Murder 101 Read Online Free PDF Page A

suit and shiny black lace-up shoes and was holding Gianna’s arm in a death grip. My heart ached to see them following the casket of their oldest.
    Max and I had been somewhat friendly with Gianna when we were freshmen and she was a junior, but the specter of her family’s “business” always hung over her, making her seem a little unapproachable. When her father, a dead ringer for Michael Corleone, picked her up one Friday afternoon, Max and I shook with terror—we had seen The Godfather and knew what happened to people who hung out with the Mob; they either ended up married to an abusive husband or with a horse head in their bed. Then, there was the rumor of her boyfriend—the one who had a bad reputation, even by Mob standards—who went missing. That was enough for us. We didn’t want to go missing because we forgot to give her our biology lab notes. We kept our distance after that.
    Today Gianna’s father, Tommy Capelli, stood behind her. He didn’t look much like Michael Corleone anymore but more like Don Corleone: heavy with white hair. He had on a gray suit, a starched white shirt with a big collar, and a black tie. He put his hand on Peter’s shoulder and whispered something in his ear, and Peter nodded.
    Gianna had gotten pregnant in her senior year, so was relatively young to have a nineteen-year-old daughter. Her two other children, a boy and a girl, were much younger—closer to being pre-teens than anything else. Kathy’s brother and sister looked like they were in a daze as they stood to the side of their mother, holding on to a very small old woman with a black-lace mantilla on her head.
    Vince Paccione, Kathy’s boyfriend, was with the family, but at the back of the crowd. He had the usual snarl on his face, and his body was tensed as if ready to spring onto someone or something. I had encountered Vince once or twice when he waited for Kathy outside of class and didn’t get his rebel without a clue act. He was handsome, got good grades (I had done a little snooping on that end), and seemed to have a few friends. But there was also a rumor that he was the Ecstasy connection at Joliet—St. Thomas’s “brother” school from long ago—and that bothered me because from what I had witnessed, Kathy was a very nice girl and shouldn’t have had a drug-dealer boyfriend. As girlfriends go, she seemed to have had that blind devotion and dedication to him that I recognized from a seven-year marriage that was dysfunctional from the beginning. I looked over at the cops in the pew and noticed Wyatt giving Vince the once-over, as if he thought something might happen.
    Vince must have sensed my gaze at him because he caught my eye and held my stare. The organ sounded, and everyone focused on the procession down the aisle, and I finally looked away, a chill going through me as I saw Vince shoot me one last look over his shoulder.
    Father Kevin and the other priest said a few prayers over the casket and turned to lead it and Kathy’s family up the aisle. As they processed, Father Kevin swung an urn of incense back and forth, filling the church with its pungent odor. The organist started playing, and I picked up my hymnal. Since I was raised Catholic, taught in a Catholic school, and went to church semiregularly, I knew most of what the organist played, but holding the hymnal and reading the words gave me something to do. I looked over at the detectives. Wyatt was looking around, seemingly at every face in the crowd, while Crawford was singing softly, his hands clasped in front of him. He apparently knew all of the words by heart.
    I didn’t know how Father Kevin was going to be able to find anything to say that would bring the family comfort; but his sermon was beautiful, invoking the idea of resting with God for all eternity. I didn’t know if I believed it, but it sounded good.
    When it was time for communion, Father Kevin brought the hosts down to the pews and had Kathy’s family receive communion from