Don of the Dead

by Casey Daniels

  She ladled three spoonfuls of sugar into her cup. "So… My Anthony called. He said you were a friend of his. He said you wanted to see me."

  I was hoping to ease my way into what could be an uncomfortable conversation with a little more small talk. "How is Father Anthony?" I asked.

  Carmella stirred her coffee. "Oh, you know." She tapped the spoon on the rim of the cup and set it down and when she looked my way, her eyes didn't sparkle anymore. "You always think of them as your kids. No matter how old they are. And kids, well, they shouldn't die before their parents. There's something wrong with that."

  "He was enjoying his garden when I saw him."

  Carmella smiled. "He loves his flowers! And that nice Father David, he makes sure everything is taken care of now that… " She took a drink of her coffee, and I knew it was a signal.

  Time to change the subject.

  "I don't know how much Father Anthony told you," I began, "but I'm writing a book."

  "Yes." Carmella nodded and cleared her throat. "Yes, he did mention that. I'm sorry to tell you, honey, but I really don't think there's anything I can do to help."

  "There probably isn't." I didn't know if it was true, but I figured it was the polite thing to say. "I just want to make sure all my bases are covered."

  "Well, I feel like a celebrity!" Carmella twinkled. "What is it you want to know?"

  When last I spoke to Anthony, I asked him not to tell his mother too much. After all, if she knew I was looking into Gus's death and if she or her current husband had had anything to do with it, I was pretty sure I wouldn't get as close as the front door. The flip side was that now I needed to explain myself.

  "The book is about Gus," I said.

  For a couple seconds, I don't think she was sure who I was talking about. Understanding dawned and her cheeks got pink. "Augustino. Oh my. No one's mentioned his name to me for a very long time."

  "I don't mean to cause you any distress. It's just that—"

  "Oh, honey… " She reached across the table and around the plate of cookies to squeeze my hand. "Don't you worry about making me feel bad. The past is the past. It was all a very long time ago."

  "That's the problem. You see… " I took a sip of coffee, dragging my feet, hoping that somehow, that would help soften the blow. "I'm trying to find out who killed him."

  If this was an episode of Murder, She Wrote, Carmella's face would have gone ashen and she would have leapt from her chair and declared that she'd done it and couldn't stand the guilt any longer.

  But it wasn't.

  And she didn't.

  Instead, she gave me a tender smile. "Does it matter?"

  "Not to anybody but me." I left out the part about how it mattered plenty to Gus. And apparently, to someone else, too. Otherwise Albert wouldn't have paid me a visit. "I just don't think my book will be complete if I haven't solved the mystery."

  "And you think I can help you?"

  "I heard that you were at Lucia's that night."

  Carmella's snowy brows dropped low over her dark eyes. "Yes," she looked past me, through me. "I was there. I stopped by on my way home from Cathedral Latin, Anthony's school. That's where Augustino was supposed to meet me for a conference with his teacher. He never showed up. And I didn't have to wonder where he was. At Lucia's. Right where I thought he'd be. With his friends. Where he was every Thursday night."

  "You were angry. You had it out with Gus in the restaurant, right in front of everybody."

  Carmella's gaze snapped back to mine. "Back then, I was angry most days."

  "You were drunk, too."

  She picked up her spoon and gave her coffee another stir, even though it didn't need it. "I was drunk most days, too. At least back then. Been sober for nearly thirty years now."

  "That's quite an accomplishment."

  "It's worth it when you have children."

  "But then… "

  "Then?" There was no amusement in Carmella's laugh. She got up to pour herself more coffee. She didn't come back to the table but stood near the sink, her back to the counter. "When I was a young girl," she said, "I was very naive. My parents were from the Old Country and they treated me the way girls were treated there. I was a modern young lady or at least as modern as we thought we were back in the Stone Ages. I had my own ideas about what I wanted from life. I met Augustino and fell madly in love. He was so very good-looking!"

  "Good-looking" isn't how I would describe Gus. But then, what is it they say about beauty and the eye of the beholder?

