Tanzi's Ice

by C I Dennis

  Tanzi’s Ice

  C.I. Dennis

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2013 C.I. Dennis

  License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover art by Alexander Dennis

  Ebook Formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

  For Sara

  Table of Contents

  JANUARY

  TUESDAY

  WEDNESDAY

  THURSDAY

  FRIDAY

  SATURDAY

  SUNDAY

  MONDAY

  TUESDAY

  WEDNESDAY

  THURSDAY

  FEBRUARY

  WEDNESDAY

  THURSDAY

  FRIDAY

  SATURDAY

  MARCH

  SATURDAY

  AUGUST

  SATURDAY

  NOVEMBER

  THURSDAY

  FRIDAY

  SATURDAY

  SUNDAY

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  JANUARY

  TUESDAY

  My mother is one of the few people I will allow to call me Vinny. My name is Vince. I don’t know why I’m so touchy about it, but whenever someone says “Hey, Vinny,” I feel like saying “Yes, asshole?” And that’s on a good day.

  Today was not going to be a good day—I could already tell, at five AM. Not only had the phone woken me up but my mother had started the conversation by calling me Vincent. She only calls me Vincent when somebody has died, or worse.

  “Who died, Mom?”

  “Did I wake you?” Her voice sounded weak, like she’d been up all night.

  “No,” I lied.

  “I did wake you, I’m sorry. I haven’t slept.”

  “You can call me whenever you need to. Don’t worry about it.”

  “How’s your weather?”

  “Mom—” I said, not sure why she was stalling. “It’s cold. Not Vermont cold, Florida cold. It was in the forties last night.”

  “It’s twenty below up here,” she said. “The cars won’t start.”

  “Is your heat working OK?”

  “Vincent,” she began, “it was your father.”

  It took a moment to register. Jimmy Tanzi was dead. She began to cry on the other end of the phone line, and I cursed the distance between us. I had skipped my annual pilgrimage to Vermont over Thanksgiving; it was now the middle of January, and I hadn’t seen her in over a year.

  “Who told you?”

  “Sheila,” she said.

  “I thought they didn’t speak to each other anymore.”

  “She was with him at the hospital. She went out to eat, and when she came back, he was gone.”

  “His liver?”

  “They wouldn’t give him a transplant.”

  “He would have just ruined another perfectly good liver,” I said.

  “Don’t speak ill of the dead, Vinny,” she said.

  “I can’t think of anything good to say,” I said.

  “The wake is on Friday.”

  “Are you going?”

  “You know, we never got a divorce. I’m still his wife.”

  “I know,” I said. “And it drove Sheila crazy.”

  “I’m going,” she said. “I want you to go with me. Your brother and sister won’t go.”

  “Did you ask them?”

  “They won’t go,” she said. “I don’t even know how to reach your sister. But the point is I want you to come home. I need you here.”

  “Mom,” I said, “you know I’ll do whatever you want, but I really don’t want to go to his funeral.”

  “You can skip the funeral,” she said. “We’re just doing the wake. We’ll bury him in May when the ground thaws, and do the service then. But I want you here when the police come by.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “His liver didn’t kill him,” she said. “He was suffocated, in his hospital bed. The police want to ask me questions. I told them I wanted you here first.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “Vinny.”

  “I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” I said. “I’ll get a flight out today. Tell the police we’ll talk to them tomorrow.”

  “OK,” she said.

  I have a trunk in the back of a closet with my Vermont clothes. A down parka, heavy socks, long johns, turtleneck shirts, hats and gloves—I could wear all of it at once and I’d still freeze my ass off. When it’s twenty below outside it hurts to even draw a breath. I packed the clothes in a duffel bag with my toilet gear, a lockable, hard-sided case for my Glock 30 automatic and a couple of clips. I doubted I’d need it, but I felt better with it than without. This was not a pleasure trip; someone had just snuffed out my father’s wretched life. The cops would have their hands full with that one—I could only think of a few dozen of us who might have had a motive.

  *

  I called Barbara from the road, about halfway between my home in Vero Beach and the airport in West Palm. Tuesdays were her sleep-in days, when her first class didn’t start until ten. I knew better than to call too early—she could be a real porcupine until she had a few cups of coffee.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “It’s OK,” she said, “I had to get up to answer the phone anyway.”

  I laughed. “You’re in a good mood.”

  “I don’t know why,” she said. “I was up until three studying this goddamn biochemistry.”

  “You are going to be such a wonderful nurse,” I said. “So genteel and compassionate.”

  “Yeah, a real Clara fucking Barton,” she said.

  “Wow, you are revved up for eight in the morning.”

  “Too much coffee,” she said. “So far in two weeks of nursing school I’ve learned that the whole medical industry runs on caffeine.”

  “And insurance reimbursement,” I added.

  “Where are you?”

