Triple Shot (7 page)

Luc’s place was a two-level townhouse occupying the first and second floors. I parked on the street behind Tien’s Volkswagen bug and Sarah’s classic Firebird. As Frank hopped out of my Escape, I was aware of curious glances. The dogs that were being walked around us were more the size that would have fit into Elaine Riordan’s handbag, as opposed to Frank, who was . . .

‘Oh, Daddy, look at the pony,’ a girl of three or four said to her dad as they passed. ‘Can we get one, can we please?’

Frank eyed me.

I pressed the doorbell. ‘A failure of the educational system, pooch. In my day, kids could tell the difference between canines and equines.’

Tien pulled the door open abruptly.

‘Sit,’ I said to Frank belatedly, but he already was, tail thumping, as Tien gave him a good rub behind the ears. ‘You’re such a perfect gentleman, Frank, aren’t you? You’re just a lover. Yes you are, oh yes you
are
.’

Ugh. We really had to find somebody for Tien. Maybe Jacque, as unlikely as it seemed, would be the lucky guy.

As for Frank, sheepdogs were like kids. They always behaved better for other people. ‘Traitor,’ I said as Frank pranced in behind Tien, shooting me a look that said, Now
this
is a woman who knows how to treat a dog.

I closed the door behind me. Beyond the foyer, Luc’s condo had a good-sized living room, eat-in kitchen and half-bath. Upstairs were two bedrooms and bathrooms, accessible by a compact circular staircase.

Sarah was already sitting on one end of the couch in the living room, feet up on the coffee table, a glass in her hand.

My partner was a scotch drinker when I met her, but in deference to the medication she took for bipolar disorder, she’d switched to clear liquids.

‘Another Grey Goose, Sarah?’ asked Luc.

Drinking what she shouldn’t – ever the mother, I wanted to scold my partner.

But talking to Sarah was like talking to Frank, currently padding along behind Tien to the kitchen. You could talk, but you never knew if they were listening.

In Frank’s case it was because his hair covered his eyes. Sarah just didn’t give a shit.

But to my surprise, Sarah shook her head. ‘No thanks, Luc. I’m fine for now.’

‘Wine, Maggy?’ Luc asked, picking up a balloon-shaped glass. ‘I’ve got a nice Chardonnay – that I used making the entrée – or a Cabernet.’

‘The Cab, please, Luc.’ While I agreed that some dishes were best paired with whites, I fully intended to be drinking the wine both before and after I ate. And I preferred red.

I sniffed. ‘Something smells wonderful.’

‘Dad developed a fantastic Chicken Francese recipe,’ Tien said, re-entering the room with a plate in her hands and my dog at her heels.

She put the plate on the floor and whatever had been on it disappeared in a blur of fur, yellow teeth, pink tongue and consequent drool.

‘What was that?’ I asked.

‘She means before it was barbarically attacked,’ said Sarah, nodding toward Frank walking away from the dish snuffling.

‘Meatloaf,’ Tien said. ‘I hope it’s OK?’

‘Better than OK,’ Sarah said, ‘judging by Frank. Got any left? I’m not much for French food.’

I began with, ‘Sarah . . .’

But Luc just laughed. ‘
Francese
is an Italian word and it means “in the French way”, or “Frenchman”, literally. You’ll see the dish served in a lot of Italian restaurants. Chicken breast, lightly battered in flour and egg and served with a lemon sauce.’

My stomach growled.

‘Not only is it delicious,’ Luc continued, ‘but it should reheat nicely. And I’m doing a nice angel-hair pasta to go with it.’

‘Plus,’ Tien interjected, ‘it’s low fat. My father is a culinary genius.’

‘Aww, now. Anybody could do this. I’ve just had the time since I retired.’

‘Retired?’ I said, settling onto the other end of the couch from Sarah. ‘You’re developing recipes, helping Tien with the cooking and today you were tending the coffeehouse.’

‘You were?’ Tien asked with surprise. ‘When?’

Of course. She’d been gone by the time Sarah and I had abandoned our post to go in search of what was stinking up the place. Maybe she’d left with Jacque Oui and maybe she hadn’t, but I wasn’t going to raise the subject.

The Frenchman and Tien’s father had been friendly, quasi-competitors, with Jacque running Schultz’s, specializing in seafood and fish, just a few blocks from An’s, which featured an excellent meat counter, deli and breads.

I didn’t know how Luc would feel about Tien seeing Jacque, if that’s what they were indeed doing. But Tien was an adult – into her thirties now, though she seemed younger – and who she dated was really none of her father’s business.

