From Mangia to Murder (A Sophia Mancini ~ Little Italy Mystery) (23 page)

She decided not to give Tino the time to sort out what she was asking him.

“I don’t like this,” Tino grumbled as he followed her down the hallway.

Sophia pounced on his indecision.

“Then don’t drag your feet. I don’t blame you for worrying that Mr. Vidoni and Mr. DiMuccio are going to be perturbed with you for not helping me.” She opened the front door, stood back to usher Tino out, and patted him on the shoulder as he passed through the doorway. “And don’t worry, Tino. I won’t tell either one of them that you were less than helpful. It’ll be our little secret.”

***

Frankie’s warehouse was a world away from the opulent Vidoni estate. The warehouse was modest, in need of a paint job, and there was nothing to indicate that it belonged to the Vidoni family except for the large Tino look-alike who stood outside the gates. Where did Frankie find these giants? Was there a colony of hefty oversized men somewhere that produced minions for the Vidonis?

Tino rolled the car through the gates without stopping to talk to the guard, for which Sophia was grateful. The hulking guard made one less person who could object to her search for ... well, that was the tricky part. She had no idea what she was searching for, except some concrete proof of what Vincenzo might be blackmailing Frankie about. She needed just one more piece of the puzzle to make up her mind about Frankie. He’d never tell her anything. So, in essence, he was forcing her to snoop.

She glanced over at Tino. He hadn’t uttered a sound since he’d tossed the rest of his sandwich over the chain link fence to a growling Doberman back at the Vidonis’. “That was a good sandwich,” was all he’d said, making it entirely clear that he blamed her for his loss of nourishment.

It was unlikely that word of what she was up to would get back to Frankie. Not that he could do much about it from behind bars.

Tino slammed the car’s gear into park. “Get out,” he ordered.

Sophia bristled at his manner. He certainly had none of Mooch’s charm.

The gravel crunched underfoot as they made their way to the warehouse entrance. Calling it a door would have been too generous. It looked like it belonged on a rickety old barn. Tino slid it open and pointed into the darkness.

Sophia took a deep steadying breath. She suddenly wished Angelo was with her. She peered into the darkness. What was she doing here, about to enter a dark warehouse when no one knew where she was? She had to be crazy. That was the only answer.

“A light, Tino.” Sophia gestured into the darkness. “Please.”

Tino grunted an unintelligible response, but he brushed past her and entered the warehouse first. She followed him into the darkness.

***

Three quarters of an hour later, Sophia closed the last of the crates she’d pried open. She plopped down on a stack of wooden boxes. She’d opened enough crates to have her suspicions about Frankie confirmed.

She crossed to the inner office door and tried the handle. To her delight, it opened easily. She looked over her shoulder, but there was no sign of Tino. Some henchman he was. He was probably waiting outside the door, or maybe he’d already gone to alert Frankie to her presence at the warehouse. Either way, he’d given her time to discover the truth about Frankie’s business.

Sophia pulled the string that hung from the light bulb socket in the middle of the room. Once her eyes had adjusted to the light, she headed toward a row of filing cabinets. She opened a random drawer and flipped through the files, glancing at the names scrawled on the manila file folder tabs.

The files, invoices, and the content of the warehouse crates all added up perfectly. Two plus two always came to four. But Frankie Vidoni acted like he was a five.

She shut the top file cabinet drawer just as she heard the front warehouse door slide open and then slam shut. Time was up. But she had the information she’d come for. All she needed now was to talk to Angelo so they could figure out the connection between what she’d found and Vincenzo’s murder.

“Hello, Miss Mancini.”

Sophia’s eyes widened in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to give you a ride home. We can talk in the car.” He gestured to the hanging light switch string. “Do me a favor and turn the light out.”

Sophia turned and pulled the string. At the same moment the room returned to darkness, a heavy object smashed into the back of her head. She pitched forward and crumpled to the floor.

***

“She’s in so much trouble, she’ll take her time waking up if she’s smart.”

The voice came from the opposite side of the room and the words were garbled, as if the speaker had a mouth full of marbles. Sophia turned her head toward the sound, but the pain that shot through her body warned her to keep still. Even opening her eyes hurt. She kept them shut.

