Cannoli to Die For

by Peg Cochran

  The closet door groaned loudly when Lucille pulled it open, and she jumped and looked around her. She thought she heard footsteps in the hall and froze, the way the rabbits on their block did when they got wind of the fact that Mrs. Nowak’s Chihuahua, Princess, had spotted them.

  The footsteps must have been in her imagination, Lucille realized when no one appeared after several minutes. There was nothing like feeling guilty to make you think you were hearing things—like when she’d tiptoe down to the kitchen in the middle of the night and help herself to a sliver of coffee cake. As soon as she took the first bite, she would be convinced she heard the bed creak and Frankie’s feet hit the floor. Of course, no one ever showed up in the kitchen because it was all in her head.

  Although maybe it was cousin Louis she’d been hearing—or his ghost. Lucille shook her head. She sure didn’t know what she was going to do about Ma. But this was no time to be thinking of that.

  As soon as she was certain the coast was clear, she pulled the door open the rest of the way, wincing as the hinges protested loudly.

  A cloud of dust blew out of the closet and Lucille had to stifle a sneeze. Didn’t nobody clean anymore? All of St. Rocco’s sure could use a good onceover with a dustcloth.

  The shelves in the closet were crammed willy-nilly with various supplies—half-used boxes of markers, stacks of printer paper for them old printers where the paper came out all attached, a couple of pink-foam-covered weights left over from the time that exercise studio over in Berkeley Heights had put on a free class for senior citizens in the church hall.

  Lucille pushed various things aside, stifling another sneeze as more dust filled the air. She was sure there had to be a notebook in here somewhere.

  Lucille shoved more things out of the way and suddenly her hand touched a book cover in something that felt like leather, although she was pretty sure it was fake. At least it wasn’t as soft as the leather of the jacket Frankie had given her back in high school.

  Lucille pulled it out, saying a prayer to Saint Philomena, who was known as the Wonder Worker. If ever Lucille needed some wonder worked, it was right now.

  She hadn’t turned on the lights and the room was dim. Lucille took the book to a table by the door, flipped on the overhead fluorescents, and began to thumb through the pages.

  The book was filled with lined paper like Bernadette used to use back when she was in high school. A date was noted at the top of each page and a list of names was written under the date. If this here wasn’t an attendance book for Gamblers Anonymous, Lucille would eat her hat. Although she wasn’t wearing one and she couldn’t imagine where on earth that expression had come from. Must have been from back in the days when women wore bonnets and men wore fedoras, which they took off whenever in the presence of a lady. Now they wore baseball caps backward and didn’t even take them off when they sat down to dinner.

  Lucille continued to flip the pages until she came to the one with the date of Dotty’s murder at the top. Six names were neatly printed under the heading. Lucille ran her finger down them.

  None of the names was Joe Ferrara’s.

  Lucille checked again—just to be sure. Nope. She closed the book. Joe hadn’t been at that meeting like he’d said. Which meant he didn’t have no alibi either.

  Joe probably wasn’t the only person who wanted to murder Dotty, but Lucille was pretty sure he was the one who’d actually gone ahead and done it.

  Chapter 20

  Lucille had to make a stop at the drugstore on her way home. They were almost out of Brioschi—her food had been repeating a lot on her lately. She figured it was on account of all the stress with Bernadette and Tony—not to mention Ma and the ghost of cousin Louis. She also needed to pick up a pack of them bandages that were made special to put on corns. She was getting one on the little toe of her right foot because of her fancy dress shoes she’d been wearing for her job at the real estate agency.

  Lucille pulled into the shopping mall where CVS was located. The place sure had expanded—there was even one of them fancy coffee shops that served drinks she couldn’t pronounce and which cost more than the bottles of wine she bought for their Sunday dinners.

  A lady pulling out of a space wasn’t watching where she was going and nearly rammed the Olds. Lucille thought she’d have a heart attack. The Olds had never been in no accident and the thought of it lying dented and broken down at Sam’s Auto Repair made her breakfast start repeating on her. Maybe she’d better get two bottles of Brioschi while she was at it.

