eighteen

Omigod. It was Lance’s family from the wall photo—the ones I’d facetiously nicknamed Frankie Two Fingers and Sammy the Snitch.

“What’d you say your name was?” asked Dick Teig.

“Maria Cacciatore,” she repeated, the hard vowels of her New Jersey accent piercing the air like darts.

“Like the chicken?” Margi called out. “Chicken cacciatore was one of my mother’s favorite Sunday dinner standbys, although I wasn’t too fond of the tomatoes, onions, peppers, or potatoes that went with it.”

“There are no potatoes in chicken cacciatore,” challenged Helen.

“Are so,” said Margi.

“Are not,” said Helen.

Acting on a subtle nod from Maria, Two Fingers and the Snitch removed the lumps from their pockets and aimed the barrels in the general vicinity of the cushy chairs and loveseats.

“Are those real guns?” questioned Alice.

“They can’t be,” insisted Osmond. “Handguns are outlawed in England.”

“Manufacturers certainly make authentic-looking toys these days,” said Lucille.

Maria nodded to the Snitch.

bang! He shot a hole in the floor an inch away from his feet.

“I bet that wasn’t a real bullet,” scoffed Grace.

Osmond sprang out of his chair. “Show of hands. How many— dang.” He slumped back down. “I keep forgetting.”

“Was that real ammo or a blank?” George called out.

Maria nodded to Two Fingers, who trained his gun on George.

“No!” I cried, sprinting in front of the furniture grouping with my arms spread wide like a human shield. “They’re real bullets. We believe you. Just…just no more shooting, okay?”

Nana raced out of the kitchen to the lounge, her tone scolding. “Keep it down in here, would ya? Jackie’s got a mousse in the oven.” She glanced at me. She glanced at the newcomers. She gave a little suck on her uppers. “Are them guns real?”

“yes!” I yelled before the boys took aim again. “They’re real, and they’re loaded.”

She fisted her hands on her hips. “Didn’t no one tell you fellas that guns what look like them are illegal over here?”

“Rules don’t apply to us,” Maria allowed. “We make our own.”

“Hey, Ma,” Two Fingers enthused. “She’s got a moose in the oven. I’ve never tasted moose. Can we stay ’til it’s done?”

“Yoohoo!” Helen waved her hand over her head. “Excuse me. I think there’s been a misunderstanding. Mousse is never baked in the oven. It’s always chilled in the refrigerator.”

“So the old broad lied?” said Two Fingers, sneering.

Maria smacked the back of his head with her open palm. “What’d I teach you? You never ever disrespect your elders. Now apologize to the lady.”

Two Fingers lowered his gaze in repentance. “Sorry.”

“This question is for Marion,” Margi jumped in. “If moose is on the menu for tonight, can we make substitutions?”

“No substitutions,” huffed Dick Stolee. “Remember? Marion said if we started complaining, she’d stop cooking, so you’d better well eat what she puts in front of you.”

Nana let out a disdainful snort. “Just so’s you know, the mousse what Jackie’s got in the oven isn’t no hunk of meat. It’s a chocolate mousse cake that don’t need no chillin’.”

“Oh, thank God,” choked Margi. “I was worried what the antlers might do to my dental work.”

“Chocolate cake, Ma,” Two Fingers pleaded. “That’s even better. Can we stay now?”

My ears perked up at the sound of footsteps running down the hallway, but before I could think of a way to send up a warning flare, Wally appeared with August, Spencer, Mason, and Kathryn bunched up behind him. “Did I just hear a gunshot?” He ground to a sudden stop when he spied the guns. “Holy hell. Are those—”

“They’re real!” I cried, cutting him off.

Up went his hands. “I surrender.” Up went the bloggers’ hands. “They surrender, too.”

“It might be too late to ask now,” said Margi, “but when the two boys flashed their weapons, were we supposed to put our hands up?”

“Will you put a lid on it?” growled Dick Teig.

Maria extended a hand toward Wally and the bloggers. “Please. I invite you to take a seat. Including you,” she said to Nana. “There. Is everyone here?”

“What about the one cooking the moose?” asked the Snitch.

