12
Unfair, Miles
reflected glumly as he tailed Zia Rosa through the baby supplies
store. The crapola errands always fell to him. Got scut work?
Something mind numbing, time consuming? Call good old
Miles.
He stared at the rectangular block of
Zia Rosa’s back draped in a leopard-print tent of a blouse, gold
chain link necklaces jingling cheerfully over it all, a
tiger-striped plastic purse. Cruising down the aisle with her
broad, stumpy gait like she owned the place.
He’d asked her four times if she’d
gotten everything on her list, and if not, could he please, please
just run and fetch it for her, but she had to run her eye over
every last damn product in the aisles to make sure she hadn’t
forgotten anything. He felt like a yipping Chihuahua, dragged
behind her on a leash. She gave about that much attention to
anything he said. Zia Rosa had very selective
comprehension.
Had to be today that she had to get
the bouncy seat for little Eamon and the foam wedgies for the crib
of tiny Helena, Davy and Margot’s newest addition. Today, when
Cindy’s band’s recording session had been canceled due to tech
problems in the studio. Which would have led to her being home all
afternoon. With him. Naked, going at it like a couple of crazed
bunnies. But not today, because of a mysterious phone call from
Aaro. It seemed Kev’s prickly, problematic adopted brother Bruno
had gotten himself into some sort of bizarre trouble. And
whiz-bang, the McCloud clan went to red alert. That meant everybody
was grounded until the situation was clarified. But explain that to
Zia Rosa. Even the McClouds, with their combined testosterone,
could not intimidate that woman out of doing whatever the fuck she
wanted. The McClouds had met their match. It would’ve been funny,
if they hadn’t been using Miles to solve their
problem.
Nothing had been the same since Zia
had showed up, a package deal along with Kev McCloud’s triumphal
return. She’d proceeded to camp out all over the McCloud clan’s
lives, or at least, those that were reproducing, which was most of
them, at this point. She’d earned Liv’s and Margot’s and Erin’s
undying devotion for her help with the babies. The kids adored her.
Tam was terrified of her. That said it all.
And there was the food. God-kissed,
orgasmic Italian food in industrial quantities. Everybody got
themselves invited to dinner when Aunt Rosa was cooking, and then
went around surreptitiously pinching their gut afterward, resolving
to put in a few more hours in the gym to burn off the baked ziti or
the cream cutard pinoli tart, or whatever.
Miles had been bitching about the
latest Zia Rosa lecture, something along the lines of “have those
babies while you’re young or you’ll be sorry,” while Davy changed
the oil in his truck. He’d wondered out loud to Davy why they
didn’t just tell her to get gone, so everyone could breathe easy
again. Davy stood up, frowning up into the sky, wiping oil off his
hands, and explained things with his usual brevity.
“You have a mom,” he said. “You can
afford to be fussy. When you have kids, they’ll have a grandma. We
don’t. Here’s a turbocharged super-grandma, readymade and available
for use. So what the hell. We’ll take her. In a heartbeat. We’d be
stupid not to.”
That had reduced him to an abashed
silence. It was true. Not many grandparents in the McCloud milieu,
besides Erin’s mom. Liv’s scary mother definitely did not count,
and Raine’s mom gave everyone hives, particularly Raine’s husband,
Seth, so just as well she spent most of her time in London. No
benevolent, diaper-changing, ziti-baking grandma energy from that
direction. So since then, he’d held his tongue, kept his Zia Rosa
bitching between himself and himself.
He was jerked out of his reverie when
he almost ran into Zia Rosa’s back. She’d braked to coo over twin
toddlers in a tandem stroller and was gurgling Italian endearments.
“Dio mio,” she murmured.
“Uguali. Ugualissimi.
Incredibile.”
She looked up at Miles, eyes spilling
over, clearly expecting some sort of a comment, but he didn’t speak
Italian, except for food names. They were all learning food names
now.
“What?” he asked. “Huh?”
She sniffed, her jowls quivering. “The
bimbi,” she said.