  “On the way to the airport,” I said. “I’m going to Vermont.”

  “Why?”

  “My father passed away.”

  “Oh Vince, I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m just going for my mother.”

  “You didn’t get along with him.”

  “It was worse than that,” I said.

  “Will you be back for Friday date night?”

  “The wake’s on Friday,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “That’s OK. I’ll just hit the bars and see who’s available.”

  “There’s an anesthesiologists convention out at Dodgertown, you could try them.”

  “On second thought, I think I’ll rent a chick flick and eat a whole box of Oreos.”

  “I’ll be sorry to miss that,” I said.

  “Call me from Vermont,” she said. “Do they have cell towers up there?”

  “Sort of,” I said. “They make them look like pine trees.”

  “Take care of yourself.”

  *

  There was an hour to kill at the gate before the flight left. In my work I do a lot of sitting, waiting, and people-watching, and I am good at making the time pass quickly. I read the Miami Herald, chatted with an inquisitive little boy about Buzz Lightyear, checked out the tanned college girls (who were self-consciously looking around in their big sunglasses, hoping everyone was checking them out), watched an Asian family eat a three-course meal on the plastic seats, swapped small talk with a retired electrician, and even
helped untangle two older women who had gotten their wheelchairs enmeshed. How could anyone be bored at an airport?

  I had a middle seat, which I was lucky to get, and the bereavement fare made it affordable, if not comfortable. One of the college girls was already in the window seat next to me, texting. A very large male human being lowered himself into the aisle seat on the other side of me, and the flight attendant got him a seat belt extension. I’m six-two and substantially built, and the airline had allotted us just enough legroom for the average kindergartener. Maybe if the college girl sat on my lap we could all fit. I decided I would let her suggest that, not me.

  My cellphone buzzed. The last thing I wanted to do is to talk on the phone with two strangers within close earshot, but I looked at the caller ID. It said “VT ST POLICE TROOP A”. I pushed the answer button.

  “Vince Tanzi,” I said.

  “Vince, this is John Pallmeister.”

  “John Pallmeister? The caller ID said State Police.”

  “I left the Barre P.D. a long time ago. I’m an investigator out of the Middlesex barracks.”

  John Pallmeister and I had started with the Barre, Vermont, police at the same time, thirty years back. I’d lasted one year, and then realized that if I was going to be a cop, I’d rather do it somewhere warm. I spent twenty-five years as a deputy with the Indian River Sheriff’s Department in Florida before I retired, or rather was asked to retire, and became a private investigator. I miss being a cop, but I don’t miss all the rules.

  “What can I do for you, John? I’m on a plane that’s about to take off.”

  “I’ll make it fast,” he said. “Just wondering when I can see you and your mother. She said tomorrow, but we want to get on this now.”

  “What’s the hurry?” I said. “She’ll have an alibi. She’s seventy-four years old for God’s sake. She hardly leaves the house.”

  “When do you get in?”

  “I change in New York and get to Burlington at five.”

  “I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “John, no offense but I’m going to get a rental. I’ll call you tomorrow, and we’ll set something up.”

  “How much do you know about your father’s death?”

  “Not much. My mother said he was in for a liver problem, but he was suffocated. I assume that’s what you’re trying to figure out.”

  “And the life insurance?”

  “There wouldn’t be any insurance,” I said. “My father lived from barstool to barstool. His girlfriend used to support him, but she dumped him years ago.”

  “He left a million-dollar life policy to Mrs. Francine Tanzi,” he said. “Your mother. Somebody in Canada paid the premiums. We don’t know who it was yet.”

  “That makes no sense,” I said.

  “I’ll see you at the airport,” he said, and hung up.

  *

  I had a window seat on the leg from JFK to Burlington, and the terrain below us went from brown to white as we tracked north, above the Connecticut River. I know the landmarks from the air and spotted Lake Morey, frozen solid, nestled among the foothills of the Green Mountains. My father had taken me ice fishing there when I was nine years old. He caught a few perch that day, and I caught frostbite on my earlobes and the tip of my nose, which stayed pink for a week. He kept a bottle of peach schnapps in the glove compartment of his truck, and he drank half of it on the way home.

  John Pallmeister was waiting for me at the baggage carousel. His face had widened some but otherwise he had the physique of a twenty-year-old, which was the age he’d been when I’d last seen him. His hair was grey stubble, shaved close under the trooper hat. He wore the single gold bar of lieutenant, a higher rank than I’d ever achieved in the sheriff’s department. I saw his cruiser idling outside with a cloud of vapor coming from the exhaust.

  “I hope you have some warm clothes,” he said, shaking my hand.

  “Got a parka in the bag,” I said. “I left my golf clubs home, though.”

  “You won’t need them,” he said. “It’s warmed up, but it’s still ten below.”

  “You have to be crazy to live here.”