Maria snapped her fingers, which sent him galumphing toward the kitchen. “Hey, Ma,” he said, pausing as he passed the sideboard. “There’s a picture of us hanging up on the wall here. A real nice one. Youse oughta see it.”

“Am I in it?” asked Two Fingers as he lumbered off for an apparent look-see.

Maria grabbed his arm. “One more step and I’ll take that gun away and use it on you myself. Get back where you were.”

“Geez, Ma,” he whined, slinking back to her side. “Youse know what a picture buff I am.”

Jackie marched into the lounge at gunpoint, with her hands up and a horrified expression on her face. “I’m well aware that you’re holding me at gunpoint,” she railed at the Snitch, “but when my timer goes off, will you at least let me check my cake for doneness? It’s my first ever and I’ll die if it’s overcooked.”

Given the situation, I wondered if another idiom might have been more appropriate.

Jackie and I got hustled into a loveseat together while Maria assumed center stage. “For the newcomers in the group, I’m Maria Cacciatore, and I want to know which one of you killed my boy Anthony.”

“Who’s Anthony?” asked Helen.

“Anthony Cacciatore.”

“Like the chicken?” questioned Dick Stolee.

I hung my head and slapped my hands over my face.

“He changed his name,” wisecracked the Snitch. “He was gonna be a big-shot chef, so he wanted a name with more star power.”

Two Fingers screwed his mouth into a sour contortion. “Somethin’ that would look good trending on the frickin’ Twittersphere.”

“He ripped his mother’s heart out of her chest,” Maria wailed, clutching her hands over her bosom as if to hide the wound. “Trashing the name his own father gave him the day he was baptized. Sacrilege!” She paused in counterpoint. “Of course, that no- good SOB father of his didn’t care that I already had a name for the baby. Why should he ask me? Me—who blew up like an air mattress the minute his sperm landed. Me—who had to wear flipflops all winter because I couldn’t squeeze my fat sausage feet and ankles into my shoes. But according to him, he was the one who suffered for nine long months because he had to share his bed with the Goodyear Blimp.”

“Right on, sister! Men are such pigs,” Jackie blurted, amending her outburst when Two Fingers and the Snitch redirected the barrels of their guns at her. “I hope you know I mean that in a general sense. Not specifically…or literally.”

Two Fingers wrinkled his brow as he riveted his gaze on her. “What?”

Maria cuffed the side of his head. “Quiet. I’m talking. So when we get to the church for the christening, Mr. I’ve Had To Suffer For So Many Months says, ‘We’re namin’ the kid Anthony, after me.’ No negotiation. No back and forth. Whatever Anthony said was law. The no-good SOB.” Her voice oozed bitterness.

“What name had you picked out for him?” I asked in a feeble attempt at hostage cordiality.

Her face brightened. “I was going to call him Caesar.”

“Like the salad?” asked Dick Stolee.

“Like the conqueror,” she fired back. “I imagined him taking his place as the head of all the families one day. Just like the Roman emperor. Caesar Cacciatore.” She smiled beatifically. “Besides, I liked the alliteration.”

All the families? Holy crap. I was getting a very bad feeling about this—even worse than I’d had before.

“But my firstborn, my Anthony, does he want to become head of the families? No. He wants to cook. Wants to be like his idol, Julia Child. So he needs to change his name. He likes Lance, he tells me. Lance Tori. It’s more streamlined, he says. More efficient. Three syllables instead of seven, just like Julia Child. He rips my heart out of my chest again.”

“And starts batting for the other team,” sniggered the Snitch.

Maria whacked his head. “You don’t ever laugh at your brother.”

“Excuse me?” Margi waved her hand. “Have you read any of the recent medical reports on concussions?”

“My Anthony was a good son. Smart. Focused. Articulate, if you could get past the lisp. I didn’t do right by him when he told me he switched teams. I reacted like that no-good SOB father of his would have acted instead of behaving like the mother who loved him. I never should have done that.” Her eyes screamed regret. “I’ve been paying for it ever since.” She wagged a cautionary finger at the gang. “A mother should never turn her back on a son because, in the end, she’s the one who suffers the most. And now, because of someone in this room, I can’t even tell him I’m sorry. I have to spend the rest of my life living in guilt. So…which one of you killed him?”

