Black Butterfly Page 9

  Lefty, Jr. dropped the box off at your house at my request. I’m laughing because he’s not really a lefty, nor is he my son. He’s my brother’s son. You may think it silly, but I asked him to dress for the part. I’ve done everything I can to make you realize it really is me trying to contact you.

  There’s a lot we need to talk about, Meredith. Was I really a copper? Or was I conning you? Sometimes I’m not sure about anything because I was so deeply involved with the mob, but you need to know the truth.

  In my mind there’s an even bigger question. Were you really a hit lady? I didn’t find out until after your disappearance about the job they gave you. Were there others?

  We need to clear the air now that I know you’re still alive and kicking.

  I’ll be in touch.

  “Gabe signed it,” I said.

  Chris took the letter from my hands and reread it. “So we know the goon who showed up at the restaurant and at her house was Gabe’s nephew. What we don’t know is if he’s involved with the mob or if he’s just helping his uncle. Actually, there’s a lot we don’t know.”

  Mary returned to the table, looking as though she’d been crying.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’ll be fine.” She glanced at Chris, who still held the letter. “I see you’ve read Gabe’s note. What do you think?”

  “There’s not enough information,” Chris replied. “We don’t know if he was a cop or a gangster. We also don’t know about his nephew. Are they good guys or bad guys? You knew him, Meredith. What do you think?”

  She didn’t answer right away. “You know, this is the kind of thing that can age a person real fast.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “I guarantee you, it would age me.”

  She sighed. “Thinking back, my instinct tells me he was a copper. He was always there, but it seems like he stayed in the background. He was always listening, taking things in. I have to admit that I never saw him do anything, uh, illegal. He was right on the edge though.”

  Chris set the letter down. “Meredith, there’s something that’s been on my mind. If you saw a man murdered in the office at the casino, how could they pin it on you? Any ideas about that?”

  “Yes. I read a story in the paper. His body was moved and left out in the desert, but they left it close enough to town to make sure it was found. And they left something of mine with the body to make sure I was tied to it.”

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “A gun with my fingerprints on it.”

  “How did your prints end up on the gat?” Chris placed his hands on the table and leaned forward.

  “Remember the job they sent me on? When I got back to town, they took the gun back. Tony had me set it on his desk, and he let it sit there until after I left. I can only think he was careful not to let anyone else touch it.”

  My husband nodded. “That would make sense. Were there other things they could have used to set you up for other crimes?”

  “Of course. Anything I touched could have been used to frame me. Anything. Plus you can bet your bottom dollar that they spread rumors about me after I was gone. When the police came to see Mary, they shared a few stories to try to convince her to contact them if she saw me. They made me sound like a monster, but Mary knew better. You know, I never told Mary about the Black Butterfly thing, but the police did and now that I think about it, she knew all along and never threw it in my face.”

  Mary leaned back and put her hand to her mouth, looking thoughtful. “There’s a lot more I could tell you, but I’m awfully tired. I think I need to go home. Can we talk more tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Chris will walk you home.”

  They left and I walked to the kitchen to start putting the dishes in the dishwasher. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have my mother-in-law take the dogs, too. They could be very protective of Mikey when the need arose.

  Between Meredith’s story and Gabe’s letter, there was a lot to think about. His question was righteous. Was she really a killer? I doubted it, but you never knew. Some people are expert liars.

  She’d always seemed so strong and self-assured, at least from what little I knew of her, but this situation seemed to be taking a toll on her.

  ~ * ~

  The next morning after Chris and I ate breakfast, I made some chocolate chip muffins. I handed Chris a plate with four of them and asked him to take them down to Meredith.

  He obliged me and left while I cleaned up the dishes.

  The dogs started barking and I hollered at them out the window.

  The doorbell rang and, of course, I knew it wouldn’t be Chris. Why would he ring his own doorbell? The dogs had known someone was there.

  I grabbed a towel and dried my hands while I hurried to the front of the house. I glanced out the peephole, but all I could see was someone’s back.

  I opened the door and dropped the towel when I saw who it was.

  We each bent to pick it up at the same time and clunked heads. I grabbed my head and he grabbed his head and the towel, and we stood staring at each other.

  He handed me the towel.

  “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “Lefty, Jr.? What are you doing here?”

  He chuckled. “Lefty, Jr.? My uncle is the only one who calls me that.”

  “I know.”

  “You must have read his letter.”

  I gave him the once over, hoping I wouldn’t see the bulge of a gun under his shirt. For once he wasn’t wearing his snazzy suit, but instead had on jeans and a Hawaiian shirt. His dark hair was somewhat curly, and he was both handsome and muscular.

  “I need to talk to someone and I was hoping you and your husband would let me explain a few things.” His baritone voice suited his appearance.

  I stuck my head outside and looked down the street. The Mercedes was parked in front of our house and I could see Chris coming at a dead run.

  “That might not be a bad idea.” I looked up, into his face. He had to be at least six foot, four inches tall, and that was without the fedora. “Here comes my husband now.”

  I wondered briefly if Gabe was also a big man, not knowing that I was about to find out.

