Murder By The Pint (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 1) (6 page)

              "Ayyy,
felicia belladucci! Tuto pace
!"

              That was Junior, greeting me as I walked in at seven o'clock sharp. It was complete gibberish, of course, as the only real Italian Junior could speak were the names of the dishes on his menu. He tossed a round of dough into the air and caught it on his fist.

              "I giva you cousin some hours, eh
bambini
? She's a fine a waitress."

              "She is indeed." I looked over at Tanya, who surreptitiously offered up a gesture that would probably get her fired from most jobs.

              "I got this one," Tanya called to the hostess. She led me over to a small booth that was as private as it could get in this place. "You so owe me," she snarled.

              "I know," I said.

              "No, I mean you
so
owe me. There's a children's birthday party tonight. Twins."

              I could hear them now – a din of voices erupting in bursts of laughter and general noise pollution. A couple of ten or eleven year olds, obviously brothers, possibly the birthday boys, came out of the room Junior booked for special occasions. An attractive blonde in a tight mini dress came out to fetch them.

              Waiting was tough. I suddenly got the feeling I was being watched. That someone in that restaurant had followed me there and was now scrutinizing me under cover. I felt like covering my face with the menu. Murder had led me to this very spot, after all. It wasn't exactly a comforting feeling.

              Seven-thirty came around. Seven-forty. Soon it was eight o'clock.

              "Junior's getting a little antsy back there," said Tanya, stopping by to refill my Diet Coke for the third time. "Want to maybe order an appetizer or something? Just to make him happy?"

              "Sure. Bring me a sausage roll."

              I wasn't hungry in the slightest. Eight-fifteen. Eight-twenty. My sausage roll lay before me, untouched.

              I called Donald. No answer.

              "Nothing?" said Tanya, stopping by to pick up the sausage roll in order to have it wrapped up for me.

              "Nope. I'm going home. Let me know if he calls or stops in or... whatever."

              She took my roll away and I tried Donald one more time. No answer. I couldn’t help but run his last words over and over in my head. "
You were right.
"

              I was right, but about what? That he put the diamonds in the package? I'd never explicitly accused him of that.

              One of the birthday brats ran past me. The blonde was up by the register, chatting with the cashier and commanding the attention of the two pizza slingers, Junior's nephews, both in their late teens.

              Tanya dropped a rectangular box containing my sausage roll in front of me, called me a word you usually only hear in Martin Scorsese movies, and said she'd see me later.

              I took my doggie bag home and that was it.

              Once home, I was suddenly hungry.

              I tore open the box I soon as I got in.

              A folded piece of paper was sitting on top of my roll.

              "
Your friend Don is dead. You've been warned. Stay out of this."

              "Tanya said she didn’t see anyone," I told Detective Moore. "I believe her."

              He stared at the note in silence for a moment then looked up at me. "Tell me again."

              I was a little impatient, not to mention baffled, not to mention terrified. I sighed loudly. "I just talked to Tanya on the phone before you got here. She said she put the box down on the counter when someone called her to the phone. She said they told her it was an urgent call. When she picked up the person had already hung up. She brought the box over to me. End of story."

              He nodded as he listened. Then kept nodding after I'd finished speaking.

              "Wanna let me in on the conversation you're having in your head?" I said without a hint of humor.

              He was unfazed. "The call was obviously to distract her. The thing that bothers me is that no one saw anyone go near the box."

              "It was on the front counter," I said. "Any customer walking in had to walk past it."

              "Mmmm. But it was around eight-thirty, no? That's not exactly the dinner rush."

              "There was a kid's birthday party," I said.

              "In the other room," he corrected. "Nothing going on in the main dining area."

              There was little else as Moore thought it best to get down to the pizza place quickly. He left without saying goodbye.

              When Tanya came home, she scowled at me. I was getting used to it.

              "I'm so sorry," I said.

              "It's ok," she said, her mood lightening quickly. "I made some good tips at least. How are you holding up?"

              "Ok, still shaken. Detective Moore was here. He's on his way down to talk to everyone at Junior's."

              "He'll be wasting his time. No one saw anything."

              I rehashed the discussion I had with Moore. Tanya offered a couple of suggestions that he and I had already covered and discarded. And then...

              Sometimes, all you need is someone there. It's as if there are only a finite amount of thoughts one can hold in one's head, and if there's someone there, that person can take some of those thoughts off your shoulders and let you sort out what you have. Which is exactly what had taken place in my living room, with my beautiful cousin Tanya, my best friend, holding onto some of the thoughts I'd let go through my voicing them.

              It was simple, really, in theory. What we needed was someone who would go unnoticed. Someone who no one would notice touching something they weren't supposed to touch. Someone no one would blink an eye at.

              "It was a kid," I said plainly.

              She seemed to snap out of a reverie. "Hmm?"

              "A kid," I repeated. "Who else? There was a children's birthday party taking place in the other room. Everyone knew there were about a dozen kids in there. Some were milling about from time to time. What if a kid came up and put the note in the box? Instructed to do so by an adult? Who would notice? Kids are always touching things they shouldn’t touch. And ask anyone who works in the food service industry or in retail or in any job where you serve the public: You don’t correct a child's behavior when that child's parents are nearby. You just don’t do it. There's a liability there that no one on a retail or wait staff salary wants to deal with. All that was needed then was a parent nearby distracting the attention of anyone looking. And I think I know who it was."

