Cannellino Caramel Read online

  Luigi raised his goblet. “Hear, hear.”

  My dad let out a resounding belch, and I skipped the obligatory clinking and chugged instead.

  “Yo, I’ve got a toast too.” Anthony raised a beer bottle. “Here’s to Franki not cooking.”

  I leaned close enough to smell his hair gel over the stench of his musk cologne. “You wanna sing with the choir at midnight mass? Because I can arrange for you to be a soprano.”

  He scooted his chair toward my nonna. “Even you gotta admit, sis, this joint is pretty good.”

  Apart from a shabby Christmas tree, some cheap blinds, and green carpeting that smelled as though it had been salvaged from the post-Katrina floods, Laurent wasn’t all that low rent. “The food is surprisingly delicious, but the décor is lacking.”

  “Whoa, what about all this red and green for Italy?”

  I sighed. “They’re the colors of Christmas, Anthony.”

  My mother turned to Luigi, and the sleeve of her black dress slipped from her shoulder. “Speaking of the holiday, I hope you’ll join us for midnight mass and the gospel choir concert at Saint Augustine Church.” She gave him a sauced wink. “Carmela’s going to be there.”

  My dad moaned and clutched his gut.

  “Pardon the interruption.”

  I turned to see a fiftyish woman with highlighted hair in a loose bun. Her bright red lips and nails popped against her white wool business suit. “I’m Yvonne Chenier, the manager, and I couldn’t help but overhear you mention the concert. Might I also suggest the bonfires along the levees of the Mississippi River? They light the way for Papa Noël, our Cajun Santa Claus.”

  My mother’s eyes were as bright as the bonfires. “What a charming tradition.”

  “If you have little ones,” Yvonne said, “you won’t want to miss the Teddy Bear Tea at the Royal Sonesta Hotel.”

  My mom shot me a side-eye, and the bonfires had burned out. “You need a grandchild for that.”

  “And-a you need a husband for that.” Nonna gave a sharp nod. “Luigi has a young-a cousin, Franki. I can hook-a you up.”

  Luigi brushed a wisp of thinning hair across his scalp. “His divorce is still pending, but that’s a minor technicality.”

  I didn’t need to go the levee bonfires because they were burning in my chest and belly. I literally kicked myself under the table for not going to Boston with Bradley.

  Nonna scowled at the manager. “I got a suggestion. Next-a year you stick-a to the menu and make-a the Italian food.”

  Yvonne clasped her hands. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t go with our French Creole theme.”

  “French-a Creole?” Nonna gave me the evil eye. “You told-a me we were havin’ a ravioli dinner.”

  “I said we were having a réveillon dinner. REV-ee-on is clearly not the same word as ravioli.”

  Anthony popped a caramel. “Lay off nonna, will ya?”

  “Your brother’s right, Francesca. Mind your manners.”

  I tossed my napkin on the table. It was ironic that I had to lay off a woman who pressed me harder than pasta dough.

  Yvonne’s smile was as tight as her skirt. “You all enjoy the rest of your meal.”

  She turned to leave and ran into the host, a tall bag of bones in a white suit coat and black slacks who reminded me of Baron Samedi, the Haitian voodoo loa of the dead. “I’m sorry, Maurice.”

  “That’s all right, Miss Chenier.” He approached my father. “The valet needs your keys, Mister.”

  My dad pulled the keys from his pocket. He’d demanded them from the valet after the car was parked, convinced that the guy would go for a joyride in his Ford Taurus station wagon. “Tell the valet to bring the car to the curb in twenty minutes. And no funny business.”

  Maurice’s eyelids lowered. “Yessir.”

  “Santa,” my mom batted her lashes at my father, “it’s time to pass out the gifts.”

  “Give us all a gift-a,” my nonna boomed, “and stop-a callin’ him-a that.”

  My mother’s face went as dark as her dress, and she refilled her wine goblet.

  I rested my arm on the table and turned to the doorway to watch my dad pass out the presents.

  He pressed a fist to his mouth and blew out a burp. “Hand this to your mother, will you, Franki?”

