Little Black Book of Murder (32 page)

I bought two jars of jam—­strawberry and blackberry. Libby bought raisin bread and a shoofly pie.

At the end of the alley between the booths, a crew was setting up an outdoor kitchen. We saw a couple of chefs in white coats readying their ingredients for a demonstration.

“Is that Tommy Rattigan?” Emma asked.

I glanced around and thought I spotted Tommy, too, but the crowd shifted and I lost sight of him.

“I'm not sure,” I said. “I was hoping he'd be here to promote the Farm-­to-­Table gala. His restaurant will be one of the featured locations tomorrow night.”

Emma stopped short at the last booth. “Jesus,” she said, looking at the hand-­lettered sign on the display table. “Breast milk cheese? Is this what I think it is?”

The smiling gentleman behind the table leaned forward. He had a bald head with white fringe, and the pink complexion of a well-­fed baby. With a twinkle in his eyes, he offered Emma his tray of cheese samples. “What do you think it is?”

I made sure Libby had a hand on the stroller before I went across the walkway to a tent that was advertising fresh, home-­raised meat. The proprietor had set up a small electric grill, and he was cooking a steak. He had a scruffy beard and wore a baseball cap with the logo of his company emblazoned on it—­a crowing rooster. A young, ponytailed woman from the vegan group that had been selling dried blueberries just a few booths away was engaging him in an argument.

“It's disgusting,” she said. “You're polluting the whole market with that stink.”

“Lady, take a hike.” He used his long fork to gesture her away. “I've got a right to be here, same as you.”

“If I cut up your mother and cooked her, you wouldn't say that.”

“Go away,” he said.

I leaned in. “Do you butcher your own meat?”

He seemed relieved to have a potential customer on the hook. “Yeah. Hi. We got a shop over near Doylestown, fresh meat daily. Beef, lamb, anything you want.”

“Pork,” I said. “To tell you the truth, I've lost my pig.”

He rolled his eyes. “Is everybody nuts around here today?”

“I'm serious. Somebody stole a pig off my property, and I'm afraid he's going to be killed before the police find him.”

“I buy everything I sell from local farms, okay? Guys I've known for years. I don't know anything about your pig.”

“Does anybody try to sell you animals from other sources?”

“What are you talking about? Stolen pigs? Of course I don't buy stolen pigs! Now go away. I got a living to make.”

I turned around to see Emma spitting out a mouthful of cheese. She was saying, “That's the grossest thing I've ever put in my mouth.”

“It's an acquired taste,” the cheese salesman admitted. “A specialty market. But lots of people love it. Guys especially.”

Libby was frowning. “Where do you get your main ingredient?”

His twinkly smile got brighter. “Funny you should ask. I see you ladies have a couple of youngsters. I can't help wondering if you might be interested in a simple business transaction. I mean, I might have to watch to make sure you're giving me the real thing. Not pulling some kind of switcheroo on me. I'm always looking to expand my supply chain.”

My cell phone rang, and I gratefully walked away to check the screen. I didn't want to hear my sisters becoming part of a breast milk supply chain.

My caller was Gus.

I let it ring four times, hoping he'd give up, but when I finally answered, he said, “Why aren't you here in the office?”

“Because,” I said, “I deserve a day off.”

“Shouldn't you ask your boss when you want to take a day off?”

“My boss would probably refuse my request, so I didn't ask.”

Gus said, “Your boss is not as unreasonable as you think. I hear you're missing a pig.”

I walked farther away from the booths of the market and found a grassy spot where I could speak privately. “How do you know about that?”

“We have reporters who listen to police scanners. How do you think we follow the news? Normally, our blokes don't pay attention to lost and found or a kitten up a tree, but when they heard the name Abruzzo, they started listening more closely. They hoped for more exciting updates than missing livestock. Actually, they were quite amused.”

Michael made headlines no matter what he did. I expected the pig story had just moved from the petty-­crime report to the front page. I hoped the hardened criminals in his family wouldn't think less of him for keeping a pig for a pet. He had enough troubles with them already.

Gus said, “I may have news for you concerning your animal.”

I forgot about Michael's tough-­guy reputation. “What news?”