  “My uncle is in the car. May I bring him in, too?”

  “Uh…”

  He grinned. “I swear we aren’t here to shoot up the house.”

  Wrong thing to say.

  My eyes turned into mere slits. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry, but under the circumstances it seemed like a joke.”

  “Not a good one,” I said, grinning back and opening my eyes wider. “I guess you need joke lessons, too.”

  “Huh?”

  Before I could answer, Chris leaped up on the porch and stood face to shoulder with Lefty. Needless to say, my husband isn’t six foot four.

  Size didn’t matter to Chris. “Okay, pal, flap your lips and tell me what you’re doing here.” He rolled that infamous upper lip under and, spreading his feet, put his hands on his hips.

  “My uncle and I would like to talk to you and your wife. Unc has a few things he wants to explain. It’s become pretty clear that the two of you are trying to help Meredith. Right?”

  Chris nodded, but didn’t say a word.

  “Are those old ladies part of the security system?”

  I saw Chris’s left eye twitch before he nodded.

  I looked at Lefty and I could see that Chris was making him feel uncomfortable, which surprised me.

  “You can call them for backup if you want to,” Lefty said.

  “Don’t need backup.”

  “Look, I’m trying to lighten the mood,” the tall man said. “Give me a minute to get my uncle out of the car and we’ll talk.”

  Chris ran his tongue over his teeth and crossed his arms while he nodded. He wasn’t going to give an inch to the goon – or whatever he was.

  I watched as Lefty – I needed to find out what his real name was – opened the passenger door of the car and helped
an elderly man step out.

  The man pulled himself up to his full height and I saw that he was as tall as his nephew, although slightly stooped.

  “Chris, have you ever noticed that we don’t see too many older men that are that tall? I wonder why that is.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lefty and Gabe walked up to the house as though they didn’t have a care in the world. I had no idea how old Gabe was, but he still had thick salt and pepper hair. Apparently it had never turned totally white. He was still a handsome man, looking very dapper in a grey suit. I noticed that he had a limp and he was using a cane.

  And, yes, he and his nephew looked more like father and son than uncle and nephew.

  Chris gave them both the once over before escorting them into the house.

  “What is it you want to talk about?” I could tell my husband didn’t trust them. He had come right to the point.

  “Do you mind if we sit down? This may take a few minutes.” Gabe looked longingly at the couch. His age might have something to do with it.

  Chris led the way into the living room. He stood by our fireplace while the two strangers sat down.

  No one spoke for a moment.

  Chris crossed his arms and stared into Gabe’s eyes, searching for something. “Let’s have it. Were you a cop or not? What’s the story?”

  The old man gently worked his jaws, almost like a cow chewing its cud. He licked his lips before speaking. “Sometimes I wondered about that myself. Yes, I was a cop, but I was so deeply undercover that sometimes I wasn’t sure if I knew right from wrong anymore. I felt like maybe I’d crossed the line, onto the other side of the law.

  “Then I met Meredith. Without knowing it, she brought me to my senses. Suddenly I wondered how I’d taken some of the roads I had – right was right and wrong was wrong. She tried so hard to be a part of things, and yet there was an undercurrent of innocence about her. It was like she was playing a role.”

  Gabe’s baritone voice, although a little rusty sounding, matched that of his nephew.

  “Can we back up a little?” he asked. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Gabriel Rizzo, and this is my nephew, Samuel Rizzo. Sammy isn’t a part of all of this. He’s simply trying to help me.”

  “Help you do what?” I asked.

  “He’s helping me get in touch with Meredith. Her life may be in danger because of me and I want to help her.”

  “What do mean that her life is in danger?” Chris asked.

  “Believe it or not, I’m still in touch with a few men from the old crew. They never found out that I was a cop. It sounds silly, but I was so excited when I saw Meredith’s photo in the newspaper that I blabbed to someone, who blabbed to someone else.”

  “I take it you told the wrong person,” I said.

  “You could say that. The mob never forgets anything. Meredith saw something she wasn’t meant to see. In other words, she’s a witness. Yes, most of the old brothers are gone, but they have sons and daughters, also with long memories. They like to tie up loose ends.”

  “If they’re all dead, why does anyone care about her?” Chris asked. “Get real. Who’s she gonna squeal on, a dead guy?”

  Gabe narrowed his eyes at Chris. “Family is family, and they don’t want their fathers’ and grandfathers’ reputations to be ruined.”

  Chris laughed, but there was no humor in it. “What reputations? The whole world thinks the mob was made up of killers and thugs.”

  Gabe held his hands out, palms up, in supplication, maybe hoping for understanding. “Once upon a time there was a thug, as you call them, who disappeared off the face of the earth. His brothers and cousins looked for him. His son cried when Daddy never came home. Later, that son looked for him, too.”

  “Who was he?” Chris interrupted the old man’s story.

  Gabe chewed his cud again. I could see he was debating about answering Chris.

  “Tell him, Unc,” Sammy urged. “He’ll find out anyway. It wouldn’t take much research.”

  The uncle gave his nephew a look that said, Shut up!

