Murder in Little Italy gm-8

by Victoria Thompson

  When the music started up, we just started dancing.”

  “When was this?”

  “I don’t remember!”

  “What month?” Frank prodded.

  “I told you before, it was August, right after Valentina’s birthday.”

  “How long was it before she let you under her skirt?”

  Antonio hesitated, and a flush crawled up his neck.

  “Was it that first night? The first time you met her?”

  Frank inquired.

  “No! I mean . . .”

  “What do you mean?”

  He swallowed hard again. “She didn’t let me really do it that time.”

  “But she teased you, didn’t she? Let you kiss her and touch her. And she didn’t make you wait very long, did she?”

  The flush had turned his face red by now. “No, not long,” he admitted sadly.

  “She couldn’t wait long because she already knew about the baby,” Frank said. “She needed a husband real quick, somebody who didn’t know much and wouldn’t ask a lot of questions.”

  “She said she loved me,” Antonio lamented. “She said she never let any boy do it before.”

  “Of course she did, and you believed her because you’re young and stupid. I guess you were scared when she told you about the baby, too.”

  Antonio winced in shame. “I didn’t know what to do, so I went to Joe. He said I should do the right thing and marry her. Maria did, too.”

  “Maria knew about Nainsi and the baby?” Frank asked in surprise.

  “Maria knows everything that happens in our house,”

  Antonio said. “Nobody can keep a secret from her.”

  Frank considered this information. Nainsi could’ve tricked Antonio, but Joe and Maria should have been more suspicious. He wondered why they’d encouraged a marriage like that. That was something to ask them, however.

  “Where did you and Joe go last night after you left the dance house at midnight?”

  “Home. Where else would we go?”

  “I suppose everyone was asleep when you got there,”

  Frank said.

  “Maria was up with the baby. And Lorenzo.”

  “Lorenzo was up with the baby?” Frank asked in amazement.

  “He . . . he feels sorry for Maria. He tries to help her.”

  Something stirred in Frank’s memory. Sarah had remarked on how unnaturally helpful Lorenzo had been with the baby.

  Antonio cleared his throat. “Is Mrs. O’Hara really dead?”

  “Yes, she is,” Frank assured him. “And if you know anything about it, you’d better tell me now.”

  “I don’t, I swear. I just . . . Are you sure somebody killed her? Maybe it was an accident or something.”

  “People don’t get their throats cut by accident,” Frank said.

  “Somebody cut her throat?” Antonio asked, horrified. He instinctively lifted a hand to his own throat. “Who would do a thing like that?”

  “I sort of thought you and Joe did it,” Frank said, and the boy’s eyes widened. “Somebody took her by the hair, pulled her head back, and sliced her ear to ear,” Frank explained, demonstrating on himself the way the medical examiner had done for him. “Her blood squirted all over the wall and—”

  He stopped because Antonio had gone pale, clapped both hands over his mouth, and started retching.

  Frank jumped to his feet and backed away as the boy vomited on the floor. With a weary sigh, he opened the door and left. He’d send someone down to clean up the mess, and then he’d let Antonio go. If one of the Ruoccos had killed Mrs. O’Hara, Antonio wasn’t the one, and he still didn’t know who was.

  Sarah had disposed of the whisky bottle, thoroughly cleaned the cup, and aired out the kitchen. Then she’d cleaned her teeth with baking soda paste and rinsed her mouth with salt water. When Maeve assured her all trace of the odor was gone, she brought Aggie down, and they had a cold supper. Aggie kept looking around, as if still searching for the bottle, but her terror seemed to have dissipated.

  Maeve got the child ready for bed, and Sarah went up to tuck her in as usual. Aggie lay under the covers, clutching her beloved doll. Her eyes were wary as Sarah approached, and Sarah tried a reassuring smile.

  “I’m sorry you were scared this afternoon,” she said, sitting down on the bed beside the girl. “I threw the whisky—

  that bad stuff that scared you—away, and we won’t have any in the house anymore, I promise.”