I inched my hand into the air.

“You?” Maria bellowed, snapping her fingers at the boys to take action.

“No! I only want to ask a question.”

Snitch scuffed his foot on the floor in disappointment. “Mother#!&*#!” he spat.

Maria whacked him harder. “You’re not too old to have your mouth washed out with soap, mister.”

“I’d really make a point of reading those concussion reports if I were you,” advised Margi.

I took a chance and stood up, hoping to ease the chaos. “Enyon mentioned that since Lance had been disowned by his family, he didn’t feel obligated to notify you of his death. Did he change his mind and call you?”

“I read it in the blogs,” said Two Fingers. “It was in all my favorites: Knife and Fork, Will Travel; the Ten-Dollar-a-Day Traveler; Standard Suite, Please. And he didn’t just die, he got whacked. Hey.” He jerked to attention as if he’d just been electrocuted by the light bulb that went on over his head. “I just thoughta somethin’. They’re here in this room—all the famous bloggers. Where are youse hiding?”

August, Spencer, and Mason elevated their hands with the enthusiasm of volunteers being asked to serve as targets for live-round firing squad practice.

“Look, Ma. It’s my bloggers!” Two Fingers thrust his hand inside his jacket, pulling out not a bigger gun, but what looked like a wrinkled merchandise receipt. “Can I have youse autographs? I love youse guys.”

“I have a pen,” offered Helen, reaching into her pocket. “Anyone need it?” She flashed the implement into the air.

“That’s not a pen,” rasped Dick. “It’s your eyebrow pencil.”

“No autographs,” Maria snapped at Fingers. “Not until the guilty party fesses up.”

Sidelong glances. Quiet gulps.

Wally joined the discourse. “The constable in charge of the investigation hasn’t found any evidence linking anyone in this room to Lance’s death, Mrs. Cacciatore. No motive. No fingerprints. No opportunity. Nothing.”

Had I told Wally about Kathryn’s no-good SOB ex-husband, the chef? Maybe not.

“So if you’re planning to hold us at gunpoint until someone confesses, you could be in for a very long wait.”

Maria lifted her brows nonchalantly. “Do we look like we’re in a hurry?”

“How’d you get those guns into the country anyway?” razzed Dick Teig.

“We didn’t have to get them into the country,” said Maria. “They were already here. You think we don’t have associates in the UK? We have a whole network in place that’s part of our global initiative.”

“Did your associates tell you about the reputation Lance had earned for himself in the village?” asked Tilly in her professor’s voice. “He feuded with everyone: the merchants, the fishermen, complete strangers. He was possessed of a violent temper that apparently erupted like Old Faithful on a daily basis.”

“He got that from his father,” defended Maria. “The no-good SOB.”

“It’s quite obvious he didn’t inherit the trait from you,” flattered Tilly. “So might I suggest you may be barking up the wrong tree by accusing someone in this room of your son’s murder? Because there’s an entire village a few miles away from here whose residents shed no tears when he passed away.”

“How do you know that?” challenged Maria.

Tilly sighed. “Google search. Shall I send you a link?”

“Would anyone mind terribly if I dashed into the kitchen to see how my cake is doing?” asked Jackie.

“No one leaves the room,” warned Maria.

“Ever?” croaked Margi.

“What if we gotta use the potty?” asked Nana. “We’re old. We got plumbin’ issues.”

“Quiet!” Maria rubbed her temples as if she were suffering from sensory overload with a migraine chaser.

“What if they got cell phones, Ma?” fretted Snitch. “They could call the police while they’re in the can.”

Maria cast a suspicious look at us. “Yes. They. Could.” She punched Two Fingers in the arm. “You leaving everything to your brother now? How come you didn’t think of that?”

“Much better,” commended Margi, bursting into applause.

“Lemme see your cell phones,” Maria demanded. “And don’t pull any funny business and try to hide ’em. My boys don’t take kindly to cheats.”

I raised my phone over my head with reluctance, unsure of how we’d message anyone for help now. With a nod from their mother, Fingers and Snitch collected my phone as well as Jackie’s, Wally’s, and the bloggers’ and piled them on the dining table.

