Marcia Talley - Tomorrow's Vengeance

‘Of course not.’ Naddie waved at the empty chair. ‘Please.’

‘I need your help, Mrs Gray,’ Filomena said, pulling out the chair and sitting down in it.

‘Me? And how can I help you, my dear?’

Filomena folded her hands on the table in front of her and leaned toward Naddie. ‘You write the detective stories, right? You know about the police and things.’

Naddie cocked her head. ‘A little, dear, but remember, what I wrote is fiction not fact. Sometimes I simply made it up. It’s one of the reasons I gave up writing police procedurals, to tell the truth. Too much forensics in crime novels these days. I’m much more interested in the characters, in their relationships. I let the cops do what they do somewhere off the page.’

Filomena waved Naddie’s objections away. ‘I am worried. I think they are going to put my brother in jail.’

‘According to what I’ve heard, they’ve simply taken Raniero in for questioning, Filomena. That doesn’t mean he’s going to be arrested. If he has nothing to hide…’

The deer-in-the-headlights look on Filomena’s face said it all.

Naddie and I exchanged worried glances. Naddie leaned forward and cocked her head. ‘Are you telling us that Raniero does have something he doesn’t want people to find out about?’

Filomena lowered her gaze, confirming my suspicions. ‘Mr Abaza, somehow he found out what Raniero was doing.’

‘What was Raniero doing?’ I asked, bracing myself for an avalanche of sordid details about a love affair with Safa.

‘I know nothing about it, of course. It is the chef’s job to plan the menus and order the supplies. I just pay the bills.’

Filomena needed prodding. ‘Tell us. What was Raniero doing?’ I repeated.

She took a deep breath then puffed it out. ‘Raniero, he is taking what you call backkicks.’

‘Kickbacks,’ I corrected.

‘Yes, kickbacks. He is giving me invoices for meats that are kosher and that are halal when they are not. They are cheaper. And Raniero and the meat man, they are splitting the difference and putting the money in their pockets.’

That was a shocker. ‘How much money are we talking about, Filomena?’

She studied the chandelier, as if the answer were written on one of the cut-glass crystal pendants. ‘Since Calvert Colony opened? Many thousands, maybe. Special meat is very expensive.’

Although Masud was quite the busybody, it seemed unlikely to me that he’d be involved behind the scenes in the kitchen. While Safa… I flashed back again to the day I’d run into Safa scooting out the kitchen door. She’d said she’d been discussing the menu, and specifically mentioned a meat delivery. Could she have been aware of Raniero’s scam with the meat and told her husband, rather than been indulging in an affair?

‘But, wouldn’t you be the most likely person to stumble over what Raniero was doing, Filomena? How on earth did Mr Abaza get involved?’

She straighted her spine and rotated her shoulders. ‘Ah, Mr Abaza, he parks his golf cart over by the kitchen, where there is good shade so the seat is not so hot when you sit on it, you know? One day, Raniero tells me, he is late. Mr Abaza is climbing into his golf cart when the delivery truck comes, so he starts talking to the meat man.’ She tucked a wayward strand of golden hair behind her ear. ‘I don’t know exactly how, but Raniero tells me afterwards that he’s in trouble and we can’t afford to lose this job.’

‘We?’

‘If Raniero goes, I go. How do you Americans say? That’s how we roll.’

I wondered why Filomena was telling us this. You’d think she’d want to protect her brother, not point one of her well-manicured fingers at him. ‘So, are you saying that your brother murdered Mr Abaza to shut him up about the kickbacks to the meat man?’

‘I do not know, Mrs Gray. I only know about the meat.’

‘Do the police know… about the meat, I mean?’ I asked.

Filomena screwed her pretty face into a frown. ‘Raniero, I think he is confessing. That is why I am telling you.’

‘You don’t know that, Filomena,’ Naddie said gently.

Her face suddenly went pale.

‘Why did he do it?’ I asked. ‘Cheat Calvert Colony on the meat, I mean?’

Filomena looked distinctly unwell, but shrugged. ‘We need the money for the restaurant, maybe?’

I frowned. Skimming money off the top of the meat bill seemed like small potatoes to me, but over time perhaps it added up. Or perhaps the funny business with the meat was just the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps Raniero had found other unorthodox ways to ‘economize.’ As if selling works of art that had been in their family for three generations wasn’t enough.

Filomena stopped chewing her lower lip. ‘What do I say when the police ask me about Raniero, Mrs Gray?’

Naddie reached out and patted the worried woman’s hand. ‘You tell them the truth, my dear.’

‘[They] never cared to report, nor to return: they longed to stay forever, browsing on that native bloom, forgetful of their homeland.’

Homer, The Odyssey, Book IX, Lines 99-104.

‘What do you think about that?’ Naddie asked me after Filomena had gone.

Charlie Robinson segued from ‘I Got Rhythm’ to ‘Nice Work if You Can Get It’ while I mulled over the conversation.

‘Something’s off. Masud must have been upset to learn that the meat he’d been eating was haram rather than halal . I can easily imagine him flying into a blind rage and killing Raniero over that, but not the other way around.’

‘But Filomena thinks Raniero may have killed Masud to keep him from spilling the beans about the kickbacks,’ Naddie reminded me.

I shook my head. ‘We know the guy is a tattletale. After talking to the meat man Masud would have made a beeline for Tyson Bennett’s office and Raniero would have been out on his ear.’

‘But he didn’t see Tyson,’ Naddie said. ‘Raniero was still working up to the point of being taken in for questioning.’

‘And why didn’t he?’ I asked, trying to follow Naddie’s train of thought.

‘Because he wanted to use the information as leverage. There was something he wanted from Raniero.’

‘Stop messing with my wife, or else?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Yes!’ I was practically leaping out of my chair. And then I sobered up. ‘But was that the something?’

‘Hannah, my dear, I don’t have the slightest idea.’

I pondered what Naddie had said until I thought my brain would explode. I was only half listening to ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ when Naddie shook my arm gently. ‘Look.’ She jerked her head sideways.

Standing at the reception desk, dressed casually in khaki slacks and a bold Hawaiian shirt, was Richard Kent.

I had Angie on speed dial.

‘Hi, Hannah, what’s up?’ she said without preamble.

‘Dickie’s back.’

‘Shit.’

‘I thought he was on some secret mission for the CIA,’ I said as I watched Richard sign in on the tablet.

Angie snorted. ‘As if. He now works for a contractor at the amputee clinic in Bethesda.’

‘I presume he’s here to see your mother-in-law, but she hasn’t shown up yet, Angie. When she does, what do you want me to do?’

‘Remember what you said the last time about following them?’

‘In a rash moment, yes.’

‘Would you? Please? I don’t trust him one tiny bit.’

‘I don’t know, Angie,’ I said. ‘Everybody knows he’s taking her out. He signed in, for heaven’s sake.’

Suddenly Christie popped through a door into the lobby, all Talbot petites, Ann Klein, a Coach bag and smiles. She took Richard’s arm. As they walked out the front door, Richard eased a ball cap out of his back pocket and put it on.