The Spia Family Presses On

FIVE

Just Another Futso

The afternoon slipped into evening and I still hadn’t cornered my mother. Every time I’d made a serious attempt to catch up with her somebody would stop me for a conversation. Mostly about what I thought Dickey wanted here.

As night gathered up the blue sky, and the party lights automatically turned on in the yard, I realized my mother, along with Dickey, was nowhere to be found. Uncle Benny said he’d seen Dickey go into the house with my mom, and Maryann said she’d seen Dickey strolling out toward the olive grove with Jimmy, but Aunt Hetty said she saw him get into his car and leave. Uncle Ray was positive he’d seen Dickey go into the barn with a woman, while Jimmy said he saw him walk toward the shops, and Aunt Babe said she’d just seen Dickey on the front porch sitting on the bench swing with Lisa a few minutes ago, but Zia Yolanda shook her head, called out his name and wept.

Tearless, of course.

“I’ve got to go, Mia,” Lisa said behind me. “But I’d like to buy a few bottles of oil to bring home to my mom. You know how much she loves your Limonato on her pot stickers.”

Lisa’s mom was a one woman ad campaign for our olive oils. Because of her, practically all of Chinatown bought our oils.

“I made up a case for you. I was going to bring it to the book signing today but . . . anyway, it’s in the barn. A gift to you and your family from me and my family.”

“Thanks,” Lisa said. “Ya know, your Aunt Babe is a riot. I love the whole Barbara Stanwyck thing she’s got going on. Don’t you?”

I’d never thought of Barbara Stanwyck. Perhaps because I wasn’t that familiar with her work, but Lisa knew all the classic movies. It was from them that her mom learned English. They were the only movies her mom allowed Lisa to watch in the house. Anything else was too risqué and off limits. Just going to a movie theater was a major event when we were kids and Mrs. Lin usually escorted us, so we rarely went.

“That’s who she is! I couldn’t figure it out,” I said as we made our way to the barn, the full moon illuminating our path.

“She had me when she told Dickey, “We’re both rotten.”

Aunt Babe had a way of getting right to the point. I wondered if Dickey was referring to her when he said I get even. Everyone knew the two of them had a lot of animosity for the past going on. Could she be the real reason why he was here? “She said that?” I asked.

“It’s from Double Indemnity, which I suppose you never read or saw the movie.”

“Nope. Not on my list.”

“Well, it should be. It’s great. The Phyllis character says, we’re both rotten, and Walter, her lover, says, only you’re a little more rotten.”

“Is that what Dickey said?” My stomach clenched at the thought. I loved Aunt Babe. She was my other mother.

“No. He just stood there and gave her the cold shoulder. Apparently, he didn’t get Turner Classics in prison. Shame. It might do wonders for those guys.”

I had to chuckle at the vision of burly criminal types sitting around a TV watching Easter Parade or Roman Holiday, which I knew were two of Lisa’s favorites.

“Maybe there’s another meaning to what Aunt Babe said to him.”

“What else could she possibly—”

I shot her a look.

“I know your aunt outwardly hates him, but I think she’s still in love with the guy. I finally pinned him down and had a chance to talk to him. He’s a real charmer.”

Like a snake.

“Don’t let that charm fool you. I’ve heard stories about him that would make your heart stop.”

I opened the back door of the barn, and as soon as we stepped inside I immediately felt the coolness of the stone walls that surrounded us. No matter what the temperature was outside, inside this stone cave it remained a cool sixty-five degrees. The expansive space was dimly lit from a single row of emergency lights running down the center of the ceiling. They automatically turned on whenever someone walked into the barn. The light switch was on the opposite wall next to the main entrance. We headed in that direction.

The barn was fairly empty of bottling equipment now because we had moved most of it over to the new facility behind our new tasting room. I thought it would be a real attraction if we could demonstrate our crushing process through large glass windows. After a family vote, it was decided to go ahead with my idea. We would be doing our first crush in the new facility in a few weeks, but the family wanted to keep some equipment in this barn to be able to fill small orders and perform the community crush for hobbyists and growers with small harvests. We all agreed it would be easier. Plus it was a great place for storage.

