I cocked my head at him. “This is Mario we’re talking about here, Nico.”
“Oh right,” he said. “Silly me.”
Mario was not exactly a rocket scientist. In fact, our younger cousin Mario would have trouble spelling rocket scientist. Even if his life and his black curly hair depended on it. He’s particularly proud of that hair.
“What box? What body? I’m, like, totally confused,” said Tiff.
We both looked blankly at her.
“You explain it to her,” I said finally. “I’m going to call Jimmy.”
I walked over to the front door to get some distance. In the background, I could hear Nico and Tiff talking quietly.
Jimmy didn’t pick up. I looked at my watch and figured it was probably dinnertime at the Holy Cannoli Retirement Home. He’d be downstairs, because they never missed a meal. Believe it or not, food at the Holy Cannoli is first-rate. This is because the family owns it. My aunts believe serving lousy food is a mortal sin for which you go to hell. This might be superfluous, as a good many of my family have reservations down under just waiting for them.
Next, I tried calling Sammy. He didn’t pick up either. What the hell was going on that he wasn’t answering his cell phone? Or rather, what was going down right now, and why didn’t I know about it?
I was fuming now. That blasted Mario and his thugs had walked off with my inheritance!
“But what am I going to do about the body next door, Gina?” Nico wailed.
You know that famous painting The Scream? Nico looked like The Scream. I am extremely fond of Nico and don’t like to see him upset. So I came up with a plan immediately.
“I can’t reach Sammy on the phone. He’s probably at the chicken coop. We’ll go to the chicken coop right now and catch him. He’ll know what to do.”
“Can I come?” said Tiff.
I frowned at her. “No. I need you to stay here in case someone comes back for the body next door.”
Her face lit up. “So I get to see the body?”
Tiff is made from entirely different cloth than her brother Nico.
“Yes. You get to guard the body. Even better.”
“That rocks!” she said. “Can I tell Zak?” Nico groaned. I pulled him by the arm out the door.
SIX
In case I haven’t mentioned it before, we have a chicken coop on the shores of Lake Ontario. It’s been in the family since the time people really kept chickens.
It’s actually a small cottage that is used by the family for storage. And private meetings, if you get my drift. We still call it the chicken coop because it is registered as that for tax reasons. They don’t charge much for chicken coops, even when the chickens have a glorious view of Lake Ontario.
We got to the chicken coop in under ten minutes. I drove—otherwise it would have been twenty.
We took Nico’s Volkswagen Beetle because my car was still in the shop. My being carless was going to be a drag if it lasted much longer. I needed to call Tony’s garage about that.
On the way there, I stopped for a red light. Nico had been quiet until then.
“What do you think really happened to Wally the Wanker?” he asked.
“I think he was playing his old game of blackmail,” I said. The light turned, and I pushed the accelerator. “Thing is, this isn’t high school, and the mark wasn’t a teenager.”
“Who do you think it was?”
“Not sure yet,” I said. “But I’m working on it.”
Damn right, I was. Poor Wally had made an unscheduled trip in the trunk of my car. That kind of made it my business.
I pulled off North Service Road into a narrow lane. It was deserted, but I’ve been well trained. The gravel driveway had a tale to tell. Something heavy, like a midsize truck, had been there recently. Lots of men had been moving things. You could tell by the footprints.
The driveway was empty now, except for our car.
“Doesn’t look like there’s anyone here,” said Nico.
“Let’s go check, just to make sure. Sometimes Sammy gets dropped off here if he doesn’t want to draw attention to the place. Which reminds me. I should maybe park across the road, behind the old Melbourne place. This car is rather conspicuous.”
Red. Of course, Nico had to buy a red Beetle. My car, on the contrary, is a nondescript little sedan. I don’t like to draw attention to myself, considering the business I’m in. Not to mention the family I belong to.
“Good plan,” said Nico.
I parked, and we crossed the street. No traffic coming in either direction.
I strode up the gravel driveway to the front of the cottage, which faced the lake. Nico was right behind me. I worked the numbers on the padlock. Then I removed the lock and swung open the rickety wooden door. We walked in.
Nico reached for the cord that operated the single lightbulb hanging from a wire in the center of the room. It clicked on.
It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the dimness.
Last time we’d been to the coop, the place had been filled with cartons of cigarettes. Apparently, they had fallen off the back of a truck. These had been sent on to their final destination. Something else stood in their place now.
I stared in horror.
“Oh my god, Gina,” Nico squeaked.
I gulped. “Coffins. Why are there so many coffins here?”
Coffins were stacked against the entire east wall of the cottage. There had to be at least a dozen, stacked three high along the wall.
“There’s nobody here. At least, nobody still alive,” Nico said in a shaky voice. “Let’s go.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “I’m tired of not knowing what’s going on. First, Wally the Wanker is taken out by people unknown, and we find him. Not only that, he gets a ride in the trunk of my car. Then a second body turns up in your store. And now…coffins.”
“You think those things are related?” Nico said.
“I don’t know. But I’m sure going to find out.” I stared at the wall of coffins.
Of course, that wasn’t the only thing I had to do today. The list of things was growing longer. I still had to find out where my blasted box of boodle got moved to.
