Nun Too Soon (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 1)

by Alice Loweecey

  At the word “pushed” Giulia’s brain rattled back into its professional gears. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Somebody shoved me right between my shoulders. How the hell else would I fall off a three-inch curb?”

  He got to his knees, then his feet. The half-dozen concerned bystanders gave him more space.

  “Now you recognize me? Yeah, I’m supposed to be the Silk Tie Killer. So what? Ever hear of innocent until proven guilty? Ever hear of the justice system?”

  Giulia reached up and put her hands on his arm again. “Mr. Fitch, this isn’t a good idea.”

  He shook her off. “Which one of you tried to commit murder by taxi? Huh? Got the guts to look me in the face?”

  Two women at the outer edge of the circle faded away, their steps lost in the traffic noises. The light turned green for the second time since the near-accident. A mother picked up her preschool-age son and crossed the street. Two men in suits followed, then an older woman with a purse big enough for an overnight trip. By the time the light shone red again, a new group of people surrounded Fitch and Giulia, still giving them breathing space.

  “You okay, lady? Need a hand?”

  Giulia smiled up at the teenager in a hoodie and ripped jeans who probably should have been in school. “Thanks, no. I’m okay.” She clambered up, checked her purse, and rubbed her tailbone.

  “Mr. Fitch, this serves no purpose. Let’s get over to the museum’s lawn.”

  She waited a four-second gap in traffic to cross the street and made for the gray steel chrysanthemum without checking for Fitch. When she sat on one of the green benches beneath the sculpture, Fitch sat beside her a moment later.

  “Don’t start,” he said. “Somebody shoved me. I can’t prove it. That doesn’t make me a liar. It’s no secret I’ve got a lot of haters in this town. Any one of them would love to hurry me down to hell and save the taxpayers the cost of the trial.” He rubbed his left shoulder. “Feels like somebody tried to pull my arm out of the socket.”

  Giulia gave him a tight smile. “You’re welcome.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?” He stopped rubbing. “Wait a minute...I’m not a speed bump right about now because somebody dragged me back onto the sidewalk. You?”

  “Yes, me.”

  “Sheesh. Thanks. Didn’t mean to be an asshole. Got caught up in the moment.”

  “You’re welcome,” Giulia said with less ice this time. “I agree that you won’t be able to prove someone pushed you into traffic. My advice is not to waste time in speculation. Let’s concentrate on the reason you hired us in the first place.”

  “Good girl—woman. First, though, I want to apologize for what happened with Tammy and Angie on Saturday.”

  “I might suggest you not string two women along simultaneously, but that’s your business.”

  He looked rueful for the first time since the initial meeting in Colby Petit’s office. “Things got away from me after the indictment. Lousy day for The Scoop to track me down. Perfect timing for them. Kanning and his stooge hugged the walls while I tried to pull my girls off each other, then the mike and the camera swooped in. I kicked those bloodsuckers out as soon as I could, but Angie ran after them, talking a mile a minute.”

  “So it wasn’t you who gave my name to The Scoop?”

  “Oh, uh, no. I wouldn’t sic them on anybody, including Madre Cassandra, and that’s saying a lot.”

  “Well, they’re stalking me at home and at church. I’m not looking forward to five o’clock today.”

  “Why? Oh. You think they’ll be outside your door.”

  Giulia would’ve sworn on her mother’s grave that Fitch was thinking, That means they won’t be outside mine.

  A taco truck pulled up to the curb in front of them and started to set up for the lunch crowd. Beef marinated in cumin and chili powder saturated the air. Giulia wondered if they had enchilada fixings in the freezer for supper.

  She brought herself back to Fitch on the bench next to her. “You’ll be pleased—or not—to hear that both Henri Richard and Lacy Maples are no longer on our informal list of suspects in Ms. Gil’s murder.”

  “Shit. How come?”

  “He moved to Chicago long before last April and she was in the hospital with appendicitis for the week surrounding the murder.”

  He didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. “Who does that leave, then?”

  “Leonard Tulley, Shirley Travers, Colby Petit, and you.”