“Tommy Rattigan is hosting the artisanal butchery demonstration at tomorrow night's gala. It's not my idea of a good evening out, you understand, but apparently a lot of people are interested in seeing their dinner cut from a carcass before they eat it. Really, do you Americans ever sit down for a normal meal? I just received a tutorial from the food reporter about deep-­fried fair food. Did you know it's possible to fry a Snickers bar? How revolting is that?”

“This from a man who probably eats Vegemite?”

“Don't knock it, luv,” Gus said. “It's the ambrosia of my youth. I think Rattigan has your pig.”

“What? Where?” I clutched the phone closer to my ear. “Oh my God, they're not going to eat Ralphie, are they?”

“Ralphie? I had a dog named Laver once, after Rod Laver, the tennis player.”

“Dammit, Gus, you're trying to distract me, and right now I just can't stand—” My brain might have been sidetracked last night, but now I could think quite clearly. “How do you know about this? You didn't get all that information from the police scanner.”

Gus hummed into the phone, hesitating.

“Did you go back to see Marybeth last night? After you dropped me off, you played slap and tickle with her again? Did she tell you?”

“There was no slapping. Rather a nice amount of tickling, though.”

“Spare me,” I snapped.

“What? You and the gangster didn't make hot love after I delivered you home last night? I underestimated your libido?”

I couldn't come up with a retort fast enough, and Gus laughed. He said, “Rattigan doesn't quite know what to do with your porker. He says—­well, that doesn't matter, I suppose, but I think you could—”

“Hang on,” I said. “You're listening to Tommy, aren't you? You're listening to that damned bug!”

“You don't need to know where I get my intelligence. I simply—”

“Intelligence? That's what you call it? Eavesdropping on people?”

“Will you lower your voice?” he asked. “I don't want anyone overhearing this conversation. Not even your thug.”

My turn to laugh. “I don't believe you. How many laws are you breaking by planting a listening device on a chef?”

“I heard him talking about your pig, didn't I?”

I hung up on Gus. Not because I was necessarily finished chewing him out, but because I caught another glimpse of Tommy Rattigan himself. He was standing behind a demonstration table, sharpening a long, thin knife with broad, dramatic strokes. Around him, two sous-­chefs bustled with bowls and cutting boards. One of them fired up a flame under an iron skillet. A group of spectators had begun to fill the folding chairs set up in front of the white tent. Two elderly ladies were settling into the back row with an overweight Labrador retriever wearing a red neckerchief.

I stuffed my phone into my pocket and headed for Tommy.

Behind me, Em called, “Nora?”

Libby said, “Where's she going? Nora, be careful! In your condition—”

I pushed past the elderly ladies—­one gave a cry of outrage—­and I managed to put a foot wrong and step on the Labrador's paw. He yelped, and the crowd in the folding chairs looked around at the commotion. I plowed ahead, climbing over a box of candles left in the aisle by a couple of young hippies.

Tommy looked up from his knife to see me headed straight down the aisle in his direction. My expression must have tipped him off, because a flicker of fright crossed his face. Then he turned, knocked over his pudgy assistant and bolted out the back of the tent.

Like a bullet, I went after him.

I jumped over the fallen sous-­chef and shoved through the back of the tent. I nearly fell over a waiting crate of vegetables, but I caught my balance on the open tailgate of a pickup truck. I saw Tommy disappear around some parked cars. I took off running after him.

I must have shouted. He threw a terrified look over his shoulder at me and kept going through the makeshift parking lot, his green clogs flapping. I ran around the parked cars and thought I'd caught up with him, but I stopped, panting. He'd disappeared.

Emma charged up next to me, barely out of breath. “What's going on?”

“Tommy Rattigan—­he stole Ralphie! Go that way! I'll run around this way and—”

“And we'll nab him,” Emma said. “Gotcha.”

We bolted in opposite directions.

I dodged between a minivan and a Prius and ran down the row, hurdling a basset hound on a leash and barely missing a man with an armload of bread loaves. I saw Tommy zigzag between two cars that were simultaneously pulling out of opposite parking spaces. I leaped over a rope and almost cut him off, but he plunged down a ditch and emerged on the other side, running hard. Emma appeared out of nowhere and nearly blindsided him, but he saw her coming and made an about-­face.

