Hush Money (12 page)

This morning, she sat on the pink elephant of a bed, wearing a pastel-blue cashmere sweater dress, and no panty hose (her summer tan was holding up nicely, her legs looked nice and dark) and thought about the death of her Uncle Joe and wondered what it meant. She’d heard the whisperings, of course, from grade school on up, of how the DiPreta family was supposed to be part of the Mafia, which seemed so silly to her she’d never really got upset about it. Once, though, when she’d asked her father about it, he’d laughed and said, “Everybody who’s got an Italian name, somebody’s gonna think they’re the Mafia . . . too much stupid TV, honey.”

But every now and then there were indications that maybe her father was into something—well—shady, or something. He did, after all, carry a gun at times, but he had his reasons (“I carry a lot of cash, ’cause of the business, honey. There’s lots of crooked people who would take a man’s money if he let them”) and she’d long ago dismissed that. And then there were the occasional men who would come around, the sort of men her father would stand outside on the porch and talk to, or hustle into the study and shut the door. Big men, with odd faces—faces that seemed somehow different from a normal person’s face, colder or harder or something; she didn’t know what. And when she would confront her father with these men, accidentally bump into him while he was talking with one of them, or burst into his study while he was conferring with one or more of them, he would never introduce her. Oh, sometimes he would say to the men in an explaining way, “This is my daughter.” But never would he say, “Mr. So-and-so, this is my daughter, Francine. Francine, this is Mr. So-and-so.”

And now Uncle Joe getting shot. Why would anybody want to shoot Uncle Joe? Everybody in the family regarded Joe as the baby. Even Francine, his niece, less than half Joe’s age, thought of him as the spoiled kid of the clan, the genial loafer, the golf bum, a practical joker, a kidder—but somebody who somebody else would want to shoot? That was crazy.

But then so were the rumors about DiPreta Mafia connections. So crazy Francine didn’t take them seriously, even found them laughable. Look at Uncle Vince, for example. Chairman of half the charities in town, one of the all-time biggest contributors to the Church, besides. Uncle Vince was one of the most socially concerned citizens in all Des Moines. And her father, Frank, who like all the DiPretas belonged to the swankiest country club in town, counted among his close friends men in city, state, and national government, senators, judges, the highest men in the highest and most respected places. Were these the friends of a “gangster”?

Her father was a gentle man, a kind man, although he did keep his emotions in and might seem cold to, say, some of the people he did business with. Even Francine had considered her father somewhat remote, aloof, until she finally got a glimpse of the sensitive inner man when her mother died six years ago. Her mother had been killed by a drunken driver one rainy, slippery night, just two miles from home. (The road in front of their house in the country was then narrow and treacherous, and only recently—partly through her father’s pulling of political strings—had that road been widened and improved and watched over diligently by highway patrol officers.) Francine, crushed, stunned and (perhaps most important) confused over her mother’s death, had wondered why her father didn’t show his grief more openly, why he seemed almost callous about the loss of his wife; and, as a child will do—and she’d been a child then, just having entered junior high and loving that pink room of hers—she had asked him straight out, “Why, Daddy? Why don’t you cry for Mommy?” And the tears had flowed. The dam had burst, and for several minutes Frank DiPreta had sobbed into his daughter’s arms. She had cried, too, and had felt very close to her father then for perhaps the first time. There had been no words spoken, just an almost momentary show of mutual grief; but it was the beginning of her father’s transference of worship for his wife to his daughter, and thereafter anything she’d asked of him, he’d given. She had tried not to take advantage, but it hadn’t been easy.

He was a remarkable man, though. What with all the silly Mafia rumors and all, you might think of him as the kind of man who would harbor thoughts of violence and revenge where his wife’s killer was concerned. But Francine had never heard her father say even one word about that man who’d run his car over the center line, in a drunken stupor, forcing Rose DiPreta off the road and killing her. Francine remembered saying, “I could kill that man, Daddy. I could just take him and kill him.” And her father had said, “You mustn’t say that, honey. It won’t bring Mommy back.” He had seemed content to let the courts handle the man, who’d been arrested at the scene of the accident. Of course poetic justice or fate or whoever had taken care of things, ultimately. Before the man could be brought to trial, he himself was, ironically enough, run down and killed by a hit-and-run driver.

And now, with Uncle Joe’s death, her father was again reacting in a subdued manner, though she could tell—or at least guess—that he was very much moved by the loss of his brother. The DiPreta men were a dying breed anyway, this branch of the family at any rate. Joe had been a bachelor; Frank had only one child, Francine herself; and Vince’s only son had died of leukemia a few years back. Uncle Vince seemed more visibly shaken by his brother’s death than her father, but then ever since Vince’s son had died he’d been walking around under a cloud. That was the bad thing about Uncle Vince, sweet as he was: You could get depressed just thinking about him.

She didn’t like being depressed. When her father had asked her to go down to the funeral home where Aunt Anna and the other relatives were greeting friends and such, she told him she wasn’t up to it; she just couldn’t take all the mourning and tears. And, of course, her father hadn’t insisted she go; he never insisted she do anything, really.