  “It’s not so bad,” he said. “Except for when all you Florida people come up in the summer.”

  My duffel came and we went outside. Even with my parka on the cold hit me like I’d just stepped onto a planet with no oxygen. It hurt to inhale. I hustled the bag into the trunk and jumped into the warmth of the front seat of the cruiser.

  “Did you eat on the plane?” he asked.

  “It must be a while since you flew anywhere,” I said. “They don’t do that anymore.”

  “Let’s get a burger,” he said. He drove us to Al’s French Frys, an eatery on the commercial strip near the airport. Al’s had been there pretty much forever and the fries were the best in the state. John left the cruiser running while we went inside to order, which was probably against police protocol but there was an unwritten rule in Vermont that when it was this cold you could leave your car running and anyone who dared mess with it would be sent straight to Hell.

  We got back into the car and I ate my burger, trying my best not to drip ketchup on government property. “We don’t suspect your mother,” he said, balancing his drink as he drove. “There wasn’t anyone who looked like her on the security tapes.”

  “Are there cameras in the rooms?”

  “No, just the lobby and the entrances. It happened Sunday night. Plenty of people came and went, but no older women.”

  “How do you know he was suffocated?”

  “There were signs of a struggle. The IV needle was pulled out. Things were knocked on the floor. Whoever did it used a pillow, and your father ripped a hole in it with his teeth. He was pretty tough for an old guy.”

  “Any DNA evidence?”

  “Maybe some skin under his fingernails. The coroner found something, it could just be dirt. We’re looking at it.”

  “So why do you want to talk with my mother?”

  “Wouldn’t you?” he said. Of course I would. A million dollars in insurance was a lot, especially in Vermont. Follow the money.

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  “You were in Florida on Sunday, right?”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Actually, I’m not joking.” He took his eyes away from the road and looked straight at me. “I remember the last time I saw your father in the hospital. It was thirty years ago, shortly before you quit the force and moved south. Your dad had a broken rib, a broken jaw, a concussion, two black eyes, and some teeth missing. I went back and dug out the report.”

  “Did you dig out the report on my mother too? After he beat the shit out of her?”

  “She refused to testify against him. You know that.”

  “Yeah, right. The cops never found the guy who did it.”

  “And we never found the guy who beat up your father, almost to death, later that same night.”

  “That was long time ago, John.”

  “People hold grudges all their lives,” he said.

  “You going to read me my rights?”

  “Relax, Vince,” he said. “Your father wasn’t a popular guy. You’re just one on a long list.”

  *

  We were on Interstate 89, headed southeast toward Barre. It was already dark, but I could make out the silhouette of Camel’s Hump looming over us, profiled by the early evening stars. We rode the next half hour in silence, all the way to my mother’s house, a modest ʼ50s ranch in the hill neighborhood east of Main Street. Lieutenant Pallmeister parked the cruiser in the driveway and got my bag from the trunk.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

  “Hold on a minute,” he said. “You said I could talk to her tonight.”

  “I said nothing of the kind. Unless you have a subpoena, you’re not invited in.”

  Pallmeister frowned, but he wasn’t going to waste time arguing in the frigid cold. He got into his cruiser
and backed out, the tires making a rubbery, crunching sound against the ice-covered surface of the road. He and I may have been rookie cops together a long time ago, but that didn’t mean anything now, and my tendency was not to get too cozy with the police until I had a better idea of what was going on.

  *

  My mother is almost my height, but she weighs half of what I do and I could feel her bones as we hugged.

  “Long time, Vinny,” she said. “You smell like French fries.”

  “I stopped at Al’s,” I said. “You smell like garlic, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

  She laughed. “I made you spaghetti aglio e olio. If you’re not hungry—”

  “I’m suddenly hungry again, Mom. Go right ahead.”

  “Pour yourself some wine.” My mom doesn’t drink, and as fussy as she is about food, she has no idea when it comes to wine. I twisted the screw cap off a three-liter bottle of Carlo Rossi Paisano and prepared to regret it in the morning.

  “Was that a police car you arrived in?”

  “State cop,” I said. “A guy I used to be on the Barre force with.”

  “Is he the one who wants to talk to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s about the money, right? He had insurance. They don’t think I killed him, do they?”

  “Whoever killed him was strong,” I said. “He put up a fight.”

  “Your father was built like an ox,” she said. She was right. He was a head shorter than my mother, but was incredibly strong from moving around granite slabs at the memorial factory.

  “You remember the time you took me to the Tunbridge Fair, and I got stepped on by that ox?” She and I had been taken to the hospital by ambulance that cool September night. I was fourteen years old. My older brother and sister had refused to go to the fair; they were afraid my dad would get drunk, and they were right. He’d spent the whole time in the beer tent, unaware that I’d been hurt, and he eventually passed out in our car.