Unknown Victim Read online

  “Stop where you are! This is the police!”

  When he kept going, she took after him, still shouting for him to stop. Somehow, her flashlight fell from her grip, clattering to the ground.

  Two more police cars skidded to stops in the parking lot. Her back up had finally arrived, but she couldn’t stop to tell them what was happening, she was that close to tackling the perp.

  Just as she was about to lunge, she saw something shiny and gray in his hand. She couldn’t risk grappling with an armed man. When he ducked into a dark corner, she took cover behind a telephone pole. That’s when she yelled to the responding officers where she was and what was going on.

  “Get bomb squad here now!” she yelled. “And stay out of the church! The bomb’s on the altar!”

  “Santoro, where’s your partner?” an officer called back.

  “Looking for Father Romano! The priest called this in and we can’t find him!”

  “What’re you doing over there?”

  “I’ve got the perp cornered! But I can’t see him. I need a pair of eyes and some light over here!”

  While two pairs of footsteps ran in her direction across the church’s empty parking lot, Gina spotted the man in the dark. All his clothes were dark, and something was wrapped around his head to hide his face. She raised her pistol and aimed it in his direction.

  “This is the police. I can see you! Raise your hands so I can see them!”

  The man’s hands slowly rose in the air, but he kept the pistol clutched in both hands.

  “Drop the gun!” she commanded. “Turn around! Show me your face!”

  When he turned, he made the mistake of lowering his hands, a threat if there ever was one.

  “Drop your weapon! Drop your weapon or I will shoot!”

  There was a flash and a gunshot cracked through the air. In only a split second, she aimed and fired.

  ***

  It took an hour before things were making sense at the church. The bomb squad had already left the scene, as had the responding units that Gina had called for. It had turned out that they were delayed because a city truck out sanding the streets in one direction and a snowplow going in the other direction blocked their progress. While Butch continued to explain to their field supervisor what had happened, Gina did her best to apologize to the priest.

  Already at the scene was a truck from the city, using a cherry picker lift to repair a transformer on the telephone pole,

  “You have no idea how sorry I am Father Romano, but you must understand you should’ve stopped running when I commanded you to. Why were you running, anyway?”

  “Too cold to walk, so I ran back to the rectory.” He smiled sheepishly in the dim light of the parking lot as he held the small package in his hand. “I wanted to get to my phone and call the police, you let you know you didn’t need to come.”

  “But I was yelling at you from just a few feet away, Father.”

  He tapped a fingertip on an ear. “Can’t hear a thing without my hearing aids. I’d already taken them out for the night. I didn’t hear anything until that transformer blew. I wish they’d fix that proper, because every time there’s a snow storm, it blows like that.”

  Gina figured that was the flash and crack of noise that she responded to, what made her fire her weapon. “Okay, why did you call for the police? Tell me about that again.”

  “I came out for one last smoke. Bad habit. Don’t start.”

  “Too late,” she said. “Tell me about finding the open door.”

  “Seeing it open, I called for the police. I was sure I’d locked everything and double-checked like I always do. When I went to take a look, I saw that it had been jimmied. Going inside, I bumped into a man just leaving.”

  “You should’ve waited for the police. Who was the man?”

  “Just a homeless fellow that comes for a meal occasionally. Perfectly harmless. He’d come into some money and wanted to repay the church’s hospitality by leaving a gift on the altar.” He held up the small package that had caused so much trouble. The duct tape on it made it reflect light, and that’s what Gina had thought was a gun during her foot chase. “This is supposed to be his Christmas gift to our Lord.”

  Butch and the field supervisor had joined Gina and the priest.

  “We better take a look and see what’s inside,” Butch said.

  The priest tore the simple wrapping and opened a small box. Inside was an old-fashioned bottle opener. The three men chuckled, but Gina was still feeling sick over almost shooting Father Romano.

  “I heard something about a damaged statue?” Sergeant Williams, their shift supervisor, said.

