by J. D. Griffo
Blushing slightly, Alberta was about to answer when Jinx beat her to it. “Nobody else but my Gram.”
Swooshing the air with the back of her hand, Alberta dismissed the idea that she had insight others didn’t. “Sono diventato fortunate.”
“It was more than luck. You’re too modest and you know it,” Lori said. “And I think the chief here knows it too, don’t you, Vin?”
This time Lori flashed a huge smile and immediately all her features softened. Her appearance didn’t magically transform into a Marilyn Monroe at any stage of the icon’s life, but she at least got closer to an attractive mid-career Barbara Stanwyck. Alberta couldn’t help but notice that Lori didn’t wear a stitch of makeup so the dark circles under her eyes and the dry patches of skin on her cheeks and forehead were magnified. Or that she wasn’t as obsessed with dyeing her hair like Alberta was so her mousy brown hair fell limply at the top of her broad shoulders and proudly showed off strands of gray at her temples like a man’s sideburns. Flaws aside, however, when Lori smiled her homely features faded and revealed a prettier exterior.
And when she threw her head back to laugh at Vinny’s apparent discomfort with her comments, she revealed two long horizontal lines on her neck and droopy skin that jiggled as she chuckled. Alberta realized this was a woman who didn’t care about outward appearances. She might possess strong, borderline masculine features, but she didn’t feel the need to camouflage them with expensive products and spend time each day transforming herself into something she wasn’t and someone the rest of the world expected her to be. Alberta wanted to applaud her for her self-confidence and bravery, but instead she just laughed along with her.
“Looks like you’ve found yourself a worthy sparring partner, Vinny.”
“Not sure about that, Alberta,” Lori said. “I think you might’ve beaten me to the punch.”
It was Vinny’s turn to blush, and Alberta thought it positively endearing to watch her childhood friend’s face turn a subtle shade of red. Since their relationship was purely platonic, she knew he wasn’t turning colors because of the possibility that they might embark on a romance so it had to be the idea that he and Lori could be a couple that was making his olive skin appear sunburnt. There was a thin line between love and hate after all.
Alberta looked at Lori, who even in her flats was almost five feet ten inches, and then at the over-six-foot Vinny and decided that they might make a nice pairing after all. She didn’t get a chance to do any matchmaking because Lori was otherwise engaged. But luckily with a man who had no pulse.
Lori opened up the toxicology report and flipped through to the last page. She grabbed a pen from the pocket of her white lab coat and signed her name to the report. Alberta noticed her signature also had a unique style—both L’s were large and written in cursive, while the rest of the letters in both her names were printed.
“Here’s the report, Vin,” she said, handing over the file. “Once I get the results from the follow-up tests, I’ll write up an addendum. Now I hafta run. I’m due in Morristown. Their examiner is away at a conference, and they’ve got a thirty-nine-year-old male on a slab waiting for my gentle touch.”
She took off her lab coat and tossed it on top of a filing cabinet in the corner of the room. She then leaned over her desk and grabbed her jacket that was draped over her chair. But when she turned around, her hip accidentally brushed against the blue and white porcelain vase on her desk that contained a small bouquet of white roses—the only personal touch in the otherwise antiseptic room—causing it to slide to the edge of the desk, totter back and forth, and slowly tip over the side. Jinx leaped forward, bent down on one knee, and grabbed the vase just before it was about to crash on the floor.
Lori whipped around to see Jinx holding up the vase almost like an offering to her, and a few tears sprang up to the corners of her eyes.
“Oh my God,” Lori gasped. “Thank you so much.”
Turning her back to the others, Lori placed the vase back on her desk and fiddled with the flowers for a moment. With her back to her visitors, she said, “Guess I’m not so gentle after all.” When she turned back around she was dry eyed and smiling. “Sorry, I’ve had that vase for years and I’d hate for it to break.”
“You don’t have to tell me about sentimental value,” Alberta said. “I still have the pantyhose I wore on my wedding day tucked away in a box.”
“I hope they didn’t stay on too long,” Lori teased.
