Nun Too Soon (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 1)

by Alice Loweecey

  “Not one.” He took it to his desk and picked up his phone. “Jean, can I borrow you for a minute?”

  A silver-haired woman in pleated trousers and a green-striped shirt opened the door. “Yes, Mr. Petit?”

  “Please make three copies of this.”

  “Certainly.” She returned two minutes later, paper-clipped copies still warm.

  Petit brought them back to the table. “Roger, sign all three of these.” He handed Fitch a pen and pointed to the appropriate signature line.

  “Whatever you say, legal whiz.” He scribbled a set of loops and points three times.

  The lawyer signed next and Giulia last. He took two copies over to his desk, and Giulia returned one to her folder.

  “I’ll file this with the court,” Petit said. “Now that the easy part’s out of the way, let’s get to the real paperwork.” He brought over from his bookshelf an expandable manila folder crammed with papers and dropped it on the table. “Ms. Driscoll, this is the discovery file. It contains everything we got from the police and the prosecution.”

  Giulia whistled.

  “Let’s see what we have to work with.” She tipped the contents of the box onto the table. “Police report. Another police report. Autopsy. Glossy eight by ten photos. Lots of them.” She contained her initial reaction to the close-up of Loriela Gil, deceased, with a pastel striped tie cutting into her neck. “DNA report. Fingerprints. Affidavits.” She shook her head. “I need several hours of complete silence with all of this. Is there anything you want to tell me before I take this back to my office?”

  Petit shuffled stapled sets of papers. “It will make much more sense if Roger gives you a timeline of the events leading up to the murder.”

  Giulia powered up her tablet again. “Go ahead.”

  Fitch grinned at her, but he lacked Petit’s charisma. “Lori and I’d been living together for a couple of months when she wrangled me an interview at AtlanticEdge. I’d gotten pretty fed up with the commission structure at my last place.”

  Giulia typed as fast as he talked. “Was Loriela in Human Resources?”

  “Hell no. Accounting. She had a head for numbers. In charge of the department. Got there because she talked them into overhauling the whole system. Everybody listened to her. She was going places. You know the type.”

  Giulia nodded, typing.

  “Lori got my foot in there, but I proved myself in eight weeks. Pretty soon it was her and me, head of sales and head of accounting. Alpha types, both of us. Strong leaders.” He leaned forward onto the table. “Here’s where you’ll hear shit from her catty friends and her buttinsky relatives. You can’t put two alphas together and expect a peaceful sail down a calm brook.”

  Without raising her head, Giulia said, “You fought. All couples fight.”

  “Yeah, but we didn’t always fight in the privacy of our own place. She liked Long Island Iced Tea and I like single malt. We’d go out to relieve the stress of a hard day. I’d check out a hot babe and Lori’d get all jealous bitch on me. So we’d fight. Not like she didn’t stare at a good package in tight jeans, but whatever.”

  From the corner of her eye, Giulia caught Petit give a facial signal to Fitch. Fitch shifted in his chair.

  “So anyway, you’ll see in that stack of papers that our nosey-ass neighbors called the cops on us once, and there was this set of emails that got us both in trouble. Sent ’em from work. Stupid, I know, but she said I was screwing around and I said she was and...well, you’ll read it all. Cops got printouts from HR.”

  Giulia finished typing that last sentence and waited. When he didn’t speak, she raised her eyes and saw Fitch and Petit making faces at each other.

  “Gentlemen, it will be difficult for me to help you if you keep out pertinent information.”

  Petit looked sheepish. “The way this next part sounds, Ms. Driscoll, it might prejudice you against Roger.”

  “Mr. Petit, I am not a fragile flower that needs to be protected from the harsh realities of the world.” If only he knew what she’d seen since joining DI.

  “See, Colby? Told you she could take it. Listen to Uncle Roger when he speaks.” Fitch leaned forward again. “My birthday’s on April first. We’d made up again and went out to celebrate. Man, we got hammered. Only a twenty in the pockets of the bouncers kept them from tossing us out of the bar. Made it home without running into a cop or a telephone pole—stop looking like that, Colby. Ms. Driscoll, here’s where the important stuff starts.”

