She sat up as straight as she could. "I did. I really don"t pay too much attention to other people. They don"t interest me, and I"m far too busy for that."
Busy Dumpster diving? "What do you do?" I asked, hoping I didn"t sound too baffled.
"I"m writing a book on the origins of consciousness. I work at night."
I digested this bit of news. "So," I said, bringing the conversation back around to something I could actually talk about, "can you describe this woman who wasn"t my grandmother?"
"Same height, same weight, same age."
Biting back a critique of Akahana"s descriptive skills, I pulled out my phone and tapped to the pictures I had snapped during the tarantella. So as not to prejudice the witness, I showed her one of Vera. Akahana gave a tight shake of her head. "Not her." I showed her one of Paulette. She seemed to pause and consider. "Too short." I showed her one of Dana. "Not her."
When I showed her one of Alma Toscano, Akahana"s face went flat and her hands went very still. After a few seconds, she said, "That one."
Alma. Maria Pia"s old friend, Our Lady of Reduced Circ.u.mstances. But why?
I thanked Akahana and shook her hand. She promised me she"d talk to the cops, but only if they came to her, and she handed me a business card: Akahana Takei, PhD, Cognitive Anthropology. Three different phone numbers, two different email addresses, a website, and an address on West Fourth Street in Quaker Hills. I promised her a plate of my fritto misto di pesce the very next time I made it.
I found myself half running back to Miracolo. At the last Free Maria Pia meeting at Joe"s place, Alma had jumped right in to research Max Scotti"s past, maybe figuring she could fudge the info and lead us all away from the truth. But she hadn"t called the dead guy "Max." She called him Maximiliano.
At the time I"d thought how funny it sounded, coming from the lips of flyaway old Alma, who probably never went anywhere more exotic than a local c.r.a.p-for-crafts outlet. But it was easy not to see any further than the one, narrow little way I knew her. It was easy to overlook whatever else-about anyone-just didn"t seem to apply.
What had happened to her husband? Did she have children? Where did she used to live before whatever disaster befell her, and she moved to low-income housing and took a waitressing job at her old friend Maria Pia"s place, where she could barely keep up? To me she was just Alma, with her mini-malistic grooming and air of carrying a crushing burden that had nothing to do with platters of fine northern Italian food.
But somehow she had known the name Maximiliano. If she hadn"t heard it that morning at Joe"s, then that meant she knew the man. And if she knew the man, the question that was making me shudder was whether she had killed him.
But how was I going to figure that out?
Slipping around to the back of Miracolo, where groups of drunk, dancing customers and dancers were showing off for the local TV cameras, I tried to remember how we"d talked about Mather, which was the first time we learned his real name. Dana had reported to the group that she and Patrick had known him as a financial adviser, and that his name was Scotti. But did she say Max? Or Maximiliano?
Inside the double doors, I managed to get Joe"s attention and pointed at Dana, who was clearly having a great old time in front of the camera. He whispered in her ear, and, amazingly, she tore herself away and headed right toward me. I could tell from her pumped-up expression that Festa della Repubblica would, in her mind, forever be known as her Triumphant Return. I had her complete attention for maybe the next five minutes.
I guided her into the back hall and gripped her upper arms. "Dana, that morning at Joe"s. You know, the Free Maria Pia meeting?"
She nodded, radiating helpfulness.
"You reported on Max Scotti as a financial adviser you and Patrick had known, right?"
"Right." She blinked, distracted.
"Well, how did you refer to him?"
"What do you mean?" she asked with a frown.
I was dimming her Triumphant Return with these imponderables.
"Did you call him Maximiliano?"
She laughed, laying a hand on my arm. "Why would I call him that?"
Was I slow on the uptake? "Because it was his name?"
Dana smiled. "I called him Max. That"s the only name I ever heard for him. It"s how he introduced himself."
I stepped back. "Are you absolutely sure, Dana?"
She smoothed my hair. "Yes, darling, I"m sure. Now I"ve got to get back to my interview." And she was gone.
One last little thread . . .
