Murder at St. Winifred's Academy

Book 5: Ferrara Family Mystery

by J.D. Griffo

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Private Investigators

Synopsis

Tranquility, New Jersey’s amateur drama troupe is staging a murder mystery at St. Winifred’s Academy and Alberta Scaglione couldn’t be more thrilled. Even her Italian-American famiglia are getting in on the act. But someone’s making deadly revisions to the script . . .
 
Alberta can hardly believe it. Her childhood screen idol, 1950s Hollywood starlet Missy Michaels, has signed up for the local Tranquility Players revival of the classic Arsenic and Old Lace. But before Missy memorizes a single line, she’s found dead in her dressing room wrapped in lace and clutching a bottle of arsenic. The ultimate drama-queen suicide? Everyone thinks so—except Alberta. A Ferrara woman knows murder when she sees it. Alberta also knows producer Nola Kirkpatrick’s checkered past: whenever she’s around, trouble abounds.
 
Alberta and her crime-reporting partner-in-sleuthing granddaughter, Jinx, have a hunch the murderer is among the Players. So Alberta joins the cast—reluctantly playing Missy’s role—to get closer to the truth. She notices the director is a little unbalanced, but aren’t they all? The leading man is a wildly obsessive Missy Michaels fanboy—but a murderer? Of course, the show must go on. But if Alberta and Jinx can’t nab the killer before opening night, it may mean curtains for more Players . . . including Alberta.
 
Includes Italian recipes from Alberta’s kitchen!
 
“Imagine the Golden Girls starting a detective agency and you’ll get the general idea of J.D. Griffo’s charming Ferrara Family mystery series.”
—Criminal Element
 

Release date: May 25, 2021

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

Alberta stared at the postcard. It was meant to bring happiness, but it only brought heartache. Sitting on her couch in her living room, she had never felt more alone in her entire life. And Alberta knew she only had herself to blame.

The postcard came as a surprise. Why was someone dressed in a Mickey Mouse costume waving at her underneath the entrance to Disneyland? When she turned the card over, she understood. Her son, Rocco, was spending the day at the world-famous theme park with his youngest child, Gregory, and he meant to share the event. He accomplished that and much more. His missive reminded Alberta of the distance—both geographically and emotionally—that had grown between them over the years. It also reminded Alberta of just how much she missed her family.

Living in Tranquility, surrounded by friends and relatives, Alberta Ferrara Scaglione was hardly alone. But her children were thousands of miles away and not part of her daily life. She was estranged from her daughter, Lisa Marie, and Rocco was focused on raising his own family and not maintaining ties with those he left behind.

After Rocco’s first marriage to Annmarie ended in divorce, his former high school sweetheart moved to Los Angeles with their two daughters, Alessandra and Rocky. Unable and unwilling to be a long-distance father, Rocco soon followed his ex-wife so he could live close to his girls. Logically, Alberta understood the reason for his relocation—a good father based all his decisions on what was best for his family—but in her heart, she felt he had ulterior motives.

She could never quite understand why he didn’t force Annmarie to remain in New Jersey with their children. It was where the estranged couple both had roots, it was where their families lived, it was where Rocco worked. Moving to the other side of the country didn’t make sense for either of them. Alberta even consulted a lawyer and knew that Rocco could legally prohibit Annmarie from moving so far away because they had joint custody of their children, but Rocco claimed that his ex had wanted a fresh start and he didn’t want to turn an already contentious divorce into an even more hostile environment.

Her power to control her son long gone, Alberta was forced to watch silently from the sidelines as Rocco made plans to change his life. He sold his home, got a transfer to work at his company’s Los Angeles office, and said his good-byes, all to be closer to his daughters. Or, as Alberta felt, to get farther away from her.

She never voiced her beliefs because she knew how petty they would sound. She knew she would be labeled a controlling, unsympathetic, and selfish mother. And she was being selfish. But the main reason she didn’t give her fears a voice was because she didn’t want confirmation that they were true. What if she was right and her son had relocated to the other side of the country to get away from her? Was that something she really wanted to know? Alberta had already lost one child when Lisa Marie packed up and moved her family to Florida in a desperate attempt to end the constant fighting that had become an ugly war between mother and daughter; she didn’t want to know that she had lost another child for similar reasons. She and Rocco did not have a volatile relationship like the one she had with Lisa Marie, but ever since he was a little boy there had always been a distance between them.