  He blustered. “But I told you—”

  “Mr. Fitch, I’m in charge of this case. No possibility is excluded until I obtain definitive evidence to the contrary. If this is unacceptable to you, we can terminate the contract and I’ll bill you through the court for time spent.”

  He flinched. Giulia patted herself on the back.

  “No, no, of course I don’t want to fire you. Who else can pull my ass out of the death chamber?” His charming smile flashed out. “I need a beer to celebrate my escape from death. Want to join me so I can toast my life-saver?”

  “Thank you, no. I have a busy morning still.” She stood. “Hopefully I won’t be watching myself get ambushed by The Scoop this afternoon on TV.”

  He chuckled. “There’s no such thing as bad publicity, Ms. Driscoll.” His head swiveled in the direction of the food truck. “I want a taco.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Fitch.”

  “See you later.” He walked toward the open side of the truck.

  Giulia started back to her office, thinking that if the death penalty loomed over her, she’d hit Common Grounds twice a day for a new flavor of coffee.

  Thirty

  “Giulia Falcone-Driscoll for Mr. Petit, please.”

  She stared at the phone keypad, willing Fitch’s lawyer to pick up before The Scoop’s TV show started. Fifteen minutes should be plenty of time for him to dredge up his high school memories for her.

  Click. A different voice than Cathy’s, the receptionist Giulia shared recipes with. “Ms. Driscoll? Mr. Petit is on another call, but he should be no more than five minutes. Are you able to wait?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.” Click.

  Giulia put the call on speaker and took a red Sharpie over to the clue collage pinned to the wall next to her door. She drew fat red Xs over bartender Jonathan Stallone’s pages and a line through Lacy Maples’ name on the extra page she’d added yesterday. The one she’d headed “People Thrown Under the Bus.”

  Click. “Ms. Driscoll? Colby Petit. What can I do for you?”

  “A few questions for you, Mr. Petit.” Tact. A bucketful of tact. “I understand you and Roger Fitch went to the same high school.”

  A sound as though the lawyer swallowed a bite of very late lunch. “Pardon me. Crazy day. Yes, Roger and I graduated from the same school.”

  “Specifically, in the same class. And you were both on the basketball team.”

  Wariness and puzzlement came through the speaker with the next drawn-out word: “Yes.”

  “Also that Roger bested you at the sport, relegating you to the bench while the five starters, Roger among them, achieved glory.” Not tactful enough. Blast.

  A longer silence. “I see. It’s been implied that a sixteen-year-old grudge drove me to murder Roger’s girlfriend and pin the blame on him.” Papers rattling. A metallic clunk. A curse. “I just spilled my soda. Let me put you on hold.”

  Giulia stared at the phone through the peculiar dead silence of hold-limbo. A lawyer known for his glib tongue had to resort to a fake spill to buy time. She flipped over to a new page on her current legal pad and wrote “Colby Petit” on it with the red Sharpie.

  Click. “Ms. Driscoll, the idea that anyone would orchestrate a convoluted murder as much-belated revenge must sound as ludicrous to you as it does to me. If it were presented to me as part of a case, my first action would be to explore the motives of the accuser.”

  “Mr. Petit, neither of us needs to teach the other how to do their
job. Thanks for confirming the information. I’ll let you get back to your lunch.”

  She ended the call while she had the upper hand. Five minutes to the show. She swapped a ballpoint pen for the Sharpie and wrote several questions and notes to look things up. If nothing panned out fast enough, she’d try pumping Tulley for information this time instead of bile. Fitch’s natural fear of the death penalty made him an unreliable source.

  Her speaker buzzed. “Three minutes, Ms. Driscoll.”

  Giulia capped the pen and ran out to the main office. Everyone was crowded around Sidney’s monitor.

  “So I don’t have to stand up,” she said to Giulia.

  “Smart.” Giulia swapped places with Zane, who positioned his taller self between Giulia’s shoulder and Sidney’s head.

  Sidney clicked on the streaming window and it filled the screen. As soon as a commercial faded to black, she un-muted the sound. A drumroll began, soft at first but reaching a dramatic crescendo within five seconds. The screen softened from black to gray and a dramatic clash of cymbals, trumpets, and French horns followed. The screen changed one final time, to pure white, and a deep voice imitated James Earl Jones’ classic CNN introduction, “This...is The Scoop.”

