THIRTEEN
We watched the two cops amble out of sight. I gave a sigh of relief and then turned to Mario.
“Okay, so we better get going, digging this thing up. Where’s the box, Mario?”
Mario’s cherub face twisted. “What box?”
I sighed. “The box you took from my jewelry store. You know. The one Bertoni and gang buried last night.” Jeesh. Did I have to explain everything?
Still no clue on Mario’s face.
“The wrong box was delivered to Nico’s place next door.” I tried to be patient. “It was supposed to be a statue.”
“What was it instead?” Pete’s voice came from behind me.
Uh-oh. We all turned to face Pete. He didn’t know about this part.
I decided to keep it that way.
“And when you guys came back to pick it up, you went to my place instead,” I explained to Mario. “And took the box that was in my office. By mistake.”
Mario still looked blank.
I continued, getting more and more exasperated. “Mario, you are such a screw-up. How can you not remember? Carved walnut chest, about four feet by two feet. Ring a bell?”
Jeesh, this was tedious.
Two lights came on in Mario’s eyes. “Oh, that box. I thought it was Little Louie.”
I paused a beat.
“Little—who?”
“Little Louie.”
Jimmy snorted. “Little Louie ain’t little. He’s at least three hundred pounds.”
“That’s a nickname,” said Mad Magda. “On account of he’s the younger Louie in the family. Not our family,” she added hastily.
“Louie wouldn’t fit in a four-foot box. He’d need a supersize,” said Jimmy.
“So you thought it was Little Louie,” I said, losing patience. “Well, it wasn’t. My inheritance is in that box. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonds and stocks and cash, from Seb’s studio.”
“The cash is probably phony,” Magda whispered to Jimmy.
I gave them a dirty look.
“So you can see why I’m kind of anxious to get it back. Sammy said you buried it last night. So is it here?”
Mario gulped. “Sort of.”
This was getting squirrely.
“So where is it? We have to start digging and get out of here before the cops come back.”
Another pause. Mario started fiddling with his hands.
“Um…the thing is…I followed the instructions left for Little Louie.”
Pregnant silence.
“Uh-oh,” said Nico. I glanced at him. He looked miserable.
“What instructions?”
Mario squirmed. “They wanted him cremated.”
“I knew it,” murmured Nico.
“YOU BURNED MY BOX?”
Joey started to howl.
“Do you want the ashes?” said Mario helpfully. “They’re in a nice vase. We could reuse the vase.”
“Get out of my way! I’m gonna kill him.”
Mario backed away. “Gina, take it easy. I didn’t know.”
“Gimme that shovel.” I grabbed it from Pete.
Mario put up his hand like a stop sign. “No, Gina, you don’t want—HELP!”
I swung the shovel like a baseball bat.
“Yikes!” yelled Mario, stepping back out of reach. “Somebody stop her!”
I swung it again, and Pete caught my arm. Mario leaped farther back and disappeared from sight.
“Shit!” he yelled.
I wrenched away from Pete and threw the shovel to the ground. Then I raced to the edge of the open grave, along with everyone else.
“Don’t think hiding down there is going to save you!” I yelled over the moans coming from the bottom.
I was gonna kill him. He was already in a grave, and I was gonna kill him so he could stay there forever.
I made to leap into the hole and was caught by one arm.
“Don’t be foolish, Gina,” said Pete, hauling me back from the edge. “That’s a long way down.”
I shook off his grip. Then I leaned over and filled both of my hands with dirt.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled. I pitched the dirt at Mario, who was writhing and moaning. Then I reached down for more dirt and pitched that.
Bertoni was snickering like a hyena. Joey was roaring with laughter.
“Help the poor doofus up, Joey,” said Magda. “He may have broken something.”
“You nincompoop! You useless wad of… of…”
“Toilet paper? Chewing gum?” Nico offered helpfully.
I was shoveling dirt onto Mario with my right foot now. Pete dragged me back from the edge again.
“He cremated my inheritance!” I wailed as Pete swung me around. “At least a million dollars!” I started to cry real tears.
Pete chuckled and reached for me. “Aw… sweet thing. Don’t cry. It doesn’t matter. You don’t need it. I have tons of money.”
Everyone went quiet.
I stiffened. I pushed back from his arms and frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
Pete shrugged and crossed his big arms over his chest. “At least ten million. I inherited from my grandfather. He invented a heart-stent thingy that all the hospitals use.”
It took a moment for my brain to process the words. Then I gulped. “You have ten million dollars?”
“Actually, we do. I changed my will last week.” He sounded smug.
The chatter started back up. I took a deep breath. “We have ten million dollars that I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT?”
Pete backed away from me. “Okay, probably I should have told you before now. But I didn’t want you marrying me for my money.”
The silence, as they say, was deafening.
“Uh-oh.” Nico winced. “Probably you shouldn’t have said that last bit.” He backed up.
“YOU THOUGHT I WOULD MARRY YOU FOR YOUR—” I choked on that last word. Then I swung around. “Where’s that shovel?”
“Pete, I think you better…” Nico signaled with a hand.
Pete took off at a run. “Mario, wait up!”
“I’m gonna kill him,” I said, grabbing the shovel with both hands.
“Probably you should wait until after the wedding and then kill him,” said Jimmy.
Magda nodded. “It’s tradition.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am fortunate to have friends in the crime-writing world, who are generous with support and encouragement. Cathy Astolfo, Alison Bruce, Cheryl Freedman and Joan O’Callaghan—thank you for reading my early versions and laughing in all the right places.
Don Graves—thank you for appreciating and celebrating the wacky side of crime humor. Your reviews have made a big difference to me.
Bob Tyrrell at Orca Books—thank you for taking a chance on an unconventional comedy writer five years ago.
Ruth Linka—thanks, once again, for making it all come together in this book. You and your team make every step of the publishing journey a pleasure.
Library Digest compared MELODIE CAMPBELL to Janet Evanovich. But comedy and mystery writing came to Melodie after she was a bank manager, marketing director and college instructor. Melodie has over two hundred publications, including one hundred comedy credits and forty short stories, and has won ten awards for short fiction. In 2014 Melodie won both the derringer Award and the Arthur Ellis Award for The Goddaughter’s Revenge. She is the executive director of Crime Writers of Canada and lives outside of Toronto, Ontario.
Goddaughter Caper, The Page 6