Feta Attraction (12 page)

ELEVEN

I hightailed it back to the restaurant. Nobody was around yet so I had to unload everything by myself. A note was stuck on the back door saying that Marina had invited Sophie and Dolly to breakfast at the Pancake Heaven, and they'd be back later. Those three biddies could gossip all morning, so I had some time alone. I put the coffee on and stowed away everything I'd bought at Sunshine Acres, then went to my office to check my messages. No plain white envelopes, thank God, and no e-mails.

The answering machine was blinking, though. I hit the button. Beep. “Uh, hi. This is Jack Conway from the Coast Guard. Remember me? Could you give me a buzz? Thanks.” My blood froze. Why was he calling me? No way was I returning that call.

I took a deep breath and headed upstairs with my coffee mug. I opened Spiro's door and surveyed the damage. Briefly I wondered whether I should even be here, but common sense told me that whoever the intruder had been, he—or she—was long gone. I restored everything to its more or less proper place in short order. For once I was grateful that Spiro was a neatnik and a minimalist like his mother. I checked every possible hiding place and went over the walls, floors, and closet twice, looking for I didn't know what. This break-in should be reported to the police. I knew that. And if the state police ever returned my call, I would. No sense calling the local cops. Like everyone else in Bonaparte Bay, they were preparing for the crowds that would descend during the pirate festival.

I pulled back the curtain at the window and looked out on Theresa Street. It was still early but there were a few tourists sauntering down the street, stopping here and there to look in the windows of the gift shops or examine the racks of sale clothing out on the sidewalks. A line was beginning to form down at the docks in front of the tiny square building that served as the Lady Liberty Boat Tours ticket office. A good day for the tour boats generally meant a good day for the Bonaparte House, and things looked promising. A couple of agile green-shirted deckhands jumped off the
Lady Liberty II
. One used a broom to sweep off the gangplank and the other put up rope railings to keep unwary tourists from falling into the weedy water.

I turned my head and looked in the other direction. I had forgotten how far I could see from this window. My own room looked out over the employee parking lot and our tiny patch of lawn.

There was the Express-o Bean; Sweet'ums, the fudge and candy shop; the Sailor's Rest, still closed up; and I could see just the corner of Inky's place. I looked down toward Marina's Pancake Heaven and saw a swarm of people exiting the front door in a hurry. A light haze of smoke was emanating from Aunt Jennie, the eight-foot-tall aproned lady whose smiling neon face had graced the Heaven for close to fifty years. Aunt Jennie had some sort of perennial short in her wiring that caused her to periodically sizzle and smoke, not unlike bacon on a too-hot griddle. She'd be okay once she cooled off. I glanced back down at the street and saw Sophie and Dolly heading this way.

I moved away from the window and took one more cursory glance around. My eyes settled on that scuffed spot on the floor over by the wall adjoining Sophie's room. Much as I wanted to ignore it, I couldn't look away, like staring at a zit on somebody's face. It was just so incongruous when everything else around me was so perfect. I couldn't believe Spiro could stand it. Well, if he didn't do it himself, I'd get the floor sanded and treated this fall after we closed down. The downstairs floors needed attention too. I remembered with a pang that if I didn't find what needed to be found, Spiro might not be around to be annoyed by the imperfections. But if I did find him, the floors might not be my problem anymore.

I secured the doors to my and Cal's rooms so the messes inside wouldn't be inadvertently seen, and hustled back downstairs to meet the ladies.

*   *   *

I made it to the kitchen just before Sophie and Dolly came in the back door. Dolly unzipped the gray hoodie she was wearing and hung it on the row of metal hooks installed by the door. Underneath she wore a very tight hot-pink tank top designed for a much younger woman with a few less tummy rolls and a bit less, or at least better contained, cleavage. A huge, shiny yellow-gold crucifix dangled precipitously into the jiggling crevasse between her freckled boobs, drawing attention to the “Baby Girl” logo on the front of the shirt. I was relatively sure she wasn't Catholic, but that was a big, expensive piece of gold if it was real.

“Morning, Dolly. Morning, Sophie.” I found it hard to look away from the glitzy Vegas-style mammary show going on over at the prep counter.

