Nun Too Soon (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 1) (3 page)

Four

Giulia ran up the narrow wooden stairs to her office as the alarm on her phone signaled five minutes to her first temp interview.

She skidded to a stop on the doormat, dragged her fingers through her curls that she knew looked like Shirley Temple’s after a tackle football game, and slowed her breathing. Then she opened the frosted-glass door.

The temp waiting in the chair next to Zane’s desk looked like she’d teleported here direct from Harvard Business School.

As though the interviewee wasn’t sitting two feet to his right, Zane said, “Your two forty-five appointment is here, Ms. Driscoll.”

Only relentless practice kept a smile off Giulia’s face as she hung up her jacket. Zane’s chocolate-brown eyes didn’t waver as he handed Giulia three printouts in a manila folder.

“Thanks.” She smiled at the young woman in the gray pinstripe suit. “I’ll be just a few minutes.”

Safe behind the closed door of her office, Giulia opened the folder and reread the cover letter and résumé inside. Ms. Pinstripe graduated from Duquesne more than a year ago. Ugh, all temp work and nothing really relevant.

The often-useless “Awards and Interests” section at the bottom of the résumé caught her eye. Captain of the debating team. Captain of the women’s lacrosse team. Sang the role of Guinevere in
Camelot
her junior year and Maria in
The Sound of Music
her senior year.

Giulia would have to turn in her ex-nun card if she didn’t give this candidate a smidgen of extra chance because of that last role.

She buzzed Zane. “Please send in Ms. Reed.”

Except Ms. Reed disapproved. Of pretty much everything. The secondhand filing cabinet—the first official piece of furniture Frank bought when he opened the office—received an “are you kidding?” look of dismissal. The more time that passed without Giulia turning to her computer, the more Ms. Reed’s incredulous look deepened. Within fifteen minutes, she was telling Giulia the Only Correct Way to run an efficient office.

Within twenty, Giulia showed Ms. Reed to the door.

No good deed goes unpunished,
Giulia said to herself as she drew comparisons between Ms. Reed’s Fortune 500 style of perfection and her own clothes.

Sidney looked up from her screen. “Why are you trying to smash down your hair? It looks curly and happy, just like it should.”

Giulia smiled. “Sidney, you are irreplaceable. I certainly won’t choose that Mean-Girl-Who-Dumps-The-Geeks’-Books-In-The-Hall as your substitute.”

A noise came from Zane’s desk that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Giulia and Sidney did a tandem double-take in his direction.

Zane choked it down. “Her voice carried through the door. Sidney made faces every time we heard ‘In addition...’”

“Serves me right for not going through an agency, I suppose.”

Sidney said, “Think of the interviews if you’d have placed the ad on Craigslist.”

Giulia crossed herself. “Give me credit for not being that naïve. Okay, I’ve got half an hour ’til the next interview. Hit save and listen up, guys.” She walked to the opposite end of the office and perched on the windowsill so they could both see her. “I agreed to take on the Silk Tie Murder case, and no, it was not because of the excellent lunch.”

Sidney put on her most disingenuous expression.

“His name is on the AtlanticEdge list.”

“I know. We can do this. The two issues don’t overlap. Embezzlement does not equal murder.”

A new worry crease appeared on Zane’s forehead. “Ms. Driscoll, despite that dichotomy I’m sure there’s a precedent.”

“Zane, precedents are fine in the mouths of lawyers, but justice trumps legal nitpicking, at least in this office.”

The worry crease deepened.

“Zane,” Giulia said. “Embezzlement sends people to jail and makes them repay the stolen money. The Silk Tie case is murder and the death penalty is on the table.”

“But Ms. Driscoll, even if that’s the situation, the amount of statistics we’re compiling for AtlanticEdge alone—”

“Zane.”

The admin gulped and shut up.

Giulia smiled at him. “I know what our workload looks like. Sidney, don’t look all perky. You won’t be home playing with your baby for another two weeks. You’ll be buried under this with the rest of us.” Her phone alarm went off. “Fifteen minutes ’til the next candidate arrives. Here’s the scoop. First: I’m not taking this extra work merely to dump it all on you. If anyone puts in extra hours, it’ll be me. Second: Yes, I’ll be asking both of you to perform more brilliant computer acrobatics and no, it won’t break your brains.”

Sidney replied with a long-suffering sigh. “Baby Brain is not a twenty-four hour condition.”

Zane said, “Ms. Driscoll, the only reason I graduated
magna cum laude
instead of
summa cum laude
was the egregious application of the bell curve theory of grading by the programming professor in my dual major.” He cracked his knuckles. “Bring it.”

Not a smidgen of guilt disturbed Giulia at Zane’s response. A good boss created opportunities for her employees to succeed. This wasn’t manipulation. It was Business Owner 101.

“The lawyer’s emailing me more specifics. I’ll draw up a contract before I meet with him tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I’m going to look at those Seminarian background checks and write up that report. My goal is to scratch one thing off the to-do list by four o’clock.”

Giulia hit “send” on the background check summary at three fifty-one. “They should put us on retainer.” She paused with her fingers hovering over the keys. “Retainer. What a beautiful word.”

