The Spia Family Presses On - By Mary Leo Page 0,107

chains on the cuckoo clock to rewind it. Then I set the time, and once I heard that familiar tic tock I felt much calmer.

I slipped into mom’s bedroom and turned on the light. The curtains were drawn, keeping the room dark and free from any family snoopers. Mom owned a fancy antique-white, hand painted jewelry armoire with eight drawers, a flip up mirror, doors on either side that held several necklaces, and tiered drawers to hold rings, pins and her various bracelets and bangles. The top drawer also served as a music box. Whenever I heard Torno a Surriento it reminded me of those lazy rainy days spent with my mom playing with her jewelry.

Mom’s jewelry armoire had been magical to me, filled with fairytales and pixy dust. My mom and I would spend countless hours together trying on all her sparkly jewelry. I’d pretend to be a beautiful princess and Mom the beautiful queen waiting for her handsome king to return from battle.

All those years, waiting, wondering if my dad was still alive, and now . . .

Now I knew why the king never returned. Why be a mere king when you can be the ruler of all the kings?

Much more fun.

But I didn’t have time to waste getting lost in childhood fantasies, or kings and mob bosses, not when my mom was locked up behind a fortress with no one to rescue her but me.

Where the hell was Sir Galahad when you needed him?

As soon as I opened the top drawer, the song immediately began playing, reminding me of the last time I’d heard it . . . while I was standing up on the second floor talking to Dickey.

My stomach twisted in an immediate knot. I wanted to rubberstamp my forehead with a big red “STUPID.”

Of course! That music, and all those noises downstairs made sense now. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Someone had opened this armoire and stolen the codicil almost as soon as I’d put it away. So that meant that person had to know I’d left it there, which meant they had to be in the house in order to hear the music to figure out exactly where I’d stashed the papers.

But that would mean the murder was completely premeditated, not a far stretch for this family, but I was so hoping for a crime of passion, a crime of the heart or something equally as spur of the moment. After all, we were a recovering family! Didn’t that mean anything to these people?

I slammed the drawer shut, locked it and shoved the key into my pocket, angry that I hadn’t thought to lock it that first night. This time, if the killer wanted anything she would have to break the lock.

Besides my mom, there was only one other person who knew I had the papers that night, and only one person who could have heard that music.

On my way out, I took all the keys to the house then locked mom’s house up tight. No one was getting in this time unless they broke in, and that would leave glorious evidence. But at the moment, I was focused on one person. The person who lied, cheated, and had direct access to my mom’s house.

“You killed him,” I said to Hetty as I opened the back door to Dolci Piccoli. She was busy pulling a tray of four perfectly golden Italian breads out of the large oven. Without customers, she only baked enough for family and the pickers.

Aunt Babe was nowhere around.

“After last night, I didn’t expect to see you all day,” Hetty alleged in a calm voice.

I placed my hands on my hips. “You killed Dickey. You were in the kitchen when I stuck my mom’s paperwork in her jewelry box, heard Turno a Surriento and snuck into her bedroom while I was upstairs talking to Dickey. You snatched the documents, read the codicil and decided no way were you going to let Dickey take over the orchard. You pushed him under the millstone then shot him and planted my mom’s bracelet as evidence. Then as an added bonus you stashed grandma’s handgun in a futso. And,”—I was on a clue solving roll now—“you killed Peter Doyle, although for the life of me I can’t understand why. He was probably a very nice man.”

“He was a thief and a wife beater, but I didn’t whack him.”

She stared at me for a moment. Her hair arranged in its usual clown style,