  Carmella went on. "I'd heard rumors about him. You know, people talking, saying that I was going to end up regretting it if I married him."

  "And did you?"

  "Not at first." Carmella came back to the table. She sat down, grabbed a cookie, and took a bite. "But it didn't take long. Don't put that in your book. If Rudy should read it, he would be upset. Big, tough Rudy and he still thinks his parents lived an ideal life. But think about it, Pepper. Think about what it's like living with a man whose whole life… " She twitched away whatever she was going to say.

  "It doesn't take long before you realize… that thing of theirs… " She gave the words a sour twist. "Well, it's always going to be more important than anything to them. More important than wives. More important than children. I couldn't live that way. With men with guns at my door." She shivered.

  "But you married Victor LaGanza!" Okay, so it wasn't any of my business. But it was kind of hard to keep my mouth shut. Especially when it was so obvious that Carmella was not practicing what she was preaching.

  "Ah yes, Victor. Another handsome man!" She winked. "What is it you young girls say? A nice tight ass and good in bed? Don't look so shocked." She laughed. "I was young once, too. And Victor, he promised that he would keep his work separate from his home life. He did then and he does until this very day. You don't see his two boys from his first marriage in the business. Michael, he's a dentist, and Dominic is an architect. Very legit, those two. Not like my Rudy."

  "Or like your Victor."

  It was the perfect, logical argument but Carmella waved it away with one French-manicured hand. "When he's home, he's just Victor. And if the FBI chooses to park outside our home… " She looked toward the front of the house. "They must get bored. That's all I can say. There's never anything that happens here."

  "But that's not how it was." I did my best to get the conversation back on track. "With Gus."

  "It wasn't what I wanted," Carmella said. "It wasn't what I wanted for my boys."

  "That's a pretty strong motive for murder."

  "It is, isn't it?" She could have been angry. She laughed instead. "But I'm not the one who killed Augustino. I happen to have an alibi and I told the police all about it when they questioned me. You see, I was with Victor."

  "With? As in—"

  Carmella winked. "I told you I was young once, honey. With as in with. Yes. I remember it like it was yesterday. You see, it was our first time. Victor, he was a widower and he'd been after me for months. I would have nothing to do with him and I told him so. I believed in living my marriage vows. Until that night at Lucia's. That's when I knew for certain that nothing would ever be different for me and Augustino. That's when I knew it was over between us."

  I had to admit, if it was true, it was a pretty solid alibi.

  "The cops—"

  "Yes, yes, they checked. They did their jobs. They went to the hotel where Victor and I stayed. They talked to everyone there. They found out that we were right where we said we were. Neither of us planned Augustino's death and neither of us participated in the shooting. While he was dying in the street, Victor and I were in bed together."

  "Wow." I digested the information and wondered how—or if—I'd break the news to Gus. When Anthony first told me that his mother had agreed to see me, I thought Gus might like to come along. He refused and now I was glad. It wasn't the kind of thing a man wanted to hear from his wife.

  Even a dead man.

  In my mind'
s eye, I pictured another door slamming in my face. And still that clock in my head, teasing me with its tick, tick, tick.

  I racked my brain. There must be some clue Carmella could offer me, some hint into her husband's death.

  I glanced around the kitchen. There was a bookcase nearby filled with cookbooks. In front of them on the shelves were framed photographs. Anthony on his first communion day, looking like a cherub. Another picture of a woman with dark hair and a forbidding expression. And a third, a photograph of a young Carmella, all dolled up like it was Easter. She was standing with her two sons in front of a 60s vintage car. It was pink and black. Like the kitchen.

  A jolt kick-started in my brain and I remembered what Benny had said back at The Family Place. "What about the car?" I asked Carmella. "The one the shooter was in? I've been told it was green, one of those souped-up racers. You know, something old that somebody fixed up."

