Limoncello Yellow (Franki Amato Mysteries) (40 page)

"
Sure." She headed toward the kitchen.

Just as the light came on, Veronica let out a bloodcurdling scream.

I ran to the kitchen doorway and stopped dead in my tracks. Concetta was standing in the middle of the room wearing a full habit and surgical gloves, and she was holding a butcher knife to Veronica's throat.

I gasped.
"Concetta!"

"
Nice décor, Franki." She smirked. "What are you, a PI by day and a prostitute by night?"

Seeing the terror in Veronica
's eyes, I shouted, "Let her go!"

"
I don't think you're in any position to call the shots," she said with an eerie calm. "Now, why don't you come over here and sit at the kitchen table?"

I nodded and slowly did as I was told.
I knew from my police training that I needed to try to establish a rapport with a hostage-taker so that he or she wouldn't see me as a threat. But there was one glaring problem with that tactic. Veronica and I
were
threats to Concetta because we were the only ones standing in the way of her freedom. As I took a seat, I fervently hoped that Veronica was still armed. Then I saw the rope on the table.

Concetta walked Veronica directly behind me.
"Okay, take a piece of rope and start tying the big one up."

The big one? It wasn
't enough that she was probably going to kill me, she had to insult me too?

"
And don't try any tricks, either. If you don't tie those knots nice and tight, you're a goner."

As Veronica tied my hands behind my back, I glared at Concetta over my shoulder.
"What did you do with my dog?"

She looked at me like I was an idiot.
"I let him out. I'm allergic."

I
prayed she was telling the truth. If she'd hurt Napoleon, I could never live with myself. That is,
if
I lived.

"
Why don't you let us go, Concetta?" Veronica asked. "You're in enough trouble, as it is."

Concetta let out a hysterical laugh.
"I'm not in any trouble. You'd think that would be painfully clear by now to you two crackerjack PIs."

I knew I had to keep her talking in hopes that she would get distracted and slip up somehow.
"We know you killed Angelica, and the police know it too. Veronica brought them the video file that shows you bought the murder weapon."

Concetta sneered.
"You're bluffing. If she'd stopped to drop off the video, she wouldn't be here with you now, would she?"

She had me there.

Concetta pushed Veronica to the floor and threw a rope at her head. "Tie her feet!"

As Veronica began threading the rope around my ankles, I said,
"We have proof that you did it, Concetta."

She smiled to herself.
"
You
do. But the police don't."

I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. That last comment didn
't bode well for Veronica and me.

"
You're right, though," she continued in a strangely chatty tone. "I did kill Angie."

I felt Veronica tighten the knot around my ankles.

"Get up!" Concetta ordered through clenched teeth. Then she pulled Veronica up by the hair, causing her to cry out in pain.

She held the knife at Veronica
's neck with her right hand as she began checking the knots with her left to make sure they were tied properly. Once she was satisfied that they were tight enough, she shoved Veronica into the table. "Now take a seat!"

Veronica stumbled and fell into a chair, and we exchanged a
frightened look across the table. If Concetta tied up Veronica, we were goners.

After carefully selecting a length of rope, Concetta continued to hold the knife in her hand as she began tying Veronica
's wrists behind her back.

I immediately began working my hands and wrists, trying to loosen the rope. Under threat of death from Concetta, Veronica had tied the knots tightly, so I could move each wrist only a fraction of an inch. To make matters worse, the rope was cutting into my flesh.

When Concetta had finished tying Veronica's hands, she picked up the conversation where she'd left off. "I had to do it. Angie knew Stewart had strangled Imma, but she wouldn't testify against him. She let those horrible people buy her silence so that she could get herself a degree, designer clothes, and a career in the fashion industry, all courtesy of the Preston family. But, of course, that wasn't the only reason I killed her."

"
What other reason would you have?" Veronica asked over her shoulder.

Concetta took another piece of rope from the table and knelt down to tie Veronica
's feet. "You're both Italian, so you should know about the concept of vendetta. It's a question of honor," she explained, her eyes distant, as though she were talking to herself.

As soon as she said vendetta, I was reminded of
the word
vendicata
that Domenica had spray-painted on Immacolata's tombstone. "Did Domenica know you killed Angelica?"

"
Of course not," she replied, giving a final tug on a knot. "In case you haven't noticed, my little sister's not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree."

"
Then why did she spray paint that Immacolata had been avenged on her tombstone?" I asked.

Concetta stood up.
"She was celebrating the fact that Angie was strangled with a scarf the same way that Stewart strangled Imma."
              As she spoke, I continued working my wrists, but I didn't seem to be making any headway. I desperately hoped that Veronica was making more progress.

"
Angelica hated cheap scarves and the color yellow," I said. "Is that why you chose the yellow-bordered polyester scarf?"

Concetta smirked.
"I wanted her to see yellow and feel cheap fabric on her skin as she was dying. I had to make sure that the last thought she ever had in her wretched life was that she was nothing but a two-bit coward, just like her dad."

"
What do you mean?" Veronica asked.

Concetta
's eyes opened wide in shock. "Isn't it obvious? Angie ran out on her best friend for money! Instead of paying her own way through school and trying to work her way up from the bottom, she did it all the easy way. She kept her mouth shut at the trial so she could get her education and her career bought and paid for."

"
And to get even with Stewart, you planted the bead from his bracelet at the scene of the crime," I said.