“Tommy!” I shouted.

He stumbled into traffic, and for a horrible moment I thought an oncoming car was going to flatten him.

But the car braked, a horn blew and Tommy caught his balance on the hood of the vehicle. He blundered around it, grabbed the passenger door and hopped inside. The driver hit the gas.

Emma yanked me out of the path of the car, and it blew past me with only inches to spare.

It was a silver Mercedes, a grim-­faced Marybeth Starr behind the wheel. Her brother ducked his head and fastened his seat belt as the car accelerated away from us.

“What a douchetard,” Emma said. “Does he think we don't know who he is?”

“Why was his first instinct to run?” I panted. “He has a guilty conscience. For stealing Ralphie? Or killing Swain Starr?”

Libby arrived, pushing the stroller and laden with children and shopping bags. She said, “Why on earth are you two making such spectacles of yourselves? Everybody back at the farmers' market thinks you're chasing down a nonorganic carnivore.”

“That's about the size of it,” Emma said.

“Ready to go home?” I asked, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. “I could use a nap.”

Emma checked me for other signs of injury and decided I was A-­okay. But she said, “Maybe we'd better stop at another drugstore? Get you another test?”

“Oh yes!” Libby cried. “Let's go home and watch Nora pee on a stick!”

W
e made a detour to a Walgreens, and I dashed inside to grab a pregnancy test off the shelves. With the money from my stop at the pawnshop, I got a two-­pack just in case the first results were iffy. I purchased some diapers for Noah, as well as some formula and other supplies.

On the way home, my cell phone rang while Libby was regaling us with stories about auditions for television commercials—­mostly how people misunderstood the mothers of auditioning kids.

When I answered my phone, Michael said with suspicious cheer, “Hi. How you doing?”

“Fine. We think we figured out who rustled Ralphie.”

“Oh yeah? Tell me, and I'll send a hit squad.”

Sometimes it was downright delightful to be cohabitating with a kingpin of organized crime. Smiling, I said, “Tommy Rattigan. He owns a restaurant in the city.”

“The one you told me about before?”

“Yes. He's—­Michael, Tommy is putting on some kind of butchering demonstration tomorrow night. I'm so afraid—”

“I'm on it. Anything else?”

“A little something else. But we can talk about it when I get home. Are you at the farm now?”

“Uh,” he said. “No. And it looks like I may not be there for a while.”

My stomach took a cold plunge. “What's wrong?”

“So, the thing this morning? Kuzik wanted me to play basketball with some guys he knows. Nice guys. Good game.”

I sensed he wasn't calling me to report a basketball score. “But?”

“Kuzik's not exactly a great player himself. He's a little slow, and his grasp of strategy is—­anyway, the bottom line is I kinda knocked him on his ass. Not his ass so much as his head.”

“Oh, Michael!”

“It was an accident. He knows it. Everybody knows it. He was bumbling around, and somebody was going to hit him eventually, but it was my fault that it was me. I was driving the ball around him, but he stepped wrong and—­anyway, I brought him over here to the emergency room. He's getting some kind of head scan at the moment.”

“He has a concussion?”

“Maybe it's just a bump. But his nose is looking a little funny.”

I could hear the regret in Michael's voice. I said, “I'm sorry he's hurt.”

“Yeah, me, too. Thing is, the police are here for other business, and they got interested.”

“Oh no.” I suddenly knew where this conversation was going.

“Right. I think they're gonna arrest me for assaulting Kuzik. At the very least, they're going to take me in for a bunch of questions. And until Kuzik can explain his side of things, it doesn't look great for you and me having lunch together. Or dinner, either.”

“Please don't say you're going back to jail.”

“Hell, no, not for this. But until Kuzik can talk to the cops, I'm in limbo.”

“Have you called Armand?”

“Who?”

“Cannoli!”

“Oh, right. Yeah, I called him. He's on his way. Between your family and mine, we're going to pay college tuition for a lot of little Cannolis.” He was trying to make light of the situation, but I knew he was annoyed. He said, “Listen, when you get back to the farm, you'll see I fired the old crew. I told the new guys to keep a close watch while I'm gone, especially for Zephyr and the Starr kid who's looking for her. I shoulda made sure we were better covered before. I didn't know about the road in the back. I'm gonna think about that, and we'll fix it when I get home. Meanwhile, there will be a couple of extra guys around today.”

