A Dish Best Served Cold: An Italian Kitchen Mystery (Italian Kitchen Mystery, An) (10 page)

“But you’d expect them to be, right? It’s from his own wine cellar. And anyway, that bottle was out in the rain. I can’t imagine them getting even one clean print off that bottle.”
Partially because of that handy napkin.
But I didn’t know this for sure.
So, Bernardo,
I thought, calling upon my fictional sleuth,
what’s your take on this—does rain wash away fingerprints?
Not for the first time, I wished my nattily dressed detective would materialize with his special notebook and fountain pen to help me figure out just what the heck was going on.

“I know your father thinks Pete stole that bottle,” my mom was saying. “But I don’t see how he could have. Your grandmother and I accounted for every bottle out on that bar; we knew how much went out and how much came back in.” She let out a sigh. “It had to have come from the basement.”

“I agree,” I said, lowering my voice. “Because I just remembered something. I was chatting with Dad down there on Saturday afternoon. He was messing with the bottles and said something about going through more of his homemade wine than he thought.”

My mom looked at me with desperation in her eyes. “Honey, do you think that Pete could have somehow gotten into the basement?”

“Maybe. But it was locked from the outside when I checked it yesterday.”
Unless someone deliberately left it unlocked that night.
But that was a thought I chose not to share.

“What about through the restaurant?” she asked.

“It’s possible, I guess. At some point, Nando saw Pete holding
two
bags, one that had food in it and another one that looked heavy. When I saw him leave—or at least when I
thought
he was leaving—he rounded the corner, and I assumed he passed the restaurant. But I guess he could have gone back inside through the front doors.”

“He could have,” she said, her curls shaking as she nodded. “The front door was unlocked so guests could go inside to use the restrooms.”

“Of course; I should have thought of that. But we were all in and out of the dining room and kitchen. I still think one of us would have seen him inside, don’t you?”
Or smelled him,
I thought.

She rested her forehead in her hand and groaned. “Who knows? This just gets worse and worse.”

“Listen to me,” I said. “I know this doesn’t look good for the restaurant, but there other possibilities. There are still no autopsy results, Mom. Whether or not someone here deliberately gave him wine, or whether he stole it, he still might have fallen and hit his head and drowned. His death might simply be the accident everyone assumes it is.”

My mother lowered her voice and gripped my wrist. “But you don’t think so, do you? You think somebody wanted poor Pete to drink himself to death on Friday night.” She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. “Honey,” she said, “do you think you can . . . look into this? Can you
please
find out what happened to Pete Petrocelli?”

It wasn’t like my mother to ask such a thing of me; in fact, she’d begged me not to get involved with the last two murders. But a half hour later, as I packed my computer, the library books, and a few other electronics into the backseat of my blue Honda, I realized how desperate she was to know the truth. And despite the mayor’s warning to me, so was I. To find out, I was planning to do something that could backfire on me, but I was willing to risk it. I didn’t have any other choice.

B
y late Monday afternoon, the weekenders were mostly gone, so it was a quiet ride across town to my brother’s house. I’d already called, so I knew he and Sofia were home. I told him I needed to charge my electronics, which was partially true. But I had another reason for coming.

Danny answered the door wearing shorts and flip-flops and holding a beer. “It’s always such a relief to see you in normal clothes as opposed to your uniform,” I said as I gave him a hug. I stepped back and looked into his face. “Are you mad at me?”

“How could you even ask me that? C’mon.” He opened the door and let me go ahead of him into the living room. “You can plug your stuff in right there,” he said, pointing to a power strip on the floor.

I took my computer and phone from my bag and plugged them in. “Would you have done what I did? Even though you think it isn’t significant?” I asked over my shoulder.

“You mean call in the troops if I found that bottle? Probably.” He rubbed a hand over his chin and flashed a grin at me. “I wouldn’t have wanted to take a chance. Now, if our grandmother had found it—”

“She’d have tossed it into our Dumpster.”

“Not ours,” Danny said, “but the one next door. On second thought, she’d have chucked it into the ocean.”

We were both laughing when Sofia emerged from the kitchen with a tray. “C’mon,” she said, “let’s go into the family room and then you can tell me what’s so funny.”

“Our grandmother,” I said as I settled down on the couch while Danny and Sofia sat on a love seat across from me.

Sofia handed me a glass of white wine. “Funny as in
amusing
?”

“You could say that,” Danny said. “We were talking about what she woulda done if she’d found that bottle.”

