Olive and Let Die

Book 2: A Greek to Me Mystery

by Susannah Hardy

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

The second Greek to Me Mystery from the author of Feta Attraction

As manager of the Bonaparte House, a historic landmark and Greek restaurant in upstate New York, Georgie Nikolopatos knows her local legends—and her traditional Greek recipes are to die for.

Between her soon-to-be ex-husband Spiro coming out of the closet and her budding romance with Captain Jack Conway, Georgie’s life is beginning to feel like a soap opera.  And that’s before a surprise visit from her estranged mother Shirley, better known as soap star Melanie Ashley. But the dramatic family reunion takes a chilling turn when another long-lost relative turns up dead.

Just outside Spiro’s new restaurant, Georgie and Melanie find the body of Doreen Webber—a cousin Georgie never knew she had. With Spiro’s partner Inky on the list of suspects, Georgie begins to wonder what else her mother may be hiding. Is the dead-broke diva capable of murder?  She’d better find out before someone adds a new twist to the family plot.

Includes delicious Greek recipes!
 

Release date: November 3, 2015

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 304

Sample

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Susannah Hardy

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Epigraph

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

EPILOGUE

Author’s Note

Recipes

ONE

It’s not every day a celebrity walks into your restaurant. Oh, there’ve been a few over the years, mostly old-time entertainers whose careers have been reduced to telling jokes or singing in the lounges of the quiet resorts on either end of downtown Bonaparte Bay, New York. Mickey Rooney. Dick Van Dyke. Once I saw Gordon Lightfoot walking down Theresa Street, but he didn’t stop in.

So when Rhonda Allen, my best server, burst into the kitchen that September evening as I was just sitting down to a plate of souvlaki wrapped in a soft warm pita—my five-minute dinner break—I knew somebody interesting had come in.

Actually, my life had gotten a lot more interesting lately. A few weeks earlier I had solved a couple of mysteries—helped bring a murderer to justice, and found some priceless items hidden right upstairs where I lived with my soon-to-be-ex-mother-in-law, Sophie. My friendly divorce would be final in a few weeks, and I had a developing relationship with a gorgeous Coast Guard officer. There were some details to be worked out, but life was looking pretty good for Georgie Nikolopatos.

“Come on, Georgie!” Rhonda grabbed my arm and pulled me along. “You’re not going to believe who’s in the top dining room!”

“Okay,” I said, laughing. “Who is it? Daniel Craig? Johnny Depp?” I felt a little panicky thrill. What if it really were Daniel Craig or Johnny Depp? I straightened my skirt and ran my fingers through my hair, doing my best to fluff it and wishing I’d made time to go to the salon to have my roots touched up.

“You’ll see!” I followed Rhonda past my office and toward the open pocket doors leading into the largest of the dining rooms. There were a satisfying number of customers, not so many that we were crazy busy, but enough that we’d make a nice profit tonight. No disgruntled faces. In fact, there was a low, excited buzz, and eyes seemed to be turning periodically toward the front window overlooking the main drag of Bonaparte Bay.

A woman with teased-out platinum hair and a scarlet tank top ablaze with sequins sat in profile to me. Her matching red linen jacket was draped casually over the back of her chair. She extended a hand, ropy with blue veins and sporting an enormous diamond cocktail ring and a set of lethal-looking bloodred nails, toward her dining companion, a youngish woman with dark hair and glasses. The younger woman was typing furiously into her phone, as though she were taking dictation.

There was something familiar about the other woman, who was clearly in charge. I couldn’t quite place her.

Rhonda tugged at my sleeve. “You know who that is, right?” The air practically vibrated with Rhonda’s excitement.

I glanced over again, doing my best not to stare while still getting a better look at my guest. Nope, recognition still eluded me. “Okay, you’d better tell me.”

“I can’t believe it! It’s Melanie Ashley!” she stage-whispered.

Melanie Ashley. Of course. The grande dame royal witch of daytime television’s most popular soap opera, The Desperate and the Defiant. She’d been on the show for twenty years and had been married and divorced a dozen times, half of those to the same man. At least the writers had finally stopped giving her pregnancy story lines, since she had to be pushing sixty.