“Pazzesco. The girl is
just like my niece Magdalena when she was little,
angeletto mio, may she
rest in santa pace. And
the little boy, he’s Bruno. Exactly like my Bruno.
Mi fa brividi.” She
crossed herself and then dug into her purse, fishing a couple
battered photos out of her wallet.
The mom of the toddlers was a good
sport about it. She was young and pretty, and she got all gooey and
did the requisite oh, my God, you’re
right, that’s, like, incredible, they really do look just alike,
that’s so totally wild when she looked at Aunt Rosa’s
photos. Her eyes got misty, her voice got froggy, and then, oh
horrors, she said the words Miles had been dreading. “Would you
like to hold them?”
Oh, fuck him. He tried not to clap his
brow and curse the day.
Of course, Zia Rosa’s reply was along
the lines of is a bean green, does the
pope shit in the woods, yada yada. She cooed and
tickled and pinched, and told the mom her convoluted story of why
she’d concluded that Eamon needed the bouncy chair and Helena
needed the foam wedgies, which sparked off the mom’s story of how
she needed mesh crib covers to keep the twins in their cribs at
night. That sparked tales of Bruno’s adventuresome babyhood, which
was a well with no bottom.
The young mom’s husband exchanged
can-you-believe-thisshit glances with Miles as the minutes ticked
by, and then wandered off, clearly bored out of his mind, leaving
Miles to his solitary fate. Thanks, dude. He appreciated the
solidarity. Zia Rosa and the mom ranged over a broad array of
baby-themed topics and had settled enthusiastically into the
benefits of pure lanolin for cracked nipples, ooh, tasty, when the
little girl started to squawk. Which necessitated pulling out
yogurt, Goldfish crackers, a binkie, in their efforts to comfort
her. Meanwhile, the other twin, released from his bonds, wandered
off to wreak mayhem in the baby food aisle. After some ominous
crashing, Zia Rosa fluttered her hand at him. “Miles, go watch over
that bimbo,” she
commanded.
So off he went, chasing the little
monster through the formula aisle. Trying to explain that the
lactose-free baby formula was not meant to be used for a soccer
ball. The kid laughed in his face. A store employee came along just
as the box burst open and released its cloud of white dust. The
woman started shrilly lecturing Miles, like he was the dad, and
where the fuck had the kid’s real dad disappeared to? Hello?
Anyone? In the meantime, Zia Rosa and the mom discovered that the
little girl’s problem was a poopy diaper. Evidently a two-woman
job.
Jesus, he was glad Cindy was in no
rush to procreate. He loved the little McCloud hellions, every last
one of them, but he also loved getting into his truck and driving
away, stereo blasting. Free at last.
Finally the mom came to rescue her
son. She turned to Zia Rosa to start the “great to chat with you”
part of the conversation, and “thanks for the tip about the amazing
flushable swippie wippie soggy-wipes for poopy butts,” or whatever
they were gabbing on about. At last, they broke free and headed for
the checkout line. Yes.
Heavenly choruses swelled. Light broke through the cloud-choked
sky.
Miles shoved the loaded cart doggedly
through the parking lot. Zia Rosa was fiercely supervising the
loading of her baby booty into the back when a shout rang out.
“Hey! Excuse me!”
It was the dad of the twins, loping
toward them, holding up a phone. “We found this in Hayden’s
stroller,” the guy explained. “Must have rolled out when you were
helping Kate change Hayden’s pants.”
Zia Rosa took her phone, smiling
mistily as the man sprinted away. “Lovely family,” she said
wistfully.
Miles opened her door, bracing for
what he knew was next.
She was ready for him as soon as he
got into the driver’s seat. “So when are you and Cindy having a
little bambino?”
“Never.” Miles punctuated that
statement by slamming his door.
“Never say never, giovanotto,” she intoned. “What’s written is
written. You will have bambini. Soon. Very soon.”
Oh, man, she was hexing him. He made
the sign with his hand against the evil eye, the one that she’d
taught him herself, learned from her old grandma back in
Brancaleone, in the old country.
