by Mary Leo
I was tempted to climb that ladder to check out the treetops hidden under the burlap. I had a feeling they were, in fact, incredible trees from Calabria. The olive trees from that region could grow up to thirty feet high, maybe higher. Each tree had to be harvested by shaking it with a trunk shaker so that the fruit fell into massive-sized nets placed around the bottom of the trees. Usually local women took care of preparing the nets and collecting the olives. I remembered the process from when I was a kid traveling back to Italy with my parents.
Still, the irony of the dire situation didn’t escape me, and I could think of nothing else but the dead girl in the room back at the inn.
“Angelina hasn’t been dead for more than a few hours and Giuseppe and I are already getting wedding presents?”
A hush fell over the room for a moment, until Zia Yolanda’s wail filled the empty space with her piercing cry.
Suddenly other family members began walking out of the shadows, as if they’d been hiding there, but why? Had the police siren scared them? Did they already know something about Angelina’s death? What the heck was going on and why was I always the last to know about it? This whole thing seemed strange, even for my family.
“What do you mean? Angelina is dead?” Mariateresa asked, her voice cracking. “What has happened to our beautiful Angelina?”
Apparently, I stuck my foot right into it . . . as usual.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so insensitive.” I hadn’t meant to sound so cold. Finding Angelina like we did, and now this unusual gathering, caught me by the short hairs.
Tears immediately filled Mariateresa’s eyes, as she obviously tried to deal with what I’d said.
I reached out and touched her shoulder, trying to ease the obvious pain I’d caused her.
“We just came from Angelina’s room. I have good reason to believe that someone purposely cut the Freon line on the mini-fridge and she succumbed to the fumes,” Lisa explained to the group that had circled in tighter around us.
“But you don’t know for sure?” Cousin Gianna asked dressed in a soft pink sweater, gray dress pants and heels. With her forehead furrowed, and the way she kept swallowing, she looked a little like she was trying her best to control something nasty that was going on inside of her. She added, “I mean, that she’s really dead, right?”
“Did you call an ambulance?” Aunt Val wanted to know. She wore a bright yellow hat with a big brim that would keep anyone from getting too close. Her dress and shoes matched her hat. She looked like a neon banana.
“The police?” Bruna, who rarely attended family events, asked as she stood next to Aunt Val. Her hands were tucked inside the pockets of her black unzipped hoodie, which she wore over a black tee, a black skirt and black high boots.
“No we did not,” I said. “Besides, there wasn’t any time. When we heard footsteps on the stairs, Giuseppe thought it best that we leave.”
“Giuseppe was in her room as well?” Gianna wanted to know. “Why was he there?”
“He and Jade had stopped by, but I don’t know why exactly.” I turned to Giuseppe who had suddenly appeared beside me. “Maybe you’d like to explain?”
“To escort Angelina to this party. She did not want to come alone. We were going to announce our engagement tonight.” His voice actually cracked, and the weird part was, he seemed genuinely upset.
Who knew?
“Yeah, old news. Mia already told me,” Gianna said.
Giuseppe turned to me. “You told her?”
“I didn’t think it was a secret,” I told him.
“Who else knew?” he asked.
Several other people in the room nodded their heads.
“Well, I didn’t know,” Bruna said.
“And neither did I,” Audrey echoed, looking stunned. It was the first time I’d seen her in a dress in months. I’d forgotten how thin she was. She almost looked as if she suffered from anorexia. How that was even possible in this family, with all the food and olive oil available, I didn’t know. Plus, she attended culinary school! An anomaly if there ever was one. “I thought you and Mia were engaged? I had your wedding all arranged at the church. Father Duke changed his schedule for you two. He’s not going to be happy.”
“That was a match that Don Spia, he would like to happen, but Angelina and me . . . we had the different plans. Now, my heart is broken and I will get the bastard who did this to my Angelina and cut their heart out.”
