Chocolate Quake (9 page)

At the end of the hall side-by-side steps and a ramp led down to the next building, which contained, on the left, the Crone Cohort, the toilet, and a storage room, and, on the right, Female and Fit, which had two doors. Conversations could be heard behind office doors, and music accompanied by thumps from the second door on the right, perhaps people getting fit.

We descended to the third section and found a huge room crowded with cooking and dishwashing equipment, sinks and food preparation areas, refrigerators, a long table with chairs to our immediate right and to the left a small, partitioned-off office. It’s door bore the legend,
Alicia Rovere, Food Lady.
In various parts of the room, each decorated with appropriate, if somewhat garish murals, women were preparing food. I longed to scoot over to the Food Stamp Gourmet section, where something involving cheese and bananas seemed to be underway, but Mr. Valetti had exclaimed, “Alicia? Is-a you?
Mia bellissima
!” He was hugging a barrel-shaped lady in the office doorway.

“Is-a Alicia Rovere,” he cried with delight. “
Moglie de mio amico
Alberto Rovere, who’s-a make-a the gelato even better than mine, better than God’s.”

“Bite your tongue, you heretic,” said Mrs. Rovere. “You want God to send a bolt of lightning through my door?”

“God an’ me, we got an agreement. I make-a the pizza, Alberto make-a the gelato, and God, he make-a the beautiful women like you to keep us happy.”

“Always the flatterer,” she said, and then to me, “Are you Bruno’s
professora
? You’re too young and pretty for an old goat like Bruno.”

“That’s very kind of you,” I mumbled. We forty-something ladies are always happy to be called young and pretty, “But Mr. Valetti—”

“Is-a her mother-in-law I’m-a lose my heart to,” Bruno explained. “This pretty girl is-a
Carolyn. Mio amore,
she’s-a name Gwenivere. Soon as we get her outa the jail, you an’ Alberto come-a my house for pizza an’ meet her.”

“What’s she doing in jail?” Mrs. Rovere looked astounded.

“She was arrested for murdering your business manager,” I replied for Mr. Valetti.

“Mother of God,” gasped Mrs. Rovere. “Bruno’s in love with the consultant from Chicago? She’ll break your heart, Bruno. I never met a woman with less romance in her soul. Why, she doesn’t believe in God. She doesn’t even like opera.” Mrs. Rovere shoved her hands into the capacious pockets of her apron, which she wore over a severe navy blue dress that came almost to her ankles, and frowned.

“My mother-in-law doesn’t seem like Mr. Valetti’s type,” I agreed. “Nonetheless, he’s been so kind as to offer his help in my efforts to exonerate her.”

“Hasn’t she got a husband to help her? Or a son? Is she a widow?”

“Divorced,” I replied.

“Bruno, you can’t marry a divorced woman!” Mrs. Rovere warned.

“What the church don’t know, don’t hurt,” said Mr. Valetti. “So, you think my sweet
professora
killed the woman here?”

“Sweet
professora,
my sainted aunt Agata. But no, I don’t think she killed Denise. She’s not big enough.”

“My thought exactly,” I agreed. “My mother-in-law, if she wanted to stab someone to death, would have to pick on a dwarf. And since you’re on our side, Mrs. Rovere, could I use your telephone? In return—” I sighed at what I’d agreed to do. “In return, I’ve promised the director to teach a class to make chocolate-walnut cakes for the anniversary celebration.”

“You know how to bake?” she asked suspiciously.

“She’s-a the famous food writer in the newspaper,” said Mr. Valetti proudly. “She gonna put one-a my pizza recipes in her column. Maybe you nice to her, she put one of Alberto’s gelato recipes in, too.”

“Alberto keeps his secret,” said Mrs. Rovere, “but she could print one of our Food Stamp Gourmet dishes. Those poor girls are hard to motivate. Who wouldn’t be, trying to make decent meals out of government surplus and no money.” She beamed at me. “My telephone is yours. You teach the dessert class, put one of our recipes in the paper, and get copies for our girls, and I’ll even help you find out who killed Denise.”

Although I thought that I might be giving more than I was getting in this bargain, I allowed myself to be waved into her office. It was very small with shelves of recipe books in various languages and loose-leaf notebooks that evidently held class rolls of cooking students. After removing a stack of calendars penciled with the names of teachers and class hours, I sat down and dialed the first number for Nora Farraday Hollis.