  I grimaced but reached for the gift and spotted a couple of caramel wrappers stuck to my silk sleeve. “Seriously, Anthony? You put your trash by me?”

  “What’sa mattuh? Just pick ‘em off.”

  I gritted my teeth and removed the sticky wrappers. Then I dipped my napkin in my water glass and tried to clean the brown goop from the silk.

  A short, stocky man entered in chef’s whites and a toque blanche. He had a thick brown mustache and pinkish skin the color of lightly seared tuna steak. He seemed like a stereotypical French chef who ruled his kitchen with an iron fist and a stainless steel cook’s knife. His mouth in a pucker, he scanned the room and zeroed in on my nonna. “I am ze chef, Guillaume Gaston. Ze manager say you did not find ze food satisfactory, Madame?”

  She gave him the onceover and pulled her handbag to her bosom as though he’d come to steal it. “Signora.”

  His mustache twitched. “Was it ze oysters Bienville or ze seafood gumbo, Signora?”

  Anthony dropped his fork on his dessert plate. “Actually, my man, it’s this log. It could use some booze, like my nonna’s caramels heuh.”

  The chef’s skin went from seared to sautéed.

  I intervened to prevent another Franco-Italian war. “There was a mix-up, Chef. She was expecting Italian.”

  He bit his index finger.

  And I scooted my chair back.

  “Ze spaghetti and meatball, I presume?” He put his other index finger into his mouth and bit that one too.

  I moved closer to my brother. The chef was unwell. “Um, ravioli and veal.”

  Chef Gaston gave a strangled cry, grabbed his throat, and lurched from the room.

  No one made a sound until Anthony popped a caramel and started smacking.

  My dad put a package at his place setting that was shaped suspiciously like a hammer. “Brenda, where’s Franki’s present?”

  “It’s with the other gifts, Joe.”

  “I don’t see it.”

  “Well, check the floor.” She reached for her goblet. “I know it’s there because I put it on that table myself.”

  My dad shrugged. “Evidently, it’s gone.”

  “The ring,” she breathed. “Somebody stole it.” Her eyes fluttered up into their sockets, and she undulated like a wave. Then she crashed down.

  Right into the bûche de Noël.

  3

  “Yo, Ma looks like a mud wrestler with that brown icing all ovuh her.” Anthony crossed his arms against his chains. “Am I right?”

  If I hadn’t been helping my dad hold up my unconscious mother, I would have smashed his face into the cake. “Would you stop standing around and go get some wet paper towels?”

  He pulled up the collar of his tracksuit jacket and bounce-walked from the room.

  Yvonne hurried in. “I brought smelling salts from our first-aid kit. This always does the trick.”

  My head snapped back. How often did she have to administer smelling salts to her customers?

  She broke the vial and waved it beneath my mother’s nose.

  My mom jerked and grasped at the air. “Where’s Luigi?” Blinded by icing and a marzipan mushroom, her head thrashed from side to side. “He didn’t leave, did he?”

  I moved the wine goblet out of her reach before the scene got even uglier.

  “Oh, I’m not going anywhere, Brenda.” Luigi turned to my nonna. “Carmela is too enchanting.”

  My nonna maintained her pillar-of-salt pose, but my dad belched and gave a groan.

  I leaned across the table and took Luigi’s goblet—and a half-full bottle of wine.

  Yvonne approached my father. “I’m going to have a look around the room in case the gift g
ot moved or fell in a corner.”

  He nodded but looked doubtful.

  Anthony returned with a dripping wad of paper towels. “Heuh ya go, Ma.”

  “Thank you, son.” My mother peeled off a towel and wiped her eyes. “You’re always so thoughtful.”

  He grinned right at me.

  I resisted the urge to grab a towel and wipe the smarm from his lips. After all, it was the season of good will towards men, even though I could make the case that my brother was a boy. “Mom, before you fainted, you said you got me a ring?”

  “Your father gave it to me when you were born. I wanted you to have it.”

  My eyes misted. I was truly touched.

  “Because I figured Bradley wasn’t going to give you one, and it looks like I was right.”

  The mist vaporized. The woman wouldn’t give it a rest even if she had only one breath left. “What does the ring look like?”

