Page 15 of A Matter of Pedigree
“Don’t be shy; take a seat,” she said, patting the empty chair.
“Thanks,” said Carole. “I was afraid I might make you uncomfortable.”
“No, no.” Millicent shook her head. “I’m sure the police have made a terrible mistake and your husband is innocent.” She paused, reflecting. “I did so think you would have been a breath of fresh air in that musty old place. Hosea was wrong to vote the way he did. He won’t allow anyone who’s not a white Protestant and preferably aMayflowerdescendant to buy that apartment, not that he would ever have admitted it. But I’m sure he didn’t like your beautiful Italian name; he probably thought all Italians are in the Mafia or something.” She snorted. “So ridiculous. The moment I heard dear Susan say Capobianco,” she said, lingering over the syllables. “well, I thought of Florence.” She turned to Carole, nodding. “It’s my favorite city in the whole world.”
“Mine, too,” said Carole, who actually thought Florence was terribly overcrowded and often smelly. “I heard he turned down other offers,” she added, recalling the gossip she’d heard at Happy Nails.
“Several. A lovely Black couple, an Asian professor, and oh, that wonderful rabbi and his wife,” said Millicent, rolling her eyes. Her short, curly hair was snow-white, and she wasn’t wearing a bit of makeup, Carole noticed, but she didn’t look bad. Her skin was soft, and her cheeks were pink and firm, even though wrinkles sprouted around her eyes and mouth. Her eyes were bright, and she had a perky look about her, as if she found everything absolutely fascinating. “That was Hosea for you.”
“He voted against them all?”
“It made me furious,” admitted Millicent, patting her cat box. “Tiggles has an upset stomach.”
Even through the wall, Carole could still hear Poopsie, who was still barking, but not quite as frantically as before. “My dog’s having a panic attack,” she said.
“Animals are so sensitive. I bet your dog is worried about your husband,” said Millicent. She paused a moment, apparently lost in her own thoughts. “I abhor prejudice,” she said, suddenly, startling Carole. “I absolutely detest it. I’ve seen it firsthand—you know, dreadful, hateful behavior—in the South. But it isn’t just there, you know; it persists in many places today. And we in the North are certainly not blameless.” She lowered her voice. “Hosea’s ancestors, you know, made their money in the slave trade. Rhode Island was a major player.”
“So they say,” said Carole.
“It’s only recently that we’re beginning to come to terms with our history.” Millicent peered into the carrier, checking on Tiggles. “The lynchings and the church burnings and the fear, it was a terrible thing. I was a Freedom Rider, you know. I went down to Mississippi in the sixties, with a group of Quakers and Unitarians to register Black voters.”
Carole was impressed; she’d never have guessed that this little old lady with her pearls and her kitty-cat had done anything so daring. “You were part of history,” she said.
“We made history, that’s for sure, but things didn’t change overnight. And when I got back North, I found parents in Boston were protesting when they began bussing to integrate the public schools. I was shocked!”
“There’s a documentary about that. I saw the promo on PBS,” said Carole. “I remember their faces, so full of hate.”
“Exactly,” said Millicent, just as her name was called. She popped right up, quite spry for someone her age, thought Carole. “It was nice talking to you,” she said, before hurrying to follow the veterinary assistant.
Carole settled into her seat, trying to ignore Poopsie’s barks and hoping she wouldn’t have to wait much longer. The situation was getting on her nerves; she was worried about Frank, and that’s probably what set Poopsie off. The little dog was terribly sensitive and tuned right in to her people’s moods. Maybe she should have gone in for a yoga session, instead of getting a manicure, she thought. She knew her emotions were in turmoil, and it wasn’t doing her or the dog any good. Or Frank, for that matter.
How could the cops be so wrong? she wondered. Why hadn’t they dug a little deeper? If they had, they would have discovered that Hosea Browne wasn’t a very nice guy and there were probably a lot of people who would have liked to kill him. Take Susan Weaver, for one; old Hosea had really screwed her, turning down those perfectly good offers. And what about the other applicants? Maybe they weren’t about to take Hosea’s rejection lying down.
Mentally, Carole tut-tutted. Wasn’t discrimination in housing supposed to be illegal? How could Hosea get away with it? And if he was pulling stunts like that, how many other people had he offended? Maybe Frank was right, she thought; maybe the murder did have something to do with Prospect Place.
Of course, that was probably part of the cops’ case against Frank: that he was so upset about being turned down that he offed the old Yankee. But Carole thought they’d have a hard time proving it. Truth was, a day or two after the Prospect Place interview, Frank had already forgotten about it. In fact, he’d never even mentioned Prospect Place again. He was like that; he didn’t fret, he simply moved on. Nowadays, he seemed perfectly happy with the pool and gym and parking at the Esplanade; he especially loved the hot tub. There was no sign at all that he was sulking over the rejection.
But what about this new wrinkle that Paulie had mentioned, that Hosea’s murder was linked to the Factory contract? That was troublesome, thought Carole, who knew enough about the building trades to know that there was inevitably some pushing and shoving and squeezing when a lucrative contract was in the offing. Hey, this was Providence; that’s the way things were. Competitors were warned off, palms got greased, everybody was happy. Nobody made a big deal about it. Look what happened to Buddy Cianci, for Pete’s sake. He turned the city around when he was mayor, and everybody loved him for it, but the Feds got him on corruption charges and sent him to jail. Even so, most people thought he got a bum deal, and the conservative Providence Preservation Society even gave him an award, overlooking the inconvenient fact that he would be unable to attend the awards banquet due to incarceration. And when he got out of jail, he ran for mayor again and got elected to another term.
That all took place a long time ago, and a lot had happened in the meantime, like the recession and the Covid pandemic, but it was like that French saying, she thought, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” And Frank was a pretty smart cookie. Hadn’t he invented the Bye-Bye Toilet? He was no dummy, and she was confident he always knew which side his bread was buttered on. And when it came to the Factory, Hosea was the butter; he was the guy with the financing. He held the purse strings, and there was no way Frank was going to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs, she decided, mixing metaphors. Having cleared that up in her mind, she reached for her cell and dialed Tom Paliotto, over at the homicide division.
“You know, Tom,” she began, “I’ve been thinking about Frank’s problem.”
“How’s he doing?” asked Tom.
“Okay, everything considered. He knows he’s innocent, of course, and he figures the trial will show that.”
“We’ve got the best justice system in the world,” said Tom, diplomatically.
“Right,” agreed Carole. “But trials are expensive and take a long time, and while they’re building a case against Frank, the real murderer is still at large.” Carole was so involved in her conversation that she didn’t notice the glances she was getting from the other people in the waiting room. “And it’s really obvious to anyone who knows Frank that he would never do something like that.”
“Kill somebody?” asked Tom, in a doubtful tone.
“I suppose everybody’s got their limit and could get mad enough to kill somebody,” admitted Carole. “But, for Frank, it would probably be someone in the family, like Frank-O,” she added, chuckling.
“Frank-O?”
“Frankie Junior. He’s an artist now. Wants to be called Frank-O. Like that guy who wrapped up islands in cloth and did a big deal in Central Park. Christo.”
