The Spia Family Presses On - By Mary Leo Page 0,20

a few boxes out of my way to get to her. She was looking down at something. Even in the dim moonlight, I knew that intense look she wore on her face. I’d seen it a thousand times before. It usually came right before she was getting ready to either cry or relay some disturbing news. Like when she had to tell me that Johnny Underwood broke up with her for Erin Martin, our fifth grade class president whom we both hated because she told everybody my father was in the mob. I figured this look was over-exaggerated due to our shadow fear plus the glass I’d heard shatter had been a few bottles of oil, and she was upset about breaking them.

“Don’t give it another thought. We have plenty more. I can replace whatever’s broken,” I said trying to calm her.

She turned toward me just as I slid another box out of the way so I could see the oil disaster. Her right hand was dripping with olive oil and she was holding up some kind of thick black metal screw. “I don’t think you can replace him, Mia.”

I slid the last box out of the way and saw brown, scuffed shoes pointing straight up from the barn floor, and teetering on top of the body attached to those shoes was the excessively heavy antique millstone, which almost entirely covered the obviously crushed body.

“What happened?” I asked, but I could feel myself slipping into pure hysteria. Those little hairs on the back of my neck were doing their dance again.

“It’s Dickey, and I’m almost certain he’s not going to be able to tell you.”

A sick panic accompanied by a red-hot chill raced through me. “Is he, like, dead?”

She nodded. “Pretty much. I checked. There’s no pulse.”

“Did you see—”

“Not a thing.”

I started shaking. My chest tightened. “We should call an ambulance.”

“We should try to figure out how this happened first.”

“Are you nuts?” I couldn’t understand what the woman was thinking, but all I wanted to do at that precise moment was to get the hell out of there.

“I might be able to write about it in my next book. It could save someone’s life.”

“You are nuts. We need to call an ambulance, or the police or Uncle Benny.” That’s when I noticed the dark red blood oozing around Dickey’s head, and the open thirty-liter futso on the floor not far from the body. I suddenly felt sick. I also felt guilt. I had been the one to have the millstone dismantled. It was my idea to move the damn thing. If it hadn’t been for me, Dickey might still be alive. The thought was too much. My head started to swim. Things around me were spinning.

Lisa took my hand, and calmly bent over to take a closer look at his head. “Oh my God!”

“What,” I whined, not wanting to know any of the gory details. At this point, I was barely hanging on.

“His head is bleeding out, and it’s not from the millstone. I think he’s been shot.”

I told myself this couldn’t be true. She was probably mistaken. What did Lisa know of gunshot wounds? “That’s impossible. The stone fell on him. It’s all my fault. I had it dismantled.”

“Is that what this is?” She held up the screw she had been holding onto.

I nodded.

“Sweetie, I’ve researched gunshot wounds. I worked with a forensic lab and a coroner for six months. I know what gun shot wounds look like and this hole in his head is from a gun not from this screw or any part of this millstone. It was probably a small handgun, a .22 maybe, at close range.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure this is the real deal.”

My mind raced with scenarios, especially growing up in this family. I slowly made my way in closer and just as I was about to stoop down to get a look at Dickey’s head wound, I stepped on something. I kicked at it. The thing was caught up under Dickey’s feet. I reached down to carefully move it out of my way, knowing I shouldn’t touch anything, but when I recognized it, instinct made me snatch it up.

“Damn!” I said, almost in a whisper.

“Yeah. I know. This is really bad.”

“No. I mean yes, it’s even worse than bad. It’s catastrophic.” I held out the problematic object. “This is my mother’s charm bracelet.”

Lisa stood. “What?”

I held it out for her to see as tiny silver Elvises gyrated on