Nun Too Soon (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 1) (8 page)

Thirteen

Fortified with a burger and sweet potato fries, Giulia pressed the entry button labeled Asher, Geranium. A few seconds later, Fitch’s next-door neighbor buzzed her into their apartment building.

The place surprised Giulia. From Fitch’s attitude, she’d expected a live-in Westin Hotel with a doorman and a concierge. What she walked into was a higher-end apartment building with decent carpets and no stink of boiled cabbage in the air. The beige paint on the walls wasn’t too badly scuffed. The imitation wood-paneled elevator didn’t creak and moved at a pace faster than an asthmatic snail. A ghost of cigarette smoke lurked in the second-floor hallway, but no dust coated the artificial flowers in a bowl on a narrow table near the elevator doors.

The door to apartment 210 opened the three inches allowed by its chain. A long, narrow face came forward just enough for Giulia to see that its owner’s eyes were a washed-out brown and its shriveled lips were once full and used to smile a lot.

“Mrs. Asher? I’m Giulia Falcone-Driscoll.”

The face remained in its noncommittal position. Giulia stayed a step away from the door. Without warning, the face pushed right up to the gap.

“Young woman, cover up that mop of hair.”

Giulia hadn’t expected that. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. Take your two hands and cover your hair right up to your forehead.”

Giulia covered her head as requested. The sooner she complied, the sooner she could write this one off and work on her questions for Fitch’s video-surfing co-worker.

Seconds ticked by. The woman had seen Giulia through the camera installed above the row of buzzers in the vestibule, so what was up with this extra inspection?

“May I put down my arms now?”

“You’re not Giulia-whatever-you-said. That’s the wrong name. I can’t remember it right now, but it’ll come to me. Where are your veil and your black dress?”

Giulia got it now. She dropped her arms and said with her brightest smile, “Yes, I used to be a nun. My name back then was Sister Mary Regina Coelis. But it’s been—”

“That’s it!” The door closed and the chain rattled free. When it opened again, a tiny old woman in black yoga pants with orange piping and a matching orange t-shirt stood aside to let Giulia in. “You taught both of my granddaughters Sexual Education. Their mother was scandalized—my daughter gets a pole up her behind sometimes—but my granddaughters said you taught it like a real person, not like someone locked behind convent walls all her life. Come in, come in. Can’t talk in the hall. Some people,” she raised her voice and spoke to the closed door opposite, “have nothing better to do than spy on the neighbors all day.” She closed the door and replaced the chain. “You sit down on the couch and I’ll make us some coffee.”

The bright blue walls and blue-patterned carpet contrasted with the brown sofa and gold curtains, but in an eye-catching way. Not that Giulia could see much of the walls. Photographs of three children from birth to adulthood and then five more children paired with them covered three-quarters of the available space. Kids skiing, kids creating science projects, kids holding cheerleader pompons; in football gear, in hockey gear, graduating high school and college, in formal wedding portraits. Giulia looked longest at the sepia toned photograph of a tall, serious black man and petite, equally serious black woman in stunning period clothes.

Geranium Asher kept talking from the kitchen over the clatter of plates and silverware. “Those are my grandparents back in nineteen ought four.”

“Her wedding dress is gorgeous.”

“Isn’t it, though? The cathedral train ripped clean off when she got out of the car to go change into her traveling clothes. Her mama made it into a christening gown. We all wore it. Real satin, it was; you should have felt it running through your hands just like water.”

“My wedding dress was an antique, but not as lovely as hers.”

“You have to tell me how a smart young sister turns into a smart young detective, Mrs. Driscoll. Now, I got one of those Keurigs last Christmas and I don’t know how I lived without it. What can I make for you? I have French roast, hazelnut, cinnamon, and Irish cream.”

“Irish cream, thank you.”

“Me too. I’ll just be another minute. You set yourself and get comfortable.”

Giulia obeyed, out of both politeness and the overall goal of getting as much information she could out of this witness.

