Basil Instinct (21 page)

To the business at hand. “Can we meet? I’ve got information about Georgia Payne, Joe.”

“Then call the cops.”

The man was forever trying to get me to call the cops. What’s the point of having a lawyer? That’s what I want to know. I took a deep and patient breath. Abbie was checking out the litter box I had set in the bathroom, cramping the tiny three-by-six-foot space. “It requires finesse.”

I guess Kayla was cheek to jowl (the jowl being hers) with Joe because it was her voice that came on and said in that conspiratorial way that leads to the overthrow of bedsheets, “Most things do, babe.” Then they laughed together. She always finds her own “jokes” uproarious and declares other people’s “lame, lame, lame.”

“Kayla,” I spoke quietly into the phone, “I’ll see you on Monday with the day’s order. Put Joe back on.” I felt overly dignified in a dramatic sort of way. Like Scarlett O’Hara in the moment she pulls up a rotten turnip and vows she’ll never go hungry again. Only in my scenario, I was brandishing some part of Joe Beck’s anatomy.

When I heard his voice, I asked him if he thought he could hold the four-ounce phone with
out Kayla’s assistance, and when he said he thought he could, I brought him up-to-date. The dead and possibly murdered Georgia Payne was really Anna Tremayne, hotshot chef until she fell off the radar two years ago, and Anna Tremayne was “Anna T.,” the hysterical blogger who—

I finally had his attention. “—who blew the whistle on your grandmother’s club.”

“Belfiere, right.”

He let out a long whistle. “So naturally you’re thinking there’s a Belfiere explanation for Georgia’s death.”

“What with the tattoo removal, the cosmetic surgery, the name change, the career change . . .” I paced my tiny “great room.” “Joe, I’m convinced she was hiding out from the Crazy Cooks Club. She ran out of that meeting, remember? She had the goods on a suspicious death of one of their fifty who keeled over that night.”

“A death that didn’t get reported.”

“Right. And I’ve got my hands on a file she kept on Belfiere—” Oops.

“What? And how did you do that, might I ask?” And we had been doing so well.

I was mad. No, I was already mad. Now I just sputtered, “Oh, Kayla can do naked handsprings all around your yard, but me, I do just a little research—using my employee’s own key—to help
solve the crime and you’re all over me.” I held the phone about a foot from my face and yelled into it. “And not in a good way.”

“Okay, listen—”

“I need some help here!” Does a one-dollar retainer not mean anything these days?

His voice dropped, and I have to admit, it sounded good. “For your information, she’s not doing naked handsprings.”

“Cartwheels, then.” I felt belligerent.

“She’s making a garden. And if she was doing naked handsprings, it would only get my attention—”

“See! See!”

“In kind of an appalled way, to tell you the truth.”

“Huh.”

“I’m coming over,” he said suddenly and decisively. “I’m not going to have this conversation with you over the phone. Is there anything you want?” Then: “Wine? Beer? Lunch?”

I felt my eyes slip very far away. As he waited, I thought how a thrill is really a subtle thing, not a spectacle, not even a great racket of nerve endings. It’s the second the sun peeps above the horizon and all the light everywhere suddenly looks different. And you just missed it, even though you hadn’t looked away, not for a second, and missing it
coursed through you as a thrill. Out the open window I could almost see myself doing naked handsprings across the yard. When I spoke, my voice sounded soft to me. “Cat food,” was all I said.

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later I had set up my blue butterfly chair and a tray table in the grass about ten feet away from my front door. Next to them I had set up a yellow butterfly chair. A place for Joe Beck. For whatever he had to say. Probably something legal and disapproving. On the table before me I had spread printouts of some of the most intriguing photos I had taken of Georgia’s stuff on Belfiere and her life as Anna Tremayne. The table also held two red-wine spritzers with mint sprigs, although, depending on what Joe had to say, I was prepared to drink them both myself. If, for instance, he so much as mentioned the name
Kayla
. I considered bringing out some pestosicles, then decided the wine spritzers were a safer bet. I have never known basil to dull pain.

There I waited, barefoot and cross-legged in my butterfly chair.