Rocco wasn’t the typical Italian son; he wasn’t a mama’s boy; he took after his father in every way. Looks, mannerisms, thoughts, and, especially, how he treated Alberta. He was never abusive—not overtly—but he could be dismissive and disinterested and, as a result, their relationship was disappointing.

Sitting on her couch, the postcard clutched tightly in one hand, Alberta traced her gold crucifix necklace with the other. She looked up and saw Rocco’s class photograph from third grade, and despite the sadness that filled her heart, she smiled because it was her favorite. His hair was disheveled, his tie crooked, his smile mischievous. Sammy hated the photo because he couldn’t believe Alberta had let Rocco out of the house looking like a tep-pista, a roughneck, but Alberta loved it because in her mind, her son was so full of life it couldn’t be contained. She knew this forza di energia, this little boy with the devilish smile, would do great things with the life God had given him. She still felt that way, even though Rocco had proven, ever since that photograph was taken, that he was ordinary. It was one thing he had in common with his mother.

He was remarried to a woman named Cecilia, who Alberta hardly knew, and had another child, his first boy, Gregory, who Alberta had only seen twice. She knew Rocco was a car salesman but knew little more about his career. She couldn’t remember his address without looking it up, and she didn’t know if he still needed to take his blood pressure medication or if he still squeezed a lemon over his steak before he ate it like he used to. Her son’s life was a mystery to her. Then again, Alberta’s life was a mystery to her son.

A first-generation Italian American, Alberta Ferrara Scaglione was the middle child of her family and grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey. She obeyed her parents, got along with her sister, Helen, and her brother, Anthony, and was what was known as a good girl. She never caused any trouble, never gave anyone cause for worry. She wasn’t invisible, only largely unnoticed, and, most definitely, ordinary.

Like most of the young women of her generation, she only left her family when she got married. She didn’t want to become Sammy Scaglione’s wife, but she couldn’t think of a good reason not to, so despite misgivings, she went ahead with the ceremony. After a brief honeymoon down the Jersey Shore, she moved out of her family’s home and into an apartment with Sammy to create one of her own. Because that’s what all the good girls did.

Her marriage to Sammy was also ordinary. It wasn’t entirely good, it wasn’t entirely bad, it simply was. As a reluctant newlywed, Alberta didn’t succumb to the belief that the fairy tales she read as a child had any bearing on the real world. She knew Prince Charmings didn’t exist, she knew endings weren’t always happy, and, most of all, she knew the worst enemy a person could have wasn’t a witch with a tempting yet poisonous apple, it was their reflection in the mirror. Most women looked at themselves and saw a fantasy version of who they wanted to be smiling back at them. When Alberta looked at herself in the mirror, she saw the truth.

With only a high school education and little job experience, Alberta had few choices for her future other than marriage. It was her only option, she believed, despite the fact that she knew other young women had defied the odds and created lives for themselves that ignored traditions and stereotypes. They became surgeons, lawyers, actresses, authors, athletes. They became something other than a wife and mother. But those women were extraordinary, and Alberta was not.

Part of her wanted to flee from her inevitable future, to escape the predictable next chapters of her life, but in order to do that she would have had to fight. Maybe that was what Rocco had done, she thought. Maybe he fled what he thought was an unlivable future of not being a part of his daughters’ daily lives. If so, he was much stronger than Alberta. She had been unable to find the inner strength needed to battle her parents, her fiance, society, and, toughest of all, her own fears and doubts. She didn’t run from a future she didn’t want; she accepted it. The irony was that, deep down, the strength Alberta needed was there for her, impatiently waiting to be roused, but she didn’t believe she possessed what it would take to forge into unknown territory. Like so many others, she chose the familiar.

