Chocolate Quake (7 page)

“Right,” my father agreed crisply. “As soon as I can get a flight, I’ll fly in and hire a private detective.”

“Funny, that’s evidently what Mother’s lawyer suggested. Of course, Mother said no.”

“Well, Vera’s safely in jail, and she can’t tell me what to do, anyway.”

“How would we find one?”

“My people do a lot of lab work for a company in San Francisco. They’ll have a security outfit that can recommend someone. Meanwhile, you get on the line and tell your wife we’ll take care of it.”

I tried the number again and got the answering machine. No doubt my wife was fast asleep in my mother’s bed while I stayed up worrying about the two of them, not to mention all the problems I could see developing out of my father’s appearance on the scene. Mother would be furious if anyone told her about it, and when she did get out of jail, he’d have gone home, and I’d get jumped for interfering in her business.

Well, hell! Hard to believe how much I’d looked forward to this meeting, how cheerful I’d felt at 5:30, and how tired I was now. If I didn’t get to sleep, I’d have to skip my morning run.

9

The Duty to Detect

 

I
woke to
find myself in a strange bed without my husband. After a moment of panic, I remembered: Vera’s sublet, the violent murder, the quarrel with Jason. In all our years together, I’d never walked out on him. What had gotten into me? Well, I had been very tired when I got back to the hotel—all the stress, the walking and riding in taxis, not to mention three cups of coffee. Jason can do that, but I’m definitely a one-cup woman, and not near bedtime. No wonder I was awake in the middle of the night.

Then I had to admit how much I resented feeling responsible for the exoneration of Jason’s mother. Both of them had told me to stay out of it. Yet someone had to do something, and I was the only someone with sense enough to realize it. I had a perfectly good reason to be angry with Jason. She was
his
mother.

And what about Gwen and Chris? They’d be horribly embarrassed to have their grandmother on trial for murder, and even more so if she were convicted. Innocent people got convicted; I’d seen it in the newspapers and on TV. Having a grandmother imprisoned for a violent murder could ruin their lives. People would whisper behind their backs. People they wanted to date would shy away. They would be denied fellowships and jobs for reasons that were never mentioned.

And Jason—didn’t he realize his career could be affected? Or mine? I could see the headline:
Food writer related to feminist knife-murderer.
Who would want to follow my recipes? On the other hand, my agent, Loretta Blum, would probably say that any publicity is better than no publicity. She’d say the notoriety would help the sales of my book,
Eating Out in the Big Easy
, when it came out.

I had to have it in by early fall. How was I supposed to concentrate with my mother-in-law accused of murder? And I had to prove her innocence before our family was destroyed.

I’d go straight to that women’s center tomorrow morning and ask questions. It was my duty! Flopping over on my side, I gave my pillow a punch, determined to go back to sleep. I’m happy to say that, worries and espresso aside, I did—probably out of sheer perversity.

I woke with a start, heart racing, and recognized Jason’s voice. He must have been shouting into his telephone at the hotel because I could hear him from Vera’s office in the far corner of the apartment.

“All right. You’re still mad at me. I’m sorry I wasn’t more sympathetic. But don’t go out investigating. Please! I called my dad. He’s flying in this morning. He’ll hire a detective. So just—just have some great meals and write about them. OK? I’ll check out of the hotel and join you on Sacramento Street by 6:30. I love you, sweetheart. . . . Well, I guess you’re not going to pick up. OK. Bye.”

He’d already hung up by the time I managed to disentangle myself from the sheets—I must have had a very restless night—and stagger out of the bedroom, around the dining room table, and into the office, where a lighted digital clock told me that it was 6:30. He’d called me before going out to run. Only a mad man would consider running up and down the hills of San Francisco. Only a mad man couldn’t wait to call until he got back and I might be up. I punched the replay button and listened to his message.
Have some great meals and write about them
indeed! He was still trying to tell me I shouldn’t look into the murder of what’s-her-name. And Jason’s father was going to hire a detective to help his ex-wife? Like I believed
that
!