She jumped up and opened the door. “Zane, Sidney, we’re going to convince the Diocese of Pittsburgh to put us on retainer.”

Sidney looked up.

“Oh.” She rubbed her belly. “Mini-Sidney likes that word. It sounds like ‘regular income.’ What do you want me to do?”

“Make up a spreadsheet with everything we’ve done for them since the very first commission they gave us. Hours, fees, and importance of projects in ascending order. When you’re done, pass it over to Zane. Zane, please crunch the numbers and come up with two different dollar amounts that will get us a decent profit but won’t cause the diocesan bookkeepers to throw holy water at me when I bargain.” Her phone alarm chimed the imminent appointment. “It’s Tuesday. Can you shoehorn it into things for Friday?”

“No problem,” Sidney said. “It fits in with all the docs I’m writing up for the temp.”

The office door opened.

“Hello? I’m Jane Pierce. I have a four o’clock interview?”

Giulia nodded. “You do indeed. I’m Giulia Falcone-Driscoll. Come this way.”

Zane slapped another covering folder into her right hand as she passed his desk.

Jane Pierce’s suit was straight out of the lower levels at Macy’s. A few tendrils of black hair trailed out from under a plain brown wig. Theater-quality makeup covered the back of her neck.

Giulia forced herself not to try to stare through that makeup.

“Before you ask,” Ms. Pierce said as she sat in Giulia’s client chair, “yes, my mother’s a distant cousin of the fourteenth first lady of the United States. The first-born girl in each generation gets the name. Yay, me.”

Giulia said without looking up from the resume in the folder, “Teased in grade school?”

“God, yes.”

“Is that the reason for the hair and the neck ink?”

Silence. Now Giulia looked up to catch the interviewee’s hand feeling the mousy wig. Jane’s body language jumped from nervous to antagonistic.

Giulia smiled.

“Prove to me that this online degree I see here is worth something.”

The antagonism broke through the interview veneer. “You want to know what it’s worth? Six years of night classes while keeping a full-time job and putting a slimy, cheating ex through med school.” She leaned over the desk, stabbing the resume with her left index finger. “I pulled off the third best grade in that degree since the state university system started offering online courses.”

Giulia outlined a hypothetical project. Ms. Pierce told her in detail how she’d handle it. Next Giulia threw a different type of project at her and chewed over her solution. Both answers fit in with the way Giulia ran DI.

“Why are you settling for temp work?”

“Because of that blasted hamster wheel employers like to exercise on. You can’t get a full-time job without experience. But how can I get experience if no one will hire me so I can gain some of this bright, shiny experience?” She closed her mouth so hard her teeth clicked.

“Been there. All right. My assistant’s due date is in two weeks. Her doctor says it’s a textbook pregnancy without problems, so she’ll be here through the end of next week unless she buys a trampoline or goes for the jumping-jack record.” Giulia poked her phone calendar. “Can you come in Friday at...two-thirty to fill out paperwork? Ten dollars an hour but no benefits, sorry. Possible overtime but there’ll be warning. Two months full-time and then part-time for four more weeks while Sidney gets used to interacting with adults again.”

When she raised her head, fingers ready to type in the appointment, Ms. Pierce was blinking at her.

“You mean it? You’re hiring me? Don’t you need to think about it or interview ten more people?” She shook herself. “Wait...what am I saying?”

“I know the right candidate when I see one. Ask Zane out there. He still thinks I’m from another planet. So: Yes or no?”

“Yes. Of course yes. Holy crap.” She blushed from neck makeup line to forehead. “I beg your pardon.”

“No worries. Friday at two-thirty then. Paperwork should take less than an hour.” Giulia typed that and opened a new appointment. “Sidney—she’s my assistant—gets in at eight-forty-five, so can you start at nine on Monday for her to train you?”

“Good God, yes. The insurance thing doesn’t matter. I’m still on the ex’s. It was the one thing I bargained for in the divorce.”

“Smart. Okay.” She finished the calendar entries and stood. “We have a pretty relaxed dress code. No shorts or exposed midriffs or jeans with artsy holes in them.” She held out her hand. “As long as your tattoos don’t swear or illustrate certain body parts or activities, you don’t have to cover them up. Same with the hair.”

This handshake gave an entirely different impression. Now Giulia shook hands with a confident, happy woman, all antagonism gone.

“That reminds me,” Giulia said. “It seems you can go undercover if we need it. That’s good. Sidney’s been out of commission for that part since her third trimester.”

“I’ve never acted or anything like that, if you don’t count smiling at my ex-mother-in-law when I had to guard against her cleaning out my stuff along with her son’s.”

“Everything counts.” Giulia opened her office door and walked her new employee to the frosted-glass main door. “See you Friday.”

Five

Frank’s brother, his wife, and their three kids left at eight-thirty p.m. The sprawling Driscoll family had embraced Giulia from that first awkward Christmas party two years earlier and Giulia loved it. Usually. Busy weeknights with impromptu family suppers? Argh. Those nights were the only times Giulia didn’t mind that nobody in her own family had spoken to her since she left the convent.