“Dug a pit and buried it,” Sofia said. “And then spread lime over the spot.”

“It’s not a body, Sofe.” I took a sip of wine, grateful for its small kick at the end of a long day. I held up the glass. “Thank you for this; I needed it today. Things have been a little . . . awkward at the restaurant.”

She nodded. “Your brother filled me in. But think about this, Vic—any one of those guests might have left a bottle out there. If I was a defense lawyer, that’s the angle I would play.”

Danny took a swig of beer and shook his head. “You’re assuming somebody needs defending, babe. And I just don’t think that’s the case here.”

“But, Dan, don’t you think the napkin is damning?” I asked.

“Could be. But so far there’s no proof Pete was in that alley. Yes, the bottle and the napkin are from the restaurant, but that night there was a big party of what, forty, fifty people? Like Sofia said, anybody could have thrown that stuff out there.”

“But who would throw a cloth napkin away?” I persisted.

“A lazy person,” Sofia said, “or a careless one. Remember how quick everybody had to get inside, Vic. You’ve got a guest with an empty bottle and a dirty napkin who’s in a hurry to get out of the weather, so he just pitches the stuff.”

“But think about it, guys—that person would need to walk to the other side of the property to put the stuff in that alley. Why not just dump it in the garden? And there weren’t bottles out on the tables; Dad was pouring glasses at the bar.”

Danny shrugged. “Doesn’t mean somebody might not have taken a bottle off the bar.”

“Mom said that she and Nonna had accounted for all the bottles that went out and how many came back.” I shook my head. “No, I think that bottle came from the basement.” I looked my brother in the eye. “And I think somebody deliberately gave it to Pete, maybe with the promise of more where that came from.”

“You might be right, sis,” Danny said, “but unless there’s clear forensic evidence linking Pete to that alley, or another person to Pete, none of this is solid. I still think we’re looking at an accidental death, plain and simple.”

“Dan,” I said, “I’m assuming the police combed that alley. Might I also assume they haven’t found anything else from the restaurant—say a food container—or you’d be more worried?”

“You can assume anything you want, Vic,” Danny said with a grin. “But I won’t corroborate it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill. You can’t talk. Not even about the autopsy results, I guess?” I asked, trying to keep the eagerness out of my tone.

“We’re still waiting on those,” he said.

“I’m betting his blood alcohol levels were through the roof,” I said.

“But they might be anyway, right? The man liked his
vino
.” Danny raised his beer bottle in a toast. “Me, I prefer hops to the grape.”

I studied my brother’s relaxed expression. “You’re really not too concerned about this, are you? I mean, that Pete died after leaving the restaurant. You’d be much more serious and grim.”

“How could you tell?” Sofia said, punching her husband lightly in the arm.

“That’s cute, babe,” he said.

“Seriously, hon,” Sofia said, “I’m with you on the wine bottle, but for me there’s a larger question: What was Pete doing in the carousel house in the first place?”

“Shelter—what else?”

“But that’s problematic for a couple of reasons,” Sofia said. “One, there were probably other places he could have sheltered much closer to the restaurant.”

“Like the alley,” I added.

“Two,” Sofia continued, “once the weather got threatening, they would have closed the rides pier, right? So how’d he get in there?”

“That is something OPPD will follow up on if there is any reason to think there’s foul play behind Pete’s death,” Danny said, adopting his professional tone. “I mean, c’mon, why kill Pete? Not for money, that’s for damn sure.”

“What if it was to keep him quiet?” I asked. “What if he knew something that could hurt someone?”

“Maybe,” Danny conceded. “But what would give you that idea?”

“Pete himself,” I said. “Back in early August, he told me he ‘knew things,’ but I didn’t take it seriously.”

“’Cause the guy’s a drunk, sis.” He looked from his wife back to me. “Please don’t tell me you two are getting ideas again.”

“Not exactly,” Sofia said. “But Vic found something you should see.”

“I know we’ve, um, kind of gone behind your back a couple of times,” I said. “And I want things to be aboveboard between us.”

“Completely,” Sofia said, nodding.

“So I wanted to show you this, because I think there could be a connection here to Pete’s death.” I held up the book for him to see.

“In a book about Atlantic City?” He took it from me and began leafing through its pages.

“Look at the page I marked, Dan. There’s a sticky note on one of the pictures.”

I watched the different expressions cross my brother’s face—a frown of concentration, then his raised eyebrows, and finally a look of clear understanding.

