The Spia Family Presses On

EIGHTEEN

Oops, There He Is

Not two seconds later, as if I was some kind of Genie, Leo and Nick appeared.

“How’d you do that?” Lisa asked.

“The olive is a powerful force,” I told her, feeling naturally high.

As soon as I saw Leo, I knew I had to get out of there or I would be sucking down martinis with abandon. I didn’t want to think about murder or murders, or Jade, my dad, rings or that big black Tundra parked outside. All I wanted was a night with Leo.

“We need to go,” I said to Leo, completely ignoring Nick. It was a wonder to me how Nick could simply show up and pretend as if he wasn’t in the process of completely dismantling my life piece by tiny piece. I totally got why my family hated cops. I was beginning to come around to their way of thinking.

“We just got here,” Nick said.

Lisa glared at me then she got it. “That’s why we should go,” she cooed, and Nick understood her seductive message.

“We should, um, go,” he mimicked, never taking his eyes off of her, looking as if she had him hypnotized.

Was she that good?

“I’ll round up my mom and aunts,” I said, dragging Leo behind me.

“Why? Are they coming with us?” Leo asked.

“We’re dropping then off at home and then . . .”

I turned and kissed him, one of those intense, I’m going-to-f*ck-you-right-on-the-floor-if-we-don’t-get-out-of-here kind of kisses.

“You’re not moving fast enough,” he said when I finally released his lips.

He took my hand and plowed through the crowd like a bulldozer. I was in awe of his ability to slip between people without knocking anyone down. He would be great on the crowded streets of Chinatown in San Francisco.

Uncle Federico, my mom and my aunts were all standing together in front of an olive tasting bar where a forty-something woman was handing out free samples of locally grown and cured olives. Spia’s olives took up half of the bar.

“We need to go,” I told them trying not to sound desperate.

“Who invited him?” Aunt Hetty said when she spotted Nick.

“He’s with me,” Lisa assured her.

“Huh,” Hetty said, turning away from us.

“We’re leaving now, Aunt Hetty.”

She turned halfway around, so she wouldn’t have to see Nick. “But I haven’t even begun to taste all the olives,” she slurred.

She reeked of gin. I took a step back. “Now I know we need to get out of here. You’re way past your olive quota,” I told her.

“I’m going to stay,” Aunt Babe said, her arm around a dapper looking gentleman with white hair and a smile to die for. “Charlie has wheels. He’ll give me a lift home.”

Charlie wore a wicked little grin that told me the “lift” home would be to his home and not hers.

“Whatever you want to do is fine by me,” I said.

“I’m not going either,” my mom added. “Benny’s here and he wants me to stay, the little darling. He’ll give Hetty and me a ride.”

And there it was, verbal confirmation that my mom had once again gone over to the dark side, Benny being the dark knight.

“Plus, that damn Liz Harrington’s been hanging around,” Mom grumbled, pulling me in closer. “I think she’s got the hots for Benny. She threw him one of those “come hither” looks earlier and got Benny to smile at her, the lousy witch. I gave her the evil eye, but my evil eye’s not what it used to be. You gotta use these things, or you lose the knack, but Hetty’s been helping me. She never lost it. Show her Hetty.”

I knew it had more to do with mom’s Botox injections, but I wasn’t about to tell her that.

Hetty swung around and glared at me. The look was so mean, so full of hate and contempt that it sent a shiver down my spine.

No Botox there.

“See,” my mom happily chirped. “Hetty’s still got it. Ain’t she something?”

Hetty swayed a bit and my mom steadied her with her compact little body.

“Yeah, she’s something, all right,” I said with a shudder.

“Okay then, I’ll see you ladies back home.”

My mom nodded, but I could tell her radar was up trying to spot Liz.

“Don’t worry, Mia,” Federico said over the din of the room. “It’s all under control.”

“Thanks,” I told him while giving him a quick hug, the ring poking me in the middle of my chest. “I feel better knowing you’re here.”

I turned to my mom. “Mama,” I shouted. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret. Listen to Federico.”