Her eyes twinkled gleefully as she looked at me.
"Yeah, and by the way, he was telling you the truth tonight when he said I'd stolen that bracelet from his apartment."

Veronica gasped.
"You were at the Carousel Bar? But we would have seen you in your habit!"

I stared at Concetta, openmouthed. So Stewart had been telling the truth about the stalking too.

She smiled condescendingly at Veronica and gave her a mock sad look, as though she were nothing but a pathetic fool. "I've been following the two of you since you took the case, genius. And I definitely know how to dress for the occasion. I was sitting on the couch right behind Stewart, with my back to him, and not a one of you was astute enough to see me."

I was stunned. So she
had
been following me that day I saw her at CC's Community Coffee, and who knows where else. "But I don't understand why you would frame Stewart. Why didn't you kill him like you killed Angelica?"

She rolled her eyes at my apparent ignorance.
"Because Stewart is different than Angie. For him, there's actually a fate worse than death—rotting day after day, year after year in prison, cut off from his money and privilege and, most importantly, from women and partying. And since those imbeciles on the jury acquitted him of Imma's murder, I had to make sure there was another murder he would be found guilty of."

Veronica shook her head and wrinkled her mouth in disgust.
"How could you, an ordained nun, take another human life?"

Concetta looked at Veronica, her lips curled in contempt.
"You have no idea what it's like to lose a twin. After Imma was gone I felt lost without her, empty. At first I naively thought the Lord would fill me up. But then one day I finally realized that I couldn't faithfully serve a god who had allowed my sister to be murdered by a lowlife like Stewart Preston."

Any shred of hope I
'd had that she might spare Veronica and me was lost with that statement.

"
Plus, if you'd known Angie," Concetta continued, "you would have probably killed her too. She was something else, that one. I mean, take the night I strangled her. When I showed up at LaMarca with that scarf, I presented it to her as a gift. Being the bitch that she was, she ripped open the package, took one look at the scarf, and said it was ugly and tacky, just like me."

Concetta stared at the floor for a moment, and then she began to laugh.
"If you could have seen the horrified look on her face when she finally realized that I'd come there to strangle her with that scarf!" She cackled, tears streaming from her eyes as she slapped her knee. "Priceless!"

I couldn
't bear to listen to her laugh about the last moments of Jessica's life, particularly when Veronica and I were facing the last moments of our own. "So what are you going to do to us?" I asked.

"
Well, the first thing I'm going to do is search your cars for the video you got at Lenton's." She looked directly at me. "Yes, I followed you there too. Then I'll dispose of the disc and the skull bead, which I found in your nightstand. And tsk tsk, Franki. Such an obvious hiding place.

I shot her a go-to-hell look.

"After that, I'm going to go call the police and say that when I was driving through the area, I saw a masked intruder leaving your apartment. In theory, he would have exited through your bedroom window, Franki. The same one I broke to get into your little bordello here."

"
What excuse are you going to give them for being in the neighborhood?" Veronica asked.

"
I'll tell them I was coming to talk to the two of you since you were investigating the murder of my twin and her best friend." Then with a wicked grin she added, "And I can tell you this. The New Orleans PD doesn't usually question the motives of a nun. And if they did, thanks to my gloves here and this handy coif on my head, they certainly won't find my fingerprints or DNA in this whorehouse."

Her gloating made me so angry and so frustrated that I alternated between wanting to cry and wanting to scream
bloody murder. And it was becoming more apparent by the second that I was powerless to stop her. My hands were turning numb, and I was no closer to freeing them. And judging from the sick look on Veronica's face, she wasn't faring any better. The situation was looking pretty grim. In a last ditch effort to buy some time, I said, "You still haven't said what you're going to do with us."

"
Oh, that's because I like drama." She giggled.

I held my breath in anticipation.

Concetta suddenly struck a thoughtful pose, her index finger on her cheek. "One night I asked myself, 'What would be a fitting end for two busybody PIs who kept sticking their necks out to help that awful Ryan Hunter and that scumbag Stewart Preston?' Of course, whatever it was," she began with a wave of her hand, "it had to be symbolic. I mean, once a Catholic, always a Catholic, right?" She chuckled.

Veronica snorted contemptuously.

The smile quickly faded from Concetta's face, and she studied Veronica intently. After a moment, she resumed speaking. "The answer actually came to me in prayer," she explained. Then she placed the butcher knife on the counter, reached into the deep pocket of her habit and pulled out a dark red scarf. "Strangulation!"

Concetta carefully wound the red scarf around each of her gloved hands and walked toward Veronica. A
devilish smile spread across her face. "You first, Miss Private Chicks, Incorporated!"

"
Wait!" I shouted in a desperate attempt to stall. "Don't you want to tell us what the red scarf means? Otherwise, the symbolism will be lost on us."

She rolled her eyes.
"Well, if you read the bible, Franki, you'd know what it meant. But judging from this den of iniquity, it's pretty clear that you don't spend your leisure time perusing the word of the Lord."

"
I just haven't unpacked my bible yet," I mumbled. I mentally made a quick promise to God that I'd redecorate if he let me live.

"
Red is the color of Christ's blood," Concetta continued in a patronizing tone. "It symbolizes atonement for one's sins, so as you can see—"

"
How have
we
sinned?" Veronica interrupted, her eyes blazing with anger.