Secondhand Smoke

by Karen E. Olson

Genres: Female Sleuths

Synopsis

"New Haven police reporter Annie Seymour returns to investigate a suspicious fire in a neighborhood-favorite Italian restaurant"--Provided by publisher.

Release date: September 27, 2006

Publisher: Mysterious Press

Print pages: 272

Sample

CHAPTER 1

I smelled smoke. My feet hit the floor before my eyes opened, my nose leading me into the kitchen. I flicked the switch next to the refrigerator, and the light above the stove blinded me for a second before I saw all the dials were on “off.” I turned toward the living room, walked around the counter, my eyes searching every nook and cranny until I saw the red glow outside, catty-corner from my brownstone on Wooster Square.

Jesus. I moved to the window and stared. The flames danced between the skeletal limbs of the trees. In my half-sleep state, it was hypnotizing. Until the first siren pierced the air. Shit, I’d go deaf if I stood here. When I moved, my reflection caught my eye—I was naked, standing at my window with the lights on. The clock on the wall read 6:00 A.M. The last time I was awoken at such an ungodly hour, I’d had a dead girl to deal with.

At least I wasn’t hung over this time.

I could go back to sleep and pretend I hadn’t noticed. But the chorus of sirens below kept getting louder; it would be easier just to drag my ass out there and see what was on fire.

As I got dressed in the bedroom, I glanced outside again and noticed it was snowing. I could see it in the streetlight below my window. And it was coming down pretty hard. Nothing worse than a fucking snowstorm at 6:00 A.M. on Thanksgiving Day.

I found my boots in the back of the closet and rummaged around in a drawer for a pair of gloves. One look in the mirror told me my bedhead was out of control. A hat was definitely called for. I finally found one stuck in the sleeve of my winter coat. A notebook in my pocket, a couple of mechanical pencils, and I was ready.

Yeah, right.

I let myself out the front door of my brownstone, one of my neighbors behind me.

“Annie . . .” I heard Amber Pfeiffer’s breathy voice. “Annie, wait up.”

I turned to see her mousy brown hair sticking up on the back of her head. She needed a hat worse than I did.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“That’s what I’m going to find out,” I said, not even trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. I’d met her and my upstairs neighbor Walter a couple of months ago. They had proved completely useless as they watched me getting mugged, and I hadn’t forgotten it.

And speak of the devil, here was Walter, who bore an uncanny resemblance to a pit bull, coming down the stairs with a cup of coffee. “Something’s on fire,” he said, proving that perhaps he was at least as smart as a pit bull. He barely glanced at me—we’d never bonded—and smiled at Amber, pulling a ski cap down over his crew cut with one hand and offering to get her a cup, too.

Amber declined, and I skirted around her during the distraction, trying to get a head start on them. But they stayed on my heels, and as we got closer, I saw that most of the neighborhood had turned out as well. Who gives a shit about a little snow when there’s a raging fire down the street?

I tried to ignore Amber’s patter, something about how I must know a lot about fires since I report about them for the newspaper, as I gingerly crossed the street, squinting through the snow and smoke to see what was on fire.

It was Prego. Probably the best Italian restaurant in the entire city, in my personal opinion. I couldn’t get enough of their lobster ravioli. Washed down with a fine glass of Chianti, it was a perfect meal.

I slipped on the slick sidewalk and fell on my ass.

“Shit.”

“Good to see you, too,” said a familiar voice, and I looked up into Vinny DeLucia’s eyes. I hadn’t seen him for about two months, but I wasn’t surprised to see him here, since his apartment was just a block away in the other direction on the square. I had imagined that when I saw him again, I might have the upper hand. And here I was with a wet butt, looking anything but attractive.

He held out his hand, and I grabbed it, pulling myself up. “Long time no see,” I said. I glanced around, but Amber and Walter had finally gone off on their own and were talking to someone else now, several feet away.

Vinny’s eyes lingered on mine, and he smiled that sexy smile that turned me into Jell-O. “You look good.”

“Fucking liar,” I said, brushing the slush off my jeans.

