The Spia Family Presses On

EIGHT

And Then There Was None

Leo’s mouth tasted sweet and familiar, and when his tongue touched mine, those old feelings flooded my body with intense desire. I wanted him so much it hurt; funny how something so bad for you could feel so damn good. I pressed my body up against his as tight as I could, going for all the sensations I could stand and still not lose my cool, although if it went on much longer I’d be pleading with him to take me on the floor. The kiss lasted until I was on the brink of complete surrender, with enough heat between us to power half the county. My only holdout in all of this was the simple fact that he couldn’t combine his kiss with an embrace, because if he could it would have been all over.

Leo still held onto the case of wine, thank you very much.

When he pulled away, there was a look of both uncertainty and lust on his beautiful face.

The good news was my headache had vanished.

The bad news was I wanted more of him.

Much more. I took a few steps backward.

“Where are you going with this, Mia? I thought we were through, forever, this time. I’m quoting,” he said, looking all flushed putting the box down and walking toward me looking totally hot and sexy, a look I could never resist.

I held up both hands and gently pushed on his chest, stopping him from getting any closer. “We are through. We both know that. So why did you stop by tonight?” I asked, knees weak, the taste of him still caressing my lips.

He was so close I could feel the heat coming off his body.

I wanted him more than I had ever wanted him before. My body ached for his touch.

“You invited me,” he said in his raspy bedroom voice while gently running two fingers down my cheek then over my swollen lips. I stopped breathing and walked in closer, nodding, longing to be wrapped tight in his arms, kissing him, loving him . . . “Wait, what did you say?”

“You invited me,” he repeated.

That broke the spell. I moved to the other side of the doorway. “Where did you get that idea?”

He looked genuinely confused.

“My assistant left a message that a woman called inviting me to the party. I naturally assumed it was you. Wasn’t it?”

I didn’t reply.

He went on despite my silence. “Plus she said that you wanted to buy two cases of red wine, and could I please bring them? You know I would never take your money for my wine. Whatever you want, kitten, it’s yours.”

He moved in closer, but this time when I took a step back I was thinking someone had gone to a lot of trouble to get Leo to come to the party. But why?

“I’m sorry I was so late, but I had a dinner party that I couldn’t blow off. Two wine critics from Italy. I know how the Spia parties usually go well into the night, so I didn’t think my timing would be that far off. Obviously, I was wrong. I left you a message that I’d be late. Didn’t you get it?”

“No. Sorry, it was a busy day.” How could I have missed his call? This wasn’t making any sense, unless he was lying again.

I had to find out the truth in all of this. I didn’t want to believe that Leo could somehow be mixed up in Dickey’s murder.

Leo flung the box off his shoulder. “I need to put this down. I have one more case out in the car. It’s our Muscato and Chardonnay blend. I brought it especially for your mom. I know how much she likes a sweeter wine.”

“You can leave the wine here,” I said, standing directly in front of him. “I’ll take care of it later.”

He peered around me. I knew there wasn’t one empty shelf. They were all filled with rows of our bottled extra virgin oils, and our flavored vinegars. If he left the wine on the floor it would be in the way of the doorway. This was becoming a problem. He readjusted the box in his hands. “That’s not looking like a good idea. I’ll just put this down where—”

“No!” I said with a little too much force. He ducked, as if he was bracing for some kind of attack. I took in a breath and let it out, trying for what Lisa had said about a clear head and breathing. “Tell you what, I’ll take this inside while you run out for the other case.” I reached over for the case of wine, hoping to have just enough time to retrieve the handgun while he was busy getting the other case out of his car.

But he pulled back just as I heard my mom’s laughter closing in on us. “That’s okay. I’ve got it,” he protested.

I tried to rip the case out of Leo’s hands, but he held tight. My mother was getting closer, which was bad enough until I heard Nick Zeleski say, “I’d like that, Mrs. Spia, thanks.”

And just like that, my mom and Nick walked right in the barn, past Leo and me and headed straight for Cousin Dickey. It happened so fast I didn’t have time to react. Once my mother had someone interested in our oil, there was no stopping her. She was like a one woman campaign for the benefits of olive oil, and heaven help anyone who got in her way . . . me included.

“It’s also great for dry skin and dandruff, and—” But I wasn’t hearing her anymore. Lisa had entered the barn, shaking her head and mouthing that she was sorry.

