Murder and Marinara (29 page)

Read on for a sneak peek

at the next Italian Kitchen Mystery,

 

The Wedding Soup Murder

 

Coming in summer 2014 from Obsidian.

“W
hat are you doing in here, Vic?” The deep, familiar tones of my ex's voice still had the power to set my heart pounding. But I didn't look up.

“What does it look like I'm doing, Tim?” I released the scoop, gently dropping the thirteenth meatball onto the sheet pan. That left a mere 987 to go. At the rate I was going, I'd be spending my thirty-fourth birthday in the Casa Lido kitchen, still scooping ground meat from this bottomless aluminum bowl.

He stood with his hands on his hips, frowning. “Who said you could make the meatballs?”

“I'm not
making
them.” I tried to keep the impatience out of my tone. “I'm forming them.” I held up the scoop, covered in flecks of raw meat. “Nando mixed them up.”

“Good.” Tim strode over to the stockpots, lifted the lid of the nearest one, and sniffed. Then he stuck a spoon into it, blew on it, slurped its contents noisily, and nodded. He pointed the spoon at me. “You didn't make this stock.”

I slammed the scoop down on the worktable. “No, I didn't make the stock. My grandmother started it and Nando finished it.” I gestured to the slow simmering pots. “But it will probably be my job to pick every piece of edible chicken from those bones, right after I finish making—sorry,
forming
—a thousand tiny meatballs for the Wedding Soup.” I imagined tray after tray of meatballs, lined up until the crack of doom, and shook my head. “It's like some mythological punishment Nonna dreamed up.”

“You wanted to learn the business.” His voice was terse. “That's why you came back, wasn't it? I mean, it sure wasn't for me.”

I tried to concentrate on the task in front of me. I had to make these quickly, while the meat was still cold. Aside from health reasons, if the ground beef, pork, and veal mixture sat out too long, I'd get misshapen
polpetti.
And then there would be hell to pay, extracted by my eightyish, but still formidable, grandmother.

But even fear of my nonna wasn't enough to take my mind from Tim's powerful presence a few feet from my elbow. I'd come back to Oceanside Park to learn the family business and research a new book, a departure from my mystery series. Instead, I'd stumbled into a murder and briefly back into Tim's arms. But my role in its outcome had left him furious with me. I glanced up and met his cold gray stare.

“Yes,” I said, “that's why I came back.” It was only a partial truth, and we both knew it. I've been in love with Tim Trouvare for more than half my life, and trying to push away those feelings was about as easy as fighting a riptide. “Look, Tim, I'm sorry about the way things turned out in May. But it could have been much worse.”

“Right,” he said. “I could have been arrested for murder.”

“Can't we just get past this?”

“Oh, I'm past it, sweetheart.” He patted me on the shoulder, and I jumped. “I'm past it all.” And with that, he swept through the kitchen's swinging door.

“Ohhhh-kay.” I stuck the scoop back into the meat and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. I could only work in two-hour intervals, as Nonna was strict about how long the meat could stay unrefrigerated. I looked down at the raw mixture, catching whiffs of fresh parsley and garlic. Once the stock was skimmed and strained, it would be brought to a simmer, and the
polpetti
would be quickly dropped in to cook. But that was only the last step of the process. There was still the escarole to be cleaned and blanched, another job that would likely fall to me. And the whole thing had to be done in stages. I dropped another meatball onto the sheet pan and counted. Again.

As a favor to an old friend of my dad's, we'd agreed to make our special Wedding Soup for his daughter's reception. With two hundred guests, we needed God knows how many gallons of soup. My grandmother had specified five meatballs per bowl—hence the thousand count. But while we could make the stock ahead of time, we needed to complete the last steps at the reception just before serving. That meant making up all the meatballs and freezing them. Prepping the stock and greens. And transporting all of it to the Belmont Beach Country Club a couple of hours before the service. And Nonna had put me in charge.

“You wanted more responsibility,” she'd said with a shrug. “So now you're responsible.”

“But, Nonna,” I told her, “Belmont probably has its own staff. But you know Chef Massimo—he'll want to oversee the prep and service. And we'll never keep Tim out of there. How will we do this with two kitchen staffs butting heads?” The panic rose in me as I imagined all those culinary egos clashing in one small space. “Can't we just make it here and drop it off?”

“No.” She crossed her arms, frowning over the top of her glasses. “The
polpetti
and greens must be cooked just before service.” She shook a knobby finger at me. “Not one moment sooner.”

I could still hear her voice in my ears as I shook out the last tiny meatball. At fifty per tray, I'd need twenty sheet pans. Each would have to be double-wrapped in plastic and set carefully into the freezer. How would we get it all there? How many trips in my little Honda would it take? Not to mention the soup itself—how would we transport all those gallons of chicken stock down Ocean Avenue?

“Good Lord,” I said, staring down at the tray of tiny pink spheres. “How did I get myself into this? If I never see another meatball again, it will be too soon.”

But as it turned out, meatballs were the least of my troubles.

•   •   •

“Now, darling,” my mom said, fluttering around me in the Casa Lido kitchen like a stiletto-wearing butterfly. “When you go over there, make sure you clear everything with Elizabeth Merriman. She's very particular about how things are done.” Mom smoothed the collar of my cotton blouse. “Would you like me to give this a quick press before you go? It is the Belmont Beach Country Club, after all.”

