Nun Too Soon (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 1)

by Alice Loweecey

  Petit must have picked up on her body language, because he shifted tactics. Giulia reminded herself never to underestimate any lawyer ever.

  “Here’s the thing, Ms. Driscoll. The prosecution’s piled up a tower of evidence, and it’s pretty convincing. Locked-room mysteries play well on stage and in cozy novels, but in real life twelve random adults are going to make only one equation out of it.”

  “I can hazard a guess,” Giulia said. “One man plus one body in one room minus anyone else around equals the man in the room committed the murder.” She finished her water. Restoring her taste buds from wasabi numbness took precedence over this sob-story. Her conscience poked her with vigor. She had eaten at this man’s expense without any intention of agreeing to his request.

  On second thought, she hadn’t. Her wallet had enough cash to cover her own lunch. Her conscience has no grounds for reproach.

  “That’s exactly the solution they’ll come up with.” He signaled the waitress. “It’s what I want to prevent, but even I see how absurd any other conclusion sounds.”

  Giulia said as though she hadn’t already figured it out, “I don’t quite see what you brought me here to ask.”

  “Coffee and plum wine for me,” Petit said to the waitress. “Ms. Driscoll, let me recommend the ginger ice cream. I understand it’s won local awards.”

  Giulia saw no reason to mention she’d eaten their ice cream many times. “Thank you. Green tea also, please,” she said to the waitress.

  Petit continued, “My client insists he’s the only one who can prove his innocence. He knows he’s trapped in a clichéd mystery and he has to try everything possible to extricate himself. He says everything includes hiring you.”

  Giulia frowned. “Hiring DI to do what?”

  “To go over everything from before, during, and after the murder to find the real killer. He says that despite the DNA evidence, despite the circumstantial evidence, despite what the police and The Scoop and her relatives and his relatives say, you can pluck justice from the morass he’s trapped in.”

  “Mr. Petit, I can see why juries love you.”

  His earnest expression didn’t crack. “Juries can sense when I believe in the clients I represent. It’s that simple, Ms. Driscoll. I believe in Roger Fitch’s innocence.”

  They leaned away from the table to let the busboy clear their dishes and the waitress set out their desserts.

  Before Giulia had a chance to reply to Petit’s proclamation, he said, “Mr. Fitch has set aside funds to hire you. His assets are frozen but the judge has authorized this particular expenditure.” He drank half the small glass of plum wine in a gulp. “I’ve researched Driscoll Investigations. You have a reputation for championing the underdog.”

  “Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean I’m a pushover.” She dipped her spoon in the ice cream. “We’re up to our necks in work right now. I’d need a lot of convincing before I commit myself and my staff to more work.” Giulia knew she was lying. Petit was already working his way under her skin.

  “Convincing?” Petit smiled. “You just said my favorite word. It’s—” he pulled out his cell phone and checked the screen— “quarter after one. My office is ten minutes from here if we avoid the construction on East Main. May I take up another hour of your time?”

  Giulia did a quick calculation.

  “I have a report to fine tune and two appointments starting at two forty-five.”

  “Challenge accepted. I’ll finish what I have to say in less than an hour.”

  “Deal.” She scooped more ice cream, free to enjoy it now. The extra hour would allow the lawyer to give her the full performance and feel that she hadn’t dismissed him out of hand.

  She took out her phone and typed in an alarm for ten a.m. Confession on Saturday. Nothing short of world destruction would make her skip this week. The number of half-truths she’d spoken in the last hour alone...

  Three

  The offices of Creighton, Williams, Ferenc, and Steele commanded half the fifth floor of the newest glass building designed by the town’s architects du jour. Giulia once drove by them on a sunny summer day and the afterimages from the tinted glass nearly caused her to rear-end a Hummer. The Nunmobile would’ve lost that encounter for sure. Today she and Petit went around the back way to avoid any potential glare problems from the angle of the early spring sun.

  The lawyer held the building’s glass door for her. “Damn architects are going to get sued when someone blames a T-bone accident on their five-story mirror.”

