Murder on Memory Lake

by J. D. Griffo

  “Really?” Alberta asked, suddenly insulted by this stranger. “You asked her that?”

  “Yes, because as her lawyer, that’sa my job,” he replied. “And all she woulda say is thata Alberta woulda understand why.”

  Wrong. Alberta didn’t understand at all. But even though she didn’t understand her aunt’s motives, she did understand that she was now an incredibly wealthy woman.

  “So, she left me all her money . . .”

  “Almost three million dollars, plus her stock options.”

  “Oh, yes, of course, the stock options, wouldn’t want to forget about those,” Alberta quipped. “And her lake house that nobody ever knew she had.”

  “Oh, and there’sa one more thing,” Giancarlo said.

  “There’s more?”

  “You can’t give away any of the money for at least two years,” he instructed. “Carmela wanted that part in writing because she said your natural inclination woulda be to give the money away and not spend it on yourself.”

  Alberta laughed out loud. “My aunt knew me like the back of her wrinkled hand, and I didn’t know a thing about her.”

  “Your aunt, she was a very private person.”

  “You’re telling me! I didn’t think she had a dime to her name!” Alberta cried. “Not for nothing but until she moved into the nursing home she lived with my father her whole life in an apartment in an old brownstone in Hoboken over a luncheonette, and she never told anybody she had a house of her own.”

  “She didn’t want anyone to know,” Giancarlo explained. “It was her own private . . . ah, how do you say? Refuge.”

  Alberta turned away from the lawyer because she had the sudden urge to cry and she didn’t think it was proper to cry in such a masculine setting. She wasn’t holding back tears because she thought it sad that her aunt kept such a huge secret or because she needed a home of her own to seek refuge and to escape her family, Alberta was holding back tears because she knew exactly how her aunt had felt.

  “So where is this house?” Alberta asked.

  “On Memory Lake.”

  “Where the hell is that?”

  “In a little town in New Jersey called . . . uh . . . Tranquility. Such a pretty name for a town.”

  A very pretty name and, thankfully, to Alberta, a very memorable one. Located a little more than an hour northwest of Hoboken, which was where her ancestors emigrated to after leaving Sicily for a better life in America, Tranquility was the exact opposite of the Mile Square City. While Hoboken was a dirty, boisterous, crowded city, Tranquility was a clean, quiet, sparsely populated lakeside community. It was also where her entire family would spend two glorious weeks every summer.

  “We used to vacation up there!” Alberta exclaimed. “The whole family and all our friends, two weeks every summer around the Fourth of July.”

  “Carmela told me . . . she didn’t write this part down, but she told me . . . that it was her favorite place on earth.”

  “And that’s the name of the lake?”

  “Yes, Memory Lake,” Giancarlo confirmed. “You don’t remember that?”

  “No,” Alberta answered. “We always called it the Big Lake because, well it’s huge. If your cabin was on the other side of the lake you might as well be living in New York.”

  Alberta shook her head in disbelief. Interesting that she couldn’t remember the lake’s name was Memory Lake, and even more interesting that the memory of her Aunt Carmela would be forever changed thanks to this life-altering revelation. She was so lost in thought that she didn’t hear what Giancarlo said to her, but only saw him waving a set of keys in front of her eyes.

  “It’sa your new home.”

  And that’s exactly where Alberta was when her life changed yet again.

  Sitting outside the gray-shingled Cape Cod with the bright yellow front door on the banks of Memory Lake in one of the faded black Adirondack chairs, which perfectly matched the faded black window shutters, holding a hot cup of coffee in her hands, her black cat, Lola, snuggled cozily in her lap, Alberta still found it hard to imagine her aunt sitting here by herself without the rest of her family milling about all around her. How odd it must have been to be here without every member of the Ferrara family, young and old, talking, laughing, eating, arguing, fighting, living in the same overcrowded space. Odd and yet oddly splendid. Yes, absolutely splendid. Alberta imagined that her aunt must have sat here looking at the same sun as it rose over the same crystal blue lake, the smell of hydrangeas and honeysuckle from the cluster of bushes that hugged the house adding a sweet fragrance to the air, and understood for the first time in a very long time what it felt like to be at peace.