I wanted to yell for my mom to come back. Surely she had to know about Dickey, but she was acting as if it didn’t matter. Yet another reason to believe the shooter was trying to set her up for the fall. After all, no killer would purposely lead an officer to the crime scene knowing the evidence could potentially give her a death sentence. At least that’s what I was thinking as my mom cavalierly walked toward the crime scene.

Then as if it wasn’t bad enough that Nick was headed right for bumped-off Dickey, Leo had also slipped away and gone off toward the crime scene. Was there no justice in this world? Was I completely powerless over these people?

I reached out for Lisa’s hand and waited for my mom’s scream. Fake or not, I figured Mom would do a good job of reacting to the grizzly sight.

“You realize that as of this moment, my life is over,” I told Lisa.

“No worries, sweetie. I’ll bring you reading material in prison,” she quipped.

“How can you joke when my whole life has come down to this moment? When everything my mom and I have worked so hard to achieve is about to come crashing down on our heads?”

“Who said I was joking? I read somewhere that boredom was the toughest thing for Paris Hilton to endure while she was behind bars. That, and her inability to get a pedicure. I figure reading is so out of your realm that it might be the one thing that keeps you sane.”

“Is that all you think about, books and reading?”

“Pretty much.”

She squeezed my hand tighter and threw me a smile. I knew she was just as scared as I was, but Lisa never liked to display fear. She thought it was a sign of true feminine weakness.

We stood waiting for my mom’s scream for what seemed like hours or at the very least five minutes.

Nothing.

We waited some more, and then we heard a familiar sound rippling through the barn like a sonic boom . . . laughter. My mom’s high-pitched, crazy laugh bounced off the walls and pierced my ears.

“I’ve known your mom for a long time, and this is so not what I expected from her,” Lisa said.

“Maybe this is how she reacts to a gruesome scene. I mean, I’ve never been around my mother in this kind of situation.”

The laughter grew louder and suddenly Leo’s deep belly laugh joined in along with Nick’s chortle.

“What the hell?” I said.

But Lisa had already released my hand and was headed toward the happy group. I had no choice but to follow.

When we reached the threesome, they were standing exactly where only a few hours ago a very dead Cousin Dickey had been lying on the floor bleeding from his head, gazing up at the wrong end of a millstone. Now, the antique millstone was upright and reassembled, the floor was spotless, and all the futsi were lined up in a row. Was my mom’s weapon still at the bottom of a futso or had that been removed as well? It was as if nothing had ever happened.

The site was so startling that I half expected to see Dickey standing next to my mom wearing a wide toothy grin.

I was dumbstruck.

Cool-headed Lisa spoke for me. “Can we get in on the joke or is this a private matter?”

“Oh honey, you had to be here,” my mom said, and they all started laughing again, my mom really getting into it with tears in her eyes to prove it.

I, in the meantime, was busy checking out the floor, the table, under the table for any trace of a murder, but the place looked cleaner than it normally did. Everything was spotless, too spotless, as if an entire crew of janitors swept through for some kind of cleanliness inspection.

My mind drifted to the old olive tree just outside the barn. Had Dickey been moved out there? Was he now one with nature? The visual made me a bit claustrophobic, not to mention angry that my family had taken matters into their own hands despite my adamant opposition to the entire affair.

“Wow,” Nick said after the laughter finally subsided. He was staring directly in front of the antique millstone, the now totally reassembled antique millstone.

The same mill that had crushed Dickey under its incredible weight, and the same mill that Dickey himself had imported from Italy. “Is this what you use to crush the olives?” Nick walked in to get a closer look.

“We’d never have gone commercial if we used that old thing,” Mom said. “No, that’s just for show.” She turned to me. “Mia, sweetheart, I thought we agreed to move it out front? Wasn’t somebody out here just yesterday tearing it down? Did you change your mind?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. “No, yes, I mean, hmmm. I don’t know exactly what happened with that. Maybe the guys couldn’t figure it out. It’s kind of complicated.”

Nick studied the mechanism. “It seems like it’s just a couple long screws. The trick is handling the weight once the stone is free. You’ll need four strong men to lift this wheel. No one guy could move this alone.”

“A forklift with a large bed could handle it. I’ve got one. You want me to send somebody over tomorrow to move it?”

“That would be so nice of you, Leonardo. Mia’s been wanting this thing moved for months now.” She turned to me. “Isn’t he a dear?”

