Camilla T. Crespi - The Breakfast Club Murder (20 page)

Thankfully, the place hadn’t changed. The smell was as Lori remembered it, sharp from the aged cheeses, sweet from the meats, a smell that softened her mood. Logs of provolone hung from the ceiling. Varying sizes of mozzarella balls floated in white plastic vats, ready to be plucked. Rolls of salami, mortadella,
capocolla, guanciale,
and legs of prosciutto sat lined next to each other atop shelves, cut side out to tempt the customer with their patterns of varying ratios of fat to meat. Lori smiled at the counterman, a large man with thinning strands of dyed black hair swept over his balding head and
Sal
in red letters stamped on his white jacket. Sal balled up his cheeks with a grin that brought her father back. “Dear
signora,
what can I do for you today?”

Lori said nothing for a moment, relishing the memory of her father shaking hands with the owner, checking the thinness of the prosciutto slice, rolling the mozzarella in its milk to make sure it was as fresh as the counterman claimed. Behind her, the door chimed. Another customer walked in and Lori shook herself out of her reverie to order mozzarella, Parmigiano Reggiano, and prosciutto. While Sal filled her order, she picked up four cans of Italian tuna and two packages of marinated white anchovies for herself. In the car she had a cooler to keep the food fresh.

Just as Sal offered her a transparent slice of prosciutto to taste, Lori’s cell phone sounded its Beethoven notes. She went out on the street to answer.

“Any chance I can see you today?” Jonathan asked. “I’m in the city now, but I’ll be home around five. Maybe I can tempt you from your labors for my mother and take you out for a drink, a quick dinner?”

“Is anything wrong?” Lori asked.

“If wanting to see you is wrong, then yes.”

Lori found herself smiling, while at the same time deciding Mr. Jonathan Ashe was not to be taken seriously under any circumstances. “I’m in the city right now. In Little Italy, shopping for tomorrow night.”

“We can have lunch. Want me to come down there?”

“I have to go to Bleecker Street next.”

“Murray’s Cheese?”

Lori laughed. “How did you know?”

“I saw French cheeses on your menu. I can meet you there in thirty minutes.”

“Make it forty-five.”

“Why bother to go all the way down to Little Italy?” Jonathan asked as he expertly rolled linguine with clam sauce onto his fork. They were sitting at the bar at the Gotham Bar and Grill, one of Manhattan’s great restaurants, Lori’s shopping over with. All the tables were taken. “You had everything you needed on Bleecker.”

“You’re right. Murray’s Cheese, Amy’s, and Faicco’s all on the same block, but I guess I was feeling a little nostalgic.” She picked up a goat cheese raviolo in pancetta and shallot sauce, chewed on it slowly. She hadn’t been back to Little Italy since Rob left her. She hadn’t visited Papa’s grave since then, either, always finding an excuse when Ellie asked Lori to accompany her. What had stopped her, she wondered. Was it shame? Did she feel that by getting divorced she had let Papa down? He hadn’t been in her life for so many years—Lori was eleven when he died—but he had been the only significant man in her life before Rob. Maybe when she thought of him, she turned into the little girl she had been when he was alive, the same way she had remembered Little Italy as it was when her father took her there. Yes, that was it. Lori, the girl, was ashamed of having been abandoned. Lori, the woman, was trying to deal with it.

“Have you gone on a trip?” Jonathan asked.

Lori gave an apologetic smile, embarrassed by her rudeness. “I’m sorry. I was just thinking how unnecessarily complicated we make our lives.”

“Right you are. I’ve been looking into apartments for my mother, but she turns everything down. She can’t stand the idea of having to downsize, but I can’t stand the idea of her living with me much longer.”

“I thought she had found an apartment she really liked.”

“She told you that?” He seemed surprised.

Lori nodded.

“I understand Mother wanting a view of Central Park, but she doesn’t need three bedrooms.”

What had Margot said about him? Something about losing money in one of his real estate deals. Lori bit into another raviolo and was willingly distracted by the tart taste of the goat cheese contrasted with the sweetness of the pasta and the saltiness of the pancetta. Delicious. She must buy the cookbook. But now to business.

“Jonathan, I need your help.”

“I know. Beth asked me if I could dig up some info about Valerie.”