  That peace, unfortunately, was interrupted when she saw something floating on top of the lake.

  With all the changes in her life recently, Alberta sometimes questioned her judgment; things she had taken for granted turned out to be wrong and things she never believed in turned out to be true. It took her almost a lifetime to understand that Finché c’è vita c’è speranza could be more than an empty saying. Where there is life, maybe . . . just maybe there could be hope.

  That might be true for Alberta, but for the dead body floating on top of Memory Lake, all hope had definitely run out.

  CHAPTER 2 – Jinx

  In bocca al lupo.

  From the moment she was born, Gina Maldonado has had luck on her side. Most of it bad.

  She wasn’t supposed to enter this world for another three weeks, so when her parents got the urge to play the one-armed bandits and watch some dice spin round the roulette wheel in Atlantic City they didn’t think twice about hopping into their used Ford Taurus to take the two-plus-hour drive in order to satisfy their craving. After all, in a few weeks, when the baby came, they wouldn’t have time to take spontaneous trips, and they could definitely use some extra money to pay for the endless baby things they were going to have to buy. Play the slots, buy a stroller, that was their mind-set when they gambled on a road trip. Gina’s grandmother just thought they were out of their minds.

  “Ah, Madon!” Alberta shouted into the phone. “You two are crazy!”

  “Why are we crazy?” Alberta’s daughter shouted right back. “Because we want to have some fun?”

  “If you want to have fun, come with me to St. Joseph’s tonight for bingo,” Alberta suggested. “They’re having a progressive jackpot.”

  “I don’t like to play bingo, Ma, you know that. I like to play the slots.”

  “But a casino is no place for a pregnant woman!”

  “Oh, for Crise sake, Ma, this isn’t 1950! It’s not like there’s gonna be a mob hit at Harrah’s on a Thursday afternoon.”

  After a dramatic pause, Alberta replied, “You never know.”

  Lisa Marie Scaglione Maldonado was used to arguing with her mother. For as long as she could remember it’s what they did. They argued about important things, inconsequential things. They argued on the phone, in private, in public, when they disagreed, even when they agreed. Lisa Marie didn’t know why or how it really started, but at some point, very early on in her life, she became aware that arguing and shouting was their only means of communication. It was something she grew used to, like the small, dark birthmark next to her right eyebrow. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t fix it or make it look better. The birthmark always stood out, it was always going to be a flaw, and so she accepted it, just like she accepted her relationship with her mother. Normally it didn’t bother her, but ever since she had become pregnant the novelty had worn off. Maybe it was the hormones or maybe she had just grown weary from the noise, but talking to her mother had become tiresome.

  As always, she should’ve listened to her husband, Tommy, who told her to call her mother when they got to Atlantic City. But knowing that her mother would worry if she couldn’t reach her all day long, she ignored his instructions and called before they left. Now she regretted her simple act of kindness.

  Pressing the phone’s receiver into her for
ehead, Lisa Marie leaned her back against the kitchen wall, closed her eyes, and took a few deep breaths. In and out, in and out, and with each breath she prayed her relationship with the child that was squirming inside her belly wouldn’t be as combative as her relationship with her own mother. Or as loud.

  Lowering her voice she restarted the conversation. “Tommy thought it would be nice to take advantage of his day off so he suggested . . .”

  “He has the day off on a Thursday?” Alberta interrupted.

  “Yes Ma, he has off on a Thursday,” Lisa Marie replied. “He’s scheduled to work the weekend so he has off today and tomorrow.”

  “I wish he had a real job,” Alberta sighed. “It would be so much easier.”

  Again, Lisa Marie pressed the phone receiver against her forehead, but this time there was no attempt to de-stress, no deep breathing, she gripped the phone so hard her fingers almost melded into the plastic and she had to resist the urge to slam the phone into her face. Would physical pain drown out her mother’s commentary?

  “A stagehand at Radio City is a real job, Ma,” Lisa Marie replied, the volume of her voice no longer quite so low, “And a good one too. It’s just that he’s the low man on the totem pole so he doesn’t get to choose his hours, you know that.”

  “No, of course,” Alberta said. “It’s just, you know . . .”

  Lisa Marie couldn’t resist taking the bait. “No Ma, I don’t know.”

