All Murders Final! (7 page)

Chapter 10

Pellner looked back and forth between CJ and me then left the room in a hurry. Maybe the fact that my wedding ring was gone was a sign my relationship with CJ was over. CJ was only here because I was one of the townsfolk he had to protect. I moved to follow Pellner into the living room.

“Sarah, wait,” CJ said. “I'm sorry.”

“Because I'm one of the townsfolk or because of us?” I asked. The two steps separating us had never felt farther.

“Chief?” Pellner called from the living room.

CJ glanced toward the door and then back at me before he walked out of the room.

I pulled my cardigan tighter around me and followed him.

“Can you find someplace to go for a couple of hours?” CJ asked me. “This is still a crime scene.”

“You've got to be kidding me,” I said. “Where should I go?” I thought about Seth, but he was probably at work. Why did I think of Seth before friends like Carol or Laura?

“You can come to my place.” Stella stood in the doorway. Her dark green eyes stood out against her paler than usual olive skin. “And then you can explain what's going on.”

“I'll explain now, because they”—I cocked my thumb at CJ and Pellner—“want to go through the empty apartment.”

“Yes, with your permission, Stella, we'd like to take a look around,” Pellner said.

Pellner and Stella had known each other since high school. They'd even dated at one point, but Stella hadn't wanted to settle down as Mrs. Scott Pellner and had pursued an opera career instead. Her own demons had eventually chased her back here to Ellington.

“Can I at least grab my purse?” I asked CJ after Stella led Pellner over to the empty unit.

CJ nodded and followed me into my bedroom. I was beginning to feel like a suspect. CJ leaned against the doorjamb, arms folded, watching me. He didn't move when I picked up my purse. Now for the lecture. I waited. But instead of a lecture, he reached out and trailed a finger down my cheek.

“I'm sorry,” he said. Then he turned and left.

Sorry for what
? I wondered.

* * *

I ended up going to the doctor. The bump on the head and the headache scared me enough that I let Stella drive me over. Living alone made me wonder what would happen if I keeled over in the middle of the night. How long would it be before anyone noticed I was missing? One thorough exam, a few hours, and a scan or two later, I walked out with a clean bill of health. Then we went to a big-box store, and I bought a new computer.

An hour later Stella and I sat on her couch, each with a glass of wine, and with the remnants of a big salad Stella had thrown together on the coffee table.

“Did Pellner find anything interesting in the empty apartment?” I asked.

“Not unless you find dust bunnies interesting. I need to find a new tenant.”

“So it didn't look like anyone had been in there?”

“I guess not. Wouldn't you have heard someone? Not that I don't love this place, but the walls aren't that well insulated.”

“I had the music up, and I might have been singing . . . just a little.” We grinned at each other. Stella liked to drag me to karaoke with her at an Irish pub and restaurant called Gillganins. But my voice, while usually on key, was no match to hers. My smile changed to a frown.

“What?” Stella asked.

“I wonder if the attack today had anything to do with Margaret's death.”

“Why would you think that?”

I shrugged. “I don't really have a reason. Just a thought.” I stood and stretched. “I'm tired. I think I'll head up to bed.”

“I'll walk you up,” Stella said.

When we got upstairs we decided to go through the empty apartment just to double-check. All the windows were locked, and no one leaped out of the closets at us. Stella helped me clean up my apartment, too. We put all the Pez dispensers back in the box and cleaned off the fingerprint powder.

“Do you want me to stay?” Stella asked.

“No, but thanks. I'll be fine.” I think I even sounded like it might be true.

* * *

Tuesday afternoon I trudged up the stairs after another meeting with Laura about the February Blues garage sale. She'd asked about the bump on my head, which now was little enough that it was more like a pimple than a bump. But my head still ached. The thought of stretching out on my couch kept me moving up the stairs. I was almost to the top when a man came out of the apartment next to mine, dressed in jeans, a leather jacket, sunglasses, and a Red Sox baseball cap. I opened my mouth to scream and turned to run.

“Hey, you must be Sarah,” he said. “Stella told me all about you.”

I clamped my mouth closed but went down two steps, in case I needed to bolt.

He put his hands up like he was surrendering, but I still didn't trust him. “I take it Stella didn't tell you I'd be staying here a few days. She said she'd send you a text.”

I slipped my phone out of my pocket. I did have a text from Stella. Mike Titone's moving in for a few days. I'd heard that name before. She'd sent a picture. I looked from the picture to the guy and back again. It seemed to be the same guy. I snapped my head up. Mike Titone was the name of the Mob guy Vincenzo had represented, but that guy lived in Boston. Maybe it was a common name in this area. Below the front door banged open. Two guys started carrying a couple of large suitcases up the stairs.

“Excuse us, lady,” the one closest to me said.

Now my only choice was to go up the stairs. I edged as far away from Mike as I could and fished in my purse for the keys to my apartment without taking my eyes off him or the movers. My hand finally landed on them, so I quickly unlocked my door and slipped in.

“Nice ta meet cha,” Mike called as I shut the door.

I dropped my purse on the trunk. I Googled Mike Titone, and a huge list of articles popped up. Vincenzo represented Mike “the Big Cheese” Titone when he'd been charged with racketeering. Mike got off on all counts and went back to running his cheese shop in Boston's North End and doing whatever else he did out of said shop. What in the world was he doing here, and for just a few days? I could hear furniture being moved around through my thin walls and a bit of swearing as someone occasionally bumped something against the wall.

I dialed Stella and paced as the phone rang.

“You let a mobster move in next door to me,” I said when Stella answered.

“What are you talking about?”

“Mike ‘the Big Cheese' Titone. Vincenzo got him off racketeering charges.”

“Hmmm. I'm sure he's fine. Vincenzo asked me to do him a favor and let Mike move in for a few days. That's what we do here. Help each other out.”

