The Wedding Soup Murder: An Italian Kitchen Mystery (12 page)

“S
he tried to kill herself?”
And if she tried it then, might she have tried it now?

My grandmother nodded. “One night, not long after we got the news about Tommy, I was walking home from the restaurant, on the boardwalk side.” She shook her head. “It was May, but still windy and chilly. And you know the rock jetty down by the fishermen’s beach?”

My head moved in a mechanical nod. I knew what she was about to say.
“You saw her standing out there, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” She took another sip of water. “At first I couldn’t tell who it was, but I could see her blond hair. I ran out on to the beach and climbed the jetty. I could tell she was thinking about jumping.”

My grandmother’s words were like tiny lights illuminating my dark, cluttered brain. If Merriman had been murdered, did the killer know about her past? Was it poetic irony or coincidence that Merriman met her end, more than sixty years later, on a beach? I imagined the young Elizabeth poised to jump into the
sea. How terrified—and how desperate—she must have been. “And you stopped her.”

“I grabbed her by the arm. I told her what she was doing was a sin. Taking two lives.” She stopped, shook her head, and stood up abruptly. She cleared our coffee cups and water glasses, pausing at the sink. I sat tensely, waiting for her to finish.

“By then Elisabetta was showing, but to most people she just looked like she had gained weight. But it wouldn’t be long before everybody knew.” She looked at me, her eyes sad and serious behind her glasses. “It was different in those days.”

“I know. What did you do?”

“I talked her out of it and dragged her home with me. Mama called her parents, said she was staying with us for the night. And that’s when your great-grandmother came up with a plan.” Her voice hardened, and she moved her water glass to one side, studied the pattern in the tablecloth. This part of the story was clearly troubling to her. I took a chance and spoke.

“What was the plan, Nonna?”

My grandmother, who is not the dramatic type, released a sigh worthy of my mother. “Your great-grandma told Elisabetta’s mother that our cousin in Atlantic City needed help running her boardinghouse for the summer season. This cousin was looking for reliable girls to clean the rooms.”

“Was that true? Did you have a cousin with a boardinghouse in Atlantic City?”

“Yes, my mother’s cousin Antoinette; she asked
every summer for me to come. But they could never spare me at the restaurant.”

“Until that summer.”

“Yes.” She smoothed out a spot on the tablecloth. “I didn’t want to go, but it would work only if I went along. I would go to the boardinghouse, and Elisabetta would go to a charity home for pregnant girls. She would learn some skills there, and when the time came, have her baby.”

“And Elisabetta’s parents let her go? Even the father?”

“Like so many families in that neighborhood, Elisabetta’s parents were poor. They saw a chance to have some money come in.”

“But she wasn’t working.”

“No, she wasn’t. But I was.” She looked out the window again.

“Oh, Nonna—did your money go to
her
family? That’s so unfair.”

In a rare gesture of affection, she put her hand over mine. “Victoria, it was different then. It was, I guess, like a duty to help your
paesani
, those who came from your country. My family was doing well. We had the restaurant; her family had nothing. Those people would never have let her go to Atlantic City alone. It was the only way.”

I tried to imagine myself at nineteen, away from home, away from my friends, working a whole summer for somebody else. “Still, Nonna, it was a lot to ask of a young girl.”

She nodded. “It was, but my mama felt strongly
that this baby deserved a chance at life, and, for that matter, so did Elisabetta.”

“You saved her life twice, you know.” I felt a sudden surge of anger at Elizabeth Merriman. Had she understood what my grandmother had done for her? What my great-grandmother had done? Had she known what she owed my family? The life she ended up with—a life of privilege and power—was in no small measure due to the sacrifice of these two women. “So, you went there together,” I said. “And she had her baby?”

She nodded. “That August. The charity home arranged for an adoption.”

“She gave the baby up?” As I spoke, my anger at Elizabeth faded.