I smiled. “A dear, but thanks. We have a forklift of our own.”

In the meantime, Nick busied himself studying the granite millstone, running his hand over the edge of the wheel, getting up close and personal. As if he sensed something wasn’t quite right about it. The whole thing was making me nuts. The guy was like a bloodhound, sniffing for a scent to run with. He walked around the backside of wheel, which was almost as tall as he was. In the meantime, Mom kept talking to Leo about her latest olive oil, and the fact that our Sevillano had won the Los Angeles International Extra Virgin Olive Oil competition three years running. “Take a couple bottles. It’s fabulous on toast instead of that artery clogging butter. Plus, you can drizzle it on a fresh baby spinach salad, add some candied pecans, a few slices of ripe pear, sprinkle on a good pungent gorgonzola, maybe a few dried cranberries or pomegranate seeds for color, then pour on our white balsamic vinegar and you’ll have a salad to die for.”

“Sounds incredible, especially with a glass of our Shiraz.” He bunched his fingers together and kissed them looking oh-so-Italian. “Perfecto!”

I tracked Nick who was still busy studying the stone. “Huh,” he said.

I could feel the sudden tightness crawling up the left side of my neck.

“Find something interesting?” Lisa asked.

I threw her a “what the hell are you doing” look. She ignored me and moved toward him.

“When did you say that guy was trying to dismantle this thing?” Nick peeked around the wheel, apparently asking me.

My mouth suddenly felt thick. “I believe it was yesterday. Why?”

He fingered the stone, but didn’t answer my question.

“Two men stopped by today, honey,” my mother said. “Late this afternoon. I completely forgot about that. Two darling men, before you came home, wanting to take another look. I don’t know what they did in here. I was too busy with last minute party details, but they were in here for at least fifteen or twenty minutes. Right before they left, the shorter one, with the thick Italian accent, told me he needed more equipment and one more man to move it, even with our forklift. He said he would return tomorrow, or was it the day after tomorrow? Whatever. All I remember is him saying he couldn’t do it today.”

“That might explain it then,” Nick said, stepping out from behind the stone.

“Explains what?” I needed to know.

“There’s some blood on the mill, not a lot, but it looks fresh. One of the men must have cut himself on one of those screws trying to take this thing apart. Those screws look nasty.”

“I’ll have to call the company tomorrow and see if they’re all right,” I said, relieved that Nick had come to his own innocuous conclusion. “I wouldn’t want anyone suing us.”

“So that’s what happened,” my mother mused.

Nick jumped on that little statement. “What’s that, Mrs. Spia?”

“Oh, call me Gloria, dear. I saw them right before they left, and one of them had a piece of cloth wrapped around his index finger. I didn’t even think to ask what had happened. I suppose that doesn’t say much about me. At any rate, I bet that poor man cut himself on those nasty screws and didn’t want to tell me.”

“Maybe that’s it,” I alleged, then changed the subject. “Nick, you can’t leave without a few bottles of our oil.”

He gave me a tepid smile as he walked out from behind the millstone. “Actually, I’ve been eyeing those steel containers. Can I buy one of those? I do a lot of cooking.”

He might as well have stuck a knife into my neck for all the pain that little statement caused. “The smallest we have is three liters.” I grabbed one of the empty futso that sat on a shelf next to me, but he kept eyeing the larger ones, the one that contained my mom’s handgun in particular. I knew which one it was by the oil smear along the side. Whoever put everything back missed the smear.

I walked over to him, carrying the empty futso, ready to put the thing in his hand and lead the entire group out of the barn. I’d had enough fun for one night. It was way past my bedtime.

“We can fill this up on the way out,” I told him while angling toward the door.

But he wanted no part of me or my tiny futso. Instead he glommed onto the very futso that could potentially hold my mom’s handgun. Like I said, the man was all cop.

“This should work,” he said, grinning.

My mother’s eyes lit up. The combination of that thirty-liter futso, plus the oil it contained, was worth several hundred dollars. “Because you’re a friend of Leo’s I can give you a good deal on that,” she cooed.

“No!” I said, tripping over Leo to get to Nick, arms flailing, feet stumbling over feet. “You can’t.”

But Lisa was next to him holding onto it before I could get there.

“What Mia is trying to say is that I already bought this particular one for my family. We own a restaurant in Chinatown, and we’re always running out of oil. This will be great. Really great.” She tapped the spigot on the futso.

