Death al Fresco Read online

  “Hold on.” I reached out to prevent the dog owner from disturbing the body any further. “I know who he is. We really need to call the cops.”

  “I already did,” said a woman from behind me. I turned toward the voice and saw that a crowd had gathered to gawk at the bloated corpse lying on the beach, most of the plein air painting class included.

  Eric came up to my side. “Oh, lord,” he said. “Not again.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I turned to face him. “I actually know the guy. He hangs out at Solari’s all the time. Or, well … used to.”

  “Sorry.” Eric laid a hand on my shoulder. “It’s just that I couldn’t help thinking that bodies seem to be following you around of late. Or you, them.”

  “I could say the same thing about you, too, buster. Buster, no!” This last bit was directed at the dog, who had crept forward once more and was sniffing at Gino’s arm. I stepped forward to grab his collar and pulled him all the way off the pile of kelp.

  At the sound of sirens, the crowd turned to watch two police cruisers pull over along West Cliff Drive above us. The officers climbed out of the cars and made their slow way down the stairs, assessing the scene before they stepped onto the beach.

  “It won’t matter if I take off, will it?” I asked Eric. “I’ve had enough of policemen of late. And it’s not like I can tell them anything that the rest of you can’t.” Eric shook his head. “I think you’d better wait. You’re the only one who can ID the body. And you did find it. Him.”

  “No thanks to you, Buster,” I said, reeling in the dog once more. “It’s all your fault.”

  The police officers both knew Eric, since he was a local district attorney. He filled them in on the situation and then introduced me to the two men. After telling them how I’d found the body and what little I knew about Gino—that he came into Solari’s most afternoons for a couple of beers and that he’d been a fisherman most of his life—I walked with Eric and Buster back to where we’d left our easels. By now a full-on crime scene had been set up, with officers cordoning off the area of the beach around the pile of kelp.

  A few students had stuck around and had gone back to working on their paintings, but most had picked up and left. I guess the sight of a decomposing corpse isn’t all that conducive to artistic endeavors.

  “I’m gonna take off, too,” I told Omar, who nodded his understanding. “See you next Saturday. We’re meeting out on the wharf, right?”

  “Right,” he said. “By the old fishing boat that’s on display.”

  “The Marcella. I know it well.”

  Eric and I packed up our paints, easels, and other supplies and carried them across the sand, letting Buster run free ahead of us. When we got to the base of the stairs, I set down my gear. “Did you notice that big ol’ scrape on Gino’s temple?” I asked as I leashed the dog.

  “Yeah, it was hard to miss.”

  “I wonder if that’s what killed him, or if he drowned.”

  “Well, the autopsy will show if there’s seawater in his lungs. That wouldn’t provide a definite answer, but at least it would mean he was still breathing when he fell into the ocean.”

  Neither possibility presented a pretty scenario.

  * * *

  We drove back to my place to drop off Buster and my art supplies and then Eric took me out to the end of the wharf, where I’d left my car. But instead of heading straight home, I pushed open the heavy wooden door to Solari’s and made my way across the dining room.

  Glancing into the bar area, I thought about Gino. He’d been such a fixture there, hunched over every afternoon in his faded blue fisherman’s cap, sipping from a bottle of beer and trading stories with the bartender, Carlo. And now I’d never be able to imagine the old man the same way again. Forevermore I’d picture him as I found him lying on the beach, his body bleached and swollen by the water.

  What a horrible way to go.

  With a shake of the head, I shifted my focus to the dining room. The restaurant had closed at two, but about a dozen people were still finishing up their lunches, scraping clean plates of tiramisu and cannoli and sipping espresso.

  Cathy, the new head waitress, was over in the corner, helping Giulia clear the water and iced tea glasses, bread plates, and unused silverware scattered about the vacated tables. From the looks of the mess, it must have been a busy lunch. Not surprising, given the balmy weather we’d been experiencing the past few days.

  “Is my dad still here?” I asked Cathy.

  “Yeah, he’s in back somewhere,” she said, hefting a stack of white plates stained a Bolognese red.

  I found him in the kitchen, wiping down the six-burner range. “Hi, hon,” he said, looking up from the sauce-spattered surface. “How was class?”

  “It ended early. There was a body washed up on the beach.”

  “You’re kidding.” Dad stopped his cleaning to stare at me, as did the line cook, Emilio, who had just come into the kitchen from the walk-in refrigerator.

  “Nope, not kidding.” I met my dad’s gaze and tried to control the shaking that had started to overtake my body. “And I know this is really weird, but believe it or not, I’m the one who found him.”

  “Oh, bambina.” Dropping his side towel on the stove, he crossed the floor to hold me in his arms. “This is really too much.” He released his embrace and took me by the shoulders. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I lied. The shaking had now subsided, but it had been replaced with a vague sense of dread. Eric was right: it was creepy how dead people seemed to be following me around.

  I leaned back on the counter next to the range, my palms splayed out on its butcher block surface. “That’s not all, though,” I said. “I recognized the guy. It was Gino, that old fisherman who comes into the Solari’s bar every afternoon.”

