MURDER TAKES TIME

Chapter 53

A New Life

About 1 Year Ago

We ended up in Cleveland. I don’t know how she talked me into going there, but it might have had something to do with sex. No matter, we were there and trying to find a semi-permanent place to live. I already had an apartment for us, an efficiency that we sublet and would use as our official residence for the identification we carried. But I planned on finding another place to live under a different name. The subterfuge worried Gina. 

By midafternoon, we found a nice place to rent, a small ranch in an older section of the city. The way it was situated we could walk to the grocery store, and there was a butcher and a fruit stand nearby. To top it off, there was a family-owned bakery that still made sfogliatelle. If asked to sum up my new life six weeks into it, it would have been easy. I had Gina, fresh fruit two blocks away, and sfogliatelle only three blocks past that. What more could anyone want?

Two months later we drove to a small town in Tennessee and got married by a Justice of the Peace, though I still promised her a Catholic wedding. In the third month, Gina got a job as an accountant, and I hired on as a salesman for a tile company. Not my life dream, but it kept me busy and put a few dollars in our pockets. When I got my first paycheck, I stopped at the bakery and picked up cannoli and sfogliatelle. 

I was whistling when I walked in the door. “Guess what I have?”

Gina was at the table, a small oval one tucked into a neat corner of the tiny kitchen. There were tears in her eyes. I rushed to the table, setting the boxes down, then knelt before her. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

She sobbed. Hugged me. “I’m okay now that you’re home.”

“What happened?”

She held on to me for a long time. “I’m sorry, Nicky. We got a new client today at the firm. His name was Martelli.” Gina tried holding back the tears, but they came. “God, Nicky, when I heard that name, I lost it. All I could think of was Tito. I couldn’t work the rest of the day. I was watching over my shoulder the whole time, wondering if he had already gotten to you.”

I stood, walked around. Instinctively went to the window and peered out. “You checked, though. No one followed?”

“You can bet I checked. It took me an hour to get here because I took so many detours.” She drank some water. “No one followed me.” Gina stood and put water on for tea. She was trembling. 

I stood too and rubbed her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“Keep going, day after day. Go around like it’s nothing, when inside you’ve got to be falling apart. You’re human aren’t you? I mean, you didn’t come down here from some goddamn spaceship.” She balled her hands into fists, squeezing the tension out. “I can’t do what you do. I’m tired of being scared.” She put the kettle on the burner but just stood there with her hand on it, as if it offered her support. “Sometimes at night I think about dying, calling Tito and saying, ‘Here I am. Come get me.’”

I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the side of her head. “It takes time,” I whispered. “Someday we’ll look back on this and…well, we might not laugh, but we’ll find good memories.” 

She let loose a few tears. “Don’t you ever get scared?”

“All the time, baby. All the time.”

She stepped back, looking at me as if it were the first time. “Why don’t you ever tell me about it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t do that stuff, Gina. I’m not trying to be macho or anything. I just grew up different.” I kissed her forehead, then turned her around and rubbed her neck. “But you can talk to me anytime you want. I’m a great listener.”