Murder at the Mistletoe Ball

by J. D. Griffo

  Not just yet, Alberta thought. For whatever reason she was interested in hearing more about Kylie’s background. There was something about her actions lately, her state of mind, that seemed off. Yes, there was a lot of change and turmoil going on around her, but she was a doctor, for God’s sake, wasn’t that what they trained them for? To be the calm in the storm.

  “You come from a family of doctors, then?” Alberta asked.

  “Yes . . . well, most of us,” Kylie replied. “My father instilled in us a strong work ethic and the personal belief that one can always do better. Some of us have been able to live up to his expectations.”

  “Not everyone in your family has?” Alberta asked.

  “Alberta, you should know better than anyone that there’s always one bad apple hanging from every family’s tree,” Bambi said.

  It was Alberta’s turn to glare at Bambi. All the feelings she had been trying to suppress about the woman came to the surface. She didn’t like her attitude, she didn’t like her comments, and she most certainly didn’t like her fashion sense. Bambi was what Alberta’s mother, Elena, would call farsi bella, a girl who had to doll herself up to capture a man’s eye. That type of girl had to dazzle a man with her physical attributes to keep him from noticing she was empty inside, that she lacked compassion and didn’t possess typical feminine traits. Admittedly, it was part of an old-fashioned commentary on how a woman should present herself, but Alberta felt it was an appropriate critique of the woman who had just become her enemy.

  “I’m sure you know better than anyone, Bambi, that there’s always another way to examine a situation,” Alberta said. “When I prove my grandson’s innocence you’ll see him in a different light. Like what it must be like to look at yourself in the mirror before you apply all that makeup.”

  Bambi’s eyes grew so wide she did almost resemble a cartoon character. Before steam started to magically pour out of her eyes, Sloan started to cough. He wasn’t choking, it was a diversionary tactic that proved to be successful.

  “Are you all right, Sloan?” Kylie asked.

  Swallowing hard to make it look like he was trying to suppress his coughing fit, Sloan replied, “You can confirm that next week at my checkup.”

  “Yes, Jinx mentioned you were coming in for your last follow-up exam,” Kylie said.

  “I was planning on thanking you properly at the Ball,” Sloan said. “But the evening had plans of its own.”

  “I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing,” Kylie said. “We had all worked so hard and the hospital was really counting on the silent auction to bring in a hefty amount to enhance our fundraising efforts. The lab can only reach its potential if it has the money to keep running.”

  “I must say that this persiflage has been delightful, but we really must go,” Bambi said, lifting her right arm to check the time on her watch. “As much as we’d like to rewrite history, I think we can all agree that the Mistletoe Ball is something we need to put behind us.”

  If only it were that easy.

  After their run-in with Bambi and Kylie, even Sloan’s holiday spirit withered away like a dry, brown poinsettia leaf in February. They decided to call it quits on their attempt to capture Christmas magic and went back to Joyce’s house to see how Lisa Marie and Tommy were doing. When they heard their raised voices, they knew they were having an even worse morning.

  “What’s wrong?” Alberta asked, entering Joyce’s house.

  Lisa Marie was leaning against the living room wall with her arms crossed in front of her and Tommy was pacing the floor, talking on his cell phone.

  “Can’t you leave the job early to get back to Crystal Lake?”

  Alberta looked at Lisa Marie as if to say, What’s going on? but her daughter put up her hand to prevent her mother from distracting her. She didn’t want to miss a word of the one-sided conversation.

  “I know it’s a big job, Hector, but so’s the job in Crystal Lake, and that one’s more important,” Tommy said. “The property management company who handles that complex is my biggest client.”

  Whatever Hector was saying on the other end of the line was not at all what Tommy wanted to hear. He covered his forehead with the palm of his hand and started to massage his temples with his thumb and forefinger. “It’s just that I have a lot going on right now and I don’t think I can get back home.”

  He dropped his hand to his side in defeat. “I understand. Good-bye.”