“Yes. But of course she didn’t know where the baby ended up. It was all a secret in those days.”

But it’s not secret now,
I thought. “What about Tommy’s family? Did they know they had a grandchild?”

“I don’t know. When Elisabetta got back on that bus with me to come home, she was dead silent. I tried to ask her questions, but she wouldn’t answer me.”

“Do you know if the baby was a boy or a girl? Did it have a name?”

Nonna shook her head. “She said only one thing about the child: that it had Tommy’s beautiful blue eyes. And then she cried. But once she wiped her eyes, I never saw her cry again.”

“Did you stay in touch?”

My grandmother snorted. “She avoided me like the
plague. Once she was working for her husband, she pretended she didn’t know me.”

“How awful.”

“Not really, Victoria. I knew her secret. In her mind, that gave me power to hurt her.” She pushed away from the table and brought her glass to the sink. “I’ve kept this secret for more than sixty years,” she said. “And now she’s dead, it’s a relief to tell it.”

“Thank you for trusting me with this.”

“So now I’ve told you, and I hope it wasn’t a mistake. I don’t see how what happened all those years ago will make a difference or help Chickie Natale. As far as I’m concerned, that one caused his own problems.” She fixed her eyes on mine. “Did someone kill Elisabetta?”

“I think so, Nonna. And I think that’s what the police believe, too.”

She nodded, crossed herself, and slipped the memorial card back into her apron pocket.

I left my grandmother with the promise that I would tell Elizabeth’s story only if I had to. On the way back to the restaurant, my mind spun faster than the wheels of my bike. What my grandmother said was true—in the 1950s, Elizabeth would have no way of knowing who had adopted her child. But things had changed in the intervening years. I knew little about adoption laws (
note to self: put Sofia on this one
) but it was much easier now for adopted children to find their birth parents. Elisabetta’s baby would be about sixty years old now. And if it could be proven that he or she was her
natural child, that person would stand to inherit a fortune. And that raised a question so obvious it should have been framed in blinking neon lights: Was Jack Toscano Elizabeth Merriman’s long lost son?

“Wow.” Sofia let out a long breath on that one syllable. “That is some story.”

We were sitting in Sofia’s office at the back of the dance studio; we’d each finished our workdays and had our sore feet propped on either side of her desk.

A water bottle and an open container of yogurt sat in front of her. “She must have been terrified.” Sofia said. “And desperate.”

“Those were exactly the words that came to my mind. But I’m still shocked that Nonna ended up with that responsibility.” I shook my head. “And it makes me furious at Merriman.”

“But to have to give up her baby, Vic,” she said softly. “How awful.”

“I know. But young Elisabetta and the adult Elizabeth Merriman seem to be two distinct people.”

Sofia pointed her yogurt spoon at me. “
You
see her that way, and that’s a mistake. She’s both the scared pregnant teenager and the miserable old lady. The question is: Which of them is the one this case turns on?”

“You’re right, and I think once we figure that out, we’ll have a better idea of who wanted her dead.”

“But do you really think that Elizabeth Merriman’s long-lost kid showed up and shoved her over that seawall to collect an inheritance?” She shook her head.
“I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around that one.”

“C’mon, Sofe. You’re usually the skeptic.”

“I don’t know, Vic. To kill your own mother for money?”

“Okay, do you read the paper? It happens all the time. It’s horrible, but there it is. People might do anything where that much money’s involved. Danny even said that about Dr. Chickie.”

At the mention of my brother’s name, a pained look appeared on Sofia’s face. I held up my hand. “I’m not trying to introduce the subject of Danny. Really.”

“I know.” She looked sad for a moment, then straightened up in her chair and rapped on the folder. “Right now we have things other than my personal life to take care of.” She grabbed a pencil and a legal pad. “First,” she said, “we need to find out the name of that charity hospital. Was it
in
Atlantic City?”

“Nonna was a bit vague on that point. But what good would it do to find out about that hospital? It probably closed years ago, and will we be able get our hands on sixty-year-old medical records?”