I stumbled back across the apartment and fell into bed. I still planned to go straight over to the center, but nine o’clock should be quite early enough.

10

Frittata with the Pizza Man

 

S
howered and dressed,
I was peering into the refrigerator to see what Vera had in stock, hardly anything, when someone knocked at my door. A voice called, “
Bellissima,
is-a me. Bruno Valetti. Answer the door. I’m-a hear you toilet an’ you shower, so I’m-a fix you a tasty frittata. Is omelet
Italiano. Si
?”

Saved by the neighborhood tenor,
I thought and dashed to the front door.

Mr. Valetti stood before me with the lovely aroma of an Italian kitchen wafting from his spatula. Or was it imagination that made me think that I could already smell the frittata? “Come!” he cried. “The mozzarella is-a almost melt.”

We scampered downstairs. Feeling mildly vindictive, I thought of my husband who, by staying at the hotel, was going to miss a lovely breakfast. The omelet, fresh from the oven, was creamy and dripping with cheese, flavored with mushroom, onion, and ham chunks that had probably been sliced from a delicious product of Parma. I glanced around, but no such ham hung from his ceiling. However, braids of garlic and onion festooned his kitchen, and his table was tiled like an ancient Roman mosaic and surrounded by four of those miserably uncomfortable, rush-bottomed chairs whose seats are rimmed by hardwood. Such rims have left indentations on the bottoms of generations in Mediterranean Europe.

While I complimented Mr. Valetti on his delectable frittata, I glanced surreptitiously at the design on his table. I had read recently about pornographic mosaics found that year in a unisex Pompeii bathhouse, which information prompted the thought that I might be eating my breakfast on an embarrassing depiction of ancient sexual practices.

“I see you look-a my tile. I’m-a do it myself. A hobby.
Si
? I get furniture that don’t look good on top. I’m-a tile it like an old mosaic in a picture book. You wanna see the one inna my bedroom?”

“No, thanks,” I said hastily. The kitchen table didn’t seem to be pornographic, but it was hard to tell because it was covered with the cast-iron frying pan in which he had made the frittata; plates, cups and saucers, wildly painted in red and yellow; a vase of purple flowers that I’d seen growing on bushes around the city; and a stack of magazines. But goodness knows what mosaics he had in the bedroom and whether he’d showed them to my mother-in-law. I almost choked on a bite of garlic toast when I thought of Vera casting a jaundiced eye on some ancient Roman courtesan and her lover cavorting on a ledge in a bathhouse. I’d seen some of those mosaics myself. They caught you by surprise, especially if you were fourteen years old and accompanied by your father, a rather stern history professor.

Mr. Valetti sighed. “You mother-in-law, the beautiful
professora,
she no want to see either. My wife Anna, God cherish her soul, she’s-a like the tiles. Her grandfather on the mama’s side make-a tiles in Ravenna, for fix up the basilica there. Very old. Her father, he’s a longshoreman, beat up scabs on Bloody Thursday in 1934 with Harry Bridges, the
communista.
He no wanna my Anna marry me. He don’t like guys like me jus’ over from Napoli. I’m-a say, ‘I can cook, I gotta job, I’m-a no
communista,
’ ” so Anna an’ me elope an’ finda priest in the Mission to marry us. Her papa hire a witch to put a curse on us. No babies. We never forgive him. But that’s many years ago. Anna an’ me make many mosaics together.”

I was sorry then that I’d refused to see the ones in his bedroom. Probably his late wife made them.

“I’m-a got a new project. Emperors’ heads around the sink. When I’m-a chop tomatoes, alla bad emperors, they get splashed behind my sink.” He laughed heartily.

“Tell me, Mr. Valetti, did my mother-in-law ever talk to you about the women’s center?”