  She twirled a paper towel in her ear. “You’ve seen it. It’s the square-cut emerald on the gold band.”

  Luigi let out a whistle. “Emeralds aren’t cheap. You got insurance on that?”

  My mother swayed and gripped the table. “I let the policy lapse to cover Anthony’s trip to bartending school in New York.”

  I looked at my brother. No matter how much experience I gained as an investigator, I would never be able to solve the mystery of how he conned women.

  My dad’s face had turned the color of the bûche de Noël. “Why wasn’t I informed of this trip decision?”

  We all stared at him. My mom’s standard operating procedure was to exclude him from financial extracurriculars. How did we know that, and yet he didn’t?

  Yvonne cleared her throat. “In light of what’s happened, Mr. Amato, we’ll comp your meal.”

  My dad rubbed his hands together. “That’s at least three hundred bucks. That should about take care of it.”

  “Um, no, it shouldn’t.” I didn’t have a date, so I was getting that gift. “I need a moment with my family, Yvonne. Can I meet you in your office in a few minutes?”

  “Certainly.” She flashed a smile, but her green eyes flashed something else.

  My father put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re not going to investigate this yourself, are you, Franki? This is a job for the police.”

  “It’s nine thirty on Christmas Eve, Dad. A stolen ring isn’t going to be high on their priority list. And I think I can handle this myself.”

  “All right. I trust your judgment.”

  “I’m going to go talk to Yvonne about questioning the staff.”

  “Start-a with that-a cook.” My nonna raised a fist. “He rob-a me of-a my Christ-a-mas ravioli.”

  “Réveillon, Nonna. Réveillon,” I shouted as I exited the private room.

  Laurent had closed at nine for the holiday, so the main dining area was empty. I followed the sounds of dishes clanking and entered the wait station at the back of the restaurant. It was a hallway with an exit on either end and a food pickup window shared with the kitchen.

  Rhonda, the brunette waitress, scraped the contents of a plate into the trash and stacked it on a tray. She didn’t look up. “Whaddya need?”

  I eyed her “Do Not Cross” tattoo. “The manager’s office?”

  She pointed a dirty fork at the swing door to my right.

  I should’ve known better than to expect polite conversation from a woman with a street sign on her arm. I entered the kitchen, but Chef Gaston wasn’t around. The walk-in door was ajar, so I assumed he was inside cooling off from his run-in with my nonna.

  A door marked “Manager” was next to the walk-in.

  I approached and heard voices inside the office. I knocked, and they stopped. Abruptly.

  A thirtyish male opened the door and motioned for me to enter the closet-sized room. He was so tall, dark, and hunksome that a trip to confession was in order.

  Yvonne glared at me from her seat behind a beat-up wooden desk. “This is Declan, my bartender.”

  The my didn’t escape me. “Pleasure,” I said, and I meant it. “So, before I call the police—”

  “No.” She shot a panicked look at Declan. “You can’t do that.”

  Her reaction convinced me that something lowdown was going on at Laurent. “I can, and here’s why.” I took a seat in a metal chair and rested my arms on her desk to drive home what I was about to say. “I have to spend the next week with my family after my boyfriend who hasn’t proposed didn’t show up for dinner, and the emerald ring in that missing package is the only thing that’s going to get me through it.”

  “I’ve comped your meal, what else do you want?”

  “Tell the employees they can’t leave until I’ve questioned them. I’m a private investigator at Private Chicks, Incorporated.”

  Declan snorted. “That name’s a joke, right?”

  “It’s a play on private dicks.” I raised an eyebrow at him.

  Yvonne opened her mouth, and her upper lip stuck to a front tooth. “Fair enough. I’ll inform them that they have to stay late.”

  “Perfect. And then you can tell me whether you stole my gift.”

  She leapt to her feet and slammed her hand on the desk. “Where in the hell do you get off—”

  “I’ll tell you.” I rose and leaned my five-foot-ten inches forward to show her I wasn’t intimidated. “Everyone who came in that room is a suspect, and you seem reluctant to cooperate.”

  Her gaze met mine. “I didn’t take your ring, and I have no idea who did.”

