Nun Too Soon (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 1) (13 page)

Twenty-One

Frank chewed and swallowed his first bite of pad thai, then took another. After the third, he said, “I like it. Did you find a new takeout place?”

Giulia threw her napkin at him. “This pad thai was created from scratch by these two hard-working hands.”

Her husband laughed and tossed the napkin back at her. “I knew it all along. Let me get my phone.” He stretched one arm sideways and snagged the phone from the kitchen counter. He snapped a picture of his dinner plate and sent it. A few seconds later he dialed a number.

“Sean? It’s Frank. Did you get the text I just sent? Good. Tell me what it is.”

“Uh...noodles and veggies and stuff.” Frank’s brother’s voice came from the phone at full volume.

“Ignoramus. You are looking at homemade pad thai. If I could send you the aroma over the phone, I would. When do Tina and the kids get back from her mom’s? And how’s that frozen pizza?”

“Go n-ithe an cat thú is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat.”

“I love you too, big brother. No leftovers will be coming your way.” He hung up.

Giulia giggled into her noodles. “Irish curses are much cleverer than Italian curses. I have nothing to top ‘May the cat eat you and may the Devil eat the cat.’”

“He deserved it. He spent years telling me what a terrific cook Tina is, and not sharing any of it. Payback is sweet.” He stopped talking and paid attention to supper.

“We have enough to bring him a bowlful.”

“Are you serious?” He swallowed. “I’m not letting this out of our kitchen.”

Giulia basked in Frank’s oblique praise. Coming home to her own home and family after the day she’d had was something she’d never dreamed of hoping for in the bad old days. Her brother’s marriage wasn’t the greatest example to follow, either. He ran his house like a Catholic army barracks with him as Pope, military police, and God all in one.

Frank refilled his Coke and her iced tea. Giulia smiled.

“What?” he said.

“I’m comparing you to other husbands, and they are suffering thereby.”

Frank affected an innocent expression. “Well, of course.”

Half an hour later, Frank left for his Police Rec League basketball game. Giulia found a nature sounds radio station on iTunes and cranked it. She pushed the coffee table against the couch and rolled up the throw rug. From the combination office/library/den she brought six different colored highlighters and a tape dispenser.

“All right, friends, relatives, and co-workers. Let’s see what you’re really saying.”

She started with the first interview, Geranium Asher. Yellow for her, since she was the happiest of all the people Giulia had spoken to. The marker picked out the high points. The fights. Geranium’s idea that Loriela wanted power and Fitch wanted things. A lot of wanting.

Next in the pile: Len Tulley. The surprise. The stick bug, to be precise. Green for him, since envy was eating him alive.

“Brown would work too, but I can’t read through it. There, where you pretend you’re a dumb, beer-drinking ex-jock. There, where you reveal your capacity to hold a grudge for years. And there, where you throw three people under the bus, including Fitch’s lawyer.”

She sat back on her heels. “Getting information from Colby Petit, Esq. is going to take finesse. Tomorrow morning and a fresh strategy session for you.” She switched to a red pen and wrote a few notes at the top of Tulley’s first page.

“Mrs. Gil. Hot pink for you, only because they don’t make angry red highlighters.” Giulia started marking sentences halfway down the first page, continued onto pages two and three and covered half of page four.

“Ouch.”

She ran back into the den for a black magic marker and revisited all the highlights, underscoring in black only the bits and pieces that appeared to have more truth than hate in the mix. She’d have to reread all of these transcripts.

Blue for Jonathan Stallone. He disappointed Giulia. She’d been all prepared to crown him Suspect Number One. He had all the markers: Jilted lover, anger issues, strength, opportunity. Yet he came across as the most well-adjusted of the five. She didn’t think he was conning her either, not like Len Tulley’s Jekyll and Hyde act.

“How dare you get over a failed relationship and move on with your life, Mr. Stallone?” She used hardly any highlighter on his transcript.

Shirley Travers, on the other hand...Bright orange for her and lots of it. Think of the lost income. The perceived downgrade in job status when she finally got hired by her school district. The rearranging of her entire life as her rival’s status and pay grade rose higher and higher in her former company.

“Shirley ought to have SUSPECT stenciled on her forehead in fluorescent orange to match this marker. But is that too easy?” She shook her head. “Only a fool refuses a gift dropped right into her lap. I’m not a fool.”

More orange on sentence after sentence. It still didn’t feel quite right. She persevered anyway. When Shirley’s transcript bled orange, she stretched her back and made a face at the pile of police and DNA reports. All at once she’d had enough of chirping birds and harp glissandos. Off went the radio, on went the TV. She found the Marx Brothers’
Duck Soup
in the DVD carrel and popped it into the player.

She left the papers in small piles on the floor and made herself a cup of coffee sweetened with amaretto creamer. Fetching her iPad from her bag, she stretched on the couch with a full-on view of the movie and the coffee on the table ready to hand.

As Groucho confused Margaret Dumont, Giulia booted her tablet and opened both sets of surveillance photos from Fitch’s apartment building.  The first “extra” photo from the police’s version appeared early in the set.

