Kiki Lowenstein Books 1-3 & Cara Mia Delgatto Books 1-3: The Perfect Series for Crafters, Pet Lovers, and Readers Who Like Upbeat Books!

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  Skye's expression of pity nearly undid me, but I swallowed another carbonated gulp and kept talking.

  "Dominic's demands that Dad make him a partner in the restaurant got ugly. One night after my father turned him down yet again, Dom came home angry. He screamed at me and slapped me around. Fortunately, I had a good reason not to go to work the next day. I was pregnant and having a lot of trouble with morning sickness. Despite Dom’s behavior, I decided there was no way that I would be our family's first divorce. I started bugging my dad to make Dom a partner. Although I wasn't proud of myself, I figured that once my husband was part of the business, things would get better. Besides that, a partnership wasn’t all bad. Dom and my father seemed to spur each other on to new heights of creativity. The restaurant kept racking up all sorts of accolades. On the other hand, Mom and I could hardly be in the same room together. She was still angry that I'd disobeyed her. Of course, that made me more determined not to share what was happening with her. I didn't even tell my parents I was pregnant until the third month."

  Tears trickled down my face. My heart squeezed up into my throat. I had to keep going, but this next part was incredibly painful, and I wasn't sure I could manage. Skye came over, squatted down, and threw an arm around my shoulders. "Take deep breaths," she said. "You'll get through this. It's okay."

  "My parents were happy about the baby, of course. Their happiness encouraged Dom to up his demands. When they said no, he got even angrier with me. When I was eight months pregnant, he backhanded me and busted my lip. I told my parents that I'd walked into a door, but they knew better. Later that day while I was working at the restaurant, I stepped into storage closet to grab more napkins and discovered Dom and Alicia, uh, together. That was the final straw. They didn't even act embarrassed. Instead, they snickered at me. I lost it. I started screaming and screaming. Alicia was totally naked and laughing. Dominic kept doing what he was doing and looking over his shoulder at me. He told me to go away and leave them alone. I stood there, shaking with rage, looking like a fool with my huge belly and a puffy lip. Dom said that I was too fat to make him happy. When I flew at them, to tear them apart, he gave me a shove that slammed me into the wall with a shelving unit that held extra pots and pans. That's when I snapped. I grabbed a cast iron skillet and hit Dom in the back of the skull with it."

  Skye gasped and rocked back on her heels. MJ slowly shook her head. Whether she was commiserating or contemptuous, I couldn’t tell.

  “Actually, the skillet was so heavy that I could barely swing it, and later we learned I’d barely connected, but the blow and the surprise was enough to knock Dom off balance. He staggered a step or two and continued to yell at me. By then blood was flowing, a lot of it, as often happens with a head wound. The concrete floor was slick. Dom slipped and lost his balance. On the way down, he grabbed at the shelving unit and pulled it over. More pans and pots clattered down and hit me and him both as they fell to the floor. Alicia was screaming that I had killed him.”

  I buried my face in my hands and tried to block out the memory. The coppery scent of blood came back to me, and the noises…so many noises, all so loud.

  “Dom went down hard, face first because his feet went out from under him. He hit his forehead on the concrete floor. That knocked him out and gave him a concussion. I’d managed to protect myself by throwing my arms over my head. Alicia later testified that I’d hit Dom repeatedly, but that wasn’t true. No one believed my side of the store, because he did suffer repeated blows.

  I lifted my head but I couldn’t look my new friends in the eyes. Instead, I focused on a faraway spot and kept talking. “I guess I must have temporarily blacked out, too. The EMTs found me on the tiles, under the shelving unit and the cookware. The police arrived. Everything from that point is a blur, but I remember they took a lot of photos. A doctor checked me out. Then I was arrested and taken to the county jail.”

  Remembering that almost made me smile. “They don’t get a lot of pregnant women there, so I was quite the oddity.”

  I paused. "I was charged with attempted murder."

