As soon as I entered Carlo’s Restaurant, my worries about making the right kind of coffee vanished. The carpeted floors softened my step. The heavy velvet drapes framing the front windows muted the sounds within. Low music played from hidden speakers: a breathy brush of drums, a trickle of piano notes, a trumpet twittering softly. A couple stragglers from lunch lingered over their coffee, a man and a woman leaning across the white tablecloth, speaking in hushed tones.
But the gentle bubble broke when a loud voice cut through the quiet.
“You can’t be serious, Maria.”
A short, bald man with a black goatee stood by the bar at the back. He threw up his hands in exasperation.
The woman next to him was Maria Ferrante. She’d crossed her arms on her chest and was giving the man a raised eyebrow that suggested profound skepticism. I recalled seeing her argue with Mark in the street.
“I’m dead serious, Carlo,” she said.
“What other secrets have you been hiding from me?”
The man called Carlo—that must be Angelica’s brother—turned and saw me approaching with the tray full of cannolis.
“Ah, the cannolis have arrived,” he said. “And so has an independent judge.”
He whisked the tray out of my hands and set it on the counter next to two small Pyrex baking dishes. Both appeared to contain lasagna.
“This,” Carlo said, pointing out the dish on the left, “is my famous Italian lasagna. Ground beef. Tomato sauce. Topped off with béchamel sauce. As it’s done in Italy.”
He gave Maria a pointed look.
“This,” Maria said, pointing out the dish on the right, “is my family’s recipe for Italian-American lasagna. Ground beef. Tomato sauce. Ricotta and mozzarella. Any fool knows this is the real deal.”
“Ha!” Carlo scoffed. “Let our independent judge decide for herself. Which should we serve as tonight’s dinner special?”
He handed me a fork.
“Eat and speak the truth.”
Unable—and frankly unwilling—to resist the invitation, I scooped up a bite of the Italian lasagna with béchamel sauce.
The baked béchamel had caramelized on top, the sweetness immediately cut by a tangy tomato sauce and the richness of the meat. The balance was perfect. Unable to restrain myself, I groaned with pleasure.
Carlo beamed. “See? I told you so, Maria.”
“Slow your roll, Carlo. She hasn’t tasted mine yet.”
Maria handed me a glass of water and Carlo explained, “A bit of water to clear your palate.”
After a sip of water, I dug into Maria’s Italian-American lasagna and brought the fork to my mouth.
There was no sweetness in this one. It was layer upon layer of rich savory, from the mozzarella and ricotta down through the tomato and beef. When I’d finished chewing, I let out a long sigh of satisfaction, and Maria patted me on the back.
Smiling, she said, “See, Carlo? Told you so. My lasagna makes people yearn for more.”
“But which is superior?” Carlo asked.
They both looked at me.
I closed my eyes, recalling both the béchamel and the mozzarella-ricotta versions.
“Honestly? They both win.”
“Bah!” Carlo threw up his hands and laughed. “You are a lousy judge, but an excellent neighbor. So it’s up to me to decide—and I don’t want to.”
“So what do we do?” Maria asked.
Carlo looked thoughtful. Then his eyebrows rose, and he held up a finger, having apparently come up with a solution.
“We serve both. Give people the choice of an Italian or an Italian-American lasagna. You can never have too much lasagna.”
“I’ll make more of both, boss.”
Maria smiled and picked up the Pyrexes and carried them past the bar and through a swinging door to the kitchen beyond.
Carlo leaned close to me and, shielding his mouth with one hand, as if to keep his whisper a secret, said, “Maria has a forceful personality. If I didn’t humor her, I’d have hell to pay. Besides, I love giving my customers choices.”
He thanked me for bringing the cannolis and added, “Of course I already know who you are. Angelica has told me everything. Poverina, it must have been such a shock for you to find Mark.”
He kept his voice low, occasionally glancing toward his customers, no doubt worried that the mention of murder would frighten them. I told him it had been an enormous shock.
