by Gina LaManna
When I pulled into the school’s parking lot, it was just after five. The lot was nearly deserted seeing as it was a Sunday. I parked and made my way inside.
The building looked like a standard elementary school. Long, brownish hallways with low ceilings and slick floors, flanked by lockers and decorated with student artwork on the walls. I passed a set of restrooms and found the gym to be at the far end of the classrooms.
I turned inside and stopped abruptly. The lights were on, but the gym was empty. I took a step further into the gym. A steady sense of trepidation crept down my spine. I had my hand on my gun when I heard the voice.
“Put it down,” Jodie Colombo said. “I’ll shoot, I swear to you. I’ll kill you, just like I killed him. Put the gun down.”
She approached from around a cloth divider hanging across a stage area at one end. Her hands were both pressed around the handle of a gun. Its ugly black nose was pointed directly at my chest.
“Now,” she repeated. “Put it down.”
The look in her eyes told me she wasn’t messing around. She flicked her arms at me, her finger dangerously close to squeezing the trigger.
“Do it, or I shoot.”
I held one hand up in surrender. “I’m doing it now.”
I pulled my gun from the holster. I set it on the floor, then gave it a kick backward—away from both of us.
“Move inside the door, further. Away from the gun.” Mrs. Colombo twitched again, giving directions with her weapon. “Get in the center of the basketball court.”
I moved to where she pointed, keeping both hands raised. “I take it basketball was cancelled tonight?”
“There was no practice,” she spat, obviously missing my sarcasm. “Shut up. I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”
“I’m not making you do anything!”
“You’re making me kill you.”
“Is that what your husband did, too?” I pressed. “Did Tony make you kill him? What did he do?”
“He’s an idiot,” she said. “He was an idiot. Throwing everything away for her.”
“For who?”
“The girl. The woman. I know you’ve talked to her; I’m not an idiot.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Angel,” she said in a mockingly high-pitched voice. “I thought he would never be one to stray. He said he loved me, loved the boys. I believed him, too. He did all the right things, said all the right words. Then I found out about her.”
“You’ve got this all wrong,” I said. “Tony wasn’t having an affair with Angel.”
“Yeah, right. That’s what he said, but I know better. He went into her apartment, multiple times. Alone. At night.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I said. “You’re the one who added the entries into the ledger. You wanted us to look into Angel.”
“Of course I did! She’s not innocent. I hope you nailed her for something. She’s the one responsible for this awful mess. You should be arresting her.”
“Why’d you kill your husband?”
“How would you feel if you were in my shoes? I’m carrying twenty pounds of extra weight, dealing with three young boys. I run the house, keep hot meals on the table for Tony. I gave up a life for him, my independence. But you don’t know what that’s like do you? You have all of that. You have your freedom.”
“I thought you loved Tony.”
“I did love him; that’s the problem. I liked being married to him, but then he went and messed it all up. I lied about the ledgers too—they’ve been at my house the whole time. I helped him keep the books. So, imagine when I discovered that Tony had been socking away an extra five grand a month and not telling me about it.”
The five grand that Hammond had mentioned. He hadn’t been lying after all.
“The only reason he wouldn’t have told me about the money was if he was using it on... on her,” she snarled. “So, yeah. I added some bogus entries. It’s my husband’s ledger. It’s not a sin to stretch the truth.”
“No, but it is a crime to kill him,” I said. “How’d you get into Bellini’s?”
She frowned. “I walked in. It’s not exactly like it’s a highly guarded state secret. I met a friend for happy hour as a cover. She left after a couple of drinks, and I hung around the bar until Tony arrived.”
“How’d you know he’d be there?”
“The idiot told me,” she said. “He told me he was meeting friends for a late dinner, but when I made a few calls, none of his friends were meeting him there. I figured he was meeting her.”
“But she wasn’t there,” I said. “Yet you killed him anyway.”
“I-I didn’t know what to do,” Jodie said uncertainly. “Maybe he was meeting her—I didn’t know. So, when he went into the refrigerator to grab something for one of the Bellinis, I just walked in after him. Nobody blinked twice. I couldn’t stop myself.”
“You had a homemade silencer on your gun.”
“I’m married to a guy named Peg Leg,” she said. “A girl picks up a few tricks.”
“You didn’t even try to talk to him?”
Mrs. Colombo twitched her nose, as if she had to itch. Oddly enough, she looked the part of basketball mom with her black yoga pants and zip-up Lululemon hoodie. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, her expression painted with disgust.
“I knew everything I needed to know,” she said. “Tony was sleeping around on me while I held the fort down at home. I gave up everything for him, and he couldn’t even be loyal to me.”
“Tony wasn’t there to meet Angel,” I said. “Tony wasn’t having an affair with her.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “The visits to her apartment, the meetings at restaurants around town. He always said he was going out with friends, but his friends were always at home with their wives! He was lying to me.”
“It’s true.” The voice came from the doorway of the gym.
Both Mrs. Colombo and I whipped our heads around to stare. My father appeared, his hands raised. He stepped onto the court. My discarded gun was less than two feet from him.
