Hit and Nun (21 page)

“Everyone is talking about you down at the station,” Gabe said, slurping up a spoonful of soup. A piece of escarole was caught between his two front teeth.

“Gabe.” Angela smacked him on the arm. “You got something on your teeth.”

Gabe ignored her and Lucille almost had to laugh—Angela made a face like she’d just sucked on a lemon.

Lucille wasn’t surprised that all the cops was talking about her. Here they’d found her in her underwear, wearing a nun’s veil, and stuck on the ladder of a fire truck. She was pretty sure that didn’t happen every day.

“They’re saying that you’re a hero.”

Gabe looked at Lucille in a way that no one had ever looked at her before. Like she was important or special or something.

“Joey was meaning to kill poor Sister Genevieve. He wanted to take out everyone who he felt had betrayed him after that accident,” Gabe said.

“I’m sure it was Tiffany who told him the truth,” Lucille said, starting to get up to collect the empty soup bowls. “She knew Sal had been driving the car that night, not Joey. The poor guy—he didn’t remember nothing on account of his head injury. So when the cops told him he was driving, he believed it.”

“And did fifteen years in the slammer,” Gabe added.

“I think Tiffany told him the truth in order to get him to kill Sal,” Lucille said over her shoulder as she carried the plates into the kitchen. “Sal was playing around, and she resented the fact that she had this scar for the rest of her life and that everyone thought he’d only married her because he felt sorry for her.”

Gabe was hanging on Lucille’s every word. “You think so, Aunt Lucille? Wait till I tell the guys down at the station about this.”

“I think she offered to pay him to do the deed, not knowing that as soon as he heard the truth, he was planning on killing Sal anyway.”

“So Tiffany paid Joey?” Gabe was leaning forward in his chair. Lucille had never had anyone pay so much attention to her before.

“Yeah, but I think she screwed him over and didn’t give him the amount he was expecting. That gave him another reason to kill Tiffany, although the real reason was because she knew he wasn’t driving that night but didn’t say nothing—she just let him go to jail.”

Flo frowned. “Why would she do that?”

“On account of she was in love with Sal. Maybe they was going out but he didn’t want to settle down, you know? Or maybe there was someone else, and she was afraid of losing him. But after she lied for him, he was more or less forced to marry her. He didn’t want her going around telling people the truth. She had him over what they call a barrel.”

Lucille looked around the table. They all had their eyes on her, even Frankie and Bernadette and her sister Angela.

“Poor Denise—she became Sister Genevieve—didn’t know nothing about Joey going to jail, but he didn’t believe it. Joey thought she was just like the others.”

Lucille hurried into the kitchen to check on the rigatoni. You didn’t want to overcook it and have it all limp and soggy the way they served it in so many restaurants. Lucille drained the pasta, put it in the bowl and poured the sauce over it. She carried the dish into the dining room. She noticed there was a small chip on the rim. She hadn’t seen that before. She supposed it was bound to happen sooner or later—the bowl was as old as her marriage. She’d nearly dropped it a couple of times when she was tired from cooking back when Bernadette still wasn’t sleeping through the night. She wasn’t giving it up—it was part of their family’s history. Bernadette would serve pasta in it someday.

Lucille glanced at Bernadette. They’d put Lucy in her carrier, and she was happily chewing on her bare toes. Lucille felt her stomach clench. She couldn’t stand this worrying no more.

“When are you guys going to get my granddaughter baptized, huh? So we can all be together in heaven when we die?”

Bernadette and Tony exchanged a glance, and Bernadette’s lips curved into a smile.

“Father Brennan baptized Lucy this morning before Mass.”

Lucille looked at Father Brennan, her mouth hanging open. “And you didn’t tell me nothing about it? When were you going to tell me, huh? We could have had a party, and Lucy could have worn your christening gown. What do you mean doing it on the sly like that?”

Bernadette rolled her eyes. “Because we didn’t want you making a big deal out of it, and now you are.”

