Dying for a Taste (24 page)

“Okay,” he said, leaning down to pick up a bottle of beer that was sitting on the walkway at his feet. “What brings you here?”

“Nothing. Just out for a bike ride. Before the storm comes in.”

“Yeah. I hear you.” Taking a long drink, he nodded toward the power mower sitting on his freshly cut lawn. “I wanted to get this done before the rain started.”

“The yard’s looking great,” I said. “Those plants over there, especially.” I pointed at the beds of flowers lining the walkway.

“Thanks. Just wait till next month, when the roses really get going.”

“Speaking of flowers,” I said, “are you familiar with a vine called yellow jasmine?”

Perhaps it was unwise to broach this subject with Tony. But I still hadn’t gotten any closer to figuring out who had killed Letta, and with Javier now in jail, I guess I was feeling kind of desperate. Maybe I could learn something from his reaction upon hearing the name of the plant.

I studied his face, trying to discern any change in expression. There was a slight raise of the eyebrows, but I read this as curiosity as opposed to guilt. “Sure,” he answered. “You see ’em all over Santa Cruz. Why do you ask?” Tony tossed the now-empty bottle onto the lawn, nearly hitting another that was already there and started sweeping again, piling the errant blades of grass into a mound.

“Letta’s autopsy report just came back, and it looks like whoever stabbed her drugged her first, with something called gelsemine. It’s a sedative that comes from yellow jasmine.
Gelsemium sempervirens
is its botanical name. But I probably don’t need to tell you that.” At his quizzical look, I added, “You know, being a gardening aficionado, an’ all.”

“Right.” He resumed sweeping, brushing the pile of grass onto a dustpan and tipping it into the green waste container sitting on the sidewalk. “I’m done out here,” he said, slapping his hands against his jeans. “You want to come inside for a beer?”

I considered for a moment before responding. I wasn’t super keen on the idea of hanging out with Tony, particularly after he’d been drinking, but this would give me a chance to check out those photos on his fridge again. As I recalled, one was taken at the beach; it would surely tell me if he had a Giants tattoo on his forearm. Maybe Kate had been wrong, and it was Tony, after all, who’d visited her farm. “Sure,” I said. “But can I put my bike around back? I don’t want it to get stolen.”

“No problem. Come on.” He pushed the lawnmower over to the side of the house and unlatched the gate. As Tony stowed the mower in a little shed, I leaned my bike against
the wall in the backyard and removed my helmet, taking the opportunity for a quick look around. No yellow vines in sight. We then went back out front, and I followed him up onto the porch, the cleats of my cycling shoes clunking on the wooden steps, and into the house.

“All I have is Negra Modelo.”

“That’s fine; I love dark beer.” I leaned down to pat Buster, who had come running into the kitchen at the sound of our entry. As Tony got down glasses, I turned to the fridge and studied the pictures again. There was a shirtless Tony, arms displayed for all the world to see but completely bare of tattoos as far as I could tell. I glanced again at the photo taken at the ball game, but he had on a jacket in that one.

And then I did one of those classic double takes.
Whoa
. Tony’s brother matched exactly Kate’s description of the mystery man: stocky with dark hair, and it looked like he’d be around fifty now if the photo had been taken several years ago. Not only that, but he was a big guy, like whoever had accosted me in the parking garage. I looked to see if he had a tattoo on his forearm, but alas, he had on long sleeves.

And then I saw it: on the boys’ jerseys, the letters
ny
stitched in lowercase letters right above the number ten.

What a dork I’d been. The tattoo was blue because it was the
football
team, the
New York
Giants, whose color was blue. Blue like the muscle car. Without thinking, I let out a little gasp.

Tony turned from opening the beer bottles and stared at me. “What is it?”

“Uh, nothing. It’s just that, uh . . .” I tried to think fast what to say. “I thought I recognized the woman standing
behind the kids in this picture, is all. But now that I look closer, I can see that it’s not her.”

Lame, lame!

“Huh.” Tony turned back to the bottles and poured them carefully into our glasses while I pretended to study the woman in the bleachers behind Tony, his brother, and the two boys.

“Yeah,” I continued with my lousy story, tapping the photo with my finger, “it’s definitely not her. But they really do look alike. Funny.”

“Yeah. Funny,” Tony repeated. He set the bottles down on the counter next to a vase of tiny, bell-like white blossoms and handed me my glass of beer.

What a walking contradiction he was. The brash, sports-loving New Jersey macho man versus the tender boyfriend who’d bring Letta flowers from his garden for her restaurant and who worried about sea lice on salmon.

