Toured to Death (20 page)

“Pleasure to meet you, Amanda. Take care.” Romney leaned in to shake her hand. “Get rid of that lawyer,” he hissed, loud enough for Amy to hear.

Frank was smiling and staring intently. The officer had previously seen Fanny only once, with different hair and from the driver's seat of a Camaro. But they had spoken at some length, and Fanny's voice was distinctive.

“Don't speak,” Amy begged her mother telepathically.

“Can I help you? Ms. Arbor?” Rita was right there, by her office door, staring down.

Amy jumped, still on all fours, then pushed herself backward on her knees. “Lost one of my contact lenses,” she whispered.

“I see,” Rita whispered back. “Um . . . if you have contacts, why are you wearing glasses?”

“Oh, these.” She laughed, fingering her round black frames. “They're just glass. I, uh, sometimes wear them to make me look, uh . . . something. Serious. They make me look serious.”

“Contacts? Plus frames with clear glass?”

“They make me look serious.”

“I see.”

Amy stumbled to her feet and brushed off her knees. “Uh, don't worry about the lens. It's a disposable.”

When Amy finally joined her mother by the elevator bank, she was practically homicidal. “You made me look like an idiot.”

“Be specific, dear. When?”

“Never mind.” She punched the DOWN button, even though it was lit. “Didn't you know what I meant?”

“When you jumped in front of me? Of course. Frank Loyola. I wanted to see what he looked like. Pretty much like he sounds. If you'd worn a disguise, like a proper detective, you would've been able to join me.”

“Right.” The elevator pinged brightly, and the doors flew open.

“That was an enjoyable afternoon.”

“Enjoyable?”

“Yes, dear. Lighten up.”

“We could have been arrested. And what did we find out? Nothing. He doesn't care if Carvel stole your precious recipe or not.”

“Does this mean I don't get to sue?”

“Get in the elevator. Now.”

M
arcus stood shirtless, the first time Amy had seen him this way. It was a nicer body than she'd suspected might lie beneath the usual T-shirts and the polos. His olive complexion always looked tan, and now, with a real tan, it looked even better. He was holding up two hangers, one with a black silk, long-sleeved shirt, the other with a gray silk polo.

“Either one,” Amy advised.

Marcus frowned. “Did Vinny say anything about a dress code? These are my only unwrinkled pants.”

How had she wound up here? Amy asked herself, trying not to stare. Well, it had started with Vinny organizing a reunion party, which was followed by her saying to Marcus, “I have a car. I'll pick you up.”

His cute little two-bedroom was no smaller than most apartments in the Village, which made it preternaturally tiny to anyone outside New York City. One by one, Marcus held up the shirts. “Come in the bedroom so we can talk.”

Amy followed him, seating herself on the edge of the bed. Marcus was already inside the squeeze-in closet, the door half closed. “Where do the Mrozeks live?” he asked.

“New Jersey. Not very far. But with rush hour . . . We should head out.”

Marcus didn't seem to hear. “Fanny was so funny last night, describing your little adventure.”

“Yeah, she's a hoot.”

“The real problem, as I see it . . .” There came a pair of muffled grunts and the clattering of wooden hangers. “If we assume that Fabian's murder is connected to the other two . . .”

“And we do.”

“Then we have a problem. None of the Fabian suspects were around for Georgina's murder, and none of Georgina's suspects have any connection to Fabian.”

“None that we know of.”

“True.” Pronounced like another grunt. “But I'm thinking there must be two. Someone killed Fabian. And someone else killed to cover it up.”

“Maybe.” Amy repositioned herself on the bedspread and gained a partial view of the closet interior, the sight of clothes draped over hooks and hangers. A muscular back and two arms—now bare, now not. “It's so weird. Talking about murder suspects, and at the same time rushing off to break bread with them.”

“They must feel the same way.” Marcus emerged, wearing the black silk. “In or out?” he asked, pointing to the shirttail. Amy paused just long enough to give Marcus the wrong idea. He cocked his head quizzically, then crossed the few feet to where she was sitting. His fingers deftly unbuttoned what they'd buttoned just a second before. “How about off?”