“Mornin',” Dolly said as she expertly maneuvered a hairnet over her coiffure, which remained miraculously undisturbed. She opened the walk-in, brought out one of the Sunshine Acres boxes, snapped on a pair of gloves, and went right to work on her pile of vegetables.

“I am going to go lie down for a while,” Sophie said. “You can handle everything, right?”

Sure! Georgie can handle everything.
“Are you all right, Sophie?” I said with concern.

“I'm tired.” She cut her eyes over to Dolly blissfully chopping away, then back to me. “Marina's dog kept me up all night, yip, yip, yip! It make me crazy!” Marina did, as I recall, have one of those microscopic, hyperactive little poodles. Quite cute in small doses but irritating for more than a short time. Sophie was definitely a cat person. We didn't have pets here, but she kept a big, elegant white Persian back in Greece. One of her many other cousins cared for it over the summer until she returned.

“Shall I walk you upstairs?” She apparently wanted to talk to me alone, but didn't want to do it now.

“No, you come up later on if I no come down.” She sighed. “You hear any noises last night?”

“Nothing.” Not a lie. I hadn't been here.

“Good.”

I saw her to the bottom of the stairs and watched her walk up to the second floor. I returned to my office and called in one of the busboys early to replace Russ and adjusted the schedule for the day. I reviewed the specials menu and filed away the receipts and other paperwork that I had left undone last night. I checked my e-mail again. There it was, a message from my anonymous sender. I double-clicked and read the simple message.

DON'T FORGET, TONIGHT, ALONE.

My stomach tightened into a knot. What the hell was I going to do? I had less than twelve hours to find the something, find a boat, learn how to use the boat, get myself to the Devil's Oven at night, deliver whatever it was, and somehow get myself back home to wait for the safe return of Spiro, all without Sophie finding out or getting myself killed.

The phone rang and I let the machine pick it up, too rattled to answer it myself. I heard a click, then: “Georgie, it's Jack Conway again. I'd like to talk to you. Call me back, please.” The voice was firm and insistent, but not unfriendly. He didn't sound like a killer, but everybody thought Ted Bundy was a normal guy too. I pressed
delete
.

I went back out to the kitchen. “Dolly, I'm going upstairs.” If there had been anything to find downstairs, I would have found it during my searches yesterday, although it would have been a whole lot easier if I had any idea what I was looking for. I still needed to check my room and Cal's room, and I was running out of time.

“Sure, boss,” Dolly croaked back at me, forty years of smoking evident in her voice, her décolletage merrily bouncing in rhythm with her chopping.

“I'll be back down soon. Hold down the fort for me.” I turned and started toward the stairs, when a bold knock sounded at the kitchen door. I stopped and heard Dolly call out, “C'mon in, I'm busy here!”

I stepped back into the kitchen. The tall, burly form of a New York State Trooper filled the doorway.

TWELVE

The Trooper stepped inside and the screen door sprang back with a snap behind him. He wore his pressed gray uniform trousers tucked into the tops of his knee-high shiny black boots. He stared down at me and casually removed his mirrored aviator sunglasses, folding them and placing them in his front shirt pocket, under the badge and the nameplate that read “Lt. E. Hawthorne.”

“I'm Detective Hawthorne,” he said, unnecessarily. “I need to speak to”—he looked down at a notebook he'd flipped open—“Mrs. Nik-Nik—”

“I'm Mrs. Nikolopatos,” I said. “Please call me Georgie.”
It's about time the cops got here,
I thought.

“Well, all right, Georgie.” The voice was deep, sonorous, and a bit scary, like some villain in a dark opera. I could picture him twirling his mustache as he plotted the demise of some fair young maiden. “Is there someplace we can talk privately?”

I glanced over at Dolly, who was fingering the gold crucifix in her bosom and staring at his butt predatorily.

“We can go into my office. I have something I need to talk to you about too.” I led him in and sat him down in the armchair. I sat at the desk facing him and waited for him to speak.

“Mrs.—uh, Georgie.”

“Yes?”

“I'm looking into the death of Domenic DiTomasso, sometimes known as Big Dom.”

“I'm not sure how I can help you.” This guy was definitely scary. I guess that's a good thing in law enforcement.

“We understand that you and Mr.”—he consulted the notebook again—“Morgan found the body.”

“Yes, Keith was giving me a ride to the spa on Valentine Island when we found him.”

