“Bitch!” The blonde stepped into the hold and aimed her pointed blue nails at the redhead’s face.
The redhead ducked. The blonde stumbled past her and caught herself on the table edge. They both blistered the paint with their next set of insults.
Giulia stepped away from the wall. “Mr. Fitch,” she raised her voice over the screeching women, “since you’re otherwise entertained, I’ll call you when I’m ready to give you my next update. Let’s go, Zane.”
“Giulia—Ms. Driscoll—wait, please.” Fitch threw out a hand toward her.
The doorbell rang.
The redhead swatted Fitch’s hand down. “How many women are you stringing along, Roger?”
“I’m not—Tammy, listen to me—”
The blonde hip-checked Roger into the table. “You bastard!”
Giulia opened the door. A spotlight blinded her. An unseen hand shoved a microphone in her face.
“Ken Kanning here with The Scoop at The Silk Tie Killer’s apartment. Miss, are you Roger Fitch’s new girlfriend? Don’t you worry that one of his ties will end up around your neck?”
Every syllable of that theatrical voice grated on Giulia’s nerves.
“Please move and let me by.” She didn’t trust herself to say anything else.
Behind her, one of the women screeched something unintelligible. The spotlight swerved to Giulia’s left. Giulia glanced over her shoulder.
The blonde picked up the redhead’s casserole and heaved it. The redhead ducked. The casserole dish shattered against the wall. Beef, broccoli, rice, and sticky orange sauce splashed the wall, the rug, and Fitch. A shard of milky glass bounced off a picture frame and impaled Giulia’s purse.
Ken Kanning shoved Giulia out of his way and ran into the apartment, the cameraman a step behind him.
“More violence, Scoopers! Accused murderer Roger Fitch has two women tearing up his apartment. What kind of man revels in this behavior? What kind of woman—”
Giulia shoved open the stairwell door and cut off that voice. She didn’t stop or look around until she and Zane were safe in the Nunmobile.
“Holy crap,” Zane said in an awed voice.
Giulia managed a weak laugh. “Still prefer working for a private investigator to a nice, safe desk job with sales commissions?”
“You bet. The only exciting stuff in my life used to be beating my gang on gaming night.” He whistled. “Wait ’til I tell the guys about this.”
Giulia rested her forehead on the steering wheel. “Tell them to watch The Scoop Monday at three-thirty. We might be on it.”
“Holy crap.”
Giulia raised her head. “It’s not exactly the TV debut I’d have picked.”
“Oh, no, Ms. Driscoll. This is awesome. I’ll tell my girlfriend to DVR it but I won’t tell her why.”
“We’ll watch it Monday at work. I might need to do damage control with the Diocese.” She started to toss her purse in the backseat. A glint of light stopped her mid-throw. “At least the sliver of casserole impaled my purse instead of me.” She pinched it out with her fingernails. “Zane, could you grab a tissue from the pocket on the door?”
Zane held one out and she set the piece of milky glass in its center.
“Ash tray, please.” This time her purse made it into the backseat. She started the car and pulled into Saturday afternoon traffic.
“Ms. Driscoll, did you want me to write up a report about that visit?”
Giulia hit the brakes at the next intersection as a black pickup ran a stop sign. “Learn how to drive!” She looked twice in each direction before turning left. “Sorry. I don’t usually lose my temper on the roads. I blame the Roger Fitch circus.” After another block, she said, “Did you ask me a question?”
“Um, I wanted to know if I should write a report about today.”
“Yes, please. All your impressions of the apartment, all your thoughts about Fitch’s story, everything.” She caught three green lights in a row. “That man will give me an ulcer.”
“I meant to tell you. You know when he was telling us about using his neckties as part of sex with his girlfriend? When you weren’t looking, he winked at me. Twice.” Zane shivered. “It creeped me out that he thinks I’m one of the guys who are into that.”