  44

  Lou had mixed emotions about confronting Cara Mia Delgatto. Yes, she’d been charged with murder, but Police Chief Robbie Holmes admitted, “The prosecutor was overly ambitious. Sure, she hit him, but it was in the heat of the moment. She was hormonal. The two lovers had laughed at her. At first, public sentiment favored her husband, as he was this good-looking man all bandaged up. He and his girlfriend portrayed Cara as a spoiled little rich girl who always got her way. All that changed when the facts came out. As you can imagine, the optics of putting a young, pregnant mother in jail were not good.”

  Robbie vouched for the fact that Cara Mia was no criminal, and Lou might have let things ride, but he didn’t like feeling stupid. Her history had blindsided him.

  After confronting Cara Mia, Lou grabbed a sandwich from Pumpernickel's. It was crazy busy, so he took his food back to his police cruiser. Sitting there, he ate his lunch, did paperwork, and waited for return phone calls. The windows were down, so he could enjoy the scent of the ocean and keep an eye on The Treasure Chest. He needed a good night’s sleep, but he wouldn't get any real rest until he had someone under arrest for Hal Humberger's murder.

  The ME's report had come in earlier that morning. The angle and depth of the blow suggested it was a fatal injury.

  Hal Humberger had died three hours before he was found, although Dr. Farraday admitted that could be off by as much as an hour or two. Both the heat of the building and Hal's excessive weight made it difficult to pin the time down more exactly. The recovered wrench was the murder weapon, but there were no usable fingerprints on it. Of course, they had yet to confirm who owned the wrench and where it came from.

  The phone company was taking its sweet time about supplying Hal’s records, and the dead man’s phone had disappeared. Electronic forensic experts had been dispatched to the real estate firm to gather evidence from those computers. There were tons of interviews to conduct, CCTV cameras to view, and much much more to be followed up on.

  Jazzed up on multiple cups of coffee, Lou dropped a piece of his sandwich in his lap. Served him right for not eating at a table, but he couldn’t resist the magnificent view of the water. Overhead seabirds called to each other. The branches of palm trees rustled soothingly.

  The fact that a killer wandered the streets of his adopted city infuriated him. The notion that Skye might be in danger sent chills down his spine. Why'd she have to move into the very same building where they'd found Humberger's corpse?

  "You should have told her to stay away," said Showalter. "Skye has no reason to get in the middle of this mess."

  "What right would I have to do that?" asked Lou.

  "You were right to bust Ms. Delgatto's chops," Showalter grumbled. "She coulda come clean and she didn't."

  "To what end?" asked the detective. "So Cara Mia Delgatto kept her mouth shut. So what? She probably wants to put the whole episode behind her. Who could blame her? St. Louis Police Chief Robbie Holmes told me the whole story. Cara Mia Delgatto was a sheltered seventeen-year-old girl at the time."

  "Ah, young love." Showalter snickered.

  "Huh," said Lou. "Love had nothing to do with it. At least not from Petrocelli's end. Police Chief Holmes says that Petrocelli is a natural born, smooth-talking con artist. That creep and his girlfriend Alicia set up the whole thing, hoping to get control of the Delgatto family restaurant. Ms. Delgatto was too naive to see it coming."

  "Ms. Delgatto might have been her daddy's little princess," said Showalter, "but she was no shrinking violet. She hit Petrocelli over the head with a frying pan. That blow sent him to the hospital. He could have died."

  "Could have, but who wouldn’t have done the same in her shoes? Besides, she didn't kill him. There’s conjecture that the girlfriend lied about Cara hitting him repeatedly. Experts witnesses testified that was a lie," said Lou, as he adjusted his seatbelt. Time to head back to the station. He
hesitated before keying the ignition because a variety of thoughts swirled in his head.

  "I'm curious to see whether Ms. Delgatto comes clean to Skye and MJ Austin," said Lou. "It's not that I don't take Police Chief Holmes at his word, but if she does spill the beans, that would be another point in her favor."

  "It would be pretty hard for her to keep her mouth shut now," said Showalter. “You made it all but impossible for her to keep her history secret from her new hires.”

