Toasting Up Trouble (A Dinner Club Mystery) (24 page)

At eight o’clock, J.J. was once again parking in the lot at Bella Luna. She’d hoped to appear when the restaurant was still busy enough so that she didn’t attract too much attention but also at a time when Gina would be able to help her. She still hadn’t heard from Devine and wondered what that meant, if anything.

“All right. Let’s hope whatever you’re doing will bring this to a close,” Gina said after she’d met J.J. at the door. Fortunately, she’d been standing at the hostess desk flipping through the bookings for the next day.

Lucy spotted them the minute they started walking to the back and hurried over to them.

“I won’t be long, Lucy,” Gina said. “We just need something out of the office.” She continued to walk in that direction with J.J. close behind.

Once inside, Gina asked, “All right. You have my attention. What is it we’re here for?”

“That photo that Devine and I came across the other day. We put it back, but I need to take another look at it.” She walked over and removed the wooden divider from between two of the shelves and pulled the photo out of its hiding place. She turned on the desk lamp and held it under the light, taking a closer look. Gina approached and looked over her shoulder.

“Tonio was certainly dashing, wouldn’t you say?” Her voice sounded wistful. “What are you looking for?”

“Take another look at the woman. Does she remind you of someone?”

Gina took it and peered closely. “No. I don’t think so. Well, maybe she does look a little familiar. You know, I think she looks a bit like Lucy, doesn’t she? But that’s the Italian coloring. Same nose, too.”

The door to the office flew open and Lucy slid in, closing it behind her. She held a knife in her left hand, a box of plastic wrap in the other. “I knew it was just a matter of time before that came out. I should have destroyed that when I first found it.”

J.J. couldn’t take her eyes off the knife. Had Lucy been in the middle of slicing something when she decided to find out what they were up to? Obviously, she’d been listening at the door.

“Who is the woman, Lucy?” J.J. asked, holding the photo out to her. “Is it someone related to you?”

Lucy looked from one to the other, her eyes unreadable. “That picture is of my mama and papa.”

Gina gasped. “No, it can’t be. Tonio would have told me.”

“She’s the woman that Marcotti and Rocco Gates had the argument over back in Italy, isn’t she?” J.J. asked. “And to the day Mr. Marcotti died, they never fixed it. Nobody apologized. What makes you think he’s your father?”

Lucy nodded vigorously. “My mama admitted it just before she died. She said they would have married if it hadn’t been for Rocco Gates. He was also in love with her and fought
Antonio for her hand. When neither won, they both agreed to leave the village. Only my mama was pregnant with me. She felt so shamed, she left and went to find work in Florence. She had me and eventually remarried, but it wasn’t a happy life for her. I ran away when her husband tried to attack me. I spent many years on the street and then living from job to job, moving around until I finally decided to come here and start a new life.”

“Did you come here deliberately looking for Marcotti? How did you know where to find him?”

“He was the talk of the village. Him and Rocco Gates, both. Big men in the restaurant business in Vermont, the United States of America,” she spat out. J.J. could see the hatred in her eyes.

“I heard about them when I went back for my mama’s funeral.”

“Why did you want Rocco to be blamed for the death?” J.J. asked.

“It was his fault that my mama was left all alone. One should die, the other should pay.”

J.J. considered what she’d heard. “When did you first see this picture? It took me a couple of tries but I eventually twigged that there was a connection to you. Surely Mr. Marcotti would have realized it when he first saw you. When was that? Just after you started working here? Or maybe he didn’t figure it out until sometime more recent?”

Keep her talking
. That was J.J.’s only plan at the moment. Maybe Devine was on his way.

Lucy snorted. “He said I looked like someone he once knew, but I played dumb. He even asked if I was from his village and I said no. He left it at that until one day, I was bringing the menu in to him for his approval, and he was sitting there in his chair looking at the picture. He showed it to me and asked if I knew her. I was careful not to show any
emotion, but I said to him I didn’t know her. Then I left quickly before he could talk more. He never asked me about it again. Men can be so gullible.”

