Death & Decluttering Read online

  Right. Now.

  Why was her mother at the police station? Her mother was the last person who’d ever be at the police station- especially at 3am. And the last person to ever hurt anyone.

  “Chip Goggins is dead.” She heard her mother’s flat voice ringing in her head over and over.

  How had he died? Who had done it? Her father had been furious earlier that day but surely...

  Joy began to feel increasingly frantic as she turned over every corner of her room, and then ran downstairs to the living room. Time was ticking by and panic was a cannonball lodged firmly in her chest. Why, oh why, did her purse have to go missing now of all times? Where on Earth had she put it? Things had an insidious way of vanishing right when you needed them most. She had an irrational vision of her wallet, keys and phone hiding behind a curtain and giggling in glee at her discomfiture.

  “Joy,” Aurora’s voice was quiet in the background. “Can I help?”

  “Can you help?!” Joy straightened up and pointed a finger at her. “You can help by staying out of my house and out of my life. My purse is missing! Know anything about that? It’s never gone missing before! It had everything - my keys, my phone, my wallet.”

  Aurora recoiled and Joy suddenly felt ashamed of herself.

  “Where do you normally keep your purse when you come home?” Aurora asked her.

  “I…” Joy considered this. “I mean, what kind of question is that? I just toss it wherever. It’s normally either here…or upstairs next to my bed.” She tossed the cushion she’d looked under onto the coffee table.

  She didn’t have to look at Aurora to know that she was being judged hard.

  “Not a snarky comment out of you. I don’t think I can take it right now,” Joy said, rummaging through a pile of clothes in the hope that her purse had somehow decided to join them for a midnight party.

  “Why don’t you take a breath,” Aurora suggested. “Why do you need your purse in the middle of the night?”

  “I need my car so I can drive down to the police station. My mom…” Joy glanced up at the clock. Ten minutes had already gone by. “My mom needs me! Plus I need to call my uncles.”

  “Ok, we can hunt for your stuff later. I can give you a lift,” Aurora said. “You can call your uncles from my phone if you like.”

  Ashamed for needing the help but desperate for it, Joy gave up her hunt and nodded.

  “Thank you,” she said simply. Her hatred of Aurora was temporarily blocked out by three simple facts that kept repeating themselves in her head:

  Chip Goggins was dead.

  Her mother was at the police station.

  Her father was not.

  The car charged like a bull down empty streets, turning corners with a squeal. Joy had the phone glued to her ear - she’d been busy rousing the entire clan and asking for help. A small crowd of people were already at the station by the time Aurora & she reached it. Joy felt a warm glow in her heart as she looked at them. Her father’s family was all out of state, while her mother had two brothers and five sisters, all of whom still lived in town. Together, the various Riccis and their children made a sizeable portion of Bent River. They were all quite close, too - celebrating Christmases and Thanksgivings, weddings and funerals, birthdays and graduations. Even though they had their rivalries and their gossip and infighting, in times like this people really came out and helped. It was the single reason that Joy had never left town. She could never let go of a community like this.

  Uncle Pietro, looking drawn and serious, parted the crowd and pulled Joy into the station.

  “Where are Mom and Dad? Is everything ok?” Joy asked. “What’s going on, Uncle?”

  “I came here as soon as you phoned,” Pietro said. He lived just across the street from the station and he’d clearly not even bothered to pull on his usual jeans - he was still in sweatpants and a white undershirt with a small hole under the collar. “Officer Park talked to me. You know how Chip Goggins lived across the street from your parents’ house?”

  “Yeah? Joy nodded.

  “Well, someone heard a series of shots coming from Chip’s house and called the police. Officers reached there ten minutes later. Your mother was unconscious in Chip’s living room.” Pietro looked stricken. “She’s saying she has amnesia. She has no idea why she was there and not asleep at home.”

  “And Dad?” Joy asked.

  Pietro took a breath and exhaled hard through his nostrils.

  “Your Dad wasn’t at home. It’s not clear where he is yet.”

  “He could be at the hospital,” Joy said. “He is a doctor. He gets calls at odd hours of the night sometimes.”

  “Maybe.” Pietro was non-committal. “Officer Park said they’re still looking.”

  “And the shots?” Joy asked. “What about the shots?”

  “We don’t know, exactly.” Pietro took a deep breath. “But, according to the officer, Chip was found in his bed, with at least six bullet holes in him.” Pietro put a hand on Joy’s shoulder. “Sweetheart, your cousin, Brady, is already driving up from New York City. You don’t need to worry. Both your parents will get the best representation possible.”