“I suppose I understand why the courtroom exhibit version doesn’t have this one. A photo of a skunk nosing around a barberry bush isn’t clue material.” She reached for her coffee with her left hand while she scrolled alternately through the photos with her right. “Number two looks like a duplicate of the first lightning photo in both sets.” She enlarged it, but side by side they still looked like those drawings in the Sunday comics that wanted you to find six differences between the two pictures.

The third and fourth photos of the extra seven had caught two teenagers running through the grass. One in a hoodie, one bareheaded. The bareheaded one was laughing and her soaked hair was plastered flat.

Photo five fell chronologically between the one of the rain-soaked balcony and the one with the man-sized shadow. Or woman-sized. Shirley Travers and Len Tulley were about the same height. Tulley carried at least a hundred more pounds, but the shadow appeared to be wearing a hooded poncho. It concealed the exact shape of the person with great effectiveness.

In this photo, the shadow stood on the sidewalk with its face turned north, toward the stoplight at the nearby intersection. The poncho hood covered everything but the tip of the nose. Giulia enlarged the photo. Whoever this was, their stance indicated they were listening. The nose tip wasn’t particularly distinctive. Not pointy or bulbous, not hooked or tipped up.

But if Giulia could somehow line up Shirley, Len, Roger himself, and, yes, Colby...

She stared at the photo ’til her eyes blurred. Onscreen, Chico and Harpo drove the burly lemonade stand owner to distraction. Giulia rubbed her eyes and watched the classic comedy for a few minutes.

She drank more coffee and scrolled to the sixth eliminated photo. This was also nonessential, showing possibly the same skunk crossing the footprints in the mulch.

The seventh and last appeared toward the end. The figure in the poncho was jumping the low barberry hedge onto the sidewalk. At the near end of the shot, Loriela’s arm dangled over the edge of the balcony. Like the “waiting” photo, the captured movement of the running man—or woman—might be enough to pinpoint which of the four Giulia suspected.

“Wait. What about that actor Cassandra Gil and Len Tulley threw at me?”

She scooted off the end of the couch and flipped through Cassandra’s transcript, then Tulley’s.

“Actor and baby mama. I’m going to have to call Loriela’s mother.”

Onscreen, the four Marx brothers romped and sang about Freedonia going to war. Giulia had a fleeting wish that the main players in this case would somehow break into spontaneous song and dance. She hit the pause button and dialed Cassandra Gil, hoping she’d be home on a Friday night.

“Hello?”

Yes.
“Mrs. Gil, this is Giulia Falcone-Driscoll. May I ask you a few more questions?”

“Of course. Please wait one minute while I check on supper in the oven.”

The low-pitched creak of the door on an older oven. Giulia’s last two convents had ovens that sounded exactly like that. The scrape of a baking dish sliding off the inner rack. The crinkle of foil, then footsteps.

“Your timing is very good. The chicken must rest for five minutes before George carves it. What is it you wish to know?”

Giulia plunged in. “I’ve heard rumors Roger Fitch got his last girlfriend before Loriela pregnant and then deserted her. Would you know anything about that?”

A Spanish profanity. “Loriela mentioned once that a woman came to their apartment to see him and he was surprised and angry. I do not know if the woman was pregnant.”

“Then you wouldn’t know her name?”

“No. I am sorry.” Frustration edged her voice. “Is it very important?”

“Please don’t worry about it. I’ll ask Mr. Fitch when I see him tomorrow.”

A harsh laugh. “He’s willing to tell you about the evils he has done, but still claims that he did not murder my daughter?”

“He’s ready to give me any information he thinks will lessen his chance of conviction.”

“He is a drowning man snatching at straws.”

“One more thing, and then I won’t take up any more of your Friday night. Do you remember anything more about the actor Loriela dated? The one you said Roger Fitch gave a black eye to?”

A real laugh from Cassandra this time. “Oh, that one. He did not understand how funny all his words and actions appeared.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Let me think...‘Henri’ something. I called him ‘Henry’ once and he corrected me with great seriousness. Let me ask George.”

The sound in Giulia’s ear became muffled. She pictured Cassandra cupping her hand over the tiny phone.

“George, what is the name of that egotistical actor who stalked Loriela after she had moved on to Roger Fitch?” Her voice came through the covering hand with only a slight loss of clarity.

The rattle of cutlery underscored George’s voice. “He had two first names, didn’t he? Pronounced the second one weird.”

“That is it.” The sound cleared. “The actor’s name was Henri Richard. The last name is spelled like Richard, but he pronounced it
ri-shard
.”

George’s voice, saying something Giulia couldn’t make out. Then Cassandra’s voice again. “He performed out of a renovated church downtown. The one with the beautiful rose window.”

“Next door to the open-air Farmers’ Market,” Giulia finished. “Yes, I know exactly where that is. Thank you so much, Mrs. Gil.”

“I told you, I will give you any help I can so I may drink champagne at his execution. George is making the face that means I am getting angry again and I should come eat supper.”

Giulia smiled into the phone. “I won’t keep you from your supper. Good night.”

She ended that call and dialed Fitch. He answered on the second ring.

“Angie?”