She looked at me and her face softened. “Don’t be silly. I know how to handle myself, but if she makes another move on my Benny I might have to deck her.”

“Mom,” I whined.

She gave me a dismissive glare. “You worry too much. I can take care of myself. I’m stronger than you think. And besides, Liz has a glass jaw. The last time I socked her she went down like a sack of potatoes.”

“The last time?” I asked taking a step back.

“Oh yeah. Me and her go way back. She tried to take Dickey away from your aunt Babe, but that didn’t last long ‘cause I gave her a good right to the jaw and she never bothered him again. Although, she did visit him every once in awhile while he was in the slammer, the little vixen.”

This was news to me. “Why don’t I know this?”

“You were young, or maybe it was during that time. But everybody knew about it.”

That time was how my mom referred to my binge drinking days.

“My bed awaits,” Leo whispered in my ear, his warm breath sending a flash of excitement over my entire body. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

I had been losing my lust-enthusiasm the more my mom spoke, and the more my mom spoke the more I was thinking that perhaps Liz was Dickey’s murderer. After all, Liz must have been the jilted lover, and everyone knew about the wrath of a woman scorned. I wished I had known this information earlier, I could have been dogging Liz or at the very least asking the woman some relevant questions.

“Come on, Mia,” Leo urged, pulling me toward him.

Nick and Lisa had already disappeared.

“Go. Go,” my mom said, shooing me along with her hands.

“We need to talk about this Liz thing some more. Tomorrow morning. Okay?”

She nodded, and Leo and I took off.

When we stepped outside, Nick and Lisa were waiting for us at the door.

“I thought you’d never get out of there,” Lisa said.

“My mom had some interesting things to say,” I told her.

“Yeah,” Leo chimed in. “Seems Liz Harrington, the bank teller from hell, was doing the nasty with Dickey sometime before he went to prison for murder, and Mia’s mom punched her lights out.”

I turned to him. “What if I didn’t want Lisa to know that?”

I really didn’t want Nick to know, but I couldn’t come out and say it in front of the man. He’d be back inside questioning my mom.

“Is there anything you keep from your BFF?”

I thought about it for a moment. “That’s beside the point.”

We were walking toward the dirt parking lot.

“Huh,” Nick said. “When did this happen?”

I knew his cop radar would go on full alert.

“Always the cop,” Lisa teased. “Don’t you ever give it a rest?”

“No, unfortunately it’s a twenty-four-seven kind of thing.”

I was thinking that maybe it was a good time to come clean with Nick. That I should make a statement or something. That Lisa and I should bare all, so to speak. I was tired of lugging this stuff around, and besides it was getting a little scary, especially since the incident with my ladder out in the orchard, which, as of that moment, I hadn’t told Lisa.

Wait! Could Liz Harrington have sliced my ladder? Would she be that vindictive? She did seem awfully bitter that day at the bank and she had access while I was eating lunch at Maya’s after I retrieved those papers. Maybe Liz really was Dickey’s murderer and I’ve been thinking it was someone in the family.

Perhaps that Tundra out in the parking lot belonged to Liz Harrington. I flashed on her cowboy boots that day in the bank.

I needed to talk to Lisa alone about this new theory, before we got to the car, before we got to the Tundra.

“I’m over there,” I said, pointing the way, grabbing hold of Lisa’s arm, figuring Nick and Leo would have parked in the blacktop lot and I could get her alone for a little while.

“We are, too,” Leo said. “Nick drove. Did you drive your mom’s new Mercedes?”

I nodded.

“I thought so. We parked two rows over.”

So much for getting Lisa alone.

“Not to belabor the subject,” Nick said, “but did your mom happen to mention if Dickey and Liz had any correspondence while he was in prison?”

Leo started to answer his question, but then stopped, probably weighing out his chances for sex if he kept volunteering information to Nick.

A wise man.

I decided to tell Nick what I knew. Couldn’t hurt to have him on Liz’s trail. “As a matter of fact, they did. But maybe you should be asking these questions to Liz. I’m sure she’d love to spill her guts.”