  "We never had a green car." Carmella sounded pretty sure of herself. "As for fixing up old cars, well, Anthony was always good at that, of course. But his car was black, I think. Green." She closed her eyes, thinking. "There was one. Anthony was very young at the time but I think he helped with the restoration. Have you talked to him about it?"

  I hadn't. I hadn't thought of it.

  Carmella tapped her fingertips against the table. "It belonged to that young man. What was his name? Lots of hair and bad teeth." She tapped some more, and just when it looked like she was about to give up, her expression cleared and she smiled.

  "Tommy. That's who it was. Tommy Cavolo."

  "Tommy Two Toes?"

  "Yes. That's what they called him." Carmella finished her coffee. "He had a car just like that."

  "And he died a full ten years before Gus did."

  "Did he? I guess he couldn't have been driving the car when Augustino was killed, huh?"

  I didn't bother to answer. "Do you know who got the car when Tommy was—" I didn't want to say what I almost blurted out. "After Tommy died?"

  Carmella shrugged. "Can't say. Really, I didn't know anything about the boy except that he was what they called a cugine, you know, a young tough, itching to be made. He showed up at our home one day and started working for Augustino. That means someone recommended him. You understand about that, don't you? They don't take just anybody. You have to be a friend of a friend."

  "And whose friend was Tommy?"

  Another shrug. "All I know is that one day he was standing by my front door. Watching to see who came and who went. Keeping an eye out for Augustino and the rest of the boys. He stuck around for maybe six months, then he was gone. Did you say he died? I didn't know that."

  "It's what I've heard."

  "Maybe so. And I won't ask how. It's not something I want to know. And you… " Carmella gave me a careful look. "Are you sure you do?"

  "I'm being very careful," I told her, leaving out any mention of Albert. "I'm not looking to get anyone into any trouble. All I want to do is write my book."

  "But someone may not want to see that book get published."

  "Not to worry." I finished my cookie and brushed the crumbs from my fingers. "The way things are going, there's no chance of that. I can't find anyone who knows anything about how Gus died."

  "Gus." Carmella tipped her head, studying me. "Funny you should call him that. Hardly anyone did."

  I got up and headed to the front door. "After all the research I've done, I feel like I know him."

  Carmella grabbed my hand but didn't shake it. She gave it a pat. "Be thankful you never did," she said.

  Her final words reverberated in my head. Even once the front door was closed behind me. Still considering them, I climbed back into my car.

  Gus was there waiting for me.

  "So how does she look?" he asked.

  I turned the key in the ignition and carefully backed down the driveway. The last thing I needed was an accident report that involved the black sedan still parked across the street. I also couldn't risk looking like a crazy person, so I waited until I was all the way down the block before I said anything.

  "If you wanted to see her," I told Gus, "you could have come inside with me."

  He frowned. "Nah. Don't need to do that. I just wondered. That's all."

  "You forgot to mention that she is married to Victor LaGanza now."

  "Yeah. Well." Gus cleared his throat. "I told you she didn't know anything. She was nowhere near me the night I was killed."

  He had mentioned that before. And I'd never wondered how he knew.

  By now, I was out on a main street, and I turned into the next drive and parked in front of a health food store. "You knew. You knew about Victor all along."

  "If you're asking if I knew where she was the night I died… " Gus cracked his knuckles. "Yeah, I knew."

  "But how?"

  He looked out the passenger-side window. "She told me. About a year after I died. She must have been feeling guilty. Came into my mausoleum one day, crying and pouring her heart out." He turned to me. "I wonder what she'd say if she knew I was right there listening the whole time."

  Chapter 15

  How much did I really know about Tommy Two Toes Cavolo?

  Short answer: Not much.

  Longer answer: Not much, but the merry-go-round that was my investigation kept coming right back to him.

  The big question, of course, was why.

  I thought it over while I printed out my article on tombstone symbolism, and I thought about it some more when I delivered the article to Ella, listened to her rave about what a swell employee I was, and hightailed it back to my office before she could read what I'd written and come to the conclusion that "swell" was not the word to describe the information I'd cobbled together.

