Flipped For Murder

by Maddie Day

  “Robbie, right? I’m Lou. We ate breakfast at your store on Sunday. We’d cycled out.”

  “Of course.” I shook her hand. “Nice to see you again.” I checked her badge, which read LOUISE PERL-MAN. An old-fashioned name and likely the reason she went by Lou. “Sorry for not recognizing you.”

  “No worries. Different clothes, different context.” Lou cocked her head and smiled. “So, what are you doing here?”

  “Oh.” I gazed at the closed door. “It’s kind of a long story. But I need to see the records of a man who was hospitalized here about twenty-eight years ago. I think he’s my father—the one I never met. Never even knew his name until yesterday.”

  Her dark eyebrows lifted and she whistled.

  “Yeah, I know.” I blew air out through my lips. “Anyway, the woman on the phone said I’d have to prove we were related before she’d let me see his file. But he’s Italian, and—”

  She held up a hand. “I love a good mystery. Come with me and don’t say anything.” She pulled open the door.

  Since I had no choice but to follow her in, that’s what I did.

  “Hey, Marie,” Lou said. “Breaking in a new student.”

  An older woman with a pinched face sat at a desk behind a counter, apparently the Marie who’d refused me access two hours earlier. She glanced up without speaking and then returned her gaze to her computer screen.

  Lou beckoned to me with one finger. I kept following her until we passed through a door on the far side of the office and it closed behind us.

  “I’m a new student, am I?” I said. “What kind of work do you do here?”

  “I told you I was a grad student, right? I’m in medical sociology, and I’m researching the cultural effects of medical practices, specifically hospitalizations. Length, cost, and how it relates to social class, race, income levels, and stuff like that.” She lifted her bag over her head before sitting at a long desk holding five desktop computers. “I spend half my life here lately.” She tossed a long brown braid back over her shoulder.

  “Wow.” I gazed around the room. It was enormous, and looked like library stacks, except instead of books it was rows of floor-to-ceiling files.

  “Here, sit down.” She pointed with her elbow to the chair to her right even as she typed, staring at the screen.

  “Is this going to get you in trouble?” I asked as I sat.

  “Nah. I’m in here a lot. Our department chair got permission for me, and a couple of other students; that’s why the gorgon out there believed the ruse.”

  I leaned closer to her. “Marie was the one on the phone who said I couldn’t have access.”

  Lou lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “This is her fiefdom. Can’t blame her, really. What other power does she have in her life? I bring her something from Nashville Fudge Kitchen once in a while to stay on her good side.”

  I laughed my relief. “Eating their fudge is like going to heaven without having to die first.”

  “You bet. Despite all these physical files”—Lou waved her head to indicate the rest of the room—“everything is online. And these days they only keep digital records.” She glanced at me, hands ready on the keyboard. Her nut-brown fingers sported a half-dozen silver rings on both hands, one with a triangular hunk of turquoise surrounded by a heavy silver band, and unpainted nails evenly trimmed to a no-nonsense length. “Now, how specific can you get about this Italian of yours?”

  I shut my eyes for a second, trying to remember the date, then opened them. “I think it was June fifteenth,” and told her the year. “He dove into the Empire Quarry and hurt himself.”

  She tapped and waited and typed some more, examining the screen as she went. “Got it.”

  My heart was going triple time. My hands were cold and sweaty at once, and I felt woozy. I was about to find out if Roberto had been seriously hurt, and maybe even how to contact him.

  Lou read aloud: “‘Admitted with injuries consistent with diving into the reported body of water, blah, blah, concussion, broke his left tibia, contusions, lacerations. . . ’”

  “No spinal cord damage?”

  “I don’t see anything about that.”

  “Whew. I was worried he’d been paralyzed, or worse.”

  She stared at the screen.

  “What?” I asked.

  “There’s something here about a contusion on the back of Roberto’s head.” She wrinkled her nose. “How’d he get that from diving?”