As we sat once more in his den, sipping our beer and making small talk, I tried to imagine Tony as the crazed maniac who murdered Letta. The clues did seem to fit, and I knew that most murders were recommitted by a family member or lover. But the idea of this guy, sitting here chatting with me calmly about spring bulbs, being someone who could stab his fiancée repeatedly in the chest until she was dead? It seemed way too surreal for me to accept as possible.

Tony was talking in a slightly slurred voice—I wondered just how many beers he’d had before I arrived—about bearded irises. There was a yard not too far from here planted with hundreds of them I should check out, he was saying, in a wide variety of hues: blue, lavender, yellow, cream, brown . . .

I pictured all those irises.
It would be like a Van Gogh painting. His are mostly blue and purple, aren’t they?
The colors Tony described began to swirl about my head.
Nice
 . . . I took another drink of beer.
Is it hot in here?

My face was beginning to feel flushed and my hands cold and clammy.
Great. Another damn hot flash.
I tried to push the sleeves of my cycling jersey up, but they were too tight to go very far. Tony was still talking, but all of a sudden, my head started to hurt, and it was difficult to focus on what he was saying. Something about dividing the iris rhizomes every few years . . .

Oh my God
.
This can’t be a hot flash; he must have put something in my beer
.

I stood up.

“You okay, Sally?” Tony stood also and started forward. He was looking at me intently. Trying to decide if the drug had taken effect yet?

I had to get out of there.

“Uh, I just need to use the bathroom.”

He watched as I walked unsteadily down the hall. Once inside, I locked the door and threw open the shower curtain. Thank God—there was a window. It was a struggle in my woozy state, but I somehow managed to hoist myself up and squeeze my large frame through, dropping clumsily down into the backyard.

I stumbled to where my bike was leaning against the house, wheeled it through the gate, and jumped on, pedaling off down the street as hard as I could.

My heart pounding, I turned to look back. No sign of him. Downshifting, I exhaled to get rid of the excess carbon
dioxide that had built up in my lungs. And then I started to feel silly. Was this melodramatic or what? I’d obviously imagined the whole preposterous scenario. My dizziness must just be a combination of the strenuous bike ride up the coast, a half glass of beer on an empty stomach, and a general lack of sleep—plus maybe a hot flash, after all. No doubt, I was going to get home and take a couple Advil and feel just fine.

How embarrassing. Tony was probably wondering what the hell had happened to me and when I was finally going to emerge from the bathroom.

I turned left from the Circles onto California Avenue and into the wind. Feeling the breeze blow through my hair, I realized I’d left my helmet at Tony’s house. Should I go back for it? Just then, I heard the squeal of tires from behind me. Glancing around at the noise, I almost lost my balance. So I wasn’t imagining the woozy part. At the gunning of an engine, I looked back again.

It was Tony’s blue pickup truck. And it was coming up on me fast.
Oh, shit
.

Leaning over and gripping my handlebars in the drop position, I shifted back onto the big ring and stamped down on my pedals. I took the right turn onto Bay Street way wide; luckily no one was coming up the other way at that moment. There was a fair amount of rush-hour traffic on the street, but I was able to go faster than it, passing on the right in the bike lane. By the time I got down to West Cliff, half a dozen cars separated Tony from me.

I bombed down the hill, passed the entrance to the wharf, and tore down Beach Street. The bad news was that almost all the traffic had turned left onto Pacific Avenue, so there
was hardly anyone remaining to keep Tony from gaining on me. If only I could make it to the end of the Boardwalk, I could cross the river at the railroad trestle, and I’d be home free. Tony would have to either go all the way around to the car crossing at Riverside or ditch his truck and follow on foot. Whichever way he chose, I was sure that if I could make it to the trestle, I could beat him over the river and lose him on the Eastside—if I could just manage to keep my balance on the bike, that is.

So far, so good. I zipped by the beach volleyball courts and past the Cocoanut Grove and the arcade. Risking a look back, I saw Tony’s truck just behind me, veering to the right to try to run me off the road. My heart pounding, I bunny-hopped the barrier into the bike lane to avoid him and rode on harder. Past Neptune’s Kingdom. Past the Hurricane ride. Almost there.

A red light loomed ahead. I sped through it without stopping, narrowly avoiding a woman with a stroller. And as I turned to look for Tony, I saw him also run the light, swerve to miss the stroller, and crash head-on with a large delivery truck turning left off Riverside Avenue.

I breathed a sigh of relief and faced back forward—only to run smack into a kid on a skateboard who’d come out of nowhere from my right. The last thing I remember is me and my bike flying through the air, headed straight for a cluster of brightly colored beach balls.

“Where am I?”

“I can’t believe you just said that. What a cliché.” Eric was slightly out of focus, but I was able to make out the grin on his face. “Where do you think you are?”