Besides my being completely confused over this seemingly impromptu party, Giuseppe just openly threatened the killer . . . who might be inside the warehouse . . . with a horrible death.
Everyone started tossing around so many swear words both in English and Italian that I didn’t know what they all meant. Plus, anger was building to such a fever pitch I thought for sure they were all going to start shooting something, anything, and I for one didn’t want to be around when this family decided to get revenge.
“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” I shouted over the fray. “We aren’t exactly sure what actually happened to Angelina, right Lisa?”
I turned to my very best friend to help quell the mob from taking any action. I wanted her to say something solid, like we have to wait for the official coroner’s report . . . which could take weeks, and by then everyone would have calmed down.
The room went quiet and all eyes were on my best friend, who looked unfazed by the attention.
“I can say without a doubt that Angelina is dead,” Lisa reiterated. “How that happened is yet to be determined, officially. I have my suspicions, and none of them fall into the natural causes category. What happens now, is anyone’s guess.”
In a non-mob family, someone might gasp, or faint, or call the police.
But in my family no even flinched.
“But you said someone cut the Freon line.” Mariateresa said. “Are you sure about that?”
“Not exactly,” I said, not wanting anyone to get the idea that we knew anything about the cause for certain. “We were . . . um . . . interrupted before we could verify the details. Giuseppe thought it might be better if we got out of there. That’s how we ended up in this warehouse. Jade directed us here.”
For the first time, I looked down at my hands and noticed they were dirty, and the sleeves on my hoodie were covered in leaves and dirt. I pulled my hoodie off and pulled the long sleeves down on my cotton tee to cover the scrapes and dirt on my arms. Then I brushed my hands off on my jeans. I just then realized I’d been touching my face, so that had to be dirty as well.
I was a dirty, scratched up mess.
Lisa, however, didn’t have a speck of dirt on her, and neither did Jade or Giuseppe. How could that even be possible?
“Good thing you all left,” Uncle Ray said. “That coulda gone bad. No tellin’ who was gonna come after you.”
A collective groan went up, just as my mom and Uncle Benny walked in through the front door. Cousin Jimmy, Rocco and a very pregnant Alessandra trailed close behind them.
In the next few seconds, everyone in the warehouse yelled, “Surprise!”
Maryann and three other accordion playing women began playing and singing Frank Sinatra’s “Love And Marriage” on their accordions. Their music filled the warehouse with the happy notes. They actually sounded great . . . who knew?
I finally focused in on the extra-large, round, three-tiered, highly decorated cake in the middle of the table, courtesy of Aunt Babe and Aunt Hetty, no doubt.
When I stepped in closer and tilted my head to get the right angle, I read: Buona Fortuna, Gloria and Benny.
“What’s this all about?” I asked my aunt Val who stood next to me, cheering.
“You don’t know? I thought you must have planned this whole thing.”
I stared at her, completely dumbfounded.
“What whole thing? What is this party all about? I knew nothing about it, but then I was on my way to Italy . . . I mean, Hawaii.”
She slipped an arm around my shoulder. �
��Oh, honey. It’s your mom’s engagement party. You haven’t been drinking again, have you? Because if you’ve been drinking, you probably forgot.”
“I wish I was, but no. Completely sober.”
“Well then, hon, I don’t know why you didn’t know. Babe, Hetty and me have been planning this for at least a couple weeks, ever since they locked up your uncle for whacking Dickey. Uncle Benny proposed to your mom that very night. Maybe she forgot to tell you what will all them cops buzzing around you. We just assumed that your mom spread the good news to everyone. But whatever, you’re here now, so enjoy it.”
That’s when I realized those trees weren’t a wedding present for my wedding to Giuseppe. They were a present for my mother’s wedding to Uncle Benny.
You could have knocked me over with an olive leaf.
I hung my black hoodie over the back of a chair at the end of the long table, plopped down hard in the same chair, right in front of a party-sized cheese and olive plate and almost cried.
SIXTEEN
What’s Love Got To Do With It?