  She leaned down and kissed Aggie’s soft forehead. “I would never have had it here if I knew you didn’t like it. I love you, and I don’t want you to ever be scared, Aggie. Do you believe that?”

  Aggie nodded.

  Sarah smiled with relief, and Aggie smiled back. Sarah swooped in and tickled her, making her giggle and breaking the tension of the moment. After a few playful minutes, Sarah kissed her again. “Time to go to sleep now, sweetheart.”

  Aggie pretended to pout, and Sarah tickled her again, making the pout vanish. On impulse, Sarah said the words she’d been practicing for weeks, ever since she’d overheard Aggie speaking to Malloy’s son Brian when she thought no one could hear. “I was wondering if I could call you by a different name,” she began hesitantly.

  Aggie frowned in confusion.

  Sarah took a deep breath and continued. “I know Aggie isn’t your real name. It’s the one they gave you at the mission. I’ve been thinking about giving you a better one. I’ve always liked the name Catherine. It’s a pretty name, don’t you think?”

  Aggie’s confusion faded into amazement, and she nodded.

  “Would it be all right if I called you Catherine instead of Aggie?”

  The girl’s face lit up, and she nodded vigorously.

  “Thank you, Catherine,” Sarah said in relief, taking the girl in her arms and giving her a hug. “Thank you for everything.”

  Frank was sitting at his desk at Headquarters, still trying to make sense of what he’d learned from Antonio, when Gino returned.

  “The guy at the dance house door remembered the Ruoccos from last night,” he reported. “He knows them both. I also saw a few girls they danced with, and from all accounts they stayed until closing.”

  “I figured,” Frank sighed.

  “They still could’ve gone over to Mrs. O’Hara’s and killed her after that,” Gino tried.

  “Except that Antonio would’ve fainted if they did. He didn’t have anything to do with killing the old woman.”

  “Then maybe Joe went by himself.”

  “They were together all night, and he said they went home after that. He said Maria and Lorenzo were up with the baby when they got home, so we can check on that—if we can trust them to tell the truth.”

  “Lorenzo was up with the baby?” Gino echoed. “Why would he do that?”

  “Antonio says he feels sorry for Maria.”

  “I feel sorry for her, too, but I’d never sit up with a screaming baby.”

  “Neither would I. I’m starting to think Lorenzo might have more than a passing interest in that baby.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we know that Lorenzo and Antonio used to go to the dance houses together starting in August, so there’s a good chance Lorenzo used to go without him before that.

  We know that somebody knocked Nainsi up several months before Antonio met her. I found out tonight that Nainsi seduced Antonio just a few days after she met him. She already knew about the baby by then, and she must’ve decided the first time she met Antonio that he was the one she was going to trick into marrying her. But why would she pick him, out of all the men she could meet at the dance houses?”

  Gino considered. “Because he’s young and innocent. He probably wouldn’t know he wasn’t her first lover, and he’d feel guilty enough to go along with her scheme.”

  “Or maybe because he was her lover’s brother, and she wanted revenge or something, because her lover refused to marry her.”

  “You t
hink Lorenzo is the father?”

  “Somebody is, and it would explain why she chose Antonio,” Frank said.

  “Sounds pretty far-fetched. How could she know she’d even meet Lorenzo’s brother?”

  “She probably couldn’t, but she did. We also know she tried to trick at least one other fellow into thinking he might be the father.”

  “Keith,” Gino remembered.

  “Yes, why else would Nainsi make sure he did her proper? She already knew about the baby, so she must’ve been trying to make Keith think he was the father.”

  “But he’s married.”

  “Yeah, but he’d have to give her money to keep her from going to his wife. The wife’s pretty sickly, so he would’ve paid to protect her.”

  Gino nodded. “She was looking for somebody to support her if she couldn’t find a husband.”

  “That’s what I’m guessing. By the time she met Antonio, she must’ve been pretty desperate.”

  “So the question is, why did she pick Antonio? If Lorenzo was the baby’s father, why didn’t she just try to get him to marry her?”

  “Maybe she did, and he refused. Antonio says Lorenzo doesn’t want to get married at all.”

