Джанет Иванович - Twisted Twenty-Six

“I didn’t know,” I said. “Maybe you shouldn’t eat this.”

“You try to take this away and I’ll kill you. I could do it too. I know I look like a pussy in this hospital gown, but I’ll do whatever it takes to keep this pizza. They fed me Cream of Wheat and Jell-O for lunch. It was disgusting.”

I closed the door and walked back over to him. “So, what’s the deal here? You looked healthy last time I saw you.”

“I got a lot of plaque, whatever the hell that is. They put these stent things in me and then I’m okay. Gonna get another one on Monday. Personally, I think it was stress this time.” He took a bite and closed his eyes. Some pizza grease ran down his chin. “Oh boy. Oh man. There’s nothing like a Pino’s pie.”

“What were you stressed about?”

“Your granny, what else? She’s got the keys, and now it’s a real cluster fuck. Excuse my language, but that’s what it is. We should never have listened to Julius. He kept saying to give her more time. ‘She’ll come around,’ he said. ‘She’s grieving.’” He finished the first piece and took a second.

“Did Charlie or Lou come to visit you? Do they know you’re here?”

“They got their hands full. They got to negotiate now.”

“What are they negotiating?”

“Price. The asshole who has your granny is nuts. If we’d snatched her in the beginning it wouldn’t have cost us anything. Now this guy wants to ruin us.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“No. It’s all done by Internet and throwaway phones. If you ask me, technology sucks. Nothing’s personal anymore.”

“But you know it’s a guy?”

“No. I just assume.” He started on another piece of pizza. “You should have brought beer with this.”

“Next time,” I said.

“You’re okay,” Benny said. “You come here to pump me for information, but you’re nice enough to bring pizza. And I like that you listen. It’s like we’re just having a conversation.”

“I think you’re okay, too,” I said to Benny. “Take care. I hope everything works out on Monday.”

“Walk in the park,” Benny said.

My mom and dad were still at the table when I got back. I got a soda from the fridge and helped myself to a slice of the extra cheese.

“Who got the pizza?” my mom asked.

“Benny the Skootch. He’s in the hospital. Needs a stent.”

“Him and everybody else,” my dad said. “You get to be our age and things start to clog up.”

“I didn’t know you were friends with Benny,” my mom said.

“I wanted to ask him if he knew who took Grandma.”

“Did he know?”

I shook my head. “No.”

I finished eating and went into the kitchen with my mom. She tidied up and I sat at the little table and read through the Miracle Fitness list. It was a long list, and I took my time. Morelli and his co-workers couldn’t find a connection between Lucca and the La-Z-Boys. Ranger and Connie couldn’t find anything in Lucca’s history that would connect him to the La-Z-Boys. The connection had to be on the list in front of me. I got through all the names and came back to Barbara. She had real motivation. She never got over the divorce. She had anger. And she wanted money. Maybe not for herself, but for Jeanine and her grandchildren. If she couldn’t access whatever treasure the keys had locked away, she could ransom Grandma to the La-Z-Boys. It was smart. Actually, it was brilliant.

I called Morelli and told him about my visit with Benny and my theory about Barbara.

“I’m impressed,” Morelli said. “I took the wrong approach with Benny, and you did the right thing. And I think you’re right about Barbara. She has a motive, and she has the connection. I just can’t see her acting alone.”

“If she was able to talk Lucca into kidnapping Grandma, she probably is capable of finding another fall guy.”

“I’m tied up right now. I was pulled off the kidnapping temporarily. Had a gang bloodbath in the projects. I’ll be here all night, but tomorrow morning we’ll visit Barbara. In the meantime, you might want to have Ranger do something illegal, like put her under physical and technical surveillance.”

I hung up and looked over at my mom. “You’re still not ironing.”

“It isn’t the same without your grandmother making fun of me.”

“I’m heading out,” I told her. “If anything scary happens, call me right away.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I DROVE FROM my parents’ house directly to Barbara Rosolli’s. Waiting for Morelli or asking Ranger for help would be the smart thing to do, but sometimes you need to go with your gut and just charge ahead. Morelli and Ranger were intimidating. Me, not so much. Barbara would be more willing to talk to me if I was alone. I didn’t think she was going to admit to kidnapping Grandma, but she might slip and say something useful. And if she didn’t make a slip, I had a speech prepared to spur her into action.

I rang her bell, and she answered the door with a glass of wine in her hand. Yes! Off to a good start.

“Stephanie,” she said, looking around me. “Where’s Mr. Sexy?”

“I’m alone.”

“Too bad. He was hot.”

“Can I come in for a moment?”

“Sure, what the hell, join the party. Jeanine and I were having a glass of wine. Her husband is working late again.”

They were drinking wine at the kitchen table. This is something I would do with my mom. There was comfort at the table that couldn’t be found anyplace else in the house. I sat down and accepted a glass of wine. There was a chunk of Parmesan on a cutting board, and some slivers had been sliced off.

It was disarming that I was invited to be part of this. Just as it was disarming that Benny was happy to have me visit. I was on the hunt for kidnappers and killers, and it would have been easier if everyone was rude.

“Here’s to us,” Barbara said, and we clinked glasses.

“And here’s to Edna,” Jeanine said. “Let’s hope she’s okay and returns to us soon.”

“Oh God,” Barbara said. “Do I have to drink to that?”

“Mom!” Jeanine said.

“Okay, okay,” Barbara said. “Here’s to Edna.”

I took a slice of the Parmesan. “This is really good,” I said. “Did you get this at Giovichinni’s?”

“Of course,” Barbara said. “You don’t find hard cheese like that at the supermarket.”

“It’s nice that you live next door to each other and you can get together like this,” I said. “Does Bernie work late a lot?”

“No. It’s that they got a big order for precast and some machine broke down. Bernie wanted to stay with the mechanic who was working on the machine. These guys get time and a half for overtime. The Cement Plant looks like a big business, but the profit margin is slim. I guess it gets eaten up fast with time-and-a-half paychecks.”

“It’s disgraceful that you and Bernard should have to worry about those things,” Barbara said. “Your father should have put money aside for you. And now even in death the money will go to other places .”

“Bernie and I don’t need Daddy’s money,” Jeanine said. “We’re doing okay.”

Barbara chugged half a glass of wine. “The whole La-Z-Boy thing is bizarre anyway. A bunch of old men sitting around in recliners in a nudie club. Ick!”

Here was the opening for my speech! I’d seen it done in Sherlock Holmes movies, and it always worked. Let the guilty person think you knew all about them, so they’d make a hasty move and screw up.

“I talked to Benny today,” I said. “He’s in the hospital waiting to get stented.”

Jeanine went wide-eyed. “You talked to Benny? Isn’t he a kidnapping suspect? What did he say?”