Killer Eyeshadow and a Cold Espresso (A Danger Cove Hair Salon Mystery) Page 10

  His meeting with Rhys reminded me of another meeting. "Is that why you met with Katrina at the Smugglers' Tavern?"

  He gave a grin tinged with a grimace. "I'd call you Nora Charles, but that role is taken. At least, I hope it still is." He kicked the pot again. "Katrina didn't know anything about the painting, or so she said."

  I rubbed my forehead. I was overwhelmed by the revelations, but I reminded myself that his black market art dealings didn't make him a murderer. "You need to tell Alex, George. She has a right to know."

  "I agree." His voice was quiet. "I'll talk to her today."

  I headed for the door, wondering whether he would tell Alex the whole story. Because my instincts told me that George hadn't shared everything with me. And I exited Some Enchanted Florist wondering what I didn't know.

  * * *

  "Nap time's over."

  My eyes opened to the Union Jack. I shot up in bed, clutching my quilt. Had the British firms come to get me?

  "Chill out, cug." Gia flounced onto the mattress, avoiding my quilt.

  The realization that she was the one sporting the British flag was no less terrifying thanks to her choice of accessories—black thigh-high boots, safety pin earrings, and an actual tiara. She looked like a renegade royal.

  "Why are you sleeping in the middle of the day, C?" Aunt Carla's voice came from the phone Gia waved at me.

  My alarm clock read eleven fifteen, which was hardly afternoon. I massaged the budding headache at my temples.

  "Did you get a colpo d'aria in that godforsaken cove?"

  "I was just trying to catch up on some sleep, Aunt Carla. No need to worry."

  "'No need to worry,' she says. We got a dead body and a looming mob hit, but everything's hunky dory." She sighed. "You got any wine around heuh, Flavia? My nerves are about to blow."

  Grunting and smacking came from the phone.

  It sounded like they were at the zoo. "Where are you, Aunt Carla?"

  Gia leaned back on her elbows. "At the Coma Funeral Home, where Flavia works."

  Coma was an unfortunate name for the business, but it didn't hold a funeral candle to the Amigone mortuary chain in New York. "Did you ask her about Sonny Torlone's Mafia connections?"

  "Not yet. She's eating her lunch."

  That explained the grunting and smacking. "She's not near any bodies, is she?"

  "What? It's no different from people eating at funerals. And I brought her my sausage and peppahs and amaretto-chocolate chip cannoli."

  The cannoli sounded so delicious that I might've eaten them in the funeral home, but only in the lobby.

  Gia covered the phone. "That nostril's not Flavia's only extra-wide body part."

  "I heard that, young lady. You could use a trip to confession this Sunday."

  She crossed her thigh-highs. "I'm planning on it."

  Planning being the operative word. "Aunt Carla, you never told me how Flavia comes by her information."

  "Well, the Coma Funeral Home is the place in Atlantic City if you want to go out in style. You want a live leopard at your service? No problem. A wax figure of Dean Martin? They've got it. And Flavia is their makeup artist."

  Gia tugged at a safety pin. "We have a lot in common."

  "You think?" I asked.

  "She's a local celebrity heuh in Jersey for her work on murder victims—the real gory ones, like Mafia hits and car accidents. You lose an eye? She can replace it. Lips gone? She'll rebuild them and top off the job with the perfect shade of gloss. She did Sonny Torlone's makeup, and when she redid his missing nose, she even put black hair in his nostrils. She pays special attention to the nose on account of her own enlarged nostril."

  Gia let out a whistle. "Impressive."

  That was one way to describe it. "I'm sorry, but what does that have to do with anything?"

  "It gives her the ability to smell a mob rat alive or dead."

  I was willing to believe that an enlarged nostril could enhance sense of smell, but there was no way a person could sniff out a criminal. "You can't smell a mobster, Aunt Carla."

  "I sweauh on the Virgin Mary, Flavia can. And all these years of working around embalming fluid haven't dulled her sense of smell."

  "Or her taste," Gia whispered.

  I shot her a smirk. "Okay, so what does a mafioso smell like?"

  "John Gotti's favorite cologne."