“You were just motoring on by and saw a floating body?” His tone was skeptical. My hackles rose.

“That's right.”

“And you went over to investigate?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you disturb the body?”

I took a deep breath and refused to be baited. I'd seen enough winter reruns of cop shows to know that he was trying to throw me off balance and get me to admit to something.

“If you see someone floating in the water, you roll over the body and see if the person can be saved. That's what we did.”

“It was too late, though, wasn't it?”

“It was.”

“How well did you know the victim?”

“Not that well. I mean, I would see him around town, and we both own restaurants on the same street, so I knew him in a business sense.”

“What type of food do you serve at this restaurant?”

“I can show you a menu if you like. We serve Greek food, burgers, salads, steaks, and lobsters, with various specials throughout the week.”

“What type of food did the victim serve at his restaurant?”

“Basically the same, but Italian, at about the same prices. I don't think he emphasized the seafood, though.”

“How many other restaurants are there nearby?” he said without looking up. He made some notes.

Was he not from around here? “The Sailor's Rest and the Bonaparte House are the largest of the restaurants in the Bay. The rest are the diner, the pizza shop, the sub shop, and the hot dog stand at the docks.”

He pulled a stick of gum out of its paper wrapper and leisurely put it into his mouth. He made a few deliberate chews and swallowed. The prominent knob of his Adam's apple bobbed up and down. “So, would you say that the Sailor's Rest was your business competitor?”

“There's enough business in this town for both of us,” I said defensively.

He locked eyes with me. My heart rate ticked up. I'd intended to tell the police about the threatening notes and about the search of our upstairs rooms. But this conversation was going in a direction I didn't like and I couldn't see a way to turn it around. Detective Hawthorne was treating me like a suspect rather than a victim.

“Where's your husband?”

Crap. How much could I tell him without putting Spiro and Sophie in more danger? I could get Spiro killed. I needed time to think.

“He's out of town,” I said.

“Really? Where is he?” The Trooper snapped his gum. “I'd like to talk to him.”

I thought fast. “He's gone to Montreal for the week.”

“What's he doing up there?”

“He's on vacation.”

“In the middle of your busy season?”

I wanted to say that he didn't do much around here anyway, but refrained. “His doctor said he should get away for a few days.”

“Does he have a medical condition?”

He would have a fatal medical condition if I couldn't find the thing hidden in this house. “Just nerves. The stress of working seven days a week sometimes takes its toll on him.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Twenty years. We have a daughter who's studying in Greece right now.”

“Are you aware that bigamy is illegal in this or any other state of the United States?”

Huh? He must have interviewed Inky and found out about his hopes for a future with Spiro.

“Uh, yes. I'd say virtually everyone knows that.”

“So how were you planning to legally marry Big Dom? Did you kill your husband so you could?”

“What?” I didn't think I'd heard him right.

“The day before he died, Big Dom drove to Watertown and purchased a diamond ring.”

I shook my head in confusion. “Sorry—I don't understand this.”

“He told the clerk at the jewelry store that he was planning to ask ‘the lovely Mrs. N' to forget her husband and marry him, and that he was going to come into a lot of money very soon. The ring has not been found.” He leaned toward me. “So I'm asking you, how long had your affair been going on, what were you planning to do, and where's the ring?”

I was floored. I barely knew Big Dom, and he had been going to ask me to marry him? Everyone in town knew I was already married to Spiro. Then it hit me. There was another Mrs. N in this house. And she was available. The Trooper must have known that—maybe he was just fishing for information. But maybe not. I had to get rid of this guy, and now. If the cops didn't think I killed Dom, they might think Sophie had.

“I'm sorry, but I think your information is incorrect,” I said as evenly as I could. “I did not have any sort of relationship at all with Mr. DiTomasso. I must get back to work now. I have a restaurant to run.” I stood up.

“I'm not finished with my questions, ma'am.”

“But I am. If you want to speak to me again, you'll need to arrange it through my lawyer.” I scribbled down the name of the local attorney who handled our business legal work. Whether he was qualified to represent a criminal client, I had no idea. “Good-bye.”

He took the paper and fastened it into his notebook with a paper clip that had been attached to the cover. “We'll talk again, Georgie. I'm going to need to talk to your mother-in-law too. Maybe you'd both prefer to do it at the state police barracks.”