“Go get Sophie, will you? She wouldn’t want to miss this.” Sophie was a huge fan of the show, which she watched during her afternoon break while she pretended to be sleeping.

I busied myself by greeting the diners at table eight, then moved counterclockwise around the room, making stops along the way. I wondered how quickly I could get the lone reporter from the Bonaparte Bay Blurb over here for a photo op and some free advertising. Sophie appeared in the doorway, rolling her lips together. She had just applied a new layer of “Passionate Coral” lipstick, a color (according to her) she’d been wearing since the early nineteen sixties. I never had figured out where she bought the stuff. She barreled over to the table, heedless of me, and I hurried to catch up with her.

“Why you divorce that beautiful man? Again?” Sophie demanded, her Greek accent thick and her little fists balled up onto her scrawny hips. Heads whipped around to watch. Melanie turned toward Sophie, and barely had to look up to meet her eyes.

Damage control time. “It’s lovely to have you here at the Bonaparte House,” I interrupted. “This is the owner, Sophie Nikolopatos, and I’m her daughter-in-law, Georgie.” Melanie stared at me, her glossy red lips slightly parted to reveal brilliant white teeth, and I felt a strange flicker of . . . something. Recognition? Well, of course I recognized her, I thought, surreptitiously studying the artificial tightness of Melanie’s expertly made-up face and looking for suture lines. I’d seen her on television and in the tabloids often enough. “We’d like to offer you and your guest a complimentary bottle of wine, or a dessert, if you’d prefer.”

“No, we don’t like,” Sophie fumed. “That beautiful man. How could you leave him for that, that, Toy-Boy?”

I took Sophie’s arm. “Sophie, it’s just a television show. Ms. Ashley is an actor. You know that, right?”

“I know she’s one of those, those, tiger women!”

“You mean ‘cougar.’ I smiled apologetically at Melanie, who continued to stare at me. It was getting a bit uncomfortable, actually, and I still had that nagging feeling. Her assistant glanced up occasionally from her smartphone but seemed to decide the situation did not warrant her interference.

Melanie shook her head slightly, as though to break some spell, and turned to Sophie. She apparently understood that no amount of explanation would change Sophie’s mind. She leaned toward my mother-in-law and whispered, “I’m just trying to make Vincent jealous. I’m not planning to go through with the divorce this time.” Her voice, low and with a throaty rasp, sent another tendril of recognition twining up my spine. I sucked in a breath.

Sophie’s eyes narrowed. She pursed up her orangey lips and seemed to think for a moment. “Give her a drink,” she ordered me, then turned on the heel of her white walking shoes and left the dining room.

I’d never done this to a customer in my life, but I pulled out an empty chair at Melanie’s table and sat down. Hard. I searched Melanie’s face. She’d had a lot of work done, between face-lifts, brow lifts, and Botox and collagen injections. Her hair was different. Her nose was narrower. She’d had her boobs enhanced. Her voice was different, perhaps from years of smoking or because of a voice coach. But up close, I knew this woman. The last time I’d seen her, I was eighteen years old, had just graduated high school, and was about to start my first job waitressing here at the Bonaparte House. She kissed me on the cheek, got on the back of a Harley behind a Hell’s Angel, and roared off toward Route 81.

A whole range of emotions surged through me in rapid succession: joy, relief, and disbelief, before I finally settled on something that felt just right. Anger.

“What the hell are you doing here, Shirley?” I hissed. I couldn’t bring myself to call her “Mom.”

TWO

“No need to get nasty, Georgie.”

Really? I had eighteen years of pent-up resentment and I definitely felt the need to be nasty.

“Couldn’t you have given me some warning before you just showed up here? Maybe an e-mail? A phone call?”

“And don’t call me Shirley,” she said, her voice low, as she cut her eyes to the other patrons in the restaurant. She smiled and wiggled her fingers at one table.

Great. Now she was a comedian as well as an actor.

“Fine, Melanie. Why are you here?”

