Читать книгу Mixed Up with the Mob - Ginny Aiken - Страница 8

He’d been too tired to drive home after the accident, so David spent the night at his grandmother’s. He benefited from the vast, luxurious bed he used when he stayed with her, and in the morning she greeted him with one of her “groaning board” breakfasts—two juices, apple and grapefruit, pancakes and real maple syrup, eggs, ham, sausage, bacon, coffee, tea and two kinds of sweet breads.

No way could he eat like that and hope to put in a decent day’s work. So his reasonable serving brought about the expected commentary.

“Are you all right, Davey? You’ve hardly eaten a bite. You sure you didn’t get hurt last night?”

“I’m fine, Gram, and it’s way past time you stopped calling me Davey. You know it.”

She winked. “Sure. But it’s so much fun to bug you. I love to see you blush.”

“You’re a sadist, you know that?”

“Nope, not at all. I’m just your grandmother, and teasing you is fun! You’ll get it when you’re a grandpa yourself—and you know that.”

Over the years, David had learned to ignore certain of his grandmother’s comments; the grandpa one was classic Grandma Dottie. “Okay. So we both know you love to tease me. How about we skip the Davey deal, since we both also know it’s so hokey?”

She spread her intense purple-draped arms. “This is my home. When you’re here, I get to bug you all I want. When we’re at your place, you get to bug me all you want. Isn’t that fair?”

“Listen, you sly fox,” he said with a chuckle. “You’d better add something about when we’re in public to your oh-so-generous offer. I didn’t catch anything about those times.”

She pouted, then waved. “Public, schmublic. You’ll just have to wait and see. That’s all I’m going to promise.”

He gave her a mock scowl. “Be that way, then. But I’ve got to go. Some of us have to work.”

She erupted like a purple satin and gold lace volcano. “Don’t give me that, buddy boy! Sure, your grandpa inherited the house and a little bit of money, but then the two of us worked mighty hard for decades to turn that little money into enough to give back to the Lord for what He’d given us and to provide for our family. And you know I still operate that way.”

He raised his hands and blushed. “That wasn’t at all what I meant, Gram, and if that’s how it came across, I apologize. Please forgive me for the dumb statement.”

“Of course, I forgive you, David.” Her tight hug filled him with a shot of pure love. “And I’m sorry I took offense. Now, go! Get yourself to work with the rest of your pals.”

On the way to the office, he had to deal with the sloppy streets. It was early enough, cold enough and wet enough that last night’s slush hadn’t melted but was enhanced with more of the same. If the thermometer dipped even a couple of ticks, the streets would turn wicked. He hoped the salt trucks came out in hordes.

The elevator to his floor crawled up at its usual slow pace. When it finally got there, he grabbed a cup of what they dubbed FBI sludge from the nearly empty coffee machine and went straight to his desk. After the bitter brew scalded his tongue, he sat back, then closed his eyes.

Ric DiStefano.

He’d scanned the file Eliza gave him, and the pathetically few facts he found there made him wonder. Had the Bureau failed to get more on the guy? Or had someone withheld vital information?

Something reeked.

If he were a betting man, which he wasn’t, he’d bet on the latter. For some reason someone didn’t want Ric DiStefano’s activities, contacts, whatever, turned into common knowledge—well, common within the Bureau. That raised a multitude of problematic flags.

A few months ago, J.Z. insisted someone in the office had turned. No one could explain how the mob buddies of the money-launderer whose death J.Z. was assigned to investigate had known where to find him no matter what he did to keep his plans secret.

David doodled on a notepad, flipped through the few papers on DiStefano, drank his poison, grew more frustrated with every passing minute. He glugged down his last gulp of lousy coffee, threw down his pencil, grabbed the papers, and rose.

If Eliza was only going to give him these lousy crumbs of info, he was going to have to come up with what he needed on his own. And the first step would be to talk to J.Z., see what he knew that Eliza had either withheld or neglected to include in the file.

He called his friend and fellow agent, just to see if he’d come in that morning. J.Z. invited him down.

“What’s up?” J.Z. asked when David walked into the cubicle.

“Did anyone fill you in on what happened last night?”

J.Z. gestured for David to sit, which he did in the beat-up, 1950s vintage, putrid green chair on the opposite side of the desk.