  Father Romano led the way to the small garden courtyard where a crime scene technician was just finding the bullet that Gina had fired. She barely noticed that, but instead looked at the shattered pieces of a statue on the ground. With barely any warning, her subtle sense of nausea turned into a real life event into the flowerbed that surrounded the marble statue of the Virgin Mary.

  Chapter One

  Gina compared the sizes of her two suitcases with the mound of stuff that needed to be packed into them, and wondered how it was all going to fit. Beginning with the most important items, clothing, she began to pack.

  Her sister Ana sat on the edge of the bed to watch. “Did you talk to Joey?”

  “Last night.”

  “You really broke up with him?”

  “Not much choice. I’ll be gone for a year. I couldn’t bring him with me, and I couldn’t pass on the job offer,” Gina said.

  “He didn’t want to go to Hawaii with you?”

  Gina considered where to put her tennis racket, on the top or bottom of the suitcase. “He doesn’t want to quit his job.”

  “Which job?” Ana giggled. “Weekends at the car wash, or his big construction job? Because nobody’s getting their car washed in Cleveland in December, and I haven’t seen many houses being built lately.”

  “As soon as his uncle gets a construction contract, Joey will be on the crew.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ana said sarcastically. “Maldonado Construction. There’s a dynamo of Little Italy business.”

  “Lay off Joey, okay? He had a hard time with breaking up.”

  “Not like Dad would’ve let you marry him.” Ana continued to watch Gina pack her bags. “I still don’t see why you’re moving so far away, Gigi.”

  “Because they were the only place wanting to hire me.”

  “Just come back to the force. You know you want to.”

  “Really?” Gina began taking things back out of the suitcase again. “You know what I want better than I do?”

  “No, I’m just saying you’re not a gardener. You belong on the police force.”

  “I’m not a gardener, I’m a fully educated and trained landscape horticulturist, and have the certificate to prove it. It took me two years of study and hard work to get that certificate. I’m putting it to good use, one way or another,” Gina said, packing books at the bottom of her suitcases. “I’ve been over this a hundred times at least, with you, with Mom, and with Dad. I’m not a cop anymore, and I don’t want to be a cop. The family has you as the next generation of police officer in our family since the birth of God. We don’t need me, on the force or in Cleveland.”

  “Don’t talk like that. Of course we need you!”

  “You still don’t understand. I need to get out of Cleveland more than you guys need me to stay here.” Gina stopped packing and sat next to her younger sister. Ana was already dressed in her police uniform, ready to go to work that day as a rookie officer in training. “Look, no one wants to hire me here. The name Gina Santoro has a bad rep attached to it these days. I can’t even get jobs mowing lawns, much less working at the arboretum or a nursery.”

  “Because it’s December, it’s twenty degrees, and lawns are frozen stiff. Better idea is to buy a snow blower and clean the sidewalks.” Ana’s smile was forced, at best. “Sorry, didn’t mean it to sound that way.”r />
  “In Hawaii, there’s a year-round growing season. They need people like me.”

  “Okay, tell me about the job one more time. It’s more than mowing lawns, right?”

  Gina got the website brochure she’d printed and handed it over. “The place is known as the Tanizawa Estate. It’s about a hundred years old, but nobody has lived on it in a long time. Now they want to open the old estate to the public as botanical display gardens. It’s close to some of the famous tourist spots in Honolulu and they’re hoping the place becomes an attraction.”

  “Tanizawa. That’s Japanese, isn’t it?”

  “That’s the name of the family that owns the land. I looked up the word. Apparently it means swampy valley.”

  “Trading winter lake effect for a swamp. Not much of an upgrade.” Ana continued to look at the full color pictures in the brochure. “Gigi, what do you know about Japanese gardens?”

  “It’s not so much about being a Japanese garden as it is tropical. I might be able to find an expert with the more difficult projects. I don’t have to know everything. I just need to be able to find experts who do. That much I learned in school.”