The aroma of strong, sweet coffee filled the apartment. A few minutes later, her host brought in a hand-painted floral tray set with two mugs, a creamer, a sugar bowl, and a plate of jam-filled thumbprint cookies rolled in crushed nuts.

“All right now. I made these cookies and I guarantee you will love them. There’s half and half and sugar for the coffee if you take it. You dig in.”

Giulia declined both but chose a cookie with raspberry jam in its center. “Just like Christmas,” she said after the first bite.

Geranium accepted the homage like a queen. “I have never met a person who didn’t like my thumbprints. Now, Mrs. Driscoll. I know you came here to ask about that horrible murder from last April, but we’re going to do some bartering. I’ll tell you everything I can about Mr. Fitch and poor Miss Gil, but first you have to tell me how my girls’ teacher is sitting in my living room as a detective and not a Sister.”

“That is more than fair.” Giulia gave the “for public consumption” version of her last few years in the convent. This version, similar to the Bowdlerized Shakespeare editions of the early 1800s, omitted the despair, the backstabbing, and the confessional attack by the popular priest. Instead, it focused on the humor at her own expense: Having only underwear and a single pair of jeans and a t-shirt to her name afterwards. Learning how to put on makeup, trying to walk in two-inch heels. One of her first, disastrous dates.

Geranium laughed hard enough to soak one of the square cocktail napkins with tears.

“You poor thing,” she said between gasps. “I’m so sorry for laughing, but you ought to be on YouTube.”

Giulia laughed with her. “I’m very glad no one was around me with a camera phone those first months.”

The old woman patted Giulia’s knee. “So now you’re married and in charge of your own business. You are a strong woman. I’m sure going to use you as an example for my granddaughters. Just look at what they can do if they put their minds to it.”

“I’d be honored.” Giulia finished her cookie.

“Before you work on a polite way to ask me to get to the whole point of this visit,” Geranium winked at her, “you tell me what you want to know about last April.”

Giulia breathed easier. That was exactly what she’d been about to say. She had two other interviews to get to today and it was already after one o’clock.

“First I’d like to know what you thought of both of them, Fitch and Ms. Gil.” Giulia slipped into her mnemonic memory space. People always talked more freely when she didn’t bring out a tape recorder or pen and paper.

“They liked their battles, those two. At least once a week they’d be yelling about this and arguing about that.” Geranium’s eyes rolled up beneath her wrinkled eyelids. “Money, sometimes. Roaming eyes, most of the time. Mind you, I don’t think either of them cheated on the other, but they liked to pretend.”

“They actually enjoyed fighting?” This didn’t surprise her, despite her appearance that it did.

“Well, if you’ll pardon the expression, I think what they liked was the making-up.” For a moment Geranium appeared embarrassed. “The walls in this building could be thicker, if you get what I mean. Those two had...stamina.”

Giulia nodded. “I get what you mean. Do you know anything about the police being called during one of their fights?”

“Darn right I do. I called them once, and Nosy Nora across the hall called the police twice.”

“Three times in two years? They sound like the floor’s personal reality show.”

Geranium held up a hand. “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. The first time I called the cops, the two of them were cussing and throwing dishes or some such. Crash! Cuss! Smash! It got so bad me and Sue Ann and Katsuo stood out in the hall waiting for one of them to bust through the door. Finally Old Man Vandenburg knocked on their door loud enough to shut them up. That Fitch opened it and cussed him right to his face, and Vandenburg’s old enough to be his grandfather.”

“And yet Fitch always seems so charming.”

Geranium’s laugh sounded more like a cackle. “Never trust the ones who can turn that charm off and on like a light switch. Anyway. After Fitch slammed the door in Joe Vandenburg’s face, I went right back into this apartment and called 9-1-1. They got here pretty fast. It’s nice to live in a higher rent district.” She grinned.

Giulia returned the grin and the sentiment. She’d lived in some places where it wasn’t safe to go out in the daytime, let alone after dark.

“What did the police do?”

Geranium rubbed papery-sounding hands together.

