Family Secrets

Grazie, Zio.  Mantenere la sua sicurezza, lei è il mio cuore. : Thank-you Uncle.  Keep her safe, she is my heart.

Questa non è casa mia:  this isn’t my house

e la signora è sicura come hai chiesto:  And she is safe as you asked.

È arrabbiata :  She’s angry

Bambina:  Little girl

La ragazza ha un punto:  The girl has a point.

Così intelligente per una così giovane:  So smart for one so young.

La do

Non cuoco italiano, Zia:  She doesn’t cook Italian, Aunt.

Ah, ha spiegato:  Ah, She’ll learn

Zio Sal, Zio Vi

Nipote, si sarebbe un pazzo a lasciare questo angelo della valle lontano.:  Nephew, you’d be a fool to let this angel of the valley get away

Lane’s next adventure

Lunch at the Club

While watching crime shows or reading mystery novels when a character came across a body, she’d always been the one who said to the character “Call the police.” “Put your hands in your pockets.”  “Don’t touch anything.”  And as the character bent to touch the victim and perhaps the murder weapon, she sometimes literally, shouted.  “YOU IDIOT!  DON’T. TOUCH. THAT. CALL 9-1-1!!” So there Lane Parker sat in the Overland Park police station trying to figure out what had come over her causing her to ignore her own wise advice, and wondering why in fact that advice had never even crossed her mind.

Thank God, she’d at least had the presence of mind to tell them she wouldn’t answer any questions without her lawyer.  She took pride that she was able to ignore their promise that she wasn’t under arrest which soon turned into taunts about i

Benito Giova

“I’d like to talk to my client alone.”  Ben said, his back turned to the detective who had escorted him to the interview room.  And as the door was closed, Lane released a released a sigh of relief.

“Please tell me that Hunter there is still one of your basketball buddies.”  Ben played a friendly game of basketball every Wednesday in a league comprised mostly of guys from police forces and fire departments around the metropolitan area.

“Yes, Hunter still plays in the league.  On the team that we trounced last week.”  Ben looked at the blood on her hands and clothes and shook his head.

“So, Red what brings us here today? Don’t tell me you stumbled across a body.”  Ben said using the nickname he’d given her shortly after they’d met.   Lane who had strawberry blonde hair – thus the nickname - was an executive at Telco Unlimited, a wireless telecommunications company and sadly this wasn’t the first time she’d been in a police interview room talking about a dead body she’d stumbled over. Lane heaved a sigh.

“I’d love to not tell you that … but I can’t.  You want the long or the short version here?”

When had she turned into that woman she’d read so much about?  The one who couldn’t even go to the bathroom without stumbling into a murder investigation.

“Start with the short version.”

“Okay, I took the afternoon off to do a little shopping with Jess.  We stopped at the Club for lunch first.  I went into the restroom and saw a woman lying face down on the floor so I went over to offer assistance.  I felt for a pulse, nothing.  I rolled her onto her back and found a large bloody gash on her left temple.  And as I was leaning over her, my hands covered in blood, another woman came into the rest room and screamed.”

Lane paused, the woman was - well - screaming bloody murder at least she now knew exactly what that phrase meant.   “The next thing I knew, I’d given my statement to the uniformed officer and was looking into the disbelieving faces of a detective explaining that I’d found her that way.   Ben, I can’t be certain because I haven’t seen in her in years, but I think it was Carol A

Carol A

She smiled and winked at him.  “His partner’s a woman. Is the basketball league co-ed?  Is there any chance Detective Crane plays with y’all?”

Ben shook his head. “No.  Volleyball’s Lila’s sport.”  The door opened.  Detective Crane entered the room and lyrics to the Joe Diffey song Third Rock from the Sun began playing in Lane’s head. “She walks into Smokey’s one hip at a time…”  She was about 5’7” tall and athletic.  Her blue-black hair was pulled into a sleek pony tail and she had a gleam in her emerald green eyes as a smile spread across her full red lips.  She could have been a body double for Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider movies.

“Well, Counselor, long time, no see.”