There was no way to postpone the inevitable. My past had caught up with me. Kiki had counseled me not to worry, but I knew better. She said that no one would care about a bad choice I’d made eighteen years ago, but obviously the homicide detective did. I felt like a liar and a phony as a hot blush of embarrassment crept up my throat. I swallowed hard and waited.
How much did he know?
Who had squealed on me?
How bad of a light had I been cast in?
What would Lou Murray think about me? Especially since I’d tripped over a dead man?
MJ and Skye glanced from him to me with puzzled expressions on their faces.
I'd planned to share my background with them, privately, at some point in the future, over a bottle of wine. Having it exposed in the unforgiving, totally sober light of day was the stuff of nightmares.
“I don't know exactly what you are talking about.” That much was true.
“I think you do,” the detective countered.
“You are welcome to talk to my attorney, Dell White, but I have nothing to say.”
“Exactly what I’d expect from a person with something to hide,” he snarled.
Yes, I had learned the hard way how our legal system could trip up innocent people. You might think that talking to the authorities would do you no harm, because you had nothing to hide, but no one remembers everything. Particularly if the event is harrowing or exceptionally emotional. Even the slightest inconsistencies can come back to haunt you when you make a statement to the police. Oddly enough, practiced liars are more likely to have a script and follow it, while honest people tend to get confused.
We say that people are innocent until proven guilty, but once you're in the system, you aren't likely to get back out again. You have to petition to have your fingerprints expunged. You can't lie about your arrest when questioned, even if you were later released and found innocent. The stain of an entanglement with the law creeps into every aspect of your life. No amount of scrubbing will remove it. Furthermore, prosecutorial misconduct is rampant, and our legal system is loath to slap the hands of rogue district attorneys who overstep the bounds of their offices.
And the costs?
Besides emptying your wallet, an encounter with our legal system will ruin your health and your mental well-being. The process goes on and on and on, grinding you down. One hand does not necessarily know what the other is doing, so you are constantly answering the same questions over and over.
I know all this from personal experience. I wish I didn't. That's why I hadn't brought up my past when Detective Murray initially questioned me. Instead, I had crossed my fingers and hoped that my past was just that…my past.
But it wasn't.
I might never put it behind me.
Not totally.
“Calling your attorney would be a waste of your money and time,” said Detective Murray.
“Why?” I shoved my hands deep into my pockets so he couldn’t see them trembling.
“Because I doubt you have anything more to tell me than what I've already learned,” he said. “I don't like getting the scoop the hard way. Chief Robbie Holmes from St. Louis personally vouched for you. Says you're a good person. I'm here because you should have told me yourself what happened. Instead, I got blindsided by your story, and my boss gave me a real butt-chewing. I like keeping my backside free of bite marks if you don't mind.”
“Want a medal or a chest to pin it on?” I asked with a smirk. My father had always warned me that my smart mouth was bound to get me in trouble. I regretted my juvenile comment almost immediately. Luckily Detective Murray didn't seem fazed by it.
“Is that an apology?” He raised a hairy eyebrow.
“Sort of,” I admitted. “Look, I won't talk to you without an attorney. I regret that you had to discover unsavory portions of my past. Believe me, I wish they'd never happened. Rest assured they have nothing to do with Hal Humberger's murder.”
“Aw, nuts,” said Detective Murray, with a disgusted wave of his arm that caused his slightly rumpled jacket to hike up around his shoulders. “I haven't got time for this. No more surprises, Ms. Delgatto. Do you hear me? And don’t even think about leaving town!”
CHAPTER 43
MJ and Skye deserved to hear about my mistakes from me, personally, and not through the grapevine. Now that the local law enforcement authorities knew what happened, my past wouldn't stay a secret for long. When the door slammed behind Detective Murray, all the starch went out of my britches. I’d come so far⸻geographically and emotionally⸻but now I’d been dragged back to my past. Instead of feeling like a self-sufficient businesswoman, the sour stink of failure fogged my brain.
