Confession Is Murder (14 page)

“About that argument they had the day Joseph was killed. Honestly, Lucille, I’d never heard either of them go on like that before. Especially not Joseph. You know how he was—so quiet-like all the time.” Janice bent down and tightened the shoelace on her right sneaker. “He sounded really mad for once.”

“What were they arguing about?”

“They were in Frankie’s office, but I could hear the occasional word—they were awful loud. They were arguing about money and something about the business.” Janice turned to face Lucille. “I’ve got to be honest with you, Lucille. I do the books, so I have some idea of what’s going on. Frankie was borrowing money from the business, and I think that’s what Joseph was so upset about.”

• • •

“It’s a shame about old Dr. Deluca being retired. Seeing as how he delivered you and all.” Lucille turned toward Bernadette, but she was looking out the side window and all Lucille could see was the back of her head.

Lucille sighed, flipped on her left blinker, and pulled into a driveway that ran alongside a squat three-story building. She could remember when there were empty lots along Springfield Avenue, and now everywhere you looked there were these red brick professional buildings filled with doctors, lawyers, chiropractors, and dentists.

When Dr. Deluca’s daughter took over the practice, she moved it to this new location on the border between New Providence and Berkeley Heights. Lucille pulled into a parking spot and got out. It sure made a change from the old office over the hardware store. She started walking toward the entrance. “You coming?” she called over her shoulder to Bernadette.

They’d been lucky to get this appointment—someone had canceled at the last minute. Lucille said an Act of Contrition and called in sick to work. Bernadette had taken to throwing up an awful lot, and Lucille was worried about the baby. The sooner they saw the doctor, the better.

Lucille pushed open the front door and stepped into the tiled foyer. There was a fake tree in the corner and an elevator against the opposite wall. Pretty fancy-schmancy considering in the old days you had to climb a long flight of narrow stairs to get to the doctor’s office.

Lucille glanced at the list of tenants engraved on a brass plaque next to the elevator. Maybe there was a cardiologist in the building? She was going to need one if her heart kept acting so funny. Flo said it was just an anxiety attack, but was that any reason for her heart to go knocking around so hard she thought she’d faint?

It was all that stuff Janice had told her about Frank and Joseph arguing and then Sambuco asking all those questions. She didn’t like the way things were beginning to point to Frank. Not that he would ever do anything like that. But who knows what the police might get into their head. They had arrested Tony Jr. after all, and anyone could see he was innocent. She sent up a prayer to St. Margaret of Antioch, patron saint of falsely accused people, and punched the button for the elevator.

The elevator opened opposite the reception desk, and Lucille approached the woman behind the counter. She was thin and blonde with narrow, dissatisfied-looking lips painted a frosted pink.

“Can I help you?”

“My daughter”—Lucille pointed toward Bernadette, who was slouched against the wall—“has an appointment to see Dr. Deluca. Young Dr. Deluca, that is.”

The woman ran a long, pointed red fingernail down the right-hand column of her appointment book. “Mrs. Mazzarella?” She looked at Bernadette inquiringly.

“Miss,” Lucille said. “It’s Miss Mazzarella.”

The woman raised one penciled brow and tightened her lips. “Please be seated. The doctor will be with you shortly.”

Lucille could feel herself blushing, and she hustled Bernadette past the desk and into the waiting room. It was fine for all those stars to have babies without fathers, but it was different for ordinary folks. Lucille could still remember when Jeanie Lundgren disappeared for five months in the middle of senior year and refused to talk about it, although everyone knew where she went and why.

The doctor might have moved to a fancier office, but the chairs weren’t any more comfortable, Lucille noted as she shifted around on the piece of red molded plastic. No matter how she sat, part of her oozed off the sides, and the edge dug into her thighs something fierce. She didn’t know how a pregnant woman was supposed to get comfortable on these things. She had a sudden vision of a very bloated Bernadette and shook her head. She didn’t want to think about that right now. Lucille glanced over at her daughter, who was slunk way down in her seat, resting on her tailbone. Lucille wanted to see her try and sit like that nine months down the road.