  Lucille finally maneuvered the Olds into a space in front of the drugstore. It was a tight squeeze and she was a little crooked, but so what. They didn’t give no prizes for perfect parking.

  Lucille gathered her purchases and joined the line at the checkout. The girl behind the register was arguing about a coupon with a man looking to buy a carton of cigarettes. The customers began to shift their feet and exhale loudly.

  Someone came up in back of Lucille. “Looks like we’re going to be waiting awhile,” Lucille said as she turned around. “Oh, you’re Felicity Schmidt, aren’t you? We was at the Weigh to Lose meeting together.”

  The look on Felicity’s face put Lucille in mind of a cornered rabbit.

  “Hello,” Felicity said so softly Lucille almost couldn’t hear her.

  Lucille held up her bottles of Brioschi. “You ever try this stuff? Works like a charm.”

  Felicity shook her head and looked down at her basket.

  Lucille followed her gaze. Felicity didn’t have much—a bag of cotton balls, some hand cream and another box that was nearly hidden by the other two items. Lucille craned her neck. It looked to be like . . . some form of birth control.

  What cause did Felicity have to go buying that? Lucille wondered. Seeing as how she was in the middle of a divorce.

  Lucille pointed to the box in Felicity’s basket. “I never had much use for that stuff myself. Frankie and I wanted a family right away but it was a long time before Bernadette came along. Then we figured we’d better not waste any time trying for another one. Unfortunately it never happened and now that ship’s sailed, if you know what I mean.”

  Felicity gave her a tight smile.

  “Can you believe it’s been a week already since Dotty’s been killed? The police don’t seem to have a clue as to who done it.”

  Felicity’s lip trembled, and Lucille thought she looked like she was about to cry.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Nooooo.” Felicity’s answer came out in a long, drawn-out wail.

  “Don’t go upsetting yourself none,” Lucille said.

  “Upsetting myself? You’d be upset, too, if you’d had the police at your door asking all sorts of questions.” Felicity twisted her hands around and around the handles of her basket.

  “The police? What did they want with a nice, law-abiding citizen like you?”

  Felicity sniffed. “They seem to think . . . or at least their questions made it seem as if . . . as if they think I might have murdered Dotty.”

  Lucille put a hand on Felicity’s arm. “I know how the police work, see? My nephew Gabe—he’s my sister Angela’s son—only child as a matter of fact—is on the force. And Richie Sambucco—he’s a detective—is all set to marry my friend Flo Baldini. Flo and I have been friends since second grade.”

  Felicity looked puzzled. “What does this have to do with me?”

  Lucille sighed impatiently. “That’s what I’m getting to. Being so close to the police and all, I happen to know that what you need is what they call an alibi. That’s police talk for something that will prove you were somewhere else while Dotty was being murdered.”

  “I know what an alibi is.” Felicity stopped sniffing and straightened her shoulders. She glanced in her basket and immediately began to cry again. “But I can’t tell the police where I was.” She swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “If it got out, I’d be ruined.”

  Lucille had noticed Felicity glance in her
basket. “I heard you was getting a divorce,” she said.

  Felicity looked startled. “Yes. But what does that have—”

  “It’s on account of you’re buying that there birth control stuff,” Lucille continued. “Now, my thinking is, you don’t need that if you’re set on leaving your marriage. But if you happened to be fooling around with someone else . . .”

  “We’re not fooling around—we’re in love.”

  “Don’t get upset. I didn’t mean nothing by it,” Lucille said. “My own Bernadette . . . well, that’s neither here nor there.”

  The line of customers waiting moved forward and Felicity motioned for Lucille to go ahead.

  “What I’m thinking is that you were with this other man when Dotty was murdered. And that’s how come you don’t want to tell the police nothing about it. Am I right?”

  Felicity looked down at her feet. “You’re right. Jerry picked me up as soon as the meeting let out and took me to lunch at the Trap Rock Brewery in Berkeley Heights.”