Vinny chuckled, his resemblance to Frank Sinatra once again throwing me off guard. “I forgot how charming you are.”

I felt a tingle that I hadn’t felt in a long time, but there was something in the way. “How’s your fiancée?” I asked.

The smile disappeared, and he shrugged but didn’t say anything.

So that was the way it was. I was disappointed, since he’d told me his feelings for her had waned. If his kisses were any indication, well, they had been in big trouble. But maybe they’d worked it out. Which sucked for me, since I still harbored unconsummated feelings for him.

I couldn’t spend valuable time thinking about this. “I have to find out what’s going on with the fire, okay?”

I moved past him, deeper into the smoke and to the corner of the square, but I could still feel his eyes on me.

I sidled up to the small wrought-iron fence that circled the square, but I couldn’t get any closer because of all the commotion. Flashing lights blinded me as firefighters’ silhouettes moved as if in a silent movie, the shouts and loud truck engines their music. The one-story white wooden building squatted on a little plot between two three-story architecturally historic gems. The only things keeping the houses from catching fire were two fairly wide driveways on either side of the restaurant and two walls of water cascading from hoses held by the firefighters.

Prego had never flaunted its reputation, rather quietly understated it with a small oval sign by the front door that announced its identity in black and gold. The sign was illuminated by the streetlamp with a sort of halo effect as flames leaped ferociously from the windows around it.

It was a goddamn shame.

I grabbed the sleeve of one of the firemen as he moved in front of me, and I stared into his sooty face for a moment before recognizing him.

“Al, it’s me, Annie. Is the chief around?” I shouted over the din.

His heavy glove pointed a few feet away. “Thanks!” I shouted again, but I didn’t think he heard me.

Len Freelander had been fire chief for exactly one week. The last time I’d seen him was at his swearing-in ceremony. He’d looked dapper in his dress uniform, his hair tucked neatly under his cap, his hands in white gloves. This morning, despite the snow, sweat poured out from under his hat; his hands were red and chapped from the freezing water, his yellow jacket practically black from the smoke.

“Any idea how this started?” I shouted.

He stared at me as if I were from Mars.

“Annie Seymour? The Herald?” I reminded him.

His eyes flickered with recognition. “Oh, yeah.” He shook his head. “No, no, we can’t make any speculations at this point.”

We heard a shout, and Len started running. My own adrenaline was pumping, so I ran after him.

“I’m bringing the guys out. The structure’s not sound,” I heard a fireman tell him as we got closer to the restaurant. And after a pause: “There’s a body in there. We can’t get it out.”

I felt an arm around my waist, pulling me back.

“Let go of me!”

“You can’t go any farther.” It was that fireman, Al.

“But what about a body? There’s someone in there?”

He pulled me across the street, back to the square, and left me alone without answering my questions. No surprise there.

I watched as four silhouettes emerged from the building; they weren’t running, but they moved efficiently toward the trucks.

“What’s going on?” Vinny was back at my side.

“Sounds like they found a body.”

“Inside?”

“Yeah.”

“There wouldn’t be anyone in there this morning.”

“Don’t they make their own bread? They do that pretty early.”

Vinny shook his head. “When was the last time you ate at Prego?”

“I dunno. Six months ago?” So Prego was a little out of my price range. I could indulge only a couple of times a year.

“Their baker died a month ago, and Sal hasn’t been able to find anyone he likes to replace him, so he’s been getting bread at Benini’s on Grand Avenue.” He paused. “And anyway, Sal doesn’t open on Thanksgiving.”

Vinny’s parents owned a pizza place on Wooster Street, just a couple of blocks away, so it wasn’t a shocker that he would know all that. And because I pride myself on being antisocial in the neighborhood, it wasn’t a shocker that I wouldn’t be privy to any goings-on outside my own little cocoon up the street.

“I hope it’s not Sal—the body, I mean,” I said, thinking about the cheerful man with the hooked nose who gave my father his first job as a dishwasher way back when. If it was Sal Amato, my dad would be crushed. I didn’t want to be the one who would have to call him in Vegas and tell him.

