Murder in Tranquility Park

by J. D. Griffo

  “Your blood was found on Kichiro’s body, Nola,” Vinny seethed. “How do you explain that?”

  “That’s . . . that’s impossible,” Nola stammered. “I didn’t do this!”

  “Vinny, how did you find that out so quickly?” Alberta asked.

  “We had Nola’s blood on file when she killed Jonas Harper, so Lori did a quick blood test, and it was a match!” Vinny shrieked. “Tambra, lift up Nola’s pants.”

  All the women in the room were stunned by Vinny’s order except Tambra, who carried out the command without question. Before Nola could even struggle or refuse, Tambra lifted her left pants leg to reveal a bloody cut on her calf.

  Everyone gasped, but they were quickly drowned out by Nola’s screams.

  “I cut myself shaving,” Nola explained. Once she realized Vinny didn’t believe her, panic took over. “Help me! Tell them the truth!”

  Alberta and Jinx would have shared every piece of information they knew except Nola wasn’t shouting at them, she was shouting at Sharon. The principal backed up a few steps until her body was pressed against the wall as if Nola’s voice was propelling her backward. And if her voice didn’t do it, Nola was ready to use even greater force.

  The same thought raged through Alberta’s and Jinx’s mind at the same time—thank God they didn’t share the fact that Kichiro and Sharon were having an affair with Vinny because it could only be used as further incriminating evidence against Nola. At some point they may be forced to reveal that information, but for now they were grateful they had remained silent.

  Nola ran toward Sharon, but only made it a few steps before Tambra grabbed her arm and pulled her back. Nola’s body jerked forward in a futile attempt to break free, and when she was pulled back again, Nola hit a vase filled with roses that was on Sharon’s desk causing it to fall to the floor and scatter shards of blue and white porcelain as well as the roses throughout the room.

  “That’s enough!” Vinny bellowed. “Get her out of here.”

  Vinny stomped out of the office passing by Alberta, Jinx, and Helen without saying a word. He was quickly followed by Tambra and Nola, who continued to beg Sharon for help.

  “Please! Tell them the truth!”

  Sharon buried her face in her hands and started to sob, she was barely able to help herself, there was no way that she was going to help Nola. Someone else was going to help her.

  “Gram, let’s go,” Jinx said. “I’ll call Bruno on the way.”

  “You go,” Alberta replied. She then hugged Jinx and whispered in her ear, “We’ll stay here and see if Sharon is ready to confess anything.”

  “Good idea. I’ll call Aunt Joyce and have her pick you up.”

  Sharon was still crying so she didn’t even notice Jinx leave or Alberta and Helen picking up the broken pieces of the vase from the floor. When she finally pulled herself together and looked up, she was startled to find that she wasn’t alone.

  “What are you doing here?” Sharon asked.

  “We thought you could use some help,” Alberta said, standing up and tossing a handful of jagged bits of the vase into the garbage can next to her desk.

  “Thank you,” Sharon muttered, standing in the middle of the room helpless.

  Alberta then gathered up the roses and handed them to Sharon, who accepted them as if they were a precious gift. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  A flicker of recognition passed over Sharon’s face, and for a moment Alberta thought she was going to confide in her. The woman looked desperate to rid herself of a secret. But the moment passed as quickly as it came and Sharon once again started to cry. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me,” she said, just before running out of the room.

  Well, Alberta thought, so much for that.

  When she turned around to see Helen reading a book, she thought her sister had lost her mind. “This isn’t a library, Helen.”

  Helen clutched the book to her chest and said, “You will never believe what I just found out.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Un’immagine vale più di mille parole.

  “As much as I love to see you, Alberta, I have to admit this isn’t my idea of a date.”

