Funeral Hotdish Read Online Free PDF

breath and started his plea. “Right now, this has to be under a cone of silence,” he demanded. “I’m not kidding, Joya. I’m going to tell you something that would ruin my career. You’ve got to promise me, you won’t fuck me over on this.”
    Joya felt a twinge of guilt as she reached over and touched his arm. “Of course I wouldn’t fuck you over.” She used her most reassuring voice and told herself she really meant it. Then, using the same silence-is-golden rule that police themselves often used, she sat there staring at him, not saying a word, waiting for him to continue.
    “If I tell you what’s going on, you’ve got to promise not to write anything until the right time,” he declared. “I mean it. Promise me. I’ll help you. You’ll be the only one with the inside story. But for that, I need your promise that this story doesn’t break too soon and screw things up.”
    Joya Bonner had a long-standing policy that she didn’t negotiate for stories. Nobody got to dictate terms or times. You make a deal and you’re dealing with a devil, is how she always thought of it.
    But on the other hand, without revealing a detail, her boyfriend had revealed there was a much, much bigger story here than simply a Mafia guy ending up in Arizona. She’d only see the rest of this iceberg if she cut a deal with a guy who already knew how wide it was and how deep it went.
    She laid down some tough, non-negotiable terms: She had exclusive access to the investigation. She would see everything. She could interview anyone she wanted. She’d eventually get access to Sammy. He agreed to every one.
    Rob was so relieved that she was pulling back, he’d have promised her anything. Both of them thought they’d won.
    Over the next hour, Detective Rob Stiller laid out an incredible story that would one day knock Arizona on its ear. “A new Arizona Mafia,” he’d said. Those words kept bouncing around Joya’s mind.
    She clearly saw why this story had to wait. Revealing that Sammy “the Bull” Gravano was in town was nothing. What he was doing would blow the doors off. But they’d never stop him if the story came out too soon.
    “I have the exclusive,” she emphasized to Rob when he was done. It wasn’t a question, but a declaration of their agreement.
    “Absolutely.”
    “Robbie, this is like a bad movie.”
    “Yeah, a bad movie where a lot of people can get hurt.”
    What a day, Joya mused, as she and Robbie went off to bed and fantastic sex.
    It was Friday, October 15, 1999.

Chapter Three
    Monday, October 18, 1999
    K.C. Franken had never been more aware of his responsibilities as the town’s funeral director than when he waited for his son to bring Amber’s body from the Breckenridge Hospital.
    He’d had the biggest fight of his marriage over this, his wife spitting at him that it was inhuman to send Kenny to fetch the body of his classmate—the girl he’d watched die on that loft floor—while his best friend still lay in a coma.
    “Your own son could have died,” Margaret yelled at him. “He’s grieving. He’s been through enough. I’m already afraid he’ll do something to avenge this. Don’t push him. Let him alone!”
    But that was the point, K.C. told her. It could have been Kenny. It could have been any of them. It could have been all of them. It was the luck of the draw that it wasn’t. Their firstborn had to learn that when you take dangerous risks, sometimes you pick the short straw. Margaret didn’t understand that sending Kenny in the funeral coach to pick up Amber’s body was his way of teaching their son that lesson.
    Her only words that worried him were the “pushing-the-boy” part. It wouldn’t take much, and there were thirteen other boys in that Class of 2000 he had to worry about, too.
    He could still hear Ralph Bonner’s words after mass yesterday. “You guys keep an eye on your boys, because no telling what they’ll do to him. And there’s no sense this gets any worse.