Murder in Tranquility Park

by J. D. Griffo

  The female detective pulled out a Ziploc bag from her back pocket and took out plastic gloves. She passed the bag to Vinny who did the same. He put the end of the bag in his mouth as both he and Tambra put on their gloves, and when he was finished he shoved the bag into his own back pocket. Whatever it was that they were looking for, they were now ready to begin their search.

  “Jinx, babe, what’s going on?” Freddy whispered. “What could they possibly be looking for?”

  Shrugging her shoulders, Jinx said, “I have no idea.”

  Looking at Jinx with eyes that were both amused and frightened, Freddy replied in a soft whisper, “Girlfriend, you are so lying to me.”

  On the one hand Jinx was delighted that her boyfriend knew her well enough to know that she was lying, but on the other hand she was disappointed because she knew she’d have to work on her cover-up skills. For the moment, however, she needed to focus on some other people in the room.

  Jinx wasn’t sure how many times Tambra and Vinny had done this kind of thing before as a team, but they worked together in silence and with precision as if they were the only ones in the apartment.

  Tambra disappeared into Nola’s bedroom and Vinny lingered briefly in the living room before entering the kitchen. The moment both police officers exited the living room the mood between Nola and Kichiro changed, and Jinx noticed that they began acting as if they were as skilled and familiar a team as Vinny and Tambra.

  “What are they doing here?” Nola asked.

  “I have no idea,” Kichiro replied.

  Just as Freddy knew that Jinx was lying when she spoke the same words less than a minute before, Nola eyed her boyfriend suspiciously, and it was clear that mistrust was all that linked them. The fact that two police officers were in earshot was what kept Nola’s reply to a seething whisper. “You better not.”

  “Chief!”

  Vinny didn’t verbally reply to Tambra’s cry and instead rushed out of the kitchen into Nola’s bedroom. In reaction to the sudden activity, Nola became frightened, but Jinx couldn’t tell if it was because she knew what was going to happen next or if she was terrified of the unknown. Regardless, Kichiro did nothing to alleviate his girlfriend’s concerns even though Freddy had stood up and placed his arm around Jinx’s waist as both a thoughtful gesture and a lame attempt to protect her from whatever was about to come.

  Jinx, however, wasn’t the one who needed protection.

  Vinny came out of the bedroom followed by Tambra who was holding something in another clear Ziploc bag. Their expressions were textbook, unemotional, and professional. And despite the gravity of the words Vinny spoke, his tone of voice was the same.

  “Nola Kirkpatrick,” he said. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Jonas Harper.”

  * * *

  Less than an hour later, Alberta, Helen, and Joyce had joined Jinx and Freddy and were all crammed into a corner of the police station while Nola was somewhere behind closed doors being fingerprinted, photographed, and told that the police believed that she was a murderess. And as Jinx explained, it was all her fault.

  “Lovey, how is any of this your fault?” Alberta asked.

  “Because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

  “You’re going to have to elaborate a little bit,” Helen said.

  “Because I’m the one who shared the evidence with Lori,” she replied.

  “What evidence?” Joyce asked.

  “The evidence they found in our apartment.”

  “I know you’re upset,” Alberta said. “But you need to be more specific?”

  Jinx closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and finally found the strength to speak.

  “I visited Nola at her school and I noticed something peculiar. On a hunch I went to see Lori to ask her to, you know, do her thing with it, and the next thing I know Vinny is carting off Nola in handcuffs.”

  “Jinxie, do I need to slap you to make you stop rambling?” Helen asked, completely serious. “Because I have no problem doing that if it’ll make you talk in complete sentences.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jinx said, tears forming in her eyes. “I’m just so upset that my friend is in there because of me.”

  Freddy put his arms around Jinx before Alberta had the chance, a loving gesture that almost made Alberta cry. “Hey, Jinx, unless you planted something in Nola’s bedroom that the police found,” Freddy said. “You’re not the reason she’s currently behind bars.”

  “You didn’t plant anything in her bedroom, did you?” Helen asked.