The look on Vinny’s face told me he’d been wondering the same thing and dreading it, too. But before I could say anything, I heard a voice behind me. “Have you found out how it started?”

Dick Whitfield was like the cockroach that wouldn’t go live in the little motel under my sink.

“Why the fuck are you here?”

Vinny’s eyebrows shot up into his forehead, and I rolled my eyes at him. It’s just too hard to try to explain to anyone that Dick needed to be kept in his place if I wanted to get any real work done. He was still a rookie reporter, even if he had proven himself a little useful the last time we’d worked together. Marty Thompson, the city editor, had wisely kept him away from me for the last month. But here he was again, breathing down my neck in my neck of the woods.

Dick looked like he was going to back down, but then: “Hey, we can work on something together again.”

Vinny didn’t turn away from me fast enough. I saw the smile, and I was going to remember it.

“Why don’t you go home,” I started to say, when an explosion crashed through the thick, icy air.

Chapter 2

Part of the roof had caved in. The firefighters looked like they’d frozen in that moment, staring at the burning building as the red lights from the trucks flashed in synchrony like a strobe. I looked around me at all the neighbors huddling together, watching the scene as if it were on TV and not in their own backyards. A scream resonated somewhere off to my right.

Sal’s wife, Immaculata, the rollers in her gray hair bouncing off the top of her head, her pink chenille bathrobe trailing behind her as her slippers sank into the slush, was stopped by a fireman before she could get to what was left of the restaurant. Her face was contorted with fear, and even from where I stood, I could see tears freezing to her cheeks.

“Who’s that?” Dick asked no one in particular.

I was glad I wasn’t the only one who ignored him. Everyone else there knew Sal and Mac Amato—they grew up in the neighborhood, they got married at the church around the corner, they raised their son there, they ran their business. They knew everyone’s name, and everyone knew them. Dick had no place here.

I heard Vinny telling Dick maybe he should let me handle this right now. I stepped back toward the street. I never liked covering fires; people lost stuff—their possessions, their memories, their family. But this is what I do; it’s the only thing I know I’m really good at, so I made my legs take me into the middle of it, where I knew I’d get my story.

“Was there anyone in there?” I asked Len Freelander, who was shaking his head, muttering to himself.

“There was a body.”

I already knew that, but now I had it on the record. “Only one?”

“Yes.” I could see he was relieved.

“Was it Sal, you know, the body?”

Len sighed. “I don’t know. With any luck, we can still get it out of there in one piece. But it’s just too dangerous to let anyone go in now, until the fire’s out completely and the structure’s secure.”

He walked away from me, and I went back to my spot near the square. Dick was talking to some of the people who’d gathered. At least he was doing something other than bothering me, but this meant he was getting in on the story, and Marty might let him stay on it with me.

Vinny was standing by himself, staring at what was left of Prego.

“Was it Sal in there?” he asked me as I approached.

I shook my head. “They don’t know.”

His mouth tightened into a grim line. Vinny DeLucia was a private investigator and had played a big role in finding the guy who’d embezzled money from a slew of prominent city folk back in September. My mother, who’d hired him, vouched for his professional talents. As for me, I could vouch only for the way he both annoyed me and turned me on at the same time. I suppose he would call it a talent. I called it a goddamn pain in my ass.

I glanced over at Mac, and two women with scarves obscuring their faces were on either side of her, literally holding her up while Len Freelander held her hands. I could see his mouth moving, and then hers, the pain etched into her forehead.

“I have to go try to talk to Mac,” I said, mostly to myself, but I felt Vinny’s hand on my arm.

“She’s not in a state to talk right now,” he said firmly.

I didn’t really want to deal with her now, either, and I was very aware that my ass was numb because the slush that soaked through my jeans and underpants had frozen. I was a fucking Popsicle. So it was easy to pretend I was more sympathetic than I really was, even though my editor would undoubtedly tell me that the story is more important than whether I’d actually feel something when I sat down.

I nodded. “Okay. I need to change my clothes. But when I come back, I have to talk to her.”