I was all for being a good neighbor, but this carried it a bit too far. “I Googled him. It says he killed a man with a hundred-pound provolone. That if you're on his bad side, he leaves a slice of cheese on your doorstep as a warning.”

“Don't believe everything you Google. Besides, it will be nice to have someone around after what happened to you yesterday.”

“It's your building,” I said and hung up. I felt a bit bad, because Stella and I hadn't had a cross word since we became friends last spring. Having someone around might be nice, but I wasn't sure this was the someone I wanted it to be.

A knock on the door interrupted my thoughts. I answered, and Mike stood there, holding a large cellophane-wrapped gift basket full of cheese and wine. Two big, burly guys stood behind him. He thrust the basket into my arms.

“This is for any inconvenience the presence of me and my family might cause,” he said.

I felt a little color drain from my face when he said
family
.

Mike laughed. “Not that kind of family. These are my two brothers. They'll be around a lot.”

Then I noticed the resemblance, the full heads of dark hair; the startling blue eyes, all the same shade; the variations of the same build, broad shoulders, thick chests, and long legs. The tallest brother, who stood in the back, obviously lifted weights more than the other two, as his neck muscles bulged and his black T-shirt strained around his biceps. He had a thick dark mustache that made me think of Tom Selleck.

“Thank you,” I finally managed to say. “It wasn't necessary.” I wondered if accepting a basket meant I owed them something. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do,” Mike said. “I stuck my card in the basket with my cell phone number on the back. Call if we get too noisy. These two”—he jerked his head toward his brothers—“can be rambunctious.”

The biggest brother winked at me as they turned almost in unison to go.

I took the basket into the kitchen and set it on my small kitchen table. The vintage tablecloth on my table made me think of Margaret More. I unwrapped the cellophane and put the ten blocks of various cheeses in my almost empty refrigerator. I took the Brie back out and set it on the counter. The basket was full of crackers, olives, dry salami, and a couple bottles of wine. I'd have a feast tonight. I called Stella back and asked her to come up and share the feast.

Stella showed up at seven. I heard her talking to someone in the hall and popped my head out the door. The biggest of the three brothers sat on a folding chair outside the door, working on the
Boston Globe
crossword. I waved and pulled Stella into the apartment.

“What the heck is going on with them?” I asked her, jerking my head toward the other apartment.

“I don't even get a glass of wine first?” she asked.

“Ugh. Sorry. I'm not sure what's wrong with me. I'm sorry I hung up on you.”

“You've had a stressful few days.”

“It's no excuse.”

Stella followed me into the kitchen. I opened a bottle of wine, and she poured while I arranged part of the contents of the basket along with plates on a tray. We carried it all out to my living room and put it on the trunk before settling on the couch. We filled our plates.

“This Brie is amazing,” I said. “But I'm still a little surprised that the Big Cheese is my neighbor.”

“Vincenzo called me up yesterday and asked if a friend of his could stay in my empty apartment.”

“He didn't say why or who?”

“Not at first, but I wore him down. I knew he wouldn't stash someone unsafe in our building.”

“I sense a
but
somewhere in what you aren't saying.”

“After we talked earlier, I called Vincenzo to ask him what was up.” Stella put some Gouda on a cracker and stuffed it in her mouth.

“Either you're really hungry or I'm not going to like what you have to say.” I popped an olive stuffed with blue cheese in my mouth and waited for Stella to continue as I chewed.

“Someone tried to kill Mike two days ago.”

I almost choked on the olive. “And it's safe for him to be here?” I asked once I'd managed to swallow.

“They've taken precautions. Mike and his two brothers booked tickets to Miami. Their sister lives there. They went to the airport and then slipped back out.”

“They could have been followed out here.”

“They weren't. None of them brought their normal cell phones. One of their other brothers is driving down to Miami with the phones and will turn them on once he gets down there.”

“Living in Ellington is certainly different than I imagined.”

Stella laughed. “Ain't that the truth.”

“How'd someone try to kill him?”

“I guess Mike goes jogging at the same park every day, at the same time.”

“That doesn't sound smart.”

“He didn't have any reason to think someone had it in for him.”

This whole conversation seemed unreal. I couldn't believe we were sitting here, talking about a mobster who had almost been killed.

“He runs around some heated track. There was an ultimate Frisbee game going on. He paid no attention, because they're always out there playing.”

“Ultimate Frisbee in February?”

Stella shrugged. “Someone threw a disk edged with razor blades at him. But he bent to tie his shoe just then, and it embedded in a tree, right where his head would have been.”

“Oh, good heavens. It doesn't even sound believable. Are you sure he didn't make the whole thing up?”

“According to Vincenzo, Mike doesn't like to leave the North End unless he has to.”

“Why hasn't it been in the papers? Trust me, I looked him up today.”

“He didn't report it. The disk was removed, and the players are being looked into. Although it could have been some other random person at the track. It's a popular place.”

We ate in silence for a while.

“How was your date the other night?” I asked.

Stella blushed. “He's coming over in an hour.”

“A second date? I thought you had a strict policy against that recently.” Stella and man troubles seemed to go hand in hand. “Are you going to tell him about your new tenant?”

“Not if I don't have to. Vincenzo and Mike assured me this was just for a couple of days.”

“Good luck with that,” I said.

We moved on to other topics as we ate and drank the wine. I walked Stella to the door. I peeked around the corner. The big brother had moved on to reading
The Pillars of the Earth
by Ken Follett. He looked up and winked. I blushed and hustled back into my apartment. In the past few days I had found Margaret dead, had been attacked in my own home, and now I had mobsters hiding out next door. My life seemed like it had turned into some crazy sitcom, and I only hoped I'd be the one with the last laugh.