Four Parties and a Funeral

Book 4: Catering Hall Mystery

by Maria DiRico

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Craft & Hobby Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

In this fresh and witty cozy mystery series set amid an extended Italian-American family in Astoria, Queens, catering hall owner and amateur sleuth Mia Carina must solve a murder on the set of a reality show.



The June events schedule at Belle View is busting out all over—proms, graduations, and of course, weddings. There are unexpected bookings too, including a casting call for the pilot of Dons of Ditmars Boulevard. But soon, Mia's fears about the cheesy reality show are confirmed . . .



Belle View quickly becomes the site of a sea of wanna-be goombahs and phony girlfriends, and some of Mia's friends insist on getting in on the action. The production company owner and his executive producer ex-wife—who's also very minor British royalty—have assembled a motley crew that does as much infighting and backstabbing as the on-screen "talent." Even so, it's a shock when a dead body is found in the pool house of a local mansion rented by the show . . .



Murder might boost the ratings. But Mia intends to make sure the killer gets jail time, not airtime . . .

Release date: March 28, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

If anyone had told Mia Carina that one day she’d wake up in bed next to a former male model, she would have spit whatever she was drinking out of her nose.

Yet here she was.

Mia enjoyed a languid stretch and was rewarded with an angry meow from Doorstop, the Abyssinian diva who commanded the foot of the bed and was not happy about being woken up by an accidental nudge from Mia’s foot. Mia sat up and reached over to pet the annoyed cat. “Sorry, sweetie. I didn’t know you were there.”

Doorstop made a sound that in human would have translated to “Yeah, right” and repositioned himself.

The male model still asleep next to Mia muttered something unintelligible and then said quite clearly, “Bacon and grape jelly.” Mia giggled. Shane stirred and opened one eye. “What?”

“You were talking in your sleep about work again. It’s adorable.”

Shane yawned and sat up. “What did I say?”

“Bacon and grape jelly.”

“Right. For the Kiwanis Club breakfast in the morning.”

“Practically our only event this month that isn’t a prom, graduation party, or wedding.”

Shane and Mia were coworkers at Belle View Banquet Manor, the party facility turned over to her “recovering mobster” father, Ravello, as payment for a gambling debt. Mia breathed a sigh of relief when Ravello asked her to help him run Belle View as a legitimate, entirely legal enterprise for the Boldano Family. She’d breathed sighs laced with lust and desire when Shane signed on at Belle View as operations manager. By Christmas, she and Shane had succumbed to their mutual attraction, but feeling guilty about the impropriety of a boss-employee relationship, they’d kept their romance on the down low for months.

Shane laced his fingers together and placed his hands between his head and the pillow. “Speaking of weddings, we need to find out if it’s okay to give Jamie and Madison cash as a present. I don’t see a bride in Connecticut carrying a satin sack for checks.”

Mia chuckled at the reference to the most important accessory to a bride’s outfit at the many Italian weddings she’d grown up with—the money sack. “At least not Madison’s family. They’re a little upscale for the sack. Nonna said that, in her day, sacks didn’t even exist. People just stuffed the checks or cash down the bride’s cleavage and, when that filled up, in the groom’s pockets or pants.”

“And now sacks are old school. Did I tell you that for the Castro-Pradeep wedding, I have to print out business cards they can hand out to their guests with their Zelle, PayPal, and Venmo account information?”

“Ha. That’s a wedding favor I didn’t see coming.”

Shane’s extremely handsome face creased in a frown. “I still haven’t figured out what to wear to the barbecue.” He and Mia, along with Ravello, the Boldanos, and a Queens/Long Island contingent would soon be trooping up to Worthington, Connecticut, for a party hosted by Madison’s parents in honor of the happy couple.

“Me neither,” Mia said. “This is, like, a whole new world. Jamie showed me pictures of the Wythes’ house, where they’re hosting the party. It’s old and white.”

“Like Madison’s relatives,” Shane said with a sly grin.

Mia chortled, then wagged a finger at Shane. “Don’t. Be nice, you. It’s not her fault her family goes back a million years. Jamie said the house is, like, almost as old as the country, and her parents are super nice. They don’t act entitled at all. But what to wear, what to wear. Hmmm . . .” As Mia pondered this, she tapped an index finger painted with sparkly gold nail polish against her lip. The other four nails were painted a soft sea green.

“They sail a lot in Connecticut,” Shane offered. “Maybe stuff with anchors?”

Mia brightened. “Great idea. I’ll see what I can find online.”

Shane yawned, then leaned over to Mia, gifting her with a kiss that knocked all images of anchors and America’s founding fathers from her thoughts. “I gotta go home and shower before work. It’s gonna be a day.”