“What are you doing here?” Mrs. Colombo swiveled the gun to face my father, then back to me. “Don’t you move, or I’ll shoot your daughter.”
“I’m out of this business,” my father said. “I’m just here to tell you the truth. Kate’s right. Tony wasn’t sleeping around on you.”
“But—”
“The money was from a group of guys Peg Leg started working with a few months before he died,” my father said. “He was a low-level drug runner. Tony would pick up supplies from Angel and drop them off at various locales around town. Mostly restaurants.”
“How would you know?” she snapped.
I wondered the same thing, but I didn’t admit it.
“It doesn’t matter how I know,” he said coolly. “It matters that I do know. Tony loved you, Jodie. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was working the extra shift to buy you a new place. There was a plot of land the two of you had your eye on. Isn’t that right?”
She inhaled a breath. “How’d you know?”
“Because he told me. Tony was a friend of mine, and we talked like friends do. He loved to tell me about you and the boys. This extra job he picked up—he did it for you. For the kids. He was saving up to buy the plot for your birthday.”
Mrs. Colombo audibly swallowed. “He wouldn’t have kept a secret from me. My birthday’s next month.”
“He was working with a real estate agent,” my father said. “You can ask the guy who was drawing up the paperwork. Tony was all set to sign on the dotted line next week.”
“That doesn’t explain the girl.”
“She was just a middleman working for the same guys as Tony. Angel got the first leg of the drop. Then Tony’d go over to her place and pick up the goods. After he delivered it to the final destination, both of them got a cut. Pretty good money for not a whole lot of work. Though, in retrospect, it wasn’t worth it
, seeing as it got him killed.”
“My Tony...” Her lip trembled. “You’re saying...”
“You know what I’m saying, Jodie.” My father lowered his arms in a settling sort of gesture. “Put the gun down. This doesn’t have to end badly.”
Jodie looked like she wanted to believe my father. Her hands shook, the nose of her weapon dipped slightly. Then, with a burst of renewed anger, she raised her gun and pointed it at me.
“The only way I’m getting out of this and keeping my freedom is if you two are dead,” she said. “I never wanted to do this, but I’ve got three boys who are counting on me. They need me.”
“Jodie,” my father said sharply. “Don’t take this out on Kate. You did this to yourself.”
My father stepped forward, and I could tell what he was doing, even before he did it. He took another step, closer to the gun.
“Stay where you are!” Jodie shouted at him. “Don’t move. I’ll shoot you.”
“I know you will,” my father said. “Just like you shot Tony. The man you said you loved, the man who—”
The shot rang out just as my father’s foot connected with my gun and kicked it toward me.
My gun skittered across the floor. I dove for it, swiped it off the ground, and had it pointed at Mrs. Colombo even as her hands flew up above her head.
Her eyes pooled with tears as her gun clattered to the floor.
I sprinted toward her, snapped a pair of cuffs around her wrists. I collected her gun and then, finally, looked over at my father.
“Dad!”
He lay on the ground, blood pooling beneath him. I was by his side in two seconds flat.
“You’re hit,” I said. “Where?”
“I’m fine,” he grunted. “Just glad it wasn’t you.”
“You made her do it. You took the shot that was meant for me. If you hadn’t been here...” I fumbled for my phone, pulled it out. Made a quick 911 call, then dropped the phone the second I’d given the appropriate information.
I tugged my sweater off, bundled it in a ball and pressed it against the wound on his shoulder. My hands shook, and my insides felt as if they were crumbling into dust. My father’s blood coated my hands.
“I’m fine,” he grunted. “The bullet didn’t hit anything serious.”
“How’d you know to come here?” My voice shook.
“I was following Jodie,” he said. “She’d been acting strange, refusing to see me. I knew something wasn’t right, and I was worried she’d found Tony’s hidden cash and killed him for it. When I heard you’d been shot at today, I knew someone was getting desperate, and you were getting close to some answers. I had to see if I was on the right track.”
“I’d say you were,” I said, then amended. “Sort of.”
“I thought she killed him for the money,” he grunted. “Never figured she’d done it out of anger.”
He closed his eyes, drifted off.
I swiveled my head around to face Mrs. Colombo. “What are the chances the bullet from that gun matches the one that went through my car’s window?”
Mrs. Colombo stopped her cries for the briefest of moments. “What bullet? I never shot at you.”
“Earlier today.”
“I was at church with my kids,” she said. “I didn’t have time to shoot at you.”
I turned back to my father, a question lingering in my mind. But he was unconscious.
Sirens screamed in the distance. Minutes later, the gym was flooded with cops. Several took Mrs. Colombo into custody immediately. I handed over her gun to another uniform, then stayed glued to my father’s side while the EMTs got him loaded onto a stretcher and into an ambulance.
“He’s going to be fine,” one of the young men working on him said. “He’ll survive.”
“He has to,” I said. “He’s my dad.”
My father opened his eyes, gave me a smile despite his ghostly white features. “I’ve waited a long time to hear you say that, Kate.”
