Mrs. R's eyes widened with indignation. "I didn't say no one could talk to the dead. Just not her. Albert and I have lovely conversations all the time."

  "Albert?"

  "Her spirit guide," Mom supplied.

  Uncle Bart blinked at her.

  "Anyway," Dana stepped in. "DeVine was killed during her reading with Ricky. Poisoned."

  "That's awful." Bart looked to Ricky. "But it's got nothing to do with me."

  "You're sure?" Mom gave Bart the narrowed eye treatment again.

  "You all don't think much of me, do you?"

  The question hung in the air, unanswered.

  "Look, I don't know about this psychic lady," Bart said finally, "but if Beth really was killed, I'm not the one you should be looking at."

  The way he emphasized the pronoun had me asking, "Do you have some idea who we should be looking at?"

  He paused dramatically, as if contemplating how much to tell us. Or making sure he had his audience's rapt attention. "I do."

  "Who?" Ricky demanded.

  "Well, I'm sure your father didn't tell you this, but back then, he worked with some very questionable people."

  "My dad did?" Ricky asked, frowning.

  Uncle Bart nodded. "He drew up the plans for this hotel downtown. And the people doing the construction were some real shady characters. Like the kind that make Virgo look like a pussycat."

  "Wait—what are you talking about? What kind of 'shady characters'?" I could see Ricky trying to make sense of this.

  "The kind that would burn down a house to cover up a murder." Uncle Bart's voice took on a hard edge. "I'm talking about the mob."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "Robert worked with the mob!" Dana gasped.

  "I don't believe it." Ricky's jaw clenched as he made a move to stand. Dana restrained him with a hand on his arm. "My father would never be mixed up with people like that."

  "Hand to God, it's true," Bart said, raising his right hand. "Ask him if you don't believe me. You were so young at the time, you don't know half of what was going on then."

  Ricky crossed his arms over his chest. "Educate me."

  Someone knocked on the door, and a woman with grey curls poked her head in. "Are you coming back soon, Bartie? You promised to play 'Moon River' for me."

  Bart blew her a kiss. "Just a few more minutes, my love."

  Mrs. Rosenblatt's eyes narrowed.

  The woman blushed and giggled as she withdrew and the door closed again.

  "I'm waiting," Ricky said. "And I'm not a little boy anymore. What didn't I know?"

  Bart waited a few beats, making me wonder if he was concocting a story on the spot. "This may not be easy for you to hear," he began, "but my sister confided in me. That last time I went to see her. She was worried about Robert's associates."

  Ricky showed no reaction. "Worried how?"

  "She wasn't specific," Bart admitted. "It was just a feeling she had, is all. I guess from things your father had said or something she heard on the wind. But when she told me Robert was working with Ricci Brothers Construction? Well, I knew the name right away."

  "Ricci Brothers," Mom mused. "I've never heard of them."

  "Count yourself lucky," Bart told her. "On the surface, they're a commercial construction company."

  "But beneath the surface?" I asked.

  "Let's just say I'd heard their names enough from the wrong people that I knew to steer clear of them."

  "Maybe it was just rumors?" Ricky offered.

  "Sure. Rumors. But behind every rumor is a little truth. I'd even heard of a few people disappearing from their construction sites. You know." He laid a finger beside his nose. "Like buried in concrete."

  Ricky scoffed. "No way would my father work with people like that."

  "Hey, I'm not saying your dad was a bad guy!" Even though the look on Bart's face was saying exactly that. "I'm just saying he was mixed up with some bad people."

  Ricky got up and walked over to Bart's chair. He leaned down, his hands on the chair's arms, until he was practically nose-to-nose with his uncle. "I want you to know I'm going to ask my father about this."

  Bart didn't back down. "You do that," he said levelly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a song to play." He looked at Mrs. Rosenblatt. "Don't suppose you'd care to join me, young lady?"

  For a moment, Mrs. R seemed to contemplate it.

  "She's coming with us," Mom cut in.

  "True love only comes around once," Bart said, winking at Mrs. R as he rose from his chair.

  "Six times," Mom corrected. "She's married her true love six times."

  Despite Mom's protective stance, I could see Mrs. R's eyes going dewy at the flattery. "Seven is my lucky number."

