Confession Is Murder (15 page)

“Yo, Flo. Just a minute.” Lucille put a hand on Flo’s arm.

“I gotta go back in, Lucille. I’ll call you later.”

“There wasn’t ever no Mr. Baldini, was there, Flo? You made him up.” The idea exploded in Lucille’s head like a bomb. She rubbed at the knot that was forming between her brows. “Joseph is Tony Jr.’s father, isn’t he? You two was going out that summer, right before you went down to Florida.”

“Sheesh, Lu, are you crazy or something? Joseph? Tony Jr.’s father?” Flo began to laugh. “Now that’s a good one.” She shook another cigarette from the pack and lit it.

“Then where’d you meet this Anthony Baldini character?”

Flo sighed, and a plume of smoke billowed out her nose. “Okay, if you insist. But don’t tell no one about this, okay? Especially not Tony Jr.”

“Promise.” Lucille put a hand over her heart.

“Do you remember that guy I was seeing before Joseph and I went out those couple of times? Lenny?”

“The guy with the curly black hair and souped-up car? Lived over on Division?”

Flo nodded. “Yeah, him. Lenny Musgrove. He’s Tony Jr.’s father. He didn’t want to have nothing to do with me or the baby, so he gave me some money so I could go down to Florida and stay with my second cousin until after.”

“You kidding?”

Flo shook her head. “I told everyone I eloped. I picked the name out of the phone book. I named the baby Tony Jr. so people would think that I’d really been married. I even went to court to change my last name to Baldini. Then I waited four years and pretended to get divorced so I could come back to Jersey.”

Lucille’s head was spinning. Here she’d been hurting all these years about not being included in Flo’s wedding. And now it seems there never had been a wedding. There wasn’t even any Anthony Baldini. Just old Lenny Musgrove from over on Division Avenue. She didn’t know what to make of all this.

Flo hurried back into the shop before Lucille could say another word.

It made a certain amount of sense. Lucille had had her doubts about this mysterious Mr. Baldini already. But Lenny? Somehow she had the feeling there was more to this than Flo was saying.

“Lucille, wait!” Flo waved as Lucille went past the front desk. She had the telephone pressed to her ear. Everyone had stopped what they were doing, and Rita and Carmela were gathered around her.

“What is it? What’s happening?” Lucille whispered. Rita and Carmela smiled and gestured for her to wait.

Flo put down the telephone and screamed. “They’ve let Tony Jr. go! The police have released him!”

“Oh my God, Flo, that’s wonderful.” Lucille gave her a huge hug. It was like Christmas morning, only better. “That is really good news, Flo, really good. I’ve been so worried about Tony Jr. I can hardly imagine what you been going through. Your kid in jail. It don’t happen every day, know what I mean? I mean how many people have had to go through what you been through? It’s like something on one of those talk shows where people end up beating on each other. I saw something like that the other day.”

“You mean like
Jerry Springer
?”

“Yeah, one of those shows. Lately your life has been like one of them soap operas, Flo.”

“Well, I’m glad it’s over—that part at least.”

“Let’s celebrate,” Rita called over her shoulder. “I’m going to run next door to M&M Liquor and get us a bottle of champagne.”

“Here, I got some cups.” Lucille passed around the pleated paper cups from the water cooler. “Fancy, huh?” She handed one to a lady who had bits of aluminum foil sticking up all over her head.

The woman looked askance at the paper cup, and Lucille shrugged. She guessed the lady was used to fancier stuff. It didn’t bother her none. She and Frankie didn’t have champagne glasses—they drank their annual New Year’s bottle of Asti Spumonti out of the wineglasses they got as a wedding present from her former manager over at the Grand Union.

Flo was all happy and smiling. Lucille was glad to see the change in her. She’d been getting kind of worried lately, what with Flo being so down and all. She was beginning to think Flo needed to take them pills she saw advertised on TV—the ones that are supposed to make you happy all the time. If swallowing a pill would make Bernadette not be pregnant and Frankie not be chasing after Betty, Lucille would gladly take them too.

A timer dinged somewhere in the back of the shop. “We gotta get you washed out.” Carmela hustled a customer toward the wash tubs while Rita poured champagne all around.

Flo had collapsed into the manicurist’s chair by the front door. Lucille sat down across from her.