“Unlike the Spia clan,” Nick mumbled.

My mom’s car was one row up.

The Tundra was still parked next to it. “Look what we have here. Could it be the same truck that tried to run us off the road?”

Nick shook his head and smirked, then he pulled out a small flashlight and checked inside. “There’s plates on the back seat. I’ll call it in. Looks like we’re going to be here for awhile.”

Lisa smiled and gave me a nod while Nick called someone and gave that person all the information. He stayed on the line and waited for a response while he leaned on my mom’s car.

We all waited for the response, but I knew who that Tundra belonged to.

A few minutes later, he said, “Thanks,” and snapped his phone shut.

“The plates are registered to Elizabeth Harrington.”

“Damn,” Leo grumbled.

“I knew it,” I said, satisfied with my theory.

“Then, why didn’t you tell me?” Nick asked.

“I wasn’t sure.”

“What else aren’t you sure about?”

I avoided the question, and instead I said, “Aren’t you going to go back inside and cuff her or something? My mom would be thrilled to see it.”

“As much as I would like to please your mom, I’ll wait for backup. No telling how that woman will react. I’ve heard stories about her temper. Besides, she’s only a suspect at this point. All I want to do now is take her in and ask her some questions. We don’t know for sure this is the vehicle that ran you ladies off the road.”

“There’s red paint on the bumper,” Lisa said.

“And you guys didn’t call me?”

“We weren’t sure,” Lisa said.

Totally frustrated, Nick leaned in harder on the trunk of my mom’s car. Then he pulled out his flashlight again, swung around and peered at my mom’s tires.

“Your mom has a flat.”

“I hate it when my mom is right,” I groaned.

“She tell you not to park here?” Lisa asked.

“Yeah. How’d you know that?”

She grinned.

“Don’t tell me,” I said. “It’s in one of your books. Something about parking in a dark area or is it about parking on dirt?”

“Actually, I wrote an entire chapter about parking in dirt, sand or construction sites. Also about parking in dark lots, but I think the construction site is more applicable in this situation.”

“Did I happen to mention that I’m beginning to hate your books? Is there anything you’re not an expert in?”

“Yeah. I can’t change a tire to save my ass.”

It was reassuring to finally hear something she couldn’t do.

“It’s easy,” Nick said. “You just need to know where to put the jack. I’ll give you a crash course while we’re waiting for backup.”

Lisa gazed at him with doe eyes. Complete adoration drenched her face. It was almost too disturbing to watch. My best friend was falling in love with a cop. If she didn’t fit into my family before, she certainly wouldn’t now.

The whole thing made me uneasy.

“Maybe I should just call Triple-A. That might be easier for everybody,” I suggested.

“And miss seeing ole’ Nick here get his hands dirty? Not a chance,” Leo chided leaning up against the rear bumper.

Nick chuckled. “Step aside please, and let a pro show these ladies how to do this right. I traveled with NASCAR for an entire summer when I was eighteen. I can change a tire faster than you can spit.”

Leo spit on the ground, and stared at Nick.

“Open the trunk and I’ll show this non-believer how a pro changes a tire.”

I held the button down for the trunk. We waited. Mercedes’ trunks open after a couple seconds of continuous pressure on the clicker.

Nick stood at the ready, muscles taught and set for action.

Finally the trunk clicked open, the light went on and a strong rusty smell engulfed us.

“What is that?” I said feeling suddenly nauseous, holding my nose, thinking that rotting pepperoni pizza was one powerful odor.

“Damn,” Leo said as he gazed into the trunk. “I think we just found your cousin Dickey.”

The next couple of hours went by in a flurry of organized chaos. The place was swarming with law enforcement. Local Sheriffs showed up almost before I could fully understand what was happening. Then the fire department and a team from the coroner’s office arrived on scene. Plainclothes detectives from Santa Rosa pulled up about a half-hour into the fray and all hell broke lose. Yellow tape was strung like Christmas lights and people with cameras took more pictures of Dickey than he probably ever had taken while he was alive.