  Things were finally entering the realm of logic. "Which one? Boss?"

  "No, Grey Flannel."

  Gia raised her lower lip and turned down the corners of her mouth—an expression of respect in the Italian culture. "Classy choice."

  Said the punk-rock royal. "Did you get a chance to ask Rosie at the butcher about the woman who cost Uncle Vinnie the casino deal?"

  "I just came from theuh. She said, and this is a quote, 'The dame ain't local, and she ain't no Italian.'"

  Which meant the dame was out of network, so to speak.

  Gia rolled onto her side. "It has to be Katrina, Cass."

  "But the casino deal happened before he left New Jersey, so how would he have known her?"

  "Through Jesse."

  Maybe we'd been looking at this the wrong way. It wasn't weird that Vinnie had met Jesse before he moved to Danger Cove, but it was weird that he'd moved to Danger Cove after Jesse had cut him out of the casino deal. "Aunt Carla, did Vinnie ever tell you why he moved here?"

  "To play hide the cannoli with some broad. Why else?"

  The cannoli she'd made for Flavia got a lot less appetizing.

  Gia gave a flip of her wrist. "Katrina. We know they were dating, and she's connected to Jesse."

  There was also the matter of the cameo she stole from Gia's room.

  An enormous burp broke the silence.

  "That's my sausage and peppahs." Carla spoke with culinary pride.

  "Sorry to make yous wait, girls." Flavia's voice was, not surprisingly, nasal. "We've got a funeral tomorrow, so I had to eat lunch and finish up the dead guy's makeup for the viewing today."

  I caught sight of my reflection on my dresser mirror. I looked waxy—like a made-up corpse.

  "It's Lorenzo Marino's service." Aunt Carla had a trill in her voice, like she was excited about meeting the deceased. "He made a killing in the market."

  "Stocks?" I asked.

  "No, marinara. They outsold Ragù."

  I wondered if they'd have a giant sauce jar next to the wax figure of Dean. "Thanks for working us in, Flavia. We're trying to find out if Sonny Torlone was in a crime family, like the Scarfos."

  "Sonny wasn't none of that. He was a regular goomba. But there was a rumor at his funeral that Jesse Rothman was connected and ordered his hit."

  Gia and I exchanged a wide-eyed look.

  If that was true, then we were right to think that Jesse had put a hit on us. "Do you know if Jesse was a member of a New Jersey or Philadelphia crime family?"

  "Nah, everyone figured it was some West Coast clan."

  I'd never heard of organized crime in Danger Cove, but Seattle had Ukrainian and Russian organized crime groups, among others. "Did anyone bring up Jesse stealing Sonny's casino investment money?"

  "Are you kiddin'? No one could shut up about it at the reception."

  "Why?"

  "Because the double-cross was ordered by their silent partner, who is the one everyone said was Jesse's mob connection."

  "Did you get his name?"

  "The silent partner wasn't a man. It was a woman."

  Gia's jaw almost landed on her flag.

  "But no one at the service knew who she was because she's not local."

  "A woman," Carla repeated, her tone tinged with embarrassment. "So emasculatin'."

  And even more so if the woman had more muscles than most men.

  * * *

  "Katrina's a crime boss?" Amy shouted from the circulation desk.

  "Can you not yell that to the entire library?" Luckily Ben was off finding himself, because hearing his employee shout in the library
would've sent him to the psych ward. "I don't have any proof. And honestly, it seems unlikely that the head of a Mafia family would be working as a mansion manager."

  "Maybe it's a cover, like Tony Soprano's sanitation business."

  "Or there's some other woman involved that we don't know about yet. Like maybe Rhys has a wife. Have you had any time to research him?"

  She leaned onto the counter, and the dark circles behind her lenses came into sharp focus. "I'm sorry, Cass. With Ben out, I haven't been able to get to that or Harriet's genealogy. I've been coming in early and staying late just to keep the library running."

  I squeezed her hands. "That's all right. You take care of the library, and leave the research to Gia and me. Besides, thanks to Duncan Pickles and my Aunt Carla's contacts, we've already found out most of what we needed to know."