  "I acted like that on purpose," said Lou. "I want to hear what Ms. Delgatto tells Skye. Maybe there's more to the story. After all, her records were sealed because she was a minor at the time. Ollie didn't think to look in the newspaper when nothing turned up in the police records."

  "How will you know what she tells them?" asked Showalter.

  "I'll find out from Skye, sooner or later."

  "Doubtful," said Showalter. "She's been pretty close-mouthed about her new friend. She didn't tell you she was thinking of moving to that upstairs apartment. You can't fault Skye for being loyal."

  "That's true," said Lou. "As for Ms. Delgatto's actions, I've hit creeps with my nightstick hard enough to knock them out. That's all she did. He did more damage to his skull when he hit the floor and all that junk fell on him. If he hadn't found a slick lawyer, nothing would have come of it. As it was, he took the Delgatto family for a bundle. Offered to drop charges in exchange for a lot of money. Who could blame the parents for wanting to get rid of him? Your daughter marries a jerk who hits her, gets her pregnant and cheats on her, and this is your chance to make him go away. All you have to do is write him a big check. So what if it nearly bankrupts you? I'd do it in a heartbeat if that were my little girl, wouldn't you?"

  Showalter nodded. "But they should have realized it wouldn't end there. That Petrocelli would keep wanting more."

  "If Dom Petrocelli hadn't told some reporter such a bleeding-heart story, the matter wouldn’t have blown up like it did. He and his accomplice milked the situation for all it was worth," said Lou, as he straightened a seam on his slacks. He ironed them himself, and he was incredibly particular about them. Oddly enough, he'd given up on keeping his shirts looking tidy. Each day he pulled a fresh one out of the closet but by the time he was ready for bed, his shirt was as wrinkled as a dirty tissue.

  Showalter huffed, a sound of derision. "What a piece of work. That wife-beater Petrocelli walks away from the Delgatto family with a cash settlement and payments over ten years. He even tried to get custody of the recipes that had been in the Delgatto family for generations!"

  "Right," said Lou, while absentmindedly scratching his chin. "The Delgattos would have been sunk if their attorney hadn't added a non-compete clause to their hiring forms. Otherwise, Petrocelli could have opened up right across the street and taken all their customers. Instead, he mounted a smear campaign in the media and opened his own restaurant right across the river in Illinois. Darn near put the Delgattos into bankruptcy. Of course, all that happened after Cara Mia Delgatto was hauled into jail, big belly and all. Didn’t help that somebody leaked photos of the whole mess to the media. Especially because she was covered in blood. Holmes told me that she went into labor early after she was charged with attempted murder."

  "So while Mama and Papa Delgatto were trying to keep their only child out of jail and their new grandbaby alive, Petrocelli was whining to the media. His complaints laid the groundwork for his new business." Showalter shook his head in disgust.

  "No one would have ever expected things to go so wrong," sighed Lou. "Thomas Delgatto hires a promising culinary student. Gives the young man a chance to launch his career. Watches his seventeen-year-old daughter fall in love and get married. Sees his daughter being mistreated by that creep. Then spends the rest of his life trying to dig the family out of a hole when his son-in-law sues him. Here Cara is, two decades later, stumbling over the body of a man who was also hit in the head."

  "That's one heck of a co-inky-dink," muttered Showalter. "You keep saying she didn't do it, but your boss is right: You ain't got one iota of proof she didn't. She could have bonked Humberger over the head before you saw her at Pumpernickel's. Better find out who did Humberger in. And fast."

  "Motive, that's the key. I know the means. I know plenty of folks who had opportunity. But only one person out there must have had a compelling reason to do Humberger in. I just need to find him. Or her. So far, I can't see Cara Mia Delgatto as being that one person. Why kill a guy she'd just met?"

  "Because he tricked her into buying that dump." Showalter jerked his thumb toward the building.

  "She doesn't act like she was tricked," Lou said. "Looks like she's settling in for keeps. She’s got big plans for that place. Even got herself a renter. Might even make a decent go of it."

  A movement at The Treasure Chest caught his eye. Skye stepped out of the front door, followed by MJ and Cara Mia. Lou could see Skye's hands moving happily as she pantomimed positioning something near the front door.

