The Spia Family Presses On (17 page)

He smirked. “You can take it or leave it. It does not matter a lick to me. I have olives to pick, and so do you.” He drank down more coffee.

Mom’s kitchen still smelled sweet from all the cookies. Some of my favorites were piled on plates on her counter, covered in plastic wrap. A few of them were calling to me, but I didn’t want the distraction at the moment.

“I don’t have time to pick today. There’s a killer loose on the ranch and I have to round him up.”

I was suddenly feeling as though I were in a Clint Eastwood movie.

“Do not joke about this. It can be dangerous for you.”

“Is that a threat?”

He shook his head. “It is a warning.”

“I’ll take that under advisement, but in the meantime, what about that document I fetched for Mom yesterday? The one that turned all this land back over to Dickey if he was ever proven innocent of the murder of Carla DeCarlo? That document alone is motive enough to send the whole lot of you to prison for Dickey’s murder. I can’t believe you let her sign that.”

He pulled out a fancy gold lighter and lit his cigar; puffing several times to get it going.

“I do not know what you are talking about,” he said as smoke swirled around his head, the fragrance sweet and musky at the same time. My dad used to smoke that same cigar. I loved the smell, and it usually worked like a salve on me.

But not today.

“Oh please. Your name is on that document as one of the witnesses.” I thought I’d remind him just in case he overlooked that minor detail.

He slid the long fat stogy out of his mouth, blew out a plume of smoke and said, “I think you are mistaken. I would have never agreed to anything like that.”

I stared at him for a moment then decided to get the paperwork. I went to my mom’s room, walked in past her bed to the jewelry armoire and opened the drawer, which triggered the music as I grabbed the paperwork, then I shut the drawer, the music thankfully stopped and I turned to walk back out, but stopped at the sight of black men’s pants dangling from the hook behind Mom’s door. Pants that had tobacco stuck to the pocket.

Benny’s pants.

When I caught the brown men’s slippers sticking out from under the bed I cringed.

Mom was sleeping with Uncle Benny? How long had that been going on that he was comfortable enough to bring over his own slippers?

I didn’t want to think about it. This was all getting way too weird. How could I have not noticed the two of them had a thing for each other? I mean, I knew Mom had an unusual fascination with Benny, but this was more than just a fascination. Slippers bordered on commitment. Even Leo had never kept his slippers under my bed. Hell, I didn’t actually know if Leo owned a pair of slippers, probably one of our many commitment issues.

I walked back into the kitchen, just as Uncle Benny was up pouring himself another cup of coffee from the glass decanter on the counter. A large round crystal ashtray sitting on the table held his burning cigar. He slowly added cream and sugar to his pink cup.

“Here,” I tossed the papers on the table. “The last page might refresh your memory.”

He walked back to the table, sat down on his chair, flipped through the document, read the last page and slid the document toward me. “Like I said, I do not know what you are talking about.”

He blew on his coffee and slurped up a drink.

I picked up the papers going directly for the incriminating page, but it wasn’t there. I flipped through the rest of the pages, nothing.

It simply disappeared.

Of course it did.

“I should have known better. You took it, didn’t you?” He merely stared at me. “There will be copies of it, you know. The courthouse will have one.”

“You can check, but if it never existed, then it will not be there, will it?”

“What about the notary, Peter Doyle? He’ll have a copy.”

He turned to me. His black hair greased straight back, face smooth from a recent shave, but heavily lined from years of criminal stress. These older Made Men had the same set of lined foreheads, and deep creases cutting along the sides of their nose to their mouths. Their notorious lives showed on their faces, just as my years of binge drinking and smoking still lingered around my eyes and mouth. Those tell-tale lines, always visible, like stigmata, and there was absolutely nothing any of us could do about it.

I took in a deep breath and realized he smelled of my mother’s cherry-blossom shower gel.

“This is a matter of little importance, Mia,” he said with a forced smile while peering over the top of his glasses. “You were mistaken. The document never existed.”

There comes a time when a person has to take a step back from the notes to hear the melody. Poetic, but you get the picture.

I couldn’t get anywhere with Uncle Benny, but then Uncle Benny was a lawyer. If anyone knew how to make documents and bodies disappear, he did. It was like questioning a priest about something that was said in a confessional.

Impossible.

Benny knew the importance of keeping secrets, and I sure wasn’t the person who could penetrate that code of silence therefore I decided to take on a new course of action.

I left my mom’s house and headed back to my apartment to report to Lisa, but found her dressed in my clothes cleaning out her car for any leftover oil residue. I gave her a quick rundown of what happened with Benny and the missing document, then I headed off to do some investigative work.

Not that I knew the first thing about investigative work, but I’d seen enough TV shows to be able to fake it. Of course, my family was more into the Jack Bauer method of interrogation, but I didn’t think I had the stomach for it, so I’d stick to the more direct tactics of some of the CSI heroes. One of my interrogations had to be with Aunt Hetty. I wanted to know what she meant when she said “she was done with the devil.” And why were her eyes moist when she turned away from Dickey? I could only hope she would be more forthcoming than Uncle Benny.

But first I needed to check out the soil near the old olive tree next to the barn. I mean, after all, this family might very well have buried Dickey under that tree just like Ray suggested. At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past them.

I came upon the old gnarled tree with mixed feelings. On the one hand, if I found evidence that Dickey was buried there, what would I do? Would I actually call the police? What if someone had set up my mom again? Would I have to unearth the body to check it out first and then bury him again?

Way too much effort.