  “It doesn’t sound like Hector is acting very saintly,” Sloan said.

  “There’s a power outage at the Crystal Lake condo complex and I don’t have anyone down there to fix it because I had to lay off all my employees last year when things got tough,” Tommy explained. “Hector was my only hope and he’s down in Coral Gables, working for his brother.”

  Lisa Marie took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’ll book you a flight.”

  “I can’t go and leave you alone to deal with all of this,” Tommy protested.

  “I’m not alone,” Lisa Marie said. “I have my mother. Sergio and I are in good hands.”

  “Are you sure, Leese?” Tommy asked. “I mean, Sergio’s in jail.”

  “Which is where he’s going to stay,” Lisa Marie said. “You heard Bruno and Vinny, the DA isn’t going to let him out, so there’s absolutely nothing you can do for him here.”

  “I could help find out who really killed Natalie,” Tommy said.

  Lisa Marie smiled and grabbed her husband by the shoulders. “I think you should leave that to the professionals, like my mother and our daughter.”

  “Don’t forget Helen and Joyce,” Alberta said.

  “Or the rest of us,” Sloan added. “We’re all going to do everything we can to prove Sergio’s innocence, you can count on that.”

  Tommy scrunched up his face to fight back his tears and nodded his head several times. “Fine, I’ll go!” He then pointed his finger at his wife. “You keep me posted every step of the way and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Focus on saving your business,” Lisa Marie said. “My paltry salary from the vet’s office isn’t going to keep us living in the grand style we’ve become accustomed to.”

  Tommy hugged his wife and said, “Make sure you tell Sergio that I love him.”

  “He already knows that, but I’ll remind him,” Lisa Marie said.

  Within fifteen minutes Lisa Marie had booked Tommy on the next flight to Florida, he had flung some clothes and toiletries in a duffel bag, and Sloan was warming up the car to drive him to Newark Airport. Alberta suggested the men drive on their own as a way to decompress; it was also a subtle ploy that allowed her to be alone with her daughter for the first time since she had arrived. She would wind up regretting the decision.

  The moment they watched Sloan drive down the street, Lisa Marie’s calm demeanor changed. She became antsy, distracted, and more like the churlish daughter Alberta remembered. Perhaps because it was the two of them and Lisa Marie no longer had to wear a disguise, didn’t have to play the role of the optimistic mother of a jailbird or the supportive wife, she only had to be herself. Or it could be that Lisa Marie still hated to be in her mother’s company and, try as she might to control her emotions, she was rebelling from being in such close proximity to her mother without another relative around to serve as a buffer. Either way, Alberta needed to know the truth.

  “Do you dislike me that much, Lisa Marie?” Alberta asked.

  Lisa Marie had been gathering up the clothes that wouldn’t fit into Tommy’s bag but stopped in her tracks upon hearing her mother’s remark.

  “What are you talking about, Ma? I thought we’d gotten past that.”

  “I hoped we had, but we haven’t talked about anything, not really. We’ve acted as if this visit is normal, something you do all the time and not once every fourteen years.”

  “There hasn’t been the time to delve into our whole backstory.”

  “It’s only the two of us now and whatever you say to m
e stays between us. Good or bad.”

  Tommy’s wrinkled T-shirt hung in Lisa Marie’s hands. “I didn’t leave for any one reason, you know that. I left to save what remained of us. It wasn’t all your fault, I think we both can agree that I’m not the nicest person, never have been. That’s one thing I always resented about you.”

  “That I’m nice?”

  “And it’s one thing I didn’t inherit. It skipped a generation.”

  “Lisa, you shouldn’t say things like that about yourself.”

  “Honesty, Ma, c’mon, if we’re not honest about ourselves, we don’t have anything. Look, I don’t dislike you, Ma. I don’t hate you. And I don’t resent you. Can you say the same thing about me?”

  “How could you even ask me that question? I’m your mother.”

  “I’m your daughter and you had no problem asking me.”