  Giulia followed him to the elevators. “It’s still better than another giant box o’ cinderblocks.”

  The left-hand elevator pinged and they entered.

  “Agreed.” Petit pushed the button for the fifth floor.

  Unlike most elevators Giulia had experienced, this one shot up so fast her stomach took several long seconds to catch up. She regretted lunch for those seconds.

  Petit led the way to another glass entrance. Tasteful gold scrollwork outlined the double doors, the scroll pattern repeating in the pattern of the maroon carpets. The receptionist’s desk looked like real wood. The receptionist’s suit looked like it cost three times as much as any outfit in Giulia’s closet.

  She needed to get a grip. She now ran her own successful business. Success outweighed fancy clothes any day. She also needed to disregard the little fact that the receptionist was younger and prettier than her, too. She was her own woman.

  Giulia ignored the fact that every word of her lecture was much too familiar. Self-image issues much?

  Petit led her down a slate-blue hall accented with watercolor landscapes. The office they entered differed only in its pearl-gray walls and watercolor winter scenes. And the man with surfer dude hair sitting at the Roycroft-style table waiting for them.

  “Morning, first flute.” He stood and held out his hand. “Haven’t seen you since we shared an orchestra pit for Working last September. Remember those three actors who kept asking for their cues to be accented harder? Black Joe, White Joe, and Gay Joe.” His laugh was half an octave higher than his voice.

  Giulia remembered why she hadn’t regretted his absence at the community theater. She smiled and returned the pianist’s “I spend six days a week at the gym” grip. Professionals didn’t let their personal opinions interfere with work. “That was an enjoyable show, Mr. Fitch. The Joes’ various solo lines certainly added to the overall production value.”

  Professionals also knew the art of the subtle dig.

  Petit pulled out a seat for Giulia before sitting at the table himself. “Roger, Ms. Driscoll has several other commitments this afternoon, so we’re on the clock to win her to our cause.”

  Fitch grinned. When Giulia didn’t respond, he wiped it off and went for the serious look.

  Giulia mentally smacked herself for ascribing ulterior motives to everything he did based on eight weeks of rehearsal and performance for four musicals over the past few years.

  If she factored in possible ulterior motives from that other interfering issue, however...Roger Fitch might not be a killer, but he could very well be a thief.

  Petit slid a file folder over to Giulia. “I’ve prepared some photographs to encapsulate the problem.” He gestured for her to open it. “Please.”

  When she did, the face of a smiling woman greeted her.

  “That’s Loriela Gil, the woman Roger’s accused of murdering. She and Roger had been out to celebrate Roger’s birthday last April first. They returned late and, frankly, shouldn’t have operated a motor vehicle.”

  “Come on, Colby,” Roger said. “Dodging a DWI is chump change. They’re gonna pump me full of poison and my neighbors’ll celebrate my execution with popcorn and beer if we can’t prove I’m innocent.” His voice lost its cocksure quality halfway through the last sentence.

  Petit nodded. “Of course. That night, Roger and Loriela decided to end their celebration in bed.”

  “Sex. It’s what’s for dessert.” Fitch winked
at Giulia.

  Petit’s body jerked slightly in Fitch’s direction. Fitch jerked a second later. Based on Giulia’s observation of similar jerky motions at Frank’s extended family dinners, the lawyer had kicked his client under the table. Petit cleared his throat. “Roger has deposed that both of them were so drunk they fell asleep right afterwards, and Roger slept through their alarm. He didn’t wake up until a co-worker called to see if he was coming to the office that day.”

  Giulia studied the photographs as she glanced at the pianist from under her lashes. Perhaps the eleven months between the murder and now was an excuse for his callous attitude. It didn’t make her any more sympathetic to him.

  A smidge more persuasion crept into the lawyer’s voice. Giulia had to be giving off neon-bright disapproval signals.

  “You’ll see the photos beneath that one are evidence of Roger and Loriela’s enduring relationship.”

  Giulia dealt them onto the table like cards. The couple kissing on New Year’s Eve. Dancing at someone’s wedding. Cutting birthday cake. The photos could’ve been a montage from any one of the last dozen romance movies Giulia and her friends had seen on a girls’ night out.