“This here really is great news.” Lucille sent up a prayer to St. Walter of Pontnoise, patron saint of vintners, and took a sip from her glass.

“I know.” Flo drained the last of her champagne and crumpled the cup in her hand. “I can hardly believe it.”

“Now Bernadette and Tony Jr. can get married.” Lucille put her cup down on the manicure table. She better not drink any more of this stuff or she wouldn’t be able to drive.

“What do you mean, get married?” Flo was sitting upright now.

“Well, they have to, don’t they? On account of Bernadette being pregnant.”

“Bernadette’s pregnant? How come you didn’t tell me?” Flo glared at Lucille across the table.

“Well, how come you didn’t tell me nothing about Joseph giving away half of Frank’s business to your son? Let alone all that stuff about Lenny Musgrove.”

“Shhh.” Flo looked around hurriedly.

“Come on, Flo. Fair’s fair.”

“If that’s how you’re going to be about it—” Flo stood up abruptly, rattling the bottles of colored polish on the table.

Lucille took a deep breath. Flo always was a little hotheaded. She’d calm down eventually. There was no escaping the fact that the two of them was going to be grandmother to the same little baby. Lucille picked up her purse.

“Take care, Lucille.” Carmela waved. She was sweeping up a pile of gray hair from around the chair near the door.

“Bye, Carmela.” Lucille stopped and zipped up her jacket. “Sheesh, I’m sure glad that’s all over.”

But she realized, as she was walking out the door, that it was only just beginning. Because if the police had released Tony Jr., that meant they were going to arrest someone else.

• • •

The phone was ringing when Lucille walked into the house. She sighed and picked it up. “Hey, Ma, what’s up?”

“Is that you, Lucille?”

“Yeah, it’s me, Ma.” Lucille collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs and eased off her shoes.

“Can you come over here? I gotta talk to you. I been trying to get you, but you got that machine answering your phone now. How come you don’t answer your own phone no more?”

Lucille opened her mouth to explain about the answering machine but then closed it again. There was no point.

“Well, you got me now, Ma. What do you want?”

“I think you should come over here, Lucille. I just had a call from Frank, and I’m all upset.”

“Why? What happened?”

But her mother had already hung up. Lucille hung up at her end and went back out to her car. It seemed like she was never going to be able to put her feet up. She still hadn’t been to the store, and Bernadette was going to be wanting something for dinner. The throwing up didn’t seem to be affecting her appetite none. Dr. DeLuca said it was normal, but Lucille couldn’t remember having been that sick herself when she was carrying Bernadette. Kids these days—everything bothered them.

Lucille plugged in her Little Richard cassette and carefully backed down the driveway. Some kids were playing in the street—riding bikes and practicing maneuvers on their skateboards—and she didn’t want no one to get hurt.

Lucille drove down the familiar street almost without looking. She’d grown up here in the split-level her parents bought in 1948. They’d had help from the GI Bill—she and Frankie’d had to save a lot longer to get their place. A lot of her mother’s friends had moved out of their homes and into condos or even senior citizen housing, but Lucille’s mother wasn’t going nowheres. After Lucille’s father died she learned to drive, and Lucille never knew whether she’d find her home or not, what with bingo and the meetings over at the senior citizen center. Unless she was watching that home shopping network of course.

Lucille pulled into her mother’s driveway in back of Cousin Louis’s ancient Caddy.

Louis and his sister Millie were seated at the kitchen table when Lucille’s mother showed her in.

“I see you got company.” Lucille took her jacket off and dropped it on the bench in the foyer.

Both Louis and Millie were bent over their plates and didn’t hear the bell or the door opening.

“I had some pasta y fagioli left over.” Lucille’s mother shrugged. “I’d give you some to take home, but they’ve eaten it all.”

The house was a smaller version of Lucille’s, with a living and dining area and kitchen on the first floor and two bedrooms and bath on the second. The living room was cluttered with knickknacks, ornamental vases, pictures staggered on the walls, and a doll collection displayed on the fake fireplace mantel. Lucille didn’t know why her mother would want to dust all that stuff.

“I’ve got to use the toilet, Ma. I’ll be right back.”