  And Alberta couldn’t be happier reeling her daughter in. “Well, it’s always a new schedule every week with him, one week he’s off Thursday, the next week it’s Wednesday, and . . . well, with the baby coming, things are gonna get even more hectic and the one thing that makes a baby happy, Lisa Marie, the one thing . . . is a routine. That’s all I’m trying to say. A baby likes a routine.”

  “I know that, Ma! Don’t you think I know that? And guess what? I’m gonna be the baby’s routine!”

  “Well good . . . that’s good then! I’m glad you do, ’cause that’s very important to know. And I’ll be here too, of course, the two of us together will make the baby very happy,” Alberta declared. “Even if Tommy’s never around.”

  As if on cue, Tommy appeared in front of his wife and tapped his watch, indicating that he wanted to leave. It was time to end things with her mother.

  “We gotta go so we beat the traffic.”

  “I’ll be waiting outside for you to pick me up.”

  Before Lisa Marie could tell her mother that she wasn’t invited on their husband-wife-unborn-baby spontaneous getaway, Alberta hung up. And before Lisa Marie could tell her husband that their Taurus would be taking an extra passenger along for the ride, he already knew. Unlike his wife, however, Tommy understood the financial benefit of having Alberta in the backseat.

  “Cool, now I won’t have to pay for gas.”

  * * *

  What started out as a bad road trip only got worse. And by the frequency with which Gina was kicking inside her mother’s belly, it was obvious that she was just as unhappy as the rest of her family.

  Three car accidents on the Garden State Parkway and Lisa Marie’s uncooperative bladder meant they had to sit in traffic and pull into several rest stops, extending the already long drive by almost two hours. The bickering between Lisa Marie and Alberta that had started before they left home continued to ebb and flow for the whole ride except for the time they all stopped to sing along with Journey when Lisa Marie and Tommy’s wedding song came on the radio.

  “Don’t ever stop believin’, you two,” Alberta commanded over the power ballad, her eyes suddenly filled with tears. Then she muttered under her breath so they couldn’t hear, “Don’t wind up like me.”

  When they finally got to the casino it was so crowded it wasn’t until after they had dinner that Lisa Marie was able to get a seat in front of her favorite slot machine—The Wheel of Fortune. It took much less time for her to go through all her quarters.

  “Here, I won my money back,” Alberta said. “I popped three cherries on the Vegas Vixen.”

  She poured more than half the contents of her large plastic cup into her daughter’s until it was filled with fresh, if far from virgin, tokens.

  “Thanks Ma, I owe ya.”

  Those were the words Lisa Marie spoke just as she went into labor. She knew it could not be a good sign.

  Neither Lisa Marie nor Alberta could ever agree on the sequence of events that followed, but the basic gist is that Lisa Marie’s water broke just as Pat Sajak’s recorded voice apologized because she landed on Bankrupt and he had to deplete her accumulated savings. Then in response to his wife’s screams, Tommy started running full speed and tripped over Alberta—who was on her knees drying the floor with some tissues—banged into the slot machine, and broke his arm.

  “I never liked that Vanna White!” Alberta declared, throwing the wet tissues into her pocketbook.

  They got directions to the nearest hospital and with Tommy and Lisa Marie now in the backseat both writhing in their individual pains, Alberta tried to start the Taurus, but neither the car nor the weather were cooperating. Alberta’s attempts to revive the broken-down car were interrupted by an explosive thunderclap followed by a torrential downpour that made it sound as if a really loud, but really bad, symphony was blasting from the radio. There were shrieks of agony from the backseat, curses of frustration from the front, and the sound of the rainstorm assaulting the exterior of the car like rapid machine-gun fire tearing through an enemy camp. They were under siege and ready to admit defeat until Lisa Marie screamed the words that reminded them of why they were there in the first place—the words you only want to hear when there is an obstetrician present: “This baby is coming!”

  The Taurus might be dead, but Lisa Marie was bursting with life.

  After a struggle, Alberta and her son-in-law, right arm dangling uselessly by his side, got Lisa Marie back into Harrah’s while outside the downpour quickly escalated into a Nor’easter. Waterlogged, but laser focused, Alberta instructed a cocktail waitress to get some help, and a few minutes later the frazzled employee returned with the house manager and a doctor. The two men took one look at the motley crew, heard Lisa Marie’s guttural cry, and knew exactly what was going on.

