Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Pantry
The basement kitchen of the Marquetti estate was larger than most commercial restaurants in downtown Providence.
It featured double-wide stainless steel prep tables, a walk-in freezer the size of a shipping container, and six industrial stoves that rarely cooled down.
At 8:30 a.m., the room was deafeningly silent except for the rhythmic chop of a cleaver against maple wood.
Mrs. Martha Gable, a sixty-year-old woman with flour dusting her forearms like powdered sugar, was quartering chickens with mechanical fury.
When the heavy service door swung open and Rhett Marquetti walked in, followed closely by Winnie Doyle, the cleaver stopped in mid-air.
Three kitchen assistants who had been peeling potatoes dropped their knives into the zinc buckets with loud, clattering splashes.
None of them had ever seen the boss in the basement kitchen in the ten years he had ruled the family.
“Carry on,” Rhett said, though his tone ensured that nobody moved so much as a muscle.
He sat down on an aluminum prep stool near the pastry station, crossing his legs with effortless grace despite the pale cast of his face.
Winnie did not sit; she immediately walked toward the walk-in liquor storage locker at the far end of the kitchen.
The door was secured with a digital keypad that required a four-digit code and a physical brass master key.
“Mrs. Gable,” Winnie called out, her voice cutting through the humid air of the scullery.
The head cook turned slowly, wiping her red, chapped hands on her linen apron.
“Yes, Winnie?”
“Who had the key to the scotch reserve between eight and ten last night?”
Mrs. Gable glanced nervously at Rhett, whose eyes were fixed on her with predatory patience.
“No one had it except me, Winnie,” Mrs. Gable said, her voice shaking like a leaf in an autumn gale.
“The key stays on the hook behind the spice rack, just like Mr. Lorenzo ordered three months ago.”
Winnie reached behind the industrial-sized containers of paprika and dried oregano, feeling the bare wood of the hook.
“It’s not here now,” Winnie said.
Mrs. Gable gasped, her hands flying to her mouth.
“I... I put it there after dinner service! I swear on the Virgin’s name, Mr. Marquetti, I didn't touch the boss’s private stock!”
“We know you didn't touch it, Martha,” Rhett said softly, his fingers drumming against his thigh.
“If you wanted to kill me, you would have put the poison in the osso buco three years ago when I cut your brother’s pension.”
The cook went even whiter than the flour on her arms, sinking against the edge of the prep table.
Winnie was already kneeling in front of the liquor cabinet door, inspecting the polished stainless steel around the keypad.
There was a smudge of gray, waxy paste near the number seven and the number nine.
She leaned close, sniffing the residue, then scraped a tiny amount onto her thumbnail.
“Shoe polish,” Winnie announced, turning around to face the kitchen staff.
“Military-grade parade gloss.”
“The kind the security staff uses on their duty boots to keep the leather from cracking in the salt air.”
Rhett’s gaze shifted to the far corner of the kitchen, where a young dishwasher named Danny was trying very hard to become invisible behind an industrial dishwasher.
“Danny,” Rhett said softly.
The boy, barely nineteen, dropped the tray of silverware he was holding.
Dozens of forks and knives exploded across the tile floor with a terrible, ringing racket.
“I didn't do it, Mr. Marquetti!” Danny wailed, falling to his knees among the scattered cutlery.
“I just took the trash out by the garage! That’s all I did!”
Winnie walked over to the boy, stepping carefully around the knives, and stood over him.
She didn't draw a weapon; she simply reached down and took him by the scruff of his stained white t-shirt, hauling him to his feet.
“Nobody said you did it, Danny,” Winnie said, her tone unexpectedly gentle, like a schoolteacher dealing with a terrified truant.
“Who asked you to leave the back service door propped open with an empty tomato crate at nine o'clock?”
Danny’s eyes darted frantically toward the security cameras in the corners of the ceiling.
“The cameras are looped, kid,” Winnie told him quietly.
“I clean the security monitoring booth on the third floor.”
“The screens for the delivery alley have been frozen on the same view of the brick wall since quarter past eight last night.”
“Someone paid you fifty bucks to leave the wedge in the door, didn't they?”
Danny burst into tears, his shoulders heaving with pathetic sobs.
“He said... he said he just wanted to leave a present for his girl on the housekeeping staff.”
“He said if I told Mrs. Gable, he’d have my brother’s cab medallion revoked by the city commission.”
Rhett rose from the stool, the movement fluid and silent as a hunting leopard.
He closed the distance between himself and the crying dishwasher in three long strides.
“Who was he, Danny?” Rhett asked, his voice a low, terrifying hum that vibrated in the boy’s chest.
“I... I don't know his name!” Danny shrieked.
“He was wearing the black security blazer with the silver lapel pin!”
“The one with the double crest!”
Winnie looked at Rhett, her eyes narrowing.
“The double crest is only worn by Lorenzo’s personal security detachment,” she said flatly.
“The men he brought down from Montreal last month.”
Rhett did not look surprised; the grim set of his mouth suggested he had already arrived at the same conclusion hours ago.
He pulled a clean linen handkerchief from his pocket and tossed it into Danny’s lap.
“Clean your face, kid,” Rhett commanded.
“Then go pack your clothes, take two thousand dollars from Martha’s petty cash box, and get on the first train to Philadelphia.”
“If I ever see your face in Providence again, I’ll have you buried under the runway at Green Airport.”
Danny scrambled to his feet, babbling frantic thanks, and vanished through the scullery door like a phantom.
Rhett turned to Winnie, crossing his arms over his broad chest.
“Lorenzo’s men don't do anything without a written order or a nod from him at the dinner table,” Rhett murmured.
“He didn't just want me dead; he wanted the transition of power to look completely clean.”
“Natural heart failure behind a locked door.”
“The family would have had no choice but to vote him into the chair by Tuesday morning.”
Winnie looked around the vast, silent kitchen, watching the terrified faces of the cooks who were pretending they couldn't hear every word.
“What happens now?” she asked.
Rhett leaned down until his eyes were level with hers, the raw, magnetic intensity of the man filling her entire field of vision.
May you like
“Now, Winnie Doyle,” he whispered, “we go to the basement cells and see how much pain it takes to make Frank Corsi sing.”
***