Worse luck, two people whose respect I craved were staring at me in confusion. They weren’t sure whether to keep moving ahead or to pack it in and call it a day.
I had to be pro-active. “Look, I'll tell the two of you everything, but it's a long story. Why don't we break for lunch?”
Skye volunteered to pick up an Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza and bring it back along with an assortment of colas. After I handed her some money for the food, MJ and I went back to working in silence.
Skye came back in a hurry; her physical presence announced by the yeasty fragrance of Anthony’s crust. No way could MJ and I ignore it.
“Time to eat,” I said.
Once we all found chairs and dragged them over to the old oak desk, I .took a long swallow of my Diet Dr Pepper, wishing it was something stronger. I could pretend that Kiki Lowenstein was here. That might help. Imagining her as a listener loosened the tight band of pressure that squeezed my heart. MJ and Skye munched on pizza, as I launched into my story.
“The summer that I finished high school, a man named Dominic Petrocelli, a recent graduate from the St. Louis culinary school, interned at our family restaurant. My father and Dominic hit it off immediately, spending hours talking about food. Dad had been wanting to add some old family recipes to the menu. With Dom's input, he did just that. People really took notice. Our business grew accordingly. Pretty soon, Dom included in almost everything we did, although my mom took a standoffish attitude about him.
“I can't describe how charming Dom is. Imagine the cover of a Harlequin romance novel come to life. Tall, dark, handsome with an accent. At seventeen, I was still gawky and unsure of myself. When he began paying attention to me, I thought it was because he liked my dad so much. But pretty soon, he started finding ways to seek me out. Alone. That wasn't too hard, because I spent most of my time at the restaurant, either waiting tables or working the hostess stand. As word spread of our expanded menu, we were busy all the time. We had to hire more wait staff, including a woman named Alicia Matteo. Alicia and I got along together really well, probably because we were about the same age. She kept telling me that Dom had a crush on me. I was a little intimidated by him, to tell you the truth. Finally, he asked my dad for permission to ask me out on a date. As you can imagine, this Old World style of courtship pleased my father immensely.
“Dom planned the most fantastic dates. We picnicked in Forest Park and rented a paddle boat. We went horseback riding on a trail. Everything I wanted to do, he did it. Of course, things began to get hot and heavy between us. One moonlit night, Dominic took me to a lovely sculpture park in St. Louis and under the stars he asked me to marry him.”
Skye sighed with happiness, but I couldn't look at her. This wasn't a case of “happily ever after.” Not by a long shot. MJ's face was neutral, although her eyes narrowed. Of my two new friends, she was the more worldly, the more cynical. She seemed to guess that things were not as they seemed.
“My mother told me point-blank that she didn't trust Dominic. She couldn't come up with a reason. My dad thought Dominic was great, but he agreed with Mom that we should wait and get to know each other better. Both my parents thought I was too young to get married. I had only had one real boyfriend besides Dominic, so my parents suggested that I should date around. But I didn't want to
wait. You see, I'd been in love once before, and that ended when my mother made a decision to separate us. I never heard from the guy again. I was sure history would repeat itself if I didn’t take action. My mother was a wonderful woman, but kind of hard-headed, and Dad usually did what she wanted. We all did.”
Neither MJ nor Skye made a sound, but I could tell MJ didn't like what she was hearing, because her posture changed. I shifted in my chair and stared past her, avoiding her eyes.
“Dom suggested that we elope. At the time, it sounded really romantic. After all, I was just seventeen. What did I know? The only person I told was my new best friend, Alicia. She warned me that if I waited, I would lose him. I’d graduated early from high school. My parents wanted me to go to college. I'd been accepted, but why waste the money? I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be married, start a family, and work in our restaurant. Finally, I got up my courage and I told my dad that Dom and I wanted to elope. I said that if he didn't give us permission, we'd just move in together. I knew Dad would give in, because if I started living with Dom, that would break my mother's heart. The embarrassment alone would kill her. Dom kept after Dad, too. With both of us pressuring him, my father caved in.