  “I’m paying attention, Mr. Fitch.” Giulia heard her voice revert to “teacher losing patience.”

  “I knew you were. Sorry. When we got home we decided to end the night with awesome makeup sex. Best girlfriend ever, you know? I got four of my ties and tied her to the bedposts. Uh...so...skipping to the end. I untied her but left the ties hanging where they were. She was out before I turned off the light and I was out a second later.” He shifted in his chair, his voice losing the “great bar story” tone. “My ringtone woke me up. I made it pushy on purpose, see?”

  He held up his phone. It played that klaxon alarm from World War II submarines in an emergency dive. Giulia winced.

  “Can’t remember the last time I got hammered enough to sleep through Lori’s phone alarm. She set it up with ocean sounds and birds, because she didn’t like loud noises in the morning. When I rolled over to grab my phone, I could tell even with my eyes closed the light in the room was way too bright for it to be our usual wake-up time of seven a.m. My chief underling was on the other end, asking me if I was coming into work that day. I unglued my eyes and it was like the signal for a hangover headache bad enough to make me want to cut my head off. I reached out to shake Lori awake, but her side of the bed was empty.”

  “What time was it?” Giulia said.

  “Ten-something by the digital clock on the cable box. I said I’d be there soon and hung up. That’s when I saw the glass door to the balcony was open. My jeans were on the floor, so I dragged them on even though they were still wet from the rain the night before. Didn’t want my junk flapping in the wind.” He chuckled, but sobered up right away. “I went to the door to get some fresh air and saw the neat little hole in the glass. Turned around and grabbed the phone and called 9-1-1. Reported the robbery, figured it’d save time because if someone knew enough to do that glass-cutting thing it was a no-brainer what they did it for.”

  Giulia raised her eyes. “Didn’t you wonder where Loriela had gone?”

  “Didn’t think of it—the phone call was instinct. After I hung up, I called out for her—thought she might’ve been ralphing in the bathroom. The wind blew some new rain in from the open door, so I went back there to close it.” A pause. “That’s when I saw Lori. She was all crumpled up on the balcony, her blouse from the night before plastered half on her and half against the railing, and one of my ties wrapped around her neck.”

  “Did you call anyone?”

  “Shit, yes I called someone! I called her! I yelled her name and shook her and loosened the tie and tried mouth-to-mouth. Took me forever to hear the cops knocking on the door. When I opened it, I screamed at them to get an ambulance for Lori. Gotta hand it to them, they figured out what was going on in about five seconds flat. But it was too late. The EMTs called it as soon as they showed up.”

  Giulia stopped typing. “If you altered the crime scene, where did the photographs come from?”

  Petit broke into Fitch’s narrative. “They asked Roger to return Loriela’s body to the same position in which he found it.”

  Giulia pictured having to do that to a dead lover while police and medical personnel watched. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, I had to do it so the cops could catch her killer.” He shook himself. “They took pictures of everything in the apartment and around the balcony. There was a big dent in the landscaping and a trail of brush-type marks toward the street.”

  “Someone jumped down and ran away,” Giulia murmured.

  “That’s
what it looked like. And covered up their tracks. Despite all that, the fuckers still arrested me.” He slugged Petit’s shoulder. “Superman here got me out in forty-eight hours. Had to pony up a stupid amount of bail, but he convinced the judge that on top of everything being circumstantial, I wasn’t any kind of flight risk. Hell, I wanted to find out who killed Lori more than the cops did.”

  “Circumstantial in what way?” Giulia said then waved the question off. “I’ll read that later.” She checked the time in the corner of the tablet and hit save. “It’s almost eleven-thirty and I have prior obligations to meet. Mr. Petit, I’m going to schedule several meetings with Mr. Fitch. Will a summary email from each be enough?”

  Petit began to stack all the documents and return them to the folder. “Absolutely. I know what you mean by prior obligations.”

  “Hey.” Roger Fitch looked from one to the other. “What about me? I’m the one going on trial for my life in two weeks. My life, people.”