  What a study in contrasts that trio of women were! MJ's brassy yellow hair was tied up with a scarf in a poofy ponytail, Skye's blond-streaked tendrils were escaping from a knot on the top of her head, and Cara Mia had pulled her dark curls into a loose braid. Skye talked with her hands, MJ kept hers crossed over her chest, and Cara Mia punctuated each phrase with a vigorous nod of the head.

  After the three came to some agreement, Cara paced off the front of the building, as if taking rough measurements. She'd taken five steps when a tan Chevy truck came racing down the street past the store.

  The driver gunned his engine and squealed his tires. The vehicle was mud-splattered. Lou instinctively looked at the license plate, but it was totally obscured with dirt.

  Something white went flying out of the driver's side window. A tiny form wind-milled through the air and hit the pavement with a sickening thud.

  It was a Chihuahua.

  45

  I was talking to Skye and MJ when a scream of pain pierced the air. I turned in time to see a dog hit the pavement. Rolling to its belly, the pup tried to stand but fell down in the middle of the street, right in front of Pumpernickel's. As the dog struggled, oncoming cars veered to the left and right to avoid hitting him.

  "Get help!" I yelled to my friends. Without thinking, I darted through the traffic and raced toward the animal. Once I made it to the middle of the street, I stood there shielding the dog with my body, gesturing for cars to go around us. The light turned yellow and then red, and traffic slowed to a stop.

  Woop-woop-woop!

  With siren blaring and red lights flashing, a police car pulled out from a space along the side of Pumpernickel's. Detective Murray was driving it. He took after the tan truck. Both cars raced away from us.

  Good. I hoped Detective Murray would throw the book at the creep who tossed this dog out of his truck.

  MJ joined me as I stood there in the middle of the pavement. She unwrapped the scarf from around her ponytail and played traffic cop, diverting cars around me. I bent over the dog. The tiny white Chihuahua was lying on its side and shivering, panting in pain. I knew better than to touch him. He was hurt and I was a stranger. He had every reason to bite me.

  "Is he still alive?" MJ called to me.

  "Yes! But he needs help."

  His left hind leg was bent at an odd angle. It must have taken the brunt of his weight when the dog hit the street. Moving the pup would cause pain, but I had to get him out of the street before all three of us got hit.

  MJ glanced down where I was crouching over the small white bundle. "I locked the store. Skye ran over to Pumpernickel's to get a cardboard box. She's thinking you could slide it under him. Then we could lift it and get him into my car.”

  The dog was panting but otherwise not moving. He was such a funny little thing with tufts of fur sticking out of bat wing ears. Feathers of fur trailed from his tail and legs. He looked at me, sidewise, as if to ask, "Are you going to hurt me, too?"

  "If he has internal
injuries, he might not make it," MJ warned me. "Best not to get too attached."

  I couldn't help it. My heart already ached for this poor creature. When Skye reappeared, she brought a corrugated cardboard box. One side had been cut away. She also carried a pair of thick gloves, the kind for doing heavy yard work. These I slipped over my hands, just in case the dog tried to bite me. While MJ ran to get her car, Skye took over directing traffic to flow around us.

  "I'm going to move you, buddy," I said to the dog. "We need to get you to a vet. I know it will hurt, and so please bear with me. I'll be as careful as I can, but these are not optimal circumstances."

  He wagged his tail as if he understood.

  While Skye played traffic cop, MJ waited her turn in the line of cars coming down the street. That pink Cadillac of hers was unmistakable. She drove very slowly, timing her arrival at the intersection to the light turning red. Her flashing hazard lights warned other drivers to give her a wide berth.

  Her arrival gave us a brief opportunity for moving the dog. Kneeling on the concrete, I slid the box under his body. When the white Chihuahua was nestled inside, I struggled to my feet with the makeshift stretcher. Skye helped me stand up. Then she threw open the rear door of MJ's car. After I was safely inside with my precious cargo, Skye closed my car door and hopped into the front passenger seat.