“Holy . . . ,” he began. “That’s Pop. I mean, that’s his face. Even the hat.”

Sofia leaned over his shoulder. “Kinda looks like you, too. Except you don’t smirk like that.”

I laughed. “No, Danny’s the other side of this guy’s coin. And it’s not Dad, as you could probably tell by the year.”

“But he’s gotta be a relative,” my brother said.

I nodded. “I’m pretty sure it’s his uncle Roberto, our great-uncle and Nonna’s brother-in-law.”

He frowned again. “Isn’t that the guy who died back in Italy?”

“Maybe not.” I explained about our Internet searches and the ancestry database, including the ship’s manifest and the census that had Robert Riese and the Petrocelli brothers in the same building in Atlantic City. I told him my theory about his name change and pointed to the caption under the 1948 photo. “Pete’s older brother is clearly identified, as is Leo Barone. If Riese is really ‘Rienzi,’ as it looks like, then we’ve got a clear connection to the past. Think about it, Danny—the last time a Petrocelli, a Barone, and a Rienzi were all in the same place was on Friday night, at the Casa Lido party. And who’s the link? Stinky Pete, who ends up dead.”

Sofia rubbed her bare arms. “Oh, I’m all goose-bumpy. Tell him what your father said, Vic.”

“Dad confirmed the resemblance to his uncle; he said his grandmother mentioned it once. He also said his family actually delivered produce to Atlantic City. There are just so many ties to the past here.”

“So I’m guessing you like Richard Barone for this,” Danny said. “With that whole Mafia thing in his background. You think Barone had something big to hide that Pete knew about.”

“It’s possible, isn’t it?” I looked from Danny to Sofia.

“I wasn’t sure at first,” Sofia said slowly, “but you’ve got me wondering if there is something there.”

But Danny was skeptical. “We don’t even know the family relationship between Leo and Richard Barone.”

“That’s true,” I said, making a mental note to find out.

“Please keep a couple of things in mind,” Danny said. “As yet, there is no formal investigation going on. And even if there was, whether there’s enough to indict somebody is for the county prosecutor to decide. We’re a long way from that.” He closed the book and handed it back to me. “And here’s the other thing: Barone has a ton of power and money behind him. I do
not
want you two messing with this.”

“It can’t hurt to keep researching our family, though, hon,” Sofia said, bestowing a wide smile on her husband and resting her hand on her belly. She was good; I’d say that for her.

Danny tightened his arm around her and kissed her temple. “You can do all the family research you want, right from the safety of this house.”

“Speaking of family,” I said, “I’d like to hold off mentioning our possible family history to Mom and Dad just yet. Until we actually confirm that this guy is really our great-uncle. And on that happy note,” I added, getting to my feet, “I will collect my newly charged stuff and get going. That power’s gotta come back on soon. The novelty of reading by flashlight is beginning to wear off.”

“Since when?” Danny asked as he walked me out. “You spent your whole childhood doin’ that.”

“I know. I’m a dork.” I gave him a quick kiss and packed my bag. “But think about what I said, will you?”

“You think about what
I
said. Stay away from Barone. No investigating, Nancy Drew.”

I hid my irritation behind a smile. “You got it, bro. Talk to you soon.”

I was only a couple of blocks away when Sofia’s name appeared on my phone screen.

I pulled over to answer. “Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”

“I can’t talk long,” Sofia whispered into the phone. “But I just overheard your brother talking to somebody at the precinct about Pete’s autopsy. There was definitely water in his lungs.”

“So he drowned.”

“Yup. But you were right about his blood alcohol. I heard Danny say his levels were .27. Do have any idea how high that is? I looked it up: He drank the equivalent of more than two bottles of wine that night. That’s enough to kill somebody, especially an old man whose liver was probably shot anyway.”

“Wow. So he had at least another bottle to drink, probably more—the question is, did they all come from Frankie’s cellar? Thanks for telling me, Sofe. I appreciate it. But we’ve already broken our word to Danny about keeping him in the loop.”

“We haven’t really broken it. Maybe stretched it a little.”

After we ended the call, I sat for a moment staring at my phone and made a decision, one that went completely against my brother’s warning to me. It was close to five, so I didn’t have much time. After a quick Internet search, I found the number I was seeking.

“May I help you?” asked the female voice on the line.

“Yes, thank you,” I said. “My name is Victoria Rienzi, and I’d like to make an appointment with Mr. Barone. As soon as possible, please.”