“I am sorry you were involved in this. Please accept my apologies.”
His voice remained so steady that I questioned whether I’d hallucinated the gun shot and the body.
Vito pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and pressed the screen. “Detective Loncar, this is Vito Cantone. There’s been a shooting at my factory and I have reason to believe it is related to the murder of my daughter, Angela. The victim is Otto Tradava.” He walked toward us, his eyes locked on Nick’s face. “Nick Taylor and Samantha Kidd will be able to give you a statement. Ms. Kidd is hurt. She needs medical attention. I’ll wait here while Mr. Taylor takes her to the hospital.” He hung up the phone and gestured toward his town car. “It is better if you go now.”
Nick picked me up and carried me to Vito’s car, set me on the passenger side seat, and drove away. My last thought was what Loncar would find when he arrived.
31
A few days later...
Vito Cantone was charged with the murder of Otto Tradava, though the case against him was weak. There was a part of me that wanted him to get away with it for Angela’s sake. I’d been ready to pull the trigger myself. Angela was Vito’s daughter and it was the only action he had left to take on her behalf.
It was the leading story in all the local papers. Carl Collins must have been chaffed that he’d been at the site of the showdown mere hours before it had taken place and still missed the scoop of his life. Despite his own due diligence, my profile got bumped. The powers that be at the Ribbon Times were confused about how to effectively showcase Tradava the department store without glorifying the store’s namesake who had almost killed me. I admit, it was a conundrum.
There was no doubt that Otto Tradava had been shot and killed at Vito’s factory. What was in question was who had fired the fatal shot. The gun registered to Nick had not discharged. Nor had Vito Cantone’s. The only gun found at the site that showed evidence of having been fired was the one in Otto’s hand. Swabs of his hands and clothing held corresponding gunshot residue that proved he was the one who fired it.
It was my personal belief that Vito had used a secondary weapon that the police had not found. My curiosity would no doubt return to that question from time to time, though I wondered if I’d ever know the truth.
What I did know was that Otto Tradava had been about to execute either Nick, me, or both of us. He was a desperate madman who feared retribution from the local mafia. He felt shafted by his own family when his father left Tradava to his brother, and had in turn exerted his own power in a series of relationships with women who let him play the role of alpha male until he tired of them. They’d fed his ego in an interchangeable string of romances until he’d set his sights on Angela di Sotto. In his mind, she was one of Vito’s cast-off mistresses. His business dealings with Vito had led him to feel entitled to her affections.
Detective Loncar was not happy with the loose ends of the case. He pushed and prodded my statement, looking for something he could use in his greater battle to clean up Ribbon. I told him what I could, but my memories were cloudy and I could tell he thought I was holding back. Whatever trust we’d established over the past few months had been damaged—perhaps irreversibly.
As for Tradava, I became something of a hero. Ragu had returned to the store and proclaimed me a nut for jumping out of his still-moving van. Stories like that spread through a retail environment like melted mozzarella on breadsticks, and when the story reached Eddie, he’d gone straight to Pam Trotter, who’d called Harry Tradava. Harry knew his brother said he was going back to the factory that night but he’d expected it to be vacant. He gave the police a statement about his brother’s unstable mental condition that backed up everything Vito had said. It made me wonder exactly how long Vito had been standing on the landing above us listening to Otto’s rant. I still couldn’t decide if he shot Otto to save us or to punish him for what he did to Angela. In a whole lot of ways, I guess it didn’t matter. I was alive. Nick was alive. For the moment, life would go on.
Nick carried a tray into my bedroom. It held a bag of pretzels, a bowl of ice cream, and a mug of coffee. No doubt, he knew me, but I was bothered by the fact that I still didn’t know him as well as I thought.
“You lied to me,” I said quietly. “You said you didn’t have the gun.”
He set the tray on the corner of the bed. “I said the gun wasn’t in the glove box. I’d been carrying it around for days but I didn’t know if I’d have the courage to use it.”
“I never thought you’d carry a gun.”
“He was going to kill you,” he said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
It wasn’t my place to judge Nick. I’d charged into dangerous situations less prepared than he’d been, but this time—this time I knew he was right. Otto Tradava had meant to kill me and make Nick watch.
“How’s the arm?” Nick asked.
“Stiff, but okay.” I held up my cast. It fit like a fingerless glove over my hand and ran up to my elbow. I’d opted for black. Too many people had been victims through this and I needed to look at that cast and think about them, not about how my cast would clash with my wardrobe. Samantha 2.0 had developed a little more than I’d anticipated.
Nick pulled back the covers and slid beside me. He bumped his hip against me a couple of times and I scooted aside to make room for him. He put his arm around me and rested against the pillows. “So, this is what your life is like,” he said.
“None of it was on purpose,” I said.
“I can see that.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’ve been over that night a thousand times and I still don’t know what happened.”
“Me too.”
“The only thing I come back to is I almost lost you because of my business.”
“No. Your business had nothing to do with it. You gave Angela a job for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which was that she was qualified. You told me yourself she showed up and impressed you with her knowledge and her poise. That was before your dad told you anything about her past.”
“If I hadn’t given her that job, she might still be alive.”
