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“Bummer,” Grandma finally said.
I nodded again.
My mother called me. “Where are you?” she asked. “Is your grandmother still with you? Are you coming home for lunch?”
“I’m at the office,” I said. “Grandma’s with me, and we’ll be home for lunch.”
I hung up and Grandma started for the door. “Let’s not waste a lot of time on lunch. We still got two more felons to catch.”
“There’s no rush,” I said. “I’m not going to go after Bella until I talk to Morelli.”
“Well, I want to be there when you do the takedown. That woman’s been a thorn in my side for as long as I can remember. And she thinks she owns the funeral home. She scuttles around, threatening to give everybody the eye if they get in her way. People are afraid to take a cookie when she comes over to the refreshment table.”
“How about you?” Lula asked. “Are you afraid to take a cookie?”
“Heck no,” Grandma said. “I know the cookies she likes. She goes after the pignoli. So, if I see her at a viewing, I shove all the pignoli into my purse before she can get to them.”
CHAPTER THREE
My mom was setting the kitchen table when we walked in. “I made minestrone soup this morning and we have bread from Italian Peoples,” she said.
Butter and the bread slices were already on the table.
“It’s a good day for soup,” Grandma said. “There’s a chill in the air.”
“Did you get your shampoo?” my mom asked Grandma.
“They were all out,” Grandma said. “Stephanie’s going to take me to the mall after lunch.”
My mother looked at me. Slitty-eyed. “I’m holding you responsible,” she said. “Don’t let her shoot anybody and keep her out of the strip clubs.”
I nodded. “Understood.”
“I don’t hardly ever go to strip clubs,” Grandma said.“Although I do like to look at the men dancers. Some of them have real good moves.”
I saw my mother’s eyes cut to the over-the-counter cabinet alongside the sink where she keeps her whiskey stash. No doubt debating if it was too early to have a nip.
Grandma took a bowl of soup to the table and checked email on her smartphone while she ate.
“Look at this,” she said. “Len Leoni died. Margie Wisneski says they think he threw a clot. He’s having a viewing on Wednesday. That’s going to be a good one. He was a big deal in the Knights of Columbus.” Grandma took a piece of bread and dunked it into her soup. “Crazy Bella will be there. The Morellis and the Leonis are neighbors. And one of the Leoni girls married into the Morelli family. A second cousin, I think. You should go to the viewing with me, and we’ll take Bella down at the cookie table.”
My mother sucked in some air. “You wouldn’t!”
“Of course not,” I said.
“I’d do it in a heartbeat,” Grandma said.
“You have no authority,” my mother said to Grandma. “You don’t work for Vinnie. And even if you did work for Vinnie, it would be a horrible thing to do. It would be disrespectful to the deceased.”
“Okay,” Grandma said. “How about if we get Bella in the parking lot before or after?”
“There will be nogettingBella,” my mother said to me. “For goodness’ sake, get someone else. Someone we don’t know. I’m sure you have a whole laundry list of people to get.”
“Not so many,” I said. “They skip town. They die. They getpicked up by other bounty hunters. And a surprising number of the accused actually show up for court.”
Grandma finished her soup and brought the cookie jar to the table. “I always like to have a sweet after a meal,” she said. “We didn’t do cookie baking this weekend, but we’ve got Oreos.”
Twenty minutes later, I was back in my Honda CR-V with Grandma.