She opened up her purse and fished out
her wallet as he fired up the engine. She pulled out the photos
she’d showed to the mom. “It gave me brividi,” she said. “Cold shivers. Just
look. Exactly like my little Magda and my little Bruno. Look at
them.”
What else could he do? He braked.
Looked. And looked again.
Holy . . . fucking . . .
shit. They really did look
like those kids.
And not just like. Exactly like. Weird. He was getting
brividi himself. He’d had
plenty of opportunities to observe the kids, especially the boy. He
peered more closely. One was a black-andwhite, taken in the late
fifties or early sixties, maybe. A formal portrait. The little girl
was solemn, unsmiling. The boy was in an informal color photo,
taken in the eighties by the looks of it, and exactly, in every
detail, identical to the hellion from the pit, right down to the
dimples in the fat cheeks and the
fuck-you-youpathetic-pencil-dick-chump gleam in the kid’s
eyes.
It was completely creepy.
Miles glanced into the old lady’s
triumphant face. She’d caught the shock-and-awe vibe and was very
satisfied with herself.
He put the truck in gear. Babies, for
the love of God. They all looked alike, right? Round heavy cheeks,
bright sparkling eyes, pouty rosy lips, soft silky curls, cute
button noses? The kids couldn’t have been that similar. Power of
suggestion. He was spending too much time defending his childless
state while shopping for swippie wippies soggy wipes. The constant,
grating stress had softened his brain.
Into the approximate consistency of
baby shit.
Petrie glanced at his watch as he got
himself logged into the medical examiner’s office. Trish was
waiting for him, tapping her foot. As if she were the one who’d
dragged her ass all the way to Clackamas because of someone’s
inexplicable whim.
“I’ll be late for lunch with my
grandmother because of this,” he groused, with ill grace. “I was
supposed to meet her at the London Grill at the Benson, and I’m not
going to make it in time. Not even close. She’s going to make me
pay for it. In blood.”
Trish clipped the visitor’s badge onto
the lapel of his jacket and gazed at him, her big blue eyes limpid
and absolutely pitiless. “Trust me,” she said. “It’s worth it. You
have to see this, Sam.”
“Why not just tell me about it on the
phone? Why the mysterious build up? Why make me schlep all the way
over here from downtown?”
“It’s a visual thing,” she said,
without turning. “You’ll see.”
Trish led him through the office and
into the rear area where the autopsies were done. She stopped at
one of the examining tables and drew the cover off the cadaver,
with an almost imperceptible flourish.
Petrie took a look. And froze. Mouth
hanging open.
“They called me in to take pictures,”
Trish said. “That suicide on Wygant this morning, remember? He’d
put the gun in his mouth. It took out the back of his skull, but
left his face intact.”
Petrie looked up. Trish’s face was
somber, but her eyes had a glint of excitement. “It’s him, isn’t
it?” she prompted.
He just stared down at the dead man’s
face. It was Bruno Ranieri. Feature for feature. His hair was an
inch or so longer than it had been in the photo, but it was him,
right down to the dimples. Trish indicated them with a blue
fingernail. “Check out those bifid zigomaticus, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Who caught this
one?”
“Barlow,” she said.
“You tell him?”
“Not yet. Wasn’t quite sure. Wanted
you to see it first.”
He looked into her eyes. “OK,” he
said. “I’ll tell Barlow. I guess I have to call Rosa Ranieri to
come ID him for us.”
He stood outside, in the chilly
October rain for a long time afterward. Immobile, even with
Grandmam waiting at the restaurant. Staring at the slip of paper
that held Rosa Ranieri’s contact info.
This was the part he hated. Telling a
person that someone they loved had died, badly. He never got used
to that. It never got easier.
He punched in one of the McCloud
numbers and waited. A young woman’s voice answered. “Hello, McCloud
residence.”div width="1em">“Hello, this is
Detective Samuel Petrie, of the Portland Police Bureau,” he said.
“I’d like to speak to Rosa Ranieri, please.”