  Cousin Brady was the son of one of her many aunts. As far as Joy was concerned, he was just another of the kids she’d grown up playing hide-and-seek with all over Nonno’s house. She blinked, picturing him as a ten year old with bowl-cut hair and a toothy smile. But that’s not who he was anymore. Brady was now a successful criminal lawyer practicing in New York City. The significance of him hopping in the car as soon as he heard about her parents hit Joy like a punch. Things had to be really serious for him to do that.

  “Brady will handle everything. He asked me to instruct your mother not to say a word to the police till he shows up,” Pietro said. “So now we just wait a few hours. I’m sure by morning it’ll all get cleared up.”

  *****

  Chapter 5

  A Tall Drink

  Aurora leaned against her car, shivering a little in the chilly morning air. It had been an hour since she and Joy had arrived at the station. The crowd of people outside had only grown larger as time went by. Joy had been swallowed into it all and Aurora stood out in the cold, looking in.

  Giving up, Aurora decided to drive to the only spot in town that was still open: a bar next to the abandoned train station. As she stepped in, Aurora was pleasantly surprised. From the outside, Murphy’s was a simple, squat building with a neon sign buzzing above the window. Inside, it was surprisingly bright and cheery, with a vertical garden on one wall and tropical birds painted on the other. White furniture and pastel shades were everywhere, including the bright-red Hawaiian shirt the bartender wore.

  “Hello,” he said, looking surprised to see her. “New in Bent River?”

  “I’m Aurora.” She held out her hand rather formally, and felt awkward as soon as she had done it. The bartender looked from her to her hand as though she were an alien, and then shook it slowly.

  “It’s…er… almost 5am. I’m afraid we’re closed for drinks now,” the bartender said. “I’m personally just waiting for Beppe to wake up and head home.”

  “Oh, I just wanted a soda,” Aurora said. Then she turned around. “Beppe’s still here?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s not unusual - he’s been asleep all night in the corner. That man sleeps like the dead.” The bartender shook his head. “He’s a regular so I’m used to it. Wait, you know Beppe?”

  “I’m living with Joy Russo right now. Beppe’s her uncle.”

  “Ohhh. You’re Aurora then.” The bartender nodded.

  “You know me?” Aurora blinked.

  “Word travels fast around here.”

  “Well, by any chance did you know my grandfather?” Aurora asked. “Beppe mentioned that he used to live here.”

  “Hmmm. Sparks. Sparks. That’s an unusual last name. No I don’t think I knew a man like that. But I guess he was here before my time.” The bartender flashed her a grin.

  “B
efore yours, too, I’d guess. Years and years ago.”

  “Oh...” Aurora took a seat at the counter then looked over her shoulder at a booth in the far corner. Beppe was slumped over with his head in his hands.

  “I’m Cole, by the way.” The bartender flashed her another grin. “We’re practically neighbors now. I live not far from you. I guess we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.”

  “Ah.” Was he flirting with her? Aurora wasn’t sure. She was notoriously terrible at picking up hints and, at any rate, five o’clock in the morning with a murder on her mind wasn’t the best time.

  “Have you heard about what happened to Chip Goggins?” she asked.

  “Sure.” Cole nodded. “I got five phone calls already. Word is that James Russo finally did him in. Sad. I always liked Dr. Russo.”

  “Oh, he’s a doctor?”

  “And a really good one, too. He saved my dad’s life several times.” Cole sighed. “Of course, none of it worked out in the end. Dad passed away two years ago.” Cole shook his head.

  “I’m so sorry.” Aurora couldn’t help it. She put a sympathetic hand on top of his. “I’m really sorry. That’s hard. My mother passed three years ago and I still dream of her often.”

  Cole nodded. “Then you know how it feels.”

  Reaching under the counter he popped out a can of Coke and poured it into a glass with a lime. “That’s on the house…since you’re a new friend.”

  He was not flirting with her. Aurora could tell now. This was just a decent man.

  “Chip Goggins was my lawyer. Kind of,” Aurora said. “He’s the one who was executing Ricardo Ricci’s will.”

  “Oh, yeah…that will. You should have seen the chatter around town when we found out a total stranger owned half of Ricci House now.” Cole leaned over the counter. “Why did he leave it to you?”

  “No idea,” Aurora admitted. “But do you think that can have anything to do with Chip’s death? I mean, could it be why Dr. Russo killed him?”

  The thought hadn’t occurred to Aurora before but, now that it did, shivers ran down her spine. Just how badly did the Russos want that house? Was her life in danger?

  “Oh, no. I’m sure that’s not it at all,” Cole said. “Chip and James had a longstanding rivalry. But that’s normal around here. It feels like every person in this town has a feud with someone or the other. Some people bowl as a hobby, some people like baseball. In Bent River, we like to feud.”

  “What happened between them?” Aurora asked, eager to know.