“Mom,” I said as soon as I could corner her in the buffet line between the caprese salad, and the homemade cheese ravioli with marinara sauce. I knew both dishes were courtesy of Luna d’Oliva, the fine dining restaurant on our property, owned and operated by Gail and Gus Romano, cousins by marriage on my mother’s side. Gus, who was in his mid-fifties, had done time in Stateville, a harsh state prison in Joliet, Illinois. He’d been in there for involuntary manslaughter. I didn’t know all the details of his incarceration, but I knew it involved hot pasta sauce and a case of red wine. Anything more than that, I preferred not to know. “You and Benny are getting married?”
I didn’t think now was the time to ask her if she’d heard any speculation about who killed Angelina. I figured she must have heard something by now because she’d already been mingling with family. They were always quick to report any lethal activities to my mom. It was telling me about those activities that never seemed to happen.
“Yes, dear,” she muttered while gazing down at the platters of food, wanting to ignore me. My mom loved food, any kind of food as long as it was Italian.
“Since when?”
“Since he asked me to marry him and I said yes. He had to get the ring sized to fit my finger and we just got it back from the jeweler today. Isn’t it gorgeous?” She held out her hand so I could see the rock the size of a small city on her finger. It dazzled my eyes with its rainbow of colors, and hid most of her short, stubby ring finger. It was simply way too big for her tiny hands, but most things on my mom were either too big or too tight. Why should her engagement ring be any different?
“Uncle Benny gave you that? Our Benny? Penny pinching, Benny? The man whose wallet is glued inside his pocket? The man who smokes his cigars down so low he singes his lips. That Benny?”
I could hardly believe it. The man was a notorious cheapskate. He didn’t even have cable TV or air-conditioning in his apartment because they were both a waste of money. Hell, if he could have gotten away without electricity all together he’d probably be all right with that.
“Benny knows what to spend his money on,” she cooed, feigning demure.
“And apparently that’s on you.”
She giggled and stared at her new bauble, adjusting it on her finger.
I simply could not believe the size of that stone. Much bigger than what Angelina had worn that had been missing when we found her.
And there it was.
My mom’s ring reminded me that Angelina hadn’t been wearing her engagement ring and it wasn’t on the nightstand or in the safe. Had someone snitched it along with the ruby necklace? And was it the same someone who had killed her?
“He’s got his priorities straight, if that’s what you mean,” Mom cooed.
She took a small plate off of a stack and proceeded to fill it with an assortment of delights from the well supplied table, softly moaning each time she placed a slice of rich creamy cheese, an assortment of olives and several ravioli on her plate. Mom was a food porn princess, and beautiful food turned her on. It was sometimes hard to be around her when she was truly enjoying a meal with all the moaning she did . . . unless, of course, you were Uncle Benny who liked to moan right along with her.
I flashed on them both moaning in bed and immediately wanted to poke out my mind’s eye.
“So why didn’t you tell me you and Uncle Benny were engaged?”
I hated that no one seemed to share current events or for that matter, past events with me.
“You knew Benny and I were . . . chummy, but I couldn’t tell you about our engagement, dear. It was right in the middle of all that Dickey hoopla and I didn’t want to distract you. You seemed so adamant about fingering his killer.”
“Maybe because you were at the center of the investigation,” I reminded her. “And clearing my mother for murder was kind of important.”
Mom had spent several days inside the local jail while I tried to clear her name. It wasn’t an easy task, but Mom took it all in stride . . . except for the lousy jail coffee which apparently still haunted her.
She finished stacking her plate with as many goodies as it would hold, turned to me, cocking one of her chubby little hips, then pursing her glossy cotton-candy pink lips, she said, “And I appreciate that, sweetheart, but if we’re done here, I’d like to join the party now. After all it’s my party . . . and Benny’s, of course. He’s such a darling, helping plan all these events like this. I can hardly keep up.”
“There are more events?”
