Delicious! (27 page)

“I’ve never been inside.” I hoped my face didn’t look as warm as it felt. “It’s supposed to be the library, but they locked it years before I got here.”

Chris strolled up to the door, tried the handle, then did it again, harder. “Definitely locked.” He made another note. “There’s this door and that one down on the second floor.” He and Joan-Mary both looked expectantly at Mitch, who pointedly turned away.

“Aren’t we going to get the lecture?” she asked.

He reddened a bit and shook his head.

Joan-Mary glanced at me. “He’s blushing because he knows that ordinarily we’d simply call a locksmith. But Mitch goes ballistic if you let anyone else touch ‘his’ buildings.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “It’s perfectly fine with me if you want to let some clumsy oaf come in and destroy all the details. Why would you want to know anything about the history of this building? It’s just unimportant little trifles like when the locks were put in, when repairs
were made, who was living here, what their lives were like. Why would you want to know any of that?”

“You can tell those things from the locks?” I was intrigued.

Mitch leaned back against the wall. “If you know what you’re looking for. Nails, locks, scratches, repairs—they’re kind of like fingerprints.”

“You make it sound like a crime scene.”

“Not a crime scene: an opportunity.” He turned to Joan-Mary. “These things tell you the story of a building. Why would you risk destroying that?”

“So we
are
going to get the lecture.” She regarded him almost coyly.

Mitch raised his hands and took a step forward. “No lecture. But what exactly is your problem with letting me unlock those doors?”

Another coy look. And that whispery voice. “You know you charge twice what any ordinary locksmith does.”

“You get what you pay for.”

“I wonder if I’m glad you came back early from—where were you?” Joan-Mary gave him a sidelong glance.

She was obviously enjoying this, and I was reminded of the call-and-response routine Mr. Complainer did with Sal. Was Mitch like this with everyone? He seemed intent on wringing every bit of juice from ordinary life.

“Cambridge.”

“I’m afraid that your colleague’s early return from his sabbatical is going to turn out to be rather expensive for me.”

“But so much more interesting. Besides, you’re not the one who’s paying.”

She nodded. “Okay, you go prowl around and do whatever it is that you do. Chris and I have to go down to the basement and see what we’ve got in the way of infrastructure.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow, if that’s all right with you.” Mitch made his way to the staircase. “I didn’t bring my tools. And I want to do a little research before I begin.”

Watching him leave, I had mixed feelings. I got the sense that he found it as uncomfortable as I did, seeing me outside of Fontanari’s,
and that he was making his escape. But I was relieved too: What if he’d opened Sammy’s office on the spot? I’d been racking my brain, trying to think up plausible stories, and now we’d been given a reprieve. Sammy and I could come back tonight and clear it out.

“I hope he doesn’t find anything too interesting.” Joan-Mary seemed to be talking to herself.

“What do you mean?” I was curious.

“If he discovers that someone famous once owned this house, or if it was the site of some important battle, it could become a nuisance.”

“Unlikely,” said Chris. “We’d know.”

“I hope you’re right.” Joan-Mary turned back to me. “We’ll probably be here for a while, assessing the state of the furnace and the electrical capacity of the building. Please don’t allow us to waste any more of your time.”

For the next couple of hours I heard them moving around the building, and occasionally I’d hear a scrap of a sentence. It sounded as if they despaired of the heating and electrical equipment, and they were very concerned about how they were going to replace the cracked panes in the antique windows.

They were arguing as they approached my door. He thought it should be sold for professional use, while she insisted that they should try to sell it to the ambassador of some wealthy nation.

“It’s such a lovely home,” she kept saying.

“Joan-Mary,” he replied, “beneath the gruff exterior of a businesswoman beats the heart of a romantic.” She laughed; it was a lovely, musical sound, and when they came through the door her cheeks were flushed.

“Do you think the building will sell?” I asked.

Joan-Mary looked at me, her mouth slightly open. “Are you serious? How often do you think an intact Federal mansion comes on the market in the heart of Manhattan? There are Federal row houses, but true mansions are extremely rare. The few that exist have been carved into apartments, or tragically renovated. This one could certainly use an upgrade, but it’s been remarkably preserved. It will definitely sell.”

“Quickly?” I pressed.

“That,” Chris answered, “will depend on many factors. Not the least being price.”

“But for the moment,” Joan-Mary was speaking again, “as soon as Mitch finishes whatever it is that he’s going to do, I’m going to recommend that Mr. Pickwick have the building staged. I’m sorry to say you’ll find it rather disruptive.”

Chris made a little face at Joan-Mary, as if he was conceding a point. “If we want people to consider it as a home, I suppose we’ll need to encourage them to recognize the possibilities.”

Joan-Mary was pulling on her gloves. “Anyone with eyes,” she said, “could see that this building was made for memories.” She gave a little wave. “Thanks. We’ll be seeing you soon.”

I HAD COME TO LOVE
the Timbers Mansion, and I liked Joan-Mary for liking it too. It made me happy to think of the old building getting spruced up and turned back into a home. Maybe some child would find the secret room. What had Joan-Mary said? That it was “made for memories.” The words resonated, and I suddenly thought of Lulu’s last letter. “We still have his memory,” Mrs. Cappuzzelli had said. On a mad impulse, I ran up to the library and looked up the word.

Bertie must have known how difficult this clue was. She didn’t beat about the bush. There were only six words on the card, written out in her bold turquoise handwriting. “Memories. See reader letters, 1944, the ‘Farming’ file.”

