Dying for a Taste (17 page)

Standing up to stretch, my eyes strayed to the wall next to the window. There, tucked into the corner of the family photo, was the snapshot of Letta and Tony at the picnic table.
Ah ha!
It wasn’t the best likeness of him on earth, but it would certainly do. Since I knew Kate was going to be at the Slow Food dinner on Sunday, I could show it to her and find out once and for all if Tony was the mystery man. I took the snapshot from the frame and tucked it into my wallet.

Saturday morning, I had a few errands to do before work. First on my list was stopping by Aunt Letta’s house. I was hoping to find the pink slip for the T-Bird, since I needed to change the insurance and registration to my name, but I also thought it couldn’t hurt to do a little snooping around while I was there. The key was in its usual place, on a nail at the back of the garage, and I let myself in through the side door into the kitchen.

The house smelled stale—not unusual when a place has been closed up for a while in this beach town. But it still gave me the heebie-jeebies. Even though Letta hadn’t actually died in the house, the dank air brought to mind the inside of a crypt or some other ghoulish place. Forcing open the stubborn wooden window above the sink, I took a few deep breaths and tried to get a grip on myself.

After a couple minutes, I felt relatively normal again and headed for the study. A filing cabinet stood against one wall.
Let’s hope she was organized enough to have a file for the T-Bird.
I was in luck. Removing the manila folder labeled “Car,” I
checked to make sure the pink slip was inside and then set it on the desk. I then turned back to flip through the remaining files: “Maps,” “House Insurance,” “Water/Sewage,” “Instruction Manuals,” “Gardening.” No letters, photos, phone records, credit card bills; all the potentially helpful stuff had obviously been carted off by the police. Being second in line searching for clues was clearly a disadvantage.

I shut the cabinet and wandered through the house, trying not to think too much about how its former occupant met her death. Maybe something would pop out at me, something that the cops had missed but I would recognize as important, because of my superior analytical skills. Right.

After making an uneventful sweep of the house, I returned to the kitchen. Opening the drawers one by one, I poked idly through the myriad cooking utensils, flatware, aluminum foil, plastic bags, potholders, and cloth napkins that Letta had accumulated over the years. I was about to close a drawer overflowing with pens, scratch pads, scissors, a phone book, and a pile of to-go menus when my eye was caught by a small piece of card stock with a picture of a fish on it.

As I withdrew it from the drawer, it opened up accordion style. “Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch: West Coast Consumer Guide,” I read. Unfolding the card, I saw that it contained three columns: “Best Choices,” “Good Choices,” and “Avoid.” But more interesting to me was that there was writing in red ink on the card.

I sat down and studied the list. Some of the entries under “Best Choices” had been circled: Alaskan salmon, farmed scallops, yellowfin tuna (US troll- or pole-caught varieties), and US Pacific halibut. I recognized these as kinds of seafood
currently on the Gauguin menu, but I wasn’t sure if they were from the sources listed in that column.

Other items, ones in the “Avoid” category, had lines drawn through them: Atlantic farmed salmon, imported farmed shrimp, imported swordfish, and yellowfin tuna (except troll, pole, and US longline). I also recognized these as Gauguin menu items.

Had Letta been the one who made these markings? I wondered. Had she been considering switching the fish choices at Gauguin? Or had someone who wanted her to do so marked the list and then given it to her? Too bad there was no handwriting on it that could be identified. I slid the card into my back pocket. Javier could tell me if Letta had talked to him about Gauguin’s seafood sourcing.

Next I tried the kitchen cupboards. Several had glass fronts through which I could see plates and dishes stacked high. Letta’s china was a hodgepodge of all completely different patterns—her “mad tea party” set, she’d called it. I wondered if my dad would let me have the dishes; he certainly would never use them.

Behind the wooden doors were Letta’s staples. One cupboard contained dry goods—flour, sugar, dried beans, rice, pasta—and the other, condiments. I rummaged through this second one. Maybe there were some things I could snitch for my own kitchen.

Dad probably wouldn’t want that unopened jar of fermented black beans, nor the harissa or mango chutney. Shoving aside a bottle of white wine vinegar (which he would definitely use), I reached for a small, red can and extracted it from near the back of the cupboard.

And then I laughed—a sort of ironic, sad chuckle. It was Letta’s pepper spray, in one of the least useful locations possible. I could totally see my aunt, in one of her distracted moods, seeing the word “pepper” on the can and absent-mindedly placing it on the shelf along with the hot chili oil and sriracha sauce.

