Death & Decluttering

by Nancy McGovern

  “Oh…how sad for Beppe.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think Lauren’s father genuinely thought he was acting in her best interest. But Beppe wouldn’t take it lying down. He created a huge scene. He camped out on their porch and the police had to come take him away in the end. He even tried to be Romeo and climb up to Lauren’s balcony to see her.”

  “Oh.” Aurora put a hand over her heart. “That’s either romantic or creepy, depending on whether or not she wanted it.”

  “Who knows what Lauren wanted. Maybe she was looking for an excuse to reject Beppe, or maybe she was just an obedient daughter. But a month after her father had thrown Beppe out of the house, Lauren got engaged.”

  “Wait…engaged? Who did Lauren get engaged to?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? The kind of man her father wanted - good-natured, rich, from a good family. She got engaged to Chip Goggins. Not that it mattered anyway because soon after that, she was dead.”

  Aurora felt her heart break for Beppe. She thanked Cole for the drink and the conversation then walked over to Beppe and roused him out of his slumber. As she helped him out the bar, Beppe began mumbling.

  “What was that?” Aurora asked. “I couldn’t make that out.”

  “I said my brother never touched Chip,” he slurred as he climbed onto Philbert’s back with Aurora’s help. “I don’t want that hung on him. I’m the one who taught that punk a lesson.”

  “You mean the story the bartender just told me?” Aurora asked “That was you who fought with Chip?”

  “That’s what he gets for insulting my father and…”

  But that was all she was getting out of him. He rested his head against Philbert’s long neck and began to snore gently. Philbert, well-aware that the conversation was now over, seemed to wink at Aurora and took off down the quiet street.

  *****

  Chapter 6

  Shots In The Dark

  “Dad!” Joy jumped up from the uncomfortable plastic chair on which she’d been seated for the last few hours.

  Two policemen were just entering the station with her father between them. Her normally-immaculate father was still in his striped, blue pajamas, mud clinging to their edges. He gave her a wan smile and motioned for her to sit down.

  Joy gave him a big hug and sniffled. There was a distinctive smell clinging to him, too. “You were on Uncle Beppe’s farm?!” she exclaimed. “Why? Dad, what’s going on?”

  “Joy, you need to go home,” he said. “Your mom and I will be fine. I promise. This is all just a big misunderstanding.”

  “But…why was she in Chip’s house? Why were you at Uncle Beppe’s?” Joy scoured her father’s face, looking for a hint. His expression was neutral and calm, but it didn’t fool Joy. As a doctor, he was trained to remain neutral and calm even when - especially when - everyone around him was freaking out. Whatever he felt about this, Joy knew it was going to be buried deep, only to be taken out later and examined when things were calmer. That wasn’t good enough for her - she needed to know both of their stories, and fast. In a town like Bent River, justice wasn’t purely the purview of the law. People would talk and, once their minds were made up, they were difficult to change. As a reporter, she knew better than anyone how easily rumors could make or break people’s lives. As their daughter, Joy had complete faith that her parents were innocent. But she needed to get their stories out to everyone else as quickly as possible.

  “Joy, go home. Pietro, take her, will you?” Joy’s father refused to look at her. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  “You need to tell me what’s going on. We have to tell people something,” Joy said.

  “Frankly, Joy, I don’t care about anybody but you and your mom right now,” her father said. “Let me handle this. It’s going to be fine. You must be exhausted. Go home. That’s all you can do.”

  “He’s right.” Pietro blocked Joy’s way as the policemen took her father inside. “This is a job for the police and the lawyers now. The best thing you can do is go home and get some rest.”

  This patriarchal card-shuffle was familiar to Joy. Even as a child, when she’d jumped around asking too many questions, her father had a habit of handing her off to Uncle Pietro to manage. Well, she wasn’t a child now, and she quite resented not being included in the inner circle of knowledge.

  “I can help, Dad,” Joy said, squaring her shoulders and looking him right in the eye. “Help me help you.”

  Her father gave her one last desperate glance and shook his head, repeating himself. “We’ll take care of it. Just go home and sleep, Joy. You look like you need it.” His voice held all the power he could muster and, this time, his words no longer sounded like a plea. They sounded like a command.

  Accepting defeat, Joy headed to the door. Only, instead of going out, she ducked into a side-hall at the last minute and headed to the basement of the police station, where she knew the officers took their coffee breaks.

  As town reporter, she had a good rapport with the handful of officers who comprised Bent River PD. People like Chief Brooks, the smiling overlord, and officers Lundy and Samuels, the ones who had been escorting her father. But, more important than the officers themselves, was Rita Daughtry.