This was nuts. I was the goddaughter of the local crime boss, not friggin’ Nancy Drew.
“Wait a minute. Does this seem weird to you? Usually I’m involved—albeit kicking and screaming—in pulling off jobs myself. Not playing the part of detective.”
Nico shook his head. “It isn’t natural. We should get out of here.”
“Don’t you at least want to see if these coffins are empty?” I flung my purse on the small wooden table and started over to the stack.
“Gina, I really don’t think this is a good idea.” Nico edged his way backward toward the door.
“Bring that chair over here. I’m going to peek inside one.”
Nico groaned. “This is a terrible idea. I just know it.”
“Bring it,” I ordered. Nico is younger than me and used to taking my orders. Okay, so I had been a bossy kid when we were young.
He dragged the old wooden chair over to the stack of coffins.
“Hold it steady for me,” I said.
He held the top of the chairback on both sides. I reached with my right hand to balance myself and climbed onto it. I straightened. The topmost coffin on this stack of three was within reach.
“Doesn’t appear to have a lock. I’ll just lift the lid and peek.”
I tried. I really tried. But the darn lid was so heavy, I couldn’t budge it from one end.
“The leverage is wrong,” I said sadly. “One would have to get in front of the thing and lift the lid from the middle to raise it.”
Nico breathed out in relief.
“This is really none of our business, Gina. We should get out of here.”
“One thing for sure,” I said, running my hand along the surface of the closest one. “These coffins aren’t very good quality. They look like pine, not oak. And
not very good pine. Look at this finish, Nico. Definitely substandard.”
This was baffling. Our family used only the best oak for coffins.
“Maybe they’re made in China?” Nico said.
Now why did that ring a bell? A very distant bell, but now the word China was flashing like a neon sign in my head.
The old-fashioned black phone on the wooden desk trilled.
Nico and I stared at each other. His brown eyes were wide.
“Should we answer?” he asked.
I hesitated, then nodded. “Might be important.” I reached for the receiver. And then I waited, like we had been trained. “Wait for the other guy to identify himself ”—rule twenty-seven in the soon-to-be bestseller Burglary for Dummies.
“Who is this?” said the smooth voice on the other end. I recognized it.
“Paulo?” I said. It was my hoity-toity lawyer cousin.
“That you, Gina? What are you doing there?”
“Trying to find Sammy.”
“Get out right away! The cops are coming to raid the place. I got an inside tip.”
“Shit!” I yelled. I could hear sirens in the distance. “Are those sirens at your end?”
Paulo cursed. “No. Get in the cubby.” He hung up.
I stared at the receiver. Cubby? What was he talking about?
I looked over to find Nico wringing his hands.
“Paulo said to get in the cubby,” I told him.
Nico’s face cleared. He nodded.
That didn’t help me. “What is he talking about?”
The sirens were getting louder.
Nico sprinted to the little room at the back of the cottage. I followed. The back wall of the room was paneled in knotty pine. Nico pressed a knot with one hand and pushed with his other. A narrow panel opened inward. Nico squeezed through the opening and then signaled for me to follow. He went to the right. I followed on his tail. Then he signaled for me to close the door and latch it from the inside with the small hook and eye.
We stood in a space maybe two feet deep that ran the length of the room. It was dark but not pitch-black in the cubby. I had no trouble working the hook-and-eye closure. I also had no trouble seeing a huge spiderweb about two inches from my face.
“Eep,” I squeaked.
Nico shushed me. I could hardly hear him over the sirens.
I looked up and saw that the wall did not go all the way to the roof. That’s how the light was getting in from the other room.
Waiting was hell. I am no good at waiting.
Also, my head itched. I tried not to think of what could be making it itch. Creepy-crawlies? I shivered.
The sirens stopped abruptly. Car doors opened and slammed shut. Men stomped and yelled orders. I heard the wooden door being opened…footsteps on the cottage floor. It creaked from the weight of several bodies.
At least these ones were still alive.
Male voices were muffled by the scraping sound of heavy things being moved. The coffins! Obviously, the cops were finding out what was in the coffins. I gulped.
Nico and I stayed perfectly still. I glanced at him. His eyes were shut tight.
I tried to count how many coffins were being moved, but it was hard. As one was being opened, another was being taken down from the stack. But they looked into at least six. I counted the number of heavy lids that were let go.
All in all, I expect we weren’t in the cubby more than ten minutes. But during that time, I got to thinking. How did Nico know about the cubby, and why didn’t I? What had he been doing for Sammy over the years that I didn’t know about? And what would have put him on the inside of this little secret?
I didn’t know whether to be disgruntled or relieved.
At last the men started to leave. I found myself holding my breath as the wooden door slammed shut for the last time. Then we heard car doors closing and engines starting up. They didn’t bother to use sirens on the way out.
I waited until the engines were out of earshot. Then I looked over at Nico. He signaled for me to undo the hook from the eye. I wiggled toward him and pulled the door inward.
“That was close,” I said, squeezing out. Nico was right behind me. “Good thing I parked across the street.”