  Satisfied, I straightened. I believed her—not because she was trustworthy, but because she wouldn’t have done anything to bring the police to the restaurant. “I’ll start questioning your staff.”

  Declan stood.

  “Thanks, pal. But I can definitely show myself out of this little box.” I exited the office, closed the door, and ducked around a metal rack stocked with foodstuffs.

  About thirty seconds passed, and the office door opened and closed.

  As I’d suspected, either Declan or Yvonne had checked to make sure I was gone—a sign they were up to something. I tiptoed around the rack and pressed an ear to the hollow door.

  “She’s going to have to go.” Yvonne’s voice was as clear and acidic as the white vinegar on the rack next to me. “There’s a bonus in it for you if you get rid of her. Permanently.”

  “Done,” Declan said.

  I took a giant step backwards.

  Were they talking about me?

  4

  “You sink you can snoop in my keetchen, eh?”

  I leapt from a dry goods rack I’d been searching and turned to face the chef. He held a fistful of raw meat in one hand and a cook’s knife in the other.

  “Someone stole my Christmas present,” I said to the knife. “I was looking for it.”

  “Bullsheet.” He kicked the walk-in door with his clog, and it slammed shut with a dungeon-like echo. Then he tossed the meat on a chopping block and approached me with the knife. “You are a spy. Who sent you? Was it Hugo? Or zat rascal, Felix?”

  I attempted a throaty laugh that came out a croak. “I’m Italian-American. We’re not known for any of the major spy qualities, like blending in or being quiet.”

  He pointed the knife, and one-eyed my face.

  I flattened against the wall with my hands up. I tried to stay motionless, but my nostrils betrayed me. The chef was cooking butter and garlic, and they were programmed by my DNA to flare at the aroma.

  “Zen why are you here, Mademoiselle?”

  “I’m a private investigator. I need to ask you a couple of questions about an emerald ring that was stolen from our private room.”

  He scratched his greasy pink cheek with the knife. “Do I appear to have ze time to chat?”

  “Well, the restaurant is closed.”

  “But ze keetchen is open.” He lowered the knife and approached the chopping block.

  I relaxed until he picked up a stainless steel meat tenderizer.
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br />   “I must make ze food for ze staff and zat…zat ruffian who expect me, Chef Gaston, to make ze Italien food.”

  “Oh, that ruffian’s my nonna. She’s done eating.”

  “Mais non.” He came at me with the meat tenderizer, and I went back to my surrender position.

  “Every customer, zey must leave satisfied. Before she go, she will taste my ravioles and grillades of veal.”

  “Might I suggest that you call them ravioli and scaloppine? Otherwise, she’ll never put them in her mouth.”

  The chef’s face turned as red as a Bordelaise sauce. Then he erupted in an expletive-laden tirade more explosive than the Bastille Day fireworks in Paris. When he finished, I understood why the phrase “pardon my French” had come about.

  “Chef, my nonna is from Italy. What do you expect?”

  “Puah, Puah,” he faux-spat on the floor. “Ze Italien cook sink zey are artistes because zey put ze tomato on ze pasta, but zey are no van Gogh.”

  Maybe not, but I had a feeling that Chef Gaston was, because I could see him cutting off an ear. “Look, your French food is very good—”

  “Ve-ry good? Ve-ry good?” He pounded the veal with the meat tenderizer in rhythm with the syllables. “Mon Dieu! I-should-have-a-Miche-lin-star, Made-moi-selle.”

  “Wow, a Michelin star.” I feigned admiration to get him to put down the mallet. “You’re obviously a top-tier chef.”

  “Oui.” He paused to glory in the compliment. “But I did not earn it, and I had to leave Paris in disgrace. Now I must work in zis merde restaurant cooking merde food for merde clients.” He held up his hands, fingers bent, and screamed at the ceiling.

  I inched toward the swing door.

  “Do you know ze reason I lose ze star?”

  I didn’t, naturally, and I sensed I didn’t want to.

  “I miss one rotten mussel, and ze Michelin inspector die of ze food poisoning.”

  I had a touch of hypochondria, and that revelation did nothing for my gut, which was full of a dozen oysters and a half pound of seafood gumbo.