“Uh . . .” I blinked a few times and looked about me. A room. Lots of white. Sheets. I was in a bed.
Ah
. “The hospital?”

“You got it.”

I shifted my body, and a sharp pain shot through my left shoulder. “Ow!”

“Try not to move around too much. You broke your collarbone and your wrist. And you suffered a pretty severe concussion to boot.”

That would explain the pounding headache. Leaning back against the pillows, I closed my eyes and tried to remember what had happened: Tony chasing me, the crash, the ambulance.
Right
.

“The kid on the skateboard—is he okay?”

“Yeah. He’s young. Just a few bruises.”

“And Tony?”

“He’s also here in the hospital—just a few doors down, as a matter of fact. Though you fared a lot better than him. Looks like he might be partially paralyzed from a broken neck.”

I nodded.
Instant karma
, I was thinking.

“He wasn’t wearing a seat belt,” Eric went on, shaking his head and making soft clucking noises, “and you weren’t wearing your helmet, young lady.” He took my good hand and looked at me, concern in his eyes. “You really scared me, you know? I’m not going to harp on you about it now, but sometime real soon I’m going to need to know what the hell happened out there between you two.”

I jerked forward again and immediately regretted it. “My bike!”

Eric smiled. “It’s fine. Well, other than the handlebars, which snapped in two. But the frame looks to be intact. Your dad took it home with him. He just left, by the way. Had to go deal with some restaurant thing but said he’d be back soon.”

I nodded again. “Thanks. So what time is it? How long have I been here?”

“A few hours. It’s a little after nine. They’re going to keep you overnight just to monitor your concussion. But the doctor said you’d be released in the morning if it all looks good.”

I closed my eyes but then immediately snapped them open again. “Buster!” I said, thankfully remembering this time not to jerk my body. “He can’t be left alone again all night. Someone needs to go get him from Tony’s house.”

“Oh, right. Look, don’t you worry about it. I’ll make sure he’s okay. I’ll go get him myself if need be.” Eric patted me on the arm. “You gotta try to chill, babe. You hungry?”

I was, actually. “Yeah.”

“That’s a good sign. I don’t think the kitchen is still open here, but I can go out and get you a sandwich or something.”

“How ’bout a burger, fries, and chocolate shake?” Hey, if now wasn’t a good time for some classic junk food, when was?

After Eric left, I closed my eyes again and contemplated what had happened that afternoon. So it had to have been Tony, after all, who’d drugged and then killed Letta. And then I’d gotten too close to finding out, and he’d come after me. I shuddered at the thought of how stupid I’d been and how I’d almost suffered Letta’s fate.

But at least it was all over. And I was pretty sure I now knew how Tony had done it.

The thing that was bugging me, though, was that I still didn’t get exactly
why
.

***

I was cleared to go home at eight the next morning, my vital signs having been pronounced normal—but not until all the paperwork was done for my release, the doctor said, which could take a couple hours.

“Can I walk around the halls?”

“Sure. Just don’t wander too far, so we can find you when we need to.”

After a disappointing breakfast of overcooked eggs, cold toast, and watery coffee, I went in search of Tony. On hearing that he was down the hall, I’d been struck with the need to confront him. But I’d have to do so before talking to the police. Once he was arrested—and I had no doubt my statement would assure that—I wouldn’t get the chance again.

I wasn’t scared, exactly. From what Eric had said, I figured Tony was, at least for the moment, immobile from his injuries. So he wasn’t going to leap out of bed at me wielding a knife or anything like that. He’d be a very captive audience. But I was feeling uneasy. I’d never knowingly been in the presence of a murderer before, much less accused one of his crime.

I found him down the hall. The door was open, and I could see him lying in bed, eyes closed, with some sort of contraption around his neck. His left leg was up in traction.

“Good morning, Tony.” I came in and sat down, taking care not to knock my sling against his tray table. “Fancy meeting you here.”

His eyes opened. He didn’t say anything, but the muscles in his face tightened when he saw who it was.

“I just wanted to stop by and have a little chat. No need to say anything if you don’t want. It can be a one-sided chat.” He was eyeing my hospital gown and bandages. “Yep,” I said. “I ended up here too, thanks to you. But unlike you, I’ll be going home real soon. I think it’s going to be a while—a very long while—before you get to go home.”

Tony closed his eyes, but I didn’t care. I just kept on talking. The anger was starting to come, and it felt good to have the upper hand. Cathartic.