“On,” she said, choking in surprise. “Shirt on, please.” Amy had nowhere to go and let herself fall back on her elbows. It created some distance between them but left her half reclined on the bedspread, which probably sent another wrong message. She countered with a firm “We're going to be late.”

“Blame it on traffic,” he said in a sexy whisper. Marcus knelt on the bed, his legs straddling her, and crawled forward until he was on his elbows, his face an inch from hers.

Amy adjusted her standard-issue, black-rimmed glasses but didn't take them off. “If we're going to do it, I don't want it to be a quickie.” She breathed the words warmly.

“If we're going to do it, I want to do it.”

They stared into each other's eyes. She was so tempted to remove the glasses. Then Marcus rolled away and lay beside her on the bed. Their hands touched in the silence, an electrical circuit that neither one chose to break. The gentle hum of an alarm clock filled the small room.

“Not like this,” she finally said. “Not when we're racing out the door.”

“I know,” Marcus agreed. “When the time is right.”

“The time's been right.” She turned and again found her words tickling his ear. “I kept expecting once we got to Rome. Maybe. When things got less hectic.”

“Less hectic.” Marcus shook his head. “Gives me one more thing to hold against Georgina's killer. Come on,” he said, breaking the moment for good. “Let's not be too late.”

 

The Mrozek house was a low split-level, attached to a two-car garage, with a basketball hoop at the peak between the garage doors. In the fading light of a fall evening, Amy had joined the twins in doing what kids must have been doing in a million other driveways at that moment, shooting hoops and waiting for dinner.

Fifty feet away, in the kitchen, Vinny was powering his 250-pound frame from sink to counter to stove and back again in the graceful, practiced dance of a professional chef. Marcus sat out of harm's way on a bar stool, sipping white wine and enjoying the spectacle.

“Not fond of basketball?” Vinny asked. He was ladling a cream mixture into individual casseroles, each already inhabited by pan-seared scallops and mushrooms.

“Never got into sports,” said Marcus.

“Me neither. We got a lot in common.”

“Vinny, I've seen you with the boys. You love sports.”

“I pretend to for the boys. It's amazing what you do when you have to.” He slipped the nine casseroles under a cool broiler, then turned a black knob, igniting a whoosh of gas flames. “Guess what I'm making.”

Marcus looked around, inspecting the bright, high-ceilinged room. A soup was bubbling on the stove, filling the air with the heady aroma of saffron and fish. The light in an eye-level convection oven illuminated a veal roast, and in the sink, a colander of green beans waited patiently to be emptied into a steamer. “French?” he guessed.

“Very French,” Vinny teased. He glanced appraisingly over the cooking stations and preparation areas. “I think we're almost there.”

“Anything I can do?” Marcus asked, setting aside his wine.

“Spoken like a smart guest. Wait until it's all done. You can put the perishables back in the fridge. I'm going to call the boys.”

Vinny emptied the beans into the steamer, tossed on a lid, and wiped his hands on his apron. By the time he was out the door, Marcus was circling the counters, picking up the cream carton and egg tray. He found places for everything in the misty bowels of the Sub-Zero, then continued to stand there, hands braced against the open double doors.

“Of course,” he whispered, his mouth puckering into a grin. “That's what he meant.”

“Dinnertime,” Vinny called out from the edge of the court, and for once the boys didn't argue.

Dominick took a wild three-point shot from the oil spill line. He made it and let out a surprised whoop before batting the ball to his father. “Needs a little air.”

“Amy. Good game,” Donovan said over his shoulder with a generous smile, then joined his brother in barreling past Vinny into the house.

“Don't forget to wash.” Vinny massaged the ball and watched as Amy retrieved her sweater from the top of an azalea bush. “Looks like they gave you the old runaround.”

“It's hard to play point guard in a pencil skirt,” she said, then spent a few seconds adjusting the skirt in question. Vinny tried not to look.

“So. So, what do you think?” He gestured like a game show hostess displaying the prizes. “Fifteen minutes out of the city.”

“Remarkable,” Amy said, thinking of the maddening rush-hour-and-a-half drive. It was one of the great lies of commuting. “Only fifteen minutes away.” That and “We'll still pop into town whenever we feel like it.” Amy had seen a dozen friends move fifteen minutes out of town. It might as well be the moon.

