The Wedding Soup Murder: An Italian Kitchen Mystery (8 page)

I followed Sally’s directions and reached the two doors, just as she’d described. Holding the door open in case it locked behind me, I noted that it was about twenty-five yards to the beach path, and the grass was overgrown. Elizabeth Merriman would have needed a strong arm to help her through the grass and onto the wooden walkway.
It had to be somebody she trusted,
I told myself.
Like Toscano.
Glancing upward, I saw a light fixture—perhaps a sensor light? A sensor light would have illuminated this whole area, allowing anyone walking past or even out on the road a pretty good
view of a woman pitching over that stairway. I made a note to find out whether members used the beach at night. I stepped back inside, pulling the door closed as quietly as I could. When I turned to leave, my hand still on the doorknob, I nearly collided with a tall redhead.

“Victoria?” Lacey Harrison stepped back to get a look at me. At least today I wasn’t wearing a hairnet, but my jeans, T-shirt, and sandals were no match for her linen trousers and crisp white blouse.

“Oh, hi, Lacey,” I said, as though skulking around hallways in a place I didn’t belong was a totally natural thing to do.

“What are you doing here?” A frown creased her pretty brow—confusion? Or suspicion?

From my last little adventure, I’d learned that when lying, it is always best to stay as close to the truth as possible. “Okay, I know this sounds really morbid, but I was curious about the beach path. Too many years of writing mysteries, I guess.”
Lame, Vic. Truly lame.
I snatched my hand back from the doorknob. But if I expected disapproval from Lacey, I was mistaken.

“The police think Mrs. Merriman fell from the seawall, don’t they?” she whispered.

“I guess. I mean, I don’t know,” I said in a normal tone that echoed loudly down the hall.

“But it’s cordoned off,” Lacey said, glancing toward the door. “It must be significant.” She looked back at me. “I got a phone call from the county prosecutor’s office. I have to make a statement,” she said nervously.

“Me too. Just tell the truth and don’t worry about it too much.” I paused, but Lacey clearly wasn’t going
anywhere. “Well,” I said, “I should leave.” I pointed back at the door. “And would you mind not saying anything about this?”

“Sure. But you know the club is private. It could be awkward if the manager saw you.”

“I’m on my way. And if I run into anybody, I’ll just say I got lost. Bye, Lacey.”

“Bye, Victoria,” she called out. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”

God, I hope not,
I thought. It was bad enough to imagine Tim and Lacey together; I sure didn’t want to watch the romance play out in front of me. But as I kept reminding Tim, he and I were over a long time ago.

Giving myself a firm reminder not to get distracted—and not to get caught here—I hesitated. The side door was closer to the parking lot, but the front door was for public use, probably a better choice if I got caught on the premises, so I scampered down that hallway and darted out the main doors. But I had only about three seconds to savor my clean getaway.

“May I help you?” Jack Toscano, hands on hips, stood at the bottom of the stone steps that led into the building.

“Oh,” I said, “I was actually on my way out.”

“I see that.” He smiled in a forced way. “Were you interested in having an event here? Or adding your name to the membership list?”

Again, I tried to straddle that border between truth and lies. “No, thank you. My friend Sally tends bar here, and I was just stopping in to say hello.”

He tilted his head, his dark glasses disconcerting. “You look familiar.”

Was he a reader of mysteries? Or did he recognize me from Saturday night?
Go for the
truth, Vic.
“Actually, I was here the other night to cater the soup course of the wedding.”

“Ah, that’s right. You were in the bar.” He reached out his hand. “I’m Jack Toscano, the club manager.”

Well, that was quick, Jack. Did you promote yourself already?
Without thinking, I offered him my right hand, which he gripped enthusiastically. “Ow,” I gasped. “Sorry. I’m Victoria Rienzi,” I said, and attempted to pull my hand from his.

Instead he turned up my palm and winced. “No,
I’m
sorry. That’s quite a nasty splinter you’ve got there, isn’t it? Have you cleaned it?”

“I’m, um, heading home to do that, in fact.”

He nodded. “Good.” He dropped my hand, but his face loomed close to mine. My heart, which had begun pounding again when I ran into Lacey, started in double-time as I took in his dark glasses and tight expression. He pointed at my head and I flinched. “Sorry,” he said again, but didn’t smile. “But I was just about to tell you that you have some dried grass in your hair.”

“Oh.” I shook my head and watched a couple of blades flutter to my feet.
Good job there, Vic,
I thought, and realized something else:
This is a guy who notices things.

Toscano suddenly smiled, which struck me as more frightening than his scary face. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Rienzi,” he said. “And I’m sorry if I seemed suspicious just now. We’ve been fending off reporters.”