  With her bulldog-like appearance and tendency to bark orders, Rita had scared Joy early in her career. Over time and many shared cups of coffee, however, a friendship had blossomed between the two women. Joy hoped that Rita would know more about what was going on.

  Rita was no help, however. She was brewing coffee on the small stove in the basement and simultaneously keeping an eye on the telephone. Joy set out two cups and gave her a pleading look.

  Rita shook her head. “It’s different this time, Joy. You know I’ve always trusted you with a story before. But when it’s your own parents in the pen, well, it just wouldn’t be right, would it? Besides, Chief Brooks would know immediately who talked to you.”

  “Well, you know me, Rita. I keep my lips zipped and my sources confidential.” Joy leaned on her. “Please? Come on. Why are my parents being arrested? Everybody knows they’re the salt of the earth. They aren’t the type to do this.”

  Rita pursed her lips and looked around. “Alright. Look, I’m only telling you this because the chief is going to announce it in the press meeting tomorrow anyway.”

  “Yes?”

  “Whoever killed Chip did it in cold blood. They walked up to his room, fired six shots, all of which hit Chip. The murder happened sometime around 2am. It wasn’t not a robbery, that’s for sure - his valuables were all untouched, including his car keys and his laptop. This was a personal grudge.”

  “And my mom is the main suspect?”

  Rita shrugged. “We got the call about the shots at 2:05am from an anonymous number. By the time Lundy and Samuels reached the scene, it was about ten minutes later. They noted that nobody was around and that none of the houses on the street had any lights on. But Chip’s front door was wide open.”

  Joy shivered. Her street. She could picture it all perfectly. For a moment, she imagined herself as a small child again, drowsily heading back to bed after getting a late-night glass of water. She’d stop at the window on her way up the stairs, look out at the pine-tree-lined street with its neatly-parked cars and cheerfully-painted houses, then head back to bed feeling cozy and safe. No door on that street had any business being wide open so late at night.

  “Lundy and Samuels approached with caution. As soon as they stepped into the foyer, Samuels said his sixth sense was screaming. Chip’s house is similar to your parents’ in layout - as soon as you enter, there’s the living room on the left side with a staircase on the other leading up to the bedrooms. Your mother was lying, unconscious, at the foot of the stairs. She had a nasty bump on her head.”

  “Then she’s a victim, too, right?!” Joy exclaimed.

  “Maybe. We don’t know yet. Samuels examined her, asked Lundy to call an ambulance, then headed upstairs. He found Chip dead. That was all.”
<
br />   Joy paused. “And my father? He wasn’t there or at home?”

  Rita nodded. “They found him at your Uncle Beppe’s farm, fast asleep. Is this something he did often, dear?”

  Joy nodded. “On Fridays, Dad often has drinks with Uncle Beppe. If they get into one of their political discussions and he drinks a little too much, he tends to sleep over, since he can’t drive back. Dad’s very fond of Uncle B.”

  “Well, that gives him his alibi then,” Rita said. “They haven’t found the weapon yet but, when they do, I suppose it’ll all start to clear up.”

  “Well, then it really can’t be my mom, can it?” Joy smiled. “She was found unconscious and there was no weapon on her. So surely she isn’t the one who shot Chip.”

  “Maybe.” Rita was cautious. “Joy, I’d honestly advise you to stay out of this. I know you think you can help, but I’ve seen overenthusiastic family members ruin evidence and hamper investigations more than once. It won’t do your parents any good. Trust the men to do their jobs - they are good at it, even if they seem slow and plodding at times.”

  But slow and plodding were the opposite of what Joy wanted right now. She wanted to know. She needed to know! She wanted to go back in time somehow and be there, to find out the truth so she could protect her parents.

  *****

  Chapter 7

  A New Beginning

  Aurora slept for a few hours and woke up restless, surrounded by unfamiliar sights and smells. Even the bedsheets under her weren’t her own. Hungry for some control over her environment, Aurora decided to exert her rights as co-owner of Ricci House and begin cleaning up. She’d start with the room she was in.

  She stood in a corner and turned a critical eye over the room. Then, moving rapidly, she began to sort things into four piles: medical, clothes, papers, and odds & ends. Clearly, nobody had bothered to assess or organize Ricardo Ricci’s belongings since he had passed - the room might as well have been a shrine to him.

  It was strangely intimate to be ruffling through his things like this. A picture emerged of the man Ricardo had been. He was a man who liked polo shirts, khakis and golf. A man who enjoyed collecting scents. A man with a fondness for Shakespeare and Cervantes.

  To Aurora, the belongings that Ricardo had accrued over a lifetime looked only like junk. But she mused that, someday, someone would have the same task to carry out with her own belongings. What picture would they draw of her in their minds, then?

