Closed Door

by C. M. Okonkwo

  Part Six: The Italian

  “Angie?”

  I heard a voice call out my name, but I didn’t know who it was.

  “Angela?” the voice said again. “Can you hear me?”

  I felt my head turn from left to right.

  “Are you okay?” the person asked again.

  The voice sounded so familiar. Just like Agnes’s. “Agnes?” I said. It couldn’t be real.

  “No, Angie, it’s not Agnes. It’s me, Mom.”

  “Mom?” I was confused. “Oh, Mom!” I said when I opened my eyes from a dream. Mom was holding my hands and staring at me.

  I looked around me. Dad and Samuel were also staring at me. I was on a couch, but it felt as if I had been swimming. “Why am I wet? What happened? And why do my cheeks hurt?”

  “I think you were having a nightmare,” Mom replied. “We tried to wake you up, we poured water on you, and your brother even smacked you across the face twice. Did you see Agnes in your dream?”

  “Yes, I did. She saved me,” I said, not wanting to explain it. “So glad I’m awake now.”

  “Saved you from what?” Mom asked, as she touched my head. She didn’t take the hint.

  “From nothing, Mom.” I cut her off immediately, pushing her hands away from my head. “The dream wasn’t that important to me. It was what it was: just a dream.”

  I sat up and looked around the room. We were in a cozy unfamiliar room, very warm, with a flat-screen TV showing the news. I had fallen asleep while waiting for the detectives to bring Vittoria Ammirati in. It then occurred to me that I might have missed the whole interrogation.

  “What happened to the Italian woman? Why did she say she wanted Aggie dead?” I asked, looking back and forth at all three of them. Anyone was welcome to answer.

  “Still no clue, my dear,” Dad said, shaking his head.

  “Why not? She refused to tell?”

  “No, not that. The detectives are taking longer than expected to bring her in. So we don’t have a confession for now.”

  “We might have to go home soon and come back much later, or whenever they find her,” Mom added.

  “Yeah, I think we should,” Samuel said. “It’s been a long day.”

  I was sort of relieved. I couldn’t imagine missing such a crucial interrogation for anything, especially not to a dream with Agnes’s killers in it. I shook when I remembered how Lexie and Benjamin had stabbed me in the dream, instead of Agnes, and Agnes came to save me.

  “On an unrelated note,” I began, rubbing my tummy, “I’m hungry. What time is it?”

  “It’s almost one in the morning,” Samuel replied after glancing at his wristwatch. “Foodie!”

  “I thought you were still in holding. Who even let you out?” I teased, poking out my tongue.

  He laughed. “Well, you know better, Angie. Holding is for the guilty alone.”

  “Of course it is. It’ll surely be a nice place for Lexie,” I said, not joking. I could see Samuel physically react to that. He looked away. But I only called a spade a spade. Lexie was a killer.

  “We’ll wait for an additional thirty minutes,” Dad chipped in. “If we don’t see any signs of the detectives or hear from them, then we’ll leave.”

  “Can we do the waiting in a fast-food restaurant, please?” I sounded gluttonous, but I didn’t care. I was still growing, so I needed all my nutrients. “I’m hungry,” I reminded them.

  Dad nodded. “Why not? I think we are all famished, as well.”

  Mom and Samuel also nodded in agreement. And off we went.

  We got to the fast-food restaurant and ordered some burgers and fries. Then we sat down to eat quietly, after which Dad and Mom bought themselves coffee. Samuel gobbled down a big cup of soda while I sipped on my strawberry milkshake with cream and a cherry on the top.

  Dad’s phone rang all of a sudden, breaking the sounds of sipping and yawning. He fumbled for it in his pocket and then quickly answered it. “Yes, Detective... Oh, just now?” he asked, then listened. “No, we had to leave... But we can... Sure thing. Okay... All right... That’s fine by me.”

  Dad hung up and turned to us. “We need to get back to the station right now.”

  “What’s happening?” Mom asked, as we prepared ourselves to leave.

  “It was Detective Slaughter calling to give us a head’s-up, just in case we already left. They have finally found the Italian woman, and are heading back to the station right now.”

