Клео Коул - On What Grounds

I heard a disgusted grunt from behind me. A loud slam came next, as Matteo crushed a half-dozen whole cloves of garlic with one flat-sided blow from his meat cleaver. Chunks of the powerful-smelling herb bounced off the walls.

Mario leaned close and took my hand again. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Allegro.”

It’s Cosi, you idiot!

With a wet slam, Matteo slapped his slab of good old American bacon onto the thick wooden chopping block near the sink. With quick, angry jabs, he began mincing the smoked pork into tiny shards.

“Let’s go into the dining room,” Joy said, seeing the flash of disgust cross Mario’s face.

After they’d quickly retreated, I turned to Matteo.

“You!” I hissed in my most grating ex-wife voice (a harridan tone so annoying I actually annoy myself when I use it). “Make your damn pasta and keep your mouth shut. Your one and only daughter has brought a man home to meet her parents, and you are not going to ruin this night for her!”

Matt stared at the garlic scattered across the cutting board. I took his silence for defiance.

“You are going to behave yourself or leave right now,” I added.

Matteo crushed another clove of garlic—this one with his fist.

“The pasta will be ready in half an hour,” he said, turning up the fire under a large pot of boiling water. “When you’re finished with your cheesecake, you can make the Caesar salad.”

“Oh, I’ll get right on it,” I replied tersely. As I knew already, there was no kitchen large enough!

Fortunately, things went somewhat better from then on. During dinner, Joy talked about school, and about how she aced her last saucier project—with Mario’s help.

Mario, it turned out, was from Milan, but had spent the last three years in New York City, joining a cousin who had emigrated years before to work in the restaurant business here. Mario himself had worked in a series of restaurants in both Italy and France—first as a dishwasher, then a waiter, then as a sous-chef. He was twenty-five years old and had landed a full-time kitchen staff position at Balthazar, one of the top restaurants in Soho.

I asked how he’d met Joy. Apparently, he’d been friends with the guest saucier instructor who’d balled Joy out for ruining her hollandaise sauce. Mario had been observing the class in support of his friend, and after the class, he’d approached Joy.

“My heart went out to this pretty little girl. She looked as though she was going to cry—and I remembered how stupido I felt when I had made a mistake at my first job in a four-star restaurant. I was hired the day I applied because the chef was on the spot. He handed me the house recipe for cream of mushroom soup and told me to prepare it for Sunday brunch. I went to work, and when it was done, the chef tried some.”

“He didn’t like it?” I asked.

“No, no,” Mario replied. “The soup was superb, and for a very good reason. Along with the cultivated mushrooms, I had diced a thousand dollars’ worth of truffles. I felt so like an ass because I had made the most expensive pot of soup in history! I explained to the head chef that I had never taken classes, that I always learned on the job. But the little restaurants I had worked in…Well, they didn’t serve truffles. I got fired anyway. Of course, that was a long time ago.”

“Oh, so you don’t make mistakes anymore?” Matt said.

Mario’s eyes met Matt’s. “No.”

Joy hung on Mario’s every word. The boy’s arrogance would be interpreted by her as confidence. I knew this because I had been young and in love with a guy like this, too.

In Mario’s defense, however, he was otherwise polite, lively, intelligent, and when it came to Joy, clearly considerate. Of course Matteo hated him already, even after Mario diplomatically asked for seconds on the carbonara (that was a nice surprise) and repeatedly complimented the Venetian champagne.

By the time dessert rolled around, things were far more congenial than they had been when the long evening began, though Matt still eyed Mario warily and answered most of the questions asked of him with a monosyllabic grunt.

Along with the chilled cheesecake, I served a hearty espresso made with a dark-roasted Antigua bean. Its smooth nutty flavor perfectly complemented the walnut crust of the cappuccino cheesecake.

To my delight, Mario went on and on about the quality of the espresso. (Okay, I admit it. The kid managed to work his way onto my good side.)

By eleven o’clock, Joy said it was time to go, claiming she had an early class tomorrow. With a final hug, she and her new boyfriend were gone.

“She sure can pick them,” Matteo said miserably.

“She’s a chip off the old block,” I replied.

Matteo looked at me, puzzled for a moment.

“Our daughter managed to find a guy who is self-assured to the point of arrogance, something of a know-it-all, but smooth and charming as they come. Sound familiar?”

“No,” Matteo said.

“No? You idiot! He’s just like you!”

“What? You’re crazy! He’s nothing like me!” Matteo threw up his hands. “I’m going to clean out the second bedroom so I don’t have to sleep on the couch.”

“Fine,” I replied. “I’ll clean up here, then go down to the Blend to close up with Tucker.”

I hadn’t forgotten the sad events of this day. And I remembered that I still had to prepare a list of employees and their addresses and phone numbers for Detective Quinn—which I didn’t want to mention to Matt, considering his opinion of our local gumshoe. I also had to juggle everyone’s work schedule to cover Anabelle’s absence.

When the kitchen was clean, the dishes done (except for a single espresso cup that seemed to be strangely missing), I bagged up the garbage to carry it downstairs. On the landing just outside the front door I found a second plastic bag full of stuff—boyhood items Matteo was tossing to make room for the foldaway bed. I peered into the bag.

There were a few dog-eared magazines, mostly, dating back to the 1970s, including vintage issues of Playboy. There was an old board game, Risk, which I thought quite appropriate, and a battered copy of Ernest Hemingway’s paean to the bohemian life in Paris, A Moveable Feast —undoubtedly a seminal influence on Matteo’s young mind.

Amazing what someone’s garbage will tell you.

Then it hit me. Garbage—specifically the garbage in the can in front of the Blend’s basement steps this morning, the garbage that Anabelle supposedly slipped on before she was sent down the stairs and into a coma.

I dropped my own sack of kitchen garbage on the landing and hurried down the steps. I wanted to grab the bag in question before Tucker carried it outside to be collected. The crime scene unit had already examined the bag and dismissed it as evidence, but they didn’t know this place as well as I did.

Within that Blend garbage, there might be something that they’d overlooked, some clue that would help me prove what I knew in my gut: That Anabelle’s “accident” was no accident at all. It was a slim hope, perhaps, but given the news of our insurance fiasco, I was close to desperate.

As I entered the Blend from the back staircase, Tucker was just locking the coffeehouse’s front door. “Garbage!” I cried out like a madwoman. “Where is this morning’s garbage?”

“Lined up in the basement with the rest,” Tucker replied. “I was about to put it outside.”

I took the basement stairs two at a time, and scanned the line of dark green plastic bags lined up against the stone wall. After singling out the one with lingering flakes of fine grayish white powder still clinging to its waterproof surface—the one the crime scene unit had dusted for prints—I dragged it directly underneath the fluorescent lights.