  Even though Sloan was in his small office at the library where he’d worked for the past thirty years, he looked incredibly out of place. He was wearing a chestnut brown velvet sports jacket, an orange ribbed turtleneck, dark navy jeans, and Timberland hiking boots—hardly his usual work attire. He was dressed that way because he and Alberta had planned on going on a late afternoon hike on Tranquility Trail, the five-mile stretch of low mountains and woods that started on the far western end of Tranquility Park and continued into the neighboring town, as a belated birthday celebration. But just before Sloan was about to pick Alberta up, she called him and altered their plans.

  “Sloan, don’t be mad,” she said.

  “I could never be mad at you,” he replied.

  “You say that now, but I need to cancel our date.”

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine, but I stumbled on some information that I think is pertinent to the Jonas Harper murder case and I need your help.”

  There was silence on the other end of the telephone line.

  “Sloan? Are you still there?”

  “Yes. I’m just wondering if angry is the same thing as mad.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic!”

  “You were the one who planted the seed,” Sloan teased.

  “You know you love doing research and I can definitely use your help to dig a tiny bit deeper, un pochino.”

  “I guess you have me on that, my favorite thing is spending time with you, but a very close second is doing research.”

  “So now you get to combine the two!”

  “You’re a sly one, Alberta Scaglione.”

  “I can be when I want to, Sloan McLelland,” Alberta replied. “So meet us at the library in half an hour?”

  “Us?”

  Sloan never got an answer to his question because Alberta had hung up. When she arrived at the library with Helen in tow, Sloan realized why.

  “I know sixty-five is the new forty,” Sloan remarked. “But you really don’t need a chaperone.”

  “Guess again, Sloanie,” Helen corrected.

  “Sloanie?” Alberta asked.

  “Yes, I’m warming up to your fella so I figured it’s time to give him a nickname,” Helen explained.

  Smiling, Sloan replied, “I can only imagine what you called me beforehand, Helen, so I’ll gladly accept the moniker.”

  “You see, Berta,” Helen said. “If Sloanie approves, so should you.”

  As Alberta shook her head and mouthed the words “I’m sorry” to Sloan, Helen looked out into the hallway like a mafioso’s bodyguard casing a joint. When she was satisfied that no one had been eavesdropping on their conversation, she shut the door and sat in the burgundy upholstered chair opposite Sloan’s desk. “Now, people, can we get down to business?”

  Amused by Helen’s brusque formality, Sloan walked behind his desk and sat in his own chair, which was a larger version of the guest chair Helen occupied. Since there were no other chairs in the office, Alberta perched herself on the edge of Sloan’s desk and felt a bit like Rosalind Russell in a 1940s black-and-white film where she was always dressed impeccably and spat out her dialogue like bullets shooting out of a machine gun. Her chance to speak would have to wait as Helen had the floor.

  “This is exhibit A,” Helen announced as she placed the oversized hardcover book on Sloan’s desk.

  “St. Winifred’s Academy Yearbook?” Sloan said, reciting the title of the book.

  “Not just any yearbook,” Helen countered. “This is Sharon Basco’s yearbook.”

  Sloan looked from Helen to Alberta and saw that they were wearing matching grins and nodding their heads up and down like twin Cheshire Cats who were trying to choose between feasting on a dinner of canaries or mice.

  “I’m sorry, ladies,” Sloan
began. “But if there’s some significance about the year Sharon graduated, it escapes me.”

  “I guess we should give him some more info,” Alberta suggested.

  Helen propped the book up on Sloan’s desk and continued. “We found this while we were in Sharon’s office at the high school, and when she ran out of the room crying . . .”

  “Because of poor Kichiro being killed?” Sloan asked.

  “Undoubtedly,” Alberta answered.

  “I looked through the yearbook to find her picture and found something else that was even more alarming than her hairdo,” Helen said.

  She opened the book to the page that had been bookmarked and pointed to the photo of a young woman with powder-blue eye shadow, red lipstick, draped in a swath of cleavage-baring navy blue material, accented by a gold satin honor stole that she wore around her neck. She was holding her graduation cap with her left hand, her long fingernails painted the same shade as her eye shadow. The most startling characteristic, however, was the mane of blonde hair that was teased so high and on all sides of her face that it almost bled out of the frame. “Sharon Rose Inchiosa, she of the outrageously high hair.”