  Lucille whistled. “That’s some expensive place, I’ve heard.” This Jerry must have money, Lucille thought.

  “But that’s great,” Lucille said to Felicity. “Now all you have to do is tell the police that. They’ll talk to Jerry and Jerry will tell them you was with him. And you’re off the hook.”

  “But I can’t. My husband might find out.”

  “But yous two is in the middle of a divorce. It don’t make no difference now. You’re practically a free woman.”

  “But Andy might find out that I was seeing Jerry before we started the divorce proceedings. And then he’ll use that against me, and I won’t get anything—no money, no house . . .”

  “But this Jerry must have money—taking you to expensive restaurants like the Trap Rock. If yous two get married . . .”

  Felicity’s face crumpled. “We can’t get married,” she wailed. “Jerry’s already married. He’s going to tell his wife he wants a divorce as soon as their youngest graduates high school.”

  “Whoa. Sounds like you’re in something of a pickle.”

  Lucille thought for a moment then turned to Felicity and put her hand on her arm. “I’m not trying to make no accusations here, but if you didn’t kill Dotty, then what was her purse doing in your closet?”

  “How on earth did you—”

  “Janice asked me to show some buyers around your house. On account of there was no one else to do it. It was a young couple—and you know how they are. They need their granite countertops, their on sweet bathrooms and their walk-in closets. So of course I had to show them the closet in the master bedroom. And that’s when I saw Dotty’s purse sitting there right on your shelf like it had always been there.”

  “Well, I didn’t kill Dotty,” Felicity said, sniffing loudly. “I found her purse. Whoever killed her threw the bag in the Dumpster, and it seemed such a waste. Besides, it was like a trophy, you know?” She looked Lucille in the eyes. “After the way she treated me, it seemed only fair. And on top of losing money because of that scumbag husband of hers. She owed it to me. Know what I mean?”

  Afterward, Lucille wondered if she ought to have a word with Richie—on the side like. And tell him about Felicity. There was no reason Felicity’s husband had to find out about Jerry. Richie would understand. The poor thing had been so upset. Lucille figured she couldn’t be sleeping much on account of those dark circles under her eyes. They made her look like the bassett hound that had belonged to old Mrs. Spitz down the street. She was gone now, rest her soul.

  Finally the cashier was finished with the man with the coupons. Lucille put her two bottles of Brioschi on the counter and dug in her purse for her wallet.

  It was a big bag—Lucille got used to carrying something with some size to it when Bernadette was little, what with all the things you needed to carry around for a kid: pacifiers, bibs, a box of animal crackers, a cardboard book with the corner bitten off, it had all gone into her handbag.

  Now she didn’t need that stuff no more, but she had other things she needed to carry around like hand lotion, that hand sanitizer stuff they kept telling you to use, a packet of tissues, a comb, your checkbook, two pairs of reading glasses in case you lost one pair. No wonder she could never find what she wanted.

  Lucille finally pulled out her wallet, paid the cashier for her two bottles of Brioschi and left the drugstore.

  Richie was getting into his car when Lucille reached the sidewalk. He waved, and Lucille walked over to him.

  “So, Lucille. How’s it going?” Richie said, snapping his gum loudly.

  “Oh, you know, so-so.”

  Richie started talking about the wedding, but Lucille wasn’t listening. She was wondering if this would be a good time to tell Richie about Felicity. About her alibi—she’d leave out the part that Jerry was a married man.

  “Felicity has an alibi,” Lucille blurted out suddenly.

  Richie raised his eyebrows. “Who?”

  “Felicity Schmidt. She said you’d been asking her all kinds of questions about Dotty’s murder.”

  “Oh, that Felicity.”

  Lucille gave him a look. “What? You know a whole bunch of Felicitys?”

  Richie exhaled loudly through his nose.

  “What’s this about an alibi?” He fixed Lucille with a stern gaze. “You been up to your investigating again?”