“I was thinking there might be somebody who worked there who would remember Elizabeth.”

“They’d be over ninety. At the very least,” I said.

But Sofia was stubborn. “I still say it’s a place to start.” She thought for a moment. “I can’t shake the feeling that this case has deep roots. Even if I could imagine Dr. Chickie as a murderer, which I can’t, his involvement with Merriman is too recent. I think that the reason she was killed goes way back.”

“I agree. How far back? Back to Elisabetta Caprio, pregnant with Tommy Romano’s baby? Back to the widowed CEO who reinvents herself as a country-club matron? Or back six months, to the day Jack Toscano showed up in Belmont Beach?”

Sofia’s head snapped up. “He’s the right age, isn’t he? What color are his eyes?”

“I’ve never seen them.” My mouth opened ever so slowly as the light dawned. “The dark glasses. Oh my God, he said he’d had surgery,
eye
surgery. Merriman had bad eyes. Can you inherit eye conditions?”

Sofia was writing furiously. “I think so. Something else to look up.” She stopped writing, but still gripped her pencil. “Hey, how old did you say the crazy pastry chef was?”

“Kate Bridges? I don’t know exactly. She looked maybe late fifties or so. It was hard to tell with all the makeup.” I flashed on Kate’s painted face, remembered the dark brows and false eyelashes—and something else, as well. “Her eyes are blue, Sofe.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“But having the same eye color can be coincidental, and it doesn’t necessarily prove anything. The baby’s eye color might have changed, and, unfortunately, we can’t go around snipping people’s hair or swabbing their spit for DNA tests.”

“Too bad.”

I grinned at Sofia. “I could just see you with a pair of scissors and ziplock bags, sneaking up behind our suspects.”

She pointed her pencil at me. “Hey, don’t give me
ideas.” She stopped to take a small spoonful of yogurt and a sip of water, but it was an effort for her. She seemed thinner to me, and she still lacked her usual healthy color.

“You still feeling crappy?” I asked.

She nodded. “The heat’s been messing with my appetite.” She looked away from me, her glance falling on the red folder. “Oh my gosh. I almost forgot this.” She pulled a sheet from the folder and handed it to me. “The story about Elizabeth knocked everything else out of my head. Do you recognize him?”

I was holding a mug shot of a long-haired bearded man of about thirty. It wasn’t a particularly intelligent face; he was sporting a purple shiner on one eye and an expression of hurt surprise. He’d been arrested for assault in 2010. I handed the paper back. “It’s none other than Dennis Doyle, the happy bridegroom. And it also explains something Brenda Natale said the night of the wedding—that Dennis had some trouble a couple of years ago.”

“So, what do you think?” Sofia asked.

“Are you asking if it’s important that he’s got a record? I’m not sure. He struck me as a great big teddy bear. Roberta leads him around by the nose.”

She tapped the mug shot. “But he was arrested for assault. That means he’s got a history of violence.”

“But I’d like to know if there was a conviction. What were the circumstances?” I made a note to ask Danny, but whether he would check on it for me was a crapshoot. “He’s got a black eye in the mug shot, so maybe he was defending himself.”

“Maybe. But we can’t ignore the simple fact that a guy with an assault record was on the scene of a murder.”

“True. And he
did
make a
point to tell me that he and his in-laws left that reception at eleven thirty. He claimed that Elizabeth was still in her office when they pulled out of the parking lot. But Sally the bartender said she saw Dr. Chickie at eleven forty-five.”

“Now, that’s interesting. Did he lie? Or was he confused about the time?” She looked at the mug shot again. “Dennis has blue eyes, Vic.”

“Too young to be her son.”

Sofia threw me a
do you really think I’m that stupid?
look. “I was thinking grandson, Vic. What if he tracked her down and knew she was rich?”

“But that would mean that one of Dennis’s parents is the missing child.”