  “When was the last time you were in the tropics? Or saw a Japanese garden?”

  Gina snatched the brochure back and returned to packing her suitcase. “You gonna support me or be a toad like everyone else?”

  “Support you, of course. I just don’t see how an Italian that’s lived in Cleveland all her life will cope with Japanese gardens in the tropics.”

  “Trained and educated, remember? One way or another, I have a year to figure it out.”

  Ana sat watching for a few minutes. “It wasn’t your fault, you know.”

  Gina knew exactly what her sister had meant, and still didn’t want to talk about it. “What wasn’t?”

  “That night at the church. I’ve heard all about it from Butch and a couple other cops that were at the scene. All of them say you did everything by the book.”

  “Except that I didn’t completely and thoroughly identify the target I was aiming at before I fired.”

  Ana chuckled. “Maybe if you were a better shot, you might’ve hit your target.”

  “It was cold and my hands were frozen stiff. Because of that, I almost shot Father Romano! I missed him by inches.”

  “That’s what counts, Gigi. Nobody got hurt.”

  “I shot the Virgin Mary instead!” Gina zip-closed the suitcase. “I still can’t believe I blew away the Virgin.”

  “Nonsense. It was a statue of the Virgin, and you only clipped her in the knee. She’s been through worse.”

  “At least I didn’t shoot the Holy Kid,” Gina said, crossing herself.

  “See how blessed you are? You missed the priest, and the Virgin and Jesus survived. Good news all around. Halleluiah for being a bad shot with your service pistol.”

  “Yeah, that’ll look good on my Holy Resume when I meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. I never shot a priest.”

  “That’s why you left the force? You feel guilty about shooting at Father Romano?” Ana asked.

  “I screwed up, big time. The shooting review board put me on administrative leave, even while I was still in field training. I’m not trustworthy on the street, or with a gun in my hand.”

  “They stuck you on leave for a week, just so you’d calm down and have some time to reflect. Mandatory. It’s the same for every cop.”

  Gina stuffed her tennis racket into her suitcase. “I’m not safe on the street.”

  “Dad has talked to Butch Morrison and the other cops at the church that night a dozen times. Every one of them said you did everything by the book. Sergeant Morrison wants you to come back. Even though it’s been three years since then, you’d only need to do a few weeks of refresher training at the academy before starting over in field training.”

  “Forget it. My mind’s made up.”

  “Just like your mind’s made up that you’re not coming back to church?” Ana asked.

  “Yep. I can pray at home.”

  Ana shook her head. “Look, forget about your lawn mowing job in the tropics. Come to the range for target practice with Dad and me sometime. That’ll settle your nerves and get you back in the saddle better than anything else.”

  “I’m never touching a gun again for as long as I live.”

  Ana stood. “And you can’t be a cop unless you’re packing nine millimeters of heat in your holster.”

  Gina closed the other suitcase. Turning to face her younger sister, she straightened the police shield on her chest. There were going to be tears but not quite yet. Instead, she tapped a fingertip to her lower eyelid. “Hey, keep an eye on Mom. I don’t want her having a nervous breakdown over me leaving town.”

  “For once, I’m gonna be the number one daughter in the family!” Ana said, giggling.

  Gina flicked her fingers under her chin. “I’m ready to go, if you’re still taking me to the airport.”

  “Which makes me the bad guy for sending you on your way, thousands of miles from home to where Mom can’t see you.”

  “To where Mom can’t scold me and Dad can’t glare, you mean.”

  “Did you say goodbye to him before he left for work this morning?” Ana asked.

  “We had a scene in the driveway, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You need to say goodbye to Mom. She’s in the kitchen waiting for a proper goodbye.”

  “Where else would she be? I thought she was coming with to the airport?”

  “She’s decided to make porchetta abruzzese for dinner. That’ll take her all day.”

  Gina left her suitcases at the front door. “One last jab at me. Making something good for dinner on the day I leave town.”