“
D
ETASSELING?” SAMMY WAS SURROUNDED BY THE BILLOWS OF
steam rising from the wok in front of him, but even so I could tell how pleased he was that his intuition had been right: It had been a lucky day. “Have you the foggiest notion what that might be?” Emerging from the clouds, he pointed a metal spatula at me. “Do be careful with that letter. It has no business in the kitchen.”

According to Wikipedia, detasseling is a way to cross-breed two varieties of corn by removing the pollen-producing flowers from the tops of the corn plants. “Apparently,” I said, carefully folding the letter and putting it back into its envelope, “during the war, the corn farmers all hoped for rural helpers, because they knew how to do it.”

“It sounds positively medieval.” He motioned for me to pick up the white ironstone platter on the counter, and I held it as he piled on the rosy steamed shrimp. The thoroughly urban Sammy wore a look of distaste. “No doubt detasseling tasks are now performed by machines.” He waved me toward the dining room. “Make haste; the shrimp grow cold.”

“Nope. Even today, with genetically engineered corn, they still do some detasseling by hand.”

“I am impressed.” He pulled out a chair for me. “I expect that this knowledge will one day serve you well.”

“And I expect it’s the next clue.” It was not lost on me that Sammy had made my favorite dinner, the shrimp curled, translucent as pearls, inside their fragile shells. He’d used the good china too. Something was
up, but as he refused to say what, I told him about Mr. Complainer appearing at the mansion.

“Am I remembering correctly that he not was due to return for another month or so?” asked Sammy.

“Apparently he was substituting for a colleague who returned early.” Joan-Mary had mentioned that. “But I wish I’d known he had such an interesting profession. He never seemed to consider the cost when he came to Fontanari’s, and when he told me he’d spent a couple weeks taking cooking classes in Italy, I just pegged him as a rich guy.”

“I too”—Sammy stood up—“was struck by a bolt from the blue.” He paused dramatically. “I found Bertie.”

“Shut up!” I dropped the last shrimp, splashing soy sauce, vinegar, chilies, and ginger onto the lace cuffs.

“Indeed.” Sammy looked triumphant. “I will admit that it was utterly serendipitous. The librarian I succeeded in unearthing at NYU was very pretty but positively useless. I was turning away, dejected, when she said, ‘Maybe Bonnie Slotnick could help you.’ ”

“Bonnie who?”

“Bonnie Slotnick is the proprietress of a vintage cookbook store in the Village. As it was only a few blocks distant, I could not see that I had much to lose, so I wandered her way.”

“Bertie’s real name is Bonnie?” I was confused.

“Billie!” Sammy frowned at me. “Surely you did not expect it to be that easy?”

“But you said you found her.”

“Bonnie is a lovely woman with an impressive knowledge of cookbooks, but she is definitely not Bertie.”

“But she knows her?”

“No, she does not. She listened very politely to what I had to say and then spent some time delivering a diatribe against Pickwick Publications and their iniquity in murdering her favorite magazine. I was beginning to consider this a lost cause when she came sputtering to a conclusion, saying that she had an idea. She dialed a number and conversed
for quite some time. When she finally hung up, she said, ‘Anne Milton is on her way over.’ ”

First Bonnie, now Anne. “What about Bertie?”

“I shall arrive there in due time.” I banged the table with the palm of my hand in frustration. The silverware jumped. Sammy lifted an eyebrow. “Twenty minutes later, a rather grand dame strolled into Bonnie’s emporium. Remarkable-looking: quite tall, with sapphire eyes, and a thick head of absolutely superb white hair. I must add that she was wearing the most exquisitely tailored suit it has ever been my privilege to behold, in an extraordinary shade of blue.”

“That’s exactly how I imagined Bertie!”

“It was not Bertie! Anne is a retired professor of literature. And her closest friend was a librarian at—”

“
Delicious!
Was she Bertie?”

“Well …” Sammy obviously wanted to draw the story out. “Yes and no. Her friend was indeed Bertie. And Bertie was employed at
Delicious!
But it was not our Bertie.”

“What do you mean, not our Bertie?”

“Her friend was Bertram Arnold Joseph Ancram.”

“Bertie’s a man?”

“Indeed. Of the masculine persuasion. I could not have been more astounded.”

“Do you think Maggie knew?”

“Oh, Maggie.” He waved a hand. “Always up to mischief. But to bestow the benefit of the doubt, it is eminently possible that she had no more knowledge of this fact than did I myself. Bertie departed before either of us made an appearance at
Delicious!
We were merely acquainted with the myth of Bertie.”

“I bet she knew,” I said darkly.

“It is of no moment. What does matter is that Miss Milton was entirely cognizant of the secret room.”

“She knew about Anzio? Did Bertie build it?”

“I felt that it would be unsportsmanlike to allow her to narrate her
tale in your absence. She will join us for dinner tomorrow evening, when all will be revealed.”

He let her get away? “I’m not sure I can bear the suspense. It’s a long time till tomorrow night.”

“The time will fly; there is so much to do. I must vacate my office before morning. And I intend to make a midnight raid on Anzio. Anne had some very good suggestions.”

“She knew about Lulu?”

“She seems to know everything. She asked if we had noted Bertie’s fondness for puzzles and puns. When I related how long it had taken us to unravel the mystery of the ugly duckling, she regarded me with what I can only describe as pity. Then she inquired if we had fiddled with the letters in the other names.”

“We should have thought of that!”

“I gave it a whirl. ‘Lulu,’ with its paucity of letters, offers rather poor possibilities, but when I began diverting myself with ‘Swan,’ I was absolutely enraged. How could I have overlooked this? There is an absolutely obvious word. Bertie would have been powerless to resist it.”

“What?”