  "Are you sure? Because I could try to get to it tonight."

  A metal grate slammed outside.

  I turned toward the entrance. "What was that?"

  "The newspaper delivery boy refilling the vending machine. I don't know what's going on today, but he can't stock the Cove Chronicles fast enough."

  Duncan's article on the poison—I'd forgotten about it. "Hang on a sec. I'll grab us a copy."

  I went and purchased the paper. On my way back to the circulation desk, I scanned the headline and a rush went through body—like toxins flooding my veins.

  JESSE ROTHMAN POISONED WITH TAXINE! Was it the florist, the cook, or the beauticians?

  Leave it to Duncan Pickles to omit the likes of Rhys and Katrina and lay the blame on local businesspeople—and to use another outdated word for hairstylist.

  Amy looked up from the computer. "You look like you've seen Harriet."

  "Close." I tossed the paper on the counter.

  "Taxine?" She pulled off her glasses. "I wonder if it's a coincidence."

  Amy knew something. I leaned over the counter. "Start spilling."

  "It might be nothing, but a few of months ago, we read A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie. And the killer used taxine."

  A jolt went through me, like another shot of poison. "Who's we?"

  "Oh. Esprit de Corpse."

  The mystery book club at Dangerous Reads. "Who participated in the discussions?"

  She tapped her glasses on her cheek. "Let's see. It was a small group led by Meri Sinclair, Alicia Holmes, and Burt Lewis from the bookstore, of course. Besides me there was Viola Aster from the Garden Club, and Dee Madison and Emma Quinn from the quilting guild. Elizabeth Ashby came too, which was fun. Oh, and Santiago Beltrán."

  Santiago was everywhere women were gathered, but neither he nor the others were likely suspects in Jesse's murder. "Do you know if there were any no-shows?"

  "No, but there's always someone who buys the book but can't attend the discussion because of work or some other issue."

  "Who can I ask about that?"

  "Meri sells the book club selections at a discount, so everyone in Esprit de Corpse orders from her. She also posts a notice by the cash register and on the website to drum up new members."

  I'd have to stop by Dangerous Reads and convince Meri to give me the names of everyone who ordered a copy. "Do you mind if I borrow your book tonight?"

  "Not at all. But I used the library copy."

  "Perfect. I'll check it out right now."

  She put on her glasses. "Let me make sure it's still here. Agatha Christie is pretty popular in Danger Cove."

  I hoped that was because people liked her mysteries and not because they wanted to copycat her murders.

  Amy typed the title into the library catalogue on her computer. "Yup. A Pocket Full of Rye is available in the mystery section."

  I followed her through the stacks. "I'm hoping there's a detail in the book that triggers something."

  "Maybe, but the plot is pretty different from what happened at the Rothman mansion." She stopped in front of a bookshelf and scanned the titles. Her quasi-unibrow assumed the form of a bat. "That's funny. I don't see it."

  "Maybe it was misshelved."

  Amy's unibrow flapped its wings.

  "I wasn't implying that you misshelved it. Maybe a patron put it in the wrong place."

  "It's possible. But our patrons usually leave the books on the tables where they were sitting."

  I glanced at the circulation desk. "What about the return cart? Maybe someone checked it out after you, and it's waiting to be shelved."

  "I emptied the cart thirty minutes ago during lunch, after I checked the overnight book drop." She scanned the books again, checking the Dewey decimal system numbers. "A more likely explanation is that someone stole it. But why would anyone do that when they could check it out?"

  I knew the reason. The authorities could trace computer searches for taxine, but if you stole a murder mystery that featured the poison, no one would ever find out.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Amy and I returned to the circulation desk so that she could fill out a report about the missing Agatha Christie book.

  And I tried to figure out a way to identify the thief. "Are there security cameras in the library?"

  "I wish. Then we could catch that dirty doodler."

  Not to mention the murderer. "Can you give me a summary of A Pocket Full of Rye?"

  She looked up from her report. "If you're going to read it, I don't want to spoil the plot."

  I pulled up a chair from a nearby table. Sometimes Amy made me tired. "It's not like I'm reading the book for pleasure, remember? And in case Dangerous Reads doesn't have a copy, I need to know the key details of the murder."

