Chapter 2
The three girls pulled up at the home of Teodoro's widow forty five minutes later. Jill parked alongside the curb and turned off the engine of her Cobra. She rubbed her hands together and turned in her seat.
"Well, who's going and who's staying?" she asked her two companions.
"Odds and evens?" Sabrina suggested, making a fist.
Kelly groaned
"I might as well stay in the car, I never win."
Sabrina and Jill laughed at her pessimism and made fists. Kelly sighed and leaned forward to prop herself between them from the backseat. The three girls beat their fists three times against their open palms. Prophetically, after the third strike, Sabrina and Jill showed two fingers and Kelly showed one.
"I think you two cheat. I really do." she said with a rueful smile, falling back into her seat.
Sabrina reached over and patted her cheek.
"Hey, you might actually be the lucky one, Kell. Who knows what's gonna happen in there."
"Oh, Bri don't say that." Jill scolded.
"Just covering my bases. When I die, the last thing I want to be able to say is, I told you so!" Sabrina defended herself with a grin. She opened the door and got out of the car. Jill and Kelly followed.
"Check in with me every five minutes. There's an open window right there. Just wave or walk by it or something so I know everything's ok." Kelly instructed her friends.
"Ok." Jill agreed. "But if I'm waving like this-" She jumped in the air frantically waving her arms over her head. "Then something's wrong."
Sabrina and Kelly laughed.
"Ok, here we go." Sabrina sighed, turning towards the front door. Jill saluted Kelly and followed her.
Kelly watched her friends go and got into the driver's seat of Jill's car.
Stupid game.
"I'm going to always throw two from now on. I'm bound to win sometime." she said to herself thoughtfully as she settled back to wait.
Sabrina and Jill walked side by side up the walkway and to the front door.
"Ready?" Sabrina asked.
Jill nodded and rapped three times on the door. Moments later it was opened a crack by a dark haired young woman in her late twenties.
"Yes?" she asked warily.
"Mrs. Contadino?" Jill asked brightly.
"Yes." the young woman answered, eyeing them suspiciously.
"Hello, I'm Sabrina Duncan and this is Jill Munroe. We are with Townsend Investigations. We were sent by a Mr. Anthony Moretti. We just want to ask you a few questions. May we please come in?"
The young woman glanced at Sabrina and Jill and nodded her head slightly. She closed the door and the girls heard the click of the chain being unlatched before she swung the door open wide.
"Please, come in." she offered in a quiet voice.
"Thank you." Sabrina and Jill said in unison.
The girls entered the house and looked around. By all appearances it was a normal family home. Pictures lined the walls and shelves and children's toys lay scattered along the floor. Something was cooking in the kitchen, filling the home with the aroma of spices.
"You have a lovely home, Mrs. Contadino." Sabrina complimented her, trying to put her at ease.
Mrs. Contadino ignored the compliment.
"How can I help you?" she asked coldly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
Seeing her attempt at small talk had failed, Sabrina decided to cut to the chase.
"We just want some information from you about your late husband. We're trying to find the people responsible for his death and anything you can give that will tell us where to start looking would be a huge help to us." she explained.
Mrs. Contadino nodded her head.
"Please sit." she said softly, gesturing to the couch. "And you may call me Teresa."
Sabrina and Jill thanked her and sat down next to each other on the couch. Teresa took a seat in an arm chair to their right.
"Well, Ms. Duncan, Ms. Munroe, what would you like to know." she asked.
Jill gave her a gentle smile. "Jill and Sabrina, please." she corrected gently. Teresa smiled back and nodded her head.
"What kind of man was your husband?" Jill began.
Teresa gave Jill an indignant look.
"A good man. One that didn't deserve to be murdered in cold blood."
If Jill was surprised by her bluntness, she didn't show it. "No one deserves to die like that. That's why we're here." she countered gently. "Was he in any way connected to the mob?"
Teresa shook her head. "No, my husband wasn't like Anthony. They'd been friends since they were boys and he was always trying to convince Anthony to stop working for those horrible men. He didn't want to have anything to do with it. He was a good man." she said firmly. The corners of her mouth started to twitch and she took a deep breath to steady herself.
"Anthony said that before the shooting, someone walked into the room that your husband knew." Sabrina said cautiously, waiting to gauge her reaction.
Teresa scoffed. "Anthony is a liar. Theo would have no way of knowing anyone like that. He worked, he came home to me and the kids and he had the same group of friends for years."
Sabrina tried again. "He told us that he didn't see him himself but that Theo acted like he knew the man, the man who we think is in charge. Think hard. Did your husband gamble? Did he borrow money? Anything like that, where he could get connected with the wrong people? All it takes is one mistake."
Teresa shook her head while Sabrina talked.
"I've told you. No, he didn't do any of those things. He coached my son's soccer team, he helped me around the house. He was a good man." she said angrily. She covered her face and started to sob.
Sabrina and Jill looked at each other. Either she was entirely convinced or in complete denial. They needed to change their strategy. Jill rose from her seat, made a brief stop at the window to signal Kelly, and then knelt next to Teresa's chair.
She took her hand. "What if he was trying to help someone? Like he tried to help Anthony. Did he mention a friend or relative recently, that he had been talking to?
Teresa wiped her eyes and shook her head. She paused suddenly as though just remembering something.
"He had been spending time with Johnny Conrad. He was Anthony's neighbor. He was giving him guitar lessons, he said." she told them quietly. "I doubt that it means anything, but that boy was killed too and so was his father. Theo was over there giving him a guitar lesson when it happened." She looked thoughtful. "Johnny's lessons were usually on Thursdays but for that week he changed it to Wednesday."
