A Dish Best Served Cold: An Italian Kitchen Mystery (Italian Kitchen Mystery, An) (16 page)

“Yes, Victoria,” he said in an obedient tone, but his eyes held their old spark.

“No matter what’s happened between us,” I said, “first, last, and always we are friends. Right?”

He clinked his glass against mine. “You bet,” he said. “Friends for always.” But his tone was hollow, almost disappointed. He stood and gathered his things, put his clean serving dish in the cooler, and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Bye, Vic,” he said. “See you soon.”

The tables have turned,
I thought as I watched him go. It was clear that Tim still cared about me, and I didn’t know whether to be delighted or terrified at the prospect. I trudged up to my room with my trusty flashlight and sat at my desk. I suddenly knew how I wanted Isabella to meet Tomasso, and I probably had just enough battery power to write it:

Isabella opened the door, looked from the older man to the younger one. The boy’s hands were plunged into his pockets, his eyes on the floor. Were they father and son? Or perhaps uncle and nephew? The older man clutched a bottle of homemade wine; his broad smile revealed missing teeth. He spoke in a strange dialect, but she grasped that they were neighbors.

The younger man pulled the cap from his head slowly, still looking down at his shoes. His thick dark hair was in a tumble; he ran a hand through it hastily, but the curls would not obey, and Isabella smiled behind her hand. At that moment, he lifted his head, and she looked into the most remarkable eyes she’d ever seen. She had never been to Venice, but she thought,
This must be what it looks like
.
His eyes are like the sky over Venice, a blue like no other
.

For a moment they simply stared, until he reached out his hand. “Tomasso,” he said in a whisper.

“Isabella.” She rested the tips of her fingers in his warm palm, and their eyes met in the shock of recognition. She’d heard the women in her village speak about it—
un colpo di fulmine
, the lightning bolt that strikes, the moment of illumination when the world becomes bright and clear. When the answer is in front of you.

Here he is,
she thought,
and here I am
. We have been waiting for each other, and now we are home.

I sat back, smiling in the darkness, satisfied with what I had written. So Isabella, at least, would get her happy ending.

If only I could write my own so easily.

I
t had been a week since the Casa Lido party and the hurricane that crashed it like an unwanted guest. Our side of town was still without power; the rides pier was still closed, as was our restaurant and a number of other businesses in our neighborhood. I doubted if we’d see the same influx of guests today as we did on every other Labor Day weekend. I also found myself missing the restaurant—the camaraderie of the staff, the bustle and just plain hard work of cooking and serving people every day. And frankly, the romance of my Cottage by Candlelight was wearing thin. I wanted the lights back on.

But the lights back on meant I would be back at work, with much less time to focus on what had happened to cause Pete’s death. It didn’t help that the possibilities went in two disparate directions—to the past, and to a circle of criminals who were long dead. And to the present, in which there were any number of people who’d crossed a moral or legal line. Did one of them deliberately cause Pete’s death?

Still in my pajamas, I climbed back onto my bed to think more comfortably. My mind went back to my visit to Florence and Jason, and their panicked responses to my questions. What could Jason have done that was so bad it needed to be kept hidden? Something that would have jeopardized his admission to MIT?
Well, what kinds of things get teenagers in trouble?
I thought. Drinking and driving. Using drugs. Hazing or bullying of other kids. Then, of course, there were academic crimes like cheating or plagiarizing.

If Jason Connors had broken the law, though, that information would have landed in the media, even if it were only on the police blotter section of the
Oceanside Chronicle
. And Jason was eighteen; his name would have been made public. But when I’d searched those archives, his name came up only in relation to his schoolwork. I shifted on the bed, stuffing my pillows behind my back. I concentrated on what Florence had actually said—
Jason wasn’t involved.

Involved
suggested the presence of another person or persons. Was there something that a
group
of kids had done? A group that Jason might have associated with, one that did something that perhaps Pete had witnessed?

Without Internet access, I couldn’t do any more digging, but I could make some calls. I scrolled through my contacts. My brother could look up arrest records, but whether he
would
was another story. Hmm. There
was
somebody who just might have the information I needed, but I wasn’t looking forward to speaking to her.
Put on your big-girl panties and just do it, Vic.
Resigned, I searched the history of incoming calls for the number I needed. Just my luck, she picked up on the first ring.

“Victoria!” Nina LaGuardia trilled in my ear. “To what do I owe this honor, darling? Do you have some murderous little tidbit for me? Hmm?”

I winced. Twice now Nina, a television journalist, had been hot on my trail for interviews, both times in connection to murders. I’d given in the first time, but since then had evaded her calls and visits. I took a deep breath and spoke. “No, Nina, not this time. Actually, I have a question for you. Do you know of any incidents in the last couple of years that involved local teenagers breaking the law?”