“Oh, it was a show. The cops banged on the door too, and all the while the screaming and breaking noises still came through, but not as often. Finally Fitch opened the door and opened his mouth like he was about to say something that would’ve made his mother slap him silly. Then he saw it was the cops. He choked on whatever had been in his mind to say, and called to poor Miss Gil calm as you please. Said something like the police were there, honey, and could she come talk to them with him.”

“What did the police do?”

“They stood in the hall and talked to Fitch and Miss Gil together. Said they’d gotten a report.”

Giulia recalled Fitch’s quick-change personality in her office. “Could he always shut off his anger that quickly?”

“I couldn’t speak to ‘always.’ Most times I’ve seen him, he’s talking into his cell phone. As long as they lived here, they never took their fights outside of their apartment. They knew how to keep the right face on in public.”

“What did they say to the police that night?”

“Some bold-faced lies about him dropping the dish that was her mama’s favorite dish, so she broke his favorite coffee mug.”

“The police believed it?”

“Not much else they could do. Miss Gil said everything was just fine now and Fitch backed her up. Her hair and clothes weren’t mussed, she didn’t have a mark on her, and neither did he. They both laughed about the old biddies who liked to pry into everyone’s business. Finally the police asked them to keep the noise down and left.”

“And they winked and laughed and said they’d do their best?”

Geranium nodded, chomping down harder than necessary on her soft cookie.

“Why do you think they were together if they fought so much?”

Geranium studied the rest of her cookie with a critical eye. “I prefer the blackberry jam to the raspberry. You try one and tell me what you think. As for those two next door, they loved each other, far as I could tell. But they both wanted things their own way too much. Especially about money. Lord, did they fight like cats and dogs about money.” She washed the cookie down with the rest of her coffee.

“How do you know, if you didn’t talk to them much?”

Her host chewed the inside of her cheek. “Well, you see, I’m retired and I don’t watch much TV. All those greedy people screaming and fighting or hopping in and out of bed like it was an Olympic event.”

Giulia bit into a blackberry cookie to conceal a smile.

“I can tell you this, because you were a good influence on my granddaughters back when you were a nun. People don’t change, not deep in their bones. So you won’t look down on me like Miss Nosy across the hall.”

“Of course not.”

Geranium nodded once, a sharp movement. “I knew it. You see, they were loud and the walls are thin, like I said. So when things got interesting on the other side of the wall...I scooted a chair right up to it and listened.”

Giulia held up the remaining half of her cookie. “I see what you mean about the blackberry. Now, since you had a front-row seat, you can help me find justice for Ms. Gil.”

“Oh, yes. That poor thing needs peace. And her mother, too. I only met her once, but she sure left an impression.”

It took a lot of restraint for Giulia not to lean forward, to stay sitting quite straight as though this upcoming information was no more or less important than everything else she’d learned this afternoon.

“Like I said earlier, they fought about money and each other’s roaming eyes. The worst fights they had, though, were about wanting things. He wanted a bigger TV, a faster car, pricey liquor, things like that. She wanted stuff too, but what she really craved was power. There she was, young and pretty and head of the bookkeeping at that huge company, but it wasn’t enough.”

“And Fitch didn’t want power?” Giulia’s posture still didn’t alter.

“Not that kind. He used to lecture her like a preacher on Sunday. He liked working for someone with power so he could sell things when he wanted and play when he wanted. It was all what he wanted and to the devil with anything in his way.” Geranium studied Giulia the same way she’s weighed the finer points of the cookie. “But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.”

“I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

“That’s what you’re supposed to do, I guess.” Geranium made a face. “Me, I don’t have to play nice. That Fitch is a real piece of work. Mind, I’m not saying he’s a killer. I wouldn’t want anybody, not even my mother-in-law, God rest her wicked soul, to be wrongly convicted for murder. Nobody gets a do-over for the death penalty.”

A black-capped chickadee whistled from the kitchen. Giulia started. Geranium chuckled.