“I was thinking more about Rob’s business dealings. I know that Rob was trying to get people to invest with him to buy some real estate. Do you know anything about it?”

Jonathan took a long sip of his white wine. For a moment Lori thought he wasn’t going to answer. “Sure,” he finally said, putting his glass down carefully on the wine coaster. “Rob asked me to invest, but I was short of cash and had to turn him down, and I’ve been kicking myself ever since. He was trying to put together an investment package to buy into Waterside Properties in the Bronx, part of the city’s effort at gentrification. The land is on the water with some abandoned buildings on it. I forget how many acres the city was offering, but to invest you had to raise five million dollars, twenty-five percent of the total cost. Not much by today’s standards. The return was projected at doubling your money and now, from what I hear, it’s going to triple it if not more. It hurts in the gut to think about it.”

“Then Rob didn’t lose any money from it?”

“He never went through with it. I’d know if he had. Either changed his mind or couldn’t come up with the money.”

“If he had the money now, could he still invest?”

“No. The deal closed last week.”

Lori polished off her plate with a misplaced sense of relief. With Waterside Properties out of reach, Rob didn’t have a motive to kill Valerie, she thought, not focusing on Jonathan’s words,
or couldn’t come up with the money.

Jonathan called the waiter over to refill their wine glasses. Lori watched the golden wine slowly being poured into her glass, knowing she had a long drive home and a lot of cooking to do, but she wanted to relax and enjoy herself in this beautiful Greenwich Village restaurant in Jonathan’s company. Dressed in a beige linen shirt, with dark tan slacks and smiling eyes to match, he was very handsome company.

With his elbow on the bar counter and chin in his hand, he peered at her with an intense expression.

“What?” she said.

“I’m glad we’ve met.”

“I am, too.” She meant it. There was something fun and out of the ordinary about Jonathan, like a glass of champagne you only had on special occasions.

“I like you,” he said. “Your face, your hands. I won’t embarrass you with the rest, but I like you more than is comfortable.” Jonathan sat up and twisted his stool to face the bar again. “What about Portale’s inimitable flourless chocolate cake?”

Hoping she wasn’t blushing, Lori agreed to take a bite of the cake and asked for a double espresso.

The cake was astoundingly good, so light it felt as if she was swallowing sweet air. “Did you find anything out about Valerie?” she asked.

“Her friends were mostly superficial ones, the kind who meet at parties or dinners and accuse each other of not calling, but only really want to talk about the great vacation they’ve just had or the fabulous dress they’ve just bought. I’m sure you know the type.”

“Luckily, I don’t.”

“I should have known.” Jonathan smiled and gave her a look that made her feel as if she were being caressed. It was sexy and infuriating at the same time. “She was dating Warren for a while,” he said, “but I think Margot already told you that. And Margot told you about Ruth, right?”

“Yes. She’s Valerie’s cousin.” She took a sip of her double espresso. It was hot and bitter, just what she needed to jolt her out of the wine haze.

“There’s more to the Ruth story,” Jonathan said, “if my mother is to be believed. Of course, she doesn’t remember what. Supposedly something happened when Valerie and Ruth were little. If there was something, I’m sure it had nothing to do with Valerie’s death, but my mother is like a terrier with a bone. She’s calling around to friends, the few that are left, to jog her memory. If there’s anything to it, I’ll let you know, but don’t count on it.”

“I like your mother, Jonathan.” Lori didn’t like him putting Mrs. Ashe down. It made him small.

“And I like your mother.”

Lori finished her coffee in silence.

Lori sat at her bedroom window that overlooked her small garden. Tomorrow she would have to weed, deadhead, fertilize, make her garden shine again, but for now she just wanted to sit, chin in hand, and take in the sights and sounds of a Saturday summer morning. The air was cool, the sky clear except for a few low wisps of white far on the horizon. Sprinklers ticked almost in unison. Sprays of water, looking like so many swirling tutus, glinted in the early sun. A mockingbird went through the different notes of its repertoire. A basketball smacked a backboard and bounced with a dull thud on the asphalt of a driveway. In the distance, a too-diligent husband or son started mowing the lawn.