“It’s Giulia Falcone-Driscoll, Mr. Fitch.”

“Oh.”

The disappointment in that one word made Giulia wonder what attributes Angie had to cause it. She braced for more shouting.

“Could you let me have the name and address—and phone number, if possible—of your former girlfriend who you’re rumored to have gotten pregnant?”

To the delight of Giulia’s ears, Fitch remained silent for several seconds.

“Somebody’s got their knife into my back,” he said at last. “The name you want is Lacy Maples.” He spelled out an address. “I deleted her number from my phone two years ago. For the record: I did not tell her to have an abortion, I did not force her to have an abortion, and I did not pay for an abortion. Clear?”

“Yes.” Giulia drew angry emoticons in the margin of the printout under her hand. “Then you admit it was your child.”

“No, I do not admit that. Jesus Christ, what the hell have people been telling you?”

“You hired me to look into everything. That’s what I’m doing.”

“Great. Won’t I look good to a jury now? Happy?” He hung up.

A key turned in the deadbolt on the front door. “I’m home,” Frank called from the short front hall. “Sweaty, victorious, and starving.”

“So of course you stopped at the Garden of Delights and brought dessert,” Giulia called back.

“What? I can’t hear you over the sound of my stomach growling.”

Giulia laughed and dropped her phone onto the couch. “Never fear. Blueberry pie awaits. I’ll make coffee. I’d make just about anything for the delight of talking with a reasonable man.”

Frank came up behind her and squeezed her in his not-too-sweaty arms. “You are a model for all wives. I gather I’m being favorably compared to The Silk Tie Killer?”

“Indeed you are. Don’t let it go to your head. Go away and change. Coffee will be ready in a few minutes.”

When Frank entered the kitchen to carry dishes to the living room, Giulia had her questions prepared for him.

“The living room appears to have been annexed by Driscoll Investigations,” he said.

“Temporarily. I’m annexing you tonight as well.”

“Taskmaster.” He sat at the end of the coffee table, away from the papers on the floor. After his first bite of pie, he said, “You have won me over with this dessert. Ask away.”

Giulia brought up the two sets of pictures on her tablet. “The lawyer’s version omits seven from the raw version you gave me. Five of them are nothing—a skunk and kids and duplicates. But look at the other two.” She handed him the tablet. “See how the person in the hooded poncho is standing? Now scroll down...there. The one with the same person jumping the barberry bushes.”

Frank scrolled back and forth between both photos. “What about them?”

“I’m thinking Fitch’s lawyer omitted them because they have details which could identify this mysterious person. Someone with a concealed face and a body-disguising raincoat who happened to be lurking around Fitch’s apartment the night Loriela was killed. The prosecution would give a lot to know who that is.”

“So would we.” He stopped at the photo with the bare wet arm in the foreground. After enlarging it and holding it close and at a distance, he shook his head. “It’s not enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look.”

He set the tablet flat on the coffee table. Giulia pushed both coffee cups to the other end, away from the screen.

Frank started with, “I get what you’re saying about the way poncho carries himself.”

“Or herself,” Giulia said.

“Or herself. But, to give one example, actors can imitate certain posture tics. Let’s assume that the killer—we won’t say who that is—hired some out-of-work actor to pose in ways that the killer knows will trip the motion-sensor camera.” He reached around the tablet for his coffee. “Don’t raise your eyebrows. The actor gets told it’s a practical joke, because a friend watches too many slasher movies. Or that a rival security system is trying to sell the apartment building owners on a better camera. And that the trick is the actor has to imitate a certain person to make it work.”

Giulia tried to see the photo with fresh eyes. “Seriously?”

“One hundred percent. A good prosecuting attorney could take those photos and twist them into whatever he wanted. Face it, the state’s attorney might be doing exactly that as they prepare for the trial.”

Giulia scooped the last of the vanilla ice cream from her plate.

“Better find out now than waste more time on this angle.” He picked up his plate and leaned back in the chair. “That’s probably why Fitch’s lawyer chose his creative omission. If I had to guess, despite what I just said, the prosecution might not be wasting any time on it either. They’ve got a straightforward case with the DNA and other evidence.”

“I’m not happy.” Giulia shook her fork at Frank. “I’ve got a thin lead on an actor the victim dated, but it seems too easy.”

“Easy? I know you know how many months it takes to put a case like this together.”

“Yes, yes. That’s not what I mean.” She picked up her dishes. “I mean that if Fitch is willing to expose all these details to us when he has one of the best lawyers for this type of case, there must be something else to it all.”

Frank followed her into the kitchen. “I applaud your determination. Because of that, I promise not to say ‘I told you so’ when he slips up and you realize he’s a slick liar as well as a murderer.”

Giulia gave him her “unimpressed teacher” look. “You, sir, have one major fault. You resist change at all costs.”

He closed the dishwasher. “I prefer to think of myself as a rock to be relied upon.”

“Argh. Come watch the end of the movie with me before I dive into my clue collage.”

“Not the clue collage.” Frank pretended to sink under a heavy weight. “I won’t see you ’til midnight.”

“Great art requires sacrifice.”