  “To her credit, padded shoulders, neon colors, and poofy hair were all the rage at the time,” Alberta offered.

  “I remember it well,” Sloan said with a smirk.

  Inspecting her photo further he remarked, “Looks like her signature underneath her photo is as big as her hair, at least her initials anyway.”

  “Clearly she likes attention, then and now,” Alberta added.

  “I’m not sure I understand why Sharon’s dated photograph should arouse such curiosity and interest in the both of you,” Sloan said.

  Once again Alberta and Helen looked at each other and shared identical grins. Sloan relished their impishness but still had no idea why the uncovering of Sharon’s yearbook photo had resulted in Alberta’s canceling their date. Until Helen pointed to the photograph of a boy in the upper left-hand corner on the opposite page.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Sloan remarked, exhaling a long, slow breath. “That’s Jonas Harper.”

  “The one and only,” Alberta replied. “He and Sharon were classmates and graduated high school together.”

  Sloan grabbed the yearbook from Helen and began looking from one photo to the other, his own interest growing with each glance. “I can understand how this would have piqued your curiosity, ladies. I mean, I have no idea what it means other than the fact that they both knew each other, but it is quite a coincidence.”

  “It’s more than a coincidence,” Alberta stated.

  “How can you be so sure?” Sloan asked.

  Looking at Helen, Alberta said, “May I take over?”

  “Be my guest,” Helen said magnanimously, clutching her pocketbook in her lap.

  Alberta grabbed the yearbook from Sloan and opened it up to another bookmarked page toward the back. The two pages didn’t have any pictures on them, but were filled with handwritten notes under the heading “St. Winifredoodling.”

  “I thought it was odd that there were so few comments written underneath the photographs like there are in a typical yearbook,” Alberta explained. “But it looks like they relegated most of that to the back of the book in a special section.”

  “Show him the note Jonas wrote,” Helen said impatiently.

  “I’m getting to that, Dio mio!” Alberta replied. “You really can be a scootch.”

  Almost as impatient as Helen, Sloan asked, “Now I am curious. What did Jonas write?”

  Pointing to some writing in the bottom left corner of the right page that could only be described as chicken scratch, Alberta read out loud, “Sharon, I’ve watched you from afar since kindergarten, and no matter what happens after graduation I’ll never be able to take my eyes off of you. Yours, forever and always, Jonas.”

  Whistling softly, Sloan leaned back in his chair and replied, “Sounds like teenaged Jonas was smitten.”

  “And by all accounts he never grew out of it, but only turned into Stalker Jonas,” Helen said.

  “You think that Jonas was stalking Sharon and not Nola all those years ago when Nola put the restraining order on him?” Sloan asked.

  “That’s what we think,” Alberta replied. “At least that way it makes sense that Nola would drop the restraining order once she found out Jonas wasn’t interested in her, but rather her boss.”

  Sloan scrunched up his mouth and nodded several times in deep thought. “So why do you think I can help investigate their connection further?”

  Alberta practically bounced onto the edge of Sloan’s desk, not noticing that the action made her skirt rise up a few inches above her knee. It was something, however, that Sloan was very conscious of especially in the presence of Alberta’s sister. He did his best to ignore the appearance of Alberta’s thigh and focused on her face.

  “Sharon was class valedictorian so I was thinking that there may have been some mention of her in the papers that link her to Jonas,” Alberta conveyed. “And since you did all that research recently for the town’s centennial, I thought you could check your files and see what you find.”

  Impressed, Sloan replied, “It’s definitely worth a try.”