  Alberta tilted her head to the side, her daughter did have a point. “For the record, I love you, I always have, and that will never change. Over these past few days, however, I’ve come to like you very much. You’re different than you were.”

  “Not nearly as different as you, Ma. You’re like a completely new person. What’s the phrase everybody uses? You’ve reinvented yourself. You’re stronger, more decisive, and the things that you, Jinx, and the others do, I honestly don’t know where you get the guts to run around like some troupe of lady spies.”

  Alberta howled at Lisa Marie’s description of her new vocation. It fit.

  “There’s a lot of the old Lisa Marie in you still, but you’ve changed too,” Alberta said. “Despite the circumstances, you’re patient, you listen, you and Tommy obviously have a wonderful marriage.”

  Lisa Marie smiled. “We’ve had our ups and downs, but I love my husband and I know he loves me. Plus, where else are we going? We’re stuck with each other.”

  “It’s obvious how strong your marriage is. I was wrong about Tommy, he’s a good husband. Most important, you’re a good mother.”

  “Then why do I feel like a complete failure?”

  “Do you think good mothers walk around telling themselves how good they are? They’re the ones blaming themselves for their kids’ shortcomings or the problems their kids might have even though they’re not to blame.”

  “Those are all nice words, Ma, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m scared. It’s as simple as that. In my heart I know Sergio is innocent, there’s no way he could’ve done something that vicious. But in my head I think, is it possible? Could he have snapped? You read about things like that in the papers all the time, but you never think it could be your kid. My kid would never commit a crime, my kid would never commit murder, but now that it’s happening to me, I have to wonder if Sergio could have done this horrible thing. Those aren’t the thoughts of a good mother, trust me.”

  “I had the same thoughts myself.”

  Lisa Marie looked at Alberta with surprise that she would admit such a thing, but her expression quickly gave way to one of relief. “Do you still feel that way?”

  “No, I know Sergio is innocent, but it’s human to question the extent of someone’s capabilities. You can’t give into it, though, you can’t let those thoughts take over what’s in your heart. Because a mother’s heart always knows best.”

  Alberta gave in to her instinct and walked up to her daughter. She didn’t hesitate, she didn’t ask permission, she just hugged her. To Alberta’s sheer delight, Lisa Marie hugged her back.

  It was a truly blissful moment, only spoiled when Alberta looked over Lisa Marie’s shoulder and saw Tommy’s tuxedo shirt lying on the floor. On the front was a stain that looked an awful lot like blood.

  CHAPTER 20

  Dannato se lo fai e dannato se non lo fai.

  Alberta was as dizzy as an elf without a shelf.

  She didn’t know what to do. Should she stay quiet and not ask Lisa Marie why there was blood on Tommy’s shirt? Or should she ask her and risk finding out that her daughter had been hiding the fact that her husband killed Natalie and not her son like the rest of the town suspected? She could hear her father’s voice in her head, Dannato se lo fai e dannato se non lo fai. It was what he always said when faced with a dilemma, damned if you do and damned if you don’t. She wasn’t proud, but she made the cowardly choice to remain silent. At least for now.

  By the time she got home she knew she needed company or else she was going to wrestle with the thoughts that were eating away at her. She knew that if this were another case she was trying to solve the choice would’ve been simple, she would’ve picked up the shirt and demanded an explanation. She would’ve brought the shirt to Vinny to be analyzed and determined if the blood on the shirt belonged to Natalie. She wouldn’t have stopped until she got an answer. But this case was different and she didn’t want an answer. What she wanted was her big sister.

  “Helen,” Alberta shouted into her cell phone. “I need you to come over.”

  “I’m working on a deadline,” Helen replied.

  “This is important.”

  “Is it about the case against Sergio?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it good news or bad news?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?”

  “Because I only have part of the news and I need you to help me figure out if I want to find out the rest!”

  There was a long silence before Helen replied. “I’ll be right over.”