  On the way to a back room where she could presumably give birth in private and not among the gamblers, underneath a cloud of stagnant cigarette smoke, and out of earshot of the nonstop whirl and buzz of casino sounds, Lisa Marie fell to her knees and rolled onto her back.

  “It’s coming! Now!”

  So right there in between two rows of slot machines at thirteen minutes after midnight on Friday the thirteenth, Alberta’s granddaughter was born. Despite the unorthodox setting and being three weeks premature, the doctor proclaimed that Gina was healthy and robust, and her loud cries proved his point. Staring at the newest member of their family, both parents and grandmother felt like the luckiest people in the world, as if they truly did hit the jackpot.

  “Have you decided on a name?” Alberta asked.

  Lisa Marie and Tommy replied at the same time, “Gina.”

  Hearing her granddaughter’s name for the first time, Alberta kissed the gold crucifix she always wore around her neck and started to cry. “That’s the most perfect name in the world.”

  The elderly woman at the end of the row, who saw three lemons pop up on her screen for the fourth consecutive time, didn’t share that opinion.

  “You shouldn’t call her Gina, you should call her Jinx!” the old crone spat. “I’ve had nothing but bad luck since she showed up!”

  Lying on the soiled carpet that was the casino floor, Lisa Marie clutched her daughter closer to her breast and started to laugh hysterically. Understanding that she wasn’t having an emotional breakdown, but rather acknowledging the absurdity of the situation, Tommy and Alberta joined in. Over their raucous laughter, Lisa Marie told the crotchety old gambler that she agreed with her. “Now that’s the most perfect name in the world!”

  An
d that’s how a stranger’s random, rude comment, coupled with the specific and unfortunate timing of her birth, transformed Gina into Jinx.

  * * *

  Despite her nickname, it wasn’t like Jinx traveled through life with a dark cloud over her head. She did, however, carry with her the memory of her birth. As a result, Alberta’s favorite phrase where her granddaughter was concerned became “In bocca al lupo!” which literally means “into the mouth of the wolf,” but is the Italian way to say “good luck.” The wolf could be a difficult situation or a relentless boss, and the saying means to give strength when facing such an adversary or crisis. Jinx had learned to reply, Crepi il lupo—“May the wolf croak.” Maybe it was because Alberta and Jinx had made this their own private saying or because it suggested bad luck would always be nipping at her daughter’s heels, but Lisa Marie hated the phrase. Each time she heard it, she would scold Alberta, but like most things said by daughter to mother, it went ignored. Or overruled.

  “If you would’ve just listened to me and stayed home that day, Jinx would’ve been born in a nice, clean hospital like everybody else,” Alberta reminded her daughter, “But no, you had to traipse all the way down to Atlantic City to go . . . gambling!”

  “And if only you would drop dead and leave me alone I would be a lot better off!”

  The verbal sparring between Alberta and Lisa Marie that relaxed a bit after Jinx’s birth, quickly resumed its ugly nature and seemed to intensify with each passing year. Jinx couldn’t remember a time her mother and grandmother were in the same room together that didn’t end up with both of them shouting and one of them walking out to the echo of a slammed door. No one could explain or rationalize it, but the two women just didn’t get along and brought out the worst in each other. The summer before Jinx was about to start ninth grade things got much worse, and the animosity that was bubbling underneath both women rose to the surface in a heated argument that became known by the Ferrara clan and their close friends as The Fight.

  There are many versions as to how The Fight started, but everyone agreed that it ended when Lisa Marie told Alberta to go to hell. On its own, the comment wasn’t terribly shocking—the words themselves had been uttered by both women many times before—but there was something in Lisa Marie’s eyes and something about her demeanor that gave new weight to the volatile phrase. Had Alberta remained silent or stormed out of the house, perhaps nothing would have changed, but she didn’t. Almost sensing that Lisa Marie had raised the bar on their ongoing feud, Alberta instinctively upped the ante. When she responded in a calm voice and with a steely glare, it was a combination that, as far as Lisa Marie was concerned, put an end to their relationship.