“Umm…from the death certificate, stroke,” she said, pulling up a picture of said certificate.
“Next,” I said; however, the picture didn’t come up, and I glanced over my shoulder at her to see her rubbing her wrist. “Do you need you a moment?”
“I’m fine,” she said, using her other hand to change the photo. “Next is Italo Tizzone, age twenty-seven, born and raised in Palermo, the capital of Sicily. He was a painter and was admitted into the Academy of Fine Arts of Palermo at seventeen, but joined the Italian Armed Forces instead of going.”
“Why?”
“He wrote his reason for enlisting as losing his girlfriend in the terrorist attack in the city that year.”
Italo Tizzone.
I remembered when my father told me of how he ended up in jail because of my mother and how he’d met the leader of the Italians inside. The man’s nickname was ‘The Spoon’ because he bent spoons. My father thought it was the dumbest name he had ever heard. He told the story over and over again until one day, my mother told him that ‘The Spoon’s real name was Giuseppe Tizzone, and that when Giuseppe was a boy, he ran into the woods to find his little brother. Some of the other boys had found out his brother was gay. When Giuseppe found them, his brother was naked and tied to a tree. The boys were laughing as they threw rocks at him; they had even burned his clothes. Giuseppe had run out of the house so quickly the only thing he had in his hand was the spoon from cereal he was eating. He used that spoon and stabbed out the eyes of two boys. The third one tried to run away, but Giuseppe chased him, stripped the boy off his pants, shoved the spoon up his ass, and bent it.
From then on, where ever Giuseppe went, people would be muttering about the spoon. But over time, people stopped telling the whole story. Giuseppe didn’t bring it up because of his brother, and so everyone just assumed it was his nickname until it became his actual nickname. Giuseppe bent spoons whenever he thought about someone he was going to hurt…and to mess with people.
The look on my father’s face that day…it was like the clouds opened up and he saw Christ. After he got over the shock, he questioned why my mother had never told him that, and because my mother seemed to always want to piss him off, she replied, “If you want to hear a story, go to the damn library. Do I look like I have time to tell you the history of everyone? The only reason I’m telling you now is that if I have to listen to you speak about your little vacation in jail one more time, I’m going to send you back!”
My father cursed her out. She cursed him out and then left. When it was over, my father fell back into his chair and shook his head. I would never forget the image of him taking a deep breath, shaking his head, muttering to himself, “Is it so fucking hard to just to say, ‘I’m sorry, please stop talking about it because it makes me feel bad to remember, you damn pigheaded wench.’” And then he smiled to himself, and he never brought up The Spoon or his time in prison ever again. Not even when Wyatt had asked him.
Because he loved and understood her that much.
“Ethan?”
Shaking my head clear, I glanced back up at the freckle-faced, tan-skinned man with curly, ear-length, dark brown hair. “What about the rest of his family?”
“Mom, Dad, two sisters, and dog all live happily in Palermo. One of his uncles died in prison here in Chicago about nine years ago. No wife but one daughter. She lives in Spain now. He has another uncle…No, he had another uncle who committed suicide before he was born. Should I keep looking?”
“Next.”
“Vinnie Napolitano, age thirty-four, six feet tall, one hundred and ninety-one pounds, born in southside Chicago. Mom was a prostitute—she has several arrests going back decades. She’s currently serving life in Cook County for murdering his father, her former pimp, which is proof our justice system is still a sexist institution of shit.”
“And what has he been doing for the last thirty-four years?” I questioned, ignoring her commentary.
“He was a Navy Operations Specialists.”
“For the United States?”
“Yep,” she said, bringing up a photo of said man, dressed in his all-white uniform with the United States flag in the background. He was a square-jawed man with light-colored eyes and shaggy brown hair.
“Did he spend any time in Italy?”
“Not that I can see. But he worked in the military, so he could have been anywhere at any time. For me to really know, I’ll have to hack into classified—”
“That’s all I need. You should go rest now, Helen,” I said, looking through the three men’s photos myself. I h
ad woken up before dawn, and seeing as Gigi and Calliope were still asleep, I started work early.
“You aren’t wondering how Calliope knows them or why she asked for them?” she questioned, which was strange.
“Helen, the reason why we have always been close is that you have always known when not to ask questions and when to leave. I truly hope my brother doesn’t end up clouding your wise judgment and making you act outside of yourself. Because then I will start to care about your relationship with him. Do you want me to care about your relationship with him?” I met her brown eyes and froze for only a moment before she rose from her chair.
“I think I put too much strain on my hand. I’m going to rest. I will see you at breakfast.”
“Hmmm,” I muttered, not bothering to watch her leave.
Dino Tacinelli, Vinnie Napolitano, and Italo Tizzone—what was their connection to Calliope? Of all the people in all of the world she could have asked for, she asked for them…and referred to them as TNT. The simple reason would be that they were all military men, and she was in the military; therefore, they had all crossed paths. But Calliope never did simple. It was not in her nature. My mother was complicated, but she couldn’t hold a candle to Calliope in complexity.
Feeling my phone vibrate, I reached into my pocket. The moment I saw the name, I knew I wasn’t going to have time to figure out this puzzle today.