From Mangia to Murder (A Sophia Mancini ~ Little Italy Mystery) (24 page)

“Hold on Vidoni. I’d hardly call a bloodstained jacket you admit is yours to be flimsy evidence.”

“I took off my jacket soon after I arrived at the party. Anyone could have made off with it--absolutely any man, woman, or child, and you know it. The only thing you can prove is that I was in shirtsleeves. Not a crime McIntyre.”

“Stop,” Sophia protested. “My head is throbbing.” Neither man said a word nor made a move to leave. She sighed.

“Captain McIntyre, could we possibly talk in the morning? I don’t have anything to tell you right now.” She darted a quick glance in Frankie’s direction. “It’s all still a bit hazy, but it will make more sense tomorrow morning I’m sure.”

The police captain didn’t look the least bit pleased by her request, but he nodded. He flipped his notebook shut and slipped it into his uniform jacket pocket. “I’ll be back in the morning then but first I want a last word with you. Wait outside the door, Vidoni.”

Once Frankie was gone, Tiernan sat back down in the chair beside her bed. He leaned forward. “Miss Mancini, I don’t know what you’re about here, but I would be gravely remiss if I didn’t warn you that you’re playing with fire. You were assaulted today. Someone was sending you a message.”

He looked steadily into her eyes. For a second, Sophia thought she saw genuine concern, but it was gone so quickly she had to be mistaken. Doubtless it was only frustration. The captain never bothered to hide the fact he found her endlessly annoying.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Captain.”

He rose to his feet. “I’m instructing hospital security that Mr. Vidoni has five minutes with you and not a second more. There’s a hospital security guard outside the door, and it’s to be left open.”

He opened the door and motioned Frankie to enter. “Five minutes and then you’ll be escorted out.” He left without a backwards glance.

Sophia watched him leave with the same sense of frustration she experienced after spending any amount of time with him. She had no idea what to make of Tiernan McIntyre. Frankie Vidoni was another matter altogether. She knew just what she thought of him. “You’d best start with an apology, Mr. Vidoni.”

He hung his hat on the door handle and pointed to the chair beside her bed. “May I?”

“Go ahead.” Such nerve. The man had moxie in spades. “The captain has only given you five minutes, so I’d suggest you talk fast.”

Frankie settled himself into the chair. “We’ve as much time as we need.” He gestured toward the door. “I happen to have an arrangement with the head of security here at the hospital.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Sophia eyed him. Now that she knew what she did about him, Frankie didn’t unnerve her in the least. Before today, she’d tip-toed around him carefully, thinking him to be a loaded weapon. But in reality, he was nothing more than a little plastic toy pistol. “Why did you hit me over the head?”

“I panicked.” He bit his lip and looked down at his hands. “I’m ... umm ... very ... umm ... this is all so regrettable.”

“And?” He was not getting him off that easily.

“I’m sorry.” He spoke as if the words burned his tongue. “Tino told me you were in the warehouse. I didn’t want you to find ... well, you know.”

“Well, I did. And I will only accept your apology on one condition.”

“How much?” He leaned back in the chair. “Name your price.”

Sophia would have slapped him if she could have reached that far. “Don’t insult me, Mr. Vidoni. My silence is not for sale.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you, Miss Mancini. I’m just anxious to come to an agreement in an effort to maintain the private nature of my business.”

“You mean your sham of a business.”

“Ouch. That’s being a bit harsh.”

“No, Mr. Vidoni. It’s called being honest. I don’t have time to explain the entire concept to you right now, but it’s something you should consider trying.” Sophia shifted, trying to get comfortable. She felt trapped in the hospital bed and it was all Frankie’s fault. “Vincenzo knew, didn’t he?”

Frankie nodded. “I don’t know how he found out. The man was a scourge. I refused to be blackmailed.”

“Did you kill Vincenzo?”

He frowned. “Of course not. Don’t be crass.”

“You knock me out, dump me in a wheelchair in an empty corridor without waiting to see if someone will help me, and you call me crass?” Sophia wanted to scream. This man was too much. “I have half a mind to call Captain McIntyre and tell him everything.”

“But you won’t,” Frankie shot back. “You want something.”