Or
mine, for that matter.

‘Around noon, maybe?’ Luc, answering Tien’s latter question.

‘Yeah,’ Sarah said, stretching. ‘Tien had already taken off with
her
Francese.’

Meaning Jacque, of course.

‘You brought the chicken there?’ Luc asked his daughter, confused.

Sarah threw a knowing grin in Tien’s direction and then opened her mouth.

I wanted to put my foot in it. Before my partner could further embarrass Tien, I said to her, ‘Your father pitched in when Sarah and I had to leave.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. If I’d known, I would have stayed.’ Tien had colored up at Sarah’s teasing, but now she seemed to relax, knowing that while I might not be a good influence on Sarah, I was at least a mitigating one.

‘Not a problem,’ Sarah said, settling back into the couch. ‘We just found a corpse in the bathroom of a secret room under the loading dock.’

Tien’s hand went to her mouth. ‘Was that what the horrible smell was?’

‘T’would seem so.’ Sarah took a sip of the vodka and then, just when I thought the booze might be muddying her sense of discretion, set it back down. ‘Our dead “rat” was my former apprentice, Brigid Ferndale.’ Sarah closed her eyes.

Hastily I said, ‘The sheriff thinks it might be connected to the other recent attacks on realtors.’

‘Then the police believe she was murdered?’ Tien asked, eyes wide. ‘And why under the . . . did you say loading platform?’

How to explain? Tien was gone by the time Chitown and his entourage had arrived. She knew nothing of the ‘Treasure of the Brookhills Massacre’.

Which I personally thought was a lousy name – sort of a
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
meets
The St Valentine’s Day Massacre
. But then, maybe that was what Chitown – or the station grubstaking him – was looking for.

I filled Tien in on the mob ‘loot’ story, ending with the discovery of the waiting room. ‘There was even a shower down there.’

‘Probably for cleaning up after whacking people,’ Sarah said.

‘That was what I—’

‘Ridiculous,’ Luc exploded. ‘No one was “whacking” anyone. Where do you get this stuff?’

As for me, mostly from
The Godfather
trilogy and
The Sopranos
. But it did seem like Luc was overreacting.

He went to a mahogany sideboard with a decanter of amber liquid centered on an old-fashioned white, lace doily. His back to us, Luc poured himself several ounces of the liquid. As he raised glass to lips, I remembered.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Romano’s Ristorante.’

Chapter Seven

‘What about it?’ Luc had turned abruptly, glass in hand. The drink slopped over the rim, due more to anger than nerves, I thought.

But I also felt cold radiating both from his tone and his face. ‘Ward Chitown told me the massacre occurred inside Romano’s Ristorante. It’s the building on Junction Road and Poplar Creek, just south of the slaughterhouse.’

‘The storefront that’s been empty for years?’ Tien looked at her father, puzzled. ‘But isn’t that where Pop-Pop’s old restaurant and market were, Daddy?’

Sarah: ‘Pop-Pop?’

‘It’s what I call Daddy’s –’ now Tien was coloring up – ‘my grandfather. I never knew him because he died before I was born.’

Tien was looking at Luc. When he didn’t contribute, she went on. ‘My grandmother didn’t have the heart to continue with the restaurant after her husband died, so she moved the market to Milwaukee to be closer to her family.’

‘Until your dad and mom moved it back to Brookhills,’ I said, knowing the story.

Tien’s mother, An, had been born in Vietnam. She and Luc, an American soldier, had fallen in love and returned together to the US at the end of his tour of duty. Tragically, when Tien was barely a one-year-old and just after the move to Brookhills, An Romano had been killed in an accident.

Tien’s father roused himself. ‘My mother gave us the market as a wedding present. I felt badly moving it, but—’

‘The business was dying where it was,’ Tien chimed in. ‘No one was interested in a specialty/butcher shop when they had big chain supermarkets. Daddy decided to bring the store back to Brookhills, where it started and would still be respected.’

‘Good place to raise a family,’ Luc said, like he’d chanted the maxim a million times before.

‘Nona didn’t think so,’ Tien said.

I said, ‘Do you think it was because of –’ no need to use the word ‘massacre’ – ‘what had happened there?’

Luc hadn’t budged from his spot within arm’s length of the sideboard.

Sarah said, ‘You mean the massacre?’

So much for . . .