Mia sighed. “I know.” Big Donny Boldano, Jamie’s father and technically the boss of all bosses to the Belle View crew, had begged Mia to hire Jamie’s older brother, Little Donny Boldano, to do something—anything—at the banquet facility. At the ripe old age of thirty-four, Big Donny’s namesake was still trying to find himself. This was to be his first day on the job. Mia and Shane’s plan was to let Little Donny figure out which angle of the catering business interested him the most and then place him there.

Shane kissed Mia again, then tossed off the covers and planted his feet on the ground. Mia followed his lead. Shane threw on his clothes and headed out of the bedroom to the stairs that led from Mia’s second-floor apartment to the first floor. The couple slowly crept down the stairs to avoid disturbing Mia’s grandmother, Elisabetta—who startled them by being in the two-family home’s front vestibule, having just returned from a power stroll with the “Army,” her friend group of neighborhood seniors. The octogenarian wore a bright pink velour tracksuit and matching sneakers. She greeted the couple with a buon giorno.

“Ma’am,” Shane said with a respectful nod.

Elisabetta shook her head, perplexed. “I don’t know why you keep sneaking outta here. You two been at it for months. You can stop now.”

Shane shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t, ma’am. I have too much respect for you not to sneak out.”

Elisabetta shrugged. “What is it the kids say now? Whatevs.” Enabled by the ability to stream, a newfound affection for teen dramas and reality shows had led to an interesting vocabulary for an eighty-something.

Shane addressed Mia in the most businesslike tone possible. “I will see you at work, Mia.”

Mia responded in kind. “I will see you there, Shane.”

Elisabetta rolled her eyes as Shane headed out the door. “You’re a big girl, bella bambina,” she said to her granddaughter. “You’re allowed to have a boyfriend.”

“You just said I was a big girl and a beautiful baby in the same sentence,” Mia teased.

Elisabetta muttered something less flattering under her breath. “You’re making me salty.”

Mia burst out laughing at her grandmother’s use of a slang expression popular with millennials for expressing frustration, prompting a dose of side-eye from Elisabetta. “Sorry, Nonna. But I don’t even use ‘salty’ when I’m ticked off or upset. I’m too old for it.”

“Meh, like it says on the mug you got me, age is just a number. And you know what I mean. You need a life. Especially after what you been through with that figlio di puttana you married.” Elisabetta punctuated her ire with an angry spit, then bent down to tie a sneaker that had come undone. “I like that Shane. And I’ll like him even better when he puts a ring on it.”

Mia favored her grandmother with an affectionate grin. “Simmer down, Beyoncé. Shane and I aren’t anywhere near that point. We’re like what they call friends with—”

“Benefits. Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s all over my shows. I’m not a fan of that friends with benefit merda.” Elisabetta rose to her feet with a groan. “Marrone, queste vecchie ossa. I’m gonna give myself a goal today. Get up once without groaning or cracking.”

Elisabetta headed into her apartment, and Mia bounded up the stairs to hers. First stop was her bedroom, where she pulled the cover off the cage of her pet parakeet, Pizzazz. She opened the cage door, and while she added pellets to the bird’s food dish, Pizzazz flitted around the room, mischievously dive-bombing Doorstop. The cat swatted at the bird but, used to her antics, didn’t bother to do more than that, especially since it would have required moving from a comfortable prone position.

As Mia showered, she thought about what her grandmother had said. She did need a life—one she’d denied herself after her philandering husband, Adam Grosso, had gone missing with his mistress in a Miami boating accident and Mia found herself the primary suspect in their disappearance. After a few tortuous months, the mistress’s body had washed up on a local beach to the screams of sunbathers. With no evidence of murder, the police wrote off Adam as missing at sea, and Mia hightailed it back home to New York. But the trauma of the experience and Adam’s disappearance haunted her. It took meeting Shane for Mia to realize she’d been using the ordeal as an excuse to avoid giving her heart to another man—someone she felt deep in her soul would never betray her.

Mia stepped out of the shower. She heard Alicia Keyes warbling “New York State of Mind,” indicating an incoming cell phone call. She focused on toweling herself dry and let the call go to voicemail. “Hey, Mee-ster.” Mia’s bright mood dimmed at the sound of Little Donny’s voice and unwelcome nickname for her, coupled with his gloomy tone. “I’m gonna be late today. Sorry.” The call clicked off.