Gina straightened her back. “What are you planning to do with us?”

“I haven’t had a chance to think about that. I got worried when this one started asking me so many questions the other day. I wondered if she’d found the picture and figured it out. I know she’s been busy digging into it all and she wouldn’t even be scared off.”

J.J. gasped. “Was it you who tried to run me down?”

Lucy sneered. “It was. Kevin had used his wife’s van one day, and I borrowed it while he was busy. He didn’t even know. It was easy to just take the keys from the pocket of his jacket hanging next to the back door.”

“And when you saw us going into the office, what did you think?” J.J. asked, but she knew the answer. Her eyes scanned every surface she could see looking for a weapon without being too obvious about it.

“I knew something was up when you both went into the office, so I got this knife from the kitchen.” She pointed it at them and then admired it at different angles. “The knife worked well last time. But it’s not a good time to do this, and besides, more deaths by knife might be harder to explain.” She raised the roll of plastic wrap in her left hand.

“For now, I will tie you both up and lock you in this room. Have you ever tried to remove this wrap from a sandwich? Not easy to do.” She chuckled, sounding quite cold and sane. Not at all a crazed murderer. That scared J.J. even more.

“No one has a need to come in here. I will lock the door just to be sure, and after the restaurant closes later tonight, I will move you into the freezer. Someone will find you eventually. Now, you, Ms. Tanner, sit and put your hands behind you. Mrs. Marcotti will secure your wrists with this
plastic wrap. And then I will take care of you. If you try anything, the other will die. That goes for both of you. Do we understand each other?”

They both nodded. J.J. tried holding her wrists a bit apart while Gina wrapped the wrap around them, hoping she could figure a way out eventually. Each ankle was also secured to a chair leg. Then Lucy did the same to Gina.

“You won’t get away with it,” J.J. said, knowing how lame it sounded. “I’m not the only one who has seen that picture.”

Gina added, “They’ll know it wasn’t an accident. There’s a safety release inside the freezer door in case it closes when someone’s inside.”

“I will attend to that. And, it doesn’t really matter anyway. By the time you two are found, I’ll be out of the country and there won’t be anything to tie me to all of this. Now, to ensure this goes as planned, the final touch: some plastic wrap to the mouth.”

Again, J.J. tried for a little space, holding her mouth open slightly while being gagged.

“You have only a few hours to wait. I’ll be back to get you later.” Lucy turned off the light and closed the door behind her. They could hear the key being turned in the lock. Fortunately, she hadn’t thought to turn off the desk lamp.

Gina looked panicked for a moment, and then she closed her eyes and started deep breathing. J.J. thought that looked like a good idea and tried the same. When she felt calmer, she sat looking around the office as best she could, trying to spot something that might give her an idea.

She tried separating her wrists, but the plastic wrap held them securely. Same with her ankles. The only thing she could think of was to keep worrying them, moving her extremities as much as she could to try to loosen the wrap. She noticed that Gina, after watching for a few moments, was doing the same.

She wondered if Devine might come looking for her after
getting her message, but she hadn’t told him where she was going tonight. Skye had said she’d call later with some more ideas she had, but J.J. doubted she’d be concerned if there was no answer. And it was unlikely that anyone would just wander into the office and find them tied up. Not with the door locked. She tried making some sounds with her mouth, which she doubted would reach outside the room, and if they did, might just bring Lucy back inside. Not a good plan. The same thing might happen if she tried moving her chair around on the hardwood floor.

After about fifteen minutes she decided to give it all a rest. Gina had done just that quite some time before. J.J. looked closely at her, suddenly worried about her health. Gina wasn’t that young anymore. She had to be in her sixties at least. What if the stress caused a stroke or a heart attack? Another thing to worry about.

The more she thought about it all, the more she hoped Lucy would reconsider her threats. Killing one person and framing another, when you had what you believed was a justifiable motive, was one thing. Killing two innocent bystanders was another. Surely no one in her right mind would do that. Couldn’t she just leave them in the office overnight and make her getaway?

