Free You Cannoli Die Once by Shelley Costa Page B

promising to check in later. Just as I was wondering whether Vera would become Danacized, which would lead to aberrations such as gold lamé slides worn with herringbone pants, my phone rang. It was Landon telling me he was just walking into the Quaker Hills Police Department with Nonna, who, apparently, was channeling Anne Boleyn in that final walk across the grassy yard at the Tower of London toward the guy in the black hood.
    *
    Over on Callowhill Street, I made it into Full of Crêpe (the place’s real name is Le Chien Rouge, but I believe in truth in advertising) before the downpour. About a dozen ladies who brunch were ogling the crêpe selections on the daily board over the open kitchen. The choices on Wednesday, May 28, included crêpes with raspberry glop, chocolate sludge, or apple pecan gruel. Full of Crêpe had opened last October, debuting a pumpkin purée crêpe that become strangely popular with the tourists coming out from Philly for the fall colors (since Philly doesn’t have trees).
    Apparently the entrepreneurial Eloise had emigrated from Wilkes-Barre, where she had managed a Payless shoe store. Before that, she had assistant-managed a Family Dollar store. And sometime before that came her stint with french fries. This vast experience led to Eloise’s wanting to open her own “crêpe place”—from Eloise’s lips, crêpe rhymes with grape —in the tourist-magnet of Quaker Hills. So she opened Le Chien Rouge, moved her personal belongings into the apartment over the shop, and still had a PODS storage unit out front in the driveway.
    A waitress with hair like Margaret Thatcher preened around the room dressed in Eloise’s version of a French folk costume—starchy white sashes and a “hat” that looked like a colors-of-the-French-flag version of Burger King’s large fries container. Eloise was visible in the open kitchen, her sandy-colored hair pulled back in a clip, her challenging orthodontics now down to a single wire across her top teeth.
    “Hi, Eve,” Eloise called out. I watched her ladle something that looked like cherry-colored tar over a couple of crêpes. Amazingly, the music floating through the crêperie was a disco version of “La Marseillaise.” The whole operation was cheesier than Maria Pia’s fonduta .
    I think what killed me was how popular the place was. We weren’t really competitors, but what made me so jealous was that she got to have this success without a Maria Pia arguing with her over the daily specials or dissing her wardrobe.
    “So, Eloise, tell me,” I said, sauntering around the counter. I have to admit, I was just going through the motions. Her joint was a block and a half away from Miracolo; what were the chances she saw anybody skulking into the restaurant behind Arlen Mather? Huh—about as small as Maria Pia giving me the go-ahead to make cannoli at Miracolo. “You heard about the, uh, murder?”
    “Yeah,” she looked up at me from slathering the cherry-colored topping around the crêpes, “and you found the guy, right?”
    “That’d be me,” I admitted. “One of my luckier breaks.”
    “Like falling off a stage,” she bleated.
    There was nothing I could do about my burning cheeks, but I made a mental note of Eloise’s health code violations in her kitchen: open garbage can, unrinsed plates in the open dishwasher, fruit sauces in unlabeled mason jars, and an unnecessary person (me) in the food prep area. I smiled. “See anybody suspicious outside my place that morning?”
    “You mean, aside from your grandmother?”
    Happily, I had the Health Department on my speed dial. I cocked my head at this woman who will never know what hit her when they descend. “Yes, aside from my grandmother.” I even smiled. And it wasn’t fake.
    She flung the plate on the counter and hit the bell. “Nope, nobody.”
    “But you were in sight of Miracolo?”
    “Yep.” She bared her teeth at me in the Eloise version of a smile. “I got a parking spot right on