The Spia Family Presses On - By Mary Leo Page 0,25
general lack of respect for the dead. She told us the story of how Dickey had paid for her accordion lessons when her own family didn’t believe the accordion could do “diddly squat” for a heroin addiction. “The accordion saved my life,” she said all teary eyed. “Dickey even wrote me letters of accordion encouragement from prison. He was good to me, and you people should respect that.”
Uncle Benny lit up his stogy.
“We should call Angelo Conti over at Conti’s funeral parlor,” Aunt Hetty said. “They do a nice job on a body, even one with a bullet hole in its head. I bet if we slipped Angelo a couple extra grand he wouldn’t say nothing about that bullet hole to the cops. Times are tough these days in the funeral business. People are going eco friendly and cremating their loved ones or burying them in biodegradable coffins they buy at Wal-Mart. Not much of a profit in a biodegradable coffin.”
“We’re not calling Angelo Conti,” Uncle Ray declared. “This is a family matter. The Contis aren’t family. Can’t trust ‘em.”
“Let’s just call the police,” I said, finally ready for this to be over with. Of course, there was one minor thing I had to do before they arrived . . . remove my mom’s handgun from the futso. I justified this little act of felony with the absolute certainty that she had nothing to do with his murder and would only put the police on the wrong track.
Uncle Ray said, “The cops’ll think it was a community killin’ or something equally as stupid and it’ll ruin everything we’ve worked for. Hell, the newspapers and cable news might get wind of this and some of our old enemies could crawl outta the woodwork lookin’ for a little revenge. Then where will we be? No, the best thing to do is to bury the bastard and be done with it.”
“I agree with Ray,” Uncle Benny said. “Cops will just bring trouble to the family, and the one thing we do not need is more trouble. I vote we get a place ready under that big olive tree next to the barn.”
“One thing’s for sure,” Uncle Ray said as he hunched down to get another look at Dickey, “none of us here clipped the bastard. We ain’t stupid enough to shit where we eat.”
“Not unless one of you wanted to get even and set somebody up,” I said.
Federico looked over at me, his face in a bunch. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Nobody here would do that. We’re family.”
Uncle Ray stood. “I’m getting’ a bad feeling about this. We need to move him outta here. Now.”
“But wouldn’t you like to know who killed him?” Lisa asked.
Okay, not the best thing to say, at least not in this crowd. If one of their own clipped him, then let sleeping dogs lie would be their motto. If that person didn’t want to come forward and turn themselves in, which was highly doubtful, or disappear on their own, then so be it. The problem was if any of them learned who did it, then they’d have to turn that person in or risk their own freedom. No way did any of these born-again angels want to take another trip on the dark side. They were into the legitimate business of olive oil now, and they intended to keep it that way.
The silence was palpable. No one moved, or breathed for that matter. Lisa was an outsider, and even though she’d been my best friend practically since I took my first step, an outsider didn’t interfere in family business.
With those few words, it was as if my family finally realized her presence, as if all this time they hadn’t completely focused in on her. But now they did, and from the look on their collective faces, I could tell they wanted her gone and fast.
It was my turn to say something. “Lisa’s right. And besides, she’s the one who found Dickey first, so her DNA is all over this place. She’s a stand-up girl, you all know that, and now she’s just as much of a suspect as the rest of us.”
I looked around for a nod of acceptance, a wink of hope, something that told me they weren’t going to unilaterally shun her for the rest of time, but all I got were blank stares. No expressions. No tells. Not even a twitch, which, for my family, wasn’t completely bad news.