  “Helen Rose Ferrara!” Alberta gasped. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Berta, if you only knew the things I’ve heard people say they’ve done,” she replied. “I find it best to get the obvious questions out in the open in order to focus on the important things, like what in the name of Marcello Mastroianni is Jinx talking about.”

  “Honey, it would help if you could break it down from the beginning,” Joyce added. “Also too, I have a flask in my purse filled with lemon-flavored vodka if that’ll help calm your nerves.”

  “I’ll have some,” Helen said.

  “I wasn’t offering it to you,” Joyce replied.

  “You were always very selfish.”

  “Ladies can we please concentrate on why we’re here,” Alberta interrupted. “Jinx, sit down and tell us how this all started.”

  As a group, the four women and Freddy moved over to some empty chairs in the corner of the waiting room. They all turned to face Jinx, who wiped away her tears, took an even longer breath, and then began to explain.

  “When I was at St. Winifred’s I noticed that there were flowers all over the grounds except right underneath the window of Nola’s classroom,” Jinx started. “I thought that was odd and I remembered what you said about the pesticide that killed Bocce and then, of course, a huge light bulb went off in my head because Jonas was poisoned by pesticide. I realized that the soil must’ve been doused with a pesticide too, which prevented any flowers from growing, I mean why else would only one spot on the grounds not be filled with flowers.”

  “Wow! My girlfriend’s a brainiac,” Freddy boasted.

  Once again, Freddy made Alberta smile. She was thrilled that her granddaughter had found such a worthy young man. Jinx, however, didn’t feel she was worthy of anything except a dunce cap.

  “Your girlfriend’s also an idiot,” Jinx replied. “After I left, I snuck back and took a sample of the soil underneath the window sill and brought it to Lori. I asked her to test it against the type of pesticide that was found in Jonas’s system and, of course, she asked me a ton of questions about where I found it and why I suspected this sample contained the same chemical substance, and I knew whatever I said would implicate Nola.”

  “So what did you do, lovey?” Alberta asked.

  “I told Lori that I couldn’t remember where I found it and ran out,” Jinx replied. “Some investigative reporter I am.”

  “Sometimes it’s more important to be a friend first,” Alberta said.

  “Some friend!” Jinx shouted. “Because of me, the police got a search warrant and rummaged through our apartment thinking I was the culprit until they found the pesticide that was used to kill Jonas in a water-tight bag floating in the toilet tank in Nola’s bathroom.”

  The three older women gasped so loudly that the rest of the people in the waiting room turned around to face them, curious as to what was so shocking. Helen turned around to face the inquisitive faces and said, “Keep walking, nothing interesting over here.”

  “You know what they say, honey,” Joyce said. “You can’t blame the messenger.”

  “No, I can only blame myself!” Jinx cried. “Why didn’t I talk to Nola first before handing over such incriminating evidence to the medical examiner? Am I that hungry to get some inside information for an article?”

  “No, you’re that hungry to find out who killed an innocent man,” Alberta assured.

  “But Nola couldn’t have possibly kille
d Jonas,” Jinx said. “She isn’t violent. She got mad at me once when I killed a bee that flew into our apartment.”

  “She might not be violent, but she does have a motive,” Freddy suggested.

  “You’re talking about the restraining order?” Alberta asked.

  “I know that she later changed her mind and got it rescinded,” Freddy explained, “but the fact remains that Jonas did something that made Nola scared enough to go to the police to stop him from stalking her. Maybe the dude started acting weird again and Nola decided to take matters into her own hands.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Jinx exclaimed. “I don’t care what the police found.”

  “The police found evidence hidden in the toilet tank in Nola’s bathroom where presumably no one would ever find it,” Alberta said softly. “Why would she do something like that if she had nothing to hide?”

  “None of this makes sense, Gram. I know it looks bad, but Nola isn’t the murdering type. I’m her roommate, her best friend, I should know.”

  “Maybe she’s as bad a criminal as she is a drama teacher,” Helen remarked.

  “Aunt Helen, please don’t joke about it.”