“We waited until Dom had a weekend off. I lied to Mom and said that I was driving up to Chicago to visit a friend from high school. There's only a one-day waiting period in Illinois after you get your license, and you don't need to be a resident. I had Dad's permission, so Dom and I got the license, spent the day goofing around downtown, and then checked into the Palmer House. Things didn't go quite as I'd dreamed, but I figured that was because I was so nervous. We were married the next morning when the courthouse opened.”
I cleared my throat and continued, “I thought we'd spend the rest of the weekend in town. But Dom said, 'I can't wait to tell everyone we're married.' So we hopped back in my car and drove home.”
I shook my head, thinking of how naive I had been. “When we got back to St. Louis, everything was in an uproar. My mother was furious with my dad. She demanded that the marriage be annulled immediately, but I wouldn't hear of it. I did not want to be wrong. My mother had always ruled the roost, and this was my chance to dig in my heels. Eventually, my parents agreed to set us up in an apartment, but the place wasn't nice enough for Dominic. He complained all the time. First he badgered me to get them to buy us a house. Then he demanded that my father make him a partner in the restaurant. When Dad told him he wouldn't do that, Dom came home and took it out on me. Slowly I discovered that I'd married some sort of monster. The guy who'd been so loving to me was angry and dissatisfied all the time. He expected me to work, make his meals, to clean and cook, and to beg my parents for money. I didn't know what to do, and I tried to keep my problems a secret, because I couldn't face my mother. I couldn't tell Dad, because he had enough on his plate. Mom was barely speaking to my father because he'd given us permission to marry.”
Skye's expression of pity nearly undid me, but I swallowed another carbonated gulp and kept talking.
“Dominic's demands that Dad make him a partner in the restaurant got ugly. One night after my father turned him down yet again, Dom came home angry. He screamed at me and slapped me around. Fortunately, I had a good reason not to go to work the next day. I was pregnant and having a lot of trouble with morning sickness. Despite Dom’s behavior, I decided there was no way that I would be our family's first divorce. I started bugging my dad to make Dom a partner. Although I wasn't proud of myself, I figured that once my husband was part of the business, things would get better. Besides that, a partnership wasn’t all bad. Dom and my father seemed to spur each other on to new heights of creativity. The restaurant kept racking up all sorts of accolades. On the other hand, Mom and I could hardly be in the same room together. She was still angry that I'd disobeyed her. Of course, that made me more determined not to share what was happening with her. I didn't even tell my parents I was pregnant until the third month.”
Tears trickled down my face. My heart squeezed up into my throat. I had to keep going, but this next part was incredibly painful, and I wasn't sure I could manage. Skye came over, squatted down, and threw an arm around my shoulders. “Take deep breaths,” she said. “You'll get through this. It's okay.”
“My parents were happy about the baby, of course. Their happiness encouraged Dom to up his demands. When they said no, he got even angrier with me. When I was eight months pregnant, he backhanded me and busted my lip. I told my parents that I'd walked into a door, but they knew better. Later that day while I was working at the restaurant, I stepped into storage closet to grab more nap-kins and discovered Dom and Alicia, uh, together. That was the final straw. They didn't even act embarrassed. Instead, they snickered at me. I lost it. I started screaming and screaming. Alicia was totally naked and laughing. Dominic kept doing what he was doing and looking over his shoulder at me. He told me to go away and leave them alone. I stood there, shaking with rage, looking like a fool with my huge belly and a puffy lip. Dom said that I was too fat to make him happy. When I flew at them, to tear them apart, he gave me a shove that slammed me into the wall with a shelving unit that held extra pots and pans. That's when I snapped. I grabbed a cast iron skillet and hit Dom in the back of the skull with it.”
Skye gasped and rocked back on her heels. MJ slowly shook her head. Whether she was commiserating or contemptuous, I couldn’t tell.
