“Something wrong?” Grandma asked. “Your eyes just rolled so far back in your head I was afraid you’d fall out of your chair.”
“It’s this list. Connie got me the names of everyone who has a Miracle Fitness membership. I thought I might find someone who was connected to Jimmy in some way and would want the keys. Someone who would hire Red Air Jordans and then kill him to shut him up.”
“That’s easy,” Grandma said. “Jimmy’s first wife, Barbara. She’s always talking about the hot trainers at Miracle. She’s in her late seventies, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s one of the diddlers. She’s on hormone replacement, and Rogaine. I think she gets Botox, too. Did you see her at the viewing? Her face doesn’t move. She’s all frozen up. She belongs on that show . . . Housewives of Hell.” Grandma reached for a cookie from the white bakery box on the table. “Barbara never married again, after the divorce. She tells everybody she has PTSD from being with Jimmy. She’d take out a hit on me in a heartbeat. His daughter, Jeanine, goes to Miracle Fitness too. She’s married to Bernard Stupe.”
“I went to school with one of their kids,” I said. “Don. He was a year ahead of me.”
“He’s in Seattle now,” Grandma said. “And the other one is in the military. I’m sure Jeanine would know about the keys, but I can’t see her killing over them. She’s always been a nice person. Quiet. Not like her mother. Bernard’s quiet too. Polite.”
“What about the second wife?” I asked.
“Bunny,” Grandma said. “They were married for less than a year. Rumor has it that she got a bucketload of money from the divorce. She’s living in Arizona now. She was at the viewing and then she flew back to Phoenix. I think she just wanted to make sure Jimmy was dead.”
I looked at my mother. “Can you think of anyone?”
“Sidney DeSalle owns Miracle Fitness,” she said. “There are a lot of rumors about him and his business practices. He’s known for being a pretty rough guy. I don’t know if he would be interested in the keys, but I imagine he’d know about them.”
I called Connie and asked her to run Sidney DeSalle through the system.
“No problem,” she said, “but you’ve got to come get Lula. She’s driving me nuts. She’s all into fitness, doing squats across the room and jumping jacks in her spike-heeled shoes. She says she’s working to look like the woman behind the desk at Miracle Fitness.”
“That’s only going to happen if Miracle Fitness is handing out miracles.”
I disconnected, ran upstairs and got Grandma’s necklace, then went back to the kitchen and put it on her.
“I have to go to work,” I said. “I’ll check back later.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LULA WAS TRYING to touch her toes when I rolled into the office. She was doing a lot of grunting, and her fingertips weren’t anywhere near her toes.
“My problem is I’m not wearing the right clothes,” Lula said. “I’m not in my workout clothes. These clothes are too restrictive.”
Lula was wearing a black spandex miniskirt, and every time she bent over there was a flash of red thong, which was ultimately lost in the Grand Canyon of Lula.
Connie had her hands over her eyes. “Tell me when she stops.”
“I’m on a self-improvement plan like Stephanie, only mine is physical. I need to lose three or four pounds,” Lula said, standing straight, tugging her skirt down over her ass.
Lula needed to lose fifty or sixty if she wanted to look like the woman behind the Miracle desk. An alternative would be to grow six inches, but that wasn’t likely to happen either.
I called Morelli and told him about Barbara Rosolli and Sidney DeSalle.
“I’ll talk to them,” he said. “We looked at the recording from the security camera that covers the parking lot next to the bail bonds office. A car drove past at one A.M. Tuesday. Couldn’t make out the occupants or the license plate. We also talked to Lucca’s neighbors, but that was a bust. He lives in a big apartment complex where no one knows anyone else.”
“What about the three sisters?”
“Angie, Tootie, and Rose? It looks like they were responsible for the searches and the firebomb. They don’t seem to be interested in kidnapping Grandma. They just want to harass her. And they wouldn’t mind finding the keys in the process.”
“You have a snitch?” I asked.
“Yeah. My mom.”
Never underestimate the value of the Burg gossip network. More news gets passed during bingo at the firehouse and daily mass at the C
atholic church than from CBS, NBC, and Fox News combined.
“What’s going on tonight?” Morelli asked.