Would you believe it? The director had given me two wrong numbers. One wasn’t a working number, and the other connected me to an astrologist. A phone book lay on the window seat of Nutrition Central, so I tried that. Without success. Maybe she had an unlisted number or was listed under her husband’s name. Or maybe the director made her up as an excuse for evading my request while tricking me into teaching welfare mothers.

When I left the office, Mr. Valetti was gone, and Mrs. Rovere was having a heated discussion with the banana-and-cheese instructor. When she noted my forlorn presence outside her office, she bustled past me to make a call. “Alexi, this is Alicia Rovere. Give that little Italian fellow your sign-in book. We need to photocopy a couple of pages. . . . Don’t argue with me, or I’ll tell the director you’ve been sending your son to sit in for you evenings so you can get overtime without working it yourself. . . . Just tear out a sheet, and have people sign in on that. You can tape it back when Bruno returns the book.”

She hung up and waved me in. “Russians are such sneaks. He couldn’t get away with that scam if the director ever showed her face here after five in the afternoon. Still, his boy wants to go to Cal Tech. If the overtime gets him there, I guess it’s in a good cause, but I’ll tell you, if Denise hadn’t been killed, she’d have turned him in and put a stop to it. She was really worried about the money. Told me there should have been more in our accounts.”

“You’re the second person who’s said that,” I murmured. “I wonder if someone killed her over center money.”

“I doubt it,” said Mrs. Rovere. “She was just too new to the job to realize how much this old building eats up in maintenance.”

Having had one theory shot down, I kept to myself the thought that Mr. Timatovich might have killed Denise Faulk to keep her from revealing his overtime scam. “The director seems to have given me the wrong numbers for the chairwoman of the center’s board.”

“Oh, I have Nora’s number. No reason to believe she’ll be home. The woman volunteers and donates to every charitable and cultural cause in town. Or just plain runs them.” She pushed the phone across the desk to me. “Hit memory and 07.” With that, she bustled out again to greet Bruno, who had returned with the sign-in book. I called the chairwoman while they came into the office and began to photocopy pages from last Thursday.

Someone with a Spanish accent answered “Hollis residence” and informed me that Señora Hollis was out. When I mentioned that I was calling from the center, I was given another number to call, which initially seemed to be yet a third misdirection.

“Legion of Honor. May I help you?” I was dumb-struck, believing the Legion of Honor to be a French award. I stammered out the chairwoman’s name and was asked to hold. During the ensuing wait, Alicia, Bruno, and I argued about whether the whole day’s sign-ins should be copied or just those from the night of the murder. Finally the Legion of Honor lady came back, apologized for the delay, and told me that Mrs. Hollis was accompanying a group of art lovers through the Henry Moore exhibit and would return my call as soon as she was free.
Henry Moore? The sculptor?
I left Alicia’s number.

“What’s the Legion of Honor?” I asked after hanging up.

“A museum up in Lincoln Park. Beautiful view,” said Alicia. “Now let’s look at these names, although you wouldn’t think a killer would sign in when he arrived to murder someone.”

14

The List

 

I
decided to
start two lists, one for suspects, one for people who had been in the building when Denise Faulk was killed. First, I wrote in Freddie Piñon, an abuser whose wife had been sent to a shelter by Denise. No matter what Timatovich said, Piñon might have returned. Then I added Timatovich because Denise had threatened to have him fired for claiming unearned overtime pay. These notations I made while trailing Bruno and Alicia to the long table across from her office.

He and I sat down on either side of “the food lady” with the photocopies of the sign-in list in front of us. First, Alicia read the names of people who had checked in during the day while Bruno and I searched other pages to determine whether they had left before the murder. Finally, we narrowed our list to those who had been in the building during the event. Alicia knew nothing about many of the clients on the list, but she did have helpful observations on staff members and volunteers.

Kebra Zenawi, for instance, was a volunteer in the Battered Women’s Advocacy. “She’d never have killed Denise. Margaret Hanrahan and Denise managed to save her from an abusive husband and get her the ownership of the family restaurant, an Ethiopian place.” Alicia had been tapping a pencil on the name. “Isn’t everyone in Ethiopia starving? What do they serve at an Ethiopian restaurant?” she mused.