I put a call through to Maid for You and got Marvin. Once I rea.s.sured him that I wasn"t calling to cancel tonight"s cleaning service, and that I had no complaints about any of the maids-not him, not Buddy, and not Derek-then he relaxed and listened to what I had to say. My question made him need to consult his booking ledger, and I heard him thumbing through the pages.
"Miracolo, Miracolo, Miracolo," he muttered, p.r.o.nouncing it "Mira Cola." He finally found the booking for the Monday night before the murder. Marvin himself had been on the job. And no, nothing unusual to report. No silver bracelet in the dining room. No cake decorations or silver studs on the kitchen floor. He was absolutely sure, because he had taken the opportunity to try out his new shop vac and was pleased to report that it could suck up Yankee Stadium if he pointed it in the right direction. I thanked him and hung up.
So the kitchen floor was clean by the morning of the murder.
Which meant that Alma"s shoes hadn"t shed their studs until the time when she came in behind Arlen Mather, picked up our black marble mortar-my heart started pounding-and bashed in his head.
But was it enough for the police? There was Akahana"s identification . . . there were the silver studs on the kitchen floor. I could dig for the link between Alma Toscano and Max Scotti, but wouldn"t it still seem circ.u.mstantial? I needed more evidence, something so strong that it would trump whatever the cops had on Nonna.
It was time to call in some help.
Joe listened to me without saying a word while I laid it all out for him in Miracolo"s office. The testimony of Akahana, Marvin, and Dana. The evidence of the silver studs at the crime scene. Then whatever we could dig up about Alma"s connection to Max Scotti, except that might take some time-and Maria Pia was due to be arraigned in the morning. I started pacing, which didn"t seem to help Joe"s thinking.
The noise in the dining room suddenly started to become more distant, so we looked out the double-door windows into the nearly empty dining room. Going through to the front door, we watched Choo Choo and his flag disappear up the street in a crowd of customers fervidly singing the Italian national anthem with grappas in hand. Landon skipped along by Jonathan. Leo, the regular mandolin player, was at the front of the mob with a concertina. It was the barricade scene from Les Mis, but with a whole lot of alcohol and no particular ideals.
And then I heard the sirens.
Suddenly Joe turned to me. "What we need," he said urgently, "is a confession."
The perfect plan. We quickly plotted, and at the end of thirty seconds we each had our jobs in the sting operation. Joe went off to take care of his, which had something to do with Paulette and whoever turned up in the police cruiser.
I dashed back inside, past the few people still in the dining room. Mrs. Crawford, lost in a jazz riff. Paulette, standing in the open front doorway, watching the spectacle. Li Wei, in a tarantella trance despite the lack of music. A few elderly patrons tucking in to their tiramisu. And Alma Toscano, just sitting there.
Time to get ready. Operation Nab Alma was up and running.
I went into the kitchen and grabbed one of our gla.s.s dessert plates, then darted into the storeroom for a couple of clean white napkins, and the key item-the closest thing to thumbscrews for Alma that we could improvise. I ripped off my tarantella ap.r.o.n and hair comb and stashed them on a shelf.
I took two minutes to collect myself, doing some deep breathing and watching the second hand make its way around the face of my watch. When I was as collected as I was going to get, I slipped a jacket over my dress and, props in hand, went out to the courtyard to wait.
I only hoped Joe had done his job.
By prearrangement, I took a seat at the black wrought-iron table closest to the compost bin. The votive candle was burning low, but there were two tiki lights doing the job nearby. I set the gla.s.s plate, which I had covered with one napkin, in front of me, then set down the other napkin. Then Joe ran toward me along the side of Miracolo, pulled a chair closer to me and sat, setting down a bottle of beer and a couple of pistachio biscotti.
"Everything in place?" I asked him in a low voice.
"I think so."
Even though we were at the very back of the courtyard, I could still hear the commotion out on the street. Police flashers strobed through the side yard, and a bullhorn crackled.
The response was a swell of laughter.
I was strangely calm, my mind going back to the night when I had met Joe at this very spot, startling him as he balanced on the rim of the compost bin.
When I reminded him, and we were both picturing the moment he fell in, he winced.