The women laughed uproariously, their voices echoing throughout the small room, while Vinny and Jinx merely smiled. Vinny, because he just didn’t think the comment was funny and Jinx because she knew Lori made the comment to hide her true feelings.
* * *
Later that afternoon it was Jinx who was trying, unsuccessfully, to hide her true feelings.
“Get ready to wear your big girl pants, Jinx, ’cause you’re officially on the varsity squad.”
“Could you maybe speak in English and not sports metaphors?” Jinx asked. “You know I don’t know my football from my hockey puck.”
Wyck Wycknowski, the editor-in-chief of The Upper Sussex Herald, and Jinx’s boss, frowned. Wyck, whose real name was Troy, but had been known by the shortened version of his last name since the day he was born, brushed some stray strands of his flaming red hair back over his ears and sighed, “That’s one of your few faults, Jinx, but I’m willing to overlook it because you have the makings of a fine reporter.”
“Thank you, sir,” she replied, thrilled by the acknowledgment, but still a bit confused as to why she had been summoned into the boss’s office. “Going back to my original question, could you please de-sportsify that comment and explain why I need to amend my wardrobe?”
“What? Oh right, of course,” he stammered. “Jonas Harper’s been murdered.”
News really did travel fast in a small town. Good news traveled even faster.
“And I want you to investigate this one.”
Jinx couldn’t believe her ears. She was actually being handed a murder investigation without having to beg for it. She had planned to tell Wyck about the murder, but she couldn’t figure out how to massage the message to include her desire to report on it without appearing mercenary. She also felt it would be a waste of her time since most often the more senior editors like Sylvester Calhoun, her biggest competitor, got to work on the juiciest stories. As the newbie, it was a constant struggle for Jinx to get the chance to write about anything more exciting than shouting matches at the local PTA meetings. She did get to share the byline with Calhoun on some articles about the last murder that took place in Tranquility a few months ago, but since then, she had gone back to her unenviable position as Queen of the Soft News. Wyck was about to change all of that. Unfortunately, with change came some strings.
“Before you start jumping up and down and doing that happy dance thing that you do, I have to warn you,” Wyck cautioned. “Calhoun is going to be working the case as well.”
“Why?” Jinx protested. “I can do this on my own, you know I can.”
Wyck’s faced formed into a doubtful half smile. “You’re good, Jinx, but you’re inexperienced, and the fact of the matter is if you’d look at Calhoun like a mentor instead of your competition you could learn a lot from him.”
It was Jinx’s turn to smile doubtfully.
“And anyway, Calhoun came to me with the story first so there’s no way I can’t let him run with it,” Wyck disclosed. “His buddy, Luke, at the morgue filled him in on the medical examiner’s findings.”
“He must’ve bribed Luke to give him that information,” Jinx whined.
“Of course he did!” Wyck confirmed. “You think you can get info like that just by tossing your hair back and smiling?”
“Um, well, yeah,” Jinx confessed sheepishly involuntarily tossing her long black wavy hair from side to side.
For the second time in one day Jinx was in a room rippling with laughter while she remained silent. “You got so much to learn, Jinx
ie, I love it! Trust me, in no time at all, you’ll be the one scooping Calhoun.”
Deflated, but not entirely depressed, Jinx realized that sharing top billing with Calhoun once again was hardly the worst thing for her career. She had only been a reporter for less than a year, after all, and she reminded herself that sometimes it was important to look at the whole picture and not dwell on the smallest detail. In other words, it was time to party, not sulk.
“Nola!” she screamed into her cell phone. “Tell me you’re free tonight, we need to celebrate.”
On the other end of the line, Jinx’s roommate, Nola Kirkpatrick, was sitting behind her desk at St. Winifred’s Academy, marking up a student’s essay with her favorite fine-tipped red marker.
“I’m free,” Nola said, grabbing a hold of her long blonde hair and twirling it with her fingers. “But what do you want to celebrate?”
“Wyck’s letting me be the lead on an investigative story!” Jinx gushed. “Co-lead with Calhoun to be exact, but I’ll take it.”
