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    Elio says, "I brought our children together with their aunt years ago. It was the right thing to do."

    "Traitor!" Angelina cries.

    "Lunatic! You had no right to deprive them."

    Elio turns to us snoops, frozen in place, mouths open in amazement, and pleads his case. He gestures toward Connie.

    "My sister-in-law gets sick. She's all alone in the world. She asks me to help. Is it so terrible? I buy a few groceries, cook her a little broth sometimes. So I'm twenty minutes late getting home. Maybe thirty. Is that a federal crime? Can I tell
her
what's going on? No. She'd cut my head off."

    He whirls toward Angelina. "You think I'm cheating on you? Did I ever cheat on you in fifty years?"

    Angelina folds her arms and turns away with a lofty shrug.

    Josie puts her arm around her dad. "I come over and help Auntie Connie take a bath."

    "My job is to take out the garbage for her," adds Frankie.

    "I drive my aunt to the doctor," says Joey, the youngest, proudly. Angelina looks at all the shining faces sending love toward Connie.

    For a moment, there is silence. All eyes again are on Angelina. Her face contorts. Eyes narrow. Mouth a thin, tight line. Her hands clench and her body seems to lift from the very floor.

    Suddenly there is a bloodcurdling wail. Angelina covers her mouth, trying to hold back her hiccupping sobs. She abandons her walker and runs to the bed, scrambling to find a way through all the tubes and bedclothes to reach her sister.

    "Connie," she blubbers, hugging her as hard as she can. "I'm an idiot! I shoulda had my head examined years ago."

    Connie, using what little strength she has, hugs her back. "Angelina," she bawls, "I shoulda broke down the door and made you talk to me."

    "I shoulda got down on my hands and knees and begged you to come back in my life!"

    "All those years. What I went through. I had to hide in the back of the church for the baptisms and the confirmations. I had to miss every celebration. Christmas. Easter. We had to exchange gifts behind your back. I missed how we always went shopping together. The cooking together. But most of all I missed my sister."

    "
Mamma mia,
I missed you every day."

    "Me, too."

    Now there's a lot of blubbering going on around the room. And hugging. Everyone talking at once.

    I beckon the girls. Time to leave. Nobody notices us walk out.

    When we reach the front yard, Ida, Evvie, Sophie, Bella, and I are also hugging and blubbering.

    "Italians are so emotional," Bella says.

    
clusive Sarasota Springs Women's Club, was a
major social charity event. This year the women
had chosen Happyland Fantasy Park as their desti
nation. This colorful amusement park was a great
favorite of the orphans. The girls, from eight to
twelve years old, excitedly walked in pairs, each
line of six following its own individual leader.

    
Photographers clicked after them everywhere
they went.

    
The Pink Poodle group was led by wealthy so
cialite Elizabeth Hoyle Johnson. At fifty-nine she
was still considered a beauty. Her platinum blond
hair was styled forever the day she had her first
sight of Kim Novak in Hitchcock's film V
ertigo.
She was dressed in a luscious pink backless sun
dress with matching straw hat and white strappy
sandals. Pink was her girls' color, so it was hers, as
well. Her girls were all dressed in brand-new rayon
dresses and matching ballerina slippers, a gift from
the charity.

    
They were babbling happily away as they
skipped from ride to ride, every spot a photo op
portunity. Girls eating pink cotton candy. Girls
screaming with pleasure as they rode the Fantasy
Chip and Dip ride. Mrs. Johnson was a good sport:
she went on the rides with them and pretended to
be frightened, too. But she only went on the gentle
ones. Her severe asthma kept her away from the
more demanding rides.

    
Every once in a while the Pink Poodles met up
with the other groups—the Purple Puppies and the
Blue Bassets—and there was much happy chatter
back and forth. Even the socialites were calling out
to one another and having a good time. It was a
day they could let down their hair and pretend to
be young again.

    
When the Pink Poodles arrived at the Pirate
Cave, they were so far ahead of the other groups
they had even left the photographers behind.

    
Elizabeth, holding back her giggles, told the
girls to be scared, very scared. "If the pirates get
hold of you . . ." She made a strangling motion with
her hands. The girls squealed and held on tightly to
their buddies.

    
The empty gondolas pulled up on the rail
tracks, and from around a corner came the opera
tor of the ride. He was dressed in an elaborate pi
rate costume. Elizabeth gasped. He had a parrot on
his shoulder. She could feel her throat constrict. As
long as she could remember, she'd had a phobia
about birds. Years of therapy and it had never gone
away. But she hid her fear. She didn't want to spoil
the ride for her girls. They giggled as they tumbled
into their seats and the mean-looking pirate pre
tended to be menacing. The girls squealed and
laughed at his big mustache and huge gold hoop
earrings and big black hat and black eye-patch.
The noisy bright green parrot on his shoulder cack
led, "Don't go in there, dearie . . ."

