The Spia Family Presses On - By Mary Leo Page 0,73
this thing is serious, so keep out of it.”
He looked directly at me for a moment then he jammed the gas pedal and backed up his car on the gravel, his wide tires scattering the new gravel my mom had just put down a few weeks ago. “Wait a minute,” I yelled.
He stopped.
“What now?”
I jogged up to his window, not wanting any lurking family members to hear me. “Any idea who might want the ring that was on Dickey’s finger—other than Giuseppe?”
“You mean the one you girls are hiding?”
Anger welled up inside me. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“Stands to reason. You two found the body, so you must have the ring. Take my advice. Get rid of it. That damn thing’ll just get one or both of you killed. Look, I may not be Lisa’s wet dream or your idea of a good time, but I don’t want to see either one of you burned. Just get the word out that you want to dump the ring and everything will go back to normal.”
“But we don’t have it.”
He stared at me for a moment, rolled his eyes, pursed his lips and said, “Then whatever happens ain’t my fault. I warned you.” And he took off.
“What was that?” Lisa asked, walking up behind me and sounding as upset as I felt.
“I’m thinking it was either a warning or a threat depending on how you want to take it.” I folded my arms across my chest, suddenly feeling a deep chill.
She spun me around to face her. “Wait a minute. Let’s not jump to conclusions. He may not be the warmest guy in the group, but I don’t think he was really threatening us.”
“What the hell else could he have meant?” I shouted, flailing my arms.
“I don’t know, but we need to calm down.”
I wasn’t in the mood to calm down. Being Italian gave me that right. We rarely calmed down under stress. It wasn’t in our DNA. “I’ll try, but before we do anything else, or think anything else, we should talk to Hetty. Clearly that woman knows something. I’ve never seen her so upset. And you know how Hetty likes to talk, especially if I tell her someone tried to set up my mom. That should be enough to put her over the edge. She’s like a mamma bear to my mom.”
“That gives Hetty motive, you know,” Lisa said.
“Motive for what?”
“Motive for Dickey’s murder. If she thought Dickey was going to try to take the orchard back, she may have made a preemptive strike to stop him.”
She was talking nonsense. “It’s not that I don’t think she isn’t capable of whacking Dickey, I just don’t buy that she would whack him and set up my mom.”
Lisa shrugged. “People try to save their own skin when they get pushed against the wall. I’ve researched this, believe me, you’d be amazed what some people will do when their world is threatened.”
I felt sure Lisa was totally wrong about this. “Not Hetty. She may be nutty, but she would never kill anyone. Not even Dickey.”
“Who else owns this place?”
“Aunt Babe, my mom, of course, Uncle Federico and me. I guess that gives all of us motive. But anyone on this rehab farm could have fallen off the Mafioso wagon and done it. Let’s not forget that we’ve had to kick several of these Wise Guys off the property for thug behavior.”
“Could one of them have done it?”
I shook my head. “Not likely. Two of them are dead. One disappeared and the other one is doing life in Soledad.”
“But the five who actually own this place have the strongest motive. Good thing you have an alibi. Me.”
She had a point. It looked really bad for all of us, even me. “Let’s talk to Hetty, and if we’re lucky Babe will be there too.”
“The girls didn’t look any too tired. I’d say there’s a good chance they’re still awake,” Lisa said.
“Then let’s hustle up. I’ve got a few questions that need answers before I can sleep tonight.”
“And speaking of sleep, what did you do with Dickey’s pinky?”
I’d almost forgotten about his pinky. I wondered what that said about me. “It’s still in the freezer, why?”
“And you have no problem sleeping with a severed body part in your fridge?”
I thought about that for a moment. “No. I guess I truly am my father’s daughter.”
“There’s a whole new side to you that I’m going to have to think about and reevaluate.”