“What about the rest of you?” Maria eyed the gang. “You expect me to believe that not one of you has a cell phone?”

“They’re in our bags,” Helen offered helpfully. “Technically, we have them, but we’re not using them, so that’s pretty much the same as not having them, isn’t it?”

The boys methodically unzipped every suitcase and removed every phone, adding them to the stack on the dining table. “Hey, Ma, shouldn’t we stow these things someplace to keep ’em safe?” asked Snitch.

“That’s why we had them in our luggage,” deadpanned Helen.

“Empty out one of their suitcases and dump ’em all inside,” instructed Maria. “Then lock it up tight.” She regarded the suitcases scattered about the room. “Do you people schlep those things around with you everywhere you go? Even on day trips?”

“We do now,” said Dick Teig.

Maria shook her head. “And here I was complaining about a fanny pack. Geesh.”

The boys emptied the contents of Osmond’s small suitcase onto a chair and refilled it with our phones. “Where’s the key to lock it?” Fingers asked him.

“Back home on my bureau dresser,” said Osmond. “In my coin dish.”

“This one’s lyin’, Ma.” Finger’s mouth began to twitch with barely suppressed excitement. “Can I break his little finger?”

“No!” I sprang from my seat, but Jackie yanked me back down. “He’s not lying. None of us use keys anymore. The TSA wants luggage accessible for random inspection, so we simply don’t lock them. It saves a lot of hassle.”

Nana threw a long look at the boys. “You young fellas don’t get out much, do you?”

“Take your belts off,” barked Maria, gesturing to the entire room. She nodded to the boys. “Wrap the belts around the suitcase. Every single one of them. That’ll work better than locking it.”

She heaved a sigh as Fingers and Snitch whipped their belts out of their pant loops. “Not your belts, you morons. Their belts.”

I regretted that Bernice wasn’t here. She and Maria probably would have gotten along famously.

After Osmond’s suitcase had been wrapped tighter than a ball of rubber bands and placed on the dining table like a Christmas ham, Jackie stood up. “May I please be excused to check my cake now? If not, I hope you’ll be willing to accept blame when my masterpiece hardens into an inedible charcoal briquette.”

Maria looked her up and down. “There’s something about you I can’t quite put my finger on.” She canted her head. “You’re very tall, aren’t you?” Then, gesturing to Fingers: “Go with her.”

At the sound of car engines, Snitch darted to the window overlooking the parking lot. “It’s cars, Ma. Like a whole convoy of ’em. One, two, three, four cars and a big passenger van. Five vehicles.”

He’d go far with math skills like that.

“Whadda youse want me to do?”

“See what they want, then get rid of them.”

“You mean, waste ’em?”

“I mean see why they’re here, then make up an excuse to turn them away. Do you have an excuse ready?” she questioned as he turned away from the window.

“Yeah. I’m gonna tell ’em they can’t come in because we’re holding a bunch of old people hostage until one of ’em fesses up to killin’ my brother and we put a bullet in his brain.”

Maria inhaled a deep breath. “That’s the truth,” she explained patiently. “You don’t want to tell them the truth. You want to make up a reason why they can’t come in. Understand?”

“Ohhh. I get it now.”

“I’m not sure you do,” she said, sighing.

“Try this, junior,” suggested Dick Stolee. “Tell them all the guests have come down with measles, so the place is in quarantine.”

“That won’t work,” objected Margi. “Most people have been vaccinated against measles. Tell them we’ve had an isolated outbreak of super deadly tuberculosis.”

“Or an infestation of rats,” said Dick Teig. “Everyone hates rats.”

I rolled my eyes in disbelief. Yup. Feeding excuses to the Snitch was really helpful.

“What about mold?” asked George. “The black kind is toxic and can wreak havoc on your lungs.”

“Or fleas,” Lucille added. “Once they’re in your carpet, your life can become an itching, scratching hell.”

“Okay, okay.” Snitch headed for the door.

“Hide your gun!” ordered Maria.

