I knew the Moretti brothers by reputation long before I met Chiara. One of the first stories I heard when I moved back after my brief absence was how five local boys took out a werewolf that tried to kill their sister and her date. I’d been surprised because I thought that a secret government agency had taken out all the local werewolves back in the 1890s, but I guess one or two always slip the net.
Anyhow, the Moretti brothers handled the werewolf with extreme prejudice, and that’s what got Chiara into the business of hunter support. Yeah, the cops tried to tell them that it was really just a hippie high on meth, but all the therapy in the world wasn’t going to change their minds about what they saw that night.
Apparently, Chiara had told her brothers about me because I got a warm welcome when I walked into the house. The Moretti’s home was one of the two-and-a-half-story WWII vintage houses that are everywhere in these parts, solidly comfortable and middle class, like their owners. I knew Chiara’s mother was devout, and from the Virgin Mary statue in the front yard to the religious bric-a-brac, that hadn’t changed.
I’d had a bit of a chip on my shoulder before I arrived, knowing that not all of Chiara’s family accepted her marriage to Blair. But I was blown away by how friendly everyone was and how easily I got sucked into the jokes and chit-chat. If Blair felt uneasy, she hid it well, lounging on one of the well-worn couches with an arm slung over Chiara’s shoulder talking hunting gossip with Eddie and Carmen.
Nonna Lucia sat straight-backed and imperious in a rocking chair, with her dark gray hair swept up in a bun and a shawl around her shoulders. She might have been pushing eighty, but I had the feeling she could still put me in my place like a whelp. Nonno Carlo sat near her on the couch, holding a dark-haired toddler who was sucking her thumb.
Chiara’s mother, Maria Louise, bustled around the kitchen and dining room like a general in an apron, directing her daughters-in-law who snapped to do her bidding. She was a wiry woman with classic good looks that did not wilt even in the heat of a hot kitchen, and I respected the work she and her husband had put into maintaining their foodie empire. Jimmy Moretti, Chiara’s father, stood in the doorway to the dining room holding a beer, deep in conversation with Michael.
I drifted over to the side, observing and feeling a little unsure. Part of me felt a sudden, unexpected stab of loneliness. Lara and I didn’t have kids, and her family lived out in the Eastern side of the state, but before that damned hunting trip, Sunday dinner at my dad’s place wasn’t that much different. My mom died when Sean and I were in middle school, but Dad had been a cook in the Army, and he enjoyed a good pot roast as much as anyone. Sure, he could only cook about three different meals and grill steaks or burgers, but no one ever left the table hungry, and his homemade pierogies were to die for.
“Drink up.” Tony pushed a beer into my hand and grinned. “I see Chiara finally dragged you into our dramatic family dinners. God, I hope you took Valium before you left home.”
I took a long pull from the cold beer and sighed in contentment. “I think I’ll manage.”
“Chiara tells us all about you, you know,” Tony confided. “Mama and Papa don’t know about her side business, but we do. Baby Girl doesn’t keep secrets from us.”
I chuckled at the thought that anyone got away with using that nickname for Chiara. Then again, her brothers—even Michael, the prick—seemed pretty hard-core about family. I could respect that. “I imagine she makes it sound much more interesting. Mostly, I end up covered in mud and bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Tony looked like he would have said more, but Jimmy had moved to the end of the dining room table and clinked his spoon against his wine glass. “Dinner’s served!”
Everyone scurried to their places as if the food might run out, although from the bounty of dishes on the table, I couldn’t imagine how we could ever make a dent. It looked amazing and smelled like heaven.
Chiara winked at me and settled in next to Nonno, with Blair to her right. I sat next to Blair. The meal was raucous, filled with good-natured jibes, family gossip, updates on a dizzying number of cousins whom I didn’t even try to keep track of, and some heated banter about the Steelers’ draft picks. I took it all in, shoveling food into my mouth like a starving man, because damn, this was fine fodder. Lucia and Maria Louise noticed and gave me an approving nod. If food was love, then I felt utterly embraced.
Of course, dessert was as magnificent as the meal. The Moretti bakery hadn’t built its reputation for nothing. Plate after plate of fresh-baked treats came from the kitchen, and I might have had to unbutton my pants, but I enthusiastically indulged.
Throughout it all, Chiara and Blair chatted up Nonno Carlo, asking about his weekly dominos game at the Italian Club, and how his friends at the Masons or the Elk Club fared, all the while keeping him plied with wine. Lucia looked on with an eagle eye, not missing a trick, but permitting it to happen. I didn’t want to even start to plumb the complexities of Moretti family politics, but despite her family’s ambivalence about her partner, it was clear that Chiara was the cherished baby girl of the family, a super-power she wielded with clear knowledge of its devastating effects.
