Confession Is Murder (11 page)

She’d thought all night about what Bernadette had said—about Flo knowing why Tony Jr.’d been arrested. And she hadn’t come up with any answers. It just didn’t make sense. Tony Jr. worked with Joseph, and they got on just great, Frankie always said. Like father and son. So why would Tony Jr. want to go out and kill him?

Maybe if she tried again, she could get an answer out of Bernadette. She was up in her room—Lucille could hear the CD player blasting. She pounded at the door but got no answer. After a couple of minutes, she pushed it open. It got stuck on a pile of dirty clothes, and Lucille had to squeeze through the crack. Bernadette was asleep, curled up with one hand tucked under her cheek. She looked like a little girl. Funny, seeing her like that. And now she might be having a little girl or boy of her own.

They’d have to do the test first thing in the morning like it said on the box. Lucille felt her stomach clench up. Maybe she shouldn’t have had that second bowl of spumoni. But after what had happened with Frank, and worrying about Bernadette, she needed something to cheer her up.

Lucille turned off the music and the flickering television and pulled the comforter up over Bernadette’s shoulders. She tripped over a small stool as she was tiptoeing out—it was hidden under a pile of clothing. She held her breath, but Bernadette just sighed and burrowed more deeply under the covers.

She tried ringing Flo again, but there was still no answer. Too late now, she had to get to bed herself. If she could even sleep.

Chapter 7

Lucille eased onto the strip of macadam in front of the garage at the corner of Springfield and Union Avenues. Her eyes felt gritty and everything ached. She’d tossed and turned all night worrying about Bernadette and the baby and whether or not Frank had really meant what he said about Betty. She glanced at the clock just as the numbers rolled over to 7:15 a.m. She could see Flo in her rearview mirror, waiting for the traffic to clear, to pull in behind her.

The place looked more like a junkyard than a garage, Lucille thought as she angled the Olds into a spot next to a dented LeSabre, propped up on cement blocks, that looked like it had been there for years. Rusted car parts, along with a pile of tires, took up most of the remaining space. Flo had to park at the very edge, almost in the street.

“Here, let me in, I’m freezing.” Flo opened the door to the Olds and slid into the passenger seat. She smoothed her hair back into place. “Okay, what’s our game plan?”

“I don’t know if I want these people working on my baby.” Lucille caressed the steering wheel of the Olds and looked around. “The place is a mess.”

“Don’t be silly, Lucille. It’s not like it’s surgery or anything. They all look like this.”

“Hmmmph.”

“So what are we going to do?” Flo pushed up her sleeve and glanced at her watch. “I gotta be at the Clip and Curl in less than an hour.”

“Well, I had this idea, see, of checking the time cards. Find out if Flanagan really was at work the day Joseph was murdered.”

“How are we going to do that? Just walk up all casual-like and ask if we can take a peek?”

Lucille shot her a dirty look. “No. We need to create some kind of diversion. You know, to distract them. Then one of us can grab Flanagan’s time card.”

“Don’t worry, Lucille. I can provide all the distraction we need.” Flo shimmied her shoulders. “Just give me a minute to get ready.” She pulled a mirror and an eyeliner pencil from her handbag.

Lucille ran a hand over her face. Sheesh, she was tired. She could feel her head getting heavier and heavier.

“What if this Flanagan guy sees us?” Flo pulled down her lower eyelid to rim the edge in black pencil. “Isn’t he going to wonder what we’re doing here?”

“He’s not going to be here. He told me he’s off on Thursdays.” Lucille ran her hands over her face again. “I tried to get you last night, but I guess you was out. It was something Bernadette said—”

“I’m ready.” Flo glanced at her watch. “Come on, Lucille, I don’t have all day.”

The right-hand garage bay was open. A late-model BMW was on the lift, and three guys were clustered underneath it, frowning and pointing at the undercarriage.

Lucille and Flo went in through the open door. The place smelled like a combination of oil and gasoline and made Lucille think of her grandfather, who owned a radiator repair shop over on Railroad Avenue in Summit. They’d built senior citizen housing there now, but back then there was her grandfather’s place and, next to it, an Italian bakery where you could pick up warm, fresh-baked loaves every morning. She could go for some of that bread right now. Except that it was a carb, and she wasn’t supposed to be eating none of those.