“Of course, dear. We’re engaged. It’s what engaged couples do. People host a lot of parties for the couple. I expect you’ll be handling a shower of some sort . . . not that we need anything . . . but it’s the thought that counts.”
I wondered how my wedding to Giuseppe fit into all of this. Not that we would be getting married, but still . . .
“One more question.”
“Anything, my darling.” She looked up at me, her face glowing with too much makeup, her hands partially covered with sky-blue lacy fabric from the dress sleeves that were, of course too long, while she held onto a plate heavy with yummy Italian food. “But first, you might want to freshen up, dear,” she added, a sympathetic smirk on her pink lips. “You look like something the cat dragged in, and we don’t have any cats on our property. I can only imagine what you and the girls have been up to. Truthfully, I don’t want to know any of the details. As long as there are no dead bodies on our property or more bullet wounds among our residents, we should be fine.”
Mom had a way of getting right to her priorities, and guarding our reputation was job number one.
I knew I’d gotten a little dirt on me from sliding down the drainpipe, but that was a small price to pay for escaping with my life.
My mom wouldn’t be able to handle the details, so I couldn’t divulge too much about my sleuthing escapades. I chose to ignore her hit on my appearance.
“Do you love him?” I asked, thinking about my own conundrum between Leo and my growing emotions towards Giuseppe.
She chuckled. “He treats me like a queen. What’s not to love about that?”
My mom always tried to avoid answering questions whenever possible.
“But do you actually love him?”
“The sex is incredible,” she whispered, then tapped my hip with hers. “Your mom’s still got it.”
Ewe! More eye poking…
I shuddered to think. “I don’t want to know about that part. I want to know if you love him. It’s an easy question for a soon-to-be bride.”
“I love you, my darling, and after that . . . well, in this family, it’s better not to be in love with too many people. You never know who’s going to have to disappear or get whacked next. Either of those things can rip your heart out. I did that once with your father, and I learned my lesson. I merely enjoy the time I have with everyone, and for the moment, I’m really enjoying my time with Benny, if you know
what I mean.” Then she attempted a wink, but her chubby little cheeks didn’t allow for a real wink. Instead the entire right side of her face squished together, pulling up the side of her mouth, which caused her to look as if she was in severe pain, which I knew she was not. “Now, let’s eat, dear! I’m starving. Oh, and I’ll see you tomorrow, at eleven-thirty. Right?”
I assumed she wanted to meet me for lunch at Oliva e Fico deli, to go over plans for her wedding shower, now doubt. “Right,” I said, hoping to get more information about her wedding plans during our lunch.
I followed my mother back to the table and overheard Mariateresa talking to Uncle Benny. What I could quickly gather as I lingered near them was that she’d stopped in to check on Angelina earlier that day, but when Angelina didn’t answer her door, Mariateresa turned right around and walked back down to the lobby. Apparently, Louie had been preparing for the nightly Happy Hour Event at the inn . . . which included free wine along with an olive and cheese plate. Mariateresa liked what she saw and ordered a plate to be picked up later in the evening.
Of course, the olive and cheese plate or any of these festivities wasn’t about to negate what had just happened, but it served as a welcome distraction. . . at least for the moment. Even Mariateresa seemed to be coping with the loss. The tears had long since stopped.
Not so for Zia Yolanda who sat in a chair at the end of the food table, wailing and then abruptly stopping for periods of time to graze from the bountiful table.
While everyone sat around the larger table enjoying themselves, I couldn’t help but walk over to inspect the tree. Not that I understood why my father would dig up an ancient Italian olive trees to send to his ex-wife for her upcoming wedding to a man my father had always said he had no use for, but I was trying to overlook that element of the puzzle.
Still it seemed outrageous to pull up such incredibly amazing trees, knowing there was a huge risk that they would die. Why would he do such a chancy thing? It didn’t make sense. Olive trees were this family’s lifeblood. We revered them more than almost anything else. Hell, some of my family would probably even kill to protect our trees. They were sacred . . . the trees, not my family.