“Well, it is a big deal! Like your first communion and taking your wedding vows and . . .”

“Lu,” Frankie held up a hand. “No reason we can’t still have a party.” He looked from Bernadette to Tony.

They both nodded their heads.

Lucille felt a flush of excitement. A party. She’d always loved parties. She’d make a nice lasagna, maybe some pigs in a blanket—everyone liked those—and she’d order the cake from that bakery in Maplewood where they knew how to do a good buttercream frosting.

“And Lucy can wear your christening gown to the party.” Lucille looked from Bernadette to Tony and back again. Neither seemed particularly interested in the idea, but she didn’t care. That was what they were going to do, and that was that.

Lucille was so happy that she didn’t even mind doing the dishes after everyone left. She put the last plate in the dishwasher, turned it on and wiped down the counters. She heard a squawk from the other room and remembered she hadn’t fed Archie yet. She got his food out of the cupboard and carried it into the living room.

Frankie must have come up from the rec room because Lucille heard his footsteps behind her. She knew it was him—after more than twenty years she knew what his footsteps sounded like. She knew that his ankle cracked when he went up the stairs, knew the sound his shoes made when he walked—she could even distinguish the meanings of his different grunts. That was what marriage was all about.

She opened the door on Archie’s cage and reached up to pour some seed into his little plastic dish.

“Lucille,” Frank gasped. “What’s that on your back?”

Lucille quickly pulled her top down. “Nothing, Frankie, it’s nothing.”

“No, there’s something there on your back.” Frank tried to grab a hold of Lucille’s T-shirt, but she squirmed away. “Come on, let me see.”

“Stop, you’re tickling me.”

“You got a tattoo!”

“It was all on account of I had to talk to this guy because he was a friend of Sal’s from the pizzeria—the one who was murdered. And he knew about the car accident and . . .”

“It’s a cross.” Frankie traced the tattoo with his finger.

Lucille shivered. “I don’t know if you can get them things off. I wasn’t going to do it, but we got to talking and the next thing I knew . . .”

“I think it’s sexy.”

“You do?” Lucille turned around to face him.

Frank kissed the side of Lucille’s neck in that place he knew always got to her. His lips trailed lower.

“Frankie, stop,” Lucille said, holding up a hand.

There were footsteps in the hall upstairs, and they both froze.

“I can’t wait till those kids get a place of their own,” Frank grumbled.

“We’ll miss having little Lucy around.”

“Yeah, but we can babysit as much as we want. And at least we’ll have some privacy.”

“Bernadette said they’re saving up.”

Frank grunted. “Maybe instead of going to Vegas we ought to give them the money for their down payment.”

Frank resumed kissing the side of Lucille’s neck.

“Oh,” Lucille said.

“Yeah, baby,” Archie squawked from the corner.

Keep reading for an excerpt from

the third book in Peg Cochran’s

Gourmet De-Lite Mystery series,

Iced to Death
!

Giovanna “Gigi” Fitzgerald ladled a generous serving of mushroom barley soup into each of the open containers lined up on her kitchen island. Once filled, they would go into white boxes with
Gigi’s Gourmet De-Lite
written on them in silver script. She glanced out the window of her small cottage, where fat flakes of snow drifted past. According to the radio, accumulation was less than an inch so far, and she trusted her bright red MINI Cooper would make it through okay. She had several hungry customers waiting for the diet gourmet food she delivered for each of their meals.

Reg, her West Highland white terrier, was asleep right next to the heating vent. Gigi smiled. Reg knew how to make himself comfortable. And when she was cooking, he was never far away. If a piece of food happened to hit the floor, his eyes would fly open immediately and he would be on it so fast there would be no time to invoke the five-second rule.

Right now he was snoring softly, his right ear twitching in time to his breathing, a bluish-gray beam of weak sunlight slanting across his belly. Gigi smiled at him. She’d taken Reg on in a spur-of-the-moment decision, but he had turned out to be a wonderful companion.