You and me both.
“Of course. I’m sorry about what happened to Mrs. Merriman. What a terrible thing.”

“It certainly was. She was an admirable lady, and to die in such a horrific accident . . .” He shook his head in an expression of sorrow. “It’s a real loss to me.” The dark glasses made it hard to tell if he was sincere. But he’d clearly been watching me behind those glasses, because he tapped the side of the black frames. “You’ll have to excuse these. I’ve had some recent surgery and my eyes are very light sensitive.”

“I understand.” There was an awkward pause, and I realized there would be no more information forthcoming. “It was nice to meet you.” I glanced back at the building. “And if I ever do want to have an event here, I know whom to call.”

He nodded. “You do that. Have a good day, now.” Though still smiling, Toscano crossed his arms in an
I’m not going anywhere
pose, and remained that way until I reached the parking lot.

On the ride back, I marshaled my thoughts to share with Sofia later on. Sally had provided crucial information about Kate and Dr. C. And Lacey had to give a statement, which was not so strange. But she hadn’t mentioned why
she
was headed to the second floor. And Jack Toscano had called Merriman’s death an accident. Did he know something? Or was it just wishful thinking?

By five I was sitting in our unofficial base of operations—Sofia’s office at the back of her dance studio. The infamous red folder already held a sheaf of printed pages.

“When did you have time to do this?” I asked her, leafing through the pages.

“I cut back a bit on some of my classes and combined some. It’s a little slower in summer, anyway, so I had some down time.”

“That’s good. And I guess you haven’t had time for the beach, either.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because by July, you’re usually darker than I am. But not this year.” I held my forearm next to hers.

“I told you, the heat’s been getting to me. And if you’re done comparing tans, we’ve got work to do.” She opened the folder and took out several pages of notes, including some handwritten ones.

“There’s a lot here, already,” I said. “How deep did you have to dig for this stuff?”

“Well, I found a lot of it on the Internet. But it also helps that Merriman Industries employed a ton of people in our area, including my uncle John.”

“Really? Good luck for us. What did he do there?”

“He used to work on one of their construction crews,” she said, “and he knows a lot about their operation. So here’s what I got: Elizabeth goes to work for Robert Merriman in the fifties; by 1960, she’s married to him. He’s, like, fifteen years older than she is, and they have no kids. He had started Merriman Industries from a single construction firm in the fifties; by the eighties, there are a bunch of businesses—construction, heating and insulation, asbestos removal, and some other stuff, too. In any case, he builds up one lucrative conglomerate. He dies in 1990.”

“And leaves everything to her, I take it.”

Sofia nodded. “And she takes over as CEO. And apparently alienates everybody, from her board of directors to the guys on the various jobs. She was a micromanager.”

“I can see that.” I thought about Elizabeth’s role at the Belmont Club; besides being president, she had appointed herself events manager as well. She was the kind of woman who needed to have her hand in everything. I could imagine her in a hard hat, visiting construction sites and making the crews miserable. “Was there anybody in particular who had a beef with her?”

“There’s probably a list a mile long, but my uncle gave me two pieces of information that I think could be important. First, when Elizabeth takes over, she immediately butts heads with her late husband’s right-hand guy.”

“Do we have a name?”

“Yup. William Fox. My uncle says he and Robert Merriman were friends, too, and Merriman relied on him for everything. He had a key position in that company—executive assistant to Merriman himself—and, for some reason, Elizabeth found him a threat. She pushed him out.”

“Did she fire him?”

“I think even the Iron Lady wouldn’t do that,” Sofia said. “He took an early retirement, at her strong suggestion, apparently. At the time of Robert Merriman’s death, Fox was only in his fifties, and not ready to retire.”

“What happened to him?”

“He didn’t take it well. He started drinking. Big time. Then his wife leaves him, he ends up on the outs with his kids. I mean, it all goes south for him.”

“Is he still alive?”

Sofia nodded. “Yes. In fact, my uncle thinks he’s still in the area.”

“Well, that’s good.” I wrote
William Fox
in my notebook. “He’s got a motive anyway,” I said. “I wonder if he was anywhere near the Belmont Club last Saturday.”

“But I’ve got more.” Sofia leaned across the desk, her eyes lit with enthusiasm. It was good to see her feeling better. “And here’s where it gets really interesting. According to Uncle John, when it came to running the companies, she started cutting corners. She got greedy and took shortcuts, even with safety issues. So their injury rates go up, along with workmen’s-comp claims. Then some workers bring a mesothelioma suit against Merriman Industries.”