  “Gino? How could…?” Dad frowned and thought a moment. “That is so strange.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “You know,” Dad said, “he hasn’t been in for a few days, come to think of it. I guess this explains why.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “It was dinner several nights back.”

  “Dinner?” I stood back up. “He never comes in for dinner.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why I remember it. He hadn’t been in that afternoon, and then he came in during the dinner shift and actually sat in the dining room and ordered a meal. Elena was so surprised that she came back into the kitchen to tell me. And get this.” Dad got a conspiratorial gleam in his eye. “He came in with a woman. A young woman.”

  “Really? How young?”

  “I only got a quick look at her through the pick-up window, but I’d say maybe in her late twenties or early thirties. A real looker, too.”

  “What night was this?”

  He retrieved his side towel and folded it into a neat square. “I dunno … Monday, maybe?”

  And today was Saturday. “Do you know who waited on him?”

  “Elena didn’t say. Wait.” Dad turned toward me with a frown. “Don’t tell me you’re—”

  I held up my hands to stop him. “Don’t worry. The last thing I want to do is get involved in this.”

  * * *

  I left my dad to his cleanup and headed back out to the dining room. Other than the four-top next to the picture window, all the customers had now finished lunch and were examining their bills and pulling credit cards from their wallets. The remaining table didn’t appear to be in much of a hurry, however, as one of the women was flagging down Giulia for coffee refills as I emerged from the kitchen.

  Her accent sounded French—“a leetul mohr cohfee?”—and I could well understand why tourists like them would want to linger a while longer. The panorama from the tables along that side of the restaurant is magnificent: stand-up paddleboarders and fishermen in tiny skiffs floating on the sparkling Monterey Bay, with cypress tree-lined cliffs and stately Victorian homes along West Cliff Drive as the
ir backdrop.

  I crossed to the hostess stand, where Cathy was studying the old-school leather-bound book Solari’s still uses for reservations. “Only eight tables tonight,” she said as I walked up. “It’s gonna be slow.”

  “No worries. We’re bound to get a lot of walk-ins. It’s teeming with tourists out there today, many of whom will certainly get a craving for cioppino and lasagna right about dinner time.”

  “You’re probably right. I guess I’m still not quite used to how much foot traffic there is out here on the wharf.”

  “So,” I said as Cathy closed the book, “I wanted to ask you about a customer who was here for dinner earlier this week.” Yes, I had just told my dad I had no desire to get involved in Gino’s death, but I was curious why he’d so dramatically changed his routine and come in for dinner—with a young woman, no less. “An old Italian guy, with a light blue fisherman’s cap. Gino is his name. He hangs out in the bar most afternoons for a couple beers, so you might know him from that. I gather he was with a much younger woman the night he was here for dinner.”

  “Sure, I remember him. I thought the age difference was interesting,” Cathy said with a giggle. “But I just figured, ‘Hey power to ya, guy!’”

  “Do you remember who waited on them?”

  “I did. They sat at table four. Why do you ask about him?”

  “Well, he actually … uh…” I cleared my throat and glanced around at the few remaining customers.

  “What?” Cathy asked in a whisper, leaning across the podium.

  I took a step closer to the waitress. “His body was found washed up on Its Beach today,” I said, keeping my voice low enough that only she could hear. I didn’t mention that I was the one who’d found him. Better to keep the memory of that pale, rubbery skin as far away as possible. “And according to my dad, he never came back after that night.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. So I was wondering if maybe he said anything odd during dinner, or maybe you noticed something unusual about him.”

  She shook her head. “No, nothing that I can think of. They stayed till almost closing, talking away the whole time.” Cathy frowned as she thought a moment. “He was pretty animated, now that I think about it. And I remember they both had the baked halibut, because he went on and on to me and his, uh … companion about this thirty-pound halibut he caught a few years back. He was bragging about how long he had to fight it before he was finally able to reel it in.”

  I smiled. “Humility was never Gino’s strong suit. Especially in front of a member of the opposite sex.”

  I thanked Cathy and headed out the front door. The obvious answer was that he’d simply been wooed out of his normal routine by the prospect of dinner with a beautiful young woman. But why, I wondered as I unlocked the door to my yellow ’57 Thunderbird, would she have wanted to have dinner with an old geezer like Gino?

  Oh, well. I wasn’t going to fret about that. Thank goodness it wasn’t my problem, because I had enough on my plate right now with that damn sister-cities dinner my dad had suckered me into helping out with. And now I had the unpleasant chore of breaking the bad news to Javier.

  Chapter 3

  Saturdays are always popping at Gauguin, and tonight was even crazier than usual. We’d had a glowing write-up in last Wednesday’s food section of the local paper, which had called us “a radiant pearl, standing out in an ocean of seemingly interchangeable trendy restaurants that now dominate our culinary culture.” Describing Gauguin’s French-Polynesian menu, the reviewer had stated, “It is impossible to pick a favorite, as the offerings—from the Sesame-Ginger Cucumber Salad, to the Tahitian Sea Bass, to the Seared Pork Chops with Apricot Brandy Sauce—are uniformly delectable, with exquisite presentation.”