That was it. J.J. would have to convince Lucy to do just that, if Lucy would remove the wrap that covered her mouth long enough for her to talk. J.J. could live with Lucy getting away, as long as she and Gina kept on breathing.

But who knew? What a powerful hatred Lucy must have been feeling all those years to track these two men down and devise such a plot. It might have worked, too. No one would have suspected her if it weren’t for the old photo. How could Lucy possibly think her life would be different with them disposed of? Yet how miserable her life must have been to this point, with revenge as her focus.

J.J. closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind again.
Think. There must be some way out of this.

She needed some way to get out of the wrap.
Done in by plastic wrap. Not what I want as an epitaph.
And she didn’t even claim to be handy in the kitchen. She looked around again, trying to see as much of the office as she could. Was there a sharp edge somewhere within reach? That usually worked in the movies. She couldn’t spot anything, but maybe if she looked closely with a more open mind.
Think outside the box, girl.
Aha. There was something. It looked like the end of a box cutter sticking out from under the picture. The one they’d used the other day.

The desk might be a bit too tall for her to get her hands up to, but she had to try. She started by edging the chair over to the desk, stopping after each scraping sound to listen for footsteps in the hall. It seemed to take forever, but once she reached it, J.J. found she could just manage to touch the edge of the box cutter. Grabbing it seemed out of the question, though. She saw that Gina looked alert again and was watching her closely. That was good.

She’d managed to loosen the wrap only slightly, but she found it did allow her to twist her hands so that her fingers were touching. After about ten minutes of concentrated effort, she pulled the box cutter to the edge of the desk and maneuvered it into her hand. She carefully slid it open.
Just don’t slice a vein.

Gina, in the meantime, had managed to get her chair over also and offered her wrists.

J.J. shook her head. At least with trying to cut through the wrap on her own wrists, she knew where her arms and hands were. They heard a noise in the hall and both stared at the door, eyes wide, breathing shallow. When nothing happened, J.J. went back at the slicing.

Finally.
She felt one strand of wrap give way, and she
carefully placed the box cutter back on the desk. She worked her hands and wrists until they were eventually free. She held them up to Gina, who had tears in her eyes.

After cutting through the wrap around her ankles and, finally, her mouth, J.J. then totally freed Gina. They hugged each other and then took deep breaths.

“You call the police,” J.J. whispered, pointing to the phone. Gina nodded.

J.J. walked to the door and placed her ear against it, listening in case Lucy should come in unexpectedly. She thought she heard footsteps and gestured to Gina to be quiet.

Gina had just hung up the phone, and she whispered, “They’re already on their way.”

That surprised J.J., but before she had time to think about it, she realized it was definitely footsteps that she heard. She looked at the bookcase and grabbed a bookend in the shape of Italy, which turned out to be solid brass and very heavy. She quickly stepped to the other side of the door, her back against the wall, weapon raised above her head.

The door flew open and J.J. took aim, bumping against the bookcase. Two hands shot up and grabbed her arms in midair.

J.J. shrieked.

“What the . . . ?” Devine shouted.

“Thank goodness,” Gina whispered.

When Devine had slowly lowered J.J.’s hand and taken the bookend from her grasp, he said, “Close call, babe. Are you all right?”

She nodded, unable to find her voice.

He flicked on the light and looked over at Gina. “How about you, Gina?”

“I’m fine, thanks to J.J. She was able to get us out of our bindings.”

He smiled at J.J. “For some reason that doesn’t surprise me.”

“What are you doing here?” J.J. asked, finally able to get the words out. She slumped back against the bookcase.

“I got your message and couldn’t track you down, so I figured you might be here. I called Hastings and we arrived at the same time. They’ve taken Lucy into custody.”

“But how did you know it was her?”

“Your message said you wanted to check the photo again before confronting her. How many females are there in the restaurant? Not that many, and Lucy was the only one you’d questioned.” He grinned at Gina. “I knew it couldn’t be Gina.”

She smiled back at him a bit shakily.

“What’s the story?” he asked J.J. “Is Lucy related to the woman in the photo? Did you find a similarity and that’s what brought you back?”