Her laugh was tinny and artificial as it came through the phone. “Good God, darling, that list must be a mile long. Do you really think I bother myself with stories about juvenile delinquents?” Her tone sharpened and lost its fake-friendly quality. “Why? What do you know? Are you sniffing around some corpse again?”

I sighed. If I weren’t careful, Nina would connect the dots on this one. She’d reported on Pete’s death last week, but he was portrayed as a storm victim. I couldn’t tip my hand that his death might be more complicated than accidental drowning.

“Actually,” I said, sticking as close to the truth as I dared, “I’m looking into the background of one of our summer hires. I’d heard rumors about him and I want to protect the restaurant’s reputation.”

“Right. So you come to me for information? When that handsome big brother of yours has access to arrest records? Something smells about this, Victoria, and it’s not my Gucci perfume. What are you really up to?”

“Nothing,” I said, staring down at my crossed fingers. “I’d just like some information. Do you recognize the name Jason Connors?”

“No, I do not, so you can just stop bothering me about this.” No longer curious, but merely exasperated, Nina droned on. “I mean, for goodness’ sake, if you want to know about teenagers, go find some high school kid to gossip with. I have better things to do.”

“I know, but . . . ,” I began to say, but stopped dead, the phone frozen to my ear.
Go find some high school kid to gossip with
. “Thanks, Nina. Gotta go!” I said, ending the call with one hand and dragging off my pajamas with the other. I hopped around on one foot to untangle them from my ankles while I placed another call.

“Sofia, listen, I think I’ve got a lead. Or I’m about to get one. Just wanted to let you know before I head out.” I kicked off the pajamas and tugged open a dresser drawer, pawing through it for a pair of jeans, the phone clamped between my neck and shoulder.

“Wait, where are you going?” Sofia’s voice was distant as the phone slipped onto the floor.

“The one place that probably has the answer to the Jason Connors mystery,” I shouted. “I’m going back to school.”

*   *   *

I pulled into the parking lot at Oceanside Park High School and was immediately flooded with memories: Lori and me sneaking out at lunch to go to the beach; following our soccer team to matches with our big rival in Belmont Beach; the smell and din of the school cafeteria, and days and evenings spent working on the school newspaper, the
Cormorant
, on which I’d been a features editor for two years. Our paper was a weekly, and each Labor Day weekend the editors and adviser would show up on Friday morning to begin work on the first issue. Rather than resenting the loss of the last weekend of summer, kids on staff found it a badge of honor to come in to work on the paper. It was likely that this year’s group would already be inside, and if there was anybody who could tell me what Jason Connors had been involved in, it would be a student journalist.

The front door of the school was open, and as I walked inside, the fifteen years I’d been gone seemed to fall away. The sound of excited voices filled the hallway, getting louder as I approached the journalism room. The same inscription from Dante still hung over the newspaper room door:
ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO E
NTER HERE
. I stepped inside and the chatter stopped as one by one, the kids’ heads turned to look at the stranger who’d crossed their threshold.

“Ms. Rienzi!” boomed a familiar voice. “What brings you back to this heart of darkness, pray tell?” I looked up into the looming face of my old adviser, Allan (“Only my monogram gets As”) Ainsley, and grinned. He was still here, still teaching British lit and journalism, and still inspiring terror in the hearts of his students. Standing six-five in his loafers, he was built like a linebacker but spoke like an Oxford don. Or at least his idea of an Oxford don. Without waiting for me to answer, he gestured grandly in my direction.

“Students, meet Ms. Victoria Rienzi, former features editor on the
Cormorant
and current purveyor of popular fiction.” The way he said
purveyor
made me feel as though I walked around wearing a sandwich board to advertise my mysteries. But I was used to Mr. Ainsley–isms and fairly immune to them now.

“Hey, guys,” I said. “First day back, right?”

They waved and nodded, and after a few polite hellos, they quickly resumed their work behind a bank of sleek computers, the only real change to the classroom I remembered. There were still the same shaky worktables and on the walls the same dog-eared posters for various productions of
Macbeth
, a play with which my former teacher was obsessed, as he claimed James I as an ancestor. I pointed. “I see you’re still a
Macbeth
fan.”
Oh no
. The word was out of my mouth before I had time to think about what I’d just said.

“Ms. Rienzi!” he thundered. “Have I taught you nothing?” He pointed to the doorway. “You know the consequences. Now you must suffer them.”

I backed out the door and stood in the hallway, making a halfhearted attempt to neutralize the curse with more Shakespeare. “‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us,’” I quoted.

“Once more, Victoria. This time with feeling.”

By now the kids were laughing, no doubt relieved they weren’t the ones suffering the Curse of the Scottish Play. Resisting the urge to remind him that the bad luck only happened in theaters, not high school classrooms, I gave it one more try from the hallway. “‘Angels and ministers of grace defend us!’”