  “Is he going to become a priest or something?” Gino asked in disgust.

  “That’s what I asked,” Frank said with a grin. “Apparently, he just isn’t ready to settle down. So if he was the baby’s father, he didn’t want to be stuck with it or her.”

  “And when Lorenzo showed up at the dance house with his little brother in tow, she latched onto him.”

  “It’s a nice theory,” Frank agreed. “It still doesn’t tell us who killed Mrs. O’Hara and Nainsi, though.”

  “But it gives Lorenzo a pretty good reason to do it,” Gino pointed out. “When his mother figured out that Antonio wasn’t the baby’s father, she was going to throw Nainsi and the baby out. Lorenzo didn’t have any use for Nainsi, but maybe he wanted to keep his son.”

  Frank nodded his approval at Gino’s reasoning. “He must’ve figured once the girl was dead, Maria would take care of the baby and everything would be fine. Then Mrs.

  O’Hara starts fighting to get the baby away from them.”

  “So he has to kill her, too. Did our men notice anybody else leaving the Ruoccos’ house last night?”

  “We only had two men on the place last night, so one could go for help if a mob showed up. When one went off to follow Joe and Antonio, the other might’ve missed Lorenzo leaving.” Frank frowned. “Now we’re back to having to get information from the Ruocco family. They’re going to lie to protect him, even if he did go out and kill Mrs. O’Hara.”

  Gino swore. “So what can we do?”

  “There’s still one person in the Ruocco house we haven’t questioned yet who would probably tell us the truth.”

  “Mrs. Ruocco?”

  “No, she’d lie for sure. I’m talking about Valentina.”

  Gino reared back in horror. “You can’t bring a girl into the police station to question her. She’d be ruined!”

  “I know, I know. Everyone would assume she’d been raped, and nobody would ever marry her. We can’t go to her house, either, because her mother would never let us talk to her at all. So I need you to figure out how we can question her with nobody finding out.”

  Gino’s distress made Frank smile grimly.

  “See,” he told the younger man. “I told you this job wasn’t fun.”

  Sarah gaped at Malloy across her kitchen table.

  “You want me to kidnap Valentina Ruocco?”

  “Not kidnap her,” he said impatiently. “Just help me get her away from her house to someplace where I can question her.”

  Sarah was hoping that this early Saturday morning visit from Malloy was only a bad dream, and she’d wake up any second. Unfortunately, she knew it wasn’t.

  “She’s the only one I can be sure will tell the truth,” Malloy argued. “You know her family won’t let me talk to her if I go there. If I take her into Headquarters, her life will be ruined, and Ugo Ruocco would probably take his revenge in a very messy way. Think about Nainsi, Sarah. We need to find out who killed her, but we need to protect Valentina, too.”

  “They won’t let me back into their house, either,” Sarah reminded him. “Not after I tried to convince them to help find Nainsi’s killer . . . Oh, no, I just realized . . .”

  “Realized what?”

  Sarah groaned and covered her face with both hands.

  “That was probably why someone killed Mrs. O’Hara. It’s all my fault!”

  “They would’ve thought of it sooner or later,” Malloy said, as if that settled it. “And it’s nobody’s fault Mrs.

  O’Hara is dead except the person who killed her. If you want to find out who that was and punish him, then I have to talk to Valentina.”

  Sarah groaned again. “What do you need me to do?”

  Sarah and Malloy sat in the dank room in the basement of Our Lady of Pompeii Catholic Church. Sarah was certain God would strike them both dead for using the church as the location for their plot. At best He would be very angry, and if a priest or anyone else found them hiding here . . .

  “Shhh,” Malloy said, rising to his feet and putting a finger to his lips. They could both hear the sound of footsteps and a young girl’s voice asking a question. Malloy moved toward the door and opened it just as the footsteps came up beside it. In the next instant, Valentina Ruocco stumbled through it, followed by Gino Donatelli. Malloy closed the door quickly behind them.

  Valentina looked startled and then confused. “What are you doing here?” she asked Sarah and then turned to Malloy.

