The Vendetta Defense (15 page)

Judy didn’t want the sandwich. She set it back down on the undershirt. “Pigeon Tony, I saw Angelo Coluzzi in the morgue. I want you to tell me how you came to kill him. Do you understand?”

“Si.”
Pigeon Tony frowned, his forehead buckling into leathery wrinkles. “You no eat, Judy?”

“No, now let’s talk. Tell me everything. Who else was there, how you found him—everything.”

“Talk, then eat?”

“Talk, then eat.” Judy sighed. The man could negotiate with the best of them. She imagined him back in Italy, getting the best prices for whatever he grew. Tomatoes, olives, whatever. “But we’re going to talk first. Talk now.”

Pigeon Tony appeared to think a minute, then his face darkened. “I see Coluzzi at the club, you know? The club?”

Judy nodded. The pigeon-racing club. “What time of day, exactly?”

“Ah, inna mornin’. Friday, eight o’clock inna mornin’.” Pigeon Tony nodded, his small mouth tight. “Alla loft, they come to the clubhouse. The birds, they get the bands. Onna legs. Before race. You understand?”

Judy nodded. She was the one who spoke English. She understood. “Who else was there, in the clubhouse?”

“Alla people—Tony, Feet, alla inna club. Me, Pigeon Tony, I go to back, inna back, to get bands and
bom
”—Pigeon Tony’s eyes glittered—“I see Coluzzi!”

“In the back? What back?”

“Inna room, inna back. They play cards. You know.”

Judy didn’t know, but she could guess. “Why were you going in the back room?”

“To get bands, for birds. They have at club. They count, so no cheating. Everybody get bands before race.”

“Fine.” Judy nodded. Whatever. “Was anybody else in the back room?”

“Coluzzi.”

Judy persisted. “I meant anybody besides Coluzzi and you?”

“No.”

“So it was just you and him, in the back room.” Judy tried to visualize it. She would have to get to the crime scene soon. When would she find the time? What about her other cases? “How big is the back room?”

“Little. Is little room.”

“What’s in it besides bands?”

“Alla things. Alla for birds.”

“Supplies for the birds?”

“Si, si.”

Judy could make only a mental note. She’d been so pissed when she got here, she’d left her backpack in the car. “Okay, so you go in the back room, and there he is. What happens next?”

“I see Coluzzi and I hate him. Hate!” Pigeon Tony’s face colored and he clenched his small hands. “I
hate
him, in here. Inside.” He thumped a fist on his chest. “Inna my
heart
I hate him. You know,
hate
?”

“Yes, I know,” Judy said, though she doubted that anybody whose first language was English knew the hate he was talking about.

“And I kill him.”

The words made Judy shudder. “So you just start hating him, and you kill him?” It sounded like spontaneous combustion, but she couldn’t begin to translate. “Just like that?”

Pigeon Tony’s eyes clouded with apparent confusion.

“I’m trying to understand why you killed him. I saw his body and his neck. It was broken very badly. It was awful to see. I don’t know how you could do such a thing.”

“Si, si.”
Pigeon Tony nodded. “I
say
you before. I kill him. He kill my wife. I say, before.”

Judy wiped her brow. If this weren’t a privileged conversation, she’d get Frank to translate. Shirtless. “I’m trying to make sense of this. I’m asking, did you just see Coluzzi and then run at him and break his neck?”

“
Si, si,
we make a fight and I break his neck. You know.”

Judy did a double take. “What do you mean, you made a fight?”

“
Si, si
, we make a fight.” Pigeon Tony cocked his head. “
Come se dice,
make a fight?”

“No, wait a minute.” She would have to hire a fully dressed translator. It would be less fun but she could do her job. “We say fight, too, but you didn’t tell me you two had a fight. What did you fight about?”

“What he say.”

“What did he say?”

Pigeon Tony’s dark eyes fluttered. “He say . . . thing.”

“Yes, but what?” Judy couldn’t keep anger from her tone. “Did he call you a name? What?”

Pigeon Tony didn’t answer, his gaze focused on a splotch of sun outside the oak grove. Birds chirped in the meadow but he wasn’t listening to them either.

“Pigeon Tony, tell me what he said. You understand more than you let on. You don’t fool me.”