  Giulia added “Ramp down the cynicism” to her internal to-do list.

  “All right, Mr. Petit. What next?”

  “The next set of pictures shows several angles of the apartment she and Roger shared, taken the morning after the murder. If you’ll take a closer look at the fourth one, the one that shows the balcony from the outside, you can see the footprints in the landscaping mulch below the balcony.” He waited for Giulia to deal those photos on top of the first set. “One of the prosecution’s contentions is that Mr. Fitch deliberately planted those footprints to mislead the police.”

  Giulia picked that one up again. This type of evidence wasn’t her area. Frank’s eyes on these pictures would give him buckets full of information.

  Her hands set down that print and picked up another one, giving it the same apparent scrutiny. What really captured her attention was her brain trying to pull off an internal shift from “DI has no time for another case” to “What is the truth at the heart of this?”

  “Roger,” the lawyer said.

  The pianist switched attitudes as though the lawyer had snapped his fingers.

  “Ms. Driscoll, when I talked Colby into contacting you, it wasn’t just Driscoll Investigations I wanted to see. It was you.”

  Giulia set down all the photos.

  “Bet you didn’t know the orchestra pit started a pool when you took over the agency. The Second Violin ran it like one of those baby pools at work. We bet on the month and day you’d screw the pooch and declare bankruptcy.”

  Giulia’s smile stiffened.

  “Don’t get mad or anything.” Fitch’s return smile all but sparkled. “All in good fun. Besides, the money’s still in the safe in the conductor’s house because you didn’t fold.” He leaned across the table. “The conductor said you’d succeed because you’re the opposite of those old-movie detectives. You have what modern people want. Women in charge, but who aren’t pushy or bitchy or too masculine. That’s what I need: The right kind of woman.”

  Giulia put as much distance between them as she could while still sitting at the same table.

  Fitch spoke faster. “You’re going to hear that Lori and I used to fight. You’re even going to hear that we were quits. It’s a load of crap. Sure we had fights. Who doesn’t? But we always made up. I bet you and Frank fight sometimes.”

  “I don’t see how this is relevant to the issue, Mr. Fitch.” Giulia turned over her wrist to check her watch.

  Fitch reached out for her hand, but stopped before he touched her.

  “It’s the only relevant part of the issue. They’re going to say that Lori and I were splitting up. They’re going to talk about that stupid restraining order her bitch of a mother talked her into getting. They’re going to say our friends were worried about her. Colby’s shown me video footage of the prosecutor in action. He’ll pick a fact here and an old email there. When he’s done cherry-picking, he’ll point to me and imply that I’m ‘Fitch the Ripper’ because of that stupid bar fight Lori and I had the week before my birthday.” His eyes never left hers. “I didn’t kill Lori. I swear to you. You might not like me too much, Ms. Driscoll, but that doesn’t matter, right?”

  Giulia didn’t unbend. “What does matter to you, Mr. Fitch?”

  “Justice. I didn’t even consider talking to another private investigator. You’re the only one who’d even try to find it at this point.” He slid the photograph of Loriela Gil over to his side of the table and stared at it.

  Giulia’s inner cynic rolled its eyes at the theatrical gesture, despite its kernel of truth. Her inner realist wrote Fitch’s entire mess off as hopeless. Her inner bookkeeper catalogued the extra time this case would add to their weekly schedule. Her traitorous hard-nosed inner business owner—a tiny aspect of herself she usually kept squashed under her sensible shoes—whispered that DI could find a reason both Fitch issues weren’t a conflict of interest after all.

  Her real self, the one controlling all those miniature Giulias, knew she couldn’t walk away from this. All of her selves wanted to curse.

  She turned to the lawyer. “Mr. Petit, Driscoll Investigations will take this case.”

  Four

  Giulia ran up the narrow wooden stairs to her office as the alarm on her phone signaled five minutes to her first temp interview.

  She skidded to a stop on the doormat, dragged her fingers through her curls that she knew looked like Shirley Temple’s after a tackle football game, and slowed her breathing. Then she opened the frosted-glass door.