“Way to start your first day,” Mia muttered. She loved Big Donny, who was her godfather in addition to being an actual godfather. But at the moment, the fact that he’d dumped his son’s early midlife crisis in her lap made her feel, well, salty. “Why do I feel this whole Little Donny thing is gonna be a disaster?” She said this to Pizzazz, following the parakeet to its commodious cage. Mia secured the cage door, gave Doorstep a pet, then put on black slacks she topped with a slinky turquoise tank top she insisted to herself she chose because it was comfortable on a warm day, and not at all because Shane once commented that it matched the bright blue of her eyes.

Downstairs, Mia found Elisabetta comfortably ensconced on a new recliner while watching a show on a new fifty-inch smart TV, both recent eighty-fourth-birthday presents from Mia and Ravello. A plate of almond biscotti sat on her lap. Mia perched on an arm of the recliner. “Whatcha watching, Nonna?”

“One of those shows about Hollywood. They’re doing a story on something about a pilot. But I don’t know where the planes are.”

Mia, confused, listened to the show’s host, a vapid D-list actor who’d found his calling as an entertainment reporter, wax on about a project about to start production. “He’s not talking about plane pilots. He means TV pilots. That’s when they shoot a first episode of a show they’re gonna try and sell to the networks or streamers.” Mia gave herself a mental pat on the back for knowing this. Fifteen years of subscribing to People magazine had paid off.

“Huh. What’s the name of the show?”

“I missed that. Hold on.”

Mia took the remote and rewound. She stopped after a minute and leaned in to read the screen graphic behind the host. What she saw surprised her. “It’s called The Dons of Ditmars Boulevard. And it’s gonna be filmed here in Astoria. They’re gonna follow around a bunch of Family wannabes.”

Elisabetta gave a sage nod and adjusted her wig, which she’d knocked askew with the comb she was using to scratch a spot on her scalp. “Dons of Ditmars Boulevard. I heard about that show.”

“Really?” Mia shot her grandmother a skeptical look. “Why would you have heard about a reality show pilot they haven’t even begun to make yet?”

“Because, Miss Smarty-pants—”

“Hey, an expression from your own generation. I didn’t know you remembered any of those.”

“Because,” Elisabetta continued, ignoring Mia’s good-humored dig, “Gabriella Pasqualini’s grandson Paolo was gonna be on the show, and she told us all about it. But he dropped out to become a priest.”

“Wow. I didn’t know anyone did that anymore.”

“It happens. You don’t know because the paisans don’t brag about it like they used to. But I don’t think this Dons of Ditmars Boulevard show is anything to brag about, either.”

“Agreed. Those shows live to make people look bad. Or stupid. Or both.” Mia snagged a biscotti from Elisabetta’s plate and planted a kiss on her cheek. “I gotta get to work. Ti amo.”

“Ti amo, bambina.” Elisabetta pointed at the TV screen. “Guardare, it’s Ditmars Boulevard. Look at all those goombahs.”

Mia glanced at the long line of teens and young adults as the show host’s voice-over explained they were waiting to fill out applications that might land them auditions for the show. She shook her head. “What kind of nutjobs would want to be on some low-rent reality show?”

She was about to find out.

Mia sauntered into work at Belle View Banquet Manor, still basking in the afterglow of her rendezvous with Shane. The glow faded when she saw the sign taped to the office door of employee-when-she-felt-like-it Cammie Dianopolis: RECORDING IN PROGRESS—DO NOT DISTURB. Mia opened the door, engendering an outraged squawk from Cammie. Guadalupe Cruz, the Belle View executive chef, sat on a folding chair next to her. A professional-looking mic sat on the desk between the two women, along with a phalanx of expensive-looking electronic equipment.

“Morning,” Mia greeted them with purposely faked cheer.

“Ma’am.” Guadalupe, an army veteran who’d manned the commissary kitchen during a couple of Iraq tours, was still military through and through.

“Mia, you interrupted the recording,” Cammie scolded. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and gave her boss the evil eye, pursing lips painted a retro shade of frosty pink. Cammie found her style in the mid-1980s and still wore it with pride.

Mia met the evil eye with a raised eyebrow. “And you are recording exactly what?”

“A true-crime podcast based on the murders that involved Belle View,” Cammie said, jazzed about her latest venture. She gestured to the electronics taking up every inch of space on her desk. “I got Pete to pony up for top-of-the-line gear.”

Pete was Cammie’s ex-husband, Detective Pete Dianopolis. Pete wrote self-published thrillers under the pen name Steve Stianopolis. Assuming he’d immediately join the pantheon of hugely popular authors like Lee Child, he’d divorced Cammie to make room for the author groupies he expected to fall at his feet. Neither they nor the big paycheck he expected ever materialized, and he’d come crawling back to Cammie, to the benefit of her and Belle View. A cowed Pete would do anything to win Cammie back, including springing for pricey recording equipment or revealing the occasional clue in one of the murder investigations involving the catering facility.