I took the can and dropped it into my bag.

***

After stopping by the ATM for some cash and buying a new watch battery, I decided to stroll down Pacific Avenue before heading to Solari’s for work.

For several years after the big Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989, which destroyed some of its buildings and caused others to be red-tagged and torn down, this shopping area appeared to have gone the way of many city centers across the country and had become almost a ghost town. But then, after a nine-plex movie theater moved in, downtown Santa Cruz underwent a renaissance, and folks flooded back. It’s been a happening place ever since.

It felt good to take a break from my regular life—which, of late, seemed to consist solely of work and obsessing about Letta’s murder and what to do about Gauguin—and spend a couple hours on completely unrelated activities: window-shopping, checking out the racks at the Gap, and browsing the new arrivals in the cooking section at Bookshop Santa Cruz.

The day after my talk with Javier, I’d made a color copy of the snapshot of Tony and Letta, being sure to crop out the half with Letta in it. No need to further provoke Kate, I
figured. I also called Eric to see if he wanted to accompany me to the Slow Food dinner on Sunday. He’d readily agreed upon learning he’d have the chance to meet the enigmatic Ted, not to mention get a meal on me at a swank Berkeley restaurant. Other than satisfying those two logistical details, however, I hadn’t made any progress in the last two days toward figuring out who might have killed Aunt Letta. And now the search of her house had pretty much been a washout as well.

For the moment, though, I was enjoying the warm sun on my face as I sprawled on a bench, sipping a latte, admiring the cherry blossoms as they fluttered in the breeze, and watching the world go by. Setting down my cup, I rolled up my shirtsleeves and pulled my sunglasses from my purse. After several weeks of cold and blustery weather, we finally had a truly warm day—bliss!

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, listening to the sounds of the passing parade. A pack of teenage girls were chattering about a boy named Ryan. A cyclist pedaled by with the rhythmic scraping of a misaligned chain. Several dogs barked in the distance, and a car horn beeped. A gruff, male voice started shouting.

The proximity of this last noise prompted me to open my eyes. An old man with gray stubble and a tattered, gray jacket to match was standing in front of the
taquería
across from my bench, shaking his fist and shouting at the patrons as they entered and exited.

As I watched his ranting, I noticed someone inside the restaurant at the table nearest the window staring out at me. It was Tony.

When he saw me returning his gaze, he smiled and waved. On an impulse, I stood up and walked into the shop and over to where he was sitting. He appeared to be alone, a partially eaten burrito and can of 7-Up on the table in front of him.

“Hey, Tony.”

“I thought that was you, Sally. How ya doing? You wanna eat?” He motioned to the chair across from him. “You’re welcome to join me.”

“No, I had a late breakfast, and I gotta be at work in a little while. I just came in to say hi. But I will sit for a minute if you don’t mind. I actually had something I wanted to ask you. Go ahead, though.” I nodded toward his plate and sat down.

Tony picked up his burrito and bit into it, wiping a dribble of guacamole off his chin with a paper napkin. He had on brown canvas work pants and, I noted with regret, a long-sleeve, white T-shirt. I wouldn’t get a chance today to see if he had a Giants tattoo on his arm.

“How’s Buster doing?”

“He seems to be doing pretty good. I’m sure he misses Letta—I sure do—and wonders what the hell’s going on, but he seems to like living with me just fine. Of course, it’s not that huge a change for him, since he’s used to hanging out at my house a lot.”

I nodded and watched as he took another bite and chewed, washing it down with 7-Up. “Nice day,” I observed. “Finally.”

Tony grunted. “Yeah, but the salmon sure aren’t biting.”

“Oh, right. I read that the season just opened. You go out this morning?”

“Yep. But I had to make do with a dozen sanddabs and a couple black cod. No one’s catching any salmon yet.”

“Overfishing?”

“Not by me, that’s for sure.” Setting his can down on the Formica table, he looked at me. “You wanna know what I think, though? Seriously? It’s ’cause we’re destroying their spawning grounds. Polluting the rivers and taking all the water for golf courses. And then there’s that farmed salmon. It’s even worse. They get covered in these sea lice, and then when they escape from their pens, they infect the wild salmon with ’em. It’s a disaster.” He shook his head in disgust and took another bite.

