So when my father called me by my full given name instead of Donna, like he had every day of my life, and then little girl, I knew he was genuinely distressed. The sight of the six-foot-three, two hundred and forty pound grizzly bear of a man whose DNA I shared, with his forehead creased like Venetian blinds and the corners of his lips pulled down into two concerned commas, made me want to ease his mind any way possible.
“Daddy.” I wrapped my arms around his barrel chest and squeezed. “I’m okay. No one was lurking, waiting to do God knows what. I got out as soon as I called the cops.”
My father rubbed a beefy hand down my back. Whatever he’d been about to say stayed silent when one of the beat cops asked to speak with him, privately.
“We can use my office,” he said.
“Can I clean that up?” I pointed to the stain. The smell was worsening with each passing moment. “We’re due to open soon.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be opening for business today, Donna,” Angelo Rocconova, one of the cops told me. Angelo, seven years younger than me, has been friends with my twin brothers, Vito and Vinny, since they were all in second grade. To say he grew up in my house wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
“Why not? Can’t I just,” I swiped my hand in the air, “mop it up while you go file a report or something?”
“No.” His tone implied he wasn’t going to argue about it. “We don’t know where the blood came from. We gotta leave it there for the forensics guys to analyze. Don’t touch it, or anything else, okay?”
“Well, when can we open, then? We’ve got a business to run here, Ange. Customers who depend on us.”
“I can’t tell ya that, Donna. Not today, maybe not even tomorrow.” He turned away from me. “Mr. S?”
My father slid me a side-eye, then nodded to the two cops.
“Donna, call the crew. Tell’em we’re closed today and we’ll be in touch later on.”
Fuming, I assured him I would.
He led the officers into his office and before shutting the door behind them added in a lowered voice, “Call your Uncles. Ask them to get over here as quick as they can.”
He didn’t need to tell me which uncles.
I did as asked, first making sure the closed sign was obvious on the front door. From my office I called our staff and told them we were taking an unexpected day off because the store had been broken into. I omitted telling them about the blood I’d found, though.
Chico, our delivery guy, was the only one I couldn’t get in touch with directly, so I left a voice message on his phone.
That done, I called my Uncles Sonny and Joey. They aren’t really my uncles, not in the true definition of the word, since they aren’t my father’s or my mother’s brothers. They’re daddy’s cousins, boys he’d been raised with and who he’d grown side by side into men with and were still close to. My mother, Gracie, has an older sister named Francesca, my Aunt Frankie, who’s married to Joey. So that makes him my Uncle Joey. In reality, he’s my second cousin—I think—but in the ways of Italian tradition and culture, anyone senior in a close family is called aunt or uncle out of respect.
Yeah, it’s a little weird. But…famiglia, you know?
Both of my uncles assured me they were on their way.
“Don’t call the cops until we get there and see what’s what,” Sonny ordered.
“Too late. They’re in with daddy right now.”
A long, drama-laced exhale filtered through my cell phone. Sonny’s rep in the family is as “the fixer.” Need a brand new car for way under list price, no credit questions asked, minimal down payment required? Call Sonny and he’ll hook you up. Want to take the little woman to the hottest Broadway show for your anniversary? The one that’s been sold out for six months straight? Give Sonny a jingle and you’ll have two front row tickets waiting for you at the theater box office. For every family wedding and funeral, we’re treated to a fleet of no-cost, maxed-out limousines, courtesy of a guy who knows a guy who owes Sonny a favor. No one in my family ever knows what the favors are and no one asks.
The San Valentino family originated don’t ask, don’t tell long before the military claimed it.
Sonny’s heavy sigh spoke volumes.
“Just keep things under wraps as much as you can, Donna, until me and Joey get there, capisci?”
“Will do.” I didn’t bother telling him I’d already notified our workers.
Daddy was still sequestered with Angelo and his partner and I was getting antsy.
By now on a normal business day, I’d already have re-stocked the shelves and display cabinets, gotten the sinks and prep areas ready and put out the filled urns, milk and cups for our regular-grab-a-cup-of-coffee-on-the-way-to-work morning customers. Since Angelo had ordered me to touch nothing, I couldn’t occupy my time with any of those ordinary tasks. Even though we weren’t opening today, I hoped we would tomorrow, so I decided to get a jump on the stock ordering. With Christmas on the horizon I needed to ensure we were fully prepared for the holiday onslaught.
Our supply list grew larger each day, something that warmed my mercenary shopkeeper’s heart. More supplies needed meant more things were being sold, which amounted to greater – here’s the mercenary part – profits.
A cold blast of icy air smacked me in the face when I opened the walk-in refrigerator/freezer where we stored our spoilable items. The usual mounds of deli meats and cheeses, salads, and produce lined the steel shelves from floor to ceiling in the refrigerated section. I ticked each item and the amount we had on-hand off on a clipboard list I’d brought in with me. Then, I moved into the freezer to see if we needed to order any of the bigger meat items. As soon as I walked into the frigid area I tripped over something sticking out from between two of the metal shelves.
I reached out and braced myself against one of the shelf posts to keep from falling flat on my face and the clipboard fell from my hand. When I stooped to pick it up and find out what I’d stumbled over, it took me a moment to realize what it was.
A sneaker.
Black and white, it looked…familiar. Like I’d seen it in a magazine or a television ad.
I tracked the shoe from the sole, up across the laces—which were dirty, knotted, and speckled with little red droplets—all the way to the tongue.
Then my gaze traveled further. Up a jeans-clad lower leg.
“What the—”
I left the clipboard on the concrete floor and moved closer to the leg. I don’t think I realized, truly realized, what it was at first.
The one worker I hadn’t been able to notify, Chico, was flat on his back, his wrists bound and folded in his lap, a frosty mask of ice covering his face and something green sticking out of his mouth. A thin boning knife, the kind my father uses to clean fish, protruded from the center of his chest. Little frozen red and white icicles covered his t-shirt.
I may not scare easily, but the amount of times in my life I’ve encountered a dead—no, make that murdered body—can be counted on the fingers of one hand and still have 5 left over. A loud gasp blew through my cold lips as I sprinted back to the door. I needed to tell the cops what I’d found.
Now.
I flew out of the freezer than yanked the industrial refrigerator door open, shot through it, and barreled, full body, into a solid wall. The wall smelled, strangely, of citrus. I would have bounced back and hit the door if the tangy smelling behemoth hadn’t reached out and, with a grip forged in steel, imprisoned me within hands as large as the ham my mother planned to serve for Christmas dinner in a few weeks.