Nun Too Soon (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 1) (18 page)

Thirty

“Giulia Falcone-Driscoll for Mr. Petit, please.”

She stared at the phone keypad, willing Fitch’s lawyer to pick up before
The Scoop’s
TV show started. Fifteen minutes should be plenty of time for him to dredge up his  high school memories for her.

Click
. A different voice than Cathy’s, the receptionist Giulia shared recipes with. “Ms. Driscoll? Mr. Petit is on another call, but he should be no more than five minutes. Are you able to wait?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”
Click.

Giulia put the call on speaker and took a red Sharpie over to the clue collage pinned to the wall next to her door. She drew fat red Xs over bartender Jonathan Stallone’s pages and a line through Lacy Maples’ name on the extra page she’d added yesterday. The one she’d headed “People Thrown Under the Bus.”

Click.
“Ms. Driscoll? Colby Petit. What can I do for you?”

“A few questions for you, Mr. Petit.” Tact. A bucketful of tact
.
“I understand you and Roger Fitch went to the same high school.”

A sound as though the lawyer swallowed a bite of very late lunch. “Pardon me. Crazy day. Yes, Roger and I graduated from the same school.”

“Specifically, in the same class. And you were both on the basketball team.”

Wariness and puzzlement came through the speaker with the next drawn-out word: “Yes.”

“Also that Roger bested you at the sport, relegating you to the bench while the five starters, Roger among them, achieved glory.” Not tactful enough. Blast
.

A longer silence. “I see. It’s been implied that a sixteen-year-old grudge drove me to murder Roger’s girlfriend and pin the blame on him.” Papers rattling. A metallic
clunk
. A curse. “I just spilled my soda. Let me put you on hold.”

Giulia stared at the phone through the peculiar dead silence of hold-limbo. A lawyer known for his glib tongue had to resort to a fake spill to buy time. She flipped over to a new page on her current legal pad and wrote “Colby Petit” on it with the red Sharpie.

Click.
“Ms. Driscoll, the idea that anyone would orchestrate a convoluted murder as much-belated revenge must sound as ludicrous to you as it does to me. If it were presented to me as part of a case, my first action would be to explore the motives of the accuser.”

“Mr. Petit, neither of us needs to teach the other how to do their job. Thanks for confirming the information. I’ll let you get back to your lunch.”

She ended the call while she had the upper hand. Five minutes to the show. She swapped a ballpoint pen for the Sharpie and wrote several questions and notes to look things up. If nothing panned out fast enough, she’d try pumping Tulley for information this time instead of bile. Fitch’s natural fear of the death penalty made him an unreliable source.

Her speaker buzzed. “Three minutes, Ms. Driscoll.”

Giulia capped the pen and ran out to the main office. Everyone was crowded around Sidney’s monitor.

“So I don’t have to stand up,” she said to Giulia.

“Smart.” Giulia swapped places with Zane, who positioned his taller self between Giulia’s shoulder and Sidney’s head.

Sidney clicked on the streaming window and it filled the screen. As soon as a commercial faded to black, she un-muted the sound. A drumroll began, soft at first but reaching a dramatic crescendo within five seconds. The screen softened from black to gray and a dramatic clash of cymbals, trumpets, and French horns followed. The screen changed one final time, to pure white, and a deep voice imitated James Earl Jones’ classic CNN introduction, “This...is
The Scoop
.”

Sidney giggled. “Are they for real?”

Ken Kanning’s face with its gleaming smile and sculpted cheekbones appeared in the middle of the screen.

“
The Scoop
exists to bring you the news the other outlets don’t dare report. We give you, our loyal Scoopers, news you didn’t know you needed to hear.” A grim yet sincere expression replaced the smile. “In today’s edition, Cottonwood’s story of the year: The Silk Tie Murder. A callous killer, his new women, and the amoral private eye working to set a killer loose among our unsuspecting citizens. This footage may not be appropriate for younger viewers, so please send the kids into another room.”

The camera pulled back until Kanning’s entire torso came into view. The background changed to the pattern of the tie used to strangle Loriela Gil.

“And now,
The Scoop
presents: The Silk Tie Murder.”

“Heaven help us,” Giulia murmured.