Guadalupe stood up, her towering frame filling the room. “I got menus to plan.”

“No worries.” Cammie checked a piece of equipment. “I think we got a good take before Mia barged in.”

“You mean greeted you on the start of the workday,” Mia said, hitting the word “work” hard.

“This is work,” Cammie replied. “Everybody loves true-crime podcasts these days. It’s great free publicity for Belle View.”

Mia grimaced. “Not sure how ‘learn all about the murder victims found in or around Belle View Banquet Manor’ is great publicity.”

“Normally I’d be with you on that, ma’am,” Guadalupe said. “But thanks to a podcast I heard, I just booked a visit to a B&B that was the former hideout of a doomsday cult, so I’ll recuse myself from this conversation.” With this, Guadalupe departed, her chef’s toque grazing the top of the door frame.

Cammie pondered a document on her computer screen. “Which do you think is a better title, Catering Hall Killings or Killings at the Catering Hall?”

“Hmmm . . .” Mia thought for a moment. “I’d go with, forget the podcast because more important things are happening today, like Little Donny starting work here.”

“That’s a terrible title,” Cammie said with a pout. She placed high-end earbuds in her ears and pressed a button on a recorder to play back her interview.

With the Kiwanis Club breakfast in Shane’s perfectly shaped, capable hands, Mia focused her attention on Little Donny, who showed up close to lunchtime for his first day at Belle View looking like he’d slept in his clothes, which it turned out he had. “I got a serious overhang.” The Boldano firstborn rubbed his forehead. Little D, as he insisted Mia call him—“It’s my new handle, clever, huh?”—was good-looking in a swarthy way. But at the moment, his rumpled outfit and black beard stubble gave him the look of a shipwreck victim.

Mia silently prayed for patience dealing with “Little D.” “Everything okay?”

“If it was, would I be here?” he grumped. “My kid brother’s getting married, and I don’t even got a girlfriend. Which reminds me, I’m not working weddings. I can’t deal with some other couple’s happy time right now.”

“Fine. No weddings. Not a problem. We’ve got lots of graduation parties coming up. Tonight, there’s one for a bunch of kids from Queens College.”

Little D shook his head. “Jamie went to Queens College. I only got through high school because Dad got one of his goons to hack the school’s grading software and change my Fs to Bs. So, no working a graduation party for me. Too depressing.”

“Fine.” Mia said this through gritted teeth, her prayer for patience unanswered. “We’ve also got a birthday party for a four-year-old coming up. Not a graduation, I promise. They’re all still in preschool. Little kids. Adorable.”

Little D shook his head and whimpered. “The way things are going, I’ll never have children.”

God help me. Mia sucked in a breath and slowly released it. She summoned a sympathetic smile. “Donny, if you threw yourself into your work, it would distract you from your problems. You might even make some new friends.”

Donny sparked to this. “Like hot college girls?”

It was Mia’s turn to shake her head. “No dating the customers.”

Little D muttered an expletive and slumped in his chair. “What’s the point of all this anyway? Why should I help other people make happy memories?”

Mia leaned forward. “That’s the whole point—to know you helped someone create a memory that will live forever. And you’re part of that memory. Donny, that’s incredibly fulfilling.”

The recalcitrant new employee responded with a skeptical “Meh.”

No wonder his parents wanted this guy out of the house, Mia thought to herself. Despite being in his almost-mid-thirties, Little D still lived at home. This wasn’t unusual in Mia’s circle, where friends often lived at home until they married. Mia knew a woman who had three kids by three different boyfriends but had never married, so she still lived with her parents, as did her kids. Still, most had walked down the aisle at least once, if not twice, by Little D’s age. “Tell you what,” Mia said, “I’ll find something for you to do that won’t push your buttons. In the meantime, why don’t you check out your office?”

Little D followed her with little enthusiasm to the small office they’d carved out for him off the first-floor Marina Ballroom, where Flushing Marina could be seen shimmering through the room’s floor-to-ceiling windows, as could the LaGuardia Airport runway, where a 737 was coming in for a noisy landing. After depositing her charge, Mia scurried to her father’s office, catching him as he returned from his daily lunch at Roberto’s Trattoria. “I wanted to warn you, there may be another murder on Belle View property.”

Ravello responded with an understanding grin. “Little Donny?”

Mia nodded. “He’s Little D this week. He hasn’t even been here an hour, and he’s already making me pazzo.”

She detailed her frustrating conversation with the latest Belle View employee. As she spoke, Ravello used the back of his hand to wipe . . .