  “You’re the one leaving town on Christmas Eve. First time in your entire life you won’t be home for Christmas.” Ana chuckled. “Yeah, I think Mom is pretty pissed at you.”

  Gina went through the house that three generations of Santoros had lived in to find her mother. It wouldn’t be the furniture or the pictures on the walls, but the scent of food being cooked that she would miss the most. When she saw her mother busy at the kitchen woodblock counter removing the bones from lamb, it was a timeless image that she wouldn’t see for a while. She wasn’t even sure of what to say, of how it would be least painful for both of them.

  “Mamma, è ora che me ne vada.”

  “Get the roasting pan from the cabinet,” her mother commanded.

  Gina obeyed. “I need to go now. Ana’s taking me. You don’t want to come with?”

  “To so far away? Who would feed your father?”

  Gina traded an eye roll with her sister. “To the airport.”

  Their mother slammed the meat cleaver into a bone to snap it in half. “I still don’t understand why you’re being so stubborn.”

  “Gigi’s always been stubborn, Mamma,” Ana said. “All of Cleveland knows that.”

  Their mother slammed the cleaver again, breaking another bone. “This is between me and Gina. You go find something else to do or you’re next on the chopping block.”

  Once Ana was gone from the kitchen, Gina tried to smile at her mother. “Mamma, I need to do this. I have a new career now, and those people in Hawaii were nice enough to hire me. I don’t know why you and Dad can’t see that.”

  “I don’t care about your career. Too many police in this family already. You won’t find a nice Italian boy in Hawaii, Gigi.”

  “Yes, I know how the story goes. You were already married, barefoot, and pregnant with me years before the age I am now. Maybe in a few more years, I’ll meet someone and catch up. But does it have to be a boy from Little Italy?”

  “You want a surfer boy instead? What’s wrong with that Joey from the next street?”

  “Nothing. I just don’t want to marry an unemployed car washer. Anyway, he’s kinda needy.”

  “All boys that age are.”

  “Maybe I can find one in Hawaii that’s not so insecure?�
� Gina offered. She checked her watch when she heard Ana toot the horn.

  “Do surfer boys go to Mass?”

  “More to life than going to Mass, Mamma.”

  Her mother spun on her heels, the meat cleaver clutched firmly in one hand. “For three years, I was always patient with you when you didn’t come to church. Never once did you attend Mass. Now you say such things?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound that way.” Gina heard her sister’s car horn honking more insistently. “Mamma, I gotta go.”

  The cleaver was slammed into the woodblock and her mother turned around. After washing and drying her hands, she took Gina by the shoulders. “Go be stubborn. Get it out of your system. Then come home to your family where you belong.”

  They hugged for a moment, until Ana started honking the horn more insistently.

  “Keep an eye out for someone at church for me, Mamma,” Gina whispered in her mother’s ear before breaking free from their hug.

  Chapter Two

  The flights from Cleveland to Honolulu ended up being an endurance test for Gina. The only places she’d gone outside of Ohio in her life were road trips to Pittsburgh and Washington DC, and a flight to New York City for a long weekend with her mother at the end of high school. Here she was, though, walking through the Honolulu Airport late on Christmas Eve, pulling two suitcases behind her.

  Gina stopped to remove her wool overcoat. She wished she could remove another layer in the 75-degree open-air airport, with the steady breeze blowing through. There was a light scent in the air, not of food, but of flowers and living green things. A colorful little bird flew overhead, catching her attention for a moment. Walking along an elevated walkway, she looked down to see a Japanese-style garden at ground level.

  “Not in Ohio anymore.”

  Already having her two suitcases, Gina could bypass baggage claim and went straight to the agreed meeting point at the arrivals curb. A slender Asian lady in her senior citizen years was waiting near a polished sedan. With no one else around that looked like they were waiting for her, Gina went to her.

  “Hi. I’m Gina Santoro. Are you from the Tanazawa family?”