We were even moving our now partially dismantled antique millstone, which was taller than me, out in front of the new tasting room before our first crush. Cousin Dickey had imported the stone from Calabria, a southern region in Italy, when he first bought the place. I couldn’t begin to imagine how much that must have cost him.

As Lisa and I walked deeper into the barn I watched our shadows dance on the tin ceiling. Only there was one too many shadows.

“Mom? Are you in here?” I yelled as Lisa and I dodged stacked boxes, and a row of blue, olive oil drums.

No answer.

We peered around the boxes that surrounded us, and I could hear a kind of squeaking noise plus some labored breathing. The smallest sound reverberated between the stone walls, but I couldn’t figure out why no one was responding.

“This is creepy,” Lisa said, as she stepped in front of me. “Is there somebody in here?” she said in a loud, demanding voice.

Still no answer. I had to admit, I was beginning to feel a little hesitant, like maybe we should do this another time, like when the sun was pouring in through the windows instead of moonlight. I reached out for Lisa and we locked arms as a shadow ambled toward the main entrance. “Maybe they’re looking for the light switch,” I whispered.

“I hope so, ‘cause I’m getting all weirded out in here.”

“Relax,” I said, trying to calm my own nerves as much as hers. “It’s just my family.”

“That’s the problem,” she said, letting go of my arm.

She had a point.

We stood in a maze of stacked cardboard boxes filled with oils ready to be shipped. Shelves of bottled oils from our last crush closed in on the left while various-sized imported Italian stainless steel storage containers, filled with our more popular oils, sat on our right. We stored some of our oils in a thirty- to fifty-liter fusto so we could fill bulk orders, or specialty orders like five-ounce bottles used for wedding favors. A fusto was equipped with a spigot, which made it easy to fill any kind of order in a hurry, and at the moment, those spigots kept hitting my arm as we walked by.

Light bounced off the polished steel and we both looked up once again, watching the distorted shadows dance on the tin ceiling whenever we moved. “Bisnonno Luigiano said the dancing shadows were good luck. They belong to the olive goddesses Athena and Minerva watching over our bounty.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t look like any goddesses to me. More like demons.”

I didn’t want to go there. I was never a big fan of the dark side.

“You’ve been reading too many Vamp books,” I said.

Stepping around the boxes I caught that extra shadow on the ceiling again along with that squeak, and figured whoever it was must still be looking for the light switch. It was hard to find if you didn’t know exactly where it was located.

“The switch is in the middle of the outer wall, on the left, about three feet in from the doorway,” I called.

Silence.

No movement.

Even the breathing had stopped.

When I turned around, Lisa was gone. I shivered. This was getting totally out of control. Slasher movies flashed through my mind and I suddenly wished I had spent more time watching Turner Classics with Lisa and her mom while I was growing up instead of suspense and thrillers with my dad.

“Lisa, where are you?” And just as I said it, the sound of breaking glass echoed through the barn. “Over here!” she yelled, her voice cracking.

I rushed toward the sound of her voice, which seemed to be coming from the right side of the barn, over by the antique millstone. It only took a moment to find her and as soon as I did I had to slide a few boxes out of my way to get to her. She was looking down at something. Even in the dim moonlight, I knew that intense look she wore on her face. I’d seen it a thousand times before. It usually came right before she was getting ready to either cry or relay some disturbing news. Like when she had to tell me that Johnny Underwood broke up with her for Erin Martin, our fifth grade class president whom we both hated because she told everybody my father was in the mob. I figured this look was over-exaggerated due to our shadow fear plus the glass I’d heard shatter had been a few bottles of oil, and she was upset about breaking them.

“Don’t give it another thought. We have plenty more. I can replace whatever’s broken,” I said trying to calm her.

She turned toward me just as I slid another box out of the way so I could see the oil disaster. Her right hand was dripping with olive oil and she was holding up some kind of thick black metal screw. “I don’t think you can replace him, Mia.”

I slid the last box out of the way and saw brown, scuffed shoes pointing straight up from the barn floor, and teetering on top of the body attached to those shoes was the excessively heavy antique millstone, which almost entirely covered the obviously crushed body.