“But honey, maybe you should stick to our Mission Blend, the Italian Blend might be too peppery for Chinese food,” my mother said. She pointed to the Mission-filled futso with both hands, as if posing for an ad. That’s when I noticed the missing bracelet. She always wore a charm bracelet. Always. No matter what she wore or what event she was dressing for, one of her many charm bracelets dangled from her right wrist.

Except tonight.

I was so hoping the Elvis bracelet in my pocket had been stolen and purposely placed under Dickey. Now I didn’t know what to believe.

I instantly pushed that un-daughterly thought out of my mind and focused on heaving the thirty-liter futso out of the barn, the futso that held my mom’s future inside.

“Too late, Nick,” I chimed in. “This one is already sold.”

Lisa and I hoisted the futso by the two handles and walked it straight out of the barn, hoping everyone would follow right behind us.

We didn’t stop until we got to her car where she beeped open the trunk. We hoisted it inside, tucking the stainless steel container into the mesh sling that ran across the width of the trunk, but no way would the trunk close, so we lifted it back out and stuck it on the front passenger seat. There was something on the seat that caused the futso to tip in my direction.

This was not good.

“Hold onto it,” Lisa said. “I’ll go around to the other side.”

I held it on the seat, pushing at it slightly, but that just caused it to tip more in my direction. I moved my upper body inside the car, and held onto the teetering futso until Lisa could get to the other side.

As soon as she opened the driver’s door I pulled off the top of the futso, not waiting for her to get the thing upright, and peered inside for the tiny gun.

The overhead light wasn’t bright enough so I couldn’t see anything but the golden liquid. The initial smell saturated my senses, tickling my throat and caused me to cough.

The futso slipped a bit when Lisa tried to dislodge whatever was under it and I angled it more toward me, managing to steady it and gain control over my annoying cough. There was no time for me to move the now heavy container, so I plunged my hand deep inside groping for the gun. Oil splashed out and felt all warm and silky against my skin. The peppery scent filled the air with its earthy fragrance. Unfortunately, I couldn’t feel anything but the oil and the cool metal walls of the heavy container.

“They’re coming. Hurry,” Lisa warned in a loud whisper. “I can’t hold onto this thing much longer. You’ve made it all slippery.”

“I can’t find it,” I whispered back, now swishing both hands and arms inside the deep container. “I think it’s gone.”

I heard footsteps on the gravel. “That looks exceptionally kinky,” Nick said now standing behind me.

His voice startled me and being completely uptight at that moment, I jumped, turned and somehow managed to swing out my hands so fast that excess oil slapped him right in the face and chest. What didn’t land on him somehow landed on my pants and shirt. And as if that wasn’t messy enough, Lisa must have lost her precarious hold on the futso because it tipped just enough in my direction so the oil splashed out onto his polished shoes, my suede Uggs, and down the front of Nick’s pants. Then, almost in some sort of slow motion kind of weird time warp thing, the futso flipped completely on its side, and my mother’s handgun slid out bounced off of Lisa’s shiny red foot rail and landed at Nick’s feet along with the remainder of the EVOO.

For a moment, no one said a word. I think I stopped breathing, and I’m sure my heart must have stopped pumping or why else would I have just stood there like a deer in the headlights?

I couldn’t react or wouldn’t react depending on how I wanted to look at this.

A brilliant thought raced through my mind as we stood there, motionless. Perhaps Nick hadn’t seen or heard the little nickel-plated aggravation. Maybe it was just too dark for him to truly see anything.

And perhaps penguins could fly.

Nick squatted. The car’s overhead dome light was more than ample to make the handgun stand out on the gravel. Hell, I could even read Lucille written on the handle.

“Interesting,” he finally said. “A .32 from the looks of it. Nineteen-thirties, maybe. Nice touch on the handle. Seems like it’s in great condition. Don’t know if keeping it in that much oil is a wise choice for its future, but hey, you’re the expert when it comes to olive oil.”

I didn’t move, but somehow managed a feeble smile.

“You know who owns this weapon?” he asked looking up at me.

I had several options to this question. I could tell him the truth. Tell him I didn’t know, or tell him what had to be the dumbest, most ridiculous . . . “It’s mine,” both Lisa and I said at the same time.

Her eyes went wide. “We, um, share it.”