  “From a submerged hazard, maybe? They’re always warning people about old cars and underwater rocks you can’t tell are there.”

  “Hmm. Interesting.”

  “What?” I was starting to sound like a CD that had been left in a hot car too many times.

  “Some other guy was admitted at the same time—”

  “Don O’Neill?”

  “Yeah. All he suffered was a broken arm. Dove in to rescue Roberto, he said. A woman called the ambulance and came in with them.”

  “That must have been my mom. She was seeing Roberto. Or Don. Or both. I couldn’t get a straight story from Don earlier today.”

  Lou looked sharply at me. “What’s your last name again?”

  “Jordan. Mom was Jeanine Jordan.”

  “Well, unless she was in the witness protection program or something, it wasn’t her. The one who reported the accident was a Stella Rogers.”

  Chapter 19

  I stared at her. “Are you sure?”

  She pointed to the screen. “See?”

  I leaned over and read the words. Stella. Huh. Could there be a connection between that line of a decades-old hospital admittance form and Stella’s death?

  “Who’s Stella, anyway?” Lou asked, sitting back in her chair.

  “She was a friend of Don’s. But she was murdered on Saturday. Shot.”

  “She’s the one? I saw that on the local news.” She whistled again.

  “She’s the one. Bad news is, they found her with one of my biscuits stuffed in her mouth and one of my mom’s pens on the floor.” I hunched into my shoulders. “I didn’t kill her, I promise you.”

  Lou’s laugh was deep and rolling. “Don’t worry, I didn’t think you did.”

  “But the police do, or at least I’m one of those infamous ‘persons of interest,’ and they don’t seem to be making much progress on finding who actually did the deed.” I folded my arms. “It’s weird I finally discover who my father was and he turns out to be somehow linked to the murder.”

  “That’s weird, all right. Isn’t it kind of a stretch, though, to say he’s linked to the murder?”

  “I just mean that he knew Stella, and that she was there when he was hurt,” I said.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “Heck if I know.” I gazed at the files beyond us. “Wait, can you help me with one more thing? Does it give Roberto’s Italian address anywhere there?”

  “You want to contact him.” She looked at me with surprisingly light blue eyes, or maybe they only looked light in her tanned face.

  After I nodded, her fingers flew over the keyboard. I’d always been fascinated by watching people type. They all used their fingertips differently. Lou was touch-typing with all ten, but her pinkie flew up to the numbers row and even the function key row frequently, and she only pressed the SHIFT key with her left pinkie, never with her right. Others used two fingers and were surprisingly fast and accurate, while certain people laboriously pecked with only the thumb and first two fingers on each hand.

  “Tuscany. A place called Montecatini Terme.” The words rolled off her tongue like she wasn’t an American. “No street address.”

  Tuscany. That made it real. Maybe I could find him now. If I wanted to. Maybe he could tell me what happened all those years ago.

  Lou sat back again. “I’ve been there. Gorgeous corner of the universe. And the food? To die for.”

  “I’ve never been anywhere. California and here. That’s it. When were you there?”

&n
bsp; “I was on a cycling tour of Tuscany after college. Montecatini Terme has hot springs and spas going back centuries. Perfect after a long day of riding. That’s what ‘terme’ means. ‘Thermal,’ you know, like thermal baths.”

  “Just like South Lick, except here they were mineral baths,” I said. “Maybe that’s why Roberto came here.”

  “That area of Tuscany is super hilly for biking, too. Also like Brown County. He must have felt right at home, except for the language.”

  I scrabbled in my purse for a minute. “Do you have a pen I can use? I can’t find anything to write with.”

  “Hang on.” Lou held up a hand and faced the computer again. A moment later a printer whirred to action at the end of the table. “Printed the whole record out for you. Just don’t tell Marie.” She snorted and then laughed again. “As if.”

  I’d just tucked the printout into my bag when the door to the office opened.

  “I’m leaving, Louise,” Marie called. “Make sure you check the doors when you go.”

