Mostaccioli Murder: A Jade Sommer Mystery by Pierce Nicolette

Author:Pierce, Nicolette
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pierced Heart Publishing
Published: 2020-12-10T00:00:00+00:00

16

When medical staff shooed visitors out of Dad’s room so they could tend to him, Uncle Sal and I walked down to the cafeteria. He had a slight shuffle to his step, so the walk took a bit longer, but that was okay. It gave us more time to talk.

“I’ll buy you an ice cream cone,” he said. “It’ll be like old times.”

I never turned down ice cream. “I happily accept. But where’s Uncle Frank? I thought he’d be here too.”

“Dot called him a few minutes before you arrived. Sent him on errands.”

Thank you, Aunt Dot. That left me and Uncle Sal to talk without Uncle Frank speeding us along to get back to cards.

“Then you can tell me stories about the Company.”

“The Company?” he questioned with a chuckle. “Why do you want to hear old tales?”

“I haven’t heard them for a while. Do you have any contacts in the Company?”

“Me? You’re dreaming, girl.”

“No more cousins who ticked them off?”

He chuckled again. “No. Poor old Alfie was the only one. He used to call himself Arson Al. But the kid hated fire. Was afraid of it. But everyone had to have a nickname just in case they did something worthy of getting into the paper. No one would care about plain ol’ Alfie. But Arson Al was a different matter. Never had to start a fire, though. Tony the Trout killed him before he could establish the name.”

“Why did they call him Tony the Trout?”

“Sent people to sleep with the fishes.”

“I’m glad you never got into all that,” I said. “But could Wayne have been involved with them?”

“Ah,” he said with a nod. “Now I see what you’re getting at. You think the Company bumped off Wayne.”

“He owed money to people. What if he owed some to the Company?”

“Then I don’t doubt they’d kill him. But most likely they’d beat him first. Make him suffer in case he was holding out on them. They don’t kill when they can recover their money by busting a couple of kneecaps. You saw Wayne’s body. Did he have any bruises or indications of a struggle or beating?”

I thought back to the scene. Wayne was laid out by the garbage, noodles everywhere, and one favorite knife stuck in his chest. No bruising or black eyes. Nothing that indicated he had been in a fight or tortured.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “But I wasn’t really looking for marks either. I was more focused on the knife.”

“Frank thinks Dot killed Wayne.”

“He does not. Anyone who knows Dot knows that she would never use her favorite knife on anything but food. If she killed Wayne, she would have used someone else’s knife.”

Uncle Sal barked a laugh. “You got that right.”

It made me wonder if maybe the chef that quit had used Aunt Dot’s knife as payback, setting her up to take the fall. But why would Lars kill Wayne? Did Wayne owe him money? I’d have to look into that angle too, especially since the Company angle wasn’t adding up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.