Murder With A Chaser (Microbrewery Mysteries Book 2) by Belle Knudson Read Free Book Online Page B

tabloids too – after all, I'm only human.
                  I figured Frankie Meatballs would definitely see his way to hit the theater at some point, if he hadn’t already. It was a crapshoot. And guess what? I hit a seven on the first throw.
                  Turns out, Frankie Meatballs likes a good beer as much as he likes blonde wannabe starlets appearing in flimsy stock productions of classic plays. My guy at the Dock Theater shared a bottle with him and told him where to go to get more. Frankie stopped in at my place, I gave him one on the house, and he invited me to his restaurant in the city, transportation expenses paid.
                  In the words of Chaucer: Boo-ya!
                  Frankie's Italian Classic Restaurant was a cross between a club and a gaming arcade – that just happened to have the smell of garlic wafting through it. If I didn’t know any better, I'd swear there was a guy with a plate of the stuff crouched down by the air vents fanning it in. Classic rock music blasted all around, and the place was decked in flames and skulls and daggers everywhere. Even the light fixtures were skulls with the lightbulbs made to look like flames shooting out of the eye sockets.
                  So there I sat, across from the man himself. Frankie Meatballs looked like a cross between a rock star and a tattoo artist with a little bit of that-guy-you-always-see-outside-of-a-7-11-reading-the-newspaper-on-top-of-the-garbage-pail thrown in there for good measure. His nails were perfectly manicured, rings on every finger, half of which were adorned with silver skulls with diamonds for eyes. He wore a black button-down shirt with flaming skulls on it over ripped jeans and black biker boots with chains on them. On top, he was completely bald with a tattoo of a dagger on the back of his head. His face bore a permanent five o'clock shadow, neatly sculpted via razor into a pattern of sharp angles.
                  Frankie Meatballs had no choice but to be all about appearances; his food was terrible.
                  I munched on a small plate of meatball appetizers as we chatted. The things tasted like sawdust. The liquid they were smothered in was a puddle of canned tomato sauce with a ton of salt and a little battery acid sprinkled in there. I was appalled. I couldn’t believe people came here in droves like they did. Frankie seemed to drink it all in like wine. He sat, rocking back on his chair, his hands behind his head, basking in his wealth and superstardom like some blinged-out Roman emperor.
                  "So," he said, "a female brewer. Cool."
                  I wasn't sure how much of this I'd be able to take, so I decided to cut to the chase.
                  "So if you don’t mind, Mr. Fortino—"
                  "Everyone calls me Frankie."
                  I forced a smile. "Frankie, I’d like to talk about Eli Campbell."
                  What was it about that name that made smiles disappear?
                  "What do you wanna know?" he said, returning his chair to an upright position and putting both arms on the table.
                  "Well, for starters, I know you had some interaction with him in the past, and I—"
                  "Where'd you here that?"
                  "You only need to Google your names."
                  "You been Googling my name?"
                  "Frankie, relax. I'm just saying—"
                  "Listen," he said, jabbing a heavily metallic pointer finger at me, "I fought my way to the top every step of the way. I didn't come this far to get some two bit cook from the land of tea and crumpets to trash me every chance he could."
                  "Then let's talk about that. He publically challenged you once, didn’t