  Sammy dropped his head and looked at the floor.

  Gabe pursed his lips. “He’s right, I guess. It was Tony Messina.”

  “I remember reading about him,” I said. “They found him about a year ago. It was in the newspaper.”

  Gabe nodded. “Yeah. When they rebuilt the old casino, his body was found in a box, buried under the flooring. He was kind of like a mummy.”

  “Like a mummy?” Chris was narrowing his eyes at the old man again.

  “Yeah, like a mummy. Still mostly intact. His hands rested on his chest, covered by his hat. They didn’t know what killed him until they did an autopsy. He’d been poisoned. Poison is usually a woman’s tool for killing. They blamed Meredith. It was easy for them to do because everyone thought she was dead, too. And someone had left a hairbrush in the box with her fingerprints on it, like it had fallen out of her purse or something.”

  “A little too neat, if you ask me,” Sammy said.

  “Be quiet!” Gabe said.

  Sammy looked surprised, but clamped his lips together.

  “Now that the word is out that Meredith is still alive, Tony’s family may be after her. Like I said, they never forget. An eye for an eye. Meredith’s life for Tony’s.”

  He shook his head.

  “All those years of searching, and Tony was just a few feet away from them.”

  “Isn’t Tony the one who gave Meredith her first hit job?” I asked.

  Chris turned on me. “Pamela, zip it.”

  He was right. I shouldn’t have let on that we knew anything.

  Gabe fingered the handle of his cane, ignoring my question. “I want to talk to Meredith. I want to keep her safe. We figured out where she was, but that doesn’t mean the goons know yet.”

  He glanced at Chris.

  “Love that word; goons. Haven’t heard it in years, but it’s still a good word.”

  Sammy looked up from the floor. “I’ve been watching the woman and figured out that you were helping her. You and those old ladies. Unc thought maybe you could talk her into meeting with him.”

  “Her choice,” Chris said.

  I heard a car door slam and looked out the window. My in-laws had pulled up behind the black Mercedes. I was about to turn away when another car pulled up across the street. Of course. It was the Church Ladies.

  “It’s my in-laws and friends,” I said. “You know, the ones you keep referring to as old ladies.”

  “Maybe we’d better leave, Unc. You don’t want to have to deal with them right now.”

  Gabe stood with his nephew’s help and leaned on his cane. He inclined his head toward Chris and spoke to his nephew. “You know what to do.”

  Sammy reached behind himself.

  I waited, hoping he wasn’t going to pull out a gun and take us all out. I still wasn’t sure about these two men.

  Instead, he pulled a wallet out of his back pocket and fished out a business card, handing it to Chris.

  I turned and looked out the window again. A couple of the ladies were pointing at the Mercedes and they looked dumbstruck. Not a mouth was moving.

  “Please call me,” Sammy said. “Both my office and home phone numbers are on the card.”

  The two men walked to the door.

  By that time the women were walking up the front walk with their mouths going a mile a minute. I could hear their excited voices.

  When the door opened, all voices fell silent. As the men started walking toward their car, the women divided into two groups and stood on each side of the walkway.

  Gabe nodded at them as a group in general and kept walking.

  I saw Lila’s mouth fall open, almost in awe, or so it seemed.

  Sammy helped his uncle into the car, walked around to the driver’s side, and they were off.

  The women stared after them before coming to their senses and heading for the house.

  “What gives?” Judith ask
ed, rushing inside.

  “Who were those men?” Jasmine asked.

  “What did they want?” Lila asked.

  “That was the Mercedes we’ve seen around Meredith’s house,” Addie said, nodding her head knowingly.

  May just looked at me.

  “Chris? Do you want to explain?”

  I should have known better than to ask him.

  “That was Meredith’s old lover and his nephew,” he said.

  Leave it to him to make such a short explanation.

  “Come in and sit down and we’ll tell you everything we know,” I said.

  They did, and we explained.

  “I remember reading about a contractor finding that body,” Judith said. “Oh, and I dropped Ace off at school. He’s fine.”

  “I never heard about the mummy,” May said.

  “I read the story,” Lila said. “Nate and I talked about how weird it was. That’s why I remember. Did I tell you that we’ve decided to get married?” Lila grinned shyly.

  Every face turned in her direction and all conversation stopped, if only for a moment.

  “No, you didn’t tell us,” Jasmine said.

  “Why did you keep it a secret?” Addie asked.

  “Yeah, why? And when is the wedding?” May asked.

  “We’re planning on a December wedding.” Lila looked as happy as I’d ever seen her.

  “Back to business,” Judith said. “We’ll plan the wedding later. We’ve got time. Tell us more about the men. Did you believe them?”

  Chris glanced at the card Sammy had given him. “Oh. The nephew is an attorney. Huh.”

  He sounded surprised.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Maybe the nephew is an attorney for the mob,” Judith said. “You never know about these things.”

  I finally lost control and rolled my eyes. “His uncle was a cop, and I’ll bet to this day he doesn’t want to be found out. Why would his nephew work for the mob?”

  “Judy’s right,” Jasmine said. “You just never know about these things.”