“That’s wonderful, Jinx, you’re really moving up in the world,” Nola replied. “What’s the story about?”
“That’s the sad part . . . there’s been another murder.”
“Another one!” Nola shouted. “Maybe we should rename this town Cabot Cove.”
Jinx rolled her eyes at the reference to the setting of the old TV series Murder, She Wrote. Nola also taught theater at St. Winifred’s and sometimes she forgot to leave the drama in the classroom. “It isn’t that bad and you know it,” Jinx said. “Murder is a fact of life.”
“Wow! Listen to you. You’re already sounding like a hard-boiled reporter,” Nola joked. “Lucky for you I can offset your grisly news with some news of my own.”
“Really? What’s going on with you?!” Jinx yelled. “Tell me! Tell me now!”
Jinx was practically hyperventilating, completely unaware that she sounded even more melodramatic than Nola.
“I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell you, but I have my own reason to celebrate,” Nola confessed. “I have a new boyfriend.”
The two girls squealed for about a minute over the news, and Jinx forgot all about Jonas’s murder. Instead, she was more consumed with making plans for their celebration tonight, which would simply be dinner at their apartment with their boyfriends.
Later that night sitting on the couch next to her boyfriend, Freddy, Jinx couldn’t believe her eyes when Nola opened the door and introduced them to her new boyfriend. If it was possible, Kichiro Miyahara looked even more uncomfortable standing in Jinx’s apartment than he did next to Jonas’s dead body.
“Surprise,” he said impishly when he saw Jinx’s jaw drop.
Channeling her grandmother, Jinx replied, “Sorpresa indeed!”
CHAPTER 7
In vino veritas.
Jinx was dying to talk to Alberta and her aunts about her recent discovery that Kichiro was not only Vinny’s right-hand man, but Nola’s new number one guy, but a funeral service wasn’t the most appropriate place to gossip. Plus, her grandmother was preoccupied with her own romantic relationship, and Jinx didn’t want to interrupt them.
Walking up the steps of Ippolito Stellato’s funeral parlor, Jinx held onto her boyfriend Freddy’s hand, but her eyes were on another fella entirely. She couldn’t help but smile when she saw Sloan place his hand on Alberta’s elbow to guide her inside the funeral parlor. Jinx knew her grandmother didn’t need his help, but she was thrilled to see that Alberta didn’t push his hand away and accepted his touch for the kind gesture that it was. She quickened her pace, dragging Freddy behind her so she could catch up to Alberta and Sloan before they got lost in the crowd. Jonas Harper’s wake was jampacked and turning out to be the event of the season.
As Jinx passed her grandmother, she didn’t say anything, she merely winked. Alberta knew exactly what Jinx was trying to say—that she wholeheartedly approved of Sloan. And Alberta wholeheartedly agreed.
Sloan McClelland was unlike any other man Alberta had ever known, let alone dated. Not that she had much experience dating since she married Sammy so soon after high school. Still, his intelligence, his cultured air, his physical charms, his non-Italian-ness were all very refreshing to Alberta. She also had to admit that she liked the stares that she was getting from people in the town now that the rumor was bubbling that she and Sloan were a couple. In her heart she wasn’t sure how true that was. She enjoyed his company, she found him a delight to talk to, but she didn’t know if she wanted another man in her life on a permanent basis. She was just getting to know herself better, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to throw another person into the mix.
If Lola had her way, however, Sloan would move in to the cottage tomorrow.
“Your pants are still covered in cat fur,” Alberta noted. “It’s seems like Lola’s got a crush on you.”
“That makes two of us,” Sloan said, grinning. “And her mama’s not so bad either.”
Alberta feigned shock and slapped Sloan playfully on the shoulder, “Don’t be such a dirty old man this close to an open casket.”
“God will understand,” Sloan said, then sighed heavily. “Plus, He’s busy right now getting Jonas acclimated to his new home.”
