you two made a permanent escape.”

  His hands twitched reflexively. “Claudette believed what she wanted. Don’t get me wrong—she was great.” A bead of sweat dripped down his cheek, and not from exercise.

  “But?”

  He shrugged. “As I said, magical thinking. She blew it all out of proportion.”

  In other words, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

  “Did Claudette tell you I’d invited her to the Festa dinner?”

  “That’s why she was there? I thought maybe—” He interrupted himself, then stood. “You should leave now, Erin.”

  “What did you think?” He had the pout, without the sex appeal. “That she intended to harangue you in front of your wife, and the whole town? Does that sound like her?” The sound system—karaoke with costumes—started a new tune. “Don’t be cruel, to a heart that’s true.”

  He looked lower than an ant’s belly, as my grandfather Murphy would have said. Maybe Dean and Claudette had a real connection after all. “No. She could be a drama queen, and she was angry enough that she wouldn’t have minded embarrassing me. But she would never deliberately humiliate herself in public.”

  True enough. “You and Linda arrived together?” He nodded. “Which way did you come in?”

  “Which way did we come in? Through Red’s front door. We got lucky and found a parking spot out front. I told the detective all this.” He shut the door firmly behind me. The music stopped and started up again. “Love me tender.” Yeah, right.

  Of course, no reason they couldn’t have been using each other. He for a break from his marriage, and she for adventure, in a life lacking direction. Still, I did not believe she had meant to hurt anyone—least of all my mother,—with her abrupt departure, or the supposed rumors.

  And you, Dean Vincent. You ain’t nothing but a hound dog. I’d love to see you make that jailhouse rock.

  * * *

  The Pinskys’ covered deck is as near to paradise as you can get with a roof overhead. I leaned on the rail and gazed over the landscape below, lush with native shrubs. Across the lake, the Salish hills formed a pattern against the sky, each ridge a layer of slightly deeper blue, though up close, they were a mosaic in green. Light and distance change everything.

  The crisp, citrus-y wine tasted like sailing. When all this was over—whatever this was—I’d cajole Bob into taking me out for a day on the water. I had a hunch Adam Zimmerman would be up for any outdoor adventure. And a lot more fun than that hunky-but-snooty Rick Bergstrom. Liz patted the spot next to her on the love seat, its burnished aluminum frame vaguely old-world, the loose cushions perfect for my modern derriere.

  “Best to treat the courtyard as an extension of the building. The space has good bones. Perfect proportions. But you need a focal point.” She touched a sunset orange nail to a drawing of the cement block wall between the Merc and Le Panier, and a fountain surrounded by rocks and ferns. “A water feature will add ambience, without protruding into the usable space.”

  Ambience. Just the ticket.

  “We’ll soften those hard surfaces with greenery. Grape vines, I think—they turn such a vibrant red in the fall.” She rattled on about tables and chairs, colors and elements and enhancing the feng shui, especially in the wealth and prosperity quadrant. “You’ll feel the change instantly.”

  In the bottom line. No magical thinking here. “It looks fabulous. Let me show the drawings to my mother.” If she would talk to me. I might be the manager, but she did own the place.

  Dinner started with a salad of mesclun greens, baby carrots, and thinly sliced cucumber, all from Rainbow Lake Garden, and a light sesame-ginger dressing. Bob had skinned the salmon fillets, marinated them in rosemary, olive oil, garlic, and cayenne, added a squeeze of fresh lemon and seasoning, then grilled them on skewers with onion wedges and chunks of red and green bell pepper. I hardly needed any more carbs today, but couldn’t refuse a hunk of country bread. If Le Panier didn’t have a successful summer, Wendy couldn’t blame it on me.

  Stomach content, mind churning, I drained my glass. I couldn’t relax. I needed answers.

  “My head is spinning. Not from the wine. Turns out that everything I thought I knew about Claudette was wrong.”

  “Like what?” Liz said, swatting a mosquito. Bob lit a citronella lantern—red glass, strategically located in the fame and reputation spot.

  “I thought she was a great friend of Fresca’s, but she accused my mother of stealing her recipes. I thought she was a trusted, reliable employee—now I hear she worked in half the shops in town and quit on a dime for the next great thing. And instead of moving to Las Vegas for good, she planned to come back here and start a restaurant—”

  “You’re joking.”

  “—but the biggest mystery of all is how my mother, whom everyone agrees has great people sense, how she could know all that and still hire her.”

  They exchanged looks and I could almost hear them trying to decide, over the air waves, what to say and what to keep to themselves.

  “You know something, don’t you? Don’t tell me to ask my mother—she won’t talk. But if I’m going to keep the Merc afloat and hang on to the Murphy legacy, then I deserve to know.”

  Liz sighed and extended a hand, nails flashing in the last rays of sunlight. “Fresca will be furious with me for talking, but I’ll take my lumps. Bob, would you bring out the lemon tart? And more wine?

  “Erin, honey,” she said, her tone low and serious. “Your mother had a really rough time after your father died. More than you know. More than we knew—we were strictly summer people then. I called to check on her regularly, but I couldn’t see how lost she was. Adrift.”

  My mother likes to say that Italians let everything hang out. But she’d hidden her feelings from me. Or I’d been too self-absorbed to notice.

  “Don’t blame yourself, Erin,” Liz continued. “You were young. You could not have understood what she was going through. Claudette was new in town, with a young son and a traveling husband. She became the friend Fresca needed. They spent hours together, talking, listening, cooking—comforting each other.”

  My eyeballs felt like they were stretching their lids. A million images flashed through my mind—Power Point Brain. My dad alive, then dead. My image of his smashed car—I’d never actually seen it. Why hadn’t she let me see it? Or see him? Why did I never insist?

  Why was everyone always trying to protect me?

  “Fresca held it together through the summer, until you left for college. She was terrified that if you saw her struggle, you’d quit school an
d come home.”

  The mental slide show sped on: Fresca taking me to the university that fall. Watching from my room in Turner Hall as she came out, alone, then turned and looked up to search for my window.

  I tried to remember her at Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. Nothing. A blank. Which said a lot. “Nick and Chiara?”

  “Already caught up in their own lives. They didn’t worry her so much. Realize, Erin, she kept it from you because she loved you. The last thing she wanted to do was add to your pain.”

  “But why Claudette?”

  “The right friend at the right time. She understood how to help Fresca cope. And you know your mother. When Claudette got divorced just as her son was leaving home, she felt unmoored. Fresca became her anchor. Fresca never forgets a friend.”

  The lantern flickered. I closed my eyes, not sure how much more I wanted to hear. “You said they cooked together. What about the recipes? Fresca says they were hers, from Noni and Papa.”

  Liz spoke. “Launching a business alone is tough. Fresca needed a sounding board and a dog’s body. No reason to think Claudette played any other role.”

  To the west, the hills had become shadows, the ridges merging into one another. “If she didn’t want me to come back home then, why ask me this time?”

  “This time,” Bob said, “coming home was your choice, not a reflex. An opportunity, not a retreat.”

  I picked up my dessert fork. No retreat.

  • Eighteen •

  Sandburg sat in front of the open closet, yowling. It looked like fun, but I needed to get to the Merc. There were threads to follow, questions to ask.

  He reached out and pawed my red boots. My power boots. Perfect for the back gate, if I didn’t love them so much. I slid into a navy skirt and my cute new button-back tank—red, blue, and yellow swirls on white—and the boots.