A black Subaru turned in to the gravel path I call a drive. It came to a stop well before my beloved Volvo. A pang. Maybe he wasn’t planning on staying very long. Just because naked hand
springs by Kayla might appall him didn’t exactly mean Kayla herself appalled him. On that score, he and I could be extremely different. Maybe he just didn’t like acrobatics. Maybe he liked her just fine, just fine indeed, and all he wanted to tell me was to treat their relationship (here I choked on the mint sprig) with respect, thank you very much.

So I watched him get out of the car and stand stock-still just looking at me for a moment, dressed in jeans and a faded, charcoal-gray T-shirt that had no right looking that good. I found myself hoping it didn’t mean anything that a cloud drifted in front of the sun. As he started over, something made me get out of the chair. The closer he got, the more decisive he seemed, and with my arms folded tight across my chest, I met him halfway.

Two feet away from me, Joe stopped, and pushed at the back of his golden hair, which was too short to go anywhere. I waited while he looked at the sky, the little house, the hedge one hundred feet away. Finally, he spoke. “You’ve got to stop thinking I’ve got something going with Kayla.”

I shifted my weight. “You did,” I pointed out.

Joe stuck his hands on his hips, an effective move that made me consider his hips. “Not one of my better moves.” Oh, talking about Kayla. “Let’s get past it, okay?”

I shifted my weight again, not sure where this
was going. “Why should we?”

“Because it just keeps getting in the way.”

I looked at the grass. “You’ve been a pretty good lawyer so far.” Oh, Eve.

He shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. But you should get yourself another lawyer.”

Suddenly we were both stepping closer and scowling at each other. The kind of scowl that can take off in interesting directions. I think there was a scowl before the firmament popped up and gases cooled into planets.

“I don’t want another lawyer,” I said, pressing my lips together. “I want you.” I was pretty sure I was the only one of the two of us who knew I was really talking about two different things. Although the blush jumping right off my face might have sold me out.

And then Joe Beck slowly leaned in closer as we stood there with our hands on our hips in the gentle June sunlight. In the second before he kissed me, our eyes locked and we grinned at each other. I had a bad moment wondering if that’s as far as we were going to get, nuzzling a nose, feeling the warm breath, that close, then stepping away. After all, it was Eve and Joe, and anything could
not
happen. We had a history of no history.

Then a car with a blown muffler roared by. Kids with sticks went yelling through neighbor
ing weeds. A black-and-gold dragonfly buzzed us. When it came, it felt light and playful and sure and earnest, that kiss. Forget distant galaxies and ocean depths and subatomic whatnot. Everything I wanted to know lay in that point of intersection. That kiss. And my hand flew up to the side of his face.

“No more fake kisses,” he said softly, remembering, I guess, a month ago when we faked our way through a clinch in a tough spot when a patrol car cruised by.

Time for the truth. “They never were,” I told him.

His fingers found the small of my back—too soon to tell him how delicious that was—and pulled me just a little bit closer. “Good to know.”

“Good to know.”

“So’s this.” We were standing so close maybe the dragonfly could have found a path between us, but nothing bigger.

All ten of my fingertips tapped his chest. “You called me honey.” Oh, sure, Angelotta, throw that in his face.

His hands cupped my elbows, and then the man got serious. “I was holding back.”

“Never hold back.”

An eyebrow shot up. “I got the cat food,” he said suddenly, and sure enough, in those seconds
before we kissed again, he dangled a brown paper bag, which thumped lightly against my back as his arms went around me.

“I got the cat,” I said, my voice husky, and I wondered what we were talking about, as I held him tight. The bag fell to the ground. I like a man who’s got his priorities straight.

*   *   *

Banking kisses for that rainy day, Joe ended up asking me to that fancy lawyers’ fancy dinner dance on July 5th. I, of course, blurted, “But I thought you were taking Kayla!” After we cleared up that she was coming over earlier that evening just to drop off his weekly share of produce, I accepted the invitation and we got down to work, turning to red-wine spritzers and hard-copy info that could conceivably hold clues to Anna Tremayne’s death.