“I think tying her to a chair is the only way to keep her out of commission.”

A chair. Sophia struggled to focus her thoughts. She wasn’t in a chair. She was lying down. Her fingers were able to move. Soft. Whatever she was laying on was soft, not hard. She wasn’t on the floor.

The voices were quiet again. She couldn’t remember where she was or what happened, but she didn’t want to be tied to a chair, or to anything else for that matter. Her head hurt like the devil. She had to figure out where she was and who the voices belonged to.

Sophia willed her eyes to open. The room was bright. There was a window with blinds, and several people stood huddled beside it. She couldn’t tell if there were two or three figures because their shadows kept blurring together and then apart.

What in God’s name had happened to her head? Helplessness and frustration made her want to weep, but she was afraid even that would be painful.

“I’d be more than willing to put the fear of God into her if you two don’t object.”

So there were three of them. There was something familiar about the third man’s voice. Something different, like an accent. An Irish brogue.

Her eyes flew open. She struggled to sit up, biting her lip to keep from crying out.

“Sophia, cara, you’re awake.” Angelo was beside her in a moment. He kissed both her cheeks and took her hand in his.

Gratitude and relief filled her heart. If Angelo was with her, she was safe.

“Where am I, Ang?” She could hear how strained her voice sounded.

“Sshh, you’re safe. Lie still and be quiet.” He sat beside her, still holding onto her hand. “You’re in the hospital, sis.”

The hospital? That would explain the pillows and soft bed.“How did I get here? What happened?”

“The child can’t be quiet. Not to save her life.” This voice belonged to Grandpa. And it wasn’t his happy voice either. He stood at the end of the bed, arms folded across his chest. Beside him stood Captain McIntyre.

What was he doing here? She groaned. She still didn’t know what
she
was doing here. She desperately wanted to put the pieces together, but it was hard to think through the pounding in her head.

“I need to ask you some questions, Miss Mancini.”

She tried to focus on the police captain. His questions could wait. She had some of her own. “Where did you find me?” she asked, keeping her eyes on her brother.

“We didn’t,” Angelo answered. “A nurse coming on duty found you in one of the corridors, propped up in a wheelchair.”

Sophia frowned and struggled to remember how she could have ended up at St. Joseph’s. An image of Maria Acino and something pink floated across her mind’s eyes. She’d been shopping with Maria. But surely she and Maria hadn’t come to blows over a dress. Pizza. They’d eaten, or rather she’d wanted to, and Maria had talked. But then what?

“What is the last thing you remember, Miss Mancini?”

Sophia looked at the police captain for a long moment without answering. She wished she knew herself, but it was just beyond her memory’s reach.

“The funeral,” she said, gratefully accepting a cup of water from her brother. She took a small sip and handed it back. “How was Vincenzo’s funeral?”

Her Grandpa, Little Italy’s self-appointed expert on funerals, answered for Angelo.

“Crowded. Everybody and their mother-in-law was there, packed in tight. At least eight to a pew. Father Clemente said a lovely Mass.” He sat down on the end of the bed. “Stella wore her widow’s veil long enough that no one could catch a glimpse of her face, but I bet you ten dimes to one that she was--”

Captain McIntyre coughed discreetly. Her Grandpa ignored the hint. He kept right on talking, “--thanking the Virgin Mary for her husband’s untimely death. Not that I blame her. That Vincenzo was a prize-winning idiot if ever there was one. No, I think Stella--”

“Right then, I’m pulling rank here,” Captain McIntyre interrupted him. “Angelo, please take your grandfather out to the waiting room so I can have a word with your sister.”

Angelo shot her a quick look, and she nodded to reassure him. She could handle the captain.

After they were gone, Tiernan pulled a chair up beside the bed. “Can I get you anything?”

Sophia shook her head. She longed for a hot bath, a box of chocolates, and one of Luciano’s world-class hugs. None of which he could give her.

“Why did you miss the funeral?”

His question triggered an explosion of answers, and her afternoon came flooding back to her. She’d talked Tino into taking her to Frankie’s warehouses. What she’d found there paraded across her mind as if on fast forward. Right up until the moment when she’d heard the warehouse door open, and she knew she’d been caught.