Vinny retrieved the car keys from his pocket and pressed a button on the key ring. With a whir, the left garage door began to rise. “Jolynn doesn't allow balls in the house,” he explained. “Sometimes I think she barely allows the boys.”

“Well, it must be hard taking over another woman's children. Are you and Jolynn planning kids of your own?”

“I did kind of want a girl, someone I could teach to cook. But Jolynn let me know from the start she couldn't.” He pointed to the general region below the belt. And then, in a one-handed toss, he arced the ball into a tattered washing machine carton, one of the family's sports boxes. “So, what's the story with you and Marcus?” Vinny pushed his key ring button again and turned back toward the house.

“What do you mean, story? He needed a ride.”

“You make sure you get to know each other, that's all.” Vinny lingered by the kitchen door, lowering his voice both in pitch and volume. It was as close to meditative as Amy had ever seen him. “After their mother died, I guess I was kind of desperate. Wrong word. You know, a middle-aged man with teenage boys. And the restaurant. Not that Jolynn isn't great. Don't get me wrong. I mean, she's young and affectionate, and better looking than I deserve. And she's got no family. I tell you, that can be a plus. A lot of positive things.”

Vinny crinkled his eyes into a grin and clamped a meaty hand on Amy's shoulder. “Hey, that was a great vacation.” A second later his face went ashen. “I mean, apart from Georgina. What am I saying?”

“You had a good time?” Amy asked.

“Are you kidding? The food was exceptional. The boys had plenty to keep them busy. And I know Jolynn likes to complain, but the trip was great for her. She's been much more relaxed.”

“Good. Good to hear. Oh, and thanks again for arranging this dinner.”

“Our pleasure. It was Jolynn's idea, you know. I think she felt a little out of the loop. You know. Everyone else being so involved in the investigation.”

“I'll make a point of thanking her.”

“Please. She likes being appreciated.”

“It means a lot to Marcus, knowing that you guys are sticking by him.”

“Absolutely.” Vinny opened the door and stepped inside. “So, you don't think Frank's going to be joining us?”

Amy took one last glance out at the darkening street. That had been her real reason for playing basketball in a pencil skirt, to keep an eye out for the green Camaro. It had never appeared. “I don't think so.”

A
my found the hostess and the three other guests in a formal living room that showed no signs of ever having been lived in. Martha and Burt sat side by side on a flawlessly white sofa, huddled over an iPad featuring the Mrozeks' digital memories.

“The Assisi dinner.” Jolynn stood behind the couple, pointing between their heads to a group shot. “Right when we got our main courses. Look, you can see Frank's pigeon.” The picture, taken by a waiter, showed the full length of the wooden table—Amy and the six captains, all pink-eyed and smiling. Jolynn chuckled.

“That was the same night Georgina got her brainstorm,” Burt said. “Remember? We were all upset because we thought she'd solved the game. Of course she hadn't. How did the Dodos finish? Third? Fourth?”

“We would have finished first if you'd listened to me,” said Holly Baker. “I told you it was Dodo from the start.”

“No, you didn't,” said Martha calmly and forcefully. “For the first week, you told everyone the killer had to be Bitsy. That's because I was Bitsy.” Her tolerance of the younger generation had diminished noticeably since their return.

Marcus walked in from the hall, carrying candlesticks for the table. “The boys are washing up. I think it's time to eat.”

“You shouldn't be doing that,” Jolynn scolded him. “You're the guest of honor. What else has Vinny been forcing you to do?”

“Nothing, I swear.”

The clanging of an old-fashioned dinner triangle reverberated through the house.

“Vinny, stop it!” screamed Jolynn. “It's uncouth. To the dining room, everyone.”

It was just as Jolynn was guiding Marcus to his place at the head of the table that Vinny swung open the door from the kitchen. Cradled in his hands was a tureen of soup, the steam billowing up into his shaggy hair. “I know we don't have Daryl and family with us, but I did my best to bring back a few memories.” He set the tureen in front of Marcus's plate and wafted a hand through the steam. “Some nice white fish with fennel and saffron . . .”

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.”