The Monet Murders

be happy. He is so jealous, he wants no men living here. Only Jesus because he is married man.” Her diamond- studded fingers flew up to her mouth. “No more he is. I suppose now Trevor will say he must go.”

She sank onto the down-filled cushions of her double-length sofa. “Why this happen? Why?”

“The police are asking that same question, Ilona. I’m sure they’ll find the reason.”

She nodded but didn’t answer. She didn’t invite me to sit, either, but I thought, what the hell, and did anyway, on an exquisite bergere across from the sofa.

The original owners of the house had hired Holland Sally, Naples’s premier design firm, to create the interiors. They had chosen white and ivory for the public rooms with yellow silk brocade on the French chairs and touches of gilt on the ormolu tables and accessories. A masterful plan, it enhanced the formality of the high-ceilinged rooms yet managed to keep them light and playful. It was a look strangely at odds with Trevor’s blunt practicality, but one that suited glamorous Ilona perfectly. Though looking at her lovely, discontented face, I was struck by the realization that all this opulence hadn’t made her happy. Far from it.

“Now what I will do?” she asked. “Fifty guests for Christmas Eve and no chef. What? ”

She looked like she really wanted to know, so I decided to tell her what I honestly thought. “Well, in light of the investigation and Maria’s death, you could cancel.”

She bolted upright on the cushions. “Absolute not. Once given, invitation never is withdrawn.”

“But under the circumstances?”

“Nem. No. But where to find chef, even male, in so short time? Is half impossible.”

“True,” I said, annoyed enough to agree. Not a word of sympathy for Maria had yet escaped from those sculpted lips. Ilona acted as if Maria had never existed, never boiled her an egg, never prepared her special lo-cal meals, her apres pool parties, her lavish dinners. Sweet Maria who had called me Senora Dunne in her soft voice and had smiled so warmly each time, almost as if she knew how much I loved being known as Jack’s wife. What a shame her life had been snuffed out so savagely.

Ilona heaved a sigh. “I’m desperate woman. Desperate.”

I thought of Chip, who lived in the condo next to mine. A retired executive chef, he could probably use some extra cash. “Well, if you’re really at wit’s end, a chef I know might consider pitching in. He’s retired but-”

Ilona sat up straight, bristling with interest. “Who this marvel is?”

“My next-door neighbor, Chip.”

“Cheep?”

“Yes.”

“What is his specialty?”

“Italian.”

“Northern Italy?” Hope leapt across Ilona’s chiseled features.

“Southern.” I was enjoying myself.

“Jaj Istenem! Oh, my God! Not tomatoes.”

“Exactly. Everybody loves his lasagna. He passes extra sauce around. And wait till you taste his antipasto.” Touching my thumb and forefinger to my lips, I sent her a little pucker of gastronomic bliss. “Gelato for dessert. Homemade. Vanilla is his forte.”

Ilona heaved a sigh that sent her breasts aquiver. Hmm, maybe, just maybe, they weren’t implants. “Never can I face my friends again.” She wrung her hands, the stones on her fingers clicking together. “You know I’m Szent- Gyorgyi?”

“You mentioned that, but I don’t understand.”

“Szent-Gyorgyi. I descend from noble family. Kings, queens, intelligentsia. You heard of Albert Szent-Gyorgyi? Yes?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“My great uncle. My Albert Bacsi. He won Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1936. For green peppers.”

“Green peppers?”

“Igen. Yes. Hungarians love them. Uncle Albert isolate vitamin C from peppers. It was big medical breakthrough for my bacsi.”

“Ah. Fascinating.”

“Of course. My family is one of oldest in Europe. And now I cannot even hire cook, a menial.”

Okay. For that crack, Chip’s price just doubled.

“Well, should you decide to ask Chip for Christmas Eve, his fee would be two thousand dollars. You’d provide the food as usual, of course.”

“Two thousand? That is ridiculous. Who he is? Wolfgang Puck?”

I shrugged. “Chip’s retired, so he may not want to get back into a kitchen.” But I knew he would. Chip adored cooking and had only retired to please AudreyAnn, his love buddy. While not exactly a trophy, AudreyAnn required a lot of TLC. Chip, I suspected, enjoyed dishing that out as much as he did lasagna. Still, for two grand, AudreyAnn would no doubt be willing to sacrifice a cozy Christmas Eve around the palm tree.

Ilona slumped deeper into the down cushions, staring through the glass wall out to the Gulf of Mexico sparkling turquoise all the way to the horizon. As Ilona stared at the view, I wondered why on earth I’d been called here. I was grateful to the Alexanders for hiring me but also worried that the scandal would kill fledgling Deva Dunne Interiors before it had a chance to fly. But there wasn’t much I could do about that except hope the case would soon be solved. So, nerves on edge, I waited, my design time clock clicking away at a hundred dollars per hour.

Finally, Ilona tore her attention from the view, heaved a sigh and said, “You know something, Deva, I never should have married him.” She threw her hands up in the air. “That yenta should be shot.”

“I’m not following you, Ilona.”

“No? You never heard of yenta?”

“I have, but what has that got to do-”

“You want I should tell you?”

Uh-oh. Here it comes. Something I shouldn’t hear. The same thing happened on nearly every sizable design project. Somehow, when you pick out people’s drapery fabric, you morph into a confessor, and they tell you stuff their own mothers don’t know. Usually I dread these confidences, but this time I was as alert as a bunny in an open meadow.

In fact, I aided and abetted. “So tell me. What’s a yenta?”

Another dramatic sigh. “A matchmaker. This one I should never have listened to.”

“No?” I leaned forward so as not to miss a word.

“It’s no secret. When Trevor drinks, Trevor talks. Everybody knows. Everybody.” She swept her arms wide encompassing the room, the Gulf, the world. At least the world that counted socially.

“Ilona, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I did have a glimmer, but curiosity had seized me in its sharp teeth, and I was dying for the fangs to sink in deeper.

“He buy me.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I no kid. For three hundred thousand dollars.”

“No!” If my jaw hadn’t been attached to my face, it would have hit the floor.

“Yes, I tell you truth. That’s what that yenta charge him. Her clients search everywhere but cannot find what they want in wife. She finds. All over world. Only the best, the creme de la creme. She comes to Budapest and interviews me many times, and I tell you, Deva, she asks questions your mama never would. Terrible.”

“You answered?”

Ilona’s eyes widened with a frisson of surprise. “Of course. In strange way, it was honor. And I want to marry. It was time.”

I was amazed that her noble family would have allowed such bartering for one of their own. Centuries earlier, rulers did so out of political expediency, but today there could only be one reason. You couldn’t live on a noble name