Murder and Marinara (22 page)

His face took on a guarded expression. “Does this have to do with Angie?”

“Maybe, but I can't really talk about it.”

“Don't you trust me, Vic?”

How to answer that question? The truth was, I trusted Tim with my life. I just didn't trust him where Angie was concerned. But I wasn't going to go there at this moment. “Tim, the less I tell you, the better. Don't you see?”

He crossed his arms. “Not really.”

“Men.” I sighed. “Listen, if Sutton pulls you in for questioning, you have to answer her honestly. I think I've already said too much, so I won't be sharing any theories I might have with you, either. Without the tox screen, they're only educated guesses anyway.” I stood up and kissed him on the cheek. “I have to get over to the restaurant. You hang in there. Go do something useful.” I grinned at him. “You might want to start with a shower.”

“That's the plan.”

I turned to leave when I heard his voice behind me.

“Hey, Vic? Are you seeing Lockhart?”

Didn't see that one coming
. I turned to look at him. “I wouldn't say ‘seeing.' We just went out that one night.”

“Yeah?” He slid me a sideways glance. “You likely to do it again?”

What I said next surprised me. “I honestly don't know. But it's not like I have to explain anything to you.”

He patted my shoulder. “You're right; you don't. But in the end, Vic, it's always gonna be me and you—you know that, don't you?”

I looked at him steadily. “I used to know that. But I'm afraid of being vulnerable again.”

He took both my hands. “Angie was a mistake; it didn't take me that long to figure it out. But by then it was too late. You were gone.” He let go of one hand and tapped the piece of sea glass I wore around my neck. “You're still wearing this. I must still mean something to you.” He cupped my face with his free hand. “Do I, Victoria?”

Just for a second, I rested my cheek against his hand. “You'll always mean something to me,” I said. “But we have much bigger problems at the moment—like keeping you out of jail.”

I
never got back to the restaurant that day, hoping Nonna would forgive me if she knew I'd spent the day laboring over my notes and creating more suspect charts. I was mulling over how I'd put off Nina again when my phone vibrated. I jumped. Thankfully, it was only my agent.

“Hey, Josh. What's up? I'm not coming back to New York, if that's what you called to bug me about.”

“C'mon, Vic. I know you're committed to your new project. For now, anyway. Actually, I had some information I thought you might be interested in—about the Gemellis.”

My senses were on high alert; I shifted the phone closer to my ear. “I'm interested.”

“Well, it turns out the issue with Mikey G wasn't a contract dispute. That's just what Gemelli Senior was putting out there. Word was, Parisi wanted Mikey G dropped from the show. Apparently, the kid and his father were more trouble than they're worth.”

I scrabbled in my purse for my notebook and a pen. “Not surprising. Thanks, Josh. Did this come from your friend Chaz?”

“Yup.”

“Let me know if he tells you anything else, okay?”

“Will do, Vic. Hey, how's Isabella these days?”

“She's barely out of the port of Naples.”

He gave a short bark of laughter. “Let me know when she reaches our welcoming shores, okay?”

“Funny, Josh. And thanks again.”

Sofia and I had been focused on Mr. B and the two women—perhaps too much so. It was time to find out a bit more about Gemelli and son.

•   •   •

“Here're all my notes on them,” Sofia said as we sat at her office computer. “There's some business articles, the old piece about the connection to the Rossini family, and a couple about Mr. G acting as his son's manager.”

“What about his personal life?”

Sofia frowned. “Do you think there might be a personal connection with Parisi?”

“Or Angie, maybe?” I added.

“Wishful thinking, SIL.” Sofia tapped quickly on the keyboard. “Well, let's start with Facebook.”

“The kid's or the dad's?”

“Both.”

But Mikey's page was a predictable amalgam of photos featuring Mikey and his friends in various states of inebriation. His father's, on the other hand, yielded more interesting results. His profile picture showed him with his arm around a woman who was much too young to be Mikey's mother.

“Second marriage?” I asked.

“Obvi,” Sofia said. “Now, what else is here?” She scrolled down the page.

As the images came into view, I held my breath and leaned closer to the screen. “Are those pictures of his yard?”

“That's what the tags say.” Sofia turned from the screen to look at me. “This guy's hobby is gardening.” She pointed to the images. “And just
look
at all those pretty flowers.”

“But he wasn't in the restaurant; we just keep getting back to the same thing.”