Once we were all sated with food and wine, Chiara leaned forward, resting her chin on her interlaced fingers. “Nonno,” she said, “I heard a rumor that back in the day, a stregone whacked a guy out on the old Erie-Lackawanna line. Is it true?”
Carlo leaned back and slid her a sidelong look. “Well now, that’s going back a while,” he said, folding his gnarled hands in front of him. “Not that I know anything I didn’t hear secondhand, you understand—”
“Of course,” Chiara replied with a completely straight face.
“But depending on how far back you go, the only guy I ever heard might have pissed people off enough to call in a stregone would be Vinnie Three-Nuts.”
I nearly choked on my wine. “Did you say—”
Carlo nodded. “Yeah. Might have been because his last name was Trinotti. Or maybe he was just especially blessed. Who knows? But he was brash and loud, always calling attention to himself, getting into trouble.” His voice dropped to a confidential tone. “The bosses, they don’t like that, you know.”
I’d seen The Godfather and Goodfellas. I knew that wasn’t good.
“So what happened?” Chiara asked with rapt attention. No stretch of the imagination to guess she had Nonno wrapped around her little finger. Also no stretch to think perhaps the story might not be as hearsay as the old man wanted us to think.
“Vinnie kept getting in fights, roughing people up who didn’t need it, and the Don finally got tired of it. Because Vinnie, he wouldn’t listen to the warnings, and the Don didn’t like to repeat himself,” Carlo said. “But Vinnie was a hit man, so how do you hit a hit man?”
“With a witch?” I asked.
Carlo pointed thumb and forefinger at me like a gun, and for a second, those watery blue eyes had perfect clarity. I tried not to shudder. “Got it in one,” he replied, and I wondered if he guessed that I had primed Chiara to ask.
“And then what happened?” Chiara prompted, and Carlo’s attention returned to her. I felt like I’d gotten a reprieve.
“Well, it depends on who you hear tell the story,” Carlo replied. “According to what I heard, and this was back around the time it happened, Vinnie went out to do a job on one of the trains that left outta Meadville. Back then, trains were comin’ and goin’ day and night, ’cause of the War, you know? Lotsa places up here made parts for the military or tools or nylon, so the yards were always full o’ trains. So Vinnie goes to do the job, and he doesn’t come back.”
“They ever find his body?” Tony asked.
Carlo shrugged. “A few days later. The Don made sure he had a nice funeral, lotsa flowers, a nice gift to the Church in his name, and a ‘bereavement gift’ to his wife.”
“So the guy who fixed his hit sent flowers to his funeral?” I sputtered.
Carlo looked at me like I was slow. “That’s how business was done. People had class.”
Chiara kicked me under the table, and I took a mouthful of wine. “What happened to the stregone?” she asked, once again diverting attention from my inappropriate question.
“Don’t know. Don’t want to know. Guys like that, you wanna stay as far away from as you can.” He turned to address that last sentence to me. I gulped more wine.
“Why do you ask, baby girl?” Carlo said after a long, uncomfortable silence.
“They’re tearing up one of the old rail lines and making a walking trail. People got telling stories, and I heard bits and pieces. Figured you’d remember,” Chiara replied, managing to look big-eyed and innocent.
Carlo didn’t look like he believed her for one second, but he let it go. “I’ve always been a good Catholic,” he said, lifting his chin. “But in my time, I’ve seen some things that they don’t talk about in church. The stregone, they’re real. Nothing to fool with. Some stories are better forgotten.”
With that, Lucia and Maria Louise rose to get fresh coffee, and I tugged at my collar. The conversation drifted back to local gossip and sports, and before long, Chiara and Blair rose, which was my cue.
“Gotta get back home. Store opens early tomorrow,” Blair said. Chiara gave a round of hugs and kisses to her family, some of whom embraced Blair as well, while others just nodded and kept their distance. Their loss, I figured. I shook hands with the men and complimented the women on the food.
Carlo held my hand a bit more firmly and longer than necessary. “You’re the ghost hunter guy,” he said in a voice pitched low for me alone.
“That’s me.”
“The stregone who killed Vinnie was Johnny Vasili. If he’s still alive, Don Giordano will know. He’d be older than me. But still dangerous, you hear?”
I nodded.
“You didn’t find none of this out from me,” Carlo continued in a smoker’s rough whisper. “But Vinnie was a friend. Batshit crazy, but he did me a good turn now and again. He didn’t deserve what he got from that witch. Send him on, and tell him Carlo said ‘hello.’”
“I’ll do my best,” I replied, hoping I sounded less freaked out than I felt. Carlo slapped me on the shoulder with a big paw that almost made me stagger.
“Good for you,” he said, and then passed by me to go light a cigar on the back stoop.