  “I always do, Marie. Have a good evening,” Lou said. After the door closed again, she continued, “Close one! Almost caught me red-handed.” She examined her palms with a grin. “Nope, nothing there.”

  “You’re sure. . . .”

  “Hey, I’m here with permission. I’m only teasing. I print stuff out all the time. How does she know what it is?”

  “Well, thank you, Louise.” A giggle slipped out of me. This was like sneaking out back with a girlfriend in middle school and sharing an illicit cigarette.

  “Hey!” She elbowed me. “Marie insists on calling me Louise. I can’t train her out of it, even though nobody but my grandmother is allowed to call me that.” She glanced at the time on the computer. “Oh, what the hell. Want to go for a beer at Nick’s? I don’t really need to work here today.”

  “Love to.” I could use a new friend about now. And it was too late to call Italy, anyway.

  I didn’t make it home until seven. I’d stuck to only one beer, nursing it along as I got to know Lou better over a plate of onion rings and crispy fries, while she demolished a stromboli, with bits of sausage and pizza sauce leaking out of the bun onto her plate. As always, Nick’s English Hut was hopping with students and professors, being a block from Indiana University. The local institution, getting on for a century old, served up beer in Mason jars, featured a decent pub menu, and employed a fleet of no-nonsense, fast-moving waitpeople. Adele had taken me there for lunch once when I was out visiting during high school. A short waitress named Ruthie, on the far side of sixty, wearing a halter top, almost threw our menus at us. These days Ruthie’s photo hung on the wall next to her framed obituary.

  Chatting with my new friend had been a fun break from work and worry. But now that I was home, it all flooded back. I worked in the restaurant, getting the biscuit dough ready and premixing the dry ingredients for apple-spice muffins. As I did, I went over and over what Lou and I learned from the report. Stella called in the accident. Roberto presented with a contusion on the back of his head, but no spinal cord injury. He hailed from a hilly place with therapeutic springs, just like Brown County.

  I set up five tables, laying the bundles of silverware wrapped in cloth napkins at each place. I pictured the opening morning, with Corrine striding in here like she was queen of the town and owned the joint, too. She’d later told me Stella was blackmailing men in town. But which ones? What if she’d been blackmailing Corrine about something, too? That could be part of the reason the mayor detested her assistant. Stella certainly could have been blackmailing Ed about being a womanizer, especially if he was going after young, even underage women. And the report of the bump on the back of Roberto’s head bugged me. Maybe Don whacked him on the head from behind, making him fall into the quarry, and then lied about Roberto diving in. Stella could have seen the whole thing. But why was she killed now?

  I frowned at the basket of silverware bundles, which was now empty. I needed to roll more. But first I needed to put the laundry to dry. Using cloth napkins was a little overboard, and meant more labor, but I hated thin paper napkins. Plus I thought the blue cloth brought a touch of class to my rustic restaurant. Hey, it was more environmental, wasn’t it? I headed over to the laundry closet, transferred the load, and pressed START. I glanced around the store. Everything else was ready. If I could find Roberto, maybe he’d tell me the truth about the quarry. But would he want to talk with his long-lost daughter? It was possible he didn’t even know about me.

  Only one way to find out. After I freshened up Birdy’s dry food, doled out a dollop of canned treat into a small dish, and refilled the water bowl, I sat at my laptop. At least now I knew a town to pair with his name. This time when I typed in Montecatini Terme after Roberto Fracasso and clicked Images, several versions of the silver-haired man appeared. In one of the photos, he beamed over the head of a tiny boy with dark curly hair who perched on his lap. A grandchild, perhaps? His hair was identical to mine at that age. I sat back. That would make him my nephew. And it would mean I have a half sister or half brother out there. Maybe more than one. Wow. I was so used to not having any family except Mom and Adele. And because Adele never had children, I didn’t even have cousins.