  Sidney giggled. “Are they for real?”

  Ken Kanning’s face with its gleaming smile and sculpted cheekbones appeared in the middle of the screen.

  “The Scoop exists to bring you the news the other outlets don’t dare report. We give you, our loyal Scoopers, news you didn’t know you needed to hear.” A grim yet sincere expression replaced the smile. “In today’s edition, Cottonwood’s story of the year: The Silk Tie Murder. A callous killer, his new women, and the amoral private eye working to set a killer loose among our unsuspecting citizens. This footage may not be appropriate for younger viewers, so please send the kids into another room.”

  The camera pulled back until Kanning’s entire torso came into view. The background changed to the pattern of the tie used to strangle Loriela Gil.

  “And now, The Scoop presents: The Silk Tie Murder.”

  “Heaven help us,” Giulia murmured.

  Kanning’s voice-over gave the high points of the story starting with Fitch’s 9-1-1 call the morning of April second last year to his indictment for Loriela’s murder thirteen weeks ago. Video clips of Fitch’s initial arrest and his release two days later. A replay of the bar fight video with The Scoop’s lurid commentary. Kanning depicted Cassandra as the world’s worst mother-in-law. Loriela got the sainthood treatment. Jonathan Stallone and Henri Richard blipped into and out of Loriela’s life as failed suitors. The Scoop had access to none of the AtlanticEdge information, which meant no mention of Shirley Travers and a lot of vague praise about Loriela’s rise to Head of Accounting and her bright future prospects, cut short by Fitch’s silk tie. As the show went to commercial Roger Fitch’s mug shot filled the screen.

  “What creative journalism, and I use the latter word loosely,” Giulia said.

  “It’s half over and they haven’t reached last Saturday’s catfight,” Zane said. “Maybe they’ll run out of time and concentrate on the fight more than us.”

  Giulia shook her head. “We can only hope.”

  The show returned from commercials with a reprise of its opening music.

  “The Scoop is always looking under the rocks people are afraid to turn over,” Kanning said, his Serious Face onscreen again. “But you know our motto, Scoopers: The juiciest stories lurk in the darkest places.”

  Zane laughed. Sidney shushed him.

  Kanning dissolved into an exterior shot of Fitch’s apartment building.

  “Evil still inhabits one of these luxury apartments. Our clairvoyant, Madame Aurore, will perform a spiritual cleansing live on next week’s show.”

  “Aurore?” Zane said. “She’s the biggest charlatan in Pittsburgh. The Pagan community cringes whenever her name comes up.”

  “Shush!” Sidney said.

  Kanning, on tape now, spoke to the camera in the apartment building’s parking lot. “...got a tip that things were happening in the apartment Roger Fitch uses for his trysts. The apartment he and Loriela Gil purchased together, decorated together, and shared together until last April first.”

  The camera cut to a new shot of Kanning in the hall outside Fitch’s door.

  “I don’t know if you can hear what we hear, Scoopers, but someone behind this door isn’t very happy. Let’s find out together what’s going on.”

  The camera swung around as Kanning rang the bell.

  In her office, Giulia watched herself open Fitch’s door.

  Kanning’s microphone obscured the lower half of Giulia’s 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?”

  On-screen Giulia’s face replaced its startled expression with one that resembled a shuttered window. “Please move and let me by.” Her voice was as expressionless as her face.

  One of the girlfriends screeched behind Giulia. The camera’s spotlight picked out Angie’s blonde hair. At the same instant, she picked up Tammy’s blue-flowered casserole and heaved it. Tammy ducked.

  The camera jiggled for a second, then righted. The casserole dish shattered, splattering meat, rice, and sauce around the hallway, in Fitch’s hair, and on the camera lens.

  Ken Kanning’s arm pushed Giulia aside. The camera followed his bouncing hair as his head swiveled back to the camera and forward to watch the show.

  “We’re at Ground Zero, Scoopers! Two furious women are tearing up accused murderer Roger Fitch’s apartment. What kind of man revels in this behavior? What kind of women fight over a man who might already be measuring their lovely necks for one of his silk ties?”