There was a fellow in an oil-stained jumpsuit sitting at a battered desk over in the corner. Lucille and Flo picked their way around a stack of boxes and in his direction. The time clock was behind him with the cards on a rack right next to it.

And next to that was one of those pinup calendars with naked girls on it. Lucille glanced at Miss October. Were those things real? she wondered. She stared down at her own chest. She used to have quite a figure back in her day, but nothing like these young girls now. Maybe Betty had a chest like that? She pushed the thought out of her mind.

“Can I help you, ladies?” The fellow behind the desk looked up and grinned at Flo. He had very pointy eyeteeth and shiny black hair and reminded Lucille of them vampires in the scary movies Bernadette liked to watch. She shrank back.

“My friend here,” Flo dropped her voice down real low and husky and pointed at Lucille, “is having some trouble with her car.”

“That’s what we’re here for.” He looked Flo up and down.

She patted her hair and wiggled her hips a bit. “Why don’t you come on over and take a look?”

“There’s nothing I’d like better than to get a closer look.” He followed Flo outside to where the Olds was parked. Lucille watched as they circled the car and then disappeared under its raised hood.

Everyone else in the shop was gathered around the ailing BMW. Lucille sidled over toward the time cards. She could just make out the names at the top—they seemed to be in alphabetical order. She inched a bit closer. There was Flanagan’s. Unfortunately, she couldn’t read any of it from where she was standing. She inched even closer and reached out a hand.

A door in the corner of the garage opened. Lucille jumped away from the desk. Holy shit, that scared her. She could feel her heart thudding against her ribs. She sent up a prayer to St. John of God, patron saint of heart patients. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this detective business after all.

A man in jeans and a blue work shirt walked through the garage, out the open bay, and disappeared around the corner of the building. Lucille reached for Flanagan’s card again.

Shit! She couldn’t read a thing. She fumbled around in her purse, found her reading glasses, and put them on. Phew, that was a lot better. She ran her finger down the left-hand column until she found the date she wanted. Looked like Flanagan had punched in all right. And then out again at night just like he said. But that didn’t tell her nothing about lunch. She turned the card over, but it was blank on the other side.

Maybe Flanagan didn’t take breaks? Or maybe they just didn’t punch in and out at lunchtime—she had to see what the other cards looked like.

She was reaching for the card next to Flanagan’s when she saw Flo and the mechanic headed back into the shop. He was staring at Flo so she risked a quick look. This fellow had punched in and out at lunch, regular as anything.

Lucille looked up. Flo and the mechanic were barely more than two feet away—there was no time to put the card back. She tossed it on the vacant folding chair in front of the desk and quickly sat on it.

The fellow waggled a piece of oily metal at her. “A new one of these, and you’ll be all fixed up.” He pulled a book out of his desk drawer and threw it down on the desk. “Lemme see how long it’ll take to get one in.”

Flo looked at Lucille and raised her eyebrows. Lucille nodded and tried to indicate her predicament with a nod of her head toward the seat of the chair. Flo just stared at her.

“You’re in luck, ladies.” The mechanic leaned across the desk. “I can get the part this afternoon and have the car back to you by tomorrow morning.”

“Sounds good to me.” Lucille still didn’t like the idea of leaving the Olds, but she didn’t have any choice. “I guess we’ll be going, then.”

She stuck a hand underneath her, hoping to grab the time card as she got up. She hoped it didn’t look like she was scratching her butt or nothing, but there wasn’t much she could do about it.

Flo was giving her a funny look and motioning for her to hurry up. Lucille dug around some more, but couldn’t get a hold of the thing. Finally she had to stand up. She glanced behind her but the card wasn’t on the chair. She looked around a bit but couldn’t see it. Maybe it had slid under the desk?

She started to follow Flo out of the garage.

“Lucille, what’s that?” Flo hissed in her ear.

“What’s what?”

“That.” Flo pointed. “That piece of paper stuck to your rear.”

Lucille felt in back of her. “Holy shit. It must be the time card. I couldn’t get rid of it fast enough so I just sat down on it.”

Flo glanced over her shoulder. “He’s looking at you. That mechanic fellow.” She put her arm under Lucille’s. “Come on, let’s get out of here!”

