Free You Cannoli Die Once by Shelley Costa Page A

Company of Philadelphia eight months ago. So—I pointed out—not only did Arlen Mather have a daughter, he may have had some interest in Miracolo’s opera memorabilia.
    She said that just because he died on the great Caruso, it didn’t mean he loved him. As I tried to make sense of her point, she started to rev up with alternatives to the daughter theory—it could have been a stranger, an opera singer, an escort.
    Then Dana and Vera were approaching.
    “Gotta go, Nonna—”
    “You know, come to think of it, my poor Arlen was dating someone when he met me.”
    That stopped me in my tracks. “Wait, what?”
    Maria Pia went all airy on me. “Just someone. Of course,” she purred, “he broke it off.”
    *
    Stranger, opera singer, escort, girlfriend.
    Ah, the possibilities. I wondered whether Sally the detective had heard about the female with the pearls and feathered boa.
    “Chérie!” Dana kissed me on both cheeks, then chafed my upper arms as if trying to start a fire. She had clearly slipped back into one of her French phases, so we could expect a staggering amount of Edith Piaf during her late-night gig at the restaurant. Her cork platform heels jacked her up about four inches in her beige stretchy leggings, and the bat-wing tunic top sported a stained-glass design. There was just something irrepressible about her that I liked.
    “Hey, Dana. Vera.”
    Vera was wearing a white hoodie and jeans. No manicure, ever, and no jewelry today, just a tightly rolled orange bandana tied like a headband in her mass of red hair. When Dana explained that she had met with Vera to give her some guidance about her investigative role, Vera shot me a tolerant look.
    I couldn’t resist. “So, what’s your own part in the operation, Dana?”
    “Coordinator,” she said serenely, reminding me of Maria Pia whenever she has to explain why she keeps her recipe for osso bucco in a safe deposit box at the local Wells Fargo Bank.
    We stood in a tight little group, taking in the Wednesday-morning crowd on Market Square. What had started out as weakly sunny was now clouding over. “Have the cops taken your statements?” I asked them, watching Weird Edgar round the corner in his red Service Department truck mounted with a megaroll of white trash bags.
    “Not yet,” said Vera. “I’m supposed to stop in sometime today.”
    “Dana?”
    “Oh, yes,” she said with a smile, “I went to the station house first thing yesterday.”
    “So how was it?” I shifted my weight.
    She laughed, tucking her chin-length black hair behind her ears. “I’ve been asked tougher questions when I get my driver’s license renewed.” The stained-glass bat wings fluttered. “Name, address, occupation—”
    “Alibi,” I threw in.
    “Of course! I was working at the office that morning. There’s always lots to do.”
    I nodded. Though Dana sings for us four nights a week, mainly she manages her husband’s office—Cahill Enterprises—on the second floor of the Ashbridge Building, the redbrick colonial that dominated the eastern end of our Quaker Hills commercial district. Dana Cahill née Mahoney had hit the husband jackpot ten years ago when local businessman Patrick Cowan Cahill fell for her.
    He had great hair, great skills, and great taste in everything except shoes and—excluding Dana—women. We’d dated once, but the tassel loafers were a deal breaker for me. And my double-pierced right earlobe was a deal breaker for him. We had a good laugh over it. All of Quaker Hills had suffered through his fling with the alcoholic mud wrestler, his affair with the strident tattoo artist, and his engagement to the hysterical single mom with three small boys.
    So, when he married Dana Mahoney, word went out around town that she wasn’t an embarrassment or a lunatic and that chances were really pretty good that she wouldn’t put undue strain on Quaker Hills’s mental health resources.
    I felt a pang as Dana made off with the agreeable Vera,