“That’s good.” She squeaked through a yellow light. “Sorry. Not that he thinks you’re like him. If he’s manufactured camaraderie between you then he’ll be more willing to trust us.” She stopped at the next yellow because of heavier traffic. “His starring episode of The Scoop today truncated my report before he got everything he wanted to know. That gives us the advantage. I’d like to see him suck up to us for a change.”
“I’ve never seen you this angry, Ms. Driscoll.”
Giulia turned left again onto Zane’s street and laughed a little. “It takes a lot to make me angry. Everything about Roger Fitch falls under that heading.” She pulled into Zane’s driveway. “Thank you for backing me up in there. I’ve got a mental note to add two hours’ overtime to your next paycheck.”
“Anytime, Ms. Driscoll. I have to say I’m better with gaming violence than real-life crazies.” He opened the car door.
“Wait,” Giulia said. “I seem to remember you were going to tell me about the embezzlement case.”
“Oh, yeah. Man, that seems like forever ago.” He stared out the windshield. “It’ll keep ’til Monday. I want to write down what happened today before I lose it.”
“So do I. Monday morning, then.”
Giulia drove straight home, found Frank in the garage building storage shelves, took the hammer and nails out of his hands, and kissed him.
“What did I do?” he asked when she allowed him a breath.
“You are not a possible murderer and embezzler who doesn’t know the proper use for a silk tie and who’s stringing along two women at once, both of whom choose to scream and throw things.”
“Well, when you put it that way, I’m awesome.”
Twenty-Six
Sunday morning after ten o’clock Mass, Frank headed to the car while Giulia talked with Father Carlos, the pastor of Saint Thomas’. The parishioners exited the parking lot like NASCAR contenders or headed down the street like marathon runners.
“Your husband is impatient,” the tall, bearded priest said.
“I made cinnamon rolls this morning and he says they’ve taken hold of his mind. He won’t be free ’til he eats one more.”
Father Carlos laughed. A withered old woman jerked her head toward them, shock freezing her wrinkles. Father Carlos nodded at her and she walked away, shaking her head.
“She’s new here,” Giulia said.
“Depending on what their last parish was like, it takes the new ones time to get used to a priest who isn’t grim.”
“You radical. See you next Saturday for confession. Make sure you don’t watch The Scoop show tomorrow.”
“I never do...wait a minute. Why shouldn’t I watch it tomorrow? Are you telling me I should schedule a special extended confession slot for you?”
Giulia laughed and walked down the steps. When she rounded the corner of the church, a spotlight snapped on right in front of her face.
“Scoopers, this is Giulia Falcone-Driscoll, investigating the Silk Tie Murder. Tell us how a former nun can sleep at night knowing you’re helping a cold-blooded killer get off scot-free?”
Giulia’s vision adjusted to the glare. Now she could see Ken Kanning shoving his foam-covered microphone so close to her face she smelled someone else’s chili dog on it.
Every cell in Giulia’s body wanted to grab that microphone and bash it into the camera’s spotlight. But she hadn’t survived ten years in the convent and eight years teaching high school in the inner city by losing her cool under pressure.
She pushed the microphone aside with the back of her hand and kept walking.
“Come on, Mrs. Falcone-Driscoll.” Kanning’s movie star voice followed her. “The Silk Tie Murder Case is number one with our viewers. W
hat do you know about Roger Fitch’s two girlfriends trashing his apartment? What about...”
Giulia walked faster than usual, but Kanning and his cameraman glued themselves to her. She could see her head and shoulders outlined faintly on the asphalt by the camera light. Fifteen steps to the car. Ten. Five. Frank’s hand opened the passenger door. Three. Two. Giulia slid onto the seat and closed herself in. Frank locked all four doors and hit the gas. Too fast for the small parking lot, but their Camry was the only car remaining.
“Good job,” Frank said when they made it through the nearest green light without The Scoop’s white creeper van following them. “I knew you’d have the self-control not to respond to their trolling.”
“It took them less time to track me down than I thought. They must have a roomful of minimum-wage researchers scouring the Net for information about their latest targets.” Giulia stared at her hands. “I’m still shaking. You don’t know how hard it was not to smash that microphone into their camera.”