  Lucille pointed to herself. “Me? No. I was just in line with Felicity at the drugstore, and you know how it is—we got to talking.”

  “And she just blurted out that she happens to have an alibi for murder?”

  Lucille scowled. “Don’t be silly. I was real subtle like. I put two and two together like they say.”

  “And you came up with three,” Richie muttered half under his breath.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t say nothing.” Richie flapped his hand at Lucille. “Go on.”

  Lucille looked at him suspiciously but didn’t say anything.

  “Anyway, Felicity couldn’t have killed Dotty on account of she was having lunch with her boyfriend at the time. At that Trap Rock place in Berkeley Heights, which is so expensive.”

  Richie stuck his key in the ignition then turned to Lucille.

  “So that’s all? This Felicity was having lunch with her boyfriend?”

  “Yeah, but don’t you see? He picked her up right after that Weigh to Lose meeting when Dotty was still alive, so Felicity couldn’t have done it.”

  Richie grunted as the engine caught. “I’ll look into it, okay?”

  “Sure, sure.”

  He may have said he was going to look into it, but Lucille knew better—his tone of voice said something completely different.

  • • •

  Theresa was sitting at the kitchen table when Lucille got home. There was a plate in front of her with crumbs on it and the corner of a crust of bread.

  Lucille gestured toward the plate. “So you had lunch?”

  “Yeah. I made myself a sandwich. Where did you get that capicola? It didn’t taste so good—not as good as when Frankie buys it at that deli over in Scotch Plains.”

  “I know. It’s from the A&P. I’m not buying it there no more.”

  Lucille glanced at the kitchen table again and noticed there was only one plate sitting out.

  “How come cousin Louis didn’t come for lunch today.”

  “He did,” Theresa said, looking Lucille in the eye. “But he wasn’t hungry. He said he had a late breakfast.”

  That Lucille could believe. Cousin Louis never did get out of bed until the morning was half over. She smacked herself on the forehead. What had gotten into her? Was she going crazy? Here she was half believing that the ghost of cousin Louis was real. Maybe she’d been working too hard, what with her job at the church and the other one at the real estate agency. Then add the murder on top of that and no wonder she was getting a little batty. She’d better take it easy or she’d end up like her mother.

  “
I want to show you something,” Theresa said. She pushed back her chair and got up. “Let me get my purse.”

  While she was gone, Lucille looked in the refrigerator. Her list of foods approved by Weigh to Lose was still tacked to the door where she’d put it. She consulted the list and looked at the contents of the refrigerator again. She should have popped into the A&P and picked up a few things.

  Maybe she’d make an omelet. With a couple slices of bacon on the side—meat and eggs were on her list. And toast. Only she didn’t have no bread. She did have some carrot cake. Carrots were a vegetable and she was allowed as many of those as she wanted. Bread was on her list and it was made with flour, and so was cake, so she figured that would be okay. They really ought to call cake bread—German chocolate bread, devil’s food bread—then people wouldn’t have to feel so guilty when they had a piece.

  Theresa came back into the room, her red patent leather purse swinging from her arm, as Lucille was getting out the frying pan. She opened the clasp and pulled out a wrinkled piece of paper, which she smoothed out carefully on the table.

  “What have you got there?” Lucille said, peering over Theresa’s shoulder.

  “This here’s from the church bulletin.” She pointed a fuchsia manicured nail at something on the page.

  Lucille grabbed her reading glasses off the counter and slipped them on. She glanced at the page Theresa had torn from the bulletin. She looked at her mother.

  “You’re going to Atlantic City?”

  “Yeah. Me and Muriel Stankowski are planning on going.”

  “Oh. Is cousin Louis going to give you some numbers to play?” Lucille said with raised eyebrows.

  Theresa looked offended. “He already has. What do you think? That’s why we want to go. They’ve hired a nice coach with them individual TVs at every seat and a toilet in the back. Muriel says they’re real comfortable. She took one that time they went to New York City to see the Rockettes in their Christmas show.”