  "I think it's time for us to go, Dorothy," Mom added.

  "Let me show you out," Bart said, all charm once again.

  I noticed Ricky was silent, his eyes dark as if still deep in thought. Dana clutched his hand as we followed Uncle Bart back to the great room.

  The older man gave us an exaggerated bow before he splintered off to return to the piano and the enthusiastic applause of his fans. By the time we pushed our way through the door, an overly embellished version of "Moon River" was underway.

  We didn't stop to talk until we were back at the cars. I waited on the sidewalk with Mom and Mrs. Rosenblatt while Dana soothed Ricky, who paced back and forth, visibly upset.

  "He handled his uncle pretty well back there," I said, keeping my voice low. "I didn't realize Bart had gotten to him like this."

  "How could he not?" Mom whispered. "He even got to me. Tossing out accusations about Ricky's father like that. Can you imagine? The man is no good."

  "I thought he had potential," Mrs. Rosenblatt confessed.

  "Potential for what?" Mom asked. "Most likely to swindle those women back there out of their life savings? Did you see the way they fawned over him? You'd think they'd never seen a man before." She sniffed.

  "He just wants to be liked," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "That's what any of us wants, isn't it?"

  "Well." Mom crossed her arms. "We've been liked enough, if you ask me. He should have liked his own nephew enough to be honest. Ricky deserved to hear the truth from him, and I doubt that he did."

  I tried to play devil's advocate, which wasn't easy given my instinctive distrust of Uncle Bart. "We don't know that for sure. We may not have liked his delivery, but that doesn't mean what he said was untrue."

  "Maddie's right," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "You should be less judgmental."

  Mom dropped her arms and stared at me. "Maddie Springer, are you saying you actually believed him? About Ricky's father being in the mob?"

  I shook my head. "He didn't say his father was in the mob, just working with people who might have been. And I'm saying we should wait and let Ricky talk to his father first. Sort this out before we jump to any conclusions."

  Ricky's pacing slowed and gave way to standing beside Dana, shifting from foot to foot, still agitated as she continued to talk to him.

  "Should we see if we can help?" Mom asked, watching them.

  "Let's give them another minute," I said. I was fairly sure nothing we could say would improve the situation.

  Ricky nodded at something Dana said. A moment later, he punched a number into his cell phone. His voice carried over to us. "Dad? I need to ask you a question, and I want an honest answer."

  Mom glanced at me with a worried expression.

  "Did you see the way Miss Moon River swooned over Bart?" Mrs. Rosenblatt asked suddenly. "Honestly, it's embarrassing the way some women throw themselves at men. Why, when I was being courted by my third husband—"

  "I have a right to know!" We all turned toward Ricky, pacing again now, his voice rising as he shouted into the phone. "She was my mother," he said, before his voice trailed off as he paced the other direction.

  Dana frowned, moving the few steps down the sidewalk to join us. "He's talking to his dad."

  "So I gathered," I said. "It doesn't sound like it's going well."

  Dana sighed. "It's a hard subject. I can see why Robert doesn't want to talk about it."

  "Especially if he's all mobbed up," Mrs. Rosenblatt added.

  "He's not 'mobbed up,'" Mom admonished. "Who even talks like that?"

  "Tony Soprano."

  "Shhh," I said, hushing them as Ricky stabbed his phone off and stalked toward us.

  "Hey." Dana put a hand on his arm. "You okay?"

  He nodded, though the way he was grinding his back teeth said otherwise.

  "What did your father say?" Mom asked. "About the Ricci Brothers?"

  "Nothing," Ricky ground out. "He refused to talk about it. Just said to leave it alone."

  "I'm sorry," Dana said, her big blue eyes full of sympathy.

  "I know he thinks he's trying to protect me, but… But I just want to know what happened. You know?"

  I hated to even voice the thought, but the more we looked into Beth's death, the more I had a small niggle of doubt that maybe Robert was trying to protect himself more than his son. Though whether it was against the pain of reliving that difficult part of his life or the guilt at having played some hand in his wife's demise, I wasn't entirely sure.

  "Your dad's just upset," Dana said gently. "This must be like tearing a scab off a wound for him."