The Italian-looking detectives appeared, mulled around, took a few pictures, asked a few questions, but for the most part stayed clear of local law enforcement.

A crowd gathered in the dimly lit parking lot, and uniforms worked crowd control as if they were protecting some big celebrity from a horde seeking autographs.

My mom, Aunt Hetty, Aunt Babe, Benny and Liz Harrington were plucked out of the bar crowd and detectives peppered them with questions. Curiously, Federico, Jimmy and Jade were nowhere to be found.

“I told you not to park in this lot,” my mom admonished as she walked toward me, her squat little body swaying under a granny skirt that lost its roll-up and was now dragging on the ground. “We wouldn’t be in this situation if you had listened to your mother.”

“Mom, would it have been better if you had found Dickey while you put your groceries in the trunk after a trip to Ralph’s?”

“Don’t be silly. I don’t shop at Ralph’s,” she protested.

“You know what I mean. You were going to find him in your trunk sooner or later. It’s better this way.”

“Says who?” She leaned in closer, not wanting anyone else to hear her. “Maybe whoever killed him would have buried him in the next couple days. Maybe my trunk was just a holding area. Now that’ll never happen. This is all your fault.”

Nick walked up. “That’s not entirely true. At least about it being Mia’s fault. On closer inspection we discovered that someone slashed your tire.”

My mom’s eyes went wide. “Now who would do a vicious thing like that to my brand new car? Maybe it was random. Some wild kids with tattoos looking for something to do.”

“I don’t think that’s the case, Mrs. Spia or we would have found other cars with slashed tires and we haven’t. No, this was meant for your car. My guess would be it was the same person who put Dickey’s body in the trunk. The good news in all of this is you’re not the prime suspect.”

Mom thought for a moment. Then her face lit up like she figured out the only possible answer. She sucked in a breath and quickly let it out in a rush of words. “I bet it was that damn Liz Harrington. She’s just mean enough to do it. I knew I should’ve punched her lights out.” She turned, then took a couple steps toward Liz Harrington who looked completely distressed as she leaned against an empty police car. Even in the dim light I could see that tears soaked her face.

My mom didn’t know yet that Liz owned the Tundra. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if somebody spilled that little tidbit of information.

Leo, who had stood by me through the entire ordeal, placed himself directly in front of my mom. “Wait a minute, Mrs. Spia. I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Leo’s right. You don’t need anymore trouble,” Nick said.

“Who asked you?” Mom spit out the words in total anger.

“No one. I’m just giving you the facts,” he said in a calm, rational voice.

My mom would have none of it. “She needs a good right to her jaw. She has a glass jaw, you know. I punched her out once before when she told everybody in town that we were hiding gangsters at our orchard. She didn’t press any charges then, and she won’t press them now. That woman is asking to have the shit kicked out of her, and I’m just the person to do it.”

Nick stepped in closer to her. “I’m sure you are, but your family has enough going on right now. Do you really want me to have to drag you in for assaulting Liz Harrington?”

This logic seemed to work on my mom. Her hand dropped to her side and the tension went out of her face.

“Take a deep breath, Mrs. Spia. Breathe in and out through your nose. It will help calm you,” Lisa said.

“That’s right! I read that chapter in your first book, Coping Under Stress,” Mom said.

“Am I the only person on the planet who hasn’t read your books?” I protested.

“Pretty much,” Leo said while everyone else nodded. Even Nick joined in on the head bobbing.

“You too?” I asked Nick.

He flashed a smile. “I finished her latest last night. They’re really very informative,” he said, all serious like.

As luck would have it, Liz walked by at exactly the moment my mom was beginning to relax.

So much for keeping her calm.

Once Liz walked into my mom’s airspace, Mom began pressing her for information. Liz denied everything, but then Nick stepped in and said, “This is an ongoing murder investigation and we already know your truck was possibly used to run Lisa and her friends off the road. Plus, you were corresponding with the deceased while he was incarcerated. Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

Uh-oh!