  “Well, if you’ll believe it, it all happened right in that booth.” Cole pointed a finger to where Beppe was now snoring contentedly. “My dad used to run this place back then. One day, about thirty-five years ago, Chip was at the bar, as usual, with two or three friends. Dr. James suddenly rushed in and grabbed him by the lapels. My dad said it wasn’t like the usual drunken fights we see around here. Dr. James was furious. He was shaking Chip like a handkerchief in the wind and it took three men to break it up and hold him back. Nobody could figure out what it was about. In the end, they took it to the back alley, and Chip escaped with just a black eye and a nasty bump on the head.”

  “Wow,” Aurora said. “Sounds...”

  “Serious. I know.”

  “But what was it about?”

  “There’s all sorts of theories. I mean, Chip was a lawyer but he didn’t sue Doc. So the doc must have had something on him, right? People were speculating that maybe Doc’s wife, Maria, was involved somehow.”

  “Ah...” Aurora nodded. “An affair or something?”

  “I don’t know.” Cole shrugged. “I suppose it’s all going to come out now, don’t you think? I heard Maria was found in Chip’s house and that the doc is missing.”

  “Hmm.” Aurora felt a twinge of pity as she remembered how desperate Joy had been to get to her mother. Was it really possible that Joy’s parents were involved in something so horrible? A clock chimed from somewhere in the bar and Aurora’s brain began to wind down. Her eyes felt heavy with sleep. Yawning, she stretched her arms out wide.

  “Do you normally stay open all night?” Aurora asked. “Tough job.”

  “Well, I had some cleaning to do today. But normally we’re open all night on Fridays and Saturdays. We get a lot of folks from the nearby college,” Cole said. “They’re basically our lifeline, honestly. I could stay shut five days a week and do fine thanks to the college kids.”

  “Well, let’s hope they keep on coming.” Aurora tipped her glass to him then took a sip. “Does Beppe come by often?”

  Cole sighed. “I inherited him along with the bar, it feels like. He was one of Dad’s closest friends so he goes in and out with no questions, and beers are always on the house for him. Personally, I’ve told him a million times he needs to lay off the booze. Then again, with a story like his, who am I to judge?”

  “A story like his?” Aurora raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, you don’t know? Beppe’s one true love died in a car crash a long way back,” Cole said. “Pretty sad. I think part of him died with her, honestly. If it weren’t for his birds, I don’t know that he’d…” He paused. A long, thin beak was tapping at the window. Aurora laughed as she saw Philbert standing patiently outside.

  “This is a normal thing for you, isn’t it?” she asked with a giggle. “Ostriches tapping on your window at the break of dawn.”

  “Yep. Philbert is Beppe’s keeper, not the other way round,” Cole said. “That bird’s smarter than any human I ever met. More loyal, too.”

  “That bird’s a nuisance,” Aurora said. “He bullied me and tried to eat my cardboard boxes the other day.”

  Cole laughed. “I’d have liked to have seen that. Did you stand up to him?”

  “If running away counts as standing up then, yes, I did.” Aurora stretched again. “Do you need help loading him up on Philbert’s back? Or, better yet, maybe you could load him into my car. I can take him back to Joy’s. Does he even know about his sister being arrested?”

  “I’m not sure. He wasn’t very talkative tonight,” Cole said. “He was weirdly moody.”

  “You said he’s been fast asleep for a while, right?” Aurora asked.

  “Yes, but that’s not unusual for Beppe. He works all sorts of odd hours and wanders in when he pleases. The man doesn’t know what a circadian rhythm is.” Cole gave her a sudden, sharp glance. “Why? You’re not suspecting him of something, are you?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Aurora said. She hadn’t, either. Beppe had seemed perfectly harmless, if a little eccentric. Surely he was incapable of murder. Wasn’t he?

  “Wait a minute!” she yelped suddenly. “You said Beppe’s one true love died in a car accident?”

  Cole nodded.

  “But Beppe told me he was never married. He said he and Chip Goggins were the only bachelors in town. He told me marriage is a horrible thing all around.”

  Cole gave her the patient look he’d otherwise have given a pup he was training. “A man can be in love without being married, you know.”

  Aurora was speechless for a moment. “I see,” she finally managed.

  “Again, this is from very long ago so I hope I’m getting all the details right. The girl was my mom’s cousin, apparently, and my dad’s the one who told me the whole story,” Cole explained. “So, as far as I know, Beppe was in love with this girl named Lauren Sullivan when he was young. Madly in love. But she was a traditionalist. A very sweet, simple girl. She wanted Beppe to ask her father’s permission before she married him. And he did, but Lauren’s father refused. He supposedly said Beppe was a good-for-nothing and kicked him out of the house.”