Lucille yanked open the car door and slipped into the low-slung passenger seat of Flo’s Mercury Cougar. She braced her feet against the floorboard and struggled to sit a little straighter but immediately slid right back down again.

“You okay?” Flo put the car in gear and squealed out of the parking lot, sending a spray of gravel shooting out behind them.

“Yeah, sure.” Lucille clutched the door handle and closed her eyes. “I guess we can rule Flanagan out, seeing as how his time card shows he never left the garage the day Joseph was murdered.” Lucille sighed. “I’m sorry, Flo. I was hoping we could get this here thing all wrapped up and they’d let Tony Jr. go.”

“I know.” Flo pulled out to pass a slow-moving truck. “I feel like crying myself. Here I’d been picturing Tony Jr. home for dinner tonight. I was gonna get him one of those Hungry Man TV dinners he likes.” Flo maneuvered the car back into the right-hand lane. “I even told Marco I couldn’t see him tonight. He was kind of pissed, but I don’t give a shit.”

Flo sniffled and reached for a tissue from the box on the dashboard.

“We just gotta keep going.”

Flo nodded and switched on the blinker to make the turn onto South Street.

“You know what Bernadette said last night? She said you must know something about why the police arrested Tony Jr. But she wouldn’t tell me what it was. I meant to ask you before, but I forgot. Maybe it’s something you don’t even know you know.”

Flo skidded to the left, crossed the yellow line, and then righted the car again.

“Sorry.”

“Sheesh, I thought we was going to hit that van coming the other way.”

“Something ran into the road. It startled me. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t see nothing.” Lucille looked over her shoulder and out the back window.

“Of course not. You’re not driving. I’m the one who has to pay attention. The passengers never see anything.” Flo eased her right hand off the wheel and opened and closed her fingers.

“Anyways, what was I saying?” Lucille frowned. “Oh yeah. Bernadette said, ‘Ask Auntie Flo, she knows all about it.’ Now, you know Bernadette. She gets stuff wrong sometimes, makes it up completely other times. So I’m not saying she hasn’t got hold of the wrong end of the stick—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lucille.” Flo pulled into St. Rocco’s parking lot.

“Then why would Bernadette say something like that?”

“I’m sorry but I’ve got to go.” Flo drove around to the back door of the church and stopped with her foot on the brake. “Carmela’s going to be late today, and I got to be there to open up.”

Lucille waved as Flo pulled around the corner of the church. Flo hadn’t told her the truth. She
did
know something.

Lucille was certain of it.

Chapter 8

Lucille ended up skipping lunch. She was going to have to be careful she didn’t make no habit of this, she thought as she pulled on her leather jacket and zipped it up. They all said that skipping meals was no way to lose weight.

And she was getting exercise too. Her knees were aching a bit, but she was moving at a decent clip, pumping her arms and taking big steps. The wind had a real edge to it, but it was helping to wake her up. She’d planned to spend her lunch hour grabbing a short nap on the sofa in the ladies’ room, but this was no time to be taking a nap.

The idea came to her as she was typing up the Sunday bulletin—the part about the Knights of Columbus and the November candy drive to benefit Runnnels Hospital. It reminded her of what Connie had said—about how she and Joseph didn’t do nothing apart except the nights he went to his K of C meetings. Well, what if he wasn’t really going to those meetings? What if he was going somewhere else? What if he was
seeing
someone else?

She really was pretty good at this detective stuff, Lucille thought as she walked along. She looked around. Only a few leaves still clung to the trees, and the ones littering the gutters and sprinkled across the lawns were brown and curling at the edges. She pulled her collar up around her neck. November was around the corner. She’d have to get this thing wrapped up before the holidays.

She didn’t know what she was going to do. Would Frankie come for the holidays? She usually had the whole family to her house. She’d do the turkey, a nice big lasagna, and one of those spiral-cut hams. Angela would bring a couple of side dishes—mashed potatoes, peas and creamed onions, sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Bernadette liked those. Flo always went to that bakery over in Maplewood for some real Italian pastries. Lucille used to pick up a pumpkin pie at the church sale every year, but no one ever ate it. Least not when they saw the cannolis. She could go for one of those right now. She liked the ones with the chocolate chips in with the cream filling. Her mother always sniffed when she saw them—too American for her taste.