  Gus was there waiting for me.

  "You look worried."

  "Do I?" I plunked down into my desk chair and propped my chin in my hands. "I'm not. Except about what Ella's going to say about that article. Actually, I'm just thinking. About Tommy Two Toes."

  "You're nuts!" Gus settled in the chair in front of my desk. "And you're wasting your time. He's been dead longer than me. He couldn't have been the shooter."

  "Then why do we keep tripping over him?"

  Gus's shrug was elegant. "He was a mope."

  "You had him killed."

  "Did I?"

  "Nobody else had the authority to order his hit."

  Something very much like admiration glistened in Gus's eyes. "You're getting good at this."

  I wasn't sure if that was a compliment and if it was, I wasn't sure I wanted to gloat about it. I concentrated on the problem at hand instead. "How did Tommy end up working for you, anyway?" I asked Gus. "Who recommended him?"

  He pursed his lips. "Can't remember."

  "It might be important."

  "Trust me, honey, it wasn't then. It isn't now."

  "Why did you kill him?"

  Gus cocked his head and studied me. "Back when you lived in your big suburban house with your perfect suburban family, did you ever think you'd be talkin' about murder like it was just another day at the office?"

  I didn't want to think about my big suburban house or the perfect family that wasn't so perfect so I just said, "Around here, murder is just another day at the office." I'd brought a salad for lunch, and though it was before noon, my stomach rumbled and I realized I'd been in such a hurry to leave the apartment that morning so I could get to the cemetery and continue my investigation, I hadn't eaten breakfast. I grabbed the salad out of the bag and popped the lid on the Cool Whip container I was using as a bowl. I drizzled on low-fat Ranch dressing and crunched into a pea pod. "Why'd you have him hit, Gus?"

  He gave a barely perceptible sigh. "Tommy was a bigmouth. You know the type. Always trying to impress people. Always talking like he was some big man with a big future."

  "So you cut his future short before he could do the same for you."

  "Please!" Apparently, I offended Gus's idea of the right order of things.
Disgusted, he got up and he would have done a turn around the room if there'd been enough room in the room to turn in. Instead, he paced to the door and back again. "I don't have… what do you call them?… issues. I don't have inferiority issues, if that's what you're saying. I was never worried that Two Toes was going to try and squeeze me out. He didn't have the brains, he didn't have the muscle, and he didn't have the balls, you should excuse my use of the word. He wasn't good at nothing except going on at the mouth. He was a babbo. You know, a dope."

  "A babbo who merited a hit."

  Gus sat back down. "He was talking. To the FBI."

  "A snitch, huh?" I added a little more dressing to my salad. "How'd you find out?"

  He tipped his head back, thinking. "It was Benny. I'm pretty sure. He came to me one day. All upset. You've met Benny, you know how high-strung he is. Was." Gus corrected himself. "Benny, he had his sources, and one of them told him about Two Toes. Told him that the punk was downtown there at the federal building, talking to people he shouldn't have been talking to. He was gonna sell us out."

  "Who did the hit?"

  Gus's eyebrows rose. "You're gettin' mighty nosey."

  "I'm getting mighty tired of trying to feel my way through this investigation like Helen Keller on a cloudy day!" I chomped a radish. "If you really want to leave when Anthony—"

  "All right. All right." He clicked his tongue. "I had Johnny do the hit. I remember because his son was getting married that day and Debbie, his wife, she had one holy hell of a fit when he got to the church late. The woman could swear like a sailor. My ears are still ringing. But Johnny, he was good at that sort of thing and I trusted him. Wedding or no wedding, it had to be taken care of and taken care of fast. Before Tommy met with the feds again and said more than he should have. I knew Johnny was the man for the job. I knew it would be done clean. And I knew he wouldn't leave no evidence. He never disappointed me."

  My chart was in the top drawer of my desk, and I pulled it out and drew a line between Benny and Johnny Vitale. Beneath them both, I added Tommy's name.