  There was another long silence after Alberta explained to Helen what she saw at Joyce’s house. They were sitting at the kitchen table, untouched cups of coffee in front of them both, the chirping from a very chatty bevy of sparrows penetrating the quiet, causing Lola to squirm in Alberta’s lap. It looked like Helen was staring at the Tranquility Library calendar that hung on the far wall, but Alberta knew that she wasn’t gazing at anything that could be seen with her eyes, she was looking internally, contemplating the information she had just been given by contemplating the contents of her soul.

  Alberta knew her sister better than almost anyone on earth. Still, Helen was not the easiest person to read. She turned left when it was almost certain she’d turn right. She’d laugh when you thought she’d scold. She’d up and quit the convent after doing God’s work for forty years when you thought she’d spend the rest of her life as a nun. Which meant Alberta had no idea what kind of advice her big sister was going to give her now. Neither did Helen.

  “This is a tough one, Berta,” Helen said.

  “I know,” Alberta agreed. “That’s why I called you over. I need your input.”

  “You remember what Daddy used to say, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I’ve already heard his voice in my head, but it still didn’t help me make a decision.”

  “I’m going to say to you what I would tell someone who wrote into The Herald—you only have one choice.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You have to let Lisa Marie explain herself. There’s a chance she doesn’t even know there’s blood on Tommy’s shirt. Didn’t you say you saw it lying in a heap of clothes?”

  “On the side of the couch, the clothes Tommy wasn’t taking back home with him.”

  “Who did the packing?”

  “Tommy mainly, but Lisa Marie helped.”

  “Then there’s a fifty-fifty chance that she knows about the bloodstained shirt, and if she does, there’s another fifty-fifty chance she knows how the blood got there.”

  “That’s too much math for me, Helen, could you please just do what you always do and get straight to the point?”

  “The only way you’re going to rest is if you talk to your daughter.”

  “I think I want a second opinion,” Alberta said.

  Joyce sat at the kitchen table warming her hands around a mug of hot chocolate. She had just finished with a board meeting at St. Clare’s when she got Alberta’s phone call telling her there was an emergency and she had to come straight to her house. She listened to Alberta desc
ribe her predicament, then she listened to Helen’s suggestion on how to resolve the problem, and then she watched both women stare at her waiting for her to either agree with Helen or offer an alternative.

  “This reminds me of a time back in 1986 when I was working on Wall Street,” Joyce said.

  “Is this trip down memory lane going to be worth it?” Helen asked.

  “Yes, just listen,” Joyce replied. “I had a client who was skittish about investing in the market aggressively—he always wanted to play it safe—and I finally convinced him to buy stock in a new technology company. And I mean a lot of stock. At first things were moving slowly, daily moderate increases, and then on Friday the market took a turn and the price of stock fell not just through the floor, but to the subbasement. I knew if I told my client he had lost an incredible amount of money that he had only invested based on my urging he was going to have a stroke, but I also knew he was on a fishing trip with his sons, which meant he probably wouldn’t hear about the stock plummeting until Monday. I had to make a choice. I could wait it out over the weekend and pray that the stock would start to go on the uptick or I could call him and let him know the truth.”

  Joyce paused for dramatic effect, but the drama was too much for Alberta. She needed to know what Joyce did and she needed to know immediately.

  “Don’t leave us hanging, Joyce, what did you do?!” Alberta yelled.

  “I called him and told him the truth,” Joyce replied. “I caught him just as he was about to leave for his lake house.”

  “Did he bail on the fishing trip and try to hunt you down?” Helen asked.

  “He acted like it was no big deal,” Joyce said. “As if I told him we ran out of mozzarella and only had provolone.”

  “Clearly your client was an Irishman,” Helen said.

  “Funny enough, he was, and he remained my client until the day I retired,” Joyce said. “It didn’t hurt that on Monday the stock did rise and hasn’t stopped rising since then, but the point of the story is that my being honest gained his trust. That’s what you need to do with Lisa Marie.”