  Angie tripped Tammy and they both crashed to the floor. More censoring bleeps than actual language came from Sidney’s computer speakers. Tammy clawed up a handful of her ruined sticky beef and smeared it on the blonde’s face.

  Angie hooked two fingers into the redhead’s left chandelier earring and yanked. The camera zoomed closer in time to get a few drops of blood on the lens on top of the drying food.

  Both women screamed. Blood streamed from Tammy’s ripped earlobe. Angie brought her hand to her face and it came away brown with sauce and red with her own blood.

  Fitch knelt on the floor next to the two women, napkins in both hands. The screams’ volume dimmed and Kanning took over.

  “Violence and bloodshed continues to surround The Silk Tie Killer. How can anyone with reasoning powers doubt he deserves death for Loriela Gil’s savage murder?”

  The women and Fitch engaged in more bleeped-out conversation. Fitch left the camera’s line of sight and returned jingling his car keys.

  “Come on, Tams, Angie. You’ve got a date with Urgent Care.”

  More bleeps directed at Fitch.

  Kanning stuck his face and microphone in the middle of the Roger/Tammy/Angie sandwich. “Roger Fitch, how can you pretend to care about these women when you left Loriela Gil’s still-warm body in the rain on that very balcony?” He pointed to his left.

  Fitch stood and said directly into the bloody camera lens, “Get that piece of bleep out of my face or I’ll shove that light so far down your throat you’ll be able to use your bleep for a nightlight.”

  Zane choked with laughter. Sidney and Jane snickered. Giulia facepalmed.

  The scene switched to the exterior of Saint Thomas’ church in late morning light.

  “Oh, no,” Giulia murmured.

  All three of her employees turned to look at her.

  Kanning’s voice again: “It’s Sunday morning, Scoopers. We’re outside Saint Thomas’ Catholic Church on Garrett Street. Inside is the head of Driscoll Investigations, the private investigators Roger Fitch hired to cherry-pick evidence and bully the prosecution’s witnesses. If they succeed, a murderer will walk the streets of Cottonwood, a free man. The streets
where your daughters and sisters walk. Will any of them be safe again?”

  The camera zoomed in on Kanning’s face. “The head of Driscoll Investigations claims to be God-fearing. She attends church on a regular basis. She used to be a nun—yes, Scoopers, she was once a real, live nun. Why would someone like that take money from a cold-blooded murderer to save him from the ignominious death he so richly deserves?”

  “This isn’t good.” Sidney adjusted herself and mini-Sidney in her chair.

  The camera refocused on Saint Thomas’ as the church’s double doors opened. A jump cut framed Giulia and Father Carlos talking and laughing on the top of the front steps.

  “There she is, Scoopers,” Kanning stage whispered. “Never fear, in a few minutes we’ll get her to give us her excuses from her own hypocritical lips.”

  Giulia descended to the sidewalk and walked around the side of the church toward the parking lot. Kanning ran toward her, his image bouncing as the cameraman followed him. They angled to the left and cut her off. She stopped when Kanning planted himself and his microphone directly in front of her.

  “Scoopers, this is Giulia Falcone-Driscoll, investigating the Silk Tie Murder! Mrs. Falcone-Driscoll, tell us how a former nun can sleep at night knowing you’re helping a cold-blooded killer get off scot-free?”

  “The camera makes my hair look like I’ve been fighting high winds.” Giulia reached up and tried to smooth it. Sidney pulled her arm down.

  Onscreen, Kanning’s microphone hovered half an inch from her nose. Once again, Giulia’s face became an expressionless mask. She pushed aside the microphone and walked toward Frank’s Camry quickly, but not running.

  “Come on, Mrs. Falcone-Driscoll.” Kanning and the camera followed her. “The Silk Tie Murder Case is number one with our viewers and you have the inside track. What do you know about Roger Fitch’s two girlfriends trashing his apartment?”

  Giulia kept walking, her back ruler-straight. The camera kept the same two-foot gap between them. Its spotlight threw her shadow on the faded asphalt.