My mom lunged for Liz. It took all my strength to hang onto her. “You tried to kill my daughter? You got a lot of nerve, you old goat,” Mom hissed.

“You’re the goat. Not me.”

“You better come clean or I’m going to start swinging.”

“You think you scare me?”

Mom broke free and grabbed for Liz, taking hold of her hair and pulling until Liz was down on one knee. Nick tried to break them apart, but my mom had a vice grip on Liz. “Tell the truth, you mean old witch, or you’re going to have a bald spot for the rest of your life.”

“Mom, let go of her. Mom!” I was yelling now.

Liz said, “The way your family treated me, I had to show Mia she couldn’t mess with me.” Nick backed off, and so did I. We simply watched as my mother got Liz to fess up. “I had to show that Jade girl, too, swooping in and spreading lies that she was engaged to Dickey. Too bad that damn smarty-pants Lisa was driving or I’d have showed all three of them. I watched. I was there in the bakery yesterday, listening. Nobody knew. I’m good at disguises. That Jade girl was spreading lies. She wasn’t Dickey’s honey-bear. Lies! And nobody even invited me to Dickey’s party when everybody knew he loved me. Only me.”

“You’re a crazy woman. He never loved you,” my mother roared. “You probably killed him out of spite.”

Mom let go of Liz, and took a step back. Both Lisa and I grabbed onto her, just in case she wanted to lunge at Liz again. No one moved for a moment while Liz rubbed the side of her head where my mom had tried to rip out her hair.

“I ain’t the one with his dead body in my trunk,” Liz grumbled. “Dickey told me all about how he coulda taken back his olive grove if he wanted to, and how you wrote him threatening letters not to do it or you’d have to take drastic measures.”

“That’s a dirty rotten lie,” Mom said as she broke free and tackled Liz to the ground, arms flaying, skirts hiking way too far up for their age group. “Get her,” Hetty yelled as she came up on the girl fight. “Give her a good sock in the jaw.”

Hetty was totally inebriated, a state that didn’t suit her. A state that turned her otherwise somewhat tolerable personality into something the devil dredged up.

Nick tried to break my mom and Liz apart, but he wasn’t successful. Other officers were rushing over. I had to stop this before it got really ugly. I leaned over and wrapped my arms around Mom’s midsection, which seemed to have grown in recent months, and pulled with all my might, but my mom was a hefty force not to be messed with. She purposely pushed back with her hips and I fell right on top of her causing Liz Harrington to get totally squashed under the weight. Her breath came out in a loud whoosh.

“I can’t . . . breathe,” Liz gasped.

I grabbed my mom tight around her oversized waist with both arms, and rolled off Liz pulling my mom with me. She weighed much more than I expected, and kept throwing punches with her short little legs and arms flailing like some beetle turned over on its back trying desperately to right itself. I could feel my lungs tighten with each of her kicks.

“I can’t . . . breathe,” I echoed.

But my mom didn’t stop squirming.

“I’m dying here,” I pleaded to no one in particular.

Lisa charged into action and somehow managed to lift my mom off me and back up on her feet in one fell swoop. Then she swung her into the arms of a burly male officer. “Stay,” Lisa ordered, and my mother obeyed.

Nick knelt between Liz and me. “Are you two okay?”

But neither one of us could speak. We were too busy trying to catch our collective breaths. My mom, on the other hand, was chomping at the bit and ready to attack again. The burley cop held on tight, but it was all he could do to control her. She kept squirming and screaming, “Let me at her. Just one more time. Let me flatten that smug face of hers. I’ll get her to admit she burned Dickey.”

Nick helped both Liz and me back to our feet. I was completely covered in dirt, again. Just moving stirred it around me in a billowing cloud. I felt a little like Pigpen from Peanuts.

My mother was also covered in dirt, but it didn’t stop her from pounding on the cop, trying to get free. I was impressed with her fortitude, but I could tell the cop was losing patience. He suddenly swung her around and clamped on cuffs, which sent my mother into hysterical overdrive.