“I don’t understand who would want to kill Mark,” I said, fishing for his opinion.
“My sister believes it could have been a burglary,” Carlo said. “But I’ve heard no one say they saw strangers in the area that morning, and if what I hear is true, the attack happened during the morning hours. Not the best time for a burglary.”
I agreed with him, of course, but said nothing. The burglary theory made no sense.
“Unfortunately, Bernie, I saw nothing. But then I spent the early morning in the back of my sister’s bakery. I was helping her make cannolis and cookies. Then I came here and began making sauce.”
That corroborated Angelica’s story. Unless they were in cahoots and providing an alibi for each other, I could rule them out. Did Carlo even have a reason to kill Mark?
“Did you know Mark well?” I asked.
“Not really. He rarely came to my restaurant to eat, because he found the menu too—how do I put this?—expensive. He only came when someone else paid. In fact, the last time I saw him, he was having lunch with someone who picked up the check.”
“Who was it?”
Carlo shrugged. “I don’t know. An out-of-towner that I didn’t recognize. They sat at a corner table, and at first I paid little attention to them. But after a while, I noticed raised voices, and suddenly Mark shot to his feet, threw down his napkin, and pointed a finger at the man. ‘The cafe will never be yours’, he shouted, and then stormed out. A moment later, the man paid and left.”
“Did he come back?”
Carlo shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since.”
* * *
Walking down the sidewalk to Moroni’s, I considered what I’d learned.
Before his death, Mark had planned to sell the cafe. He had met a mystery man at Carlo’s and vowed the man would never get the cafe. Get it how, though? Had the man offered to buy it? According to Dan, Mark had found a buyer, and they were about to move forward with the deal when the murder happened. What if Mark had threatened to pull out? Would the mystery buyer have killed for that? Or some other potential buyer? Hardly. Killing Mark wouldn’t help them get their hands on the cafe.
As soon as I opened the door to Moroni’s, my speculation had to be put on hold. A long line of customers crowded the doorway, and I had to push my way past them and rush behind the counter to come to Angelica’s aid.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re back,” she said.
The late-afternoon rush was upon us. Some customers wanted to sit and drink coffee and nibble on a cookie or a cannoli. Even more people bought treats to go.
One couple in their seventies—both with stark white hair and smiles that deepened their wrinkles—explained that they’d driven a full hour and a half from Essex County to bring home some of Moroni’s famous cannoli.
As she boxed up half a dozen cannoli, Angelica told them about the upcoming street festival.
“We’ll be there,” the husband said.
“And we’ll tell our friends and family,” the wife said.
Word of mouth was spreading about Moroni’s. I could see why Angelica had been struggling to run the bakery on her own. As soon as one crowd had been served, more people came jostling through the door.
Angelica pushed a loose strand of hair behind one ear and let out a huff. “Phew, looks like it’s finally calming down.”
The display case had big empty spots, trays littered with crumbs rather than heaps of cookies. We were running dangerously low on napkins and takeout boxes. My back and arms ached from standing and stretching and bending down to get things from the low cupboards.
As I put a hand to my lower back and winced, Angelica made a sympathetic sound. “It’s hard work, but you’ll sleep like a baby tonight.”
When the steady influx of customers finally slowed to a trickle, and then the bakery emptied, Angelica flipped the sign to say, “Sorry, We’re Closed.”
Then she shepherded me out back to the kitchen.
“Let’s make some cannolis,” she said. “The street fair is on Saturday. That’s in three days. If we’re going to be ready, we both need to be cannoli-making machines. We’ll try out a few now, and then tomorrow morning you can help me make a whole batch. What do you say?”
I rolled up my sleeves. “Let’s do it.”
Angelica showed me how to make cannolis, step by step. First, we had to make the long and round shells, which we would fill with the ricotta cream.
“It’s simple,” she said. “Flour, sugar, a little salt, cocoa powder, butter. Then it sits in the fridge for a few hours.”
Angelica opened the fridge in the kitchen and got out a bowl with dough she’d already prepared.
