Chapter 4 - THE YELLOW TIE
The crumpled crayon drawing fluttered slightly in Leo’s trembling hand.
The silence in the dining room transformed into a suffocating vacuum. All twenty-four guests stared at the bright yellow crayon scribbles depicting a man suffocating Mrs. Romano. Then, as if pulled by a magnetic force, every pair of eyes shifted to Uncle Frank.
Frank stood frozen at his place setting. His hand instinctively rose to his throat, hovering just inches over the yellow silk tie he had worn for the occasion.
“What is this?” Frank stammered, his voice lacking its usual smooth, authoritative polish. He let out a nervous, hollow laugh. “The boy is confused. He’s drawing nightmares, Alessandro. You know the trauma he’s been through.”
Alessandro didn’t laugh. He slowly took the drawing from his son’s hands. His eyes moved from the paper to his uncle, and the cold, terrifying stillness returned to his posture.
“You were in her room, Frank?” Alessandro asked. It wasn’t a question; it was an accusation, delivered with the weight of an anvil.
“No!” Frank shouted, taking a step backward. “Dom—Alessandro, listen to me. Isabella put the boy up to this! She hates me because I knew the truth about her father! She forced him to draw this to frame me!”
“Don’t you dare call him a liar,” I snapped, my protective instincts overriding my station. I stood up, keeping Leo safely tucked behind my skirt. “I found Leo hiding in the linen closet the morning his grandmother died. He was catatonic. He wouldn’t speak for three days. You sent him away before he could tell anyone what he saw.”
Answer One. The figure with the pillow wasn’t Isabella. It was Frank. He had used the opportunity of Isabella’s confrontation to finish Mrs. Romano off.
Open Two. But why? Frank was Mrs. Romano’s brother-in-law. She had kept him in the inner circle for decades. What could she possibly have over him that was worth killing for? And how did Isabella’s father’s watch get into the mix?
“Uncle Frank,” Leo whispered from behind me. “You told me if I ever drew that picture again, you would send me to a place where my dad could never find me.”
The guests gasped. Several women covered their mouths in horror.
Alessandro’s face turned into a mask of pure, lethal fury. He crossed the distance between them in three massive strides. Frank tried to run, but Alessandro grabbed him by the throat of his tailored suit, slamming the older man hard against the heavy oak paneling of the wall.
“You threatened my son?” Alessandro roared, the sound echoing like a gunshot. “You killed my mother and threatened my boy?!”
“I didn’t kill her!” Frank choked out, his face turning purple as Alessandro lifted him onto his toes. “I was in the room, yes! But I swear on my life, I didn’t kill her!”
Reversal.
Alessandro tightened his grip. “My son saw you holding a pillow over her face.”
“I was trying to make it look peaceful!” Frank wept, the polished mobster completely breaking down. “Alessandro, please! Let me breathe and I’ll tell you everything!”
Alessandro hesitated, the muscles in his jaw ticking. Slowly, he released his grip, letting Frank slide down the wall, gasping for air.
Frank pulled at his yellow tie, loosening it with shaking hands. He looked around the room at the terrified guests, then looked at Isabella, who was still kneeling on the floor.
“I didn’t suffocate her,” Frank rasped, tears streaming down his face. “She was already dead when I walked in. I used the pillow to wipe away the foam.”
I felt a cold chill run down my spine. “Foam?” I whispered.
“She was poisoned,” Frank said, looking up at Alessandro. “When I walked into her room, she was seizing. There was white foam on her lips. I knew if the coroner saw it, there would be a massive police investigation. The feds would tear this house apart. I grabbed the pillow to wipe her face, to make it look like a heart attack, to protect the family!”
Answer One. Mrs. Romano wasn’t suffocated. She was poisoned. Frank was acting as a cleaner, covering up a murder to protect the syndicate from a federal probe.
“Protect the family?” Alessandro growled, stepping forward again. “Who were you protecting, Frank? Who poisoned her?”
Frank pointed a shaking finger directly at Isabella.
“She did it,” Frank spat. “I saw her running out of the room holding a small glass vial. That’s why she dropped her father’s watch! She poisoned her, and I covered it up so the Romano empire wouldn’t collapse in a murder scandal!”
Isabella scrambled backward, shaking her head frantically. “No! He’s lying! I didn’t have a vial! I didn’t poison her!”
The confusion in the room was suffocating. Frank was accusing Isabella. Isabella was accusing Frank. And my beloved Mrs. Romano was dead because of one of them.
Then, I remembered something.
Something so small, so insignificant, that I had completely overlooked it during the chaos of the dinner.
I walked quickly to the table, where the battered leather purse still sat next to Alessandro’s plate. I reached inside and pulled out the old, handwritten recipe card that had started this entire nightmare.
I held it up to the light of the crystal chandelier.
“Mr. Romano,” I said, my voice shaking. “When I first brought this out, Isabella said it was just an old recipe. I assumed it was for the lemon cake Mrs. Romano loved so much.”
Alessandro turned to me, his chest heaving. “What is it, Margaret?”
I stared at the delicate, cursive handwriting on the front of the card.
“This isn’t a recipe for a cake,” I whispered, reading the ingredients aloud. “Foxglove extract. Oleander root. Nightshade. These are lethal botanicals, sir. This is a recipe for poison.”
Isabella let out a small, terrified whimper.
“And,” I continued, my heart breaking as I looked at the shape of the letters. “This isn’t your mother’s handwriting, Mr. Romano. I’ve read your mother’s grocery lists every week for eleven years. She always crossed her T’s with a harsh, straight line.”
I turned the card around so Alessandro could see it.
“These T’s are looped. This is Isabella’s handwriting.”
Isabella froze. The entire room went dead silent.
Alessandro slowly walked toward his fiancée, the lethal recipe card in his hand. “You wrote the formula to kill my mother.”
Isabella didn’t try to run. She didn’t scream. She simply closed her eyes, and tears began to fall steadily down her beautiful face.
“Yes,” Isabella whispered. “I wrote it.”
Before Alessandro could react, Isabella reached into her cleavage, hidden beneath the deep red fabric of her evening gown. She pulled out a heavy, iron-wrought object and dropped it onto the dining table with a loud, ringing clatter.
May you like
It was a man’s heavy gold signet ring.
“But I didn’t write it to murder her, Alessandro,” Isabella sobbed, pointing at the ring. “I wrote it because she begged me to.”