"Ah, Kayla," I said heavily.
"It was nothing," he said, looking straight ahead.
I gave him a sidelong look. "Then it was nothing for three days."
"Three nights," he corrected.
"Ah-Kayla," I said.
"Why do you keep saying that?" Joe asked.
I shot him a pained look. "Because she just went by out front, waving Choo Choo"s flag."
He grunted. "I get the impression she has a knack for maximum disturbance."
"Of me?"
"Of anything."
"Was she worth it?" I turned to look at him. "Worth jeopardizing whatever you"ve got going with the blond beauty?" I actually wanted to know. "I"m not asking judgmentally. Really, I"m not."
This last week had rocketed me right out of the judgmental zone. If Joe Beck wined, dined, and bedded the half of Quaker Hills that did not include me, why should I care?
"Blond beauty?" He looked like he was racking his memory.
"The good-looking blond you were here with the other night, with James and Olivia?"
Joe looked sincerely puzzled. "Are you talking about Anna Carson, my law partner?"
"You"re running around with your law partner now?" It was out of my mouth before I knew it, with a little too much volume.
"What do you mean, running around?" He sounded indignant.
"Dating."
"Dating is not the same as running around," he said with lawyerly loftiness. "Eve, my marriage ended five years ago. I date. But my law partner and I have never dated, and we"ve never run around."
"Oh," I said softly. "I guess that settles it."
Just then the back door to Miracolo opened, and Alma Toscano stepped outside. Backlit, she somehow looked scary, and my pulse picked up. I couldn"t tell whether it was from seeing Alma starting toward us, who suddenly seemd bigger than I had ever quite appreciated, or from the new direction in my conversation with Joe.
Alma reached the table, where she loomed very large indeed. "Paulette said you wanted to see me?" She pushed at the Festa comb in her hair.
Now that she was here, she didn"t look quite so scary. Which may well have made Arlen/Max let down his guard, and maybe I wasn"t paying attention to the right things just then.
"Yes, Alma, have a seat," I said coolly. Joe indicated the chair across from us.
She sat, then asked in a panicked voice, "Am I losing my job?"
"Well . . . " I wasn"t sure how to answer that.
Joe jumped in. "We have something serious to talk over," he said grimly, then accidentally knocked a biscotto off the table with his elbow. We both ducked to retrieve it.
"If your marriage ended five years ago," I hissed at him under the table, "why do you still wear a wedding ring?"
"I was taking it to an estate jeweler," he hissed back at me, snagging the fallen biscotto.
"Because of Kayla?" I whispered.
"Kayla was an aberration." Then he shot me a wicked smile. "Think of her as my FedEx guy."
I gasped. "You know about the FedEx guy?"
"Everyone knows about the FedEx guy."
We resurfaced at the same time. While I sat there trembling with embarra.s.sment, Joe turned to Alma. "We want to talk to you about Arlen Mather. Eve?" he prompted.
I stared at him. This part of the sting was completely unrehea.r.s.ed. Why wasn"t he handling it? I didn"t know what was admissible in a court of law. Well, there was only one way to say it.
"We know you killed Arlen Mather, Alma." With that, I sat back and tried to appear all-knowing. "And that his real name was Maximiliano Scotti."
She stammered, "I-I-don"t know what you-"
"Dana called him Max at our last meeting. But you called him Maximiliano, something only his killer could know." I was on shaky ground with that, but it sounded good.
Joe kept up the pressure. "And you took on researching Scotti to control the information and lead us away from anything that would incriminate you."
"That"s a lie!"
"Oh, really?" I overrode her. "It won"t take the cops long to figure out how you knew him. And from there, it"s a slam-dunk to know why you killed him." Although, speaking for myself, I didn"t have a clue.
She just sat there, stony.
Then I drew back the napkin that covered the gla.s.s plate. In the low light, what looked like a scattering of little silver studs was exposed. And then I forgot my point.
Alma stared at the plate.
So did I.
Sensing an impa.s.se, Joe pointed to the studs. "This is just half of what the cops recovered at the scene of the murder."