“That was smart,” said Nico. “God, I hate being confined like that. It was everything I could do not to cry like a baby.”
I brushed the cobwebs off my top and pants, carefully looking for unwanted critters that might have been hoping to ride piggyback.
“Not only that, but I have to pee,” Nico said.
“That’s one thing this cottage doesn’t have,” I said, walking through the doorway to the main part of the cottage.
I stopped dead.
“It used to have an icky outhouse, but that got torn down years ago,” said Nico as he came through the doorway. “What a mess—”
He stopped dead.
A cop was sitting on the little wooden table not five feet from us. One I knew quite well.
Spense. He was holding my purse in his lap.
Crap. My purse. I’d left my bloody purse on the table.
“Well, well. Look who we have here,” he said. I will never forget that smile on his face.
“Holy shit, we’re screwed,” said Nico.
They had left one squad car in the driveway. Spense bundled us into the back of it.
I don’t know if you have ever been in the back of a cop car before, but there isn’t much room. Nico’s knees were practically under his chin. They do that on purpose, of course, so it’s hard to escape.
And I surely did want to escape.
Rick Spenser. The last guy I wanted to see at a time like this. He’d once called me “the girl with the longest confession.” He was referring to church, of course. We go way back.
Back to St. Bonaventure Catholic Secondary School, in fact, where he followed me around like a lovelorn creep, hoping to cop a feel. And now the creep wore a cop uniform. The fact that he still thought I was hot was no secret in this burg.
But I am allergic to cops. And tall, thin Spense never was my type.
“Um…sir?” Nico stammered. “Are we being charged with anything?”
“Shut up,” said Spense nicely. “I’m taking you in for questioning.”
My mind churned. On the way out of the cottage, we had walked between the coffins that were strewn everywhere. The place was a mess. Some were still open. Each was lined with dove- gray satin.
All were empty.
So what was Spense going to question us about?
SEVEN
I don’t like cop shops. Believe it or not, I’d had the grand tour of this one before. Didn’t appeal to me. Too much gray in the color scheme, and the company sucked.
Nico was shaking beside me, so I figured he felt the same way. I put my hand on his arm to reassure him and decided we shouldn’t hang around for long.
So I didn’t use my one call to phone Sammy. I didn’t phone Uncle Vince or my lawyer cousin Paulo either.
Nope. I called the one person guaranteed to get me out of this place in the blink of an eye. Or, more correctly, the opening of a mouth.
It worked.
Aunt Miriam arrived at the cop shop with the family SWAT team. Aunt Vera, still in her restaurant apron. Aunt Pinky, in one of her gorgeous designer ensembles. And Aunt Grizelda, carrying her thick leather handbag with the brass corners.
You don’t want to get near Aunt Griz with that handbag. Hardened criminals have been known to cower.
Aunt Miriam didn’t need all the aunts, of course. It was an unnecessary show of force.
I watched from the wooden chair in the corner as Spense rose to greet the liberation army.
Miriam marched right up to him. She came up to his chin, maybe. She also had a good twenty pounds on him.
It didn’t surprise me. But it might have surprised some of the cops in the joint when Spense went white.
“Here’s a bill of sale for those coffins. It’s all in order. We
got a deal from China.” Miriam shoved a piece of paper in his face.
China. That word again.
“You gonna charge Gina with sompting?” said Miriam. “’Cause our Gina doesn’t do nothing wrong. She’s a good girl.”
“Unlike some,” said Aunt Griz, swinging her weapon ever so slightly.
Miriam stared Spense in the eyes, her face grim. I could see him starting to sweat.
“We got an engagement, see? It’s Gina’s wedding shower. So we gotta leave right now or we’ll miss it. They don’t like it when you’re late for your own shower.” Her voice had that unique lilt that made formerly brave men duck for cover.
“Now Mrs. Goldman, you know I have to do my job here—”
“How is your dear mother?” Miriam interrupted. “I haven’t seen her since you left school. You remember St. Bonaventure Secondary School, don’t you, Richard? I think it’s time I paid her a visit, don’t you?”
Silence. A whole lot of silence. There were at least five other cops in the room, plus a few customers. Everyone in the place had stopped to listen.
Spense’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
The room was thick with tension. I glanced from my aunt to the unfortunate Spense. This could only mean one thing. What the heck did Aunt Miriam have on Spense?
“You can go, Gina,” Spense said thickly. “And you too, fancy-pants. But don’t leave town.”
“I’m getting married in a few weeks. Why would I leave town?” I shrugged and reached for my purse and jacket.
The station was completely silent as the aunts and Nico filed out. I hung back a bit. I turned to Spense, who was watching me with his arms crossed. He wore the frown that he always reserved for me.
“You wouldn’t like to lock me up for a bit, would you?” I said to Spense. “Just till the shower is over.” I really do hate showers.
“Get outta here, Gina,” he said, waving a hand.
I caught up with the others in the parking lot. Miriam was nearly to her car. I put my hand on her arm.
“Thanks a mil for getting us out of there, Auntie M. But what the heck do you have on poor Spense?”
Miriam stopped walking. She smiled. It wasn’t nice.
Goddaughter Caper, The Page 3