“You share a handgun that you keep in a thirty liter tub of expensive olive oil?” he asked. I knew we were sounding lame, but what choice did we have?

“I’m doing research for my next book,” Lisa argued.

“What kind of research?”

“The kind that has to do with guns and olive oil.”

“Huh,” Nick said.

That’s when Leo walked over.

“Wow,” he quipped, gazing around at the mess, then down at Nick. “What’s your mom’s gun doing lying on the ground?”

There are things you should reveal to your lover, and other things that are best kept hidden. This was one of those times when I so wished I had kept my revelation of my grandmother’s passed-down handgun, and how someday my mother would pass it on to me, to myself.

Nick picked up the weapon with a pen through the trigger housing, tipped it to drain the excess oil and walked over to take a better look at it next to the light above the barn door.

“Huh,” he said, again.

His “huhs” were getting annoying.

“What?” Leo asked.

“It’s loaded except for one empty chamber. Now why would you keep a loaded revolver in a futsi?”

“A futso, futsi is plural. Like panino verses panini,” I corrected, not knowing what else to say.

“Thanks. I’ll remember that.” The gun continued to drip oil. “And the fired round—did either of you shoot this recently?”

“No,” I said, just as Lisa said, “Yes.”

This was not going well.

He took a step back and stared at both of us. “Now, if I went on my instincts here, I’d say you ladies are hiding something. Could that be true?”

“You won’t get anything out of them, Nick,” Leo teased. “They’ve been keeping secrets from the rest of the world since they were kids. You’d have to waterboard them in order to make either one talk, and we’ve got the wrong president if you want to try that one.”

“Oh, I don’t think we have to go that far. Tell you what, I’ll just take this little number with me, run a few checks on it and return it tomorrow, if you ladies don’t mind.”

He pulled out a plastic bag from his pants pocket, dropped the gun in it and walked off to Leo’s car. No doubt about it, the man was one hundred percent cop.

I took a step forward to try to stop him, but Lisa grabbed my arm, kind of. It was too slippery for her to physically take hold of it, but I could tell she wanted me to let him go.

Leo beeped open the door from a distance and went after Nick.

“Let me handle this,” Lisa said leaving me there, dripping olive oil.

I was out of options so I let her go. Besides, I really needed a shower.





Spinach and Fresh Pear Salad – Level One or Two



1 bunch of spinach and/or romaine lettuce

1 whole ripe pear, cored and peeled

3 fresh figs, green or purple (optional)

1/2 cup pomegranate seeds or dried cranberries

1/8 tsp. salt, depending on taste

3 cranks of cracked peppercorns

3/4 cup Gorgonzola cheese (crumbled or cubed)

1/2 cup Koroneiki EVOO

1/8 cup white or any fruit vinegar

3/4 cup candied pecans *recipe follows for level two



Clean and wash your greens then pat them dry in paper towels. This is soothing and should take you at least eight to ten minutes. Tear them in bite-sized pieces and drop them in a glass bowl. Slice the pear lengthwise into eight slices. Cut the figs into halves. Break open the pomegranate and pop out the seeds, enjoying a bite or two as you gather up your half cup. Make a mess with the sweet red seeds. The clean up will focus you. Assemble the fruit in the bowl on top of the spinach. Chill for at least a half-hour.

To turn this into a level two meal, buy pecans in the shell and take your time to carefully crack open each one and remove the shells without damaging the nutmeats.



1 pound shelled pecans halves

1 egg white

1 tbs. vanilla

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 to 1 tsp grnd cinnamon



Rub a delicate extra virgin olive oil on a baking sheet. Heat oven to 250 degrees. Slowly whip egg white with vanilla until it froths. Enjoy the vanilla bouquet. Set aside and mix the sugar, salt and cinnamon in a deep bowl, or large plastic bag. Set aside. First coat some of the pecans in the egg white mixture, remove and toss them in the sugar mixture. Spread pecans evenly on the baking sheet and roast for one hour, stirring every ten to 15 minutes.

Remove from oven and place on large platter.

Remove salad from fridge. Add oil, vinegar, salt, pepper and cheese and toss. Sprinkle five or six or ten warm pecans on top and serve with crusty warm bread, and a flavored sparkling water. This is enough for two. Eat slowly, and enjoy the flavors on your tongue, the snap of each pomegranate seed, and the crunch of sweet pecans. Take your time. Breathe. Stay focused on the food.