  Petit held up both hands. “We know. We’re professionals. We’ve got this.”

  “That’s correct, Mr. Fitch.” Giulia packed away her tablet and stood. “If Mr. Petit will give me an oversized folder to protect this evidence, I’ll look it all over and come up with a plan of action later today.”

  Fitch looked from Giulia to Petit and back again. “I guess I don’t have a choice.”

  Giulia restrained an eye roll at the pout in his voice. Petit left and returned with a large-sized shipping box.

  “This should work. It’s good camouflage too.”

  Together they fit everything into the box and sealed it. Petit turned the smile on her again. “We can do this.”

  Giulia returned a lower-wattage version. “Yes, we can.” Her smile widened. “Why are you quoting Rosie the Riveter?”

  His expression became faraway for a moment, then he laughed. “Because she’s my hero, of course. Everything a lawyer says is the perfect truth.”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” She left before she said what she really thought of that last sentence.

  Seven

  Giulia called Sidney from the Glass Tower’s parking lot.

  “I’m heading back with food from Scarpulla’s Deli. What is mini-Sidney craving today?”

  “You’re a life saver,” Sidney said. “Eggplant on wheat with feta, please. It’s on their specials menu.” Her voice turned sing-song. “Giulia, Zane is making faces at me! Tell him to stop.”

  Giulia laughed. “Zane is still acclimating. Ask him if he wants me to pick up lunch.”

  Muffled conversation followed, then Sidney’s voice again. “After many pauses and apologetic noises, he says he would like a Reuben.”

  “Got it. Explain how this works, okay?”

  Giulia caught the deli right before the lunch rush. She’d come here the first day they opened a satellite location in Cottonwood thereby making the world a better place.

  The owner welcomed her with his usual exuberance. “Ms. Driscoll, I have the perfect sandwich for you on this sunny day.” His three chins jiggled as he nodded at her.

  “Giuseppe, you’ve never steered me wrong.” Giulia inhaled. “Is the pasta fagiole ready?”

  “No, no, not for you today. Today you will try the new sausage my wife makes, yes?”

  She caved. “Of course. I have lunch for my staff to order too.”

  “The pregnant lady, she wants peppers and cheese again?”

  “Not this time.” Giulia gave Sidney’s and Zane’s orders.

  “Bene. Eggplant is very healthy. Good for the brain. Angelo!”

  A teenage version of Giuseppe, minus the extra chins, stuck his head around the door from the kitchen.

  “Yeah, gramps?”

  “One Reuben. One fried eggplant with feta on wheat, dry. One of your grandmother’s new sausages on a bun with peppers and onions.”

  “Got it. Hey, Ms. Driscoll.”

  “Good morning, Angelo. Spring break?”

  “Just started. Next year, France.” He vanished into the kitchen and the sound of sizzling came a moment later.

  Giuseppe wrapped a whole pickle in waxed paper and then in a Ziploc bag. “That boy, he will be a great chef one day. He promises to make fancy French desserts for me to add to the menu.”

  “You’ll have to beat people away with a stick.” Giulia opened her wallet. “Three bottled waters, too, please. What exactly are you giving me to eat?”

  He rang up the three orders. “It is lamb and fresh romano and chicoria. The spices she will not reveal except to Angelo.”

  “That sounds wonderful. Now I want to make greens and beans. My husband says he’s getting fat.”

  The bell over the door rang and six people came in by twos. Giuseppe handed over her change. “That is the sign of a good wife.”

  Angelo came out of the kitchen with three wrapped sandwiches. His grandfather set them in a plastic bag and Angelo handed that bag and the bag with water over the counter to Giulia. “Here you go, Ms. Driscoll. You’ll love the sausage.”

  “Thank you both.” Giulia made way for the new customers.

  By the time she pulled into her building’s small parking lot, her mouth was watering from the mingled aromas rising from the deli bag. She walked up the stairs and into the office balancing both bags in one hand and the box of documents on the other arm.

  “Somebody take this food before I eat all of it in front of you.”