“Actually, the skillet was so heavy that I could barely swing it, and later we learned I’d barely connected, but the blow and the surprise was enough to knock Dom off balance. He staggered a step or two and continued to yell at me. By then blood was flowing, a lot of it, as often happens with a head wound. The concrete floor was slick. Dom slipped and lost his balance. On the way down, he grabbed at the shelving unit and pulled it over. More pans and pots clattered down and hit me and him both as they fell to the floor. Alicia was screaming that I had killed him.”
I buried my face in my hands and tried to block out the memory. The coppery scent of blood came back to me, and the noises…so many noises, all so loud.
“Dom went down hard, face first because his feet went out from under him. He hit his forehead on the concrete floor. That knocked him out and gave him a concussion. I’d managed to protect myself by throwing my arms over my head. Alicia later testified that I’d hit Dom repeatedly, but that wasn’t true. No one believed my side of the store, because he did suffer repeated blows.
I lifted my head but I couldn’t look my new friends in the eyes. Instead, I focused on a faraway spot and kept talking. “I guess I must have temporarily blacked out, too. The EMTs found me on the tiles, under the shelving unit and the cookware. The police arrived. Everything from that point is a blur, but I remember they took a lot of photos. A doctor checked me out. Then I was arrested and taken to the county jail.”
Remembering that almost made me smile. “They don’t get a lot of pregnant women there, so I was quite the oddity.”
I paused. “I was charged with attempted murder.”
CHAPTER 44
Lou had mixed emotions about confronting Cara Mia Delgatto. Yes, she’d been charged with murder, but Police Chief Robbie Holmes admitted, “The prosecutor was overly ambitious. Sure, she hit her husband, but it was in the heat of the moment. She was hormonal. The two lovers had laughed at her. At first, public sentiment favored her husband, as he was this good-looking man all bandaged up. He and his girlfriend portrayed Cara as a spoiled little rich girl who always got her way. All that changed when the facts came out. As you can imagine, the optics of putting a young, pregnant mother in jail were not good.”
Robbie vouched for the fact that Cara Mia was no criminal, and Lou might have let things ride, but he didn’t like feeling stupid. Her history had blindsided him.
After confronting Cara Mia, Lou grabbed a sandwich from Pumpernickel's. It was crazy busy, so he took his food back to his police cruiser. Sitting there, he ate his lunch, did paperwork, and waited for return pho
ne calls. The windows were down, so he could enjoy the scent of the ocean and keep an eye on The Treasure Chest. He needed a good night’s sleep, but he wouldn't get any real rest until he had someone under arrest for Hal Humberger's murder.
The ME's report had come in earlier that morning. The angle and depth of the blow suggested it was a fatal injury.
Hal Humberger had died three hours before he was found, although Dr. Farraday admitted that could be off by as much as an hour or two. Both the heat of the building and Hal's excessive weight made it difficult to pin the time down more exactly. The recovered wrench was the murder weapon, but there were no usable fingerprints on it. Of course, they had yet to confirm who owned the wrench and where it came from.
The phone company was taking its sweet time about supplying Hal’s records, and the dead man’s phone had disappeared. Electronic forensic experts had been dispatched to the real estate firm to gather evidence from those computers. There were tons of interviews to conduct, CCTV cameras to view, and much much more to be followed up on.
Jazzed up on multiple cups of coffee, Lou dropped a piece of his sandwich in his lap. Served him right for not eating at a table, but he couldn’t resist the magnificent view of the water. Overhead seabirds called to each other. The branches of palm trees rustled soothingly.
The fact that a killer wandered the streets of his adopted city infuriated him. The notion that Skye might be in danger sent chills down his spine. Why'd she have to move into the very same building where they'd found Humberger's corpse?
“You should have told her to stay away,” said Showalter. “Skye has no reason to get in the middle of this mess.”
“What right would I have to do that?” asked Lou.
“You were right to bust Ms. Delgatto's chops,” Showalter grumbled. “She coulda come clean and she didn't.”
Second Chance at Love Page 15