We rolled the dough and shaped it into little disks, which we then wrapped around metal cannoli tubes.
“Next, we heat the oil in this pot and lower the tubes in.”
I watched as Angelica demonstrated. She showed me how to turn the tubes. The dough was already turning brown and crisp, with little bubbles forming on the outside.
“See the bubbles? That’s a sign we’re doing it right.”
After the dough turned a deep brown, we used tongs to fish them out of the pot and lay them on paper towels to soak up the excess oil.
“While they cool, let’s make the ricotta filling.” Angelica brought out a big tub of ricotta and measured up sugar in a bowl. “I’ve strained this ricotta ahead of time to make it nice and thick. Now we mix the sugar in.”
While I stirred the ricotta and sugar in the bowl, Angelica lined up three small vintage green Pyrex mixing bowls. One contained chocolate chips, the second chopped pistachio nuts, the third candied fruit.
“Some people like to mix the chocolate chips or nuts or fruit into the filling, but I believe less is more. I prefer to let the ricotta work its magic.”
She filled a piping bag with the ricotta mixture and then squeezed the cream into one of the shells. Lifting the shell, she dipped one end into the pistachios and then the other end too.
“Just so.”
The cannoli was done. The crisp shell contained the rich ricotta filling decorated with chopped pistachios at either end.
“It’s so simple,” I said, surprised. “What makes yours so different from others?”
“What makes mine worth driving for? It’s the small touches. The quality of ricotta. The flour, and how I strain it. The amount of sugar and the kind of butter. Good baking is about hard work, Bernie. Great baking is hard work combined with delicious, high-quality ingredients.” She paused and a smile spread across her face. “Well, that and a dash of love.”
The phone rang out front, and Angelica left me to work on the cannolis. I piped the ricotta filling into another shell and dipped the ends in chocolate chips. Even I could figure this out.
When Angelica came back to the kitchen to check on me, she rubbed her hands together.
“Ooh,” she cooed. “That looks ready to eat.”
I bit my lip. This was the master of cannoli speaking. She would be disappointed. I knew it. Somehow, even with a simple task like this, I must have screwed it up.
She picked up the cannoli, turned it this way and that, studying its form, nodding approvingly. She took a big bite. I’d expected her to take a small, dainty bite. Not Angelica. She opened wide and chomped down, like a shark, and chewed with obvious relish.
“This is good, Bernie,” she said. “We did good. Crunchy shell. Rich filling—not too dense and not too sweet—and the ratio of cream to chocolate chip is perfect. I think you may have the magic touch.”
I’d done almost nothing, yet basked in the compliment. It was like having a favorite teacher in school give me an A on a paper. I felt like doing a little happy dance.
“Now you just need to make three hundred of these,” she said, sprinkling powdered sugar on the cannoli.
That stopped my mental happy dance.
“Three hundred?”
“The street festival will bring hundreds of tourists to town, and we’ll need enough for the bakery, a stand at the fair, and Carlo’s Restaurant.”
Thinking of Carlo’s brought back thoughts of what Angelica’s brother had said about Mark and the mystery man. I shared my thoughts with Angelica.
“People had made offers on the cafe before,” she said. “Dan told me that long ago. It’s not surprising. I get offers too, especially as Carmine’s property values have increased. Cafe Roma’s in a prime location with lots of potential, but Mark turned them all down. Whoever got him to change his mind must have been persuasive.”
That was what I had been thinking. Unless something else persuaded him. A threat, maybe? But that seemed unlikely. Mark was a bully and would respond to a threat with aggression. Who was the mystery buyer Dan wouldn’t talk about—and was it the same stranger who’d treated Mark to lunch at Carlo’s?
“Do you have any idea who the man Mark met with could have been?” I asked Angelica.
Angelica shook her head. “No idea. And if Carlo didn’t recognize him, he’s not only from out of town, he’s someone who hasn’t visited much.”
I let out a sigh. Angelica was right. But if he rarely came to town, how would I discover who the mystery man was?