Confession Is Murder (23 page)

Lucille patted his arm. “I know what you mean. I imagine Connie’s going through the same thing right now.” Maybe this would be a good time to bring up her theory?

“We never had any kids. It was just the two of us. She was a great gal.” He wiped his hands across his eyes again. “Here, I’m getting all gloomy when you’re probably starving. I’ll go put our steaks on and refill our drinks.” He picked up Lucille’s empty glass.

She’d been drinking the wine like it was water or something, Lucille thought as she stood up. It was only on account of being nervous. “You got a bathroom I could use?”

“Top of the stairs on the left.”

Lucille climbed the stairs to the second floor. She was going to have to slow down or she’d be drunk before the evening was out. She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her face was a bit flushed from the wine, but it looked good—gave her some color. And the highlights really were kind of attractive. If only Frankie could see her . . .

She opened the door and nearly screamed. Sambuco was standing right there.

“I thought you might like to see the rest of my place.”

“Sure, fine, of course.” Lucille hoped the tour wasn’t going to include no bedrooms.

“I’m using this room as my office.” Sambuco pushed open a door and Lucille peered inside. There was a fancy computer set up on a long L-shaped desk with a big leather chair in front of it.

“Very nice.”

“Most of these town houses only have two rooms upstairs, but this one’s got three.” He opened another door. “I’ve turned this one into my personal gym.”

Lucille glanced around the room. He had his own treadmill, a set of weights, and even a television mounted on the wall. No wonder he was in such good shape. Lucille peered at him out of the corner of her eye. She could see the outline of his muscles through his shirt and how flat his stomach was. She looked down at her own and pulled it in as best she could. It didn’t matter—as soon as she started going to the Y she was going to be in good shape, too.

There was one more door opening off the small hallway. “This is my bedroom.” Sambuco pushed open the door with a grin.

She wasn’t going in there. Oh, no. Lucille dug her heels in.

“Come on, take a look. You got to see what I did with the window treatments.”

Window treatments? Where did Sambuco pick up an expression like that? Lucille glanced at him again. Had he gone a little . . . ?

“See.” Sambuco pointed at a pair of carved wooden shutters. “I made them myself. I saw something like it on
This Old House
and thought heck, I can do that.” He walked over to the window. “Check out this detail.” He pointed to one of the shutters.

“I can see you put a lot of work into it. Who would have thought?” Lucille peered at his handiwork more closely.

She felt something warm on the back of her neck. Sambuco. He was standing so close she could feel his breath on her skin. She turned around and found herself face-to-face with him.

“Lucille.” He drew her closer and began kissing the side of her face and neck.

Now. Now was the time to tell him about Jeanette and Joseph and the affair and Flanagan getting all riled up.

“Listen, I got something to tell you. I think Joseph Salmona was having an affair with this gal I work with over at the church. And I think she killed him on account of he wanted to break it off.”

“Really?”

Sambuco was nibbling her ear now. It was making it hard for her to concentrate. “Yeah. Only the police never asked her where she was when Joseph was killed. But I know she happened to go out to lunch that day so she could have done it easily without no one knowing.”

“Remind me to look into it.”

Wow, this seduction stuff was easier than she thought. She should have done it a long time ago.

“So you’re going to stop chasing my Frankie? ’Cause he didn’t have nothing to do with it.” Lucille felt this warm, shivery feeling as Sambuco’s lips trailed down her neck and along her collarbone.

“Sure, sure. Anything you say.”

Boy, wait till she told Flo about this. She wasn’t going to believe it.

Sambuco put his hands on either side of her face. Lucille tried to turn her head but couldn’t escape his lips. They were warm and felt good. She ought to stop him, seeing as how she had make her point, but his arms were around her now, strong and steady. It felt nice to be held. His touch was making all the bad stuff go away. She was sixteen again, petting in the backseat of Sambuco’s Valiant.

He was moving her backward slowly. Suddenly Lucille felt the edge of the bed against the back of her legs. She wasn’t sure how it happened, but then they were on the bed together. She was having all these feelings. And her head was floating from that glass of wine. Sambuco lifted up her shirt, and Lucille was glad about the bra even if it was half killing her with that damned underwire.

Holy shit! Lucille tried to sit up. What was she doing? She was a married woman. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t sixteen no more. She pushed at Sambuco. He grunted but didn’t stop. His hands were on the waistband of her pants now.