  “Who’s joking?” Helen asked. “I told you her production of The Sound of Music was terrible. If she’s as bad at trying to hide evidence as she was trying to hide the fact that she doesn’t know how to direct, then it’s no surprise that the police found her stash.”

  “I mean for heaven’s sake she was voted Teacher of the Year three years in a row,” Jinx shouted.

  “Then it’s another example of dalle stelle alle stalle,” Helen added.

  “What?” Freddy asked.

  “A fall from grace,” Alberta answered for her sister who was too busy rummaging through her pocketbook.

  “Like a modern day Mrs. Roberto Rossellini,” Helen said, still digging through the contents of the oversized black pocketbook she always carried with her.

  “Who?” Freddy asked again.

  “Ingrid Bergman, scandalized actress. Google her name,” Joyce said helpfully.

  “I can’t believe I put Nola right in the middle of a scandal!” Jinx said.

  “Stop your bellyaching, Jinx,” Helen scolded. “If Nola’s anything like Ingrid, she’ll rebound and be back on top in no time at all.”

  “It’s true,” Joyce added. “After years of living in European exile, she came back, starred as the orphaned Russian princess in Anastasia, and won her second Academy Award.”

  “Not that Nola’s ever going to win an award that has anything to do with the entertainment industry,” Helen said. “But innocent or guilty she will get through this.” Finally, Helen found what she was looking for and handed it to Jinx. “Here, it’s about time you learned how to use these.”

  The tears streaming out of her eyes made it difficult for her to see what Helen had placed in her hand. “What are they?”

  “My back-up rosary beads,” Helen stated. “It’s never too late to learn how to pray.”

  Distracted by the loud voices behind them, Alberta turned to witness Vinny and Kichiro in the middle of yet another argument. “Sounds like someone else might need to start praying if he wants to keep his job.”

  “Desk duty? You can’t do this to me!”

  “I just did,” Vinny said. His voice was half the volume of Kichiro’s, but its deep resonance carried twice the command. There was no stopping Kichiro from protesting, but anyone who heard Vinny knew he wasn’t going to reverse his decision.

  “You’re dating the suspect, which makes you incapable of being objective, which makes you incapable of doing your job,” Vinny described. “Which, not for nothing, you haven’t been doing very well for the past few weeks anyway so it isn’t going to be a great loss to the department to have you sitting behind a desk stamping files and putting them in alphabetical order.”

  Kichiro looked around the room and once again saw his colleagues and fellow citizens staring at him. He did his best to contain his fury, but Alberta noticed his fists were clenched and he was having a difficult time keeping them at his side. She knew that Kichiro could get hotheaded, but she hoped he wasn’t stupid enough to punch his boss with an audience while in police headquarters.

  Desperately trying to control his voice, Kichiro seethed, “I told you I’ve been going through some personal stuff, but . . . that’s . . . all over with now.”

  “Why? Because your girlfriend finally got caught?” Vinny asked. “Is that what you’ve been struggling with lately? The fact that your girlfriend’s a murderer.”

  “Trust me, Chief, Nola didn’t do this!”

  “Then tell me who did.”

  Silence descended on the room like a crash of thunder. The simple and soft-spoken command jolted everyone in the room including Kichiro to attention. He looked up at Vinny like a young boy peering up at his father, his face consumed with a swirl of emotions ranging from shock to fear to hurt.

  Alberta recognized the look on his face as she had seen it many times on her own daughter. That look of puzzlement—how could someone I love ask me such a question? Alberta always knew how Lisa Marie would answer, and no matter what the stakes her daughter would always protect herself. Only once following their last explosive argument that ignited their decades-long silence did Lisa Marie ever speak the truth. Alberta was curious to find out if Kichiro would follow suit or act differently and tell the truth when confronted with a question that had the potential to alter the course of his life.

  “I have absolutely no idea, Chief,” Kichiro replied. “I swear to God.”

  It didn’t matter if Kichiro believed in God or if Vinny believed Kichiro was telling the truth, the only thing that mattered was that Alberta knew for certain that Kichiro was lying.

