Roast Mortem

“You saw how she treats him?”

I nodded.

“Why do you think he puts up with it? He is still a boy. Lucia says they’re engaged. Eh. She won’t go through with it.”

“Because?”

“Because there is a man from my daughter’s past who still comes sniffing around... a real man, a grown one. Lucia has a special smile for this one. Glenn doesn’t know it, but she does. Love is a game to my daughter... she is not like her mother... to Lucia men are playthings...”

“And who is this man? The one from her past who still comes around to play with her?”

Enzo shrugged once more. “You don’t know him...” He looked away again, into space.

“Glenn rebuilds cars, right?” I prodded, trying to keep the man focused. “With his skills, maybe he can help Lucia rebuild the caffe.”

“Glenn Duffy is a mechanic, not a carpenter. He has no interest in running a caffè...” Enzo paused to cough. “I’ve heard him talk. He wants to open his own car shop in North Jersey, where he has family.”

“It takes money to start your own business,” I said. And I was willing to bet ten kilos of Kona Peaberry that a competent car mechanic would possess enough skill to rig a basic incendiary device with a timer.

“Enzo, where do you think Glenn Duffy is going to get the money to — ”

“Excuse me.” The RN appeared again, a tall, slender woman of East Indian heritage. “How are you feeling?” she asked Enzo, her voice a sweet singsong.

Taking in the nurse’s dark, cat-shaped eyes and flawless dusky-skinned face, Enzo immediately perked up. “I died and went to heaven, that’s how I feel. Only this can explain the angel I see before me.”

The nurse laughed. “You’re still here on Earth, I’m glad to say, Mr. Testa.”

“You call me Enzo, okay? No more of that Mr. Testa stuff. Mr. Testa was my father.”

She arched a pretty eyebrow then turned to face me. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wrap up your visit. Mr. Testa has another family member waiting. As soon as you come out, I’ll show his sister in...”

“Sister?” Enzo and I blurted out at the same time.

“Yes, Mr. Testa, your sister Mrs. Rita Quadrelli.”

As the nurse turned and strode away, Enzo’s eyes widened in obvious panic. “Clare! A favor, please! I beg you.”

I already guessed.

“The widow Quadrelli is not my sister. She must have fibbed like you to get in here — ”

“And you don’t want to see her?”

“When God made that woman, he left out the quiet! Five minutes with her babbling in my ear, and I’ll be pulling these tubes out to get away, even if it means certain death!”

I considered going to the nurse, but that had the potential to turn ugly, especially if Mrs. Quadrelli were confronted. After all, how could I accuse her of not being his sister when I wasn’t his daughter?

“I’d better deal with Mrs. Quadrelli directly,” I said. “What do you want me to tell her?”

“Tell her I’m sleeping. Tell her I’m drugged. Tell her I’m in a coma!”

I touched his shoulder. “I’ll think of something. And I’ll keep checking in with your nurse to see how you’re doing.”

Moments later, I spotted Mrs. Quadrelli just outside the critical-care unit. She was waiting in a small seating area, but the woman wasn’t sitting, she was frantically pacing next to the sliding glass doors. And when she saw me walking away from Enzo’s station, her expression morphed from impatience to outrage.

“What’s this? I was told Enzo was visiting with his daughter. But you’re not Enzo’s daughter!”

Okay, Clare, come up with something — fast.

Nine

Enzo had described Mrs. Quadrelli as a donna pazzesca, which is why I’d mentally cast her as a bug-eyed Phyllis Diller with a wild gray ’fro and a voice like Alvin the singing chipmunk.

Way off.

Impeccably tailored in a sleek black pantsuit, Enzo’s wannabe love interest was a handsome, slender lady in her midsixties. Her dark hair was cropped short like Lucia’s, dead straight, and shiny as a beetle shell with enough shimmering red highlights to have been recently salon-glossed. A cloying cloud of flowery cologne floated around her. Like Lucia, she sported plenty of gold jewelry, which jangled with every fidget, and although she appeared upset to see me, she was far from what I would have described as a crazy woman.

“Let me introduce myself,” I began, trying to ignore the increasing itch in my nose. Lord, that cologne. She must have just doused herself! “My name is — ”

“You’re not Lucia.”

No kidding. “My name is Clare Cosi and — ”

“I don’t understand! The nurse told me Enzo was visiting with his daughter!”

“And she told me his sister was waiting to see him. We both know you’re not his sister.”

The woman’s squinting eyes collapsed another millimeter. “Who are you?”

“I told you, my name is Clare — ”

“Who are you to Enzo?”

“A friend in the coffee business. I went by his place this evening with my employer to look over an antique roaster. We were all caught in the fire.”

Mrs. Quadrelli fell silent. Her red lipstick was so boldly applied that when she twisted her mouth into a scowl, I flashed on my years taking Joy to the Big Apple Circus.

Finally she said, “You people shouldn’t have been there at all.”

“Excuse me?”

“Enzo closes early on Thursdays to play bocce. Everyone knows that.” She looked away then, as if a poster on flu prevention were in immediate need of study.

“I don’t understand. What does that have to do with — ”

She whipped her head back around. “If not for you and your employer, he’d have been in that park with me. It’s your fault Enzo is in this hospital.”

I studied the woman. “What do you know about the fire, anyway?”

“Me? Nothing! Not a thing!” She threw up her hands. “I wasn’t even near Enzo’s caffè. It was Mrs. Mercer who told me about it. Mary saw the whole thing, and she came to the park with her dog, Pinto. Little Pinto is famous in the neighborhood. Do you know about him?”

“No, but if you — ”

“He’s the dog who rides around in the red wagon. Pinto was featured in the Daily News last year. He has cerebral palsy or something and can’t walk. Or is Pinto a she? I forget. Anyway, Pinto’s vet is that new fellow on Steinway Street — ”

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, beginning to get a clue why Enzo was willing to choose a coma over this conversation, “but I think we should head downstairs.”

The glass ICU doors slid wide just then, and I noticed Enzo’s pretty nurse glancing curiously our way.

“Enzo can’t see you tonight,” I quietly told Mrs. Q.

“And why would that be? He saw you, didn’t he?”

“The doctors just ordered more tests, so no more visitors, not even family — ”

“Tests!” Mrs. Q snorted. “I know all about doctors and their tests! Maria Tobinski, on Thirty-ninth Avenue, she has a husband who’s a conductor on the MTA. Works the F train — anyway, Maria went to her gynecologist for a routine checkup and they found — ”