Lucille shoved him again and then finally hauled off and punched him in the gut. That ought to slow him down some.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m married to Frankie now, that’s what’s the matter. Even if you did almost make me forget. Just like you almost made me forget him back when we was in high school.” Lucille jumped up and ran from the room.

“Lucille. Come back.”

She bolted down the stairs, grabbed her purse from the living room, and pulled open the front door.

“Wait! You shouldn’t be driving. I’ll take you.”

• • •

“Don’t trouble yourself. I’m fine.” Her head was spinning, though, and her heart was going a mile a minute. It felt like it was going to burst right out of her chest.

Sambuco pulled a key ring from his pocket. “Don’t be silly. I’ll take you.”

“Listen, I’m really sorry about what happened,” Sambuco said as he turned into Lucille’s driveway. “I just meant for us to have a nice dinner together.” He switched off the engine. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the door. It’s the least I can do.”

Sambuco paused on the front step. “I don’t know what got into me. I think it was telling you about Debbie that did it. I miss her so much, and I’ve been so lonely.” He turned toward Lucille and put his hands on her shoulders. “You made me forget it all for a few minutes. Suddenly we were a couple of kids back in high school—”

“I know just what you mean. I felt the same. Suddenly we was sixteen again with no problems, none of this shit—”

“Yeah.”

“Good night, Richie.” On impulse, Lucille leaned forward and kissed Sambuco on the cheek.

There was a movement in the shadows. A man emerged from the bushes and stood in the middle of the walkway, his fists balled at his sides.

“Frankie!” Lucille cried.

But he just turned on his heel and stalked off.

Chapter 19

“Lucille, stop crying. You’re hysterical. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

Lucille took a deep shuddering breath and started over again. “It was when Richie brought me home. Frankie was there, and he saw us. Me. He saw me kiss Richie.”

”You kissed Richie? I don’t believe you. Give a girl some blonde highlights and she goes wild. You go, girl.”

“It’s not like you’re thinking, Flo. It was just a peck. On the cheek-like.

“Oh.”

Lucille was sitting at the kitchen table. She had the whiskey bottle out and had filled a shot glass but couldn’t bring herself to down it. She also couldn’t bring herself to tell Flo what else she’d done. It was a whole hell of a lot more than a peck on the cheek.

“Why don’t you just call Frank and explain? I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“I can’t,” Lucille wailed. She sniffed at the glass of whiskey. “I don’t know where he is.” Lucille closed her eyes and downed the shot of Four Roses in one gulp. She began to sputter.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure.” She held the receiver to the side and coughed some more. “I’m fine. The whiskey must have gone down the wrong way.”

”Whiskey? You’re drinking whiskey? You hardly ever drink, Lucille. This is serious. I’m coming over.”

“That’s okay, Flo, I’m fine. It’s late. You get to bed. You know me, I’ll get over this.”

But Flo had already hung up.

• • •

Lucille shuffled to the door in her fuzzy pink slippers with her chenille bathrobe draped around her shoulders. The door seemed to retreat even as she got closer. She couldn’t figure out why. She’d had hardly any of the whiskey. Only two or three shots. Or maybe four. Not even enough to fill a glass. So why did everything look like it was spinning?

“You’re drunk,” Flo said when Lucille opened the door.

“Nonsense. I didn’t drink hardly any of the stuff.” But she let Flo lead her over to the sofa.

“I’m going to put on a pot of strong coffee.”

“Yesssss . . .” Lucille’s head dropped back onto the sofa cushions.

The room didn’t move quite as much with her head propped up like that. When she opened her eyes again Flo was holding out a mug of steaming dark coffee. She put the cup down on the table in front of Lucille.

Lucille’s eyeballs felt like they were rolling around randomly in their sockets. She tried to bring them front and center again. Better, the room came into clearer focus when she did that. Unfortunately, they soon rolled off in either direction again, and everything became double.

“Drink the coffee.” Flo picked the cup up and held it out.

Lucille had a sip. “Too sweet.” She pushed it away.

“The sugar will do you good. Come on, drink up.” Flo curled up on the other end of the couch. “Now, tell me what happened.”

Lucille grabbed hold of the sofa arm. Whoa, baby! The movement made the couch buck like a ship in a storm. She had to hang on until the spinning stopped.

“Are you okay?”