That was another thing Alberta liked about Sloan—he was spiritual and wasn’t afraid to talk about it. In all the years of her marriage to Sammy, she could only recall a few times when he spoke of God or heaven in a way that wasn’t a regurgitation of a bible lesson he remembered from Catholic school or a pithy platitude that he might have seen on a bumper sticker. Come to think of it, she didn’t even know what Sammy believed. She assumed because he was Italian Catholic that he subscribed to the theories of the church, but in hindsight she wasn’t certain. She had learned more about Sloan’s spiritual beliefs and background in the few months she’d known him than she did of her husband after several decades of marriage.
“I hope Jonas finds more peace up there than he ever did down here on earth,” Sloan remarked.
“I wonder if he was searching for peace and quiet from this world inside the tree house that night,” Alberta commented.
“Possibly,” Sloan said. “It was the reason his father built the thing for him in the first place.”
“What?” Alberta exclaimed.
She shouted just loud enough so her voice echoed throughout the viewing room and caused most of the people in the nearby vicinity to look around to see who was making such a disrespectful commotion. Not wanting to be pointed out as the culprit, Alberta joined them in looking around and even shook her head and tsk-tsked under her breath as if to chide the guilty party. When the interest from the attendees in finding the loudmouth subsided, she refocused her attention on getting Sloan to elaborate. But this time in a whisper.
“Jonas’s father did what?”
“After Jonas’s mother died, which happened when Jonas was very young, his father built him the tree house when the park was nothing more than an open plot of land as a sort of refuge because Jonas took his mother’s death very hard,” Sloan explained. “She died from cancer and it was a long illness.”
“Losing your mother so young and having to watch her pass, that’s a tragedy,” Alberta said, shaking her head in sympathy. “But what a wonderful father.”
“Yes, Aaron Harper was a good man,” Sloan reminisced. “But Jonas could never get over his mother’s death. His father tried, but he could never reach his son.”
Before Sloan could elaborate any further, Alberta saw Helen and Joyce sitting on the other side of the room, and Helen was waving them over. Even though they weren’t in a church it was always difficult for Alberta to see Helen at a religious ceremony without her being dressed as a nun. It had been almost a year since Helen left the convent, and while Helen seemed to be adapting to a secular life very nicely, Alberta often found herself having a problem accepting her sister’s metamorphosis because she didn’t know why Helen left the convent in the first place. The only explanation
Helen had given was that it was time for a change. Alberta knew there was more to it than that, and it was a mystery she was determined to solve, one that she might focus on once they found Jonas’s killer.
The prayers were led by Father Sal, Helen’s former colleague and would-be professional nemesis. She didn’t hold him in the highest regard, but he did quite a wonderful job and managed to highlight all the positive points of Jonas’s life, while circumventing the negatives. He impressed those in attendance, however, by not ignoring the fact that Jonas battled alcoholism for a large portion of his life, but defied every person in the church to think lesser of him. He preached that every person has their demons and, in the end, the only one able to pass judgment of any kind was God.
Alberta looked around and saw many people, including Vinny and Lori, though they were sitting nowhere near each other, nodding or bowing their heads in either prayer for Jonas or as part of their own self-reflection. For all of his flaws, Father Sal was touching the hearts of the community.
“He might turn out to be a decent priest after all,” Helen whispered sarcastically to Joyce.
Father Sal was about to gain even more of Helen’s praise.
“Thank you all for coming today to celebrate the life of one of our own, Jonas Harper,” Sal said. “Due to the police investigation, the church mass and the funeral itself will take place at a later date and will be private, but for now we would like to continue the celebration so please join us at Veronica’s Diner where we’ll raise a glass of wine in Jonas’s honor.”
“Well, isn’t that a nice surprise,” Helen cooed.
Alberta, however, thought that Sal had made a huge faux pas by suggesting that the entire town should raise a glass of wine to celebrate the life of a man who spent so much of his life abusing alcohol, but then she saw by the sea of excited faces that everyone fully condoned the idea. Especially Helen.
“Isn’t that thoughtful of Sal,” Helen said.
“Also too, it’s Saturday.”
“What so special about that?” Alberta asked.
