Tony nodded. “You do. Chico wasn’t only one of your employees, Mr. S. He was one of my C.I.’s. Confidential informants.”
I don’t know who was more shocked by this, daddy or me.
“Like in the movies? He, whatayacallit?” Daddy scratched his head with one hand and flapped the other in the air. “Spied for you?”
“That’s one way to describe it,” Tony said.
“Who was he spying on? Someone here, in the deli? Me?”
Daddy’s face turned the color of my Aunt Frankie’s prize winning tomato sauce and his beefy hands started to shake, two things I’d only seen happen once before in my life.
Tony immediately put his hands up in a calming gesture. “No, Mr. S. Not you and not the deli. We know you’re as honest as they come.”
“Who’s we?” I asked after daddy’s color returned to normal.
Tony ran a hand through the clipped hair at his temple and pulled in a breath.
“What I’m about to tell you is known only by a handful of people outside this room,” he said. “I’m gonna need your word it doesn’t go any further.”
“Why so hush-hush?” my father asked.
Tony shook his head. “Please, Mr. S. Promise me you won’t discuss this with anyone. Not your wife, the other employees, no one.”
My father nodded. “I never tell anything to the wife I want to keep close to the vest. She’s like a human telegram.”
When Tony turned his attention to me, I nodded as well.
“For the past year I’ve been working a homicide case—”
“You mean another murder?” I couldn’t stop the pitch in my voice going to shriek level. It’s a wonder neighborhood dogs didn’t come barging into the deli at the high wail.
“Madonna, silenzio. Let’im talk,” my father scolded.
“Sorry.”
Tony glared at me for a few moments, probably waiting for me to have another outburst, before continuing.
“Like I was saying, I’ve been working a case for about a year involving the murder of a guy named Ricky Archetti.”
“Who is he? I mean, was he?”
Both men stared at me, and it was laughable how similar their expressions were. My father’s shaking head and pursed lips mimicked Tony’s head wag from side to side, accompanied by the corners of his mouth pulling in.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” he asked.
I figured the question was rhetorical so I shrugged then folded my arms across my chest.
“Archetti,” he continued after a moment, “was part of a crew on this side of town responsible for a number of crimes, not the least of which is a fairly widespread meth distribution business. He was arrested last year on drug possession. I was able to turn him and he was going to give evidence against the crew’s leader for a reduced charge.”
“Did he?” I asked.
His jaw clenched when he answered, “No.”
“Somebody got to him first,” my father said.
Tony nodded. “One shot to the head while he was under police protection.”
“So what’s this Archetti got to do with Chico?” I asked.
“We were never able to pin Archetti’s murder on anyone. We figured it was the head of the crew, a guy who goes by the name Track, but we couldn’t find any evidence linking him directly to the murder. The plan was to get someone on the inside, to dig deep, maybe discover something we could use or that pointed to him.”
“And Chico was your inside guy?” my father asked.
“Yeah.”
“How did he come to be your informant?” I asked.
Tony hit me with a hard look that told me I was better off not knowing the particulars.
“That’s privileged, Donna. Suffice it to say it was enough for him to agree readily to help. He’s been on the inside for the past four months ever since he started driving for you.”
“Not any more,” I thought to myself. Or thought I did. Unfortunately, my words found themselves spoken aloud.
“No, not any more. You’re right.” Tony hung his head.
“So somebody found out he was a snitch?” Daddy asked.
“That’s the working theory.”
“Why’d they kill him in my store?”
“I have no idea. Chico checked in about once every other week. I got a text from him yesterday saying he needed to talk to me about something. We arranged to meet up at our usual spot tonight when he got off work.”
I didn’t feel it prudent to say that wasn’t going to happen now, not since the man in question was currently zipped into a body bag.
“You have any idea what he wanted to tell you?” I asked.
“No. Now I need to know, do you have security cameras anywhere?”
“Just one overlooking the back parking lot,” Daddy said. “I feel kinda…creepy…having them in the store; watching people all day long. I’ve never had any cause to suspect any one who works here of doing anything wrong.”
“Okay, I’ll need to see that footage.”
“It’s on a continual disc that erases itself and reboots every thirty days,” I told him. “The feed goes to the computer in my office.”
With a nod to me, he asked my father, “What about keys? Who has them to the store besides you and Donna?”
“There’s a spare set in a dresser drawer at the house in case one of us looses our own. No one else has keys.”
“None of the other employees? Not even your wife or anyone else in your family?”
“Donna’s the only one I trust to have the other keys. Since she’s here with me seven days a week, it makes sense. No one else works that much and she always opens up in the morning. I close at night.” He shrugged in the way only an Italian father can. “No one else needs a key ‘cause one of us is always here. When the store is closed it’s always alarmed so if anyone breaks in, we’d know.”
“Did Chico know the alarm code?” Tony asked.
“No one does, aside from me and Donna.”
“Then how did he get in last night?” Tony asked. “Was he here when you closed?”
Daddy’s wooly worm eyebrows kissed above his nose. “No. I was alone after we closed the store. Worked about an hour sweeping and mopping up, then headed home.”
“And you’re sure you set the alarm, that you locked the store?”
If insulted had a poster child, right then it would have been Daddy. He squared his shoulders and even though he was sitting, managed to look down his prominent nose at Tony. “I always do.” He turned to me. “Madonna, call up that app thing to show him.”
I was prevented from doing so when shouting filtered through the closed door. The voices grew louder and a heartbeat later the door blew open like a hurricane force wind pushed it, and my uncles exploded into the room.
My Uncle Sonny was first, Uncle Joey a close second and both of them wore fury on their faces like nonna used to when my brothers were acting particularly obnoxious. They scanned the room, their gazes ping-ponging from my father, to me, Tony—for whom each of them threw a suspicious, squinty eyed glare—and then settling back on my father.