  CHAPTER 12

  Parlare fuori dai denti.

  When Alberta entered the Sussex County Prison, she was overcome with a sense of déjà vu. She felt exactly the same way she did when she walked down the aisle at St. Ann’s Church on her wedding day.

  The same feeling of dread clung to her throat, its clutch as powerful and unrelenting as a bear’s claw, causing her to feel as if she was floating out of her body watching the experience, helpless to prevent it from happening. On her wedding day she squeezed her father’s hand tightly as the organist performed an uninspired, though deafeningly loud, version of the wedding march, wishing she knew Morse code so she could use it to let him know that she wanted him to help her escape. Walking down the prison hallway, she squeezed Jinx’s hand just as hard and was grateful that this time the other person on the other end of the grip squeezed back. After so many years Alberta was no longer alone. And when they reached Nola’s prison cell, they realized neither was she.

  “Father Sal? What are you doing here?” Alberta asked.

  Both of his hands were clasped around Nola’s and their foreheads had been bent so they were almost touching. It was an intimate moment that, upon reflection, Alberta was sorry she interrupted. It was obvious why the priest was in Nola’s prison cell—she was frightened. But if Nola were innocent shouldn’t she be angry and seeking a lawyer’s help instead of a priest’s?

  Jinx’s heart sank because this was the first time she had come face-to-face with Father Sal without wearing her Sister Maria outfit. She knew that she looked different without makeup, wearing a long black tunic, and with her hair covered in a habit, but she wasn’t sure if she would be completely unrecognizable. She had fooled others before with her disguises so she hoped her current appearance would be able to fool Father Sal as well. Only one way to find out and that was to act as if she had nothing to hide.

  “You still haven’t answered my grandmother’s question,” Jinx said. “What are you doing here?”

  She stared at Father Sal, searching for a shift in his expression to indicate that he recognized Jinx as Helen’s sidekick, but none came. And then they were interrupted.

  “I asked him to come.”

  The sound of Nola’s voice surprised
them both because up until that point they were so preoccupied with finding Sal behind bars they had almost forgotten the reason they willingly entered prison on a crisp autumn morning was to visit Nola. She also sounded more like one of the teenagers that she taught instead of the twentysomething woman she was.

  Examining her face for the first time, Jinx could see the telltale dark circles underneath Nola’s eyes. She looked like she sometimes did in the morning after having spent most of the night grading papers. Except now she wasn’t holding a cup of her favorite hazelnut coffee hoping it would bring her back to life, she was holding the hand of a priest with the look of a desperate zealot who believes a priest’s prayer will save her from spending another night in a prison cell.

  “Why?” Jinx asked. “You don’t need a priest, you need a lawyer.”

  “I needed someone to talk to,” Nola replied.

  “Then why didn’t you call me?!” Jinx cried. “Kichiro must’ve told you that I tried to see you yesterday, but they wouldn’t let me in because I’m not family and they said I had to wait twenty-four hours. How stupid is that? I’m your best friend, which makes me more than family!”

  Nola didn’t respond, bowing her head instead and gazing at the scuffed gray tiles that made up the prison cell floor. Slowly, but deliberately, she let go of Sal’s hands, and Alberta thought it interesting that he didn’t reach out to resume the connection, fold his hands, or do something to replace the bond Nola broke. He just let his hands dangle in front of him and kept his eyes on Nola taking his cue from her. She considered it to be a thoughtful gesture, but still got the impression that he could be doing it for his audience and not on instinct. After hearing Helen badmouth Sal for so many years, Alberta was still not certain that he was a good priest. Determined not to waste time contemplating Sal’s true character, Alberta focused her attention on Nola and made a conscious effort to be sympathetic and not suspicious.

  “Has anyone notified your family, honey?” Alberta asked.

  Once again Nola remained silent, her body still, the only movement were the tears falling from her eyes. Alberta recognized the despair and she didn’t need Nola to answer her question—no one notified Nola’s family because there was no one to notify.