  And Javier had been positively unbearable all week after being dubbed “a rising star in the constellation of talented chefs who now inhabit the Monterey Bay.” Right now he was holding court at the Wolf range as he splashed brandy into the pans for three orders of the aforementioned seared pork chops, telling Brian, Kris, and me about the time Michael Pollan had come to Gauguin several years back and about the special meal he’d prepared for the acclaimed food journalist.

  But Javier’s excitement was understandable, and I was caught up in all the fervor as well. Notwithstanding its overblown language, a review like this could generate serious traffic for Gauguin in the weeks or even months ahead—and make all the difference to our continued success.

  Once the rush was over, Javier relinquished the hot line to Brian and me and headed out to the front of the house to schmooze with the customers. Brian was our new line cook, and he and I had gotten off to a rocky start; suspecting him of murder wasn’t the best way to commence an employer–employee relationship. But the cook had graciously forgiven me and now only occasionally ribbed me about believing him capable of pushing someone out a second-story window.

  Whisking cubes of butter into a saucepan of beurre blanc, I watched Javier through the pick-up window as he made his way around the dining room, stopping at each table to ask about the meal and smiling at the series of compliments this query generated. At one table in particular—occupied by a woman dining alone—I noticed that the chef lingered an extra amount of time, leaning over to say something and then laughing at her response.

  “Who’s the woman?” I asked when he pushed through the swinging door back into the kitchen.

  “What woman?” Javier asked, avoiding my eye.

  “The gal at table seven. The one you were having that intimate moment with just now.”

  He started up the stairs to the office. “Oh, her. She’s just a customer who’s been in a few times before.” Was he blushing?

  A few minutes later I followed him upstairs. There were only five tickets left, which Brian and Kris could handle fine without me. Javier was at the oak desk, studying something on his laptop screen.

  “Sorry about that,” I said as I sat down in the pale green wing chair across from him. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you down there.”

  He responded with a dismissive wave of the hand and swiveled the computer to face me. “What do you think of replacing the salamander with this?” he asked, tapping the screen. Our wall-mounted broiler was on the fritz, and we’d decided that rather than repairing the ten-year-old unit, we’d go ahead and buy a brand-new model.

  “How soon can they get it to us?” I asked. Having to use the regular oven to brown our gratins and make the toast points for our pâté en croûte was a real pain. Since it was directly under the range top, whoever was on garde manger would end up obstructing the line cooks every time he or she opened and closed the oven to check on the appetizers. “If it’s in stock and they can FedEx it, and if you like the model and the price, I say go for it.”

  “I’ll check.” Javier turned the laptop back toward him and typed for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, “they do have it, and it can be here the day after tomorrow.”

  “Good.” I sat back to wait as he entered the order, studying the Gauguin print on the wall. It was of two Tahitian women, one holding a slice of watermelon, the other a spray of pink blossoms. Now that I’d read the painter’s biography and learned more about his fixation on young women—girls, really—the print made me slightly uncomfortable. But the craftsmanship and beauty of the piece was undeniable.

  Getting up from my chair, I went to stand before the print and examined the brushstrokes up close. So simple, yet they conveyed so much feeling. And the bold use of color—vibrant yellow, red, blue, and green—you could definitely see the influence in Gauguin’s work of his friend and sometime painting partner van Gogh. If only I could learn to paint like that …

  Javier closed the laptop. “Done,” he said.

  I returned to the wing chair. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. It’s about Solari’s.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “So my dad’s agreed to host this big dinner next month in honor of the mayor of Sestri Levante, the
town in Italy that’s the sister city of Santa Cruz.”

  “Sister city?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it’s this thing towns do to promote peace, love, and understanding, and all that between countries. The cities send people back and forth to learn about each other’s communities and cultures with the idea that it helps improve diplomatic relations around the world.”

  “Seems like maybe it would be good to do that with places in the same country, too. You know, have Santa Cruz become a sister city with a town in, I dunno … Alabama, so they could learn about each other’s different cultures.”

  I laughed. “Not a bad idea, that. Anyway, so Sestri Levante, one of our sister cities—actually, it’s Sestri Levante and Riva Trigoso combined—is the area where most of the original Italians who settled in Santa Cruz came from. What they call the original Sixty Families, the Genovese fishermen and…” I trailed off as I remembered the Italian fisherman I’d seen washed up on the beach that afternoon. Swallowing, I fought back the acrid taste rising in my throat.

  “What?” Javier asked.

  “I … I found one of those fishermen—well, more like a son or grandson of one of them—dead on the beach today.”

  “Dios mio.” He leaned back in his chair with a quick intake of breath, as if trying to get as far away from me as possible. Or so I imagined, anyway. “You knew him?”

  I nodded. “Not well, but he was a Solari’s regular.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Javier continued to eye me for … what? Signs of sprouting black wings, like an angel of death? I knew the Michoacán native wasn’t all that religious, but he could be superstitious at times. And given my frequent association with dead bodies of late, it would certainly make sense for this to be one such instance.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m trying not to think about it too much, actually. So let’s get back to that dinner my dad’s hosting in a few weeks. The thing is, he’s roped me into helping with the planning and preparation, ’cause it’s going to be a real big shindig.”

  “Huh?”