  We left immediately and got back to the station at the same time as the detectives, and saw them drag a lady inside the building. If her name was strange to us, then try her face. None of us had ever seen her before. She was yelling in her native language and throwing her feet in the air. I noticed she was wearing high heels, and wondered where she had been. No, actually, I wondered where they had found her, because the detectives took a while to bring her in.

  Anyway, I hoped she spoke English, too, because it would have been a waste of time if she started answering every question in Italian.

  In a few minutes, we stood behind the one-way mirror and watched the interrogation, eager to get to the bottom of the mystery.

  “Don’t you pigs ever sleep? It’s fucking two in the morning,” Vittoria barked.

  At least she spoke English. That was all I needed to know.

  “Well, we saw someone creeping into a house, we had to investigate,” Detective Slaughter replied. “It’s our job.”

  “But I told you it was my house. And this beastly one still felt the need to throw me over his shoulder.” She gave Detective Pruitt a mean look. His behavior didn’t surprise me anymore.

  “So why were you sneaking into your house?” Detective Slaughter asked.

  “I believe the key word there is “my house,” which means that I can go out and come back in whenever, and however I want.”

  It sounded like the detectives had waited outside her house for a long while. Then I stopped to wonder why she was sneaking into her house. I was glad they eventually got her, anyway, because we would have had to sleep at the station otherwise. Well, at least I already dozed off earlier, and I didn’t think any of my family members were really ready to go home.

  “Were you hiding from someone or spying on someone?” Detective Slaughter asked. I think he read my mind.

  Vittoria mumbled something under her breath before saying, “What the fuck do you care?”

  “You are right. We don’t care about that. What we care about is Agnes Hunter.”

  “What about that dead whore?”

  “So you do know who she is, and you know she is dead?”

  “I know her well enough to hate her and make her pay for messing with my family.”

  “Okay, so you admit to killing her, then. Why? And how did she mess with your family?”

  “No, I didn’t admit to anything. I didn’t kill her. I’ve never killed a soul.”

  “Oh, right.” Detective Slaughter smiled. “You have people do your dirty business for you.”

  “Detective, unless you have something tangible and real on me, I’m out of here.”

  “Sit back down. We are not finished with you,” Detective Pruitt pushed her on the chair.

  “Look, if this man touches me again, I’ll...” She paused and took in deep breaths.

  “Kill him?” Detective Slaughter complemented.

  “Nice try, Detective,” Vittoria said. “You are not going to get anything out of me.”

  “I didn’t think we would. You do look like a smart woman.”

  “I would say thanks, but I sense it’s more than a compliment. Isn’t it?”

  “You are indeed a smart woman,” Detective Slaughter started. “And that’s why I expected you to know better. I expected you to be smart enough to know that we are aware of your deal with your neighbor’s son, Gregory Kindle — who, by the way, is in holding right now. You obviously know we wouldn’t bring you in if we didn’t have anything on you. And I’m sure if we bring Luca in, he would
confirm Gregory Kindle’s claim.”

  “Keep my son out of this, okay?” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “What do you want?”

  “Your confession. The truth. Your connection to Agnes Hunter. Why you wanted her dead. Anything you can give us that will finally put an end to this long lasting, twisted case.”

  “You sound desperate, Detective. What do I get in return for my cooperation?”

  “Let’s see.” Detective Slaughter acted as though he was seriously thinking. “So how about this? Luca doesn’t spend the rest of his life in prison as an accessory. How does that sound?”

  She shook her head. “You son of a bitch. Fine, you win.” She started confessing:

  “I married my sixth husband a few years ago. Things had been going great with us. I mean, he even took Luca as his own son. I gave him everything you can ever imagine: love, a warm bed, money... a lot of money. I even started cooking every day for that son of a whore. And he was out there sleeping around, spending my money on another woman.

  “I wouldn’t have known about his affair, because I didn’t expect him to have one. And like you said, I am a smart woman. I traced all his expenses to female gifts shops, mostly lingerie, shoes, and perfumes. There were occasional lunch and dinner dates, too.