Pigeon Tony’s head moved slowly to face Judy and he seemed to wait a moment until his eyes focused. “He say he kill my son.”

Judy felt stricken. “Your
son
? He admitted it?”

“My Frank. And wife, Gemma. Inna truck.”

“You mean, the truck accident?”

“No accident! He
do
it. He kill
my son
. He kill
my wife
. He say me, he say me! He say he
destroy
me, because Silvana want me! He say he destroy Frankie.
Alla my family
.” His voice broke slightly and tears sprang to his dark eyes, but Judy was struggling for clarity.

“So he told you he killed your son? He said he’d kill Frank, too? Your grandson Frank?”

“Si! Si!”
Pigeon Tony was looking at her, but lost in the memory. Wetness brimmed in his eyes, refusing to budge. “When he say this, I go
bom
! I
hate him
, I hate him! I run and push him and break his neck! I kill him, for my son! For my wife! For my Frankie!
With my hands I do it!
”

Judy understood. She could almost imagine him, blind with pain and rage, avenging so many murders and saving Frank. “You killed him right then, after he said that?”

“
Si, si!
I kill him and he fall onna floor and they come, from the room. Alla people, come then. Tony, Feet. They see.”

Judy found herself thinking like a defense lawyer again. “Did he say he’d kill you?”

“No, no. He no kill me. He destroy me.”

Judy understood. The knowledge would make Pigeon Tony’s life a living hell. She tried another tack. “When he said this, was it loud? Did the other people hear him?”

“No, not loud. Soft. He make a laugh.” Pigeon Tony wiped tears that wouldn’t come, and Judy winced.

“Are you sure?” Couldn’t one person have heard it? She needed a witness to the conversation. “Was there a door to the room?”

“Si, si.”

“Was it closed or open?”

“Close.”

Judy considered it. No witnesses, and such a bombshell. “Why didn’t I know this? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Ogni ver non è ben detto.”

“What?”

“Alla truths not be told.”

“What?”
Judy hoped she hadn’t heard him right. “You tell me everything. You want me to represent you, you be honest with me! You
have
to tell me.”

“Perchè?”
Pigeon Tony said, and Judy translated from the challenging flash to his eyes.

“Because I said so, that’s why!”

“You tell judge?”

“No, of course not.”

“Pfft!” Pigeon Tony made a noise that accompanied a twist of his hand in the country air, and Judy figured it meant what’s-the-difference. Unfortunately, she couldn’t immediately think what the difference was legally, but she still wanted to know.

“Is there anything else you didn’t tell me?”

“No, no.”

Judy’s eyes narrowed. “Promise?”

Pigeon Tony crossed himself, which Judy decided was an acceptable substitute.

Then she remembered something. The conversation with Frank at his parents’ gravesite. Frank had said Pigeon Tony suspected it wasn’t an accident, not that he was told. Why hadn’t Frank told her? Maybe he hadn’t had a chance to talk with his grandfather after his arrest. But why hadn’t Frank told her since then? Picked up the phone? “Why didn’t Frank tell me?”

“I no tell Frank.”

Judy’s mouth opened slightly. “Why not?”

Pigeon Tony made a quick wave. “Not for him.”

“What? It’s his family. It’s his mother and father.”

“
You
no tell. Understand? No tell!” Suddenly Pigeon Tony pointed at Judy so sternly she was taken aback.

“I don’t tell him anything you tell me. I can’t. But why didn’t you tell him?”

“No! I no tell! Why I’m gonna tell? Break his heart?”

Judy agreed. It would hurt Frank, that much was true. Still. “But doesn’t he have a right to know?”

“Che?”

“A right. He has a right to know.” Judy fumbled for a synonym. How could she explain the concept of a legal right to someone who didn’t believe in the law? Or a moral right to someone who thought he was justified in killing? “Frank is entitled to know. He should know. It’s his business.”

“No! Is for
me,
not Frankie.
I
make vendetta, not
him
!” The gloom vanished from Pigeon Tony’s face as he scrambled to his feet with a tiny grunt and motioned to Judy to get up. “Come.
Andiamo!
”

“What?” she asked, confused, but Pigeon Tony grabbed her wrist with surprising strength, yanked her to her feet, and tugged her from the oak trees into the sun. Intrigued, she let herself be led like a child, even though Pigeon Tony was so short he reached only to her shoulder.

