Read Dying for a Taste for Free Online

forming the hint of a smile.
    “So go ahead.” Detective Vargas leaned even farther back and clasped his hands together behind his shaved head. “Tell me about the chef. Why couldn’t he have killed her?”
    I explained how Letta had taken Javier under her wing soon after he’d arrived in this country from Mexico, howclose they’d become working together, and how she’d promoted him over the years from a lowly busboy to a prep and then line cook and eventually to sous-chef of the restaurant. “Besides,” I concluded, “Javier is one of the gentlest souls I know. And he adored Letta. He would never kill her—or anyone. I swear.”
    “Uh-huh.” The detective tapped his pen on his pad several times and then flipped to a new page. “Let’s move on.”
    After confirming that I had not been at Gauguin during the week prior to the murder and asking me briefly about “the boyfriend” (no, I had no reason to believe Tony and Letta were on anything but good terms), Detective Vargas let me go. With the polite request, of course, that I come in again if asked and that I promptly report anything of relevance to the case that I might subsequently learn.
    He escorted me back downstairs and into the lobby. Shaking out the cramp in my hands, which I only then realized I’d been holding tightly clenched, I watched the door into the main part of the building close behind the detective with a soft click. The condescending tone in his voice when he’d asked my opinion about Javier had ticked me off. He might as well have just come out and said, “Sure, little lady; whatever you say.”
    Vargas hadn’t blatantly accused anyone of the crime—rather, it seemed to me they were pretty much flailing about at this point—but the interview had left me uneasy. Could the murderer in fact be someone I knew?
    I shoved open the heavy glass door and made my way across the parking lot. The rain had passed, and other than some menacing thunderheads to the south, the sky was againclear. But it was still chilly, and once inside my car, I quickly rolled up the windows I’d left down for Buster.
    Tony hadn’t called yet, so my plan was to swing by his house next and see if he was there. I was worried he might have only just learned of Letta’s death from today’s paper and be in a bit of shock, but I also wanted to ask him about taking in Buster. Although he worked as an electrician, I figured there was a good chance he hadn’t gone in today.
    I’d never been to his home, but I knew the place well: it was where my great-uncle Luigi had lived before passing on some years back. Tony’s blue truck, with the Nicolini Electric logo painted on its doors, was in the driveway. I parked across the street and admired the front yard as I crossed to his side. I had forgotten what an avid gardener he was. Roses, all just starting to bud out, lined the walkway, and a wisteria dripping in purple climbed up the sunny wall to the right of the front door. The lawn was neatly clipped and edged by beds full of multicolored flowers in various stages of early spring blooming.
    A movement caught my eye, and I realized that Tony was on the left side of the house, down on his knees in one of the flowerbeds. As I approached, I saw that he was planting six-packs of red and purple flowers. He looked up as I came down the walkway.
    “Hey, Tony. I just stopped by to see how you were.”
    He dropped his trowel. “Not so great, as you can imagine. I’m trying to take my mind off it all.” He nodded toward the freshly dug soil. “Putting in verbena. It attracts butterflies, ya know.”
    The few times I’d met Tony, he struck me as one of those jokester types, always ribbing you about one thing or another, always ready with the one-liner no matter the subject ofdiscussion. But today his normally laughing eyes were puffy about the edges, his cheeks pallid and taut.
    Brushing some of the dirt off the knees of his jeans, he stood up and gave me a stiff hug. “I