Lucille rifled through the magazines slung out on a table against the wall.
Parenting Your Child
,
Your Baby and You
,
Helping Your Child Grow—
the covers were all tattered, and she couldn’t find nothing newer than a year ago Christmas. No matter, she was way past reading magazines like that anyway. She’d done her best with Bernadette, and there wasn’t nothing she could do to change things now.

The elevator doors whooshed open, and everyone looked up at once. An older woman got off, followed by a tired-looking younger one with a pink flannel-wrapped bundle snuggled against her shoulder. Lucille could see the faces on the women across from her soften and could feel her own slacken too. She glanced at Bernadette again, but she was still staring listlessly ahead.

The women took two seats along the wall, perpendicular to Lucille. Lucille noticed the older woman shifting around in her chair and wanted to tell her there was no point—there was no getting comfortable on these things. The baby mewled a bit in its sleep, and the older woman fussed around patting its head, smoothing the blanket and tucking it in more securely. She sat back with a smile of satisfaction as the baby sighed and settled down.

She glanced at Lucille out of the corner of her eye. “It’s just so wonderful having a grandchild.” She leaned forward and gestured toward Bernadette. “Is your daughter expecting?”

Lucille nodded.

“You’re going to love being a grandmother.” She patted the baby’s back. “My son-in-law was so excited he went out and bought all new things for the nursery. You should see it. It’s like something out of a magazine.”

Lucille didn’t want to tell the woman she didn’t have no son-in-law, let alone one who could go out and spend money like that. Worse, her only
potential
son-in-law was sitting in jail and was likely to remain there unless she and Flo could find out who really killed Joseph.

A nurse in a blue smock came in and motioned to Bernadette. She got up, and Lucille hustled along right behind her. She wanted to hear what the doctor said because she knew she wasn’t going to get nothing out of Bernadette.

The woman motioned toward an open door, and Lucille and Bernadette crammed into the tiny room. Bernadette changed into a gown and climbed up on the paper-covered examining table. There was nowhere else to sit except a low, wheeled stool. Lucille perched on it carefully, her legs planted wide to keep her balance.

The door opened and another young woman came in. She had short curly hair and round-rimmed glasses and was wearing a pastel printed smock, navy sweatpants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and men’s work boots. She held her hand out to Bernadette. “Hi, I’m Gina Deluca.”

Lucille couldn’t believe it. This girl couldn’t be no doctor—she wasn’t old enough. And the way she was dressed—old Dr. Deluca always wore a coat and tie under his long white coat.

She seemed to know what she was doing, though, and Bernadette seemed to like her. She even answered the doctor’s questions.

“I’ll send my nurse in to draw some blood”—the doctor turned toward Lucille—“but it’s really just a formality.” She turned back toward Bernadette and smiled. “I would say from my examination that we can be pretty certain you’re pregnant.”

The door closed behind her, and Lucille let out a sigh. She was hoping that maybe the test had been wrong, and that Bernadette wasn’t pregnant after all.

She couldn’t understand it. Nowadays it was so easy to keep from getting pregnant—there was the pill, the morning-after pill, the night-before pill, the day-after-tomorrow pill, and god knows what else. It had been different for her and Frank. She was scared every time they did it in case she got knocked up. Then look what happened. Twenty-seven years of marriage and only one baby to show for it. It didn’t make no sense.

The door opened, and Dr. Deluca popped her head back in. “Almost forgot to tell you. According to this”—she gestured with the cardboard wheel in her hand—“June 10 is your due date. It’s going to be a spring baby.” And she smiled as she shut the door in back of her.

Everyone seemed so happy about this baby except her, Lucille thought. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud and was startled by the sound of her own voice. “Even if Tony Jr. does get out of jail, how is he going to support the three of yous? He don’t make all that much money, you know.”

Bernadette was buttoning her jeans over her still-flat stomach. “Didn’t you talk to Auntie Flo?”

“About what?” Lucille turned Bernadette’s T-shirt right side out and handed it to her.

Bernadette’s head disappeared momentarily, and Lucille couldn’t hear what she said. “I can’t hear you.”