Rocco’s smile looked down upon Alberta from his photograph, and she averted her eyes to escape his stare and found herself looking at Lisa Marie on her wedding day. Alberta had always thought she would become one of the women she used to see growing up, the grandmothers dressed in head-to-toe black mourning for their dead husbands, walking a few steps behind their children, and yelling at their grandchildren. She never thought she’d be living by herself in a house on a lake in a beautiful town like Tranquility, New Jersey. Wasn’t she supposed to be living in the basement of her daughter’s house? Wasn’t she supposed to be adapting her schedule to the needs and whims of her children and grandchildren? Wasn’t she supposed to be living in their shadow instead of casting shadows of her own?

She slumped back into the couch and let the cushions soothe some of the pain she was feeling. Maybe she was being too harsh. Maybe she was just feeling sorry for herself. She always knew memories were dangerous things; they distorted the past and manipulated the future. It was all the postcard’s fault. How could she read her son’s handwriting and not remember what had come before and imagine what could come next if only their lives had taken a different shape? She had forgotten what her mother used to say about walking down memory lane, that it was like entrare in guerra, walking into war. You put yourself right into the line of fire, except there were no bullets to wound you, only guilt and shame. And Alberta had plenty of both.

She could live with not being the perfect daughter, she long ago forgave herself for not being the perfect wife, but the one thing that still filled her with regret was that she’d failed as a mother.

Again, this wasn’t a unique quality that Alberta possessed, as she was hardly the only mother in the world to display shortcomings, nor the first mother to disappoint her children. It was a rather ordinary feeling for a woman to believe she wasn’t the perfect mother. Still, it was a source of constant pain for Alberta; there was always the doubt that she had truly done the best she could and the suspicion that she could have tried harder.

“Ah, Madon!” she cried.

Alberta rose from the couch with such passion, it made her cat, Lola, wake up from her third nap that morning with a loud meow. And because Lola hated to be woken up from her naps so abruptly, the meow did not sound pretty.

“I know exactly how you feel, Lola,” Alberta said.

Unconvinced, Lola stretched out on the couch on her back, her legs pointing to the left, her head turned to the right. Her right eye was closed, but her left eye was wide open, her black pupil surrounded by a larger circle of white. Her expression made the white streak of fur over her left eye look like an exclamation point. It was as if Lola was saying to Alberta, Oh really?

Smiling, Alberta scooped Lola up in her arms. She cradled her like a baby as she always did, rocking her side to side as her eyes moved from photo to photo on the wall, and she watched the generations of the Ferrara family come to life before her eyes. Her parents, her grandparents, cousins, pets, her Gumpa Tony, her mother’s godmother who wasn’t a blood relative but was beloved by everyone, her children, her sister Helen, her sister-in-law Joyce, her granddaughter Jinx, and all the friends she had made since moving here.

Slowly, memory faded and the past, in all its fictional glory and factual heartache, gave way to the present. Rocco was still thousands of miles away living with his new wife and raising a son Alberta barely knew. Lisa Marie was living almost as far away, still refusing to bridge the gap that kept them apart. There was nothing Alberta could do to change what had come before, but she could stop wasting time dwelling on it, wondering where she had gone wrong, if she should have acted differently, or why she made certain choices. Why focus on the past when the present was filled with hope and promise?

Alberta laughed out loud because for most of her life she was not the kind of woman who grasped on to hope or believed tomorrow held the promise of a better day. But ever since her Aunt Carmela left her millions of dollars and the house on Memory Lake, she had changed. She no longer strived to be perfect, she only wanted to be the best version of herself that she could possibly be. She took charge instead of waiting to be told what to do, she discovered she had skills she never thought she possessed, and she took chances.

When someone asked her opinion, she offered truth instead of a mindless platitude. If something needed to be done, she did it herself instead of waiting for help. Her children might not recognize her, but that was okay. Just as they were living their lives the way they wanted to, Alberta had to do the same. It had taken her over sixty years, but she was finally answering to just one person: herself.

“Una vita molto diversa, ” she said.

Lola meowed lazily, and Alberta translated, “A very different life, Lola, that’s what I’m living.”

When the phone stopped ringing, Alberta smiled because it was nice to hear her son’s voice even if it was only a recording.

“Rocco, it’s your mother,” Alberta said. “Thank you for your postcard, it sounds like you and Gregory had a wonderful day. Give my grandson a big hug and kiss for me and tell him that I love him.”