Melanie turned to her assistant, who was watching our exchange with interest. “Be a good girl and run over to the drugstore. I need a Kit-Kat.”

“But you haven’t even had dinner yet,” the young woman pointed out.

“Last time I checked, Caitlyn,” she said frostily, “I sign your paychecks. Or at least my accountant signs your paychecks. I want a Kit-Kat now.” Caitlyn dropped her phone into her oversized bag and walked away, leaving her salad untouched.

Was that display of power intended for me? I was unimpressed.

“You have a nice little place here,” Melanie said. “Do you own it?” She looked at her fingernails and frowned. I followed her eyes to a small chip in the polish on her ring finger.

I gritted my teeth. She’d hit a nerve, almost certainly intentionally. If she’d had the resources to find me, not that that would have been difficult, she would have easily learned that I only managed this place. The historic Bonaparte House was owned by my mother-in-law, Sophie. Now that my soon-to-be-ex-husband, Spiro, had moved out to be with his true love, the guy who ran the tattoo shop down the street, I was in a tenuous situation. Sophie loved me, and I loved her back, but this arrangement couldn’t go on forever. Especially now that Jack Conway had entered my life. I was doing my best to convince Sophie to sell me the building and the business, but so far she hadn’t budged.

“Well, gosh, no I don’t. I work and live here with the woman who took me in after I was abandoned by my mother.”

Melanie winced, just a little, then shot back. “Don’t you have a husband? A daughter?”

I was done. “You know what?” I whispered. “My life stopped being your business twenty years ago. Just tell me why you’re here so I can get on with it.”

At that moment Caitlyn came back and set half a dozen candy bars on the table, then plunked herself down in her chair. Melanie should have sent her on a longer unnecessary errand than just across the street. Caitlyn started in on her salad, which was now soggy from having sat for too long in the dressing. She forked up a limp piece of lettuce and frowned. I signaled for Rhonda to come over. “Bring a couple of fresh salads, please, and tell Dolly to hold up these dinners for a few minutes.” She nodded and whisked away the plates.

“Well?” I glared at Melanie.

She made an attempt to raise an eyebrow at me, but she appeared to be too Botoxed to be able to accomplish that maneuver anymore. She gave an almost imperceptible nod to Caitlyn, who had pulled out her phone and was again typing furiously into it, oblivious. Later, she mouthed. Her mouth didn’t seem to work quite right either.

Fine. I mouthed back. “Where are you staying?” I asked aloud.

“We’re staying at the Spa. On Valentine Island.”

My friend Liza ran an exclusive spa on an island just a short boat ride from the mainland, catering to the very rich and very famous. Sometimes in the early spring, when we had not yet opened for the season, or in the late fall, when we closed for the winter, Liza would treat me to a world-class pampering session. Right about now I longed for a hot stone massage and a soak in one of her special relaxation tubs. I could almost smell the fragrant herbs sprinkled on the warm water. Valentine Island, take me away.

“And how long will you be here?” I tried to keep my tone neutral.

“I’m booked at the Spa for a week, perhaps two.” Two fresh salads appeared, and she forked up some greens, wrapping her unnaturally plump lips around the utensil carefully so as not to smudge her lipstick. “The boat is coming at eight o’clock. I’m going to send Caitlyn on ahead to make sure the rooms are satisfactory.” The assistant nodded. “I believe I’ll look around the shops until the next boat comes at nine o’clock,” she said, looking pointedly at me.

I nodded to show I understood, then got up. “Enjoy your dinners. They should be out shortly. By the way, there’s a jewelry shop just down the street you might want to check out.” I don’t know why I played along with her little game. It wasn’t like I owed her anything. But she owed me, at the very least, an explanation, and I didn’t want to alienate her before I had a chance to confront her. After I had my answers, well, she was fair game.

A woman from table six made a beeline for Melanie. She held out a pen and a piece of cloth—one of my table napkins—and asked Melanie for her autograph.