He stood up with maddening slowness and opened my office door, moving quite gracefully for a man of his size out through the kitchen and into the parking lot. Dolly stared after him, goggle-eyed. I considered handing her a napkin to mop up any drool that might have escaped her parted, frosty pink lips.

“Damn!” she said. “I wish Harold looked like that. He could interrogate me anytime.”

*   *   *

I headed up the stairs and banged on Sophie's door. “Come in,” she said weakly.

I went inside and found her propped up on a mound of pillows, her bony legs stretched out in front of her on the yellow bedspread. I bet anything that if I had reached under those pillows I would have found that smut novel hidden away. She didn't look tired at all anymore.

“Sophie, I've just had a visit from a State Trooper.”

She sat up and put her hand to her throat. “It isn't . . . Spiro?” She seemed to shrink back again and I saw real fear in her eyes.

“He hasn't turned up anywhere, if that's what you mean.”

She relaxed. “What did he want?”

“He wanted to ask me some questions about Big Dom's death.”

“Oh.” She began to fidget. I let her squirm.

“All right, Sophie, I know all about it,” I bluffed. “You might as well tell me before that Trooper comes back.”

She hesitated, then sat up straighter and began to fiddle with the fringe on one of her floral throw pillows.

“Sophie, I don't have all day.”

She sighed, continuing to twist the fringe. “Domenic is—was—very handsome.”

Not in my book, but to each her own. “And?”

“He was in love with me, but I resist him.” Her eyes took on a dreamy quality that gave me the distinct impression she would not have resisted him forever.

“I don't remember seeing the two of you together recently except that day he was in trying to buy the restaurant again.”

“We talk on the phone.”

“When?”

“Well, we don't talk out loud so much.”

Curiouser and curiouser. “How did you communicate, then?”

“We use that message text. On the cell phone.”

Sophie had been texting Big Dom? She had a cell phone, but I had never seen her use it to make or receive a call, let alone text anyone.

“How did you learn how to send text messages?”

“Callista showed me before she left. I talk to her this way all the time,” she said proudly.

I wasn't much of a texter, so I was mildly impressed.

“So you and Big Dom were writing back and forth.”

“Yes, many times a day. And night,” she added.

Please,
I thought,
don't let her have been sexting with Big Dom. Or at least don't let her tell me about it
. “He tell me he's in love with me ever since Basil died.” She looked very, very sad. “I think Domenic killed himself because I no accept him.”

“What do you mean, ‘accept him'?”

“He say he want to marry me. I no believe him, though. But then he bring me a ring, and I tell him I will think about it.”

I was floored, although I shouldn't have been, given the information the Trooper had just told me. “When did this happen?”

“The day before he died.”

“Where is the ring?”

“I keep it here.” She patted her heart.

She was not generally a sentimental woman. “No, I mean where is the actual ring?”

“Right here.” She reached into the neckline of her blouse and pulled out a rose gold chain on which hung a platinum ring. A dazzling white central diamond of at least two carats was flanked by two smaller sparkling yellow stones—canary diamonds? Her metals didn't match, but who cared? I was skeptical that that ring could have been bought in Watertown, which was a very small city. A ring of that quality and size would have to come from Syracuse or Manhattan, I would think.

I had been standing over her this whole time but now I sat down on the edge of the bed. I reached over and held up the platinum ring to the sunlight. I was rewarded with a stunning prismatic display that literally took my breath away. I did love jewelry, but I bought all my own now that my husband no longer felt the need to show me how much he loved me.

“Sophie, you must keep this ring hidden for now.”

“Why?” She bristled, though I felt sure that was what she had planned anyway, since she was wearing it inside her top and had not seen fit to mention that she had been proposed to.

A thought struck me. “You didn't tell Marina or Dolly about this, did you?” That was all we needed. The place would be swarming with police and gossips and lookie-loos and I would not be able to protect her, or find the thing hidden in the house.
Damn, the treasure
.

“No-oh.” She drew the syllable out and I knew there was more.

“Did you tell, or not?”

She played with the pillow fringe some more before she answered. “I tell them I have a secret, but I no tell what it is.” She loved to torture people, so she was most likely telling the truth.