“Are we in danger?”

“Don't worry. Mostly, I don't want my brother coming back to surprise you. Don't let him in if he shows his face, okay? I told him to keep his distance, and I meant it.” Michael's tone changed, turning brisk. “I gotta go now. I'll call you when I know more.”

“I love you,” I said.

But he was already gone.

“Trouble?” Emma asked from the backseat.

“Nothing unusual,” I said on a sigh.

“You need a diversion,” Libby said, having overheard most of our conversation and no doubt sensing my plummeting spirits. “Why don't we go out for lunch? While we wait for our food, Nora, you can take the test. We'll have champagne! It'll be fun! And when That Man of Yours finally gets home, you can have a celebration all ready—­something romantic with candles and lingerie. And maybe cake. Who doesn't like cake?”

She was already making a U-­turn and pulling into the parking lot of the Rusty Sabre.

Emma took a cell phone call while Libby and I managed to get the children into the restaurant and seated at a window table overlooking a picturesque stretch of the canal that ran through New Hope. Our waiter seemed willing to cope with a table that included two little ones, which was a relief. Sometimes the mere presence of Max discouraged good service. Libby opened a plastic container of Cheerios and scattered a supply on the tray of Max's high chair. He immediately started throwing cereal at Noah, who looked mystified about being the object of Max's jealousy.

Libby had rummaged through my shopping bags while in the minivan, and she handed over the pregnancy test.

“Now?” I asked.

“Why wait?”

“Maybe I should do it in the privacy of my own home.”

“Nonsense.” Libby saw my fear, and she said, “If the news is negative, wouldn't you rather be with your sisters instead of home alone to wallow in disappointment? Go take the test now, Nora. We'll cope with the results, no matter what they are.”

With mixed feelings, I headed into the ladies' room of the Rusty Sabre.

I opened the box with trembling fingers. The Rusty Sabre had been the setting of many a Blackbird family turning point. My sisters and I had wept over our dead husbands here. We had discussed Libby's election to the presidency of the Erotic Yoga Society and Emma's opportunity to train with the Olympic Grand Prix team. I'd broken the news to them of my decision to sell a couple of ancestral acres of Blackbird Farm to a stranger named Michael Abruzzo. We had engaged in petty squabbles and made monumental decisions here.

I could barely get my eyes to focus as I read the directions on the box.

I took the test.

Within a few minutes, I returned to the table. Libby and Emma turned their faces to me. Even Max looked up with anticipation.

“Well?” Emma demanded, holding her son awkwardly.

“Oh, Nora,” Libby said, seeing my tears.

I wobbled into my chair and took a deep breath.

“It's positive. We're having a baby.”

Emma cheered. Libby squealed and leaped to her feet. She did a little fertility dance, then hurried around the table to hug me. Max burst into wails of jealousy. I saw stars and felt the universe at long last tilting in my direction.

The waiter brought champagne.

“I took the liberty of ordering it,” Libby explained as the waiter filled glasses. “Either way, we were going to need it. You can have a sip, Nora. Go ahead. If you can go tearing around the farmers' market without endangering your unborn child, you can certainly withstand a sip of champagne.”

We toasted the newest member of the family, and I ate an enormous, satisfying lunch—­even stealing a couple of French fries from Emma's plate—­and didn't care what my waistline was going to look like at tomorrow night's gala. We babbled and made plans and talked about my due date and whether or not it's best to find out the sex of a baby before it's born or at the moment of delivery. And I don't know when I'd been happier. Sharing the moment with my sisters was the right thing to do.

I'd have another kind of moment with Michael later.

Over dessert—­one apple crumble with ice cream that we shared—­Libby had taken possession of Noah again, but she turned to Emma. “Who was on the phone when we arrived?”

Emma took time to finish her champagne before answering. “Hart.”

Libby and I put down our forks, suddenly all ears.

“Well?”

She avoided our attentive gazes. “Things are still up in the air with him.”

“What does that mean?” Libby demanded.