“Why weren’t you at the funeral?” Captain McIntyre asked again, his shrewd eyes intent upon her face. “Where did you go?”

What to tell him? Sophia knew the truth wasn’t an option. She needed time to sort it all out. “I can’t exactly remember everything,” she hedged.

“Tell me what you can remember.”

The man didn’t let up.

“I was shopping with Maria Acino.”

“Mrs. Acino was at the funeral. Why weren’t you?”

Equal amounts of anger and pain shot through Sophia as she tried to sit up, and then quickly realized she was wearing a hospital gown and not her own clothes. She settled back against the pillow and drew the sheet up over her chest.

“Why are you questioning me as if I did something wrong?” She knew she sounded angry and defensive but Tiernan McIntyre got under her skin. Every time. “Maybe I fell and hit my head and someone helped me into the hospital.”

“Someone was kind enough to help you into the hospital, but then, suddenly, they have a change of heart and unceremoniously dump you in an empty wheelchair and leave you in a quiet corridor?”

“It’s possible.” She wished she could get up and walk out of the room but, hospital gowns being what they were, she had to stay put.

“I’ll tell you what I think is possible,” Captain McIntyre said, leaning forward and speaking in an affected, conspiratorial tone of voice. “I think you wanted to sneak off and investigate a theory you had about Vincenzo’s murder. You chose a time when you knew most of the people under suspicion would be at St. Catherine’s pretending to mourn Vincenzo, and you got into trouble. How’s that for a theory?”

“It’s full of holes.”

He laughed. Actually laughed. Sophia would have bet it wasn’t possible. In fact, she decided, Tiernan McIntyre could be almost attractive in a roguish way when he wasn’t being so terribly serious. Horrified by the direction her thoughts were taking, she pressed her fingers to her temples to ward off further such thoughts. What was the matter with her? She must have been hit harder than she’d realized.

“Try again,” he said, after he finished laughing.

“The best I can do, Captain McIntyre, is to assure you that I’ll notify you immediately if I remember anything you need to know.” When he didn’t answer she added, “You can stop acting like I’m guilty of something.”

“Ah, but I think you are, Miss Mancini. You’re guilty of getting in over your head, and look what’s happened to you.”

Sophia refused to take the bait. She remained quiet.

A knock at the door interrupted their silent standoff. A nurse stood in the doorway.

“Miss Mancini, there’s a gentleman to see you. Visiting hours are almost over, and I told him so, but he insisted that you would want to see him.”

The police captain twisted around in his chair. “Miss Mancini isn’t seeing anyone at the moment, nurse.”

“Wait,” Sophia called out just as the nurse was about to pull the door closed behind her. “Send him in, please.” She had no idea who so desperately wanted to see her, but she didn’t care. An enthusiastic encyclopedia salesman would be an improvement over her present company.

A moment later the door opened. It was Frankie Vidoni.

“Out.” Captain McIntyre jumped to his feet. “Miss Mancini is not wishing to see you.”

Oh, but she was. Sophia very much wanted to hear what Frankie had to say. And it had better be good.

“Come in, Mr. Vidoni,” she called to him. “I’m curious what brings you here.”

With a terrific frown, the police captain stood aside. “That makes two of us then, Vidoni. You have exactly three minutes.”

Frankie stood at the end of the hospital bed, hat in hand. His expression was guarded, cautious, and curious, but not as sheepish as she would have liked.

“I apologize for interrupting,” Frankie said, his voice even and smooth. He certainly didn’t sound guilty of bashing her over the head. But he had. She remembered perfectly. “I was deeply concerned about Miss Mancini’s welfare and wanted to see for myself that she was well.”

Sophia smiled. “Don’t apologize for interrupting us. The captain was just asking me if I remembered how I ended up here.”

“Surely you need to rest,” Frankie said. He turned to the police captain. “Let’s go and see if we can find the doctor and see what he has to say about Miss Mancini’s condition.”

“And you just out on bail not four hours ago. Interesting that you’d rush here.” Captain McIntyre raised an eyebrow. “Quite telling.”

“How did you get bail set?” Sophia asked, looking from one man to the other.

Frankie smirked. “All the police had was a flimsy piece of evidence--”