But judging from the sparkle in Sofia's brown eyes, she wasn't bothering with such petty details. Instead, she opened the Web pages we'd found on poisonous plants and starting printing.

“You're gonna owe me a cartridge after this,” she said. “In fact, make that two cartridges.” She grabbed the pages as they emerged and slipped them into the infamous red folder.

“Listen, Sofe. This is just a waste of time. It's obvious that either Angie or Emily messed with Parisi's medication.”

Sofia shook her head. “Maybe. But we got so excited about the pill scenario that we forgot about the stomach contents.”

I made a face. “How could I forget? I had a clear view of them all around his body.”

“What I mean is, the pill theory works only if there were no plant leaves in his stomach.” She wrinkled her nose. “Or in what came
out
of his stomach.”

“Exactly. But we don't know that yet. And if we go with the most logical way, it's the pills.”

“Even if you're right, we need to rule out Gemelli completely. For all we know, he's got a garden full of poisonous flowers.” She shut down her computer and stood up.

I frowned. “You wanna tell me what you're doing?”

“You mean what ‘we're' doing, don't you?” She took her purse from the doorknob and fished out her keys. “
We
are taking a little ride to Shelter Point.”

I finally caught up with her train of thought but had no intention of boarding. “Oh no, we're not. If you think I'm gonna go snoop around Michael Gemelli's garden in the middle of the night and compare those pictures,” I said, snatching the red folder from her hand, “you are crazier than I thought.”

“Fine. Don't find out who killed Parisi.” She studied her fingernails in a maddening show of indifference and then looked up at me. “How do you think Tim will look in an orange jumpsuit?”

I sighed as she held out her hand for the folder. “How did I get roped into this?”

So once again I found myself riding shotgun as my sister-in-law sped down the Garden State Parkway.

“I'm sure he's got a giant alarm system,” I said. “And probably booby traps out in the yard. Along with a Rossini henchman standing guard.” My empty stomach gurgled audibly.

“Stop being such a nervous Nellie. Here.” She handed me a protein bar.

I wrinkled my nose at the list of healthy ingredients. “I don't suppose you have any Kit Kats in there?”

Instead of answering such an obvious question, she handed me her GPS. “His address is in the folder. You wanna type it in, please?”

As we entered Shelter Point, I let out a sigh. “I love this town. Too bad you need millions to live here.”

“Which Gemelli apparently has.” She motioned out the window. “Here's our turn. He's on an ocean block, of course.”

“Just drive by once, okay? So we can kind of get the lay of the land.” I squirmed in my seat, wishing I hadn't gone along with my sister-in-law's harebrained scheme.

“Will you chill out, already? If it looks like anybody's around, we'll keep going. We can always play it off like we stopped to take a walk on the beach.”

“Is that it?” I pointed at a monstrosity of a house; newly built in a Victorian style, it was crammed with towers, gables, and crenellations. It even had a widow's walk.

“Holy cats.” Sofia let out a soft whistle. “Imagine what that thing cost to build. On a beach block in Shelter Point, yet.”

“It's reason enough to keep his little cash cow on that show,” I said. “But is it reason enough to kill somebody?”

“Maybe,” Sofia said, looking past me out my window. “I don't see a car.”

“And there aren't any lights on, either.”

“We might just be in luck, Vic.” Sofia cruised slowly past the house toward the ocean and made a K-turn at the end of the block. “I don't want to park too close, though. We'll stay across the street, nose out for a quick getaway.”

“What are we, Bonnie and Clyde?”

She giggled. “More like Thelma and Louise.”

“Please, Sofe. I don't plan to drive off any cliffs with you.” We sat in the car quietly, staring over at the Gemelli villa. Since she didn't make a move, I dared to hope that she might be changing her mind about this little escapade. But her hand was already on the door handle.

She opened it slowly and looked over at me. “What are you waiting for?”

Oh, I don't know
.
A bolt of lightning. A minor earthquake. Anything that will get you back in the driver's seat and me back on the Parkway.
But my sister-in-law's grim look told me everything I needed to know; then she handed me a flashlight. There was no turning back.

Considering it was Memorial Day weekend, I would have expected more activity around us. At the beach end of the block, there seemed to be a party going on, but near the Gemelli abode, a number of the houses were dark. How long would our luck hold?

“Hey,” Sofia whispered. “Do you remember our cover story?”

“Give me a little credit, Sofe, okay? We're friends of the Gemellis from north Jersey. There was no answer at the front door, and we came around the back to see if anyone was out here. But why would we be arriving in the middle of the night?”