“Exactly,” Sofia said. “I wonder if one of them was adopted.”

Then I remembered something. “I don’t know about that, but Brenda did mention that the dad is dead. I’m not sure if that’s significant or not.”

“Hmm. It might be,” Sofia said. “Let’s say the Doyle father
is
Elizabeth’s kid. Maybe he never tried to find his birth mother. Or he knew about her but didn’t want to see her. But Dennis is curious, and once his dad passes, he does a little investigating himself. Don’t you see, Vic? Losing his father might have prompted him to find out more about his history.”

“Possibly. But this is all based on assumptions: The Doyle father is the missing child. Dennis Doyle is
violent enough to kill an old lady. He has a wedding reception in the very club his biological grandmother presides over. He sees an opportunity to get rich and leads his own grandmother down the beach path to her death. Then he gives himself an alibi for eleven thirty.”

“But this could all be true!” Sofia insisted.

“Maybe.”

“Okay, how do you explain the blue eyes? I don’t know a whole lot about genetics, but I do know that blue eyes aren’t as common as brown. Yet we’ve got a blue-eyed victim, and at least two people—Kate Bridges and Doyle—both with blue eyes and both on the scene. If Toscano’s eyes are blue, he makes a third.”

I shook my head. “It’s still all supposition. And wild guesses.”

Sofia slapped her palm down on the desk. “And that’s how we’ll eventually get to the truth—by taking crazy guesses. Can we really ignore Dennis Doyle’s arrest or the color of his eyes?”

“No. But we need more information.”

“Exactly. So you’ll talk to Dennis?”

It’s not like I hadn’t seen this coming. “Oh, sure, Sofe. And I know just what I’ll ask him. ‘Hey, Dennis, can you fill me in on that assault arrest? Is one of your parents adopted? Oh, and did you shove Elizabeth Merriman off a two-story platform?’ That’ll be a fruitful interview.”

“So maybe you won’t talk to Dennis. But what about Mrs. Natale? You can go there with the excuse you’re helping Dr. Chickie.”

“By accusing her son-in-law of murder? How is that helping?”

She patted my hand. “I trust you to be subtle.”

“Well, I guess it couldn’t hurt to talk to her. She might be disposed to talk about Dennis’s family. And his ‘trouble,’” I said. I also might learn about the relationship between Dennis and his new father-in-law. Was it possible that he could have killed Elizabeth to protect Dr. Chickie? Without a father himself, he might have grown close to his father-in-law. Or maybe his motives weren’t so pure. Maybe he didn’t like the idea of his name being linked to that of an accused embezzler, and decided to eliminate the accuser.

But before I could tell Sofia, she stood up abruptly, her face deathly pale. She swallowed hard and held up a finger. “Excuse me. Be right back,” she said, and hurried out of her office toward the bathroom. I gave her a minute and then followed. Outside the door, I heard retching sounds. Feeling sneaky and dishonest, I pressed my ear to it, heard the toilet flush, water running in the sink, then a soft sound that might have been crying. My own stomach lurched in sympathy.

“Sofie, you okay?” I finally called, but she didn’t answer.
The hell with privacy,
I thought, and pushed open the door. She was brushing her teeth gingerly, as though she didn’t want to gag. She rinsed her mouth and looked over at me. “Are you okay?” I asked again.

She nodded, but she was still pale. She straightened up, gripping the sides of the sink. “Just in case you’re wondering, I don’t have an eating disorder.”

“I know that.” I put my hand on her shoulder. “You look like crap. And you’re not the type. Are you sick?”

Sofia turned her face to me; there were circles under her eyes and her face was drawn. But there was a ghost of a grin on her face. “You’re a little slow on the uptake there, detective.”

“Oh my God!” My hand flew to my mouth. “You’re not—”

Sofia pushed a strand of hair off her sweaty forehead, looked me straight in the eye, and nodded slowly. “I am.”