  Sidney tried to leap out of her chair, but the baby foiled that. “No fair. The baby’s sabotaging me. Zane, rescue our lunch?”

  Zane stood, took a sideways step, and froze in place. Then with a palpable effort he reached across his desk and took the bags from Giulia’s hand.

  Giulia pretended to grimace. “Fine. You win. The bill’s in the bag with the water bottles. I’m eating at my desk, but remember, you do not have to do the same.” She stared pointedly at Zane. “The machine can get any phone calls.”

  “I’m reading a new thriller on my Kindle,” Zane said.

  “Excellent.”

  “I’m working through,” Sidney said, “but that’s because I have to leave an hour early for my OB/GYN appointment.”

  “Remind your doctor that you can’t go into labor ’til you train your replacement.”

  Sidney was already unwrapping the eggplant. “I know, I know, or you’ll bring her to the maternity ward for instructions.” She took a bite. “I totally need to get this recipe.”

  Giulia shook her head. “Too late. You’d have to marry into the family.”

  “Rats.”

  Giulia closed herself into her private office. Before anything else, she unwrapped the sausage and peppers and took a bite.

  “Madonna mia.” The chicory lent a bite to the lamb and the romano smoothed out the spices. “Angelo will get his grandfather’s deli into Zagat’s.”

  Chewing a second bite, she gauged the space on her desk and chucked that idea. She pushed the sausage sandwich and its wrapping nearer the edge of the desk and planted herself on the floor. A drink of water—that last bit had been extra-spicy—and she opened the shipping box.

  The photographs she set directly in front of her, face down ’til after lunch. Three years in this business hadn’t hardened her to the point of being able to look at certain things while eating.

  DNA test printouts at her right. Fingerprint reports at her left. Like a clock face: Photos at twelve o’clock, DNA at three, fingerprints at nine, herself at six. Police report from the April call at one o’clock, documents inventorying similar break-ins in the area at two o’clock, move the DNA reports down to four o’clock and set the autopsy at three. Move the fingerprint pages to six o’clock. Affidavits from neighbors at eleven. From her relatives at ten, from his relatives at nine. More photos, this time of the outside of the apartment. Shove everything on the left down an hour and put the apartment photos at eleven.

  “Whoa.” Her breath fluttered the fingerprint records. She backed out of her circle of documents and found a
bag of butterfly clips in her bottom drawer. When each stack of papers and photographs was clamped together, she groped on the top of her desk for the sandwich and took another bite.

  “This is at least ten hours’ work. I need Sidney.” She stepped over the affidavits and opened her door.

  Kitty-corner from the doorway, Sidney was chugging water with one hand and typing with the other. While not too different from the eager college graduate Frank had hired four years ago, this Sidney’s skills were sharper with her energy undiminished.

  “Pregnant lady, can I borrow you when you have a minute?”

  “Be right there.” Sidney typed for another few moments and stood. “We’re at your service.”

  “Zane,” Giulia said, “when your lunch hour’s over, can you join us?”

  Zane nodded, eyes on his Kindle.

  Sidney stopped in Giulia’s doorway. “Whoa.”

  “That’s what I said. This is going to take more time than I thought, so can you give me a rundown of where we’re at with AtlanticEdge?”

  Sidney handed Giulia seven dollars and leveraged herself into Giulia’s client chair. “Here’s for my lunch. I love being pregnant, but I’m ready for mini-Sidney to vacate the premises. Did you know that alpacas are pregnant for almost a year? No wonder they spit when they’re cranky.”

  “Jingle didn’t spit on Olivier again, did she?”

  Sidney hung her head. “She did. It’s a good thing our condo lease was up three months ago, because Olivier wouldn’t set foot near Jingle or Belle again if we weren’t living in the cottage.”

  “You’d think the girls would accept him because you’re married.”

  “It’s the exact opposite. I raised both of them and they’re wicked jealous.” She rubbed a sudden bulge in her stomach. “God knows what they’ll do when the baby’s born.”

  “They’re both moms too.”

  “I guess. Olivier’s threatened to paper the inside of their barn with pictures of rump roasts and fried chicken legs if the girls spit on the baby.”