#

              Tanya and I got down to Junior's just as he was locking up the joint. I pounded on the door. Junior came bounding over gesturing like a madman.

              Muffled curses and questions came through the glass. "What is it? What are you doin'?"

              "Please," I said, my face a mask of abject pity, "Junior, we need to come in."

              He opened the door a crack and poked his head through. "You gotta be kidding me. First, the police show up and now you.
Oy vey ist mir.
"

              It then struck me that because the place was officially closed, Junior was officially Sol Lipshitz again.

              "You meshuggenah kids need to get a life."

              "I'm thirty-eight years old."

              "
Pssshh,
thirty-eight," he said, dismissing me with his hand. "I got a shaving brush that's older than that."

              "Junior," I said, "we need to come in. It's a matter of life and death."

              "Of course, what isn’t? Sure, come on in. Ask me to fire up the ovens while I'm at it."

              "No need," I said, stepping into the restaurant.

              The place smelled heavenly even after hours. I don’t know how anyone can get tired of the perfume of a pizza parlor.

              "We need to see your receipts," I said.

              He looked at Tanya. "She put
you
up to this too?"

              Tanya held up her hands. "Don’t look at me. I'm only here for the ride."

              "Okay," Junior said, rubbing his expanse of a sauce-stained belly with his meaty hand. "You want receipts? I got receipts."

              He opened the cash register and extracted a long, uncut roll of receipt tape.

              "This has all the transactions from the entire day. You're lucky I didn’t have to change rolls." He smiled. "Have fun. I'll be in the back contemplating suicide. Don’t worry."

              I took the roll of tape and sat down with Tanya at a table for two.

              "She paid around eight-thirty," I said.

              "Yeah, you still haven't told me who."

              "The woman."

              "Ok, can you be more specific?"

              I flipped through the receipt tape, trying to decode cash register language to read the time.

              "Why can’t they just list the date and time normally. It's in military time. Eight-thirty, that's what? Twenty-fifty?"

              "You know," said Tanya, "you should consider yourself lucky. Pizza places usually don’t have sophisticated registers like this one. And you haven't told me who."

              "Who what?"

              "The woman. Who's the woman?"

              I continued scrolling through. "The woman was this tall, statuesque blonde in a mini-dress. You couldn’t miss her. The two meatheads behind the counter were all agog at her."

              "Men," she said.

              "Exactly. The point is she was a distraction. Her kid, or someone's kid, seized the opportunity to insert the note into the box."

              "Sneaky."

              "Here it is," I said, laying the roll down for her to see. "Okay then, we're out of luck. She paid cash. I was hoping for a name on a credit card."

              I put the roll down in disgust and thought. Then it hit me. I looked around. "Does Junior keep security cameras around here?"

              "Junior?" Tanya said incredulously. "I think the entire technology budget went into that cash register."

              I sat back, dejected.

              "I think I can help."

              We both turned and saw one of the meatheads who'd been behind the counter earlier.

              "Joe, what are you still doing here?"

              "Helping Junior clean up," said Joe. He was a stocky young man of about nineteen with a clean complexion and a plump, baby face. "I couldn’t help but overhear you. I think I can help." He pulled up a chair and sat down across from us. He had his cellphone in hand, which he woke up and tapped at and swiped a few times and then turned around to face us.

              On the screen was a picture of the woman, obviously snapped without her consent.

              Tanya slapped the youth upside the head. "You took her picture? That's a violation of her privacy!"

              I grabbed the phone. "Joe, I don’t know whether to hug you or slap you too."

              The boy shrugged. "I just wanted her picture. I was going to show it to my friend."

              "You're disgusting," said Tanya.

              "Ease up on him," I said. "He knows he's disgusting, right Joe?"

              The boy nodded.

              "But now I'll need you to send that picture to me."

              I gave him my number and he sent me the pic, which came through a minute later. Tanya then grabbed Joe's phone, to his weak complaining, and tapped and swiped at it.

              "There," she said, handing the device back to him, "deleted. Let that be a lesson to you."

              "What's going on here?" Junior had waddled over at this point.

              Tanya put her hand on Joe's shoulder. "Your employee here is a pervert who takes pictures of your customers without them knowing it."

              "I just did that one," protested Joe. "Check my photo album."

              Junior smacked the boy upside the head. "You did that, you little
momser
?"

              "Ow! Yes, and I'm sorry! It was just that one!"

              "Don't take pictures of anyone, understand?"

              "Yes, sir."

              "Unbelievable. Everyone's a cameraman."

              "This will help," I said. "Thank you, Joe."

              He smiled timidly at me, then got up and skulked off with shoulders slumped.

              "You folks plan on sleeping here?" said Junior. "Because I'll give you the keys if you want. I'm going home."

              I looked at Tanya. "I guess we are too. I have a helluva task ahead of me."

              "Which is?" she said.

              I held up the pic on my phone. "Interview the entire town in order to put a name to this face."