It was a short walk out of the dining room and down the hall to my office. I closed the heavy wooden door, none too gently, and unlocked the deep bottom drawer of my desk. I pulled out a plastic cup and a bottle of expensive Merlot purloined from the wine cellar, and poured myself a couple of swallows. I rummaged around in the drawer and came up with a bar of dark chocolate, peeled back the foil, and broke off a big square, which melted deliciously on my tongue. A few deep breaths, and my mood improved somewhat.

I’d actually dreamed of this day, the day my mother would come back into my life. I had several different versions of the meeting. In one, I’d lay into her, never let her get a word in edgewise, blast her for everything I was worth, say everything I’d been saving up for all these years, maybe even slap her! Then I’d walk away, leaving her standing there openmouthed. In another, we’d sit down and calmly discuss what had happened, we’d cry, she’d apologize profusely, she’d reveal that she had a terminal wasting disease, I would magnanimously forgive her, and we’d go on to have a mature and loving relationship for the two weeks or so she had left to live. But never in a million years had I pictured this scenario. My mother was a television star? I only occasionally watched the show, but I was no stranger to it. She looked very different, and she sounded very different from when I’d known her. From when she’d been my mother.

Melanie, or Shirley as she’d been then, hadn’t actually been a horrible mother as I was growing up. I had no father, or at least I didn’t know his name, but I was hardly the only kid at Roswell P. Flower Elementary School who didn’t have one. Mom was tough but mostly fair. When I reached my teens, I realized that she was detaching. She was home less and less, and as long as I didn’t get into trouble at school, she pretty much left me to my own devices. She didn’t care much about grades, never had, but I managed to do well enough without or in spite of her lack of encouragement. Once I graduated and had secured the waitressing job and an apartment over Fat Max’s Bar with four other girls, it was only a couple of weeks until she said good-bye, riding off with some guy she barely knew to California. She never sent money, sent a postcard once. She’d sold the house, left me her junker car, and was gone.

I drank down the last of the wine, considered pouring more, but corked the bottle and put it away, since I was technically still on duty. I ate another square of chocolate, looked at the remainder longingly, but rewrapped it and dropped it back in the drawer. What could she possibly want now? I’d made one attempt to find her when my daughter, Callista, was born. But it wasn’t as easy to find people then, before the World Wide Web became mainstream in everyone’s lives, and I hadn’t wanted to spend the money on a private investigator. Had I ever heard about Melanie Ashley having a family? She would have been only thirty-six when she left, and she must have gotten her gig on The Desperate and the Defiant shortly after that. Did I have a half sibling or two out there somewhere that she hadn’t bothered to tell me about? Bitter? Yes, I guess I was.

A knock sounded at my door. “Come in,” I called.

Dolly, our cook and general right hand, opened the door. “Sophie sent me to find out if the tramp left yet?”

The tramp. Yeah, that about summed it up on a number of levels. “She should be finishing up soon. Want me to get her autograph for you?” Not that I wanted anything more to do with Ms. Melanie/Shirley than I had to, but Dolly wouldn’t be caught dead up in the dining rooms.

“Naw,” she said. “I don’t care about them soaps. Now, if it was one of them WWE wrestlers or maybe Dale Junior, that’d be different.” Her eyes went a little dreamy.

I glanced at my watch: seven forty. Caitlyn would be leaving for the boat soon. “Tell Sophie I’ve got a headache, will you? See if she can close up tonight.”

“She ain’t gonna be happy,” Dolly said.

“I know, but I need to go lie down.”

Dolly looked at me skeptically. “If you’d switch to real booze instead of that red wine you drink when you’re upset, you wouldn’t get headaches, you know. But I’ll tell her.” She paused. “You want me to sneak upstairs and turn on your television and lock your door?”

“Would you?”

“No problem.” She waggled an eyebrow. “Have fun with that Captain Jack.”

My heart gave a little flutter. I sincerely wished I was going to meet Jack somewhere. Dolly closed the door and I grabbed my purse. I took off my apron and tossed it onto the filing cabinet, then out the window into the back parking lot I went.

I reached Roger Shawcross’s Jewelry Shoppe and ducked inside. No Melanie yet, but my watch said it was just eight o’clock now. I fingered some lovely hand-hammered silver earrings and chose a pair, plunking them down on the counter. “What brings you here on a work night, Georgie?” Roger asked, placing them into a pretty green box.