“Oh sure. She’s-a say they got too many social-worker types, an’ no one who’s-a know nothing about theory. That’s-a some theory about women an’ how they should forget cookin’ the pasta, an’ go out an’ make more money than their husbands. So I say, “
Cara mia,
I’m-a no make money no more. I’m-a retired, an’ I’m-a make pasta like you never eat in you whole life. You an’ me, we be perfect
famiglia.
” He sighed. “She no say yes, but she’s gonna do it. You see.”

“Did she ever say anything about people not getting along at the center?” I asked.

“Oh sure. Alla women talkin’ bad about alla other women. Jus’ like in the old country. My sister, rest in peace, she insult a neighbor, an’ they—”

“Did anyone have a grudge against my mother-in-law?” I interrupted. Perhaps Vera had been “set up to take the fall” as they say on TV.

“Naw. Why someone have a grudge against you mama? She’s-a smart woman. She’s-a famous
professora.
”

And an irritating one,
I thought. “Well, what about the woman who got killed? Did my mother-in-law ever mention her?”

“Oh sure. She say Denise, she’s-a got such a stone head; she’s-a need a hammer behind the ear to tell her anything.”

Oh dear,
I thought.
I’ll have to keep him away from the police.

“So what you gonna do today,
Bellissima
?” He refilled my espresso cup and passed the plate of sautéed tomato slices, a dish I had always associated with the English—and pleasantly so. I like their fried tomatoes much better than their raw bacon or their gray sausage. Not that England isn’t rapidly overcoming its reputation for inedible food.

“You go to Fisherman’s Wharf? Everyone wanna go to—”

“No, Mr. Valetti, I intend to visit the center and find out who killed Denise Faulk.”

He nodded solemnly. “I go too. We—how you say?—spring
la Professora
from the jail. How you gonna find out who kill the poor dead lady?”

“Well, I thought I’d talk to the security man. He guards the front door and makes everyone sign in. After I find out who was in the building that night, I’ll know whom to investigate.”

“You’re a smart girl, jus’ like you mama.”

“In-law,” I added. “And as kind as it is of you to offer to go with me, you really shouldn’t feel that I need either help or protection.” As I said this, I was thinking of my husband, who didn’t want me to get involved.

“Oh sure, you need-a my help,” protested Mr. Valetti as he rose and carried his plate to the sink. “Only in books is-a detectives women. I’m-a go with you because you a woman, an’ my daughter when my
professora
marry me. How can-a she no marry me if I get her outa the jail?”

“Mr. Valetti, Vera’s been divorced for a long time, speaking of which, doesn’t your church forbid you to marry a divorced person?”

“How they gonna know if I don’ tell ’em? No, I go with you. What if the guard he don’ wanna tell you who sign his paper? I’m-a tell him I’m a
mafioso.
”

“Are you?” I asked, alarmed.

“No,
cara mia.
” Bruno laughed. “I’m-a pizza man. But the guard, he don’ know. He’s gonna tell us anything we wanna know, cause he’s-a think I’m a
mafioso.
” He took my plate, from which I managed to fork up the last tomato before he could remove it. “An’ how you gonna get there? I’m-a got a truck. I drive you. I see no one gives you no trouble. I take care of you like you my own daughter. It’s-a my duty, because I’m-a love
la Professora.
”

And that’s how I ended up beginning my investigation with Mr. Valetti at my side. He refused to be left behind no matter what arguments I used. We went downstairs and out into the backyard, behind which was a garage that housed his vehicle, a brown truck of some ancient vintage, but well maintained and preserved, as he was himself. Within minutes we were chugging off to the Union Street Women’s Center, a delightful Victorian building, two stories high and narrow in front, but rising behind to three stories as it descended a hill for almost a full block. It was adorned with bay windows, rounded turret corners, intricate gingerbread trim, stained glass, and a stunning light-blue exterior with maroon and white accents. My mother-in-law must have hated the décor. Fussy Victori ana was not her style!