She had to take a deep breath before she could continue. “I miss you and I love you too,” she said. “Addio, figlio.”

She stood in the kitchen for a few minutes, looking out the window and marveling at how beautiful and large Memory Lake looked. After all this time, the sight of it still surprised and delighted her. She wondered if her voice message would cause the same response from her son. Taking a cue from the sunshine that filtered in through the window and enveloped her, she chose to believe that it would.

The ring of the cell phone startled Alberta and made her jump. “Dio mio!” she exclaimed.

Hopeful that it was her son calling her back, she was smiling when she reached for the phone. Despite seeing that it was someone else calling her, her smile remained; in fact, it grew a little larger.

“Hello, lovey,” Alberta said, answering her granddaughter’s call.

“Gram!” Jinx shouted. “I need to see you.”

“Why?” Alberta asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Jinx replied.

Without thinking, Alberta tucked her hair back over her ear as she often did when she was nervous. It was a habit acquired from the time she was a young girl, and while it was soothing to run her finger through her still thick hair, let it travel around her ear, and trace her jawline, it didn’t alleviate anxiety. Despite Jinx’s protestations, Alberta was still concerned.

“If everything’s all right, why do you need to see me?” Alberta asked.

“Because I have some superincredible, stupefacente news to share!” Jinx shouted.

“Wow, you’re breaking out the Italian words, this must be terrific news,” Alberta said. “Share it with me now.”

“No! I want to see your expression when I tell you,” Jinx said. “Come over to my place.”

“Ah Madon!” Alberta cried. “Fine! I’ll be right over.”

“Great! You are gonna flip when you hear what I have to tell you!” Jinx yelled. “Love you, Gram.”

Jinx ended the call before Alberta could reply. But it didn’t matter, Jinx knew her grandmother loved her just as much. She also knew that Alberta would be at her place as quickly as she could simply because Jinx had asked her to come. Alberta was incapable of refusing her granddaughter anything. The reverse was also true, and even though Jinx could be unpredictable at times she was always a dutiful granddaughter. Neither one had expected their relationship to become so vitally important, but neither one could imagine living without the other in their lives.

Alberta’s life might be very different from what she had envisioned it would be, but in some ways it was better.

And it most definitely wasn’t ordinary.

“I think Jinx is going to tell us that she and Freddy are engaged!”

Even though Alberta had promised she would immediately race over to Jinx’s apartment to hear her good news, she had to first inform her sister and sister-in-law that good news was about to be shared. After Jinx hung up on her, Alberta called Helen and Joyce, explained the situation, and within fifteen minutes they were in Alberta’s kitchen, where they were now. Standing side by side, the two women stared at Alberta with the same stunned expression plastered on their faces. They looked the same, and yet they couldn’t have looked more different.

A former nun who had spent forty years living in a convent, Helen was thin, her short hair completely gray, and she stood about five foot seven thanks to the thick-heeled, sensible shoes she always wore. Her complexion, untouched except for a healthy application of pink lipstick, was fairer than the typical Sicilian’s, and her blue eyes were more pale than vibrant, which, combined with her skin tone, made her appear like a soft, watercolor painting. The look belied Helen’s much stronger and some might say cantankerous personality.

On the other hand, Joyce was African American, had black, close-cropped hair, black eyes, a curvy figure, and stood at five foot nine in her stocking feet. Her outfits were tailored, usually colorful, and always coordinated with eye-catching accessories, like the emerald stud earrings, avocado faux alligator belt, and cluster of Bakelite bracelets in varying shades of green that perfectly accented the khaki jumpsuit she was currently wearing. The only accessories Helen ever wore were the staples to her wardrobe: a gold crucifix necklace and a sturdy, black pocketbook.

Physically, they made an odd couple. Emotionally, they were in sync. And at the moment, they were in shock.

“Did you hear what I said?” Alberta asked.

This time when Alberta spoke, Helen and Joyce stared at each other. And then they screamed. Joyce’s shriek was much higher pitched than Helen’s gruff roar, but they were speaking the same language.

“Jinxie’s getting married?” Helen asked.

“She only told me that she had wonderful news to share,” Alberta said. “But I’d swear on Daddy’s grave that she’s going to tell us her boyfriend finally popped the question.”