Epilogue
The hospital waiting room fell silent. For hours, it had buzzed with activity, but after the initial flurry had faded, there was nothing left to be said. Jane sat on one side of me, my mother on the other.
I reached for my mother’s hand. “I’m really sorry about this,” I said, not for the first time. “I shouldn’t have called you and interrupted your date. You didn’t need to sit here with us.”
She squeezed my hand back, staring straight ahead. “I wanted to know. You did the right thing, calling me.”
I wasn’t sure why I’d done it, but after the EMTs had carted my dad off to the hospital, Jimmy had driven me over to be with him. He’d waited with me until Jane arrived. Not long after, my mother had arrived, too, and Jimmy had excused himself.
“Ma,” I ventured carefully. “Did you come here tonight to be with us? Or did you come to see dad?”
A faint smile appeared on her lips. “Is there no way it could be both?”
“I just wondered...”
“I loved your father for a long time. Maybe a part of me still does,” she murmured. “And I love you girls, too. In some odd way, I suppose we’re still a family.”
I cleared my throat. “You know, the bullet he took was meant for me. He stepped in front of it to save my life.”
“I’m not surprised. Your father is a good man.”
“I think he still has feelings for you.”
Jane glared at me.
“I think she should know,” I argued. “I don’t want to be in the middle of anything, and it felt like I was keeping a secret. She should know I’ve been talking to dad.”
“Honey.” My mother’s expression melted into one of utter sadness. “Don’t ever blame yourself for anything that happens—or doesn’t happen—between me and your father.”
“I understand, but—”
“You and your sister are adults,” my mother said. “If you choose to carry on a relationship with him, I respect your choice. He’s your father.”
Jane gave me a quizzical glance, then turned her attention to our mother. “In that case, I should come clean to you, too.”
“Jane, I know you’ve been meeting your father for years.” My mother’s eyes twinkled. “Your father and I might not be as out of touch as we let you think. At least, not when it comes to you girls.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“He wrote to me a while back,” she said, “and asked if I minded that he was meeting Jane.”
“You knew this whole time,” I said. “What about the deal with Greg, then?”
“What about it?” my mother asked. “Your father and I are divorced. I’ve been on my own a long time, and I’m ready to look for love again. Finally.”
“You’ve no interest in getting back with dad?” It felt like a juvenile question even as I asked it.
“It’s complicated,” she said as the doctor appeared and announced that we could see my father.
The three of us trooped into the room. My father lay in bed, tubes hanging from him, screens beeping. He was bandaged and dressed in a gown.
Though still pale, my father’s eyes lit up when he saw us. “There are my girls.”
Jane went to him first, gave him a soft hug, careful not to touch his wounds. I was next and opted for a gentle squeeze of his arm. My mother hovered in the background.
“I’m glad to see you,” my father said finally. “Thanks for coming. If only for the girls.”
My mother’s eyes pooled with moisture. “I didn’t come just for the girls.”
After a long silence, a tear dripped down my mother’s cheek. She moved forward as if in a dream, bent toward my father, and pressed her lips sweetly to his forehead.
I watched, unable to tear my eyes away until I felt a tug at my arm. Jane pulled me out of the room. One glance over my shoulder, and the sight of my parents together—if only for a moment—overwhelmed me.
With a shock, I realized it was the first time my family had been together i
n decades.
“I told you it would all work out, didn’t I?” Jane said with her own smile.
I nodded, but there was still something niggling in the back of my mind. Something that, despite my happiness at seeing my father on the mend, and my family all in one room, wasn’t quite right.
If Mrs. Colombo hadn’t shot at me earlier this morning, then who had?
AFTER A ROUGH NIGHT of sleep, I dragged myself out of bed and into the kitchen. Jane and I had come straight home from the hospital the night before, though my mother had opted to stay by my dad’s side. I poured myself a cup of coffee from the carafe and balanced the phone against my ear.
“Your friend was right,” Russo said over the line. “I hope you don’t mind that I looked into things.”
“I thought you had a case,” I said. “What are you doing poking into my files?”
“I couldn’t sleep last night knowing I was across the country from you,” Russo said, “and that someone with a gun was still out there looking for you.”
“Oh?”
“Why don’t you come to your front door?”
“I’m confused.”
“Do you trust me?”
Letting the phone drop away from my ear, I made my way to the front door. I held my breath, feeling the natural urge to reach for my gun. I refrained, however, and was glad for the restraint when I tugged the door open.
“Russo?” I gasped.
He held his phone up, then shut down our call as he stepped forward and pulled me into his arms. “I missed you.”
“It was...” I calculated. “Hardly twelve hours since I saw you last.”
“I know,” Russo said. “It was a long twelve hours.”
“But I don’t understand.”
Russo tilted his head behind him. His familiar black rental car was parked out front. Behind it was a police cruiser, though I couldn’t see who was driving it. Only that a figure sat in the backseat.
“When you called last night from the hospital and mentioned that you didn’t think ballistics would peg Mrs. Colombo as the shooter from the gas station, I did a bit of digging,” Russo said. “And like I mentioned earlier, your friend was right. Follow the money.”