    
Elizabeth was about to join the last two girls in
their gondola, but the muscular pirate stopped her.
For a moment she held her breath as the parrot
leaned close to her. The pirate led her to a seat by
herself in the next gondola back. A moment later
she was disappearing into the pitch-black tunnel
after the girls.

    
Deafening screams came from all sides of the
cave and whizzing lights zigzagged every which
way. Pirate dummies popped out to have vicious
cutlass fights with each other, and bats seemed to
swarm down all around them. The girls kept duck
ing their heads and laughing, gripping the edges of
their gondolas.

    
They passed a huge, gleaming treasure chest
squatting on the ground, its dazzling make-believe
jewels piled high. And on the top, a skeleton wear
ing pearls around its neck was sitting and grinning
at them. It was so close, the girls could have
touched it, but they reared their bodies as far back
as possible and screamed in terror as their gondola
careened around a curve in the track into the next
frightening pirate scenario.

    
At that moment Elizabeth Hoyle Johnson was
pulled off her seat by the wicked-looking pirate.

    
He kicked the skeleton out of his way and
pushed her down against the chest.

    
"What . . . why . . ." she stuttered. "What are
you doing?"

    
To Elizabeth's surprise, the pirate yanked off
his mustache and eye-patch. "Why, it's you," she
said, upset. "What are you doing here? This is not
a funny way to say hello . . ."

    
"Not hello, Beth. Good-bye. No more toys
for you."

    
He released the parrot and on command it
dived down at her, over and over again, screech
ing. Elizabeth clutched at her throat as an asthma
attack came on full-strength. She was unable to
breathe. Her hands groped for her purse, where
her inhaler was kept. The satisfied pirate shoved
the purse out of her reach. She looked into his eyes
and saw no mercy there. The pirate waited as her
eyes grew big, then closed. He felt her pulse and
smiled.

Where was Mrs. Johnson?

I put my Carl Hiaasen novel on my night table, along with my reading glasses, prepared to fall asleep. But sleep is not following its usual pattern. I can't help thinking about Angelina and her family. So I click on the TV for some late-night news to distract me. What I see immediately knocks the sleepiness right out of me.

    The footage is of wealthy socialite Elizabeth Hoyle Johnson at a charity function at Happyland Fantasy Park in Sarasota Springs. She is beautifully dressed all in pink and surrounded by a little group of girls, also in pink, on their Orphans' Day outing. The next footage shows a still, covered figure on a stretcher, being carried out of some kind of cave. The camera then shifts to a bench where several little girls sit crying, and an older woman, also crying, says, "Everything happened so fast. She was on the ride with her girls and she never came out of the cave. We knew she had severe asthma, which must have weakened her heart, but . . ." Here she breaks down. In the background I hear the children chattering about the "mean pirate and his funny parrot, who hosted the ride."

    The newscaster gives a brief report about Mrs. Johnson and her many charitable works, ending with the same phrase that every reporter seems to use to sum up a woman's life, "She is survived by her husband, Thomas Johnson."

    As the news shifts to the latest city council meeting, I turn the set off.

    Number three. Why am I not surprised? I told them so, didn't I?

E
ven though the salsa band in José Aragon's

     open-air tapas bar is very loud, even though the surf pounding the beach a few hundred feet away is near deafening, even though the rowdy group of young men just back from a successful fishing trip are seven beers to the wind, Jack and I are aware of nothing but one another.

    Another sip of my Mai Tai, another sweet kiss, then I ask him again, "So, what's the surprise?"

    "Not yet, oh impatient one. I'm working up to it. What's new on the P.I. front? Caught the peeper yet?"

    "Still very elusive, that sly guy."

    What is this big secret he is teasing me with? He keeps grinning, so he thinks I'm going to like it. It's certainly something
he
likes. I smile. Probably has to do with sex. That's a look I remember from way back. Oh, no. Is he going to propose again? Or want us to officially get engaged? He's driving me crazy. I wish he'd tell me already. I can't stand the suspense.

    "Earth to Gladdy," he says.

    "I'm here. Honest."

    We munch some more of the cold papaya and pineapple chunks. And sip more of our drinks.

    "How's your bridge tournament going?" I ask.

    "Lucy and I are in second place. But we're closing fast."

    "You better watch out for that Lucy. She's gunning for you."

    "Nonsense, all she lives for is bridge."

    "Yeah. Right."

    We both laugh. Jack pulls me closer to him. We snuggle for a few moments, blissfully looking out across the barely lit beach toward the hammering surf. This is romantic. This is very romantic.