She flashed me a grin in the darkness. “Weekend traffic's a bitch.”

Once we reached the front of the house, we halted at the sidewalk. “It's a big piece of property,” Sofie whispered. “Which is good, because it puts a lotta distance between us and the houses on either side.”

“It doesn't mean we won't be caught,” I hissed.

“Remind me not to take you on the next stakeout,” Sofia said. She motioned with her flashlight. “C'mon. But avoid the garage side; there's probably a sensor light.”

I was much more worried about an alarm system that might be connected to the local police station. We crept to the back of the yard and split up, each of us with a flashlight. We had tried to memorize the pictures on the way down, and as I swept my light across the garden beds, I didn't see any oleander or foxglove. Though the beds were well kept and nicely designed, they contained only the usual suspects—day lilies, some hostas, roses, and lots of annuals.

Sofia hurried to my side, a little breathless. “I don't see anything.”

“Me neither. Let's just get the hell out of here, okay?”

“I'm with you.”

“For once,” I muttered. I switched off my light and blinked in the darkness, my attention caught by a dark rectangle in the corner of the garden. I reached out to touch Sofia's arm. “Hang on a second.”

“Wait,” she said behind me. “Not toward the garage.”

But it was too late. I stepped into a circle of bright light that illuminated the whole yard, including the square shape—a garden bench. Without thinking, I hurried over for a closer look. It was a beautiful piece, simple and clean, stained in a deep mahogany that had already started to weather. This piece did not look like it had come from a catalog. It looked handcrafted by a professional, and I had a sinking feeling I knew who.

But before I could look for a marking or signature, a light went on in the house next door. I turned to meet Sofia's frozen gaze. She jerked her head, motioned to me to follow, and we sprinted out of the yard and into the car.

Sofia pulled away swiftly, her tires spraying gravel. I held my breath until we turned on to the main road, my heart and mind racing.
Gemelli could have gotten that damn bench anywhere. Really, what are the odds that Cal made it?
But if he had? If he
had
, there was a clear link between him and Gemelli. Tim's words came back to me with frightening intensity:
Tell Lockhart to stay out of my kitchen
.

I jumped at the sound of Sofia's voice in my ear. “Vic, what the hell were you doing over by the garage?”

“I saw something. A wooden bench in the back of the garden.” Still breathless, I made a promise to myself to do more biking. The minute this mess was over.

“A bench? We were supposed to be looking for poisonous plants.”

“And look how well that turned out.” I rubbed my eyes, suddenly aware of how tired I was. “Okay, this probably means nothing, but Cal told me he makes furniture and that he sold a garden bench recently.”

“Oh my God.” Sofia breathed. “Did he say who he made it for?”

“No, and don't get carried away. The bench in the Gemellis' yard looked expensive and handmade, but I didn't get close enough to look at it for a maker's mark or signature.” I let out a sigh of exhaustion laced with frustration. “This was just a wild-goose chase tonight. A risky one.”

“What do you mean?”

“We didn't think this through. Either Parisi's murder was premeditated—which argues for one of the women to have switched his pills—or it was committed on impulse, because somebody had the opportunity.”

“And that brings us back to Tim or Mr. B.” She turned to look at me. “But why not Cal? If Cal made that bench for Gemelli, that's a connection.”

“A tenuous one. And we don't even know that he
did
make it.”

“You could ask him,” she said hopefully.

“Sure,” I said. “I could ask him if he made a garden bench for a guy with sketchy connections who just happens to have a motive for murdering Parisi. And I could follow up with a nice ‘By the way, Cal, did he hand you a fistful of foxglove leaves to sprinkle over Parisi's salad?'”

Sofia let out a little sniff. “You don't have to be so snarky.”

Why
was
I on the defensive where Cal was concerned? Was my attraction to him getting in the way of logic? “Sorry, Sofe. I don't mean to be. I'm just so tired of this whole thing. We keep running into one dead end after another, and nothing makes any sense.”

“It will,” she said. “We just have to keep digging.”

“Right,” I said. “We'll dig ourselves right into a charge of hindering a police investigation. Or maybe obstruction of justice?” I drummed my fingers on the armrest as I went through the possibilities. “At the very least, trespassing.”

Sofie rolled her eyes. “You're such a worrywart.”

I nodded. “Damn right I am. Do you have any idea how lucky we were not to get caught tonight?”

That's when we heard the sirens.