We certainly had no Ethiopian restaurants in El Paso. I wrote
Kebra Zenawi
on my list of people to interview, then flipped to the back of the notebook and wrote, “Try Ethiopian food.”

“Kara Meyerhof is the head of Lesbian and Transsexual Support,” Alicia continued. “She had no quarrel with Denise.”

I wrote
Kara Meyerhof
on the to-interview list.

“Patrick Baker O’Finn’s a lawyer in Margaret’s husband’s firm. Margaret recruited him to defend the center against a woman in the Crone Cohort who’s suing us. Something about toilets. You’d have to ask Maria Fortuni for the details, but I don’t see why O’Finn would have any quarrel with Denise. He’s working pro bono.”

I wrote his name and Maria Fortuni’s on the interview list.

“Maria had a big fight with Denise. Poor Denise didn’t much like being the center accountant. She said she met more angry people there than in Battered Women, and believe you-me, some of those batterers can be terrifying when they’re deprived of a beloved punching bag.”

I transferred Maria Fortuni to the suspect list.

“Maria and Denise got into it about costs for the old ladies’ ramp, but I don’t think Maria could have killed anyone. She’s frail and must be eighty at least.”

I put a question mark beside the Crone Cohort lady.

“Marcus Croker. Now there’s an unforgiving man, a policeman who teaches the self-defense class for Female and Fit. Turns out he was running the name of every woman who signed up through the police computer. We found out when he refused to let one poor soul into his class because she’d called the police on a spousal abuse case and then refused to file charges. He and Denise had a real row about it.”

Marcus Croker went onto my suspect list.

“Then we’ve got Denise and Vera. They had words, but your mother-in-law had words with just about everyone here. She’s not exactly Lady Tactful, but I don’t know that she ever inflicted physical injury on anyone. Last, there’s Yasmin Atta. She’s a volunteer who teaches clothing and makeup to women looking for work. Doubt she even knew Denise.”

I wrote Yasmin Atta in as an interviewee. She might have seen something. Because Alicia didn’t know most of the clients, I took charge of the photocopy with the idea that I might follow up on them if I hadn’t found the real murderer on the list I’d already concocted.

The Food Stamp Gourmet class had finished their project, so Bruno and I were invited for lunch. Naturally, I accepted, seeing the possibility of a column. Not that cheese and bananas sounded promising. While the table was set and food put in place, I went back to Alicia’s office to take a call from Nora Farraday Hollis, a very gracious woman. She said, in response to my request, “Investigate to your heart’s content, my dear. I’m so glad that someone is coming to Vera’s defense. Obviously a woman of her renown can’t be a murderer, but no one seems to be able to convince the police of that. And I do hope you’ll keep me informed on your progress. Why don’t you join me for lunch at the museum on, say, Thursday? Have you seen our Henry Moore exhibit?”

Of course, I hadn’t. I’d never been to her museum. When Mrs. Hollis heard that I was unfamiliar with his drawings, she offered to show me through the exhibit herself. I accepted with pleasure. Even if I didn’t have time or news by then, I would be entitled to a respite from investigation.

The cheese and banana casserole was not a delectable dish, although if your family was on welfare and going hungry, it might seem tasty. As we ate, Alicia remarked that Denise had had a touchy family situation. “She was a widow and inherited a lot from her husband, enough so she could quit her job and volunteer here. I heard a rumor that her stepson was an abuser, and his wife came to the center for help. That probably caused some problems.”

As I wrote
stepson
on my suspect list, apple pie was being served. Evidently the federal government was giving away apples. The crust left something to be desired.

“You could check with Penny Widdister for files on the stepson and his wife,” Alicia added. She pushed her pie plate away after one bite, but Bruno took it as a second helping. He had been eating steadily and without complaint. Maybe he had the same attitude that I do: if you don’t have to cook it yourself, eat up and don’t complain.

“Also I heard that Denise and Dr. Tagalong at Female and Fit had words. Rosamunda’s heart was set on a mammogram machine. She even had volunteers set to run it, so she could do everyone’s breasts. Of course, Denise had to say there wasn’t enough money.”