Sophia nodded. “I do. I want two things, and the first is an explanation of what I saw today.”

“I suppose I owe you that. Let us just say that things aren’t exactly as they appear to be with my business.”

“I gathered that much. It looks like you raided Italy just before the war.”

Frankie shrugged. “I wouldn’t use the word raided, exactly. I prefer to think of it as a shrewd business decision. I knew that Mussolini and his Camicie Nere were trouble. Add in that hideous little Austrian, and the writing was on the wall. So I imported everything from Italy that I could get my hands on.”

“So I saw.” Sophia thought back to crate after crate of silks, leather goods, religious art, books, phonograph records, and enough rosaries to score a free pass into heaven.

“Our little community here in Harrison Heights may not be enormous, but think, Miss Mancini, of all the people in these fifty who want things from the Old Country. I’m simply providing a service.”

“And hiding your import business was worth hitting me over the head?” She wanted to throttle him. “What about the act? Explain that to me.”

Frankie actually looked embarrassed. “I’ve worked hard to cultivate my image. You wouldn’t understand.” Frankie stared off into the corner for a moment, as if wrestling with unpleasant thoughts. Or memories.

“No, I don’t understand. You’ve built up a successful import business and are living a perfectly legitimate life. Why act like you’re on the other side of the law?”

Frankie leaned forward. “I like having people slightly afraid of me. It makes me feel like I matter. My late father scrubbed dishes in a restaurant and swept floors in a five and dime his entire adult life. People never even noticed him. He didn’t count. It wore him down, and I didn’t want to end up like that. So I started acting a little tougher than I actually felt in school. It was amazing how people treated me differently when they thought they had something to fear.”

“That’s what this whole thing is about?”

Frankie stood and paced back and forth. He finally stopped and rested his hands on the end of her bed frame. “You don’t have to understand. It may mean nothing to you, but it means everything to me. I’ll do anything to keep my reputation intact.”

The words of a desperate man. Desperate enough to kill to keep his secret?

“I have another question. What was your wife talking about when she said she knew what you’d done? What did she want you to tell the police?”

“Do I have to answer that?” he asked.

“One of us is going to talk. Either you tell me what I want to know, or I tell the police what they want to know about what I remember,” Sophia told him. “Your choice.”

His sigh was long-suffering. She ignored it. She could wait him out. She wasn’t going anywhere. He’d seen to that.

Finally he spoke. “Lily always believed I was involved in ... um ... an organization, you could say. At least I thought she believed that, I really did, but she was just going along with the charade out of respect to me.” He looked down at his hands. “I went straight to her today when I was granted bail. She told me she loved me the way I was, no pretense needed. You can’t imagine what a treasure that woman is.”

“She is truly special. I knew that right away.” She hated to push him on the sensitive subject of his wife, but she had to know. “What exactly did she want you to tell the police?”

“Lily wanted me home at the end,” his voice caught and he held up a hand while he composed himself. “She wanted me to tell the police about my true business affairs so they’d release me.”

He obviously hadn’t, not based on the acrimony she’d witnessed when he’d spoken with the police captain. “You didn’t because your lawyers got you out first,” she guessed.

He nodded. “I’ll worry about everything else later. Right now all I want to do is be with my wife. However, I did feel that I needed to come and check on you, at least.”

Sophia couldn’t bring herself to thank him for his concern, not when he was the one who put her here in the first place. But she did understand his wish to be with his wife. “Just a few more questions. It’s important. What was Vincenzo’s reaction when you refused to be blackmailed?”

Frankie shrugged. “Moretti was an idiot, a hot head. Everyone knows that. He vowed to get revenge, but he ran out of time, which makes me a lucky man.”

“It makes you look guilty.”

Frankie shrugged. “No one can prove anything, can they? That’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? It’s about the evidence prosecutors have to build a case with, and how they present the facts to a jury. You see, Miss Mancini, not everything is as it appears.”

Sophia decided to try a different approach. “Did you know that Vincenzo was blackmailing your mistress?”

“Maria?” Frankie frowned. “What did she tell you?”

“You’ll have to ask her.” That should make for some interesting pillow talk.

“I have more important things to worry about than Maria Acino. Maria’s part of the--what should I call it?”