I looked into my mother's freshly bronzed face. Her long curls, now a purple-tinted auburn, brushed her shoulders, bared slightly by her lime green boat-neck top. The combination of colors was blinding. “Mom, I'm fine. I'll be spending most of my time in a hot kitchen. Once that soup is made and served, I'll be hightailing it out of there.”

“No, you won't.” Like an avenging ghost, my grandmother materialized out of nowhere, pronouncing her words with a finality that sealed my fate. And whatever it was, it wouldn't be pleasant. But it was a price I was willing to pay. I'd even left my apartment in Manhattan to come back to the Jersey Shore so I could spend a year learning about our restaurant business. But thus far, things hadn't quite turned out as I'd planned.

“You will stay until the end of the reception,” Nonna said, setting a tray of cookies down on the butcher-block worktable. I stared at the pale, plump pillows with golden brown edges, each perfectly formed. The licorice scent of anise wafted upward, pulling my hand toward the tray like a magnet. And then the sound of my grandmother's slap resounded across the kitchen.

“Hey!” I rubbed the back of my hand. “Why can't I have one? You know your ricotta cookies are my favorites.”

“They are for the reception. You'll put these out on the dessert table.” She crossed her arms, pressing her lips together in a tight red line of warning. It was a line I knew better than to cross.

Waiting for the dessert service meant I'd be stuck at that wedding all night. I'd hoped to be back at my cottage and at my computer by seven to put in a couple of hours of work on my novel.

“But why?” I wailed, sounding like the ten-year-old who'd helped my grandmother set tables in the restaurant more than two decades ago. “Aren't they having some overloaded Venetian table filled with cannoli and eclairs and napoleons? Do they really
need
more cookies?” The second the words dropped from my mouth, I realized how foolish they were. This was an Italian wedding, after all. We always need more cookies. Then a sense of dread overcame me like fog over the ocean. “Nonna,” I said slowly, “these aren't iced.”

“Of course they aren't. You'll ice and decorate them two hours before service, not a minute before or after.” She produced a plastic container of what looked like silver BBs. “One teaspoon of icing per cookie and three nonpareils on top. No more, no less.”

My mouth gaped open like one of my brother Danny's fresh-caught tuna. “I . . . but . . .”

“‘But' nothing, Victoria.” Nonna glared at me from behind her bifocals. I turned an imploring look upon my mother.

“Now, Mama,” my mom said. “We can prep these ahead, don't you think?”

Nonna turned her stony gaze on my mom, who despite forty years' acquaintance with her mother-in-law, still flinched. “Nic-o-lina.” My grandmother pronounced each syllable separately and crisply, a sure sign of danger. “The Casa Lido has a reputation to uphold,” she said. “I will not be sending out dry cookies that are imperfectly iced.” Nonna trained her laser beam stare back on me. “Especially after what happened in May.”

St. Francis, give me patience
, I prayed. “Nonna,” I said gently, “what happened in May was no one's fault.” But I knew that on some level, she held me responsible. “And we've recovered.”

“Thank God,” my mom said. “In any case, Mama, can you really expect Victoria to make all that icing as well as oversee the soup service at the club? It seems like an awful lot to ask.”

“No. Tim will make the icing.” My grandmother's tight lips curved into either a smile or a sneer. With her it was hard to tell. But Tim had been in her bad graces ever since that little mishap in the pantry, and this was her version of revenge. Tim saw himself as an up-and-coming chef de cuisine, not an assistant baker. It was bad enough we'd have to work together all night, but now he'd be in a fouler mood than usual.

I exchanged a look with my mom, who gave a small shake of her auburn extensions that spelled it out for me: Give it up.

“Okay,” I said. “So fill me in on how all this is going to work.”

My grandmother rested her palms on the worktable in a war room pose. Any minute now she'd get out a wall map and pushpins. “All right,” she said. “The
polpetti
will remain in the freezer until the moment we are ready to load the van. The stockpots are sealed. The escarole is prepped. Both are in the walk-in. Nando will load the van and drive; Chef Massimo will follow. You will take Tim in your car.”

Just what I needed. Forty minutes alone in the car with my ex-boyfriend.

“And when we get there?”

“By all the saints, have we not gone over this?” My grandmother shook her head at my obtuseness. “ You set the stock to simmer, adding the greens in bunches. At the very last, you add the
polpetti
, and you cook them only until they are no longer pink inside. Understand?” She spread her fingers wide. “And when you plate, only five meatballs per bowl. As for the cookies—”

“I know: Ice before service and only three silver balls per cookie. I get it.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Remember that you are representing the Casa Lido, Victoria.”

“I will, Nonna. Speaking of which, what about our service here tonight?”

“Nando will drive back for prep, and Massimo will return after the soup is served at the reception. You and Tim will stay for the dessert service and bring back our stockpots.”

“I probably have to wash them, too,” I muttered.

“What was that, Victoria?” my grandmother asked sharply.

“Nothing, Nonna,” I said with a loud sigh. It was the first of many to come.