The rude noise was an unwelcome reminder that it was time to shake off her lethargy and start working on Mrs. Ashe’s dinner again. Last night she had poached the veal, made the tuna mayonnaise, and assembled the dish so that the taste of the sauce would have twenty-four hours to penetrate the meat. She had blended and dressed the artichoke hearts and grated the various cheeses for the cheese puffs. Today she still had to buy vegetables, make the tomato soup, roast the peppers, and cook the orzo for the pasta salad. Later, at Jonathan’s apartment, she would assemble the hors d’oeuvres; while the guests ate the main course, she would roast the peaches for dessert.

Jonathan. She leaned her head to one side of the window, her thoughts going back to yesterday. He had kissed her outside the restaurant. On the street. In broad daylight. In front of people walking by. Rob had barely touched her if there was a chance someone might catch him at it. Earlier boyfriends had limited their kissing to cars, doorways, fraternity rooms. Jonathan had reached for her, turned her around, and kissed her. She didn’t push him away.

The kiss had been gentle, his lips soft on hers, his hands warm and firm against her back, simply holding her, without pressing his chest against her breasts. He held his lips to hers for a long time, broke away only to rest his cheek against hers. She had felt awkward and excited all at the same time, like the young girl she had once been, starting out in a more naive sexual world than the one Jessica had to maneuver through.

“I want to see more of you,” he told her, cheek to cheek. “Lots more of you.” The sudden twinge she felt between her legs had made her pull away and toss her head to shake off the embarrassment of his kiss, his words, and her reaction.

During the night, Jonathan made love to her. In a dream. How long had it been since she’d had the real thing? A year? A year and a half? She ached for a man to skate his hands down her body, to kiss her breasts, to push himself inside her and rock her with him. But the only man she had ever made love with was Rob. He had known her when her breasts sat up, her stomach was flat, her skin was taut. When he made love to her older, bigger, softer body, she had always assumed that he held on to the sight and the feel of her twenty-year-old self. A new man would have no such memory to enhance her in his eyes. Lori thought of Shirley MacLaine in
Terms of Endearment,
facing a horny Jack Nicholson in her negligee. How embarrassed Lori had been for her, how convinced such a humiliating moment would never happen to her.

Could she do it? Lori wondered. Expose her middle-aged nakedness to strange eyes? Toss off her clothes and jump into bed with a man she barely knew?

Lori left the window. Like Scarlett, she’d think about it tomorrow. Today, she had work to do.

“Need any help?” Beth asked on the phone as Lori was leaving the vegetable market. “I think I can be trusted to chop onions without getting blood all over your kitchen.”

Lori was tempted. She wanted to talk about Jonathan, about having casual sex at their age, about Beth feeling like “meat for sale” when she dated. About the murder. “Thanks for the offer.” Lori turned onto King Street. Home was only ten minutes away if she didn’t hit traffic on the Merritt. “I’d love the company, but with you in the kitchen, I might end up pouring wine in the soup instead of broth. We’ll catch up tomorrow.”

“Actually I hate chopping,” Beth said. “What I was really hoping for was a tasting. And an update on Valerie’s murder.”

“I haven’t heard anything new.” She hadn’t told Beth about Ruth being Valerie’s cousin, but that could wait until tomorrow. “I do want us to put our heads together and see what we know so far, but today’s not the day.”

“I know it isn’t,” Beth said. “Listen, Janet called me this morning. She grilled me about what I knew. You told her something about being off the hook, and she wanted to know who was the new suspect. She sounded nervous, upset. I debated telling you because I know she’s helping you out with this dinner. I didn’t want you to get worried. What I’m trying to say is that if for some reason she doesn’t come through at the last minute, I can pitch in. With me tending bar, those ladies would make some mean whoopee.”

Lori laughed despite herself. “Again, thanks, but Jonathan is tending bar, not Janet.” Lori didn’t believe Janet would let her down at the last minute—she was too loyal and generous a person—but, just in case, she was glad she had planned a cold meal. With dessert being the only last-minute preparation, she could manage serving dinner by herself.

“I can help serve,” Beth offered.

“That would be a great way to end my catering career before it starts.” Beth had, in the first two years of marriage, managed to break almost every plate of her grandmother’s Tiffany service. What was left—three bread plates and two soup bowls—she’d hung on the kitchen wall, out of harm’s way. “You’re sweet to want to help, but I’m sure Janet is going to do a great job. Maybe she had a fight with Seth or the kids are driving her crazy.”