“Uh, I needed to pick up a gift for Dolly. It’s her birthday,” I lied.

“Again? Isn’t that the second one this summer?”

I laughed. “Oh, you know Dolly. She actually gets younger every birthday. It’s a pretty good system.” I pulled out my wallet and laid down some bills for the earrings. Most of us local businesspeople try to pay cash with each other as a professional courtesy.

“Want me to wrap that for you?” I looked around. Still no Melanie.

“Sure, that would save me some time.”

Roger headed into the back room, presumably for wrapping supplies. The door chimed and Melanie blew in.

“It’s about time,” I said.

“You should be thanking me,” she retorted. “I just signed seventeen autographs and promised to come back to your restaurant tomorrow night if people wanted to bring copies of my autobiography.”

I seemed to recall something about her autobiography coming out earlier this summer. “I don’t suppose the fact that you have a daughter is in there anywhere?”

She flushed. “No, I don’t suppose it is. You have to understand. These things are ghostwritten. It’s mostly all fiction. God knows I wish I actually had had the one-night stand with Jon Bon Jovi.”

“I don’t have to understand anything.” Roger returned and handed me the gift-wrapped box. He stared at Melanie, as if trying to place her. “Roger, this is Melanie Ashley. The famous television star? She’s looking for something really unique. Something expensive. I know she’d like to buy it directly from you. And pay cash.” I smiled pleasantly at my mother.

Roger thought for a moment. “I know! How long will you be in town? I’ll make you something one of a kind if you’ll be here for a couple of days. Silver or gold?”

“Oh, gold, definitely,” I said. “Make it eighteen carat.”

Melanie gave me a subtle jab in the ribs. “Yes, make it a bracelet, something absolutely unique. I or my assistant will be in to pick it up.”

“Super!” I said. “Come on, Melanie, let’s go for that tour of downtown I promised you.” I looped my arm through hers and steered her toward the door.

“What about Dolly’s gift?” Roger said.

“Have somebody deliver it to her in the kitchen, would you?” Dolly would enjoy the surprise, even if she had no idea what it was for.

Dusk was settling over Bonaparte Bay as we exited the store. I walked Melanie quickly down Theresa Street and up the walk to what had been the Sailor’s Rest, a restaurant that was closed for remodeling. “Follow me,” I ordered, and Melanie complied as I led us around to the back, where I knew there was a small outdoor table and chairs. I sensed that she was falling behind me and turned to see her appear several inches shorter, her ridiculously high heels having sunk into the grass. “Oh, come on,” I snapped.

“I’m older than you are, and better dressed, remember?” she shot back, disengaging herself from the turf.

“Yeah, and I’ll bet you’ve got a personal trainer keeping you fit, so don’t give me that.”

We sat down on opposite sides of the table, Melanie facing the restaurant. There were several Dumpsters out here full of construction debris, as well as some piles of building materials under the covered porch. The new owners of this place were my husband, Spiro, and his partner, Inky LaFontaine. They were transforming it into a nineteen-fifties-style diner. How they planned to do that to a late Victorian house was a mystery yet to be revealed. But they were hoping to have the place open in time for Columbus Day, and then close it up until spring.

A cool breeze blew up off the St. Lawrence River. On the one hand, I was grateful because it kept the mosquitoes down. On the other, it stirred up a funky odor, which I couldn’t quite place. But I wished I’d brought a fleece. Melanie tugged the sleeves of her jacket down and folded her arms across her ample chest.

“All right,” I said. “Why are you here?”

She opened her purse and stuck in her hand, coming out with a silver compact. She opened the compact and studied herself in the mirror. “Would you believe it if I told you that I missed you? That I wanted to get to know the woman you’ve become? Get to know my granddaughter?”

“After twenty years?” I snorted. “Spare me.”

She smoothed an errant lock of hair back into place. “I know I’ve made mistakes. I’m trying to make up for them now.”

“You left me. I was just a kid.”