  Alberta scurried around the desk and sat on the arm of Helen’s chair, the two of them looking as excited as they did when they were toddlers on Christmas morning. While Sloan typed on his keyboard to bring up his research files on the computer screen, Alberta looked at her sister and loved seeing how soft her features could become when she smiled. She touched her arm gently, warmed by the sight of her sister so happy. She really didn’t care the reason why, but it was nice to see.

  Sloan’s eyes were moving from side to side and his lips were silently reading words from the screen, but he hadn’t yet found something worth sharing. He did, however, find something interesting enough to mumble about.

  “What did you find?” Alberta asked.

  “Nothing about Sharon, just St. Winifred’s,” Sloan said, still silently reading the article. “Some girl . . . they only mention her first name because she’s a minor I guess, but she was expelled from school for, and I quote, ‘inexcusable and aggressive behavior in the biology lab.’ ”

  “Aren’t the frogs usually dead before they cut them up?” Helen pondered.

  “How I hated biology,” Alberta said, crossing herself. “I didn’t care if they were dead, the poor things, their tiny legs stretched out and pinned down.”

  Sloan smiled at Alberta, “You have a good heart, that’s why. This Loretta kid, not so much. Not sure what she did, but it got her expelled from school.” Sighing deeply, he continued to scroll through his files. “Let me see if I can find something that can actually help Nola’s case.” It took another full minute for him to finally speak. “Here’s something.”

  “What?” Alberta and Helen shouted at the same time.

  “Don’t get too excited,” Sloan warned. “When I was compiling all my research for the articles I wrote in The Herald for the centennial, I kept a chronological list of events that I found. Luckily I included even the most mundane items just in case I needed to reference them later on in an article about something more compelling and vital to the town’s history.”

  “Not for nothing, Sloan, but you are thorough,” Alberta said.

  “Thank you,” he replied, slightly blushing.

  “Continue please,” Helen interrupted.

  “Yes, of course,” Sloan stammered. “It seems that after graduation Sharon was set to go to Ramapo College in Mahwah to become a teacher.”

  “That would make sense,” Alberta commented. “She has had a career in education. But there has to be something more. What else do you got?”

  Sloan did a quick search for Sharon’s name and when the results came in he looked much more interested than he did before. “Here’s a reference to an article that stated Sharon married David Basco when she was twenty years old.”

  “Wouldn’t that be before she g
raduated college?” Helen asked.

  “Yes it would,” Sloan confirmed. “Let me see if I can find the article itself.”

  The women watched Sloan search through the tall, four-drawer filing cabinet in the corner of his office. When he bent over to pull out a file from the bottom drawer, Helen whispered to Alberta, “I will say that he’s got a nice tush.”

  “Helen!” Alberta gasped, slapping her sister’s wrist. “Even a former nun isn’t supposed to notice such things.”

  “I wasn’t a blind nun, Berta.”

  Shaking her head, Alberta said, “For as long as I live, Helen, I will never understand you.”

  Turning around, Sloan pulled out a photograph and handed it to the women. Helen reached out and snapped it from his hand.

  “According to that article, Sharon was set to study in Europe for her last semester at college, and she and David wanted to tie the knot before she left,” Sloan explained.

  “Why?” Helen asked. “Was she going off to war?”

  “Sometimes when you’re young you think every day is going to be your last and you rush into things too quickly,” Alberta mused.

  “Even though she was having an affair, she and David are still married,” Sloan observed. “Marriages come in all different shapes and sizes.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Alberta muttered under her breath.

  “Sorry I couldn’t be more help, but I can keep looking to see what else I can find.”

  Helen’s “good” was almost as loud as Alberta’s “no.”

  “No?” Sloan repeated. “I thought you wanted me to do some research?”

  “And you did,” Alberta replied. “And now it’s time for my birthday date. It’s still light out if you want to go on that hike.”

  Grinning broadly, Sloan nodded his head and, looking at the threadbare gray carpet, resembled an awkward teenager right out of the pages of Sharon’s yearbook. “I’d love that.”