Lucille went up the well-worn steps to the second floor. She peeked into her parents’ room. Nothing much had changed—plain white candlewick spread, her dresser, his chest of drawers, a cross over the bed, and a receptacle for Holy Water just inside the door. The Pilates machine Lucille had seen on TV was now at the foot of the bed, still partially wrapped in packing material. She wondered how on earth her mother had gotten it up the stairs. Maybe she had bribed the UPS guy?

“You gotta do something, Lucille.” Her mother was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She was wearing a royal blue tracksuit with zip-up jacket. “Let’s go in the living room where we can talk.”

“Okay, Ma, what did you want to talk to me about?”

Her mother sat opposite the sofa in an armchair upholstered in gold brocade.

“That detective came by,” her mother began abruptly. “The one you used to go out with. Richie Sambuco.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to know where Frankie was.”

“You tell him?” Lucille felt a strange sensation in the pit of her stomach. This time it wasn’t hunger.

“How could I? I don’t know where he is. You haven’t told me nothing about what’s going on.” She glared at Lucille for a moment and fiddled with the zipper on her jacket. “That detective said he wanted to question Frank about Joseph’s death, may he rest in peace.” She made the Sign of the Cross.

“He wanted to question Frankie?” Lucille was sitting up straight now.

Her mother nodded. “He said a lot of things, Lucille, I didn’t understand the half of it. But it sounded like he thinks Frankie murdered Joseph.”

Chapter 11

Another Sunday. Lucille put the leaves in the table and went back to the kitchen to stir the sauce. Bernadette was downstairs watching TV, as usual. Would it kill her to help occasionally? Lucille wondered.

She was just going through the motions. She wished that this one Sunday everyone would go to Angela’s house. Or stay home and give her a break. But everyone expected to come, and she couldn’t let them down.

She tasted some sauce from the end of the spoon. Bitter. That was the last time she was buying those tomatoes. She’d been disappointed twice now. And the A&P was out of the brand of ricotta she liked. What was the world coming to when you couldn’t even get the ingredients for a decent meal?

“Bernadette. Tony Jr.,” she yelled down the stairs to the rec room. “Come up here, would you?”

“Is it time for dinner?” Bernadette hesitated on the top step.

“No. I need you to go get Grandma Theresa.”

“Do I have to?” Bernadette slumped against the wall.

“You expect me to do it?” Lucille wiped down the counter and tossed some onion peels into the garbage can.

“All right.” Bernadette stomped through the kitchen.

Tony Jr. went to follow her, but Lucille put her hand out. “You stay here. I gotta ask you a couple of questions.”

They both jumped as Bernadette slammed the front door.

“Sit.” Lucille pulled out a kitchen chair and pointed toward the one opposite. She sat down and stretched out her legs. It felt good to get off her feet.

Tony Jr. nodded and perched on the edge of the chair.

“You remember the day all that stuff happened with Joseph at the church?”

He nodded again and looked around warily.

“Did you see anyone in the parking lot when you went out to get lunch?”

“In the church.” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed.

“You mean you saw someone in the church?” Lucille wondered if he had told Sambuco this.

Tony Jr. nodded again.

“Did you see who it was?”

He shook his head. “No. I just heard the door to the front of the church opening as I went out the side door. It squeaks.”

“And you didn’t turn around at all? To see who it was?”

Tony Jr. shook his head again. “Can I go now? The wrestling is on.”

Lucille waved a hand. “Sure, sure.”

Sheesh. Was there a less observant kid on the face of the earth? No curiosity—the kid had no curiosity. Hears a door open and doesn’t even turn around to see who it is. She was tempted to ask him about Lenny Musgrove, but she figured Flo hadn’t told him nothing about his birth except what she wanted him to hear.

Lucille put her hands flat on the table and pushed herself up. She’d better get going. People would be arriving soon.

The bell rang and cousin Louis stood weaving on the doorstep.

“Sssss, all right if we come in?” He gestured toward the car, where Millie was waiting in the front passenger seat.

“You’re early. Come on in.”

“Hope it’ssss no problem?” Louis hiccoughed.

“No, there’s plenty.” Lucille ushered them into the living room. Louis sat at one end of the sofa and Millie at the other. Louis’s nose was twitching like a bloodhound’s.

Connie was the next to arrive. Lucille hadn’t been sure whether she would come or not, but Connie had driven over straight from church. She asked if she could lie down before dinner. Lucille put her in her bedroom and closed the door.