  The temp waiting in the chair next to Zane’s desk looked like she’d teleported here direct from Harvard Business School.

  As though the interviewee wasn’t sitting two feet to his right, Zane said, “Your two forty-five appointment is here, Ms. Driscoll.”

  Only relentless practice kept a smile off Giulia’s face as she hung up her jacket. Zane’s chocolate-brown eyes didn’t waver as he handed Giulia three printouts in a manila folder.

  “Thanks.” She smiled at the young woman in the gray pinstripe suit. “I’ll be just a few minutes.”

  Safe behind the closed door of her office, Giulia opened the folder and reread the cover letter and résumé inside. Ms. Pinstripe graduated from Duquesne more than a year ago. Ugh, all temp work and nothing really relevant.

  The often-useless “Awards and Interests” section at the bottom of the résumé caught her eye. Captain of the debating team. Captain of the women’s lacrosse team. Sang the role of Guinevere in Camelot her junior year and Maria in The Sound of Music her senior year.

  Giulia would have to turn in her ex-nun card if she didn’t give this candidate a smidgen of extra chance because of that last role.

  She buzzed Zane. “Please send in Ms. Reed.”

  Except Ms. Reed disapproved. Of pretty much everything. The secondhand filing cabinet—the first official piece of furniture Frank bought when he opened the office—received an “are you kidding?” look of dismissal. The more time that passed without Giulia turning to her computer, the more Ms. Reed’s incredulous look deepened. Within fifteen minutes, she was telling Giulia the Only Correct Way to run an efficient office.

  Within twenty, Giulia showed Ms. Reed to the door.

  No good deed goes unpunished, Giulia said to herself as she drew comparisons between Ms. Reed’s Fortune 500 style of perfection and her own clothes.

  Sidney looked up from her screen. “Why are you trying to smash down your hair? It looks curly and happy, just like it should.”

  Giulia smiled. “Sidney, you are irreplaceable. I certainly won’t choose that Mean-Girl-Who-Dumps-The-Geeks’-Books-In-The-Hall as your substitute.”

  A noise came from Zane’s desk that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Giulia and Sidney did a tandem double-take in his direction.

  Zane choked it down. “H
er voice carried through the door. Sidney made faces every time we heard ‘In addition...’”

  “Serves me right for not going through an agency, I suppose.”

  Sidney said, “Think of the interviews if you’d have placed the ad on Craigslist.”

  Giulia crossed herself. “Give me credit for not being that naïve. Okay, I’ve got half an hour ’til the next interview. Hit save and listen up, guys.” She walked to the opposite end of the office and perched on the windowsill so they could both see her. “I agreed to take on the Silk Tie Murder case, and no, it was not because of the excellent lunch.”

  Sidney put on her most disingenuous expression.

  “His name is on the AtlanticEdge list.”

  “I know. We can do this. The two issues don’t overlap. Embezzlement does not equal murder.”

  A new worry crease appeared on Zane’s forehead. “Ms. Driscoll, despite that dichotomy I’m sure there’s a precedent.”

  “Zane, precedents are fine in the mouths of lawyers, but justice trumps legal nitpicking, at least in this office.”

  The worry crease deepened.

  “Zane,” Giulia said. “Embezzlement sends people to jail and makes them repay the stolen money. The Silk Tie case is murder and the death penalty is on the table.”

  “But Ms. Driscoll, even if that’s the situation, the amount of statistics we’re compiling for AtlanticEdge alone—”

  “Zane.”

  The admin gulped and shut up.

  Giulia smiled at him. “I know what our workload looks like. Sidney, don’t look all perky. You won’t be home playing with your baby for another two weeks. You’ll be buried under this with the rest of us.” Her phone alarm went off. “Fifteen minutes ’til the next candidate arrives. Here’s the scoop. First: I’m not taking this extra work merely to dump it all on you. If anyone puts in extra hours, it’ll be me. Second: Yes, I’ll be asking both of you to perform more brilliant computer acrobatics and no, it won’t break your brains.”