Free You Cannoli Die Once by Shelley Costa

“My grandmother, yes.”
    She narrowed her eyes at the clouds. “And not much is known about him?”
    “Apparently not.”
    She met my eyes. “I believe I may have seen him before.”
    Aha! “Where?” I blurted. Following up astutely with, “When?”
    She looked at me squarely. “I played a gig about eight months ago. He was there, this Arlen”—she glanced at the newspaper—“Mather, although I never heard the name. I played during the champagne reception and before the auction began.”
    My heart rate picked up. “What was it?”
    “It was a fund-raiser at the Academy of Music, on Broad Street. For the Opera Company of Philadelphia.”
    So the mysterious Mr. Mather attended opera fund-raisers. No, Mrs. Crawford had no recollection whether he bid on anything during the auction. But he was wearing a tuxedo and his daughter wore a mixed strand of pearls and a feathered boa that proved more tasteful than one would think.
    His daughter?
    After telling Mrs. Crawford I’d call her about her start date once the police let us open, she handed me the Courier Times and clicked back up the street in her coral pumps.
    I had just speed-dialed Nonna when the Culiform Supply panel truck pulled to a stop at the curb. Our uniform service. Hell, I forgot to head them off at the pass. So I hung up on Nonna when I heard, “Pronto?” and dialed the carpet cleaners, the linen service, and the food wholesalers. Between calls, I explained to the Culiform Supply driver—the bodybuilding Carly, according to her name pin and wingspan—that homicide had temporarily dampened our need for restaurant wear. Much paperwork and many sighs ensued.
    While Carly fumed and blustered, several neighbors wanted updates.
    Mr. von Veltheim, the baker, presented me with some complimentary kugelhopf, which I accepted.
    Sasha Breen, looking especially whippetlike, said she heard it was a mob hit. From her lips, it sounded like foreplay. I assured her that unless the mob’s preferred method of extinction these days was kitchenware, she had nothing to worry about.
    Akahana mentioned that Emperor Hirohito was an excellent ballroom dancer.
    Weird Edgar from the Quaker Hills Service Department unloaded the trash can in front of Sprouts, and said he moonlights as a bodily fluids cleanup guy. Reasonable rates. He actually handed me a business card that said Gross-B-Gone, No Guts, No Gory.
    A ponytailed fourth-grader pulling a pink backpack on wheels told me her daddy said my granny was going to fry. At that, I wished I’d paid more attention to Nonna whenever she worked up a good evil eye. And, really, I started to say something high-road, like the only thing my “granny” fries is heavenly gnocchi fritti, and such a nice little girl as she was should stop by sometime for one.
    But what came out was that her daddy was an ignoramus, and that she should get her Little Debbie Cosmic-Brownies-loving butt out of there before I called the school to report her as a truant. So she did.
    Cradling the kugelhopf, I crossed the street to Providence Park at the center of the commercial district, waving at Dana and Vera, who were coming toward me from the eastern end of the park. While I melted onto a park bench and waited for them, pondering the clues about Arlen Mather’s love of opera, I called Maria Pia. “Did Arlen have a daughter?”
    “A—daughter? Where did you hear this?”
    “From Mrs. Crawford, our new pianist.”
    “We have a pianist?”
    “Yes. Three nights a week to start.”
    “Italian?”
    “Actually, hard to say.” Among other things … “But I think you’ll like … her.”
    Nonna gave me one of her florid grunts that covers everything from The pope just got rid of another saint to Customers will break their teeth on this ravioli dough. “About this daughter … ” she said languidly, “I know nothing. Such a person never came up.”
    She asked where this pianist got the information and I mentioned the fund-raiser for the Opera