  “And you?” She whirled on Gino. “You lied to me! My mother isn’t sick at all!” Gino had summoned her from the line at the confessional upstairs on that pretext.

  “No, she isn’t,” Malloy confirmed. “We needed to ask you a few questions, Valentina. We need your help to figure out who killed Nainsi.”

  “I don’t care who killed Nainsi,” she said petulantly. “I’m glad she’s gone. I wish her mother wasn’t dead, though. I wanted her to take that awful baby away. He cries all night long!”

  “Just sit down and answer a few questions, and we’ll let you go back and to confession,” Malloy said wearily.

  She glared at Gino again. “I thought it was funny that they’d send you,” she said venomously. “Wait till I tell my Zio Ugo what you did. He’ll kill you!”

  Gino flinched slightly, but he managed an apologetic grin.

  “Valentina,” Sarah said quickly. “I know you’re upset, but if you’d like for your life to get back to normal, the best thing you can do is help Mr. Malloy and Officer Donatelli by answering their questions.”

  Valentina frowned. “Why are you here?”

  Sarah smiled sadly. “To chaperone.”

  She straightened as a new idea occurred to her. “I could start screaming,” she informed them haughtily.

  “Then people would want to know why you left the line at the confessional booth and went off alone with me,” Gino said.

  Valentina rolled her eyes, but she plunked down in the chair Malloy had vacated. “What do you want to know?”

  she asked with a sigh of defeat.

  “Tell me what happened last night, after you closed the restaurant.”

  Plainly, she thought this a silly request. “We cleaned up like we always do, even though we hardly had any customers.

  We went upstairs. Maria started picking on Antonio. She’s so mean since that baby came. She yells at everybody.”

  “What do you mean, picking on him?”

  “She didn’t like the way he was cracking his knuckles, and then she said he was breathing too loud. Everything we do makes her nervous. I think she’s going crazy. So she starts yelling at him and tells Joe to take him out someplace away from her.”

  “So he did?”

  “Not until they had a big fight with Mama. She said they shouldn’t leave us to be
killed in our beds by the Irish. She tried to make them feel guilty, but then they went out anyway, because Maria wanted them gone.”

  “What about Lorenzo?”

  “What about him?” she asked, pretending to be bored.

  “Did he go out, too?”

  “Lorenzo?” she scoffed. “All he ever does is sit with Maria and moon over that stupid baby.”

  “Did he leave the house at all yesterday?”

  “How would I know? I don’t pay any attention to him.”

  “Valentina,” Gino said in warning.

  She glared at him, but she said, “I didn’t see him go any-place. He was cleaning the kitchen, or helping Maria all day.

  Oh, I almost forgot, he did go to the market with Mama in the morning.”

  Since Mrs. O’Hara was still alive then, Sarah knew that wasn’t any help.

  “What about the rest of the family?” Malloy asked. “Did any of them go out during the afternoon?”

  “No, how could they? We have to serve lunch and get ready for dinner, and since Maria doesn’t help us anymore, we all have a lot more work to do. It isn’t fair!”

  “What does Maria do now?” Malloy asked.

  Valentina made a sour face. “She takes care of the baby,”

  she said bitterly. “She hardly even comes downstairs except to fix his bottles. I don’t see why she’s got to be with him all the time like that.”

  “Babies need a lot of care, Valentina,” Sarah said. Malloy shot her a look, and she bit her lip in contrition.

  “Just one more thing, Valentina, and then you can go,” Malloy said. “Did you hear Joe and Antonio come home last night?”

  “No. They come home late, after I’m asleep. Can I go now?” she asked irritably.

  Malloy nodded, and she got up and started for the door.

  “Valentina,” he said, stopping her before she could open it. “The night Nainsi died, Joe made a lot of noise when he came in. Did you hear Nainsi yell out to him to be quiet?”

  She gave it a moment’s thought. “No, I didn’t hear anything until that baby started crying the next morning and wouldn’t stop, and I went into Nainsi’s room . . .” She shuddered. “Can I go?” she whined.

  “Yes,” Malloy said, and Gino opened the door for her.

  She fairly ran out.