smoke out the killer. Either this was the absolute smartest idea I’d ever had, or the absolute dumbest. Whatever happened depended an awful lot on how Lisa and I lured the fly to the ointment. I felt both scared and empowered. Lisa, on the other hand, was all about the game, whatever it turned out to be.
The house was quiet except for a ticking cuckoo clock. My aunts had their own clock from Bisnonno Luigiano. He liked to spread his cuckoos around. Even Federico had a clock.
Lisa was nowhere around. She must have gotten up earlier and was probably back in my apartment, haunting my closet, figuring out today’s outfit.
As I sat up, my thoughts swung to Hetty. Did she kill Carla and make it appear that Dickey did it? If anybody had motive, she sure did, but the ring just didn’t figure into it. At least not the way the clues were stacking up now.
Dickey knew enough to give that ring to my mom for safe keeping. He knew of its significance, so much so that the first thing he did when he got out was to parade it around at the party, almost begging the killer to come and get it. Regrettably, the plan backfired and Dickey ended up being just another victim, something I was hoping to avoid.
As events were beginning to gel in my head, I stood up and headed off to the bathroom.
Of course that was the reason for the freedom party. Why my mom was so insistent on having it. She knew what Dickey was up to. He never wanted the land back. It was all about Carla’s killer. So why didn’t she tell me? Why did she have to keep everything a secret?
Because she knew absolutely I would have never agreed to such a treacherous game. And I would’ve been right.
But it was too late for I told you so.
And how the hell did her charm bracelet get tangled up under Dickey’s feet? I was still hoping the killer had put it there. But how did the killer get it? Did she lose it out in the yard and the killer accidentally stumbled on it? I liked that scenario. If the clasp was broken, it could have fallen off anywhere, even right in the killer’s path.
Once again, I needed to talk to my mom, but today was olive picking day for almost everyone in the family, and I had no choice but to join in. Dickey’s murder would have to wait. And unless I stumbled over his body in the orchard, or my mom was up in the same tree I was, I really needed to give my full attention to picking.
Ten minutes later I was on my way back to my apartment still wearing the vintage pink nightgown and robe. The ring was now hidden in the left pocket of the fuzzy robe.
The very first thing that caught my attention when I stepped on the front porch were the three turkey vultures that circled high above my head. I knew they were vultures by their unstable flight pattern. They tended to tilt from side to side while they flew, plus those unmistakable deep-red bald heads that only another vulture could love. These birds of prey had a keen sense of smell and a reputation for locating carrion even inside a building with open windows or in this case, a barn.
I didn’t know where Dickey’s body was hidden, but it was a good assumption that they did. And, soon, so would the entire Sonoma Sheriff’s department. A clue this obvious couldn’t be ignored.
Could it?
But I was on a mission this morning that even vultures couldn’t keep me from.
Olives.
I knew by now everyone was out in the orchard working hard to harvest the fruit. Timing was essential with olives, and Uncle Federico had hired a small crew of twenty or so men to do most of the work. Today was the last day to pick our Koroneiki olives at their peak and most of my family would be out there helping. Even my mom would spend time out in the grove. She hated to climb up on the ladders. She’d fallen off of one once. Nothing broke, but my mom didn’t like risks of any kind, and from then on she refused to climb up even one rung.
Now she used a long wooden pole with a sort of double clamp at the end to shake the olives free so they would fall in the