  "You should have heard him. The second I brought up Ricci Construction, he flipped out. Started yelling about letting sleeping dogs lie. That I was looking for trouble."

  Mrs. R and Mom shared a meaningful look.

  "I'm sure this is all just hard on him," Dana said quickly.

  "But that doesn't mean there might not be some truth to what Bart said," Mrs. R reasoned. "What if the Riccis did do something to Beth? I'm sure Robert wouldn't want that dragged up."

  "If he even knew anything about it," Dana reasoned.

  "Well, I say we pay those mobsters a visit and find out!" Mrs. R decided.

  Mom nodded. "That's a good idea, Dorothy."

  "No, that's a very bad idea," I cut in emphatically.

  "Then how are we going to find out if they're mobbed up?" Mom asked.

  I shot her a look. That lingo caught on fast. "Look, if Robert was working with them, I'm sure they're a perfectly legitimate business. I'll show you." I pulled out my phone and tapped Ricci Brothers Construction into a search engine. Moments later, a slick, professional-looking website came up. "See?" I scrolled down the page.

  Mom squinted at my phone. "Did they build that?" she asked, pointing to a photo of a high rise in the Financial District.

  I nodded. "It looks like they do a lot of big projects. Office buildings, resorts, hotels." I looked up from my phone. "No 'cement shoe fittings' listed under services."

  Mrs. Rosenblatt snorted. "Yeah, no one advertises that they're in the mob. And anyone can design a web page. Marco's monkey could probably design a web page. Doesn't mean a thing."

  Dana spoke up. "Even if Ricci Brothers Construction is bad news, that still doesn't prove they had anything to do with Beth's death or the fire. That's a big hurdle to clear." She glanced at Ricky. "Don't you agree?"

  He stared unfocused into the middle distance. "I guess so."

  "Come on." She linked her arm with his. "We don't need to answer all our questions right now. Why don't we go home, get something to eat, sit by the pool, and relax a little?"

  "Sure," Ricky mumbled. All the fight had seemingly gone out of him after his call with his dad.

  Dana glanced at me. "Call you later, okay?"

  I nodded and watched them get into Dana's Tesla and pull away from the curb with a soft purr.

  When they were gone, Mom, Mrs. Rosenblatt, and I climbed back into the minivan to follow them out of the Breezy Palms community.

  "It smells like monkey in here," Mrs. Rosenblatt complained.

  "Sorry." I glanced at her in the mirror. "I haven't had a chance to buy an air freshener."

  "Allow me." She opened her handbag, pulled out a bottle of perfume, and sprayed it liberally in a wide circle. "There. Isn't that better?"

  Mom wiped away tears from her eyes. "Mercy, Dorothy, what is that?"

  "Eau de Hot Stuff. Isn't it delicious?" Mrs. Rosenblatt kissed the bottle and dropped it into her bag. "I got it at a BOGO sale, so I'm all stocked up. Six bottles is more than enough for me, if you want one."

  Mom coughed.

  I rolled down my window, mentally calculating if a complete overhaul of the van from the chassis up was in the budget. Monkey smell might be preferable to Eau de Hot Stuff.

  Mom fished out a tissue to dab her eyes and blow her nose. "What should we do now?"

  "We could still go visit Ricci," Mrs. Rosenblatt suggested. "It's early. I bet the don is off having someone whacked. We could slip right in there unnoticed."

  Couple of problems. First, Mrs. Rosenblatt wasn't going to slip in anywhere unnoticed, ever. Also… "Don?" I repeated. "Whacked?"

  "What, did I get it wrong?" she asked. "Should I have said kneecapped?"

  "You shouldn't have said anything," Mom told her.

  "We're not going to storm Ricci Construction," I said. "We're going to the salon. I want to talk to Marco." Actually, I wanted to check on Marco and make sure he still had a job. I wasn't too confident about that, considering how angry Fernando had been about Jerome terrorizing the clientele.

  But when we walked into the salon, Marco was nowhere in sight. Instead, a tiny woman with glossy dark hair and almond eyes, wearing a skintight yellow dress and thigh-high boots with just a peek of fishnet stocking between the two, sat at the reception desk. I knew those fishnets. They belonged to Ling, a dancer who worked at a gentleman's club called Glitter Galaxy. Ling stood just under five feet tall but had the chutzpah of a giant. She also made six figures on the pole, which made me wonder why on earth she was answering phones for Fernando.