“I never pegged you for an environmentalist, Tony,” I said with a smile. But I was thinking,
Ohmygod, could Tony be the one who wrote those letters?
They did mention farmed salmon, after all.
No way
, I decided.
He wouldn’t even have a clue what a farrowing crate was. Or would he?

Remembering the Seafood Watch card in my pocket, I took it out and showed it to him. “I found this at Letta’s house this morning. Did you give it to her, by any chance?”

He shook his head. “Not me. I know about those people, though. I used to think they were all a bunch of left-wing reactionaries, but now I’m starting to think maybe they have a point. I mean, when me and my brother used to go out fishing as teenagers, there was
always
salmon in the bay, every year—boatloads of ’em. And now they’re talking about closing the fishing
again
next season because the numbers are so low? Something has gone the hell wrong. If that makes me a goddamn environmentalist, then so be it.”

His expression softened. “It’s funny,” he added. “Letta used to tease me about the same thing. Must be in your family’s genes or something.”

“You know, I wanted to ask you something about Letta . . .”

Tony finished off the burrito and said, mouth full, “So you’re still trying to help that Mexican, eh?”

“As a matter of fact, what I want to ask does have to do with Javier.”

“Ask away. I’m happy to help however I can. You thinking he might be the one who did it? Stabbed Letta?”

“Well, you yourself said before that you didn’t think him capable of it.”

Wiping his hands, he crumpled up his napkin and dropped it onto his plate. “Yeah, he does strike me as pretty much a wuss. But I gotta say, after the way he went at me at the repast at your dad’s restaurant . . .” Tony shook his head. “I dunno; maybe he’s not such a wimp after all.”

“So what? You think now it could have been Javier?”

The question seemed to take him by surprise. Leaning back in his chair, he folded his arms, frowned, and thought for a moment, staring out at a young man with frizzy hair who had taken up the ranter’s former position in front of our window and was strumming a guitar. A plush-lined case sat open at his feet, a couple of dollars tossed in as seed money. “I don’t know,” Tony finally answered. “Maybe.”

He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward on the table. “Was that what you wanted to ask me?”

After having screwed up the courage to ask my question, I was now starting to lose my nerve. What if he blew up or
totally freaked out? But we were in a public place, after all, so he couldn’t react too badly, could he?

Do it, Sally—Miss Marple wouldn’t be so chicken
.

“No,” I said. “I wanted to ask about something Javier told me the other day. About Letta. About what he told
you
about Letta.”

Tony was looking at me, but I couldn’t read his expression. He waited for me to go on.

“He said he told you about a woman Letta was involved with.”

Tony frowned. “I thought that might be where you were going.”

“Javier said you got really mad and slugged him.”

“Guilty as charged.” He held his wrists up together as if ready for handcuffs. “But in my defense, the little shit deserved it, using Letta like that to get at me.”

I was surprised at how calm he appeared to be. So I pressed on, to see if he, like Kate, might be provoked. “You mean to tell me it didn’t bother you that your fiancée was having an affair with someone else? With a
woman
?”

“Of course it bothered me.” His voice was testy now, and he was starting to get fidgety and shift around in his seat. The subject was clearly making him uncomfortable. “But I sure didn’t need Javier sticking his nose in our business. And I let him know what I thought in no uncertain terms.” The handcuffed wrists became boxing gloves as Tony took a couple mock jabs at the air. But the levity seemed forced.

“So you already knew about her, about Kate?”

“Sure. You really think Letta would tell Javier before she told me?” Tony glanced around the restaurant, suddenly
conscious that his voice had been rising. “Look,” he said more quietly, “we’d already worked through it all before he even found out. Letta had told me about the affair, and yeah, we did have a fight about it. A big one. I was pretty pissed if you want to know the truth. But she told me it had just been a fling, ‘an experiment,’ she said. And she also promised me she was breaking it off, that she’d realized it was me she wanted to be with. That’s when she agreed to get married, as a matter of fact.”

“Oh.”

He stood up. “I’m sorry, Sally, but I’ve actually got to get going. I’m supposed to meet a buddy at eleven to help out with an electrical problem at his house.” He took his plate and can and deposited them in the bus tray and recycling bin, and we walked outside. “Hey, you want some sanddabs? My truck’s just around the corner, and I’d be happy to give you a couple. I sure can’t eat a dozen myself.”