“I said”—Bernadette’s head reappeared through the opening in the shirt—“Uncle Joseph left his half of JoFra to Tony, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

Chapter 10

A blast of warm air, smelling of perfume and ammonia, hit Lucille in the face as she pushed open the front door of the Clip and Curl Beauty Salon. Rita was behind the front desk.

“Hey, Lucille, what are you doing here?” She cupped the phone to her shoulder and reached out to touch Lucille’s arm.

“Flo here? I just need a few words, I know you’re busy.”

“She’s out back having a cig.” Rita motioned with her chin.

Lucille had been thinking about what Bernadette had told her all the way over here. Flo must have known about Joseph leaving Tony Jr. part of JoFra, and she never said nothing about it.

It sure as hell gave Tony Jr. one first-class reason for murdering Joseph. Now he was a big man—part owner of JoFra Exterminating, voted one of the best by
New Jersey Monthly
, no less. Not that that made him a murderer. But she could see why the police picked on him in the first place.

Did Frank know about it? she wondered. Her heart started that funny thumping business again. Maybe that was what he and Joseph had been arguing about that morning?

Lucille wound her way to the back of the shop with a nod to Carmela and a wave to a lady she thought she knew from church, although it was hard to tell what with half her head being hidden under the dryer hood.

She pushed open the back door. Flo was perched on the edge of one of the garbage cans having a cigarette. Her spandex skirt had hitched up her thighs, and Lucille could see a run forming in one of her black stockings. She also had a blonde streak in her dark hair that hadn’t been there that morning.

“What do you think, you like it?” Flo touched her hair and turned her head side to side.

“Looks great.” Lucille pulled her jacket around herself and edged toward the side of the building, where an exhaust fan was blowing warm air into the alley.

“Rita did it for me on my last break.”

“What gave you the idea?”

Flo shrugged. “I just wanted something different, I don’t know. Cheer me up a bit.”

Personally, Lucille thought that with Flo’s eye makeup and her newly streaked hair she looked like a cross between a raccoon and a skunk. But if this gave Flo a pickup, who was she to say anything. At least there weren’t any calories involved. Lucille had been going to wear her nice gray slacks today, but she couldn’t button them. She must be doing this Atkins thing all wrong, or else the guy was some kind of quack.

“What’s up?” Flo flicked her cigarette over the fence that separated the Clip and Curl’s alley from the one behind the liquor store next door. “Something wrong? You look upset.”

“Bernadette tells me that Joseph left his half of JoFra to Tony Jr.” No use in beating around the bush, Lucille decided. “Is this true, or has Bernadette gotten the whole thing wrong?”

Flo sighed. “I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t know how you’d feel about it.” She took another cigarette out of the pocket of her smock and lit it.

“And what about Connie? She was supposed to get the business so she could sell that half to Frank. It was all worked out when the two of them went into business together.”

Flo shrugged. “I don’t know about that, and frankly, I don’t care. This gives Tony Jr. a chance at a future.” Flo turned her head and blew out a stream of smoke. “Of course, it’s probably why the police think Tony Jr. killed Joseph—so he could take over the business. I guess you got to take the good with the bad.”

“I think the cops have been watching too much TV. Tony Jr. wouldn’t do something like that.” Lucille opened her purse, pulled out a packet of antacids, and popped one into her mouth. “I guess Joseph and Tony Jr. got real close seeing as how they worked together and Joseph trained him and all.”

“Tony Jr. really looked up to Joseph, and since he and Connie never had any kids of their own . . .”

“Yeah. It’s too bad. Joseph would have been a good father.” Lucille couldn’t quite see Connie as a mother, but she didn’t say anything. You could never tell. “Still, for Joseph to do something like that . . .”

“Listen, I’ve got to get back to work. Rita has a four o’clock and can’t stay at the desk much longer.”

The more Lucille thought about it, the more unbelievable it seemed—Joseph leaving his part of the business to Tony Jr. Why? It didn’t make no sense. There would have been plenty of time for Frank to teach Tony Jr. the ropes, and then maybe when it was time for Frank to retire, Tony Jr. could take over and they could make some of them trips they was always talking about. But that was years away.

Instead, Joseph had gone and given away half the business . . . Unless . . .