Gigi put the containers of soup into her signature boxes along with a piece of crusty whole-wheat bread, a small salad, and a fruit compote for dessert.

“Come on, Reg, we’re going for a ride.”

She didn’t have to say it twice—the small dog jumped to his feet immediately, both eyes open and bright. It was hard to believe he’d been asleep seconds earlier. He paced impatiently in front of the back door as Gigi reached for her coat. She carefully loaded her containers into the back seat of the MINI and held the passenger door open for Reg. Reg always rode shotgun, staring through the front window as if he, not Gigi, was responsible for driving the car.

Gigi put the car in gear and slowly backed down the driveway. The wheels slid, then gripped again, and they were on their way. She switched on the windshield wipers, and the snowflakes, which were now coming down faster and harder, were briefly whisked away. The roads were covered with a fine dusting of snow, but here and there ice lurked beneath the surface. Gigi gripped the wheel as she negotiated the narrow winding road leading toward the small downtown area of Woodstone, Connecticut.

Gigi made her delivery rounds as quickly as she could. Flurries of snow continued to fall, and the roads became even slicker. She’d spent most of the previous years living in New York City, where she’d hardly ever needed to get behind the wheel. She breathed a sigh of relief after she delivered the last Gourmet De-Lite container and was able to turn around toward home.

She rounded the corner onto her street, and her spirits rose as her cottage came into view. It was white with a bright red door, dormer windows, and a picket fence.

With a red, white, and green Ralph’s Pizza delivery truck in the driveway.

There must be a mistake. She didn’t order a pizza. Not that she didn’t love it—especially the wonderfully aromatic pies Carlo and Emilio used to make at Al Forno—but Ralph’s was pedestrian fare, full of calories and laden with fat, and something she tried to stay away from.

It had to be a mistake.

A young man in a bright green ski cap and a zip-up plaid jacket was standing at Gigi’s front door, an expectant look on his face.

She pulled into the driveway and stopped. She opened the door to let Reg out of the car and he ran ahead of her, jumping around the young man’s legs and sniffing furiously at the pizza box. Gigi was about to call out to the delivery boy when her front door slowly opened.

“What on earth . . . ?” Gigi was so stunned she stopped in her tracks.

A woman stuck her head out the door. She was tall and thin with dark hair styled in a pixie cut. She exchanged some cash for the pizza box in the delivery boy’s hands and was about to shut the door when she noticed Gigi standing in the driveway, still openmouthed.

“Surprise,” she yelled, waving the pizza box toward Gigi.

“What . . . when . . . how did you . . . ?” Gigi stammered as she approached her own front door.

“You didn’t lock it,” the woman said, making it sound like Gigi’s fault. “Well? Aren’t you glad to see me?” She threw her free arm around Gigi’s neck and hugged her.

“What are you doing here?” Gigi looked her younger sister up and down. Pia was a little thinner than the last time they’d seen each other, and the pixie haircut was new. Gigi liked it. Pia’s eyes were enormous, and the cut accentuated them beautifully. She hadn’t seen or heard from her sister in over a year—not since she had taken off for some artists’ commune in the south of England where they made their own paper and paint and grew their own food.

Pia waved the pizza box under Gigi’s nose. Gigi had to admit, it did smell good. She just hoped none of her clients had seen Ralph’s delivery truck in her driveway! She tried to set a good example by eating healthily herself.

“What are you doing here?” Gigi asked again.

Pia made a face. “Let’s get comfortable first and I’ll tell you everything. I’ve brought a bottle of plonk—cheap red wine,” she explained, obviously noticing the look of bewilderment on Gigi’s face.

Gigi followed her sister to the kitchen, still half stunned by Pia’s sudden appearance. A battered suitcase and stuffed backpack had been tossed willy-nilly into the living room. Gigi felt her jaw clench. She cherished her cottage and took the time to keep it neat and tidy.