“From the asbestos removal?” I knew that handling asbestos was dangerous, and that there were strict protocols in its removal and disposal. “It’s carcinogenic, right?”

She nodded and held up three fingers. “Three men brought suits against the company.” She pushed a sheet of paper my way and I read the three names: Lorenzo DePonti. Darnell Jones. Michael McBride.

“So it’s just these three. I’m surprised there aren’t more guys who brought suits against them,” I said.

She shrugged. “They were exposed to the stuff for the longest period of time. And they were able to prove
that working with asbestos was directly responsible for making them sick.”

I looked at the names again. “They’re all dead, I take it.”

“Oh yeah. I don’t have exact dates, but I think by the mid-nineties they’re all dead.”

“And their families would have inherited that money.”

“Still,” Sofia said, “that doesn’t mean somebody connected with one of those families wouldn’t have carried a grudge.”

“But after all this time?” I shook my head. “Why wait almost twenty years to get back at her? And the same would apply to William Fox, right?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe opportunity? Maybe somebody at that wedding was related to one of the men or William Fox, saw Elizabeth and took a chance.” She paused and looked at me. “You don’t think it’s a plausible, do you?”

“I wouldn’t rule anything out, but that time lapse is problematic. What else do you have?”

“Well, after the asbestos settlement, she sells off the different businesses, but because it’s the nineties, she makes money, despite the big payout to the families. By ‘ninety-eight, she’s a lady of leisure. Buys a fancy condo on the beach in Belmont, joins the country club, does charity work. By 2002, she’s president of the club and wields a lot of power in Belmont Beach.”

“Does she run for public office or anything?”

Sofia shook her head. “She was more a behind-the-scenes type, throwing her power and money around that way.”

I nodded. “That was certainly her MO around the club.”

“Speaking of the club, it’s your turn, Vic. What did you get there today?”

“So glad you asked, SIL.” I took my wallet from my purse and carefully extracted the glass bead. I set it on the desk between us. “Look what I found out on the platform over the seawall. It was cordoned off, by the way; I had to sneak under.”

Sofia, unfazed by my crossing a police line, rolled the bead between her fingers. “It looks like it’s from a dress.”

I nodded. “Merriman’s dress. It was stuck in a crack between the wooden boards. Which is how I got this.” I held up my reddened palm.

“Pretty.” She took my hand. “Do you want me to operate?”

“I’ll do it, thanks.” Then I filled her in on all that I’d learned from Sally, as well as from my encounters with Lacey and Toscano. “But Toscano saw the splinter,” I said, “And noticed that I had grass in my hair.”

Sofia stopped writing and pointed her pencil at me. “Watch out for him. And be careful next time.”

“I’m hoping there won’t
be
a next time. Finding the bead proves she was out there, so we know for sure now how she died.”

My sister-in-law shook her head. “Not to burst your bubble there, Vic, but I would have thought yellow police tape made that one obvious.” She handed the bead back to me. “Sutton probably has a baggie full of these.”

“Thanks loads. But I’m not sure it’s as cut-and-dried as you think. I also saw a sensor light over that door that leads to the walkway. Those things are bright. Would a murderer take that kind of chance?”

“He—or she—could have loosened the bulb.”

“You’d need a ladder; it’s set pretty high. Putting the light aside for now, the question for me is how she got out there in the first place. One,” I said, holding up my pointer finger, “she decides to take a midnight stroll to look out at the ocean. Two, she goes out there to commit suicide. Three, she goes out there with someone she trusts. Four, she’s coerced in some way.”

“Hmm,” Sofia said. “For the sake of argument, let’s assume we can discount one and two and look at this from another angle. Who stands to gain by her death, Vic? What’s that Latin phrase you told me?”

“
Cui bono
. Now, there’s a question. This was a very rich woman. According to the newspaper article, she has no surviving relatives. Where would all that money go?”

Sofia frowned. “Her charities? The club?”

“Maybe. But just because she didn’t have any relatives doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a beneficiary. I’d love to find out if Toscano was named in her will.”

“Didn’t the bartender say he’d only been around about six months?”

“Yup. But if they were lovers? Women do awfully stupid things when it comes to men.”

Sofia looked back to her screen. “No argument from me there. I guess if you’re a lonely old lady and a guy shows you attention—”

“Six months might be long enough to name him in your will.”

Sofia jotted a few more notes and then turned back to me. “So, what
was
going on between Elizabeth Merriman and Toscano?”

“That’s something we need to find out. Because if he’s got a motive, Jack Toscano is the front-runner in the Belmont Club Murder Stakes.”