“Dan was here when I came in to work. He mentioned something about a hit-and-run and your grandmother. I couldn’t make it add up, but he had to head out, so I didn’t ask. Protecting Carlie Papparelli is not the snoozer job he’d expected.”

David grinned. “That mob widow struck me as a handful. And when she teamed up with your wife…watch out!”

“Don’t remind me. I still have nightmares about that day. They could’ve been killed, and it’s only by the grace of God that they’re still here.”

“Amen, brother.”

The two men thought back to the day when J.Z., David and a group of other agents rounded up a handful of mobsters. Innocent lives had hung in the balance, but they’d carried out the arrests with no one seriously harmed.

“So what’s the deal?” J.Z. asked.

David dropped the folder on the paper-littered desk. “Take a look. It won’t take you long.”

J.Z. opened the manila folder, then let out a long whistle. “How do you get from witnessing a hit-and-run to Ric DiStefano?”

“The victim was his sister.”

Another whistle. “Think it might have been a setup?”

“I think if I hadn’t deflected the Lexus, she’d be as dead as DiStefano.”

“So the question is—What did the ‘accident’ have to do with her brother?”

David stood and shoved his hands in the back pockets of his khaki pants. “I want to know why she gave me this song and dance about the driver being her dead brother’s ghost.”

“You’re kidding. She didn’t really say that, did she?”

“Worse. Not only did she say that, but then she also insisted we didn’t need the police, that she was fine. She chalked it all up to exhaustion and stress after her brother’s death.”

“Is there a rule somewhere that says we get all the crazy women?”

“Hey, you married one!”

A goofy grin brightened up his friend’s normally intense expression. “Yeah, I guess they do have some redeeming qualities, don’t they?”

“Maryanne does—lots of them. But Lauren DiStefano, with her bogus ghost story? Give me a break, man. Along with these scraps Eliza tossed at me, it adds up to trouble.”

“I wish I could disagree, but I’m on that page. And Eliza assigning you to tail the DiStefano woman? That’s the kiss of death.”

“You know it. Something’s up, and I’m being thrown up against Goliath without a clue.”

J.Z. closed the folder and held it out to David. “Have faith. That David did okay by leaning on the Lord. You can’t go wrong when you do that, you know.”

“In our line of work?” David snorted. “What I can’t figure out is the guys who go out there day after day without counting on God’s strength. Of course, I’m trusting Him.”

“So what’s next?”

“The grieving sister has a few questions to answer, don’t you think?”

“A few. That’s where I’m headed. And thanks for listening. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being paranoid.”

David drove toward Lauren’s old-money mansion. He wondered how a guy like Ric DiStefano had wound up with a place like that. Usually, those homes were handed down from one generation to the next. The few that ever came on the market did so because the last generation had failed to reproduce. Had that been the case? Or had DiStefano been mixed up with something more sinister than corporate finance shenanigans?

He parked on the street, right in front of the gorgeous old home. It had probably started out as the gem in the crown of a self-made man, maybe a doctor, lawyer, or even a politician—this was Philadelphia, after all.

He rang the doorbell, then he waited out front for what felt like an eternity. The weather was still rotten, and the icy drizzle’s needles stung his face.

Finally, she responded. “Oh!”

“May I come in?” he asked. “I’ve a couple of questions for you.”

She opened the door; her every motion shrieked reluctance.

“Hmm,” he murmured. “You could do a guy’s ego some harm with that kind of welcome.”

Her green eyes flashed. “You aren’t welcome, Mr. Latham. But since you came up with an official ID last night, I don’t have a choice, do I?”

He shrugged, and stepped inside. The interior matched the exterior of the luxurious mansion. Gleaming wood floors, a sparkling chandelier, rich patterned rugs and a spectacular staircase spoke of old money for construction and new money for upkeep.

He had to find out how illegal the DiStefano money was.

Among other things.

He followed her into a grand living room, what must once have been referred to as a formal parlor. Now it housed a huge cream leather sectional, cushy ottoman, dark wood side tables, and a thick creamy brown area rug under it all.

“Hey, the only thing missing is the wide-screen plasma TV.”