“Yes I do. They showed up at a crime scene a few months back.”
Frank turned left, then left again.
“Why are you taking a different way home? Do you think they’ll follow us?”
“Not really, but why take chances? This route cuts off three or four minutes on a slow traffic day, like today. If they’re planning to stake out the house, we’ll be safe inside while they’re still four blocks away.”
Seven minutes later, Giulia locked their front door and pulled the curtains closed, even though their street was free of traffic.
“Those miserable bloodsucking parasites.” Giulia paced the living room, kitchen, and laundry room and back again. “Those disgusting stalker leeches. And I guarantee Roger Fitch told them who I was.”
Frank stopped her with a bear hug around her shoulders. “I’m sure he did. We’ll have to set up strategies for getting to work and ditching them when they tail you.”
Giulia grabbed her hair and yanked. “If he didn’t kill Loriela Gil, I’m going to be tempted to execute him myself.”
“You need cinnamon roll therapy.”
The tension drained out of Giulia. “What you mean, Mr. Driscoll, is you need cinnamon roll therapy. Come on. I’ll make fresh coffee.”
“It’s a scientific fact that homemade baked goods increase brain power as much as one of those little bottles of B-12 plus caffeine.” When Giulia gave a disbelieving snort, he threw his hands out in a protestation of innocence. “Go ahead. Look it up.”
While the coffee brewed, Frank tore off a piece of paper from the pad on the fridge. “Strategy time. Since The Scoop knows where and when you go to church, they know where you work and live. Which reminds me—”
He returned to the front hall, keeping away from the diamond-patterned frosted glass inset on the front door. Giulia stayed in the kitchen doorway. Frank sidled up to the front window and moved the edge of the curtain the barest half-inch.
“Yep. They’re parked four houses down.”
“Luridi codardi.”
“What?” Frank said.
Giulia’s ears heated up. “I called them filthy cowards.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Frank shook his head. “Marriage to me is cracking the pedestal I put you on way back when.”
“Frank, I—”
He kissed her. “Don’t be a goose. Hearing even a mild insult from you is a red-letter day. So fear not, Mrs. Driscoll. Their choice of vehicle is about to work against them.” He retraced his surreptitious path and unlocked his phone. “Gordon? Frank. Need a favor. The Scoop is parked on our street...Yeah, aren’t we lucky? They’re after my wife...I know. Ever see their van? Plain white, windows painted white too, and a beat-up license plate that’s hard to read...Exactly. A predator van...That’s what I was thinking. A concerned citizen would call the police to report the presence of such a vehicle lurking in a neighborhood with kids...Thanks. I owe you one.”
He ended the call and turned a pleased face to Giulia. “Come get a front-row seat to watch the results.”
A police siren neared their street two minutes later. It got louder and louder, finally blaring past their closed windows and cutting off close by. Frank opened the curtains. All the other curtains across the street were already open. A black-and-white, lights whirling, blocked the front of The Scoop’s van.
A voice through a loudspeaker from the police car: “Step out of the vehicle with your hands where we can see them.”
Silence for five...ten...fifteen seconds. Then both doors opened. Ken Kanning’s raised arms preceded him out of the passenger side. Someone Giulia didn’t recognize appeared from the driver’s side.
“That must be the cameraman,” Giulia said.
“Yeah. I met him once, when VanHorne offered to take him outside and beat the crap out of him. You don’t know how much we wanted to pound both of them into jelly.”
“I do. They make me wish I could practice the small bone-breaking techniques we learned in self-defense class.”
Frank stared down at her. “That is the second time today I’ve heard you speak positively of violence.”
“This case is making me not recognize the person I see in the mirror,” Giulia said.
On the street, one police officer was talking to the two men who comprised The Scoop while the other inspected the van. Kanning’s theatric hand gestures proclaimed his righteous innocence. The cameraman stood next to Kanning, saying nothing. The second policeman closed the van’s back doors and took his time walking around to his partner. After another short dialogue, The Scoop got into their van and drove away.