“You may return,” he said grandly. “Now, that will teach you never to speak the name of the Scottish Play in my classroom.”

“Yes, Mr. A,” I said, feeling like a sophomore again. “Uh, do you have a couple of minutes to chat?”

“Certainly. Come pull up a chair.” He sat down at his cluttered desk and I sat in a low-seated chair intended for someone much younger and shorter. I opened my mouth to start, but Mr. A got there ahead of me.

“So you
are
still writing your little mysteries, are you not, Victoria?” he asked. “Any chance you’ll write a real book soon?” He clutched both hands into fists. “You know what I mean by a real book, don’t you? One with meat. One with heft.” He shook his large fists at me again. “You know what I mean by
heft
, right?”

I knew exactly what he meant. Some highbrow literary tome that I couldn’t have written to save my life. My old teacher had expected me to become a critical darling, but I’d ended up writing beach books instead. Which was fine by me, but a bit of a disappointment to him.

“C’mon, Mr. Ainsley,” I said, “you of all people know that my true talent lies in commercial fiction.”

At this he grumbled something indecipherable, but I did make out the word
crap
. He crossed his arms and glowered down at me in my little chair. “So I hope you have a valid reason for interrupting our labors here today.”

As Mr. A was notoriously short of patience, I jumped right in. “I need some information about a former student.”

Mr. Ainsley raised one bushy, triangular eyebrow. “Is that so?”

I nodded. “Did you have Jason Connors by any chance? He graduated last June.”

He frowned. “No. He wasn’t one of my students. But a high achiever, nonetheless. Quite talented, but . . .”

“But what?”

He shifted in his chair and it gave out a loud creak under his bulk. Picking up a small bust of Shakespeare from the top of his desk, he stared down at it as though the Bard might provide an answer to my question.

“What about him, Mr. A?” I persisted.

He held up a broad palm. “Heaven forfend I should criticize one of our young scholars, but Mr. Connors got up a lot of people’s noses.”

“By
people
you mean staff, I take it.”

“Staff, students, the custodians, the cafeteria workers, you name it,” he said, waving his hand. He leaned toward me, dropping his voice. “Look, the kid’s brilliant. Not a word I use lightly, Victoria. But he knew it. And he lorded it over the other students and even his teachers. There was a . . . ruthlessness about him.” Almost involuntarily, he glanced up at the
Macbeth
poster and then back at me. “Anyway, once he got into MIT, he was insufferable.”

“Okay,” I said, “I already know he’s not the most personable boy. But I’m wondering if he did something wrong—possibly even illegal—”

“To what do these questions pertain, Ms. Rienzi?” he interrupted.

Several of the kids’ heads lifted at the sound of Mr. Ainsley’s sharp tone. One ponytailed girl in wire-rimmed glasses was standing a little apart from the other kids. Though she appeared to be working, it was clear she was listening to our conversation.

I turned my attention back to my old teacher and tried an approximation of the truth. “Jason worked for the restaurant this summer and there was some trouble. I’m trying to ascertain whether he might have had something to do with it.”

“Trouble, eh? Would that be like the
trouble
last May when that producer was found dead behind your family’s restaurant? Did you think I didn’t know about that?”

I sighed. “I think there’s very little you and the
Cormorant
staff don’t know, Mr. A. That’s why I’m here. Can you please tell me if Jason Connors got mixed up in something illegal when he was at Oceanside High?”

He slapped his palm down on his cluttered desk. “That I cannot speak to,” he said, echoing Father Tom’s words about Pete. “I won’t speculate about a situation that is based merely upon rumor and innuendo.”

“So there was something?”

He glanced over at his students; the girl with the ponytail and glasses was holding marked-up article copy and making suggestions to a boy working at a computer. Though she seemed engrossed in her work, I knew she had her ears trained on us. He scowled at her and her cheeks reddened.

He looked back at me and lowered his voice again. “Last fall, the online grading system was hacked. Whoever did it didn’t change any grades. They only used the comment function to leave stupid messages. It was a malicious prank—nothing more. The school kept it in house and out of the media. The kids were never caught.”

“Kids?” I asked. “There was more than one? And Jason was one of them?”

He shook his large, shaggy head, looking like an intelligent dog. “There is no proof that he did it. But he had the skills for it, as did any number of kids in this building.”

“You said it was kept out of the media. But did the
Cormorant
report on it?”

“We did,” he said, nodding. “It was a straightforward news piece. We indicated that the perpetrators were unknown, featured some bland quotes from administrators, and that was that.”

I glanced over at the busy staff. “I remember how you trained us, Mr. A. Those kids did some digging, didn’t they? But if they had names, they wouldn’t have shared that information with you.”