  “Then he came back one evening, stinking of another woman. I tried not to worry about the stench by getting close to him and trying to touch him. Imagine me, the most-sought-after Vittoria Ammirati, begging to be touched. He pushed me away and went to sleep. And that’s when I noticed the fingernail scratches on his back and some love bites on his body screaming out: lies, cheating, filth, whore, and need I say more? So I decided to hunt down his mistress, teach her a lesson, then let him know it was his fault.”

  With that, Vittoria finished her confession, and it made absolutely no sense to anyone but herself.

  “Okay, Mrs. Ammirati, that was rather interesting. But the thing is...” Detective Slaughter paused. “...The thing is, Agnes Hunter wasn’t a whore to the best of my knowledge. She isn’t, I mean, wasn’t the person you portrayed her to be.”

  “Of course you would say that. I know her kind. She’s a wolf in a sheep’s clothing.”

  “Did Mr. Ammirati ever say anything about Agnes Hunter and the affair?”

  “Mr. Mutinda, you mean. After changing my last name five times already, I thought it best to stick with Ammirati.”

  The hair on my body suddenly sprang up when she mentioned “Mutinda.” I was as shocked as my family at the revelation, because Mr. Mutinda was my high school principal. I actually didn’t know the full story, but it was general knowledge that Principal Mutinda had divorced his first wife in a terrible legal battle he lost about a year ago, and no one even knew he would ever be able to date another woman, let alone get married a second time and have a mistress. But going back to the main issue, those were serious allegations against Principal Mutinda that could lock him up for good, and it was a wild lie against Agnes.

  I turned around briefly and glanced at everyone, there was a mix of emotions in the viewing room. Dad was angry, hitting his fist in his hand and muttering words under his breath. Mom was nauseous; she ran to the bin and puked out her guts. Samuel was indifferent, as usual.

  “What did Mr. Mutinda have to say about it?” Detective Slaughter continued asking.

  “The S.O.B. was surprisingly not fazed about the whole thing. He was totally unbelieving, and didn’t look downcast for a second. If I didn’t know better, I would think he was Italian.”

  “So you don’t think he believed she was dead? And if he never admitted he was cheating, and didn’t act concerned about what you did, then there’s only one possible explanation.”

  We all opened our eyes wide when we realized the explanation.

  “You probably got the wrong person,” Detective Slaughter continued. “Because believe me, Agnes Hunter was the last person on earth to have had an affair, and with a married man, or any man at all. Her family can vouch for her.”

  “My husband probably didn’t believe, maybe because he is a good actor. And speaking of Agnes Hunter’s appearance, looks can be deceiving. My husband fooled me, too.”

  “So if your husband never mentioned or admitted he was cheating on you, you must have at least some proof that he was cheating with Agnes. Did you ever catch him in the act? Or ever see him with Agnes during one of your late nights sneaking in and out of your house?”

  Vittoria noticed how desperate the detective was with the way he was throwing questions at her. “Calm yourself down, Detective. I’m afraid Mutinda didn’t mention or admit to anything, neither did I catch him in the act or ever see Agnes. But my source did. I paid a lot of money to have my husband followed and his secret lover tracked down. I believe you know the rest.”

  “Who is this source of yours? Did you at least verify the information given to you?”

  “I didn’t have to. I paid for the best and I got the best. My source is Mr. Louis French.”

  “Louis French?” Detective Slaughter asked, exchanging glances with Detective Pruitt. “You mean the private investigator? That Louis French?”

  Vittoria nodded several times. “Yes, that one. Now you believe me, right?”

  With the look on all their faces, I could tell that something big was up. The detectives knew something we didn’t know. They also seemed to have stopped to ponder for a while, meaning they believed it could have been true that Agnes was actually having an affair. It didn’t take long before the detectives confirmed to us that Louis French was the best of the best P.I.s in the whole city, and he never gave false information. Well, it was very good to know, but my family and I needed to see the proof first in order to believe anything.

  The detectives told us to go home and return the next day, because they were going to bring Mr. Louis French in for questioning. We obliged since we had no other option than to wait for answers. And as we left the station, I hoped Mr. Louis French would be the final piece of the puzzle so that the mystery would be solved, once and for all.