They passed the rock piles and stopped when they got to the edge of the muddy construction site, still hand in hand. The yellow backhoe stood at the center of the mud, its huge arm rattling and creaking, toeing the earth among the pale butterflies. Frank was at the controls, absorbed in his work.

“See!” Pigeon Tony pointed at the backhoe with his free hand. “Is sign. See?”

“The sign?” Judy didn’t see any signs. She looked around and found a painted strip on the window of the backhoe’s cab. LUCIA STONE. “The company sign?”

“
Si, si! È vero! È
Frankie. Alla Frankie.
La macchina, l’automobile
, alla. Alla Frank. Alla Lucia Stone.” Pigeon Tony’s eyes were bright with emotion and his hand squeezed Judy’s tight. “See? Frankie, he make—
come se dice
—he make a—
che
?” He turned to Judy to supply the English word.

“A company?”

“No. No.” Pigeon Tony let go of her hand and waved his impatiently, freeing them. “Frankie make a—”

“A building?”

“No! No!”

“He make a wall?”

“No! No!” Pigeon Tony faced the backhoe and threw his arms up in frustration. “You no see? Judy, whatsa matter you, you no see?”

“I don’t know what he’s making!” she answered, equally frustrated, but Pigeon Tony turned her bodily to face the construction site.

“See, Judy! See,
la macchina.
See sign, see alla!”

“I see, I see!”

“Frankie, he make
futuro
!
Capisce? Futuro?”

Judy understood then. It wasn’t a company, or a wall. LUCIA STONE. “A future.”

“Si, si!”
Pigeon Tony almost exploded with relief. “
Futuro!
Frankie make
futuro.
Here, for his children. For alla who come.”

“I see.” Judy’s throat caught unaccountably, but Pigeon Tony was wagging a finger at her.

“Understand? No you tell Frankie. About father, my son. Or no
futuro
for Frankie. Only vendetta. Only murder. Only
morte
.
Capisce?
”

Judy nodded.

“Promise?”

Judy couldn’t help but smile. She had created an Italian monster. “Yes.”

“Bene.”
Pigeon Tony nodded curtly, then turned to the noisy backhoe, calm coming over him as he watched Frank make his future.

Judy watched, too, the sun warming her back, and after a time, without knowing why, she reached for her client’s small, withered hand.

Fifteen minutes later they had piled into two cars, Judy into the green Bug and Frank and Pigeon Tony leading the way in the white pickup, as they snaked from the countryside back to the highway. Judy had replaced her wilted daisy on the console with a fresh spray of blue forget-me-nots, but she wasn’t completely sorry to leave the country sights and smells. Now that she had a client again, she had a defense to stage. Not that she had resolved everything.

She hit the gas, whizzing past sunny open country that became cloudy housing developments, but Judy was lost in thought. Images of Angelo Coluzzi in death ran through the back of her mind, but the situation wasn’t black and white anymore. As an artist, she knew there were shades of gray and had always counted herself lucky for that. Dark gray underlined a stormy sky in her landscapes; light gray hollowed a human cheekbone in her portraits. So why couldn’t there be shades of gray in a murder defense? She was painter and lawyer both; art and a defense were both her creations. So she could take responsibility for the colors in her cases. She liked the notion.

Judy took a bite of her lunch, crunching through the crusty bread and sinking her teeth into the spongy-soft mozzarella, and she became convinced the sandwich was helping her think. Mozzarella had superpowers. She followed Frank’s big truck as it climbed onto the expressway, watching him talk animatedly with his grandfather as they drove. They both used their hands when they talked, and Judy wondered briefly if Italians had more traffic accidents than normal people.

Frank’s big hands chopped the air, and she flashed on their conversation at his parents’ grave. So they had been murdered. She had been touched by Pigeon Tony’s keeping that from Frank, and though she understood his reasons for it, the knowledge burdened her. Judy had grown up in an American family, as patriotic as a military family could be, and she had been trained in law, a code of rights and responsibilities. In her view, Frank had a right to know how his parents had died; it was a truth that shouldn’t be hidden from him. And why did Pigeon Tony think it was okay to hide one truth—the way they died—and not the other—the way Angelo Coluzzi died? This case had more cultural conflicts than legal ones, and more ethical conflicts than both. She needed emergency mozzarella.