She sat at the end of the sectional with the loungy part on the end, then shrugged. “Not me, Mr. Latham. All of this belonged to my brother. It’s—was—his home.”

“And now it’s yours.”

Her sigh held a ton of emotion, but David couldn’t identify it all.

“If I can hang on to it.”

He took note of her comment, and dropped into the curve of the massive couch. “How about if you give me a few more details. This sounds interesting.”

Again, her eyes sparked. “Interesting since it doesn’t affect you.”

“Oh, but it does,” he countered. “You see, you’ve become my new assignment. Or to put it better, last night’s hit-and-run is my business. I need to learn everything about it.”

“And that would be because…?”

“Because, Miss DiStefano, I witnessed something I can’t explain—something you couldn’t explain to my satisfaction. So why don’t we start at the beginning?”

“What do you want to know?”

For such a soft-spoken woman, Lauren DiStefano could put a sharp bite to her words when she wanted to. “How did you come to live with your brother?”

“He was widowed three years ago and left with a two-year-old son to raise. He didn’t want to deal with day care or nannies, and since I’m family and an elementary school teacher, he asked me to help. They’re the only relatives I have left so I moved in.”

“You gave up your own life to become his housekeeper and babysitter?”

Her eyes did their thing again, but her voice didn’t go up, it just took another nip with her words. “If that’s the way you see family, then I pity you.”

Ouch! “That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but—”

“Then what did you mean, Mr. Latham? Your question was quite clear. As an educator, I can understand and carry on a conversation, you know.”

He felt his cheeks warm. He had come pretty close to what she’d understood him to say.

“Sorry,” he muttered. Then he cleared his throat. “How about we start this again?”

She shrugged.

He didn’t blame her.

But he still needed information. “Did you and your brother grow up in this home?”

“Not at all. Ric bought this place when his wife was pregnant.”

“So he’s had it for about four, maybe five years.”

“Just over five now. Mark turned five six weeks ago.”

“And you were willing to give up your work to care for your nephew.”

“Any day, Mr. Latham. I love Mark as if he were my own.”

“I could see that last night, Miss DiStefano. You saved him some serious injuries there. The car just glanced off you, but if it had clipped him, as young as he is, the impact would have done damage.”

She shuddered. “That was the worst part of it.”

“And how do you feel today?”

“I won’t lie to you. I’m sore. Every bit of me aches.”

“I was pretty sure you weren’t anywhere near as all right as you insisted last night.”

“I am all right. I just fell. Feeling sore is one thing, an injury that requires an ambulance and EMTs is another.”

“I’ll give you that.” He felt she’d eased up some, so he went in with another of his questions. “So your brother was quite successful. What kind of work did he do?”

“I don’t really know. Something to do with funding and stocks—money matters. I never bothered to ask.”

So what did she do? Just suck up the bucks the brother brought in?

He tried again. “I imagine he left you well provided, seeing you’ll be raising his son.”

“I wish. It appears what he did leave is a mountain of debt. I have to meet with the bank and…” She gave a vague wave. “I don’t know what you call them. Financial planners? Advisors? Money men, okay?”

“There must be insurance, though.”

“Yes, there is, and it’s a large sum, but if the debts are as serious as the money men say, then it might not stretch far enough for me to keep the house.”

“Then what will you do with your nephew? I mean, I imagine you’ll have to get a job again.”

“Probably. But Mark is in preschool these days. I hope to find a teaching position at his school or another one nearby.”

“That would be nice.”

They fell silent for a few moments, and David tried to come up with an effective way to ask what he needed to know. But in the end, he had no luck. He leaned forward and blurted it out.

“So how about you tell me what really happened last night? And don’t give me that ghost stuff. Where is your brother? Did he die? Or did he pretend he did? Did he try to run you over? And if he did hit you with that car, why? What does he have against you? Why would your brother want to kill you?”

She gasped.

“No!” the little boy yelled from the parlor door. “My daddy dinn’nt do that to Aunt Lauren. I don’t like you. Go ’way! Leave my aunt alone, you ugly…um…nasty…ah…monster!”

And right then, David did feel like an ugly monster. Especially when he saw the pain in Lauren DiStefano’s tear-filled green eyes.

There were times he really hated his job.