“I can’t wait to take Jinx shopping for her gown,” Joyce said. “I have a former client whose son owns a bridal shop in Brooklyn. I convinced the father to invest in The Phantom of the Opera and he’s made a mint. The man owes me.”

“We owe Jinxie a celebration,” Helen said. “Do you think we have enough food?”

The ladies surveyed Alberta’s kitchen table, which was overflowing with food Alberta had assembled while waiting for Helen and Joyce to arrive. There were Tupperware containers filled with leftover lasagna and eggplant parmigiana, platters of antipasto covered in Saran Wrap, two boxes of Entenmann’s cakes—a Louisiana Crunch loaf and their classic golden cake with fudge icing. There was enough food to feed a hungry family of twelve and still the ladies weren’t sure there was enough for an impromptu gathering of four.

“As long as no one wants seconds you’ll be fine,” Helen said.

“Something’s missing,” Joyce claimed.

“Dio mio!” Alberta cried. “I don’t have time to make anything.”

“Do you have a pitcher of Red Herring in the fridge?” Joyce asked.

Nervously, Alberta opened the refrigerator door, and when she saw a full pitcher behind the carton of nondairy almond milk that she always kept on hand so Jinx could have it for her coffee, she sighed. She pulled out the pitcher and raised it overhead like a trophy. “Found it!”

Whenever the ladies gathered to play canasta, discuss clues on their latest detective case, or just gossip about family or the denizens of Tranquility, they had to have two things: an Entenmann’s dessert and something alcoholic to drink. For years they complemented their boxed dessert with flavored vodka, but when they ran out of new flavors to try, Jinx created their own signature drink. A Red Herring consisted of vodka, prosecco, cranberry juice, some orange juice, a splash of tomato juice, and a mint garnish to give it some extra visual oomph. No gathering of the Ferrara ladies would be complete without a pitcher of their very own liquid concoction, so they were relieved that Alberta had an extra one on hand to bring to Jinx’s.

Alberta was about to close the refrigerator door when she spied something else that made her scream.

“What’s wrong?” Helen asked.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Alberta replied as she pulled out a bottle of champagne. “Now we have everything we need to celebrate Jinx and Freddy’s engagement in style!”

When they arrived at Jinx’s apartment, the only one not ready to celebrate Jinx and Freddy’s engagement was Jinx.

“I never said I was getting married,” Jinx said.

“You did too!” Alberta shrieked. “You told me that you had the best news ever and you wanted to share it with me. And naturally I shared it with Helen and Joyce.”

“I’m glad you got hold of them,” Jinx replied. “I left messages, but neither one got back to me.”

Helen and Joyce looked at their phones and saw that Jinx had, in fact, left them text messages telling them to come to her apartment so she could share some happy news with them.

“It’s right here in black and white,” Joyce said.

“Show us the ring,” Helen demanded.

“What ring?” Jinx asked.

“The engagement ring Freddy gave you,” Joyce clarified. “Let’s see it.”

“I’m sorry to burst the crazy little bubble you all live in,” Jinx said, “but Freddy didn’t give me a ring.”

The three women gasped at the same time and instinctively reached out to grab one another’s hands. In times of shock, a woman needed support.

“Don’t tell me that somebody else gave you a ring?” Alberta said. “Poor Freddy will be devastated.”

“Gram, you’re talking pazzo!” Jinx cried.

“I’m crazy?” Alberta asked. “You’re the one who tells us to race over here because you have important news to share, we come to celebrate, and you claim you’re not getting married. You tell me, who’s the crazy one?”

“You three are obsessed with marriage,” Jinx declared. “Do you realize that?”

“Of course,” Alberta replied.

“A smidge,” Helen said.

“Also too, I can get you a primo discount on a wedding gown,” Joyce added.

Jinx smiled because even though she knew she was staring at three women who shared an almost unhealthy preoccupation with her personal life, she knew they also loved her unconditionally. It filled her with both pride and gratitude.

“I pledge to you right now that if Freddy ever gets down on one knee and proposes marriage to me, you three will be the first to know,” Jinx promised.

“We better be!” they replied in unison.