She sighed. “You were born when I was only eighteen, just a kid myself. I did the best I could for you while you were growing up. When I knew you could handle it, I left to try to make something better for myself. For you.”

“For me?” Of all the self-serving statements I’d ever heard, that took the cake. “You know at the end of that summer, when the town shut down, I had nowhere to go? Thank God Sophie took pity on me and let me stay here while I took some college classes. On scholarship.”

“And if I hadn’t left,” she said gently, “you’d never have married Spiro . . .”

“Yeah, thanks for that. I had a great marriage. He’s gay, you know.”

“And you never would have had your daughter.”

The air rushed out of my lungs and I felt suddenly deflated. She was right, of course, not that I was going to admit it. Every moment of that sham marriage had been worth it, when I thought of how my Callista had turned out.

“She’s not here. She’s in Greece visiting Sophie’s relatives and working on an archaeological project at the Parthenon.”

“I know. I had Caitlyn do a little research before I came.”

What else had been researched? I wondered if she knew about the Bonaparte table and the jewels I’d found a few weeks ago. Was she looking to get a piece of that pie? I gave an inward chuckle. The jewels were probably going to have to be returned to the Spanish government. Whether there would be a finder’s fee remained to be seen. And the table, though worth close to half a million dollars according to Christie’s, technically belonged to Sophie. The chances of my seeing a penny of that money were slim to none. “So why all the secrecy? Caitlyn doesn’t know about me?”

“She does. But I wanted to see you first before it goes public.”

Something about this just wasn’t ringing true. Oh, I had no doubt she wanted to find me and Cal. What mother wouldn’t, even if she was the one responsible for the separation? But there was something more to this visit. I was sure of it. I was also quite sure she wasn’t going to tell me until she was good and ready.

“Are you happy, working at the restaurant?” She dropped the compact back into her purse and picked up a twig that had fallen on the table, poking it in and out of the holes in the metal mesh table.

I considered. “Yes, I guess I am. I love the history of the old place, I love the people I work with, and I love the job.” A little twinge of discontent surfaced. It was no longer enough for me to just manage the Bonaparte House. I wanted to own it, make it mine.

“Do you have money of your own?” She picked at the stick until a piece peeled off.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I have some saved up. I draw a regular salary, and I don’t have a lot of expenses. I’m not a big spender.”

Melanie looked me up and down, at least the half that was visible over the table top. “You don’t spend much on clothes, that’s apparent.” She wrinkled her nose. “What is that smell? It’s disgusting.”

“Uh, Melanie, you ever work in a restaurant? We serve food, and sometimes the food spills? Clothes have to be practical. It’s hard work.” I swatted at a fly. There seemed to be a lot of them buzzing around.

“How much do you need? I could help you out. That old lady can’t be planning to work there forever.”

I bristled. “That ‘old lady’ is only a few years older than you are, M-O-M.” She looked around to make sure we were still alone. Then her words registered. Melanie had offered to help me buy the Bonaparte House. I was sorely tempted.

“I visited a lawyer recently,” she said. “I’ve made Callista my beneficiary. I didn’t think you, my only child, would want my money, but I knew you wouldn’t turn it down for your daughter.” I breathed a small sigh of relief. Not that I hadn’t sometimes wished I had a sister to hang out with or confide in, but it was a relief to know that I wouldn’t be receiving any more surprises. “Well, thank you. I’m touched.” And I found I really was. A little. I looked at my watch. “Looks like you missed your ride.”

“Damn. That’s the last one, isn’t it?”

“That’s the last water taxi ride.” I offered to call Liza at the Spa and have her send a boat. “Wait, I have a better idea.” I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and speed-dialed a number.

He answered on the first ring. “I was hoping you’d call,” he said. A thrill raced through me when I heard his voice. I got up from the table and walked a few steps away. “Did the restaurant close early? Am I gonna get lucky tonight?”

I sucked in a breath. Getting lucky with Jack would be better than catching a thousand leprechauns, superior to an infinite number of rabbits’ feet. Not that it had happened yet. “Maybe,” I teased.