  She spotted us immediately and jumped up to give me air kisses. "Maddie! You need a haircut?" she asked in heavily accented English.

  "Hi, Ling. What are you doing here?" I glanced around. "Where's Marco?"

  "He left in some big hurry." She gave a toodle-oo goodbye wave to a client on her way out. "His neighbor called him, claimed he saw a monkey going down the street wearing Marco's favorite hat."

  I nodded. "The black fedora."

  Ling tossed her hair over her shoulder. "I told him his neighbor must have been losing it, but Marco rushed out of here like a bull in a china shop."

  I opened my mouth to correct her idiom usage, but she kept going.

  "Anyway, I told him I'd cover till he came back."

  "That's very kind of you," Mom piped up behind me. I could see her eyes searching the salon floor for Fernando.

  "No sweat. I'm an expert at customer service."

  I didn't want to think about what sort of service Ling gave her customers.

  "So," Ling said, leaning in close. "Before he left, Marco told me about the murdered psychic lady." She clucked her tongue. "Super interesting case, huh?"

  "Super not our case," I said, heading this off before it spiraled. "The police are looking into it."

  "Yeah?" She looked over at Mrs. R and Mom. "So where you guys been? You go back to that psychic's shop again? Interrogate the shifty assistant?"

  "Did Marco say he was shifty?"

  Ling nodded. "And an animal hater."

  "We don't have any reason to believe he was involved in her death," I said.

  "But someone killed her before she could tell you guys who killed the other woman, right?"

  "We don't know that for sure—" I started.

  But it was useless.

  "That's our working theory," Mom said, nodding.

  "We find out who killed Beth, and we find DeVine's killer too," Mrs. R added.

  "The answer gotta be at the psychic studio," Ling decided, frowning as she nodded.

  "You think?" Mom asked.

  "Makes sense," Ling reasoned. "If the lady had proof who killed this Beth person, it must be at the studio. She didn't pull rabbit out of crystal ball, am I right?"

  "Yes!" Mrs. Rosenblatt piped up, spearing the air with a finger. "That place is full of secrets. I could feel the secrets."

  "Probably has computer files too," Ling added.

  "If only we could get in there and have a look around," Mom mused.

  "We can't," I said firmly. "That's breaking and entering. It's illegal. Besides, if there's something to find there, I'm sure the police will find it."

  "Only if they know what they're looking for," Ling countered.

  I was about to point out that we didn't know what we'd be looking for, either, but before I could, my phone rang. Ramirez's name popped up on the screen, sending a shiver down my spine. It was as if he could sense when I used the phrase breaking and entering. I stepped away, trying to stare down Ling to impart my seriousness, but it felt a little like glowering at a third grader. I didn't have the heart for it. Instead, I held up a single Wait a minute finger.

  "Hey," I said into my phone.

  "I just got a call from Ricky," Ramirez said without preamble.

  I frowned. "Is he alright?"

  "That's what I wanted to ask you." Ramirez paused. "He asked about exhuming his mother's body."

  My eyes closed momentarily. "He really thinks someone killed her, doesn't he?"

  "It appears that way." He paused. "Do I want to know what happened this morning to convince him?"

  "Probably not."

  "Maddie…"

  "Okay, okay!" I huffed out a breath. "Look, I would have told you"—maybe—"but Ricky didn't want to get the police involved until he had a chance to talk to him himself."

  "Talk to who?"

  "His Uncle Bart." I gave him a quick rundown on Bart, his past problems with drinking and loan sharks, and his argument and subsequent alleged make-up with Beth, leaving out my own impressions for the moment. "Naturally Ricky was pretty upset about the whole thing."

  "Bart sounds like a charming guy," Ramirez said. "Ricky does know he was fed a lot of hearsay and speculation, doesn't he?"

  "I think so, intellectually," I said. "Emotionally, though…" I paused. "Did you discourage the idea of exhuming his mother?"

  "I did. It's a difficult process and never easy for the family." He paused. "But officially, if he wants to do it, I can't stop him."