  I clicked on the picture to make it bigger and leaned in, gazing at it. Roberto was handsome for an older man. I liked the look around his dark eyes. Smile lines radiated out, but I detected a hint of sadness in there, too. Birdy jumped up on my lap and settled in, his head on his front paws. I stroked his soft head as I looked at my father. Maybe I could look up how to say “Dad” in Italian.

  I went back to the Web tab. One link included the word “Professore” in front of his name. Even I could figure out that meant “professor.” The link included “Università di Pisa,” too. Which must be University of Pisa. Gee, maybe he teaches next to the Leaning Tower. I’d always wanted to see that.

  I clicked the university link and then swallowed hard. I saw his e-mail address. Damn. It was too late to call Italy—it must be around midnight or something. But it was never too late to send an e-mail message. Composing one could take the rest of the night, though. If I was going to reach out to him, I needed to word it exactly right. And I didn’t particularly like opening myself up to being hurt. What if he never answered? What if he denied being my father? What if . . . what if I drove myself crazy with wondering? I told myself in no uncertain terms to cut it out. Either write the thing or don’t.

  Folding napkins with a couple fingers of Four Roses in a glass at my side should have been a nice, meditative way to calm my mind. Instead, the task was rote enough to let my crazy brain roam at will. I’d clicked SEND on the short e-mail twenty minutes earlier and immediately regretted it. After much stewing and deleting, all I’d typed was:

  Roberto: My mother was Jeanine Jordan. She died earlier this year. If you are the Roberto Fracasso who was in Indiana twenty-eight years ago, please contact me. I’d like to talk with you about her.

  I’d signed it, included my cell phone number, and attached the picture Phil took of me on opening morning, since his skill with a camera was on par with all his other talents, and it had come out halfway decent. I’d even taken my hat off for it, so my hair that matched Roberto’s was evident. I figured framing the note to be about Mom and not my genetic connection to Roberto was safer. Once he took a look at my picture, he’d guess, anyway. I worked on the subject line longer than the actual message, finally settling with Regarding Jeanine Jordan, which ought to catch his attention and not look like junk mail.

  But was it the right thing to do? What can of wriggly night-crawling fish food was I opening, one twist of the can opener at a time? Maybe he wouldn’t open the e-mail. Maybe he didn’t read English. Maybe it would go straight into his SPAM folder, or whatever they called it in Italian, despite Mom’s name in the subject line. Oh, well. Too late now.

  I’d just brought the silverware tray to the table and started rolling bundles when my cell rang. My heart thudded to the
floor and lay there beating up a storm. It couldn’t be Roberto already, could it? If it was nine at night here, it must be dark o’clock in the morning over there. Did the man not sleep? Paralyzed, I stared at the phone. I always kept it on vibrate, and it jiggled its way over to a spoon on the varnished wooden table. I forced myself to check the display and then laughed with a nervous quaver as I picked it up and connected.

  “Jim,” I said, “I’m so glad it’s you.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, no. Well, you know. It’s not that everything is right, what with Stella and all. But . . .” I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t tell him on the phone that it appeared I’d found my father. So much had happened in such a short period of time, but it just wasn’t phone conversation material.

  “You’re confusing me.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought someone else was calling me and I was glad it wasn’t who I thought it was.” Or am I?

  He didn’t speak for a moment. Uh-oh, does he think I’m hanging out with another man? I lined up a fork on a napkin and stacked a spoon on top of it.

  He cleared his throat. “I called because I wondered if I could make you dinner tomorrow night at my place. But if you’re busy—”

  “No, I’m not busy. Not at all. I’d love dinner at your place, Jim. I . . .” I couldn’t say I had a lot to tell him, because then, for sure he’d ask what it was. “What time, and what can I bring?”

  Chapter 20

  “Robbie,” Danna said, moving to my side as I flipped cakes during breakfast the next morning. We experienced our usual rush despite the weather having turned cold and stormy. The coatrack was full of dripping raincoats and the antique umbrella stand held a half-dozen soaked umbrellas.

  I glanced up at her grim tone, one I’d never heard her use before. “What’s going on?”