From Mangia to Murder (A Sophia Mancini ~ Little Italy Mystery) by Caroline Mickelson Page A

between the men as they volleyed questions and answers back and forth with the same intensity of a Wimbledon match. The captain didn’t let up with questions but Frankie didn’t lose his cool or part with a single piece of interesting information.
    “Why were you at this party, Mr. Vidoni?”
    Frankie looked up from his immaculately manicured hands. “Miss Mancini was kind enough to extend an invitation.” He smiled at Sophia. “And I’m not in the habit of refusing such generous requests from my neighbors.”
    “Is that true?”
    Sophia hesitated. There’d been a little more to it than that, but she saw no need to mention the lift Frankie had offered her. “Yes, Captain. I invited him.”
    Frankie’s smile was smug. Match point--Vidoni.
    Maria Acino possessed little of her boyfriend’s serenity.
    “I’m not saying anything until Frankie gets me a lawyer.” She sat tensely, her lace shawl balled in her hands.
    Captain McIntyre merely watched her, tapping his pen against the table top, an air of expectation in his silence.
    “What? Why are you staring at me?” Maria’s voice was dangerously close to a shriek. “I didn’t do anything.”
    “No one said you did.”
    “Then why are you looking at me like that?”
    The captain shrugged. “I was just thinking that a woman with as much experience with death as you have, shouldn’t be so unnerved by one more.”
    Sophia almost felt sorry for her. The woman before her bore little resemblance to the assured, almost cocky, Maria who had stood up to Vincenzo only yesterday. But who was the real Maria Acino? The woman who faced down a fire-breathing Vincenzo or the woman unraveling under the police captain’s scrutiny?
    “Being a widow doesn’t make me an expert on death.” Maria twisted around in her seat. “Where’s Frankie?”
    “Smoking a cigarette,” Sophia offered before she remembered she had been warned to be silent. She shot a quick glance at the captain but his eyes were fixed on Maria.
    “You may join your friend, Mrs. Acino. We’ll be around to talk to you later.”
    Once Maria was gone, Captain McIntyre turned to her.
    “Is there anything you’d like to share before we continue, Miss Mancini? Anything you saw that I need to know about?”
    Sophia bit her lip. Should she mention that Angelo saw Vincenzo’s wife Stella? Thought he saw, she mentally corrected herself. Of course she should tell the police. And she would, just as soon as Angelo was certain that he’d seen Stella.
    She shook her head. “Nothing I can think of.”
    His eyes called her a liar but his next words were more benign. “Let’s hear what your family has to say.”
    Just as she’d guessed, there was no shortage of information that her relatives wished to share with the police. As Sophia sat and listened, her appreciation for her family grew. It truly was amazing how her female relatives were able to be engrossed in a conversation about the prospects of the unmarried women in the family--doubtless she was high on their list--and at the same time still be able to pinpoint where everyone else in the room had been during the time that Vincenzo was murdered.
    It would have been an open and shut case, except for the fact that they each had a different version of the truth.
    “Stop, Orellia, you’re wrong. Dead wrong.”
    Sophia’s Zia Orellia turned to face her younger sister. “Hush, Corella. You’re the one that has got it all wrong. I assure you, Captain, that my version is far more accurate than my sister’s. Don’t you agree Sophia?”
    She almost issued her standard ‘I can’t get in the middle of this argument’ disclaimer that she relied on whenever her relatives wanted to drag her in as referee, but she stopped herself. She’d learned long ago that the best way to navigate treacherous waters was to stay on the shore. She was curious to see if the police captain would sink or swim if he ventured in.
    “Thank you both. Ladies, I have all I need at