  A woman who liked yellow sundresses. A woman with mostly pastel clothes. A woman with a hidden fondness for psychological thrillers and children’s books. Aurora smiled.

  In an hour, she had sorted the piles of Ricardo’s belongings into the broad categories. She emptied her own cardboard boxes onto the bed then, crossing out what she’d written with a sharpie and, relabelling them, she began placing all of Ricardo’s things inside. When she was done, she let out a sigh. This was all much more work than she’d been expecting but already the room felt a little bit fresher.

  Most of her friends had always claimed to hate organizing or cleaning up but, personally, Aurora loved the entire process. There was something magical about creating space and light and air where previously clumps of clothes had coexisted with ratty newspapers. Aurora had always found that her surroundings were a manifestation of her thoughts. When life was stressful and unhappy, her surroundings would be, too. When she was avoiding a task at work, her personal chores would pile up. Organizing things was a way of taking control, of making the world look the way she wanted it to.

  She didn’t fancy the color of the room but Aurora thought she could live with it for the time being. Luckily, her furnishings from back home were all with her and, no doubt, she’d soon figure out how best to fit them into the room. She put all of Ricardo’s boxes to one side, and spent an hour arranging things just the way she wanted. One by one, the events of the day fell away from her mind and were replaced with calmness. The radio was playing dance jazz and her entire mind was only focused on what was in front of her when she heard a series of knocks on the door.

  “Joy.” Aurora smiled as she opened the door. “Come on in. Do you like what I’ve done with the place?”

  Joy’s eyes grew wide as she took it in. Bright new curtains fluttered by the windows. The bedspread was pale pink with tiny, gray bunnies hopping around on it. An old but well-loved quilt was tucked neatly on top. A large mirror hung across from the bed, and her grandfather’s paintings were no longer on the walls, replaced instead by photographs of people Joy didn’t know.

  “What is this?” Joy snarled. “What have you done?”

  Aurora looked puzzled. “You said this was my room now.”

  “I said it was your room for now.” Joy advanced on her, fists clenching. “What have you done? Where is everything? Where is my Nonno’s stuff?!”

  Aurora felt fear lick her spine. She’d been easily bullied as a child, and it had taken her years to learn how to stand up for herself. She took a breath and reminded herself she was an adult, and so was Joy. They’d work this out.

  “Look, I understand this is emotional for you.”

  “Emotional? Really? You…understand?” Joy’s tone was caustic. “What do you understand? That my parents are in jail right now? That the Nonno I loved so much has somehow been…ousted out of his own room by some stranger? Who are you anyway? Why did Nonno stick me with you? You think I’m not going to investigate what’s going on? I’m going to find out what you’re up to and you’re going to be out of here so fast your head’ll be spinning. I promise you this.”

  “I’ve been nothing but nice to you,” Aurora said. “The least you can do is be polite.”

  “Catch me being polite to a thief!” Joy said.

  “Oh, shut up.” Aurora finally lost her cool. “I know you don’t want me here but…guess what? I am going nowhere. I own half this house, and I can’t live in a place this filthy. Sorry, but changes are going to be made, with or without your permission. Got it? This is my room. You said so yourself. So now, please get out.”

  “You’ll regret this.” Joy pointed a shaking finger at her. “See if you don’t.”

  “If you threaten me one more time, I’ll call the police,” Aurora said. “You don’t want to join your parents in jail, do you?”

  Aurora regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. Joy looked as though she’d just been stabbed. All the fun and wonder of settling in had gotten sucked out as soon as Joy had entered. Now, instead of feeling peaceful and happy, Aurora’s insides felt like they were spiralling into a black hole.

  “Look, I’m sorry I said that,” Aurora said. “I want to make this work, but-”

  Turning around, Joy walked out and slammed the door as hard as she could. Aurora rushed to save a picture frame that threatened to fall off the wall. She straightened it, then bit her lip.

  Now what?

  If Joy was really going to keep acting like this, Aurora thought she had better seek good legal counsel. With Chip Goggins dead, that left one lawyer in town. His nephew, Max.

  Making up her mind, Aurora headed out to see him.

  *****

  Chapter 8

  Maxed Out

  Chip Goggins’ office was on the third floor of a building on Main Street. When Aurora wandered in, the waiting room was totally deserted. At first, she wondered if she’d made a mistake - perhaps everyone was at the funeral or something? There was a secretary’s desk that looked as though tumbleweeds might blow across it and a magazine rack featuring Reader’s Digests from the 80’s. Further on, she noticed that the door labeled “Chip Goggins, Attorney At Law” was ajar, and a rustling noise was coming from it.