She got up from the bed and grabbed her schoolbooks and sketch pad from off the dresser, having made the decision to get out of the house, to drive into Des Moines to the Drake campus and attend the rest of the day’s classes, death in the family or not. She’d go downstairs and tell Daddy and that would be that. Life goes on; that’s the best way to handle tragedy, right?

Francine found her father with her uncle in the study. They were talking to a tall, gaunt man with shaggy dark hair and a droopy mustache and a sort of Indian look to him around the cheekbones and eyes. Though the man was nicely dressed, in an obviously expensive tailor-made suit, he had that vaguely sinister aura of so many of the men Francine had seen in this house over the years.

“My daughter,” her father explained to his guest and took her by the arm and stepped outside the study with her. “What is it, honey?”

“I’m going on ahead to school, Daddy. I don’t see any reason missing any more classes. Unless you want me to stay and fix you lunch or something.”

“Baby, I don’t care about lunch, but don’t you think you ought to be helping your aunt at the funeral home? People are coming from out of town, friends of the family. Lot of important people will be expecting to see you there.”

“Come on, Daddy. It’s a funeral home, not my coming-out party. I won’t be missed. Besides, it’s just too much of a downer, Daddy, please.”

“Downer? What land of word is that?”

“Please, Daddy.”

“You should help out.”

“Maybe tonight.”

“For sure tonight?”

“Maybe for sure.”

She kissed him on the cheek and he pushed her away gently, with a teasing get-outta-here-you look on his face.

The white Mustang she’d gotten for high-school graduation was parked in the graveled area next to the house. The house was a red brick two-story with a large red tile sloping roof, brick chimney, and cute little windows whose woodwork was painted white, as was an awning arched over the front door. The house sat on a huge lawn, a lake of grass turning brown now, though the shrubs hugging the house, and the occasional trees all around the big yard, were evergreen. It was the dream cottage every couple would like to while the years away in, right down to the picket fence, but on a larger scale than most would dare dream. Immediately after Mother’s death, her father had put the house up for sale; soon after, though, he’d relented, and had since treated the house like a museum, keeping everything just the same as when Mother was alive—Daddy’s-little-girl pink bedroom included.

At first she didn’t notice the other car parked on the gravel on the other side of her Mustang. But it was hard to miss for long, a bright gold Cadillac that was finding light to reflect even on an overcast day like this one. A young guy was standing beside the car, leaning against it. He was cute. Curly hair, pug nose, nice eyes and altogether pleasant, boyish face. He was probably around twenty or twenty-one, kind of small, not a whole lot taller than she, and looking very uncomfortable in light blue shirt and dark blue pullover sweater and denim slacks. Looking as though he wasn’t used to wearing anything but T-shirts and worn out jeans and no shoes.

“Hi,” she said, when she was within a foot or so of him.

“Hi yourself.”

“Are you a relative?”

He grinned. “I’m somebody’s relative, I guess.”

“But not mine?”

“I hope not.”

“You hope not?”

“If I was too close a relative of yours, it would spoil the plans I’ve been making, ever since I saw you come out that door over there.”

This time she grinned. “You’re a shy little thing, aren’t you?”

“Normally. It’s just that sometimes I come right out and introduce myself to pretty girls. It’s a sickness. I’ll just all of a sudden blurt out my name. Which is Jon, by the way.”

“Hi, Jon. I’m Francine.”

“Hi, Francine. We said hi before, seems like.”

“But we didn’t know each other then.”

“Now that we do, can I ask you something personal? What the hell made you think I was your relative? Because we both got blue eyes?”

“My uncle died yesterday. People are coming in for the funeral by the busload.”

“Oh . . . hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any offense, I mean I guess I picked a poor time to make with the snappy patter.”

“Don’t worry about it. My uncle was a nice man, but he’s dead, and I can’t see crying’ll do any good. So, listen, if you aren’t here for my uncle’s funeral, I mean if you aren’t my cousin or something, what are you doing leaning against a Cadillac in my driveway?”

“I’m here with the guy who’s inside talking to some people who probably
are
relatives of yours.”

“You mean the guy with the mustache? Sour looking guy?”

Jon grinned again. “That’s him. Brought me along for company and then didn’t say word one the whole way.”

“How far did you come?”

“Iowa City. Left this morning. What time is it now?”

“Getting close to noon, I suppose. Maybe noon already. When did you leave Iowa City?”

“Around seven. We had some business in Des Moines first, then we drove out here. My friend didn’t say why, though. Didn’t know he was paying last respects, though I should’ve figured it.”

“Why? Should you have figured it, I mean.”

“Well, this friend of mine usually dresses pretty casual for a guy his age . . . sport shirt, slacks. Today, we’re setting out on a fairly long drive, and he shows up in a gray suit and tie and shined shoes, the works. And tells me to lose my T-shirt and get into something respectable, which is something he’s hardly ever done before.”

She smirked.

“And just what are you smirking about?”

“Just that I guessed right, that’s all. The way you’re squirming in those clothes you’d think you were wearing a tux.”

“Is it that obvious? Hey, is that a sketch pad?”

“Yeah. I’m taking an art course at Drake. I was on my way to class, before you sidetracked me.”

“Let me see.”

She shrugged, said okay, and handed him the pad.

“Pretty good,” he said, thumbing through. “That’s a nice horse, right there.”

“We own a farm with some horses down the road. I do some riding sometimes.”