I pushed myself up to a sitting position. “Wow. Okay, I will admit that I come with a certain amount of, shall we say, baggage, but here’s the bonus you get for being engaged to me anyway.” I took his hand with my good hand. “Angela wanted a normal life. She came to you for a job and during that time, she got what she wanted. She wanted your dad to be her father and she pretended that he was for a long time, but it wasn’t until after she felt secure in her own identity, after she started working for you, that she acknowledged the truth. Your stability gave her the courage to initiate a relationship with Vito on her own terms, as an adult who wanted no part of that life. He respected that. Nobody else in that whole family knew she was his daughter.”
“Through everything that happened—the murder, the vandalism at my showroom, your car blowing up, and what happened at the factory—you can still find the bright side?”
I squeezed his hand. “I have to. It’s what keeps me going.”
Pam Trotter told me to take as much time as I needed before returning to work. Just like returning early the day after my vacation, I had no plans to milk her offer. Tradava’s reputation had been hit hard, and rumors circled that the store might not ever recover. The seventy-five-year-old company was not to be blamed for Otto Tradava’s actions. In many ways, his death ensured the company’s success. A smart businessman knows how to overcome temporary adversity. A greedy, lazy man will take the easy way every time.
And possibly the most troubling detail of all came to resolution a few days after the news died down. I answered the doorbell and found Jimmy the Tomato on my porch with an insulated bag.
“I didn’t place an order,” I said. “Besides, I think it’s best if I find another pizza store.”
“It’s on the house.” He undid the Velcro on the side of the insulated bag and pulled out a box. Across the street, I saw the curtains in fron
t of Mrs. Iova’s windows move. I waved and smiled. Her curtains dropped back into place.
“Your fiancé here?” he asked. “I need to talk to you both.”
“Follow me.” I took the pizza box and walked to the kitchen. Nick was pouring two glasses of red wine. He looked up. “You have a visitor,” I said.
He corked the wine and handed me a glass. I held it but didn’t take a sip.
Jimmy slung the empty pizza bag over his shoulder and stuck his hands in the pockets of his loose, faded jeans. “A couple weeks ago, Otto Tradava came into Brothers. He’d been drinking before he got there and he kept on going. I asked him what was botherin’ him and he said you. Said he found out you had a thing going with Angie.” Jimmy looked down at the pizza box, and then back up at Nick.
“That’s what Otto wanted you to think,” I said.
“Vito Cantone is my godfather. Far as I know, I’m the only other person who knew he was her real dad. He asked me to watch out for her because he couldn’t.”
We stood there in my kitchen, the scent of fresh pizza helping to erase the tension. There was one detail that had bothered me all along, one piece of the puzzle that had been left on the counter after everybody else was satisfied that the picture was complete. “You’re the one who called the showroom the morning Angela was murdered.”
Nick looked up at me first, and then at Jimmy. We both waited.
“I called Angie every morning. Touch base, make sure nobody was messing with her. You answered the phone and wouldn’t put her on so I knew something was up. Thought maybe you found out too.”
“You threatened Nick. You said to tell him to watch his back.”
“Yeah. Last thing a guy who’s keeping two women wants to hear is that he’s being watched. I thought it would scare you off.”
“Why’d you punch me?” Nick asked.
“I thought you killed her.” Jimmy kept his eyes down on the floor. We all knew he owed Nick an apology. I doubted it was spelled out on the pizza in pepperoni.
“Do you know who smoke bombed my car?”
Jimmy gave me a sideways look. “Heard about that. Kid stuff.” he shrugged. “I know a guy who can do the repairs if you want.”
“No thanks.” Replacing a twenty-year-old car was something I could handle on my own.
Logan slinked into the kitchen. He stopped a foot from Jimmy’s leg and crouched low. His tail grew fat and he hissed. Jimmy took a step backward like he was scared. The interaction was enough to shake him into action. He looked Nick directly in the eye.
“I’m sorry, man. Vito told me what you and your old man did for Angie.” He held out his hand. “We cool?”
Nick shook his hand. “We’re cool.”
I walked Jimmy to the door and locked it behind him. He was one more man to add to the parade of men Mrs. Iova saw coming and going from my house, but I didn’t care. I went back to the kitchen and found Nick standing in front of the closed box of pizza.
“He didn’t offer us a lifetime discount,” I said.
“No, he didn’t.” He flipped the pizza box open. “But he did put on extra oregano.”
Epilogue
The pizza was a pleasant surprise, as was the rest of the evening. And it turned out I needn’t have worried about Nick’s sex drive after the case was closed. Once he got a peek at my new leopard printed underwear, all bets were off.
Books by Diane Vallere
The Samantha Kidd Series
Designer Dirty Laundry
Buyer, Beware
The Brim Reaper
Some Like It Haute
Grand Theft Retro
Pearls Gone Wild
Cement Stilettos
The Madison Night Series
Other People’s Baggage
Pillow Stalk
That Touch of Ink
With Vics You Get Eggroll
The Decorator Who Knew Too Much
The Costume Shop Series
A Disguise to Die For
Masking for Trouble
Dressed to Confess (Aug 2017)
The Material Witness Series
Suede to Rest
Crushed Velvet
Silk Stalkings
About the Author
After close to two decades working for a top luxury retailer, Diane Vallere traded fashion accessories for accessories to murder. Diane started her own detective agency at age ten and has maintained a passion for shoes, clues, and clothes ever since. Sign up for The Polyester Post, her bi-monthly emails, for contests, free stories, excerpts, and more at www.dianevallere.com.
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Books by Diane Vallere
About the Author
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