Fortunately, on closer inspection the earth around the tree was packed solid. Tall grass and weeds lined the ground, providing absolutely no evidence of any activity near this hundred-year-old specimen. I was glad for that. It would have been almost sacrilegious to bury a murdered mob boss under this tree.

This olive tree, with its ripening mission olives, dated back to the time the Mission San Francisco Solano was built on First and Spain Streets in the village of Sonoma in the eighteen twenties. The Mission was the last one in the chain of California Missions. The first one was down in San Diego. Every time I passed this old olive tree I thought of its history. Father Jose Altimira was responsible for the construction of the final mission, which had a sordid past. If I had my history straight, at one point the buildings were sold to a man named Schocken, who built a saloon in front of the chapel. Eventually, the place was restored with the help of the Women’s Club and became a state park in nineteen twenty-seven.

I had no idea how this tree ended up here, so far away from the Mission, or why, but for me it was as if the tree stood as a symbol for more than a hundred years, just waiting for somebody to get a clue and cultivate the land around it into an olive grove.

Unfortunately for this magnificent tree, with its twisted limbs and silvery leaves, it was my family.

On the way over to Dolci Piccoli, I walked through our new store, a long room painted a soothing green. Two of the walls were lined with dark wooden shelves that held our various oils in smoky glass bottles with gold embossed labels, our balsamic vinegars, a few imported labels that we knew to be pure, imported Italian olive oil candles of all sizes and shapes, soaps, lotions and some hand-painted ceramics Mom found in Spain.

Three round tables held displays of various sized wooden spoons and spatulas, vibrant table linens, books, and more pottery. We also sold various posters with an olive theme and a few novels that featured olives in their plot. We were everything olive, and it seemed to be working well for us.

The room was crowded with customers and my mom was busy handing out samples of our oils in tiny white plastic cups, demonstrating the correct way to taste oil. She stood at the wooden bar, which we kept stocked with our best sellers. If sipping oil out of a cup wasn’t to your liking, we provided small chunks of bread for dipping.

Valerie, Uncle Ray’s wife, was also handing out samples, as Audrey, their nineteen-year-old daughter who helped out two days a week to earn extra spending money while she attended culinary school, busied herself with a tall male customer at the register.

The new tasting room was my baby, and soon we’d combine it with a small restaurant on the north side of the building. We would attract more tourists and locals if we also offered food. Of course, if I didn’t resolve Dickey’s murder soon, the whole place could come tumbling down around us.

I wanted to ask Valerie a few questions before I went on to talk to Aunt Hetty. I waited for her to finish demonstrating how to taste oil. Val was particularly loud when she sucked back the oil through her clenched teeth, and always drew curious stares from the customers around her. Mom loved her for it.

“Our beautiful oils take on many different characteristics as they travel down your throat. They can be a little grassy, fruity or peppery. Sometimes they even taste like chocolate or green apples,” Val said. She had several people captivated.

She poured a bit of the oil into her mouth. A few of the customers did the same. Then she sucked it back through clenched teeth, making her distinctive loud sucking noise. Everyone followed her lead. Two of the people, a man and a short stocky woman, instantly began coughing, while the rest seemed to enjoy the experience.

“I’m tasting our Artisan Blend, a smooth front body, with grassy, green apple tones, and a slightly bitter finish. There’s a hint of a peppery undertone, but not like the Seviano that our two coughing friends experienced.”

She smiled.

They smiled.

“I love it,” the coughing man said once he had control of his burning throat. “I’ll take a case!”

That got a burst of laughter out of the group.

The peppery fire they were experiencing was a result of the oil hitting the mucous membranes near the esophagus, and if you weren’t used to that feeling it could be a bit daunting.

Apparently, the coughing man delighted in it.

When Val finished her demo, and everyone was doing their own tasting, she turned to me, grinning. Val had one of those toothy grins that showed her gums, and made her slightly hooked nose prominent. Despite her gums and nose, Valerie was a handsome woman who loved hats. Today was no exception. She wore a black, wide-rimmed straw number with a lime green strip of cloth encircling it that matched her dress and heels.

“What’cha want, kid? I’m busy here,” she said low enough so only I could hear.

“This will only take a few minutes. Can we step outside for a few minutes?”

She leaned in closer, and whispered. “If this is about last night, I got nothin’ to say, and either do you. You should be happy the louse disappeared. He can’t bring nothin’ but trouble to this family.”

And with that she went back to her customers.

So far this was not going like any TV show where the witnesses voluntarily offered up information without much coercion. I thought I might have to get a little tougher.

I caught up with her and tapped her on the shoulder. She whirled around and flashed me the evil eye. I instinctively flashed one back, admittedly, not a true evil eye, but one that got her attention.

Again, she excused herself. This time I walked with her behind the counter, for a bit of privacy.

“You get one question, kid, so make it a good one,” she hissed through a phony smile.

I thought about this for a moment. If I knew Val, she hated violence against women more than anything. “Who would have the most to gain if my mother went to jail for Dickey’s murder?”

She blanched. Was it a sign she had nothing to do with the frame-up or did she blanch because she knew something? My gut told me this was news, and now she would be a more willing snitch.

“Is that what this is all about, kid? Somebody tried to frame your mom? Again?”

“What do you mean, again?”

“Don’t you remember? You’re mom was a suspect when your dad disappeared. Them cops sniffed around her for a long time, even tapped her phone.”

“But I always thought the phone tap had to do with everybody else.”

“You was young, probably why you don’t remember the facts so good. And now somebody set her up for wastin’ Dickey? Sporco Diavolo.”

I didn’t want to tell her any of the details just yet, so I didn’t answer, but I knew she could read me. Val could always read me. It was as if she had a window into my head.