Four Walls

19

CANNOLI WERE A SICILIAN delicacy: a creamy filling inside a hard shell. The filling was a mixture of ricotta cheese and sugar, and the shell was dough that was rolled into a hollow tube and deep-fried; the filling was inserted just before serving to keep the shell from getting soggy.

Many places mixed chocolate chips into the filling, which Stella had never objected to but never much saw the point of, either. It always felt like gilding the lily, trying to improve on perfection.

Belluso's Bakery did not put chocolate chips in their cannoli. It was the first place Stella had been to in New York that refrained from that particular excess, and it was enough to make Stella forgive Sal Belluso for his pola comment.

When she first came in, she noticed that there was a sign in the window that said NOW HIRING. Stella saw that Jeanie Rodriguez and one other young woman she did not recognize were working behind the counter. There were a few people at the tables downstairs, and a quick glance up showed at least two people upstairs as well. One of the people downstairs was working on a laptop; another table had two women and a stroller, in which a blond-haired infant was dozing; an older woman was finishing up a large cup of tea at another table and got up to leave as Stella stepped up to the counter.

As soon as Stella approached, Jeanie said, 'You need to take more DNA or something, Detective?'

Shaking her head, Stella said, 'No, no. I'm actually off the clock now. But this looked like such a nice place. I wanted to take in the atmosphere-as a cafй, not a crime scene.'

'Oh, okay.' Jeanie lowered her voice to a whisper. 'But you guys're still gonna solve Maria's murder, right?'

Stella nodded and matched Jeanie's tone. 'Don't worry-Detective Angell and the crime lab are on it. We'll find out the truth, I promise you.'

'Good.'

'Can I have a cannoli, and also a large iced coffee?'

'Sure. What size cannoli?'

Blinking, Stella asked, 'What are my choices?'

Jeanie walked around to the secondary counter and pointed at the miniature cannoli, which were only a couple of inches long, and then the large ones, which were just short of half a foot.

'Oh, the large,' Stella said with a big grin.

'Not the chocolate-covered ones?'

Stella made a face. 'Uh, no.' In Stella's opinion that was even worse than putting in chocolate chips.

While Jeanie rang her up, Stella said, 'I see you're hiring. Guess that's inevitable.'

'Yeah, we lost two people. Sal fired Dina when he found out she stole Maria's necklace. Can you believe that? I didn't think Dina could do something that crazy, y'know?'

Stella winced at that, feeling a bit responsible for Dina losing her job, but after a moment, the feeling passed. The fact was Dina lost her job because she chose to steal jewelry from a corpse. It was likely that she'd lose her freedom as well-Angell was probably going to bust her on obstruction, as her actions had confused the investigation.

After devouring her first cannoli in record time, Stella went back for a second that she could properly savor, then made sure to pay closer attention to the people who came in and out of Belluso's. She took up position at a table only a few feet from the main counter, which enabled her to overhear everything that was said, even with the light-music station being pumped out over the bakery's speakers.

About half of the customers just came in, ordered, paid, and left. Others had their order to stay. If people did converse beyond the confines of their order, it was on a subject other than Maria Campagna: the hot weather, the doings of the customer's job, the current state of affairs of either the Yankees or the Mets or both, whether or not the Jets and/or the Giants got hosed in the draft, how the customer's children were doing, how the customer's parents were doing, who was getting married, whether or not the customer's wife had given birth yet, what the customer's plans were for the upcoming school year, and so on. It reaffirmed Stella's belief that this wasn't just a corner Starbucks where people walked in, got their venti skim latte or grande iced mocha, and left; it was an organic part of a residential neighborhood. It was like the saloon in Old West towns, or the neighborhood pub in a small British town-this was where many of the area's residents came to refresh themselves and chat about their lives.

But some of those who came in talked about Maria, which was when Stella pricked up her ears, tuned out whatever soft-rock classic was playing, and listened.

'Is it true that one of the girls here died?' one asked. Jeanie provided as noncommittal an answer as she could. No doubt she was under orders from Belluso to minimize the perception of the bakery as the scene of a crime.

'Hey, Jeanie. Geez, sucks about Maria, huh? Can't believe that. Who'd do something like that?'

'I heard somebody got shot here. Is that true?'

'You guys should seriously consider getting a gate. Stuff like that don't happen when you got a gate.'

'Hey, somebody told me that Karen got killed here. That true?' When Jeanie explained that it was actually Maria: 'Oh. Okay. I didn't really like her all that much.'

'Can I see where that girl got killed? C'mon, I've never seen where a dead body was before. Please?'

'Heard you guys got robbed. That's gotta suck.' Jeanie didn't change that person's misapprehension.

'Oh, God, I'm so sorry, Jeanie, I heard about Maria. Are you guys holding up okay? God, that's so terrible! Is there anything I can do?'

'You know, someone told me that someone died here, can you believe that? What a silly notion.'

'Hey, Jeanie. Heard about Maria. You guys doin' okay?'

'Look, I can't stay, but I had to stop in to give my condolences. Maria was such a nice girl. Please, if you know the family, tell them I'm praying for them.'

'Why would anybody kill Maria? I mean, she was such a sweet girl. Whole world's goin' to hell, I swear to Christ.'

By the time Stella finished her second cannoli-and third iced coffee-she was about ready to give up. It had been a long shot, in truth.

Just as she was preparing to call it a day, she saw a large man wearing blue scrubs walk across the street and entered. Since one of the storefronts across Riverdale Avenue sported a big sign that read FELDSTEIN'S VETERINARY SERVICE, Stella assumed he came from there. He entered and walked right up to the counter, giving Stella a good view of the purple-and-yellow bruise on his cheek.

'What's up, Jeanie?'

'Hey, Marty how's life in the animal kingdom?'

So he did work at the vet's. Stella also seemed to recall something from Angell's notes about someone named Marty who worked at the vet and was friends with Maria.

'Not bad. Dr. Wentworth's out sick today, so it's kind of a mess. Can I get a half dozen of the cherry cookies?'

'Sure. And a coffee?'

'Yeah. Black, two sugars.'

'I know,' Jeanie said with a smile.

While Jeanie bent over to retrieve six of the shortbread cookies, which had a glazed maraschino cherry on top, Marty said, 'Sucks about Maria, huh? Getting strangled like that-that really shocked the hell out of me.'

'All of us, yeah,' Jeanie said absently, only half-listening as she gathered Marty's order.

Stella, though, found herself on full alert. A second ago, she'd been swallowing the last of her cannoli, contemplating what traffic would be like going back to Manhattan. But as soon as this Marty person mentioned Maria Campagna's COD, she abandoned all thoughts of going home anytime soon.