“Sham?”

“Image is the word I was looking for. Having a flashy dame like Maria on my arm was part of the picture I wanted to paint, but my heart’s with my Lily. No question. Always has been, and always will be.”

Sophia resisted the urge to take Frankie to task for having a mistress when he had a gem of wife in Lily Vidoni. From the way Primo Quadrelli had spoken, she knew Frankie’s wife wasn’t long for this world.

“Then go home to her now. It’s where you belong.”

Frankie inclined his head in a gesture of gratitude and touched his heart. He took his hat from the doorknob and opened it to leave, but then turned back.

“I didn’t kill Vincenzo and I don’t know who did.”

“Then why did you try to hire Angelo and I the day before the murder? Your timing was suspicious, almost as if you knew something was going to happen.”

“The truth is that I wanted to get the measure of your brother and see if he would be interested in working for me.”

Sophia was suspicious. “What kind of work did you envision Angelo doing for you?”

“Background investigations on various individuals.”

Unbelievable. “You wanted Angelo to dig up dirt on people so that you could blackmail them?”

Frankie made a clicking sound with his tongue and wagged a finger at her. “How can you make everything sound so bad? I don’t blackmail people. That’s illegal. I do, however, find a certain degree of knowledge provides me with leverage, if you follow my meaning.”

She did follow his meaning, straight back to blackmail.

“I did not kill Vincenzo Moretti. I’ve never killed anyone. I confess to giving the appearance of bending the law, but I never break it.” He held up his hands as if he had just presented her with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “I even pay my taxes.”

“How admirable.”

“I really am terribly sorry that I hurt you, Miss Mancini. I panicked at the thought of you telling people what you found out about me. In the way of an apology, I’m prepared to offer you a certain degree of protection.”

Sophia rolled her eyes. “Mr. Vidoni, spare me the head of the family routine. From what I saw today, the only thing you are in the position to offer me is a year’s supply of virgin olive oil.”

“But there is something you want from me?”

Sophia nodded. “I’m prepared to keep your secret as long as I believe you’re on the right side of the law. I have no desire to take away whatever enjoyment you gain from your charade.”

“Thank you.” He sounded genuinely grateful.

“In return, I want your promise that if I ever need your assistance with a case, you provide it with no questions asked.”

Frankie’s eyebrows rose. “You drive a bargain like a man.”

Sophia smiled. “Things aren’t always as they appear to be, are they? Now, do I have your word?”

He sighed. “Yes, you do. Heaven help me.” He put his hat on. “I may not be the man I appear to be, but I am a man of my word. Sleep well.”

***

Only an hour later, Sophia’s hospital door slammed open and she awoke with a start. She reached for the overhead light and switched it on.

“Who’s there?”

“They told me you was here.” Mooch stood in the doorway, wearing a pair of blue striped pajamas, a worn terry bathrobe and a frown. “What happened?”

“Come in, Mooch.” Sophia sat up in bed, careful to keep the blanket covering her chest. She’d never entertained so many men while wearing so little. She pointed to a chair beside her bed. “Have a seat.”

Mooch settled himself awkwardly in the chair. He was too large, or the chair was too small, for him to possibly be comfortable.

“What happened?” he repeated his question, his voice still raw and coarse.

Sophia bit her lip, wondering just how much to tell him. She’d promised Frankie she’d keep quiet, and she didn’t know how Mooch would react to hearing that his boss had knocked her out.

“I’m fine, Mooch. Really. I hit my head and passed out.”

His frown deepened. Time for a change of subject.

“How are you, my friend?”

Mooch shrugged. “I’m alive.”

“What does Dr. Casterinni have to say?”

“He says I’m lucky I’m so big. There was enough poison in my food to kill a smaller man.”

Sophia shook her head. The very idea of someone being cruel enough to poison Mooch enraged her.

“Mooch, do you have any idea who could have done this? While you’ve been here, have you remembered anything that can help us figure out who tried to kill you?”

He shook his head morosely. Sophia closed her eyes and lay back against the pillows.

“Are you okay?” Mooch sounded panicked.

Her eyes flew open. “I’m fine, Mooch. Don’t worry. I just can’t make sense of it all. Yet. But we will.”