Kanning’s voice-over gave the high points of the story starting with Fitch’s 9-1-1 call the morning of April second last year to his indictment for Loriela’s murder thirteen weeks ago. Video clips of Fitch’s initial arrest and his release two days later. A replay of the bar fight video with
The Scoop
’s lurid commentary. Kanning depicted Cassandra as the world’s worst mother-in-law. Loriela got the sainthood treatment. Jonathan Stallone and Henri Richard blipped into and out of Loriela’s life as failed suitors.
The Scoop
had access to none of the AtlanticEdge information, which meant no mention of Shirley Travers and a lot of vague praise about Loriela’s rise to Head of Accounting and her bright future prospects, cut short by Fitch’s silk tie. As the show went to commercial Roger Fitch’s mug shot filled the screen.

“What creative journalism, and I use the latter word loosely,” Giulia said.

“It’s half over and they haven’t reached last Saturday’s catfight,” Zane said. “Maybe they’ll run out of time and concentrate on the fight more than us.”

Giulia shook her head. “We can only hope.”

The show returned from commercials with a reprise of its opening music.

“
The Scoop
is always looking under the rocks people are afraid to turn over,” Kanning said, his Serious Face onscreen again. “But you know our motto, Scoopers: The juiciest stories lurk in the darkest places.”

Zane laughed. Sidney shushed him.

Kanning dissolved into an exterior shot of Fitch’s apartment building.

“Evil still inhabits one of these luxury apartments. Our clairvoyant, Madame Aurore, will perform a spiritual cleansing live on next week’s show.”

“Aurore?” Zane said. “She’s the biggest charlatan in Pittsburgh. The Pagan community cringes whenever her name comes up.”

“Shush!” Sidney said.

Kanning, on tape now, spoke to the camera in the apartment building’s parking lot. “...got a tip that things were happening in the apartment Roger Fitch uses for his trysts. The apartment he and Loriela Gil purchased together, decorated together, and shared together until last April first.”

The camera cut to a new shot of Kanning in the hall outside Fitch’s door.

“I don’t know if you can hear what we hear, Scoopers, but someone behind this door isn’t very happy. Let’s find out together what’s going on.”

The camera swung around as Kanning rang the bell.

In her office, Giulia watched herself open Fitch’s door.

Kanning’s microphone obscured the lower half of Giulia’s face. “Ken Kanning here with
The Scoop
at The Silk Tie Killer’s apartment. Miss, are you Roger Fitch’s new girlfriend? Don’t you worry that one of his ties will end up around your neck?”

On-screen Giulia’s face replaced its startled expression with one that resembled a shuttered window. “Please move and let me by.” Her voice was as expressionless as her face.

One of the girlfriends screeched behind Giulia. The camera’s spotlight picked out Angie’s blonde hair. At the same instant, she picked up Tammy’s blue-flowered casserole and heaved it. Tammy ducked.

The camera jiggled for a second, then righted. The casserole dish shattered, splattering meat, rice, and sauce around the hallway, in Fitch’s hair, and on the camera lens.

Ken Kanning’s arm pushed Giulia aside. The camera followed his bouncing hair as his head swiveled back to the camera and forward to watch the show.

“We’re at Ground Zero, Scoopers! Two furious women are tearing up accused murderer Roger Fitch’s apartment. What kind of man revels in this behavior? What kind of women fight over a man who might already be measuring their lovely necks for one of his silk ties?”

Angie tripped Tammy and they both crashed to the floor. More censoring
bleeps
than actual language came from Sidney’s computer speakers. Tammy clawed up a handful of her ruined sticky beef and smeared it on the blonde’s face.

Angie hooked two fingers into the redhead’s left chandelier earring and yanked. The camera zoomed closer in time to get a few drops of blood on the lens on top of the drying food.

Both women screamed. Blood streamed from Tammy’s ripped earlobe. Angie brought her hand to her face and it came away brown with sauce and red with her own blood.

Fitch knelt on the floor next to the two women, napkins in both hands. The screams’ volume dimmed and Kanning took over.

“Violence and bloodshed continues to surround The Silk Tie Killer. How can anyone with reasoning powers doubt he deserves death for Loriela Gil’s savage murder?”