“What happened?” I asked, but I could feel myself slipping into pure hysteria. Those little hairs on the back of my neck were doing their dance again.

“It’s Dickey, and I’m almost certain he’s not going to be able to tell you.”

A sick panic accompanied by a red-hot chill raced through me. “Is he, like, dead?”

She nodded. “Pretty much. I checked. There’s no pulse.”

“Did you see—”

“Not a thing.”

I started shaking. My chest tightened. “We should call an ambulance.”

“We should try to figure out how this happened first.”

“Are you nuts?” I couldn’t understand what the woman was thinking, but all I wanted to do at that precise moment was to get the hell out of there.

“I might be able to write about it in my next book. It could save someone’s life.”

“You are nuts. We need to call an ambulance, or the police or Uncle Benny.” That’s when I noticed the dark red blood oozing around Dickey’s head, and the open thirty-liter futso on the floor not far from the body. I suddenly felt sick. I also felt guilt. I had been the one to have the millstone dismantled. It was my idea to move the damn thing. If it hadn’t been for me, Dickey might still be alive. The thought was too much. My head started to swim. Things around me were spinning.

Lisa took my hand, and calmly bent over to take a closer look at his head. “Oh my God!”

“What,” I whined, not wanting to know any of the gory details. At this point, I was barely hanging on.

“His head is bleeding out, and it’s not from the millstone. I think he’s been shot.”

I told myself this couldn’t be true. She was probably mistaken. What did Lisa know of gunshot wounds? “That’s impossible. The stone fell on him. It’s all my fault. I had it dismantled.”

“Is that what this is?” She held up the screw she had been holding onto.

I nodded.

“Sweetie, I’ve researched gunshot wounds. I worked with a forensic lab and a coroner for six months. I know what gun shot wounds look like and this hole in his head is from a gun not from this screw or any part of this millstone. It was probably a small handgun, a .22 maybe, at close range.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure this is the real deal.”

My mind raced with scenarios, especially growing up in this family. I slowly made my way in closer and just as I was about to stoop down to get a look at Dickey’s head wound, I stepped on something. I kicked at it. The thing was caught up under Dickey’s feet. I reached down to carefully move it out of my way, knowing I shouldn’t touch anything, but when I recognized it, instinct made me snatch it up.

“Damn!” I said, almost in a whisper.

“Yeah. I know. This is really bad.”

“No. I mean yes, it’s even worse than bad. It’s catastrophic.” I held out the problematic object. “This is my mother’s charm bracelet.”

Lisa stood. “What?”

I held it out for her to see as tiny silver Elvises gyrated on a silver chain. And just like that, those tiny Elvises crooned Trouble in my ear, “If you’re looking for trouble, you came to the right place . . .”

“It can’t be your mom’s. That means—”

“That means we need to think about this before we call the police.”

But Lisa was already saying what I would never believe. “Your mother killed Dickey? Your mother who captures flies in a glass so she can release them to the great outdoors? Your mother the Vegan? The Hippie? This woman shot her cousin?”

My head was churning with suspects and reasons and family history. But mostly I was thinking about the paperwork that was now sitting in my mother’s bedroom, the paperwork that turned our business over to Dickey.

My heart fluttered and panic washed over me.

“You know she couldn’t do it, and I know she couldn’t do it, but the police won’t know that.”

She shook her head. “Mia, we have to call the police. We can get into a lot of trouble if we don’t.”

“I know, but somebody obviously tried to set her up. This is way too obvious, don’t you think?”

“You can tell that to the police when they get here.” She pulled out her iPhone to make the call. I couldn’t let her do it. Not yet, anyway.

“A minute ago you wanted us to figure this out. What happened to that idea?”

“A minute ago I hadn’t noticed the bullet hole.”

She began pressing the numbers.

I had to think fast. Lisa was getting carried away with the law, and if I had learned one thing from this family, the law was not necessarily your friend, so I did the only reasonable thing a daughter of a mobster would do.

I snatched the phone out of her hand and threw it in the open fusto. “I can’t let you do that.”