“Frank.” Giulia leaned against the closed door of their Cape Cod-style house.

“In here,” Frank called from the dining room, where he was attending to a red wine stain on the carpet. “After three kids, you’d think my sister would know not to pick up a full glass when the baby is in Velcro mode.”

Frank’s voice got louder as Giulia walked through the living room into the dining room. “What are you cleaning it with?”

“I’m still blotting.”

“I’ll get the baking soda.” Giulia did an about-face back into the kitchen. As she mixed the correct proportion with water, she rehearsed different openings for the favor she wanted to ask.

Frank switched positions with her and she covered the stain with baking soda paste. He tossed the pile of reddened paper towels into the kitchen trash, then snagged the remote as he plopped onto the couch.

“There.” Giulia sat back on her heels. “I’ll vacuum that before I leave tomorrow morning.”

Frank clicked ’til he found the Manchester United match replay. “I knew you’d put on a great meal. I’m going to sneak out of bed at midnight and make a sandwich with the leftover chicken and bacon.”

Giulia opened the novel she was reading and sat in the corner of the sectional couch, near her husband. She and Frank had celebrated their first anniversary last month and all the cards still made a bright display on the mantelpiece. Their mantelpiece in their house. Their couch and coffee table and just-cleaned wine-stained rug. Life did not get better than this. She knew it because she’d been through much of the worst. Besides, any day she wanted to throttle Frank was one hundred percent better than any day of her final years in the convent.

Even today, when she’d gone into overdrive to get supper and dessert completed on time. Speaking of which...

“Twenty-four hours’ notice would be helpful when you invite people for a meal.”

“Yeah. Sorry,
muirnín,
sweetheart. Mike really wanted to pick my brain about some financial stuff and the kids love coming here, so I figured supper would be perfect for both.” He reached out with his clicker-free hand and pulled her over to his end of the couch.

Giulia couldn’t settle in ’til she came clean. “We picked up a new job today.”

“Damn, woman, sleep is not an optional exercise.” He kissed the top of her curls. “Is it a simple one this time?”

“Not sure. Remember Roger Fitch? He was one of the pianists at the theater.”

Frank made a rude noise. “You mean, do I remember the cocky guy who has a thing for strangling people with neckties?”

This wasn’t starting out well. “That’s him. He convinced the judge that he’s the only one who can prove his innocence.”

The rude noise repeated. “Only if he’s drawn a corrupt judge along with a smooth-talking lawyer. Isn’t the judge for his trial Pearl ‘Hang ’em High’ Ruiz? Nobody’s going to sweet-talk her.”

Giulia blew out a breath. “You’re assuming guilt.”

“A result of long experience.” He jerked upright and yelled at the TV screen: “No! You moron! Aim for the net, not the crossbar!”

“Roger Fitch won’t get a Christmas card from us, but he and his lawyer have a compelling argument. His lawyer’s Colby Petit.”

Frank stopped watching the match. “Lawyers don’t come more silver-tongued than Petit. Did he appeal to your sense of justice?”

“Well, yes.”

Frank’s head flopped backwards over the top of the couch. “You’re going to work yourself to death. How do I know that? Because I know that if things get tight you’ll take on all the overtime yourself rather than push your employees too far.”

“I can’t ask them to take on extra work if I don’t do my share of it.” She did not want to have this conversation. It was their one recurring argument.

On TV two players cleated each other and writhed like dying fish. Frank hit the mute button. “We’ve had this case from the beginning, you know. Jimmy made me lead on it when Rao got promoted.”

Giulia beamed. “I should thank him, but he’ll only try to get me to give up the agency and come work for him, like always.”

“He mentions it every couple of weeks. But why does it make you happy?”

“Because I can pick your brain about it, of course.”

“No, no, no.” Frank banged his head against the couch this time. “I swear, sometimes it was easier sharing the office with you.”

“No, it wasn’t. You wanted to run it your way and I wanted to run it mine. You were a sleuth long before me. I can’t believe you didn’t guess that when I got my PI license we’d butt heads like elk in nature films.”

A deep, theatrical sigh. “I was blinded by your nun aura.”

She leaned away from him, crossed her arms, and raised both eyebrows.

Frank bowed three times, hands flat on the couch each time. “Ex-nun. I know. Ex-nun.”

“And don’t you forget it.” Giulia returned to her snuggle position. “About picking your brain...I’m meeting with Fitch’s lawyer tomorrow to sign papers and make everything official. Shall I call Jimmy to offer information-sharing between DI and the police?”

“Dear God, no. I’ll never hear the end of it.” He turned the sound back on. “I’ll give you a conditional yes on the back and forth between us.”

She kissed him. “Teamwork. We have it.”

“Persuasion is more like it.”

Giulia didn’t mention how Fitch was one of their prime suspects in the embezzlement scheme. Driscoll Investigations was her business now, to run as she saw fit. She never wanted to return to those days of arguing about work at work and arguing about work at home. So instead of talking any more, she climbed on top of her husband and started to massage his shoulders.

The next morning Frank had to check ESPN to see if Man U pulled out the win.