PIE À LA MURDER

Chapter 1

“Della, I’ve got something to tell you…”

In my experience, nothing good ever follows a statement like that.

“You know I was married before, a long time ago,” Nicholas said.

“Yes. Why are you bringing it up now?”

“What you don’t know is that I have a daughter… She’s eighteen.”

“What!” I stared at Nicholas D’Martino, the man in my life. He’d never even hinted that he was a father, and certainly not one who had a teenage daughter. His striking Sicilian face with eyes the color of black coffee, high cheekbones, and a nose broken during his years as a college boxer was topped with a full head of dark hair that never quite managed to look combed. A thick lock of it curled down onto his forehead like a question mark, emphasizing his uncomfortable expression. He was looking at me as though he didn’t know how I would take this news.  I wasn’t sure myself.

“You’re a journalist,” I said. “Isn’t telling me this after more than a year of our being together called ‘burying the lead’?” I was surprised at how calm I sounded.

His wry smile acknowledged my attempt at humor. He cleared his throat. “I haven’t seen Celeste since she was a baby. Tanis, my ex-wife, lied to get sole custody. She convinced me that it was best for the child, that it was only a technical thing, that I could see Celeste every day. I believed her. Then she left for Europe as soon as our divorce was final.”

Nicholas had taken me on what he’d billed as “a teenage date” in the carnival atmosphere of the Santa Monica Pier, just a few blocks west of my little house on Eleventh Street. First, a mobile dinner of fish and chips wrapped in newspaper and seasoned with a sprinkling of malt vinegar, after which we rode the Ferris Wheel and the whirling cups, and tried to work off our meal by climbing the Pier’s rock wall feature. Nicholas beat me to the top by only one foothold—my new personal best.

We were sitting on the beach below the Pier, listening to the music and laughter floating down from above as we watched little diamonds of moonlight sparkle on the surface of the Pacific Ocean. It had been a wonderful evening, up until now. The cone of chocolate frozen yogurt I’d been devouring with such pleasure a moment ago dripped in my hand. Dollops of melting yogurt splattered onto my new tan slacks. Raw silk. The pants were cut so artfully that they managed to make my hips look smaller, and they were the perfect shade with my new butter yellow cashmere sweater. I laid my cone down in the sand and dabbed at the dark spots with a napkin, but I knew the slacks were ruined.

Nicholas put his cone beside mine and carefully covered them both with sand. I wondered if that counted as littering.

“Celeste called me from Vienna, where she’s living with her mother,” he said.

I filled the awkward silence that followed with a question. “Is this the first contact you’ve had with her since she was a baby?”

He nodded. “Over the years I tried to talk to her countless times, but Tanis made sure I was always one step behind them.” He half-smiled. “Del, Celeste wants to see me.”

“That’s marvelous,” I said, genuinely happy for him.

His face split into that grin he saved for special triumphs, as when one of his crime stories in the Los Angeles Chronicle was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. “My daughter’s coming to L.A. She arrives tomorrow. And she wants to live with me.”

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