The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One

by Val St. Crowe

  * * *

  Joey Ercalono is—

  Was.

  Joey Ercalono was two or three years older than me. We went to school together. He was not a nice person. I remember when we were in grade school, and he used to bully the little kids out of their lunch money. Once, Joey got so mad at this kid who was avoiding him (because the kid didn’t want to give up his money and didn’t want to get beaten up) that he took the kids pants off and hung him bare assed from the monkey bars. The teachers never found out who did it. The kid wasn’t talking. Joey promised if he did, he’d do way worse things to the kid.

  I never liked Joey. Last year, he started dating my cousin Tressa. I talked to Tressa about it, but she swore up and down that Joey had grown out of all that kid stuff, as she called it. I didn’t believe it. The kind of mean Joey is—was—you don’t grow out of. Sure enough, Tressa started showing up places with sunglasses and scarves and stuff. Pretty soon, she couldn’t hide her bruises. Now, this kind of thing is enough for someone in my family to step in. Tressa wasn’t married to Joey, so it was still technically family business.

  Anyway, Guido decided not to say anything directly to Joey yet. Instead, he went to the head of the Ercalono family, Joey’s grandfather, Michael. There was some discussion, and according to Guido, Michael Ercalono promised he’d whip Joey into shape. Sure enough, we didn’t see any more bruises. The guys all assumed everything was fine.

  But I knew it wasn’t. Last week, I cornered Tressa outside the bathroom at a family dinner. I asked her if Joey was still hitting her. She got scared and told me that everything was fine. I didn’t like the fact she was scared. I asked her what Joey threatened to do if she told. She broke down. She told me that Joey was still hitting her, but that he’d got smart. He only did it places that didn’t show. She told me that the worst thing was that she was pregnant with Joey’s baby, but she was afraid to tell him, because he’d marry her, and she was afraid for the baby.

  I asked her if she wasn’t afraid for herself. She told me that Joey only hit her when she deserved it.

  I should have killed the bastard then.

   But Tressa made me promise not to tell. She said she’d told me woman to woman. She hadn’t told me as if I were a jettatori. There’s a kind of girl code, you know. I didn’t tell. I tried to get to her to leave. I said we’d protect her. I said we’d protect the baby. But she was equally freaked out about having a baby when she wasn’t married. Our family is pretty Catholic, and they aren’t very cool with that kind of thing.

  I guess she did tell Joey. But he didn’t marry her.

  Because two days ago, they dragged Tressa’s body out of the water near the ferry terminal. That rat bastard killed her.

  The guys didn’t want to let me be the person to kill Joey. After all, I’m a girl, and they didn’t like the idea of it. But I convinced them. It had to be me. Because if I hadn’t kept my damned mouth shut, Tressa might still be alive. I couldn’t bring her back. But I could give her justice.

  But even with everything he did, it still bothered me to do it. It bothered me to see him dead. It bothered me to pull the trigger. I don’t know why. Tommy says it gets easier. And Joey is the first person I ever killed.