“Jesssss fine. Don’t worry about me. Just don’t make any sudden moves, okay? Now, where was I?” Flo had asked her a question, she just couldn’t remember what it was. Oh, yes.

“Oh, Flo. I let Richie do things to me I shouldn’t have.”

The thought made her cry, and that made the spinning start again.

“Here’s a tissue.” Flo held it out. “Blow your nose.”

Lucille blew loudly. “Okay, now, where was I?”

“Doing things with Richie you shouldn’t have.” Flo leaned forward eagerly.

“Right-i-o you are, Flo. Yes, Richie was going to make me dinner. Steak on the barbie.” Lucille shuddered. “Not very hungry right now.”

“You’re not going to be sick, are you?”

“No, I’m jesss fine. Anyway. I let him kiss me.” Lucille hiccoughed. “And touch me places only Frankie ought to be touching me. Except maybe for the doctor when I go for my physical, but I don’t think that counts.” Lucille’s head sagged and came to rest on her chest. It was very comfortable like that. Her head had gotten so heavy all of a sudden.

Flo shook her. “Lucille, Lucille.”

That set off the tidal wave again, and Lucille grabbed the sofa arm until it passed.

“You were doing it for a cause. Don’t forget that. You were really doing it for Frankie. It was a sacrifice-like.”

Lucille started to giggle. “It wasn’t no sacrifice. No siree. I enjoyed every minute of it. Just the way I did back in high school that time . . .”

Lucille closed her eyes for a minute. “I did it for you too, Flo.”

“For me?”

Lucille started to nod but then thought better of it. “Yes. So he wouldn’t find out about you and Joseph. And how some woman in a darkish-ish-ish—” Lucille shook herself. “In a darkish-colored car was seen leaving the church parking lot the afternoon Joseph was murdered. And they were driving like a bat out of hell, Gil said. Now I may be a lot of things, but I’m not stupid.” She wagged a finger at Flo. “My guess is that that’s the person who killed Joseph.” Her head momentarily dropped onto her chest again.

“It could have been anybody. Anyone in a hurry. Happens all the time.”

Lucille’s head popped back up again. “Don’t you think that’s a little too co-co-coincidental? I do. I’m worried that it was you. Carmela told me you left work early that day. You have a dark-colored car. You had a reason to hate Joseph. It don’t take no genius to add two and two and come up with five, Flo.” Lucille sniffled into her tissue. “I only told Richie about Jeannette to throw him off the smell, so to speak.”

Lucille started to cry. “I want my Frankie back. And I don’t even know where he is. I’m so tired of all this. It’s bad enough Joseph dying. But then Tony Jr. getting arrested. And now the police think Frankie did it. All I want is for everything to get back to normal, Flo. Normal. Me and Frankie together.”

“You need to get to bed. You’re beginning to talk nonsense.” Flo held out a hand. “Come on.”

“Think I’ll just curl up here, if you don’t mind.” Lucille’s body felt so heavy. There was no way she was going to drag it up the stairs. She swung her feet up onto the sofa.

“Suit yourself.” Flo grabbed the crocheted afghan from the arm of the recliner and draped it over Lucille.

• • •

When Lucille woke up several hours later, she sent up a prayer to St. Monica, patron saint against alcoholism. She also made a solemn vow never to touch whiskey again. And, for good measure, she downed a spoonful of Brioschi in a half glass of tepid water along with two aspirin.

She burped loudly and put the glass in the dishwasher. There was a coffee cup on the table in the living room, and for a moment she couldn’t remember how it got there. Flo. That’s right, Flo had come over and made her some coffee.

The Brioschi worked fast. She couldn’t believe it, but she was starting to get hungry. A nice piece of cake would taste good. She thought of that cake someone had brought old Mrs. Batalata. And poor Mrs. B., sitting there dead on her own sofa, not having even had a taste of it. What a waste. It had smelled like carrot cake. With some nice cream cheese icing. She sure could go for something like that right now.

She poked around in the pantry, but all she could come up with was a half-eaten bag of stale potato chips that had gotten shoved behind a box of penne. She sat at the kitchen table and shook them out of the bag. She kept going back to that cake in Mrs. B.’s apartment. She could see it sitting out on the counter. She could see the pretty cake plate too—beige with pink trim around the edge. And she thought of another cake. One she had smelled but not seen.