“Thanks, Annie.” Vinny’s voice was low and gruff, and I looked more closely at him. He was watching Mac, and I saw in that second that she meant something more to him than just being one of the little Italian ladies on the block.

His eyes swung back to me before I could look away. Caught.

“She’s my godmother,” he said quietly.

I shifted a little, uncertain what to say. Sorry your godmother’s probably a widow? It would be just as bad as laughing at a funeral. Which I did once, but I didn’t actually know the corpse. And it was just a chuckle, really.

But I felt like I needed to offer up something. “It’ll be okay,” was the best I could do, a little white lie, and before I could do any real damage, I climbed over the short iron fence and headed toward my brownstone.

I’m not sure he even heard me.

OKAY, SO I LEFT Dick to do all the dirty work. But I would be back, after I got myself thawed out.

It would take at least three showers before my hair would be smoke-free. My underpants came off with the jeans, leaving a huge red mark in the middle of my pasty white butt. I threw them both and the hat in a large trash bag; it wouldn’t be worth trying to salvage them. The stench would always be there.

But I was in a bind. It was the only pair of jeans that fit me at the moment, and that hat was the only one I owned. I needed to take a serious look at my wardrobe situation.

I pulled on a sweatshirt and a pair of yoga pants—not that I had anything to do with yoga. I have an aversion to anything that requires me to pretend I’m a pretzel, and I’m about as flexible as a stick. But yoga pants are comfortable, and I go with comfort every time.

I glanced out the window and saw some lingering smoke, but it looked like the fire was finally out. Even from here, I could make out Dick’s figure as he darted around. I forgot what it was like to be that enthusiastic—oh, wow, a fire, a real fire. At this point in my career, I took a lot of shortcuts, shortcuts I knew I could get away with because I’d seen mostly everything already. A twinge of guilt hit me in the gut. I sat down, surprised. I hadn’t felt that in a long time.

I suppose I should’ve felt guilty more often. Guilty that I didn’t give a shit about Dick Whitfield and his enthusiasm, guilty that I made fun of him for his eagerness. I still got that rush from the job when something big was going down. But most days I hated it, the redundancy of it. Listen to scanner, go to accident/fire/some sort of crime scene, write down what I can, talk to cops who won’t talk to me, go back to the office, put it into my computer, see the spelling error in the headline or the copy the next day, and cringe over a fucking three-inch brief.

I should be getting back out there. But it was warm in my apartment, and I had coffee, no thanks to Walter the Pit Bull.

My thoughts strayed to the body in the restaurant. This was big news. Sal Amato commanded a lot of respect in the neighborhood. It would be a huge funeral. My father would even come out from Vegas, and I couldn’t remember the last time he was in Connecticut. My mother wouldn’t care much about this. She never fit in here, that’s why she lives across town, with her people.

I never thought too much about my parents’ cultural differences, what with Mom being Jewish and Dad being Italian. My mother tried taking me to temple when I was in elementary school. But I spent too much time with my dad’s friends’ kids, and they were all Italian and Catholic. My mother finally gave it up when I was about ten and the priest called to find out why I was going to confession if I was Jewish. I ended up at a Catholic high school because the city schools were so questionable. I think Dad was secretly pleased about that. I went to his alma mater, St. Anthony’s. Which was the first place I remember noticing Vinny, even though he must have been around before that. But I didn’t have anything to do with him because he was so geeky and president of the chess club. I wasn’t exactly Miss Popular, either, but I had standards.

This was way too much ruminating for one day. It tired me out, and it was still pretty damn early in the morning. I’d need another cup of coffee just to get myself out the door. But what to wear? I stared down at my sweats. Too tempting. I rustled through my drawers and closet until I found a pair of heavy knit pants I’d bought at some point and never wore. Because they were knit, I figured that I’d bought them at a “heavy” point in my life. Which I still seemed to be in. They clung slightly to my thighs, but a long sweater disguised that.

The What Not to Wear stylists would have a field day with me.

I wrapped myself up in my smoke-scented coat and pulled on my gloves. The cold hit me in the face, and I regretted leaving . . .