“It’s all about who you know,” Frank said.
“They’re going to be seriously ticked off.”
Frank let the curtain fall. “I have no sympathy. Let’s work on the various tactics you’re going to use for the next several days to ditch them.”
Twenty-Seven
No white van lurked on the street at six-thirty Monday morning when Giulia looked out her bedroom window. At seven she came downstairs and peered through the front curtains. The neighbor two doors down pulled out of his garage and a certain white panel van inched along the street in his wake.
“Blast and drat,” she muttered on her way to the kitchen. The timed coffee maker faithfully filled the first floor with the scent of dark roast. “They’ve only had their radar on me for a day and a half and they already know my schedule. Did they ask the neighbors what time I leave for work?” She took the travel mugs from the cupboard. “We might have to rethink who we invite over for driveway basketball this summer.”
“They’re in front of the Anderson’s,” Frank called from upstairs.
“I know. Implementing Plan A as soon as I pour coffee.”
“I’ll be down in two minutes.”
“Please put on some clothes. They have a video camera.” Giulia split the coffee between her Godzilla mug and Frank’s Manchester United mug. Nothing added to Frank’s, cinnamon-sugar creamer in hers.
She chose her red quilted jacket more for the brightness of it than for the weather. The days were steadily warming, so while the current temperature hovered near freezing, the weather forecast promised sun and fifty degrees later. Besides, if she was going to make an involuntary TV appearance, Frank always complimented her when she wore this coat with this particular snug pair of jeans.
Frank’s bare feet clomped down the carpeted stairs and slapped onto the wood floor of the front hall. “You’re wearing that coat and those jeans. Woman, you are a tease.”
Giulia kissed him. “Ready to be my door warden?”
He followed her into the kitchen. “My muscles are ever at your service. Keep your windows rolled up so they can’t stick that mike in your face or grab onto the sill.”
“Of course.” She opened the door to the garage and navigated the step using the light from the kitchen. “Give me ten seconds to start the car.”
Frank passed her and placed his hands on the metal garage door handle. “Don’t get ar
rested.”
“Yes, dear.”
She buckled herself in and turned the key. Frank raised the garage door. She backed out the Nunmobile at a prudent speed and Frank closed the door behind her. The white Scoop van hit the gas and screeched to a stop halfway across her driveway. Its doors opened. Light from the rising sun bounced off the TV camera lens.
Ken Kanning’s voice penetrated her closed windows: “Driscoll Investigations is out before sunrise in its quest to help a murderer escape justice.”
Giulia gunned her Ion onto the narrow strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street, bumped over the curb, and drove in reverse past the next five houses. While Kanning and his minion got themselves back into their van, she whipped through a three-point turn and drove forty miles per hour in a thirty zone for two blocks. The light turned green a few seconds before she reached it and she turned right.
The van turned right seven or eight seconds later. Giulia turned left at the next street. Left again, then right. At last she came up to a light as it turned yellow. She ran it. In her rearview mirror she saw the white van brake hard with its nose in the intersection. Early morning cross traffic had no intention of giving anything the right of way, which gave her the precise advantage she and Frank had planned.
Grinning, Giulia began a winding route to the office. Leaving before seven-thirty got her downtown fifteen minutes earlier than usual. For practical purposes, that meant the best parking spot in her building’s minuscule lot.
It also meant a fresh out of the oven raspberry streusel muffin from Common Grounds. Giulia climbed the stairs and unlocked Driscoll Investigations’ main door surrounded by the aromas of raspberry jam and cinnamon.
She turned on the lights and the printer and booted her desk computer. The muffin tasted as good as her nose promised.
“Since I never did my planned research this weekend, let’s put my Google-fu to the test.” She typed in a search string for local theaters.
“The Glass Arts. Of course. I’ve driven past their sign a dozen times. Managing director...not Henri Richard.” She clicked on the Past Performances tab. “There you are. Director Emeritus as of last year. Current productions...great. Chicago. When did you leave town?”
Nun Too Soon (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 1) Page 15