‘Is that why Nona never wanted to come to Brookhills, Daddy?’ Tien turned to Sarah and me, by way of explanation. ‘We always went to Milwaukee. She never once visited us, even at Christmas.’

‘Figures,’ Sarah said. ‘The family business was mobbed up. She didn’t want to return to the scene of the crime.’

God, I thought, The US of A was lucky that Sarah never entered our diplomatic corps.

Now Luc shook himself the way my sheepdog Frank would after being out in the rain. ‘My father was
not
a gangster.’

‘Of course not.’ Despite myself, I was intrigued by what had seemed like ancient history just this morning. Ancient history that had intruded big-time on our current business-plan. ‘But from what I understand, a lot of good people have been . . .’ Again, searching for the right word.

‘Suckered?’ Sarah suggested.

As fitting as any, evil one. But I was Maggy, the Good Bitch of the Midwest. ‘Or drawn in, maybe against their will.’

Luc sighed and finally moved, sinking into the chair across from us. Overstuffed and covered with a floral print, it looked as incongruous in the room as Luc did sitting in it. Like a shirt someone dear had bought for him: it didn’t suit his taste, but the man simply couldn’t bear to give away.

Tien perched on the arm of the flowered chair. ‘Is that what happened? Did Pop-Pop get in bed with the mob?’

To her, it was probably like finding out you were related to Billy the Kid. An unknown and thrilling, if infamous, family history.

To her father, though, the past wasn’t quite so . . . past. ‘Don’t be melodramatic, Tien. Your grandfather—’

But Sarah couldn’t let Tien’s comment pass. ‘In bed? Like Marlon Brando with the horse’s head?’

I cleared my throat. ‘Actually, in
The Godfather
it’s the movie studio’s boss, played by John Marley, who finds the severed—’

‘Anyway,
Tien
,’ Luc said, leveling a glare at Sarah and me, ‘your grandfather owned a restaurant that some reputed Mafia—’

‘Reputed?’ Sarah said. ‘Reputed enough to die in a hail of—’

‘Members –’ another dirty look from Luc, this time sparing me, but still skewering Sarah – ‘unfortunately chose to frequent.’

‘Were you there the day of the raid?’ I asked curiously.

‘No, I’d just landed in Vietnam.’

Tien said, ‘But Nona and Pop-Pop would have been, right? And customers, of course.’

‘It was a Monday. The restaurant was never open on Monday.’

‘But the mobsters were there anyway?’ Tien followed up before her face changed. ‘Oh, I see. That was the reason Pop-Pop closed that day. So nobody would see them.’

‘The other way around,’ Luc said. ‘I think the group chose that day to meet because we were closed. It wasn’t unusual in those days.’

‘Did you know what was going on?’ I asked.

Luc shifted uncomfortably. ‘My senior year of high school, I got a whiff of it. My dad going to work, even though the Ristorante wasn’t open. I asked why.’

‘Did he tell you?’ Tien asked.

Luc looked up at her. ‘No. And both your Nona and Pop-Pop started to discourage me from stopping by the restaurant on any day.’

‘They were trying to keep you safe.’ Sarah was staring at her glass.

Luc looked surprised. I was, too, but at Sarah’s sensitivity more than the thought that ‘Nona’ and ‘Pop-Pop’ wanted to keep their son away from whatever was happening at their place of business.

But Luc had to have seen his parent’s motive, too, if only in hindsight. ‘It was about then my mom started to encourage me to join the army. The draft was over, but . . .’ His eyes had a faraway look.

I said, ‘She must have been very worried about what was going on at their restaurant.’

Tien cocked her head at me. ‘Why do you say that, Maggy?’

She deserved an answer. ‘A mother suggesting her son enlist while their country’s in a shooting war? Sounds like she thought you’d have a better chance at life in Vietnam than at home, Luc.’

‘I have to say, I didn’t think of it like that back then,’ Luc said, patting Tien so she’d shift and he could get up.

He moved to the sideboard and poured himself another drink from the decanter. ‘I figured she and my father thought I could use some toughening up.’

Nothing like dodging bullets to put starch in your shorts. But I was thinking along a different line. Tien had said her grandfather died before she was born, but he apparently had been alive back when Luc enlisted.

‘Another question?’ I said.

‘Really?’ Luc settled back into the chair with his refilled glass. ‘I think I’ve answered plenty. Sure more than I ever hoped to.’ He gave his daughter a weary smile.

I said, ‘You told us the restaurant wasn’t open the day of the FBI’s raid. But you also said your father started working on Mondays. So . . . was he there?’