Joe lingered over the Belfiere material. Georgia/Anna had made a list of members’ names, when she knew them, maybe half of the total fifty in the society. Maria Pia might recognize more of them—pretty soon, a little too up close and personal, unless I could persuade her to stay out of their clutches. Studying the list hard, I cottoned on to a startling omission: Belladonna Russo herself, mother of Fina Parisi, and—if you want to believe Maria Pia Angelotta—biggest
strega
in the
Tri-State Area. I hadn’t seen her at Miracolo the other night, and Georgia/Anna hadn’t jotted down her name. Joe declared the list “a start,” in case the evidence pointed conclusively in that direction.

Then there was the rest of Georgia/Anna’s material on Belfiere. Jottings by the names of the members she was able to identify.
She talks about the difference between chanterelle mushrooms and false chanterelles like she’s experimented! How??
Worse yet, who??
Another:
Something about “harvesting” botulinum toxin. Sick, sick, sick.
Another:
Overheard her speculating whether the glycoalkaloid poison in potato leaves and stems could be introduced in large enough amounts to kill.
And on and on.

Then there were pages of notes . . . for an exposé on Belfiere. Notes of early questions for herself.
Should I go for a few shorter articles blowing this club of ghouls wide open? Or is it more effective to do a book-length thing? Can I fool them enough to get into a position of more power—could give me access to files, photos, stories??
The word
Pursue
was underlined twice. And then, underlined three times:
What’s the danger?

Also in the file were letters from a couple of big publishers. Joe and I raised our eyebrows at each other. Anna had already been going semipublic, with what looked like a book proposal. Both publishers expressed interest in seeing more on her exposé
titled
Be Careful What You Eat: The Criminal Life of a Secret Society of Chefs.
“Dear Ms. Tremayne,” went one, “Your account of the possibly criminal history and practices of Belfiere, a secret cooking society, is compelling. As a Belfiere insider, you are certainly in a position of authority. However, we would need to see a table of contents and sample chapters in order to get a better feel for . . .”

I held the letters in my hand and stared at them.

I recalled a line from my nonna’s invitation to join Belfiere.
In all things pertaining to Belfiere you must observe
omertà.

Omertà.
The code of silence.

Had Fina Parisi and Belfiere known about Anna T.’s book proposal, an exposé that was “blowing this club of ghouls wide open”? Anna Tremayne had violated
omertà
in even giving the publishers a brief taste of the sorts of accusations she was making against Belfiere, let alone spilling it all over the course of three hundred shocking pages, which could lead to who knew how many criminal investigations? Oh, Anna.

Was this why she was killed?

13

Munching mint sprigs and contentedly sipping the rest of our spritzers, we studied the couple of restaurant reviews Georgia had written as Anna. Anything there? Possibly. One, Diavolo, in Short Hills, New Jersey, I remember hearing flopped maybe a couple of years ago—thanks to Anna’s acerbic review? Another, Magritte, in midtown Manhattan, shrank to nothing and closed its doors around the same time—thanks to Anna’s tepid review?

Joe suggested trying to find connections between Belfiere members—female superchefs—and restaurants doomed by Anna Tremayne. This would take some plodding, but I agreed it made sense. We split up Georgia/Anna’s list of Belfiere members, so we each had a dozen names to try to tie to any of the restaurants Anna had dissed in print.

The problem with discovering a motive for Anna Tremayne’s murder was that it became kind of a wonder she had survived as long as she had, between exposés and damaging restaurant reviews.

We were just starting to pass the hard copies from Georgia’s personal file back and forth when my phone rang. It was Detective Sally Fanella, who told me the CSI folks would be out of Miracolo late Sunday, when the crime-scene tape would come down. We could reopen for the dinner business on Monday. All good news. Joe looked at me quizzically, and I gave him a thumbs-up. But maybe I was too hasty.

“Your cousin,” went on Sally Fanella, “Landon Angelotta.”

Landon . . . “I called and left him a message about checking in with you at the station.”

“Right. Well, you may have done what you were supposed to”—she took a big authoritative breath—“but he has not.”

“Oh,” I said kind of faintly, “I’m sure he—”

“Which,” she overrode me, “beyond a certain point, makes him a person of interest.”

*   *   *

Joe Beck took off to start trying to make connections between Belfiere members and failed restaurants. Me, I brooded about Landon. “A person of
interest.” I didn’t like the sound of that at all. How could my beloved cousin be at all implicated in this woman’s death? Although, to be fair, he had been acting weird ever since he clapped eyes on her the day she started at Miracolo.