Angelina Bonaparte Mysteries Box Set, Nanci Rathbun [shoe dog free ebook txt] 📗

and sat back in his chair. “So in five months, you grew her initial investment of fifty thousand by another twenty thousand? You’re good, John.”

“No, she put more into the fund. It wasn’t just growth.”

“And again, you didn’t ask the source?”

“I knew she was seeing Tony. I figured…”

“So there was nothing personal between the two of you?”

“Nothing. I swear.”

“And the threatening letters?” I waited.

“What letters?”

“The ones I got at my office and my home, yesterday.”

“I had nothing to do with that. Nothing. Not only do I have no reason to threaten you, I’d be a damned fool to mess with Pasquale Bonaparte’s daughter.”

“That’s right, John, you would.” I set my business card on the table. “Call me if you come across anything else related to the case. Elisa’s address book, PDA and cell phone are still missing. Of course, they should go to the police if located, but I wouldn’t mind having a quick look at them first.”

He picked up the card and tucked it into the inner breast pocket of his suit. “Does Jane need to know about any of this?”

“No reason that I can see right now. But if I think for even a minute that you’re not straight with me, or that you’re hiding anything, I won’t hesitate to use whatever means I have at my disposal to get at the truth. I hope we understand each other.”

He nodded.

Chapter 18

“I hate discussions of feminism that end up with who does the dishes,” she said. So do I. But at the end, there are always the damned dishes.

—Marilyn French

I felt restless when I got to the office. Itchy. Closed-in. Unhappy. What did I have to be unhappy about? I asked myself. I had a good job that I liked, a nice home, good health, responsible children, wonderful grandkids. What more could a woman ask for? A man, the answer came back to me. A life partner. Someone to tell your troubles to. Someone to laugh with. Someone to hold hands with. And, yes, I sighed, someone to have good sex with—‘good’ being the operative word.

Susan wasn’t in, so I decided to make a personal call to my best friend, Judy. She would set me straight, if anyone could. Judy and I met at the park, back when our kids were toddlers. She’d been the sixties mom, always joining some group to make the world better and trying to drag me along, trying to raise my consciousness, as we used to say. I would just smile and go home to my husband and kids, secure in the rightness of my ways. Judy and her husband, Hank, were what my Aunt Terry called the “Battling Bickersons.” They fought over things both little and big—whose turn it was to clean the bathroom, whether women would govern more peacefully than men, if shaving one’s legs and underarms was a sign of oppression. Several times, Judy spent the night on my couch while I snuggled next to Bozo and thanked my lucky stars that I was happily married. Ironically, her marriage had lasted and prospered. And mine? Well, irony didn’t quite cover it.

She answered on the third ring, with her familiar “Yes?” Never “hello.”

“Judy, it’s Angie.”

“Hey, girl, long time no talk. How are ya? How was Saturday?”

“Saturday was great. A romantic fantasy. Then reality set in.”

“Tell me all. Is it a man?”

“More like a lack of.”

“Kevin’s history?”

I started to snivel. I hate that, a lot.

“Angie, are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m just feeling sorry for myself. You know, poor middle-aged single woman blues. Kevin and I had a nice time on Saturday, but I sent him home alone. Then last night, he came over with flowers and one thing led to another.”

“And…?”

“Studly turned into dudly.”

“Omigod, noooo!”

“Yep, a night of fumbling frustration.”

“Maybe he was just nervous. Maybe you can show him what to do.”

“Honest, Judy, I did everything but paint a bull’s eye on it and he still couldn’t…” I started to giggle. “At one point, he whispered in my ear, ‘Some women call me Kevin from heaven.’ I don’t think there’s any hope that he even realizes how bad he is.”

Judy snorted into the phone. She always snorts when she laughs. “’Kevin from heaven?’ No, no. That’s just WRONG! Drop him like a dirty diaper, Ange.”

We both broke up laughing, Judy snorting loudly through the phone wires, as we remembered the early years, pre-disposables, when our kids wore cloth diapers. While playing in the park one afternoon, my David filled his with a particularly nasty load. I decided it was too toxic to lug home, and planned to deposit it, nicely bagged, in a park trash can. Unfortunately, the park sanitation service was emptying the can and refused to take it. So I tied the bag into a knot and swung it in front of the garbage collector’s face, yelling “You call yourself a man? I deal with shit worse than this every day.” Judy stood behind me, diaper bag raised, shouting, “Right on, sister.” The garbage collector just sighed and took the bag, muttering “damned feminists” under his breath. From that female bonding moment developed our almost thirty-year friendship.

When we finally got our snickering and snorting back under control, Judy invited me to dinner. “With Hank?” I asked.

“Sure. You know he loves you.”

“Anyone else?” Judy was famous for her attempts to fix up all her single friends, male and female.

“Well, there’s a new guy at Hank’s office I thought I might ask.”

“Not this week, Jude. I need a break from men. Besides, the Morano/Belloni case is taking all my time.”

“Yeah, I read about it in the papers. I bet your Papa was plenty mad at them dredging up all that old Mafia stuff.”

“Not as mad as he was at me for being in the middle of it. You know Papa, he wants me to be a proper wife, stay home and cook and let my husband take care of me.”

“You’d think he would’ve learned his lesson, after Bozo.”

We made promises to get