  She leaned onto her elbows. "There were actually three murders, and they follow the Mother Goose nursery rhyme 'Sing a Song of Sixpence.' But essentially, a greedy son kills his rich businessman father; Rex Fortescue, his stepmother; and the maid he seduced and tricked into serving the poison."

  I looked behind me to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "The Rothmans don't have children, but Rhys could be Elise's heir." A horrifying realization practically nailed me in the head, and I scooted to the edge of my seat. "Elise could get the next dose of taxine."

  "Mm." Amy tilted her head. "That's not the way Agatha Christie wrote it. The stepmother's tea was poisoned with cyanide."

  "Whether it's taxine or cyanide is irrelevant, don't you think? Now what about the maid?"

  "She was strangled and found with a clothespin on her nose."

  My hand went to my face, and I thought of Flavia's enlarged nostril and Sonny Torlone's missing schnoz. "Amy, this is scary. We have to tell the police about the plot. More people could die."

  "But the killer isn't following the book."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because of the nursery rhyme. When Rex Fortescue was poisoned, the killer stuffed his pocket with rye. You would know if that had happened to Jesse because Detective Marshall would have grilled you about it."

  I chewed my thumbnail. "He did show us the taxine seed he'd found beneath the vanity."

  "See? So why not the grain?" She began entering the missing book data into the computer.

  "Then maybe it's just a coincidence that the killer used taxine."

  "Or the killer had access to a toxic yew tree, and the book gave him or her the idea. For instance, I had never heard of taxine until I read A Pocket Full of Rye."

  I got a whiff of mothballs and catapulted from my seat.

  Viola Aster, the seventy-something vice president of the Garden Club, handed Amy her library card and a copy of The Savage Garden: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants. "I'm delighted to hear you girls discussing A Pocket Full of Rye. Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed our Esprit de Corpse discussions, I was disappointed that Jane Marple had such a small role."

  She would be. In her tweed suit, sensible shoes, and practical hat, Viola could've been Miss Marple's twin. And she was British to boot.

  Amy scanned the card and the book and slid them toward Viola. "Yeah, Inspector Neele was dull and uninspired."
>
  Her tiny blue eyes twinkled. "However, the use of taxine was quite ingenious. It's my favorite of Agatha Christie's poisons."

  Amy lowered her glasses and shot me a look.

  Apparently, Viola hadn't read the latest Cove Chronicles. "What, um, do you like about it?"

  "Taxine is a cardiotoxin like snake venom." She flashed her eyes wide. "It causes heart damage and, eventually…" She shivered, but a smile formed on her shriveled lips. "…failure."

  That explained Jesse's manner of death—but not why Viola was so excited about it. "Is taxine found in anything besides the yew tree?"

  "No, dear, which is what makes it such an intriguing choice."

  Amy tucked a loose lock behind her ear. "I just did a quick search on the yew. There are several types, but the only one native to Washington State is the Pacific yew, which isn't poisonous."

  I leaned over the counter and looked at the computer screen. "Some of the other kinds are probably here too in people's yards or in the woods."

  "If they are, they're invasive alien species."

  Viola clasped her hands. "Thrilling, isn't it?"

  I stared at her for a moment, and then I turned to Amy. "What do you mean, invasive alien species?"

  "Plants transported accidentally or illegally into a foreign territory. In either case, if you see a nonnative species like the yew tree, you're supposed to report it to the US Fish and Wildlife Service."

  "I know gardeners," Viola said, "and they can be ruthless when it comes to creating their ideal garden." She stuffed her book and library card into her quilted handbag, which clanked.

  It was probably gardening tools, but I couldn't rule out guns and knives.

  Viola patted Amy's hand. "If you girls want to find out about yew trees in the area, contact Herb at the Tree Society. We've had him speak to the Garden Club. He's a rather odd chap, but he's an expert on tree species." She pinched my cheek. "Now I must be off. I'm taking a tour of the morgue, and I shouldn't want to be late."

  Stunned, I watched her leave. I didn't know what to be more disturbed about—the morgue tour or my throbbing face.