The women and Fitch engaged in more bleeped
-
out conversation. Fitch left the camera’s line of sight and returned jingling his car keys.

“Come on, Tams, Angie. You’ve got a date with Urgent Care.”

More bleeps directed at Fitch.

Kanning stuck his face and microphone in the middle of the Roger/Tammy/Angie sandwich. “Roger Fitch, how can you pretend to care about these women when you left Loriela Gil’s still-warm body in the rain on that very balcony?” He pointed to his left.

Fitch stood and said directly into the bloody camera lens, “Get that piece of
bleep
out of my face or I’ll shove that light so far down your throat you’ll be able to use your
bleep
for a nightlight.”

Zane choked with laughter. Sidney and Jane snickered. Giulia facepalmed.

The scene switched to the exterior of Saint Thomas’ church in late morning light.

“Oh, no,” Giulia murmured.

All three of her employees turned to look at her.

Kanning’s voice again: “It’s Sunday morning, Scoopers. We’re outside Saint Thomas’ Catholic Church on Garrett Street. Inside is the head of Driscoll Investigations, the private investigators Roger Fitch hired to cherry-pick evidence and bully the prosecution’s witnesses. If they succeed, a murderer will walk the streets of Cottonwood, a free man. The streets where your daughters and sisters walk. Will any of them be safe again?”

The camera zoomed in on Kanning’s face. “The head of Driscoll Investigations claims to be God-fearing. She attends church on a regular basis. She used to be a nun—yes, Scoopers, she was once a real, live nun. Why would someone like that take money from a cold-blooded murderer to save him from the ignominious death he so richly deserves?”

“This isn’t good.” Sidney adjusted herself and mini-Sidney in her chair.

The camera refocused on Saint Thomas’ as the church’s double doors opened. A jump cut framed Giulia and Father Carlos talking and laughing on the top of the front steps.

“There she is, Scoopers,” Kanning stage whispered. “Never fear, in a few minutes we’ll get her to give us her excuses from her own hypocritical lips.”

Giulia descended to the sidewalk and walked around the side of the church toward the parking lot. Kanning ran toward her, his image bouncing as the cameraman followed him. They angled to the left and cut her off. She stopped when Kanning planted himself and his microphone directly in front of her.

“Scoopers, this is Giulia Falcone-Driscoll, investigating the Silk Tie Murder! Mrs. Falcone-Driscoll, tell us how a former nun can sleep at night knowing you’re helping a cold-blooded killer get off scot-free?”

“The camera makes my hair look like I’ve been fighting high winds.” Giulia reached up and tried to smooth it. Sidney pulled her arm down.

Onscreen, Kanning’s microphone hovered half an inch from her nose. Once again, Giulia’s face became an expressionless mask. She pushed aside the microphone and walked toward Frank’s Camry quickly, but not running.

“Come on, Mrs. Falcone-Driscoll.” Kanning and the camera followed her. “The Silk Tie Murder Case is number one with our viewers and you have the inside track. What do you know about Roger Fitch’s two girlfriends trashing his apartment?”

Giulia kept walking, her back ruler-straight. The camera kept the same two-foot gap between them. Its spotlight threw her shadow on the faded asphalt.

“Mrs. Falcone-Driscoll, does your conscience keep you awake at night? Don’t Catholics have to go to confession when they sin? Is that what you were talking to the priest about?”

Giulia slipped into the Camry and Frank drove away. Kanning turned to the camera, using the Camry’s exit as his backdrop.

“Her silence speaks for itself, Scoopers. Just goes to show you can’t trust anyone, not even the kindly nuns who teach our children their prayers. Tune in next Monday at three-thirty when we’ll be broadcasting live from the Silk Tie Murder trial. For
The Scoop
, this is Ken Kanning reminding you: The juiciest stories lurk in the darkest places. And we bring them to you every week.”

The dramatic fanfare played over the closing credits. Sidney stopped the feed.

“Scum buckets,” Jane said.

“Agreed,” Giulia said.

Sidney said, “What do we do?”

“Nothing. We have to take the high road on this. We don’t respond to anybody. If they call here, we hang up without replying. If they come to the door, we lock it. We don’t give them the tiniest opening.”

The phone rang. Giulia cringed.