“Penny's family staged an intervention. She agreed to treatment for the pill thing. So he's taking her to a rehab place this weekend. He has to stay a couple of days, too. It's part of the program.”

Libby held Noah protectively close. “What about their child?”

Emma took a deep breath. “Look, you guys, I can't handle this. Hart says Noah can go into foster care where he'll be well—”

“No!” I cried. “Can't someone in Penny's family take him?”

Emma shook her head. “Not an option. This weekend, they have plans to go to Paris.”

Libby said a rude word.

I reached and grasped my sister's hand. “You can do this, Em. You can take care of him.”

She shook her head firmly. “I can't. What's more? I don't want to. I gave him up for a lot of reasons, and I'm not going to change my mind.”

“But—”

“I mean it, Nora. I'm not turning into Nanny McPhee with the wave of a magic wand. I'll provide his milk. But that's as far as I'm willing to go. Help me out here, will you?”

Emma asked for help . . . well, never. She had a stubborn set to her face, but there was something trembling underneath that expression.

Into the tense silence that followed, Libby said, “I'll look after him this weekend. I have a sitter coming tomorrow night for the Farm-­to-­Table dinner, and she's excellent—­completely capable and trustworthy. The rest of the weekend, I'll be in charge. We'll have fun, won't we, Noah?” She held up the baby and smiled into his sleeping face.

Max let out a squawk of objection.

Emma was frowning at the baby. “He finally fell asleep.”

“He's had a busy day,” Libby said.

“Thing is,” Emma said, “he normally sleeps all the time. Really, I don't know when I've seen him awake since he was born.”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

“Well, Penny takes all those pills. Do you suppose she . . . slips Noah something, too? To keep him quiet?”

Libby and I recoiled with horror.

“Maybe I'm imagining it,” Emma said quickly. “It's just weird seeing him so awake.”

Libby vowed to take good care of him over the weekend. Then she dropped me at Blackbird Farm and gave me a joyous kiss. Emma even gave me a hug and congratulated me before taking off in her truck.

I noted the arrival of new members of the wiseguy patrol. The one on the porch—­an older gentleman in a tracksuit very much like Libby's, minus the T-shirt—­even tipped his invisible hat and gave me a smile that revealed two gold-­capped teeth. I shook his hand and introduced myself.

“Yeah,” he said. “The boss said to make sure you're okay, Mrs. Boss.”

“What's your name?” I asked.

He grinned even wider. “I'm Road Kill. But you can call me Rocco.”

“I will,” I said. “Thank you, Rocco.”

“There was a kid here earlier, driving a rental. He tried to get through the guys. Almost ran over Jimbo.”

“My God, is anyone hurt?”

“Naw, kid hit the fence instead, bashed up his car but good.”

Porky, I thought. “Did you speak with him?”

Rocco wagged his head. “He jammed the car into reverse, almost hit the mailbox and peeled out of here fast. Don't know what his problem was. He comes back, though, we'll take care of him.”

“Call for the police,” I advised.

“Yeah, maybe.” Rocco flashed his gold teeth again.

It was some comfort knowing that the terms of Michael's parole included no association with any convicted criminal. I could trust that the crew was made up of relatively upstanding citizens. Sort of. I went upstairs. Feeling safe and wonderfully pregnant, I fell across the bed and dropped into the deepest, most peaceful sleep I had ever experienced.

I woke up at six when the phone rang.

Cannoli told me with regret that the police would be keeping Michael overnight.

Resigned to spending the night alone, I made myself a slice of peanut butter toast for dinner and went back upstairs to bed. I thought I might be able to read for a few hours—­my book club would meet in a week, and I hadn't made a dent in the book yet—­but my pillow called again.

In the middle of the night, I woke when the phone rang. I rolled over and fumbled for it on the bedside table. “Michael?”

A male voice said, “I need to talk to Zephyr.”

“What? Who is this?” I couldn't quite drag myself into full wakefulness. I groped for the switch on the lamp.

“Put Zephyr on the phone. I know she's there, yo.”

“Porky?”

“I have to talk to her,” he insisted, adding a few curses.

“I'm sorry, but she's not here. She left yesterday. I don't know where she went. The police are looking for her.”