“There it goes again.” Spencer cocked his head. “Don’t tell me you can’t hear it. You have to be able to hear it. God Almighty, it’s really loud.”

Maria lowered her brows, regarding him with suspicion. “What’s he hearing?”

“Dragons,” said Nana.

Snitch returned from his assignment without firing a single bullet. As car engines revved and faded from earshot, Snitch grinned at his mother. “How’d I do, Ma? Good, huh?”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told ’em the walls were crawling with mold so the place was in quarantine until we could all be vaccinated.”

He’d only been around the gang for a half hour and already he was suffering the effects.

“Why were they here? What did they want?”

“They were here because of the food they’ve been reading about on the blogs. They wanted dinner reservations, Ma. But here’s the best part: since I turned ’em away, there’ll be more food for us. When do we eat, anyway? I’m starvin’.”

Due to the rave reviews of her culinary skills, Nana was allowed to return to her cooking. The rest of us settled into an unspoken truce as seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned into quarter hours. Maria dragged a chair into the center of the floor where she could watch us with an eagle eye while resting her feet. Fingers remained in the kitchen, keeping an eye on Jackie and Nana as they provided more appetizers for the group and proceeded with dinner prep. Snitch’s role became twofold: turning away more carloads of people who’d read the blogs and hoped to eat at the inn, and accompanying guests to the loo. And even though the ladies needed to use the facilities on a regular basis, I noticed that the guys’ usage seemed to drop to an historic low. Probably because without their belts, their pants fell to their ankles every time they stood up.

With no cell phones to divert their attention, the gang was forced to invent other ways to entertain themselves. Dick Stolee and Grace engaged the masses by conducting a sing-along that included Hollywood musicals, folk songs, Christmas carols, and classic songs like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” that are sung in three-group rounds. Unfortunately, the activity came to an abrupt end when Osmond’s screechy flat notes caused so many people to cover their ears, he ended up singing all three staggered rounds of “Three Blind Mice” by himself.

Tilly started the memory game of “I Put Something in My Suitcase Starting with an A,” but that game came to a grinding halt when the gang refused to put anything in their suitcases other than their cell phones.

Helen asked if anyone recalled the first trip they’d taken as a group to Switzerland, which sparked a nostalgic walk down memory lane. Dick Stolee remembered my clunking him on the bridge of his nose with room deodorizer when he ran into the corridor of the Grand Palais Hotel with his CPAP paraphernalia still attached to his face. “I’ve still got a bump,” he said, removing his wire rims to flaunt it like a war wound. George recalled my diving into Lake Lucerne fully clothed in the fog to save him when he fell off the sightseeing boat. I remembered breaking my tooth on vegetable lasagna on top of Mount Pilatus and ending up with a funny lisp. Dick Teig recalled the nudies he’d seen on the spa beach in Titisee-Neustadt in Germany. Lucille recalled the angry words she’d exchanged with her husband, Dick number three, before he died near that very spa.

“I miss old Dick,” admitted Dick Teig in a moment devoid of self-absorption.

“I miss him, too,” sniffed Dick Stolee, struggling not to choke up.

“I don’t miss his practical jokes,” said Grace.

“Or his cockiness,” said Helen.

“Or his stinky cigar,” added Lucille. “Dead all these years and I still can’t get the smell out of the drapes.”

A smile split Osmond’s face. “How come we don’t talk about the good times we’ve had together anymore?”

They cast looks back and forth amongst themselves, completely stumped.

“I’ll tell you why you don’t talk anymore,” I piped up. “Because you don’t look up from your cell phones long enough to talk!”

“Emily?” Caroline crept into the lounge, still looking half-asleep. “Have I missed dinner?”

“Who’s this?” demanded Maria in an ominous tone. “Where’d she come from? Have you been holding out on me?” She motioned to Snitch. “Search the rooms. See if they’re hiding anyone else. And get your brother and those women in here on the double.”

But Snitch didn’t move. He stood anchored in place, staring at Caroline. “I know who she is, Ma. She’s the dame on the video.”

“What video?”

“The one where she’s taking all our money. I swear it. It’s her.”

“It can’t be her.” Maria speared Caroline with a piercing look. “She’s dead.”