“I think I’ve got it figured out, what happened.” Was that a smile? I ignored it. “That night at Dixon’s when Javier told you about Kate—that was the first time you’d heard about Letta’s affair, wasn’t it? You were lying when you said she’d already told you. And it surprised the hell out of you. So you had your brother—who’d been with you at Dixon’s that night and also heard what Javier said—you had him go up
to Kate’s farm to check her out for you. How you found her, I’m not sure. But I’m guessing Javier told you her name and said something about her being one of the restaurant vendors. With that information, it wouldn’t have been too hard to figure it out.”

The smile was still there, but it seemed a little forced now.

“Once you confirmed Javier’s story, that Letta was indeed involved with Kate, you fumed about it for a while and eventually came up with a plot to kill her. And at the same time decided that you’d frame Javier, the bearer of the bad news, thereby taking the heat off yourself.”

A nurse came into the room to check Tony’s monitor. “Oh,” she said to him cheerily. “I didn’t know you had a friend who was also in the hospital. That’s nice.” Tony didn’t even open his eyes. I made polite small talk with her as she changed his IV bag and marked his chart and then continued with my narrative once she’d left the room.

“The first thing you did was snitch some yellow jasmine from Javier’s apartment complex. You must have been following him, and I bet it felt like Christmas when you saw that vine growing at his place—the perfect final touch. And it almost worked too. It was only after the toxicology report came back that the police decided they had enough evidence to arrest Javier.”

Tony opened his eyes briefly and then shut them tightly again.

“You showed up that night at Gauguin after everyone had gone but Letta. I imagine you just sat in your car or something, waiting. Once Javier left, it was a good bet she was alone. She offered you tea, as you knew she would, and it
was a simple matter, when she wasn’t watching, to slip some of the yellow jasmine into the pot along with the tea as it steeped. And she wouldn’t have noticed that you didn’t drink anything from your own cup.”

I was getting to the hard part—not hard to figure out but hard to talk about. I simply couldn’t fathom how someone could plunge a knife into the chest of another human being, especially one lying helpless, as she must have been, on the floor. You’d have to stab pretty hard for the blade to even go in. And he didn’t do it only once but multiple times. Just thinking about it was sickening.

“The drug took effect after a few minutes,” I finally managed to go on. “When she got weak, you took the key to the knife cabinet from her purse. Of course you knew which one was Javier’s prized chef’s knife; everyone who’d ever been in that kitchen did. So you got that one out of the cabinet, and . . .” I stopped.

The son of a bitch chose now to open his eyes and stare at me.

“You stabbed her. Over and over again. It was like fish in a barrel in her drugged state.” I returned his look with one of disgust. “What a coward.”

He shut his eyes once more.

“The thing that had everyone confused was the fingerprints on the key. But that was easy, wasn’t it? With Letta dead, all you had to do was wipe off your prints, press her dead fingers on the key, and return it to her purse. Then you washed and wiped clean the cups and teapot, wiped the knife handle, and left, taking care not to leave your prints on the door knob. The fact that they would be found on other
things in the room wouldn’t incriminate you, since you were a frequent visitor. You’d been there that afternoon, in fact, to deliver the cherry blossom branches.”

The image of him bringing flowers to Letta on the very day he knew he was going to stab her to death was especially disturbing. I tried not to think about it.

“And then, after I asked you whether you knew about Letta and Kate, you realized I was getting close to the truth, and you had your brother follow me and try to scare me off. How are his eyes, by the way?” Tony didn’t respond, but I could see his jaw harden.

“There is one thing, though, that I can’t figure out. I just don’t get
why
. I mean, I certainly understand how you would get angry when you found out about Letta having an affair. But so enraged that you’d plot to stab her to death? And then actually
go through
with the plan? I just don’t get it.”

When Tony finally spoke, it startled me; I hadn’t been expecting an answer.

“You could never understand,” he said with a sneer. Opening his eyes, he fixed his gaze past me, toward the door. “I loved Letta; I really did. But when I found out she was with a
woman
 . . .” The way he said the word “woman,” as if it were the most distasteful thing imaginable, was unnerving.

He continued to stare at the door, jaw now working up and down. “I know they were mocking me,” he went on after a bit, his cold eyes reminding me of those dead fish that had been floating in his cooler, “her and that bull dyke. And I couldn’t get the picture out of my head—of the two of them lying in bed, laughing about me and then doing . . . whatever it is they do.” He spat out these last words, and it was easy to
detect the revulsion in his voice. “As if some broad could ever give her as good as
I could
.”

Tony shifted in the bed and pulled his sheet up a little higher. “And Javier—he had to pay, too. For dissing me like that.” Then, almost under his breath, “
No
one’s gonna do that to me.”

“Tell me, Tony. Were you really engaged to Letta?”

“No. I asked her, but she never did say yes.” He grunted. “Now I know why. But I’m glad she said no. It would’ve been even worse if I’d married her.”

I left him to his bitter reflections.