Sabrina and Jill looked at each other. Finally, something to go on.
"How long had he been giving lessons to Johnny?" Sabrina asked.
Teresa tilted her head, mentally calculating the weeks. "Not long. Less than a month." She teared up again. "Theo played so beautifully." she said sadly.
A small child suddenly appeared from another room. She was little more than a baby with curly black hair and big brown eyes. The little girl toddled over to her mother and clung to her leg, looking at Sabrina and Jill in wide eyed wonder.
Teresa looked down lovingly at her daughter.
"Hi, my baby." she cooed, scooping the little girl into her arms. "This is Maria, my youngest." she explained to the girls.
They smiled at the little girl, who was now busily cramming her fist in her mouth. Jill rose from her position by Teresa's chair and made her way to her previous seat by Sabrina, again stopping momentarily at the window.
"She's beautiful." Jill said with an adoring smile.
Teresa nodded. "She looks just like her daddy." She hugged the baby to her chest and let out a shuddering sigh.
Another little girl walked into the room flanked by a little boy, both in search of their little sister. They were older than Maria, the girl about six or seven, the boy four or five. They had the same straight dark hair and brown eyes that their mother had. They paused in the doorway and studied the newcomers for a moment. The little boy turned and scurried back to where he had come from. The girl stayed to collect her sister.
"Sorry Mama, I was coloring and she opened the door when I wasn't looking." she apologized.
Teresa smiled warmly at the girl and beckoned her to come. The little girl went and stood by her mother, smiling bashfully at Sabrina and Jill.
"This is my oldest, Claudia. And you saw Little Teddy just now."
The angels smiled at the little girl.
"Hi, I'm Jill and this is Sabrina." Jill said sweetly, waving to little Claudia.
She waved back shyly. Teresa kissed her oldest daughter's head and said something in Italian to her. Claudia nodded and hefted her little sister off of her mother's lap, heading to her room. She paused in front of Sabrina and Jill and gave them a little smile.
"Nice to meet you." she said politely.
"Nice to meet you too, sweetie." Jill answered back with a smile.
Teresa watched her daughter leave and then turned to the girls with a steely look in her eyes.
"My children have to grow up without their father. Please find whoever did this. It won't bring him back but maybe then I can have peace." she said firmly.
"That's what we're going to do." Sabrina said, rising from her seat. She handed Teresa her business card. "If you think of anything else or you find out something, please let us know."
Teresa took the card and nodded her head.
"Thank you very much." she said softly.
She walked Sabrina and Jill to the door. They bid her farewell and headed back to the car where Kelly was no doubt waiting impatiently.
"Kinda tugs at your heart strings doesn't it?" Jill asked her softly as they walked.
Sabrina nodded her head slowly.
"Yeah, poor kids. That's gotta be rough for them." she agreed.
Jill nodded. "I had sixteen years with my dad, I couldn't imagine if I had lost him so young. No memories of what he looks like, what his voice sounds like." Jill continued sadly. She trailed off, her face taking on an uncharacteristically sad, far away look.
Sabrina turned to her friend in surprise. In the nearly two years they had known each other, she had only seen Jill sad once or twice. She gave her a sideways hug.
"We'll find this guy before he takes away anyone else's dad."
Jill nodded and smiled.
"Sorry, I guess I'm in a mood today." she apologized.
"Don't be sorry, I still get sad about my mom and it's been nearly fifteen years now." Sabrina reassured her.
The girls reached the car. Kelly was looking expectantly at them through the window.
Jill paused with her hand on the door handle. "I want this guy real bad, Bri." she said seriously.
Sabrina turned and looked at her friend. "Me too, Jill."
Anxious to know why her friends were stalling, Kelly got out of the car and walked over to them. She paused uncertainly when she noticed their downcast expressions.
"Everything ok?" she asked, studying her friends.
"Yeah Kell, just a little bit too much reality in there." Sabrina said with a soft smile.
Kelly nodded her understanding.
"Kids and everything, huh?" she said sympathetically.
"The whole package." Jill answered. She reached her hand out for her car keys. Kelly tossed them to her.
The girls got back into the car and Jill drove them away from the Contadino house.
"Did you get anything in there?" Kelly asked from the backseat. "Besides depressed." she added with a grin, trying to lighten the mood.
Her joke fell flat. Sabrina and Jill both stared at her in the rearview mirror. Kelly shrank back.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so unfeeling." she apologized, taking their stares as a sign of offense. She never had parents, what would she know about the pain of losing one like both her friends had? Ashamed of her poor taste, she made a mental note not to repeat her mistake.
"No, Kell, you're ok." Sabrina said quickly, seeing her guilty face. "Actually yeah, we did get something. Theo had been giving weekly guitar lessons to John Conrad for the past month. The day they were killed, they had rescheduled the lesson for a different day of the week. Kinda coincidental, don't you think?" she told her.
"You think it wasn't really guitar lessons then?" Kelly asked.
"Exactly." Sabrina confirmed.
"That is strange, having them start these lessons weeks before being killed together. Bosley was told they had gotten together to play poker. Either Moretti's not being straight with us or Theo and John were up to something."
"I bet the kid was a drug mule just like Moretti used to be. Either Theo was trying to talk him out of it, or he was helping him." Jill added.
Sabrina tilted her head thoughtfully.
"It's possible. Let's check out John Conrad's sister and see if that gets us any closer."
Jill swung her Cobra around in the direction to Lisa Conrad's apartment.
Hopefully, this next stop would bring them that much closer to the truth.