Surveying all the food that was spread out on her kitchen table, Jinx shook her head. “I can’t imagine what you’re going to whip up when I actually do get engaged. We’re going to have to rent a catering hall.”

“I have a friend whose daughter owns a place in Morristown,” Joyce said. “I’ll make a reservation tonight.”

“In the meantime, now that you have a captive though slightly disappointed audience,” Helen said, “tell us about this exciting news.”

“It’s actually not even my news to share,” Jinx shared. “It’s Nola’s.”

On cue, Jinx’s roommate, Nola Kirkpatrick, came out of her bedroom and stood looking at the Ferraras as if she was on trial. Which was ironic because the last time she was in their presence she was the prime suspect in a murder mystery they were trying to solve. Nola wasn’t a dangerous woman, but she did always seem to find herself in predicaments. And she usually dragged all those around her into her crisis as well.

Essentially an orphan after her adoptive parents died when she was a freshman in college, Nola didn’t have any other family to speak of, so her friends had become her family. Because her best friend and roommate was Jinx, she had claimed the Ferrara clan as her own. Even though they bore no physical resemblance—Jinx was taller, darker, curvier, and had long, wavy black hair, while Nola had a tomboy’s physique and long blond hair that remained straight no matter how long she used her curling iron—the two shared a sisterly bond. The rest of the Ferraras didn’t share Jinx’s opinion of Nola and considered the girl to be more like a distant relative. Better to be heard of than seen.

“Guai in vista,” Helen muttered.

Those in the room who understood Italian knew Helen was speaking the truth. Trouble had most definitely arrived.

“Hi, everybody,” Nola gushed. “I’m so glad you could all come over.”

“Jinx said it was important,” Alberta replied.

“I figured you’d be more inclined to accept my invitation if it came from Jinx instead of me,” Nola confessed.

“You’ve come to know us so well,” Helen said. “You’re a terrible director, but you’re perceptive.”

A beloved English and creative writing teacher at St. Winifred’s Academy, where she’d been named teacher of the year four times in a row, Nola also ran the theatre department at the school, directed the high school shows, and was the artistic director of the Tranquility Players, the town’s community theatre. Nola’s productions delighted the entire town, except Helen.

“Aunt Helen!” Jinx chided. “Nola’s a wonderful director and you know it.”

“You really are, honey,” Joyce said. “Your decision to set Guys and Dolls in a gambling addiction rehab center was inspired.”

“Thanks, Aunt Joyce,” Nola started. “I’m sorry, is it all right if I call you Aunt Joyce? After everything we’ve been through, I really do consider you all family.”

“Of course,” Joyce replied. “I’d be honored.”

“You can call me Helen,” Helen said.

The comment made everyone in the room cringe and hold their breath, except for Nola, who burst out laughing. “Duly noted ... Helen,” Nola replied.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” Alberta said, “tell us what this emergency gathering is all about.”

“You should sit down for this,” Jinx instructed. “You’re all gonna freak out!”

Alberta and Joyce sat down on the couch on opposite sides of Helen and all three ladies braced themselves for whatever words were going to come out of Nola’s mouth.

“The Tranquility Players are putting on another show,” Nola announced.

Those were not the words they were expecting to hear.

“That’s the opposite of good news,” Helen barked.

“Nola isn’t directing,” Jinx offered.

“That’s slightly better news,” Helen said.

“I’ll only be producing and probably acting as the stage manager, because no one ever wants to do that job,” Nola clarified. “But yes, after a slight hiatus, the Tranquility Players are back in business.”

“That’s wonderful news, Nola, it really is, and we fully support the arts and your, um, artistic endeavors,” Alberta stammered. “But Jinx, you could’ve told us this news on the phone.”

“This isn’t any run-of-the-mill show,” Nola interjected.

“You’re the producer of the show,” Helen said. “Of course you’d say that.”

“No, Aunt Helen, she’s right,” Jinx said. “This show is going to put the Tranquility Players on the map, and I guarantee that all three of you are going to beg to sit in the front row at every performance.”

Shrugging her shoulders, Alberta said, “Your captive audience is intrigued. What’s so special about this community theatre production?”

Nola and Jinx looked at each other and squealed. They were acting like they were just told the secrets of the Vatican by a loose-lipped priest. It was time . . .