“These things don’t belong on me, they belong on her.” She stuck out her chin in Liz’s direction.

Liz seemed a bit dazed and wasn’t paying much attention to my mom. Instead, she was intensely interested in the dirt on her hands, dress and coat. She pulled out an individually wrapped wet wipe from her purse and began washing herself like a cat even as a Sheriff helped her into the backseat of a squad car.

My mom continued with her rage. “She’s the one who tried to kill my daughter. Get these things off me. They’re going to ruin my bracelet.” And as soon as she said it, the silver bracelet slipped from her wrist and fell to the ground. “See what you did. You broke it, and after I spent all afternoon fixing it. You’re a bully, that’s what you are. You can’t do this to me. It’s not fair.”

Then she hauled off and kicked him in the shin.

And with that, the cop carted her away as my mom yelled out my name in some ear piercing tone I’d never heard before. I turned toward her, thinking I could somehow prevent this madness from happening. The very thing I’d been trying to avoid was now about to take place and I was powerless to do anything.

Nick stepped in front of me, picked up the broken bracelet, the bracelet that had been under murdered Dickey’s feet, handed it to me and said. “I think you should let her cool down for the night, and unless you want to join her, you won’t try to stop this. We have a lot of questions for her, and it’s best for everyone if we take her to our facility in Santa Rosa to continue this.”

“And you think you’re going to get information while she’s in custody?”

I slipped the bracelet in my purse. It seemed as though the damn thing kept popping up whenever Dickey was around. At least my mom wasn’t lying about the broken clasp.

“That’s the plan,” he said.

“Good luck with that.”

“You can probably pick her up in the morning, unless we find sufficient evidence that links your mom to the body. Your mom sure seemed to get mad over that bracelet. It mean something special to her?”

I didn’t want to make up something I could get caught up in later so I took the big stroke route, instead of the minor detail that it’s the bracelet that Dickey gave her, Oh, and by the way, did I happen to mention that I found it under his dead body in our barn? “She’s just had it for awhile, that’s all.”

He raised his eyebrows in disbelief, but he let it slide, thank you very much.

He said, “I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one night. Everyone is free to go. But I have a lot more questions, especially now that we found Dickey’s remains. Obviously, the man has been dead for awhile. So don’t anybody leave town. All right?” He was looking directly at me.

I tried to act as if he was totally off base, but I knew better. The fact of the matter was Nick seemed to already know my family pretty well. Which begged the question, would I actually get on that plane Sunday night even though Nick the Cop had told me not to?

The way I was feeling, anything was possible.

Once we were released from the crime scene, I went back inside Cougars and scrounged up every pitted olive I could buy from a friendly night manager who didn’t ask questions. He simply boxed them up and handed them to me, probably happy to see me finally leave the area.





Baked Reggiano Olives – Level Three Or Four

(recipe can be doubled or tripled depending on the need factor)



1 cup grated Parmesan-Reggiano cheese

2 tbs. softened butter

1/2 cup unbleached flour

1/8 tsp. cayenne

3 oz pitted or stuffed olives of choice (can be a mixture of favorites)



This recipe got me through countless nights when I absolutely needed to have a drink or six drinks, one olive at a time . . .

Mix cheese and butter. Add flour and cayenne and blend until the mixture is well combined and thick. Line up your olives in a row. (Not that you have to, but this gives you more stuff to do) To turn this recipe into a level four, stuff the olives yourself with a sliver of red pepper that’s been roasted, skinned and drenched in olive oil, or stuff with a sliver of garlic, or a sliver of roasted jalapeño pepper, or cream cheese, or whatever you think might make a tasty olive. This process can take several hours and is proven (by me) to get you through those pity-party moments, or those self-aggrandizing fantasies when you think you deserve to party all night long.

Drop batter by tablespoons onto a sheet of wax paper and carefully mold around each olive, then place the olives on a baking sheet that has been rubbed with olive oil. *Note: Make sure you use a sheet with sides, or these little puppies will roll right off. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.