It didn’t take an expert researcher to find that his father, Vito Gardino had been accused of involvement in the bombings in Kansas City’s River Quay area in the 1970’s.  A little more research threw a shadow over the Gardino family as possibly having mob connections.  Vito Gardino had not actually been charged though which left some uncertainty about his possible mob connections.  Vito got out of the nightclub business, and opened a car dealership.  The same dealership that Paul Gardner owned at the time of his death.

Possible mob connections perhaps explained how a drunk teenager was able to serve so little jail time for killing her father and changing her life.

Her mother had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer before the accident, and it had taken her a year to wither away to nothing.  Her mother was still alive when the accident had happened.  The State Trooper had gotten their home address from the car registration and called the police in her hometown. It was a small town, and the local police knew her mother was home dying a slow and painful death.  Her father lived for five months in that coma and two weeks after he died, Mama died too. Marta was her mother’s younger sister, and was just 20 when she inherited Lane and the house.  That’s the way Lane always thought of it; Aunt Marta inherited her.

She and Aunt Marta had lived in her parents’ house until after Lane’s fall.  That’s when Aunt Marta had met the young orthopedic surgeon, married him, and uprooted Lane from the only home she’d ever known.  But, Marta had been a young woman when she had been saddled with a four year old.  Marta had loved her, of that Lane never had a doubt, but she sometimes thought Marta resented her for stealing her youth.    Then Marta met Dr. Johnson and married him.  They’d had two children and Lane had sometimes felt like a built in baby sitter for the young family so when she started college, she’d gotten her own apartment and moved out.

Lane had been 15 when her cousin Stephen junior was born and 17 when his sister Hannah had come along.  They’d never been close.  Marta had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer a few years after Lane moved out and after Aunt Marta died, Lane hadn’t really kept in touch with the Johnsons.

Lane continued to search until she found the Kansas City Star web archives and the articles about the car accident that killed her father.  She knew the story of the accident; her Aunt Marta had repeated it to Lane as a child.  But, she wasn’t prepared for the photos.  Even in black and white, she could see her father’s blood on the car seat, and the outline of her small bloody hand prints on the passenger window.  “Eighteen year old Paul Gardner represented by Salvatore Luciano…” the image on the screen blurred. Salvatore Luciano, Ben’s uncle and one of the partners in Ben’s law firm.

Suddenly, Lane’s head was throbbing.  She’d been doing research all morning, and it was just before noon when her cell phone buzzed.  Again, as if he had ESP, Ben was on the phone.  With a smile on her lips that went clearly through the ether, she answered the call putting Ben on speaker as she massaged her temples.  She didn’t have time for a headache right now.  She pulled a cosmetic bag from her purse and took a Sudafed and a BC powder.

“Ben, how do you always know when I need you?”

“I guess I just have a sixth sense when it comes to you, Red.  What’s up?”

“Did you know that your uncle Sal represented Paul Gardner in the plea agreement for the car accident?”

“No.  Uncle Sal would have been fresh out of law school.  It must have been one of his first cases.  I’m on my way to OPPD headquarters.  Meet me at Papa’s.  We can grab a quick bite and talk about this.”

Most people couldn’t get in and out of Bellini’s at noon and still make a one o’clock appointment, but most people didn’t eat in the Board Room.  Besides, Ben suspected uncle Sal was having lunch in the Board Room today.

The big carved wooden doors that were the entrance to Bellini’s looked like they belonged in an Italian castle and Ben was waiting just inside when Lane opened them. He kissed her cheek, placed his hand in the small of her back, and escorted her to the Board Room.  Ben pushed open the smaller version of the entrance doors that kept the riff-raff out of the Board Room.  Ben led Lane to a table in a back corner where two men who sat adjacent to one another were deep in conversation.  Ben approached the table and spoke to two men.  The men were identical from their wavy white hair, to their very expensive Italian shoes.

“Ciao, Zio Sal, Zio Vinnie.   LA presente Lane Parker.”

“Lane, my uncles Salvatore and Vincenzo Luciano.”

The men who appeared to be in their late 60’s each stood and extended his hand toward Lane. She reached out with her right hand expecting Sal or was it Vinnie to shake her hand; instead, in turn, each man took her hand and kissed her knuckles. With Italian accented English each said “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Parker.”

The one Lane thought was Sal looked at Ben “Nipote, Ella è la visione di un angelo.” The other, Vinnie (?) nodded. “Tu ci sarai?”

“Sì. Grazie.” Ben said as he pulled out a chair and guided Lane into it. Ben took the other chair.  Immediately, glasses of water appeared in front of them quickly followed by the house salad. Lane bent her head quickly and silently saying grace before digging into her salad.

“Uncle Sal, Lane is a person of interest in a murder investigation.  The victim was someone we think you represented a long time ago in a case of drunk driving that resulted in vehicular homicide.  His name was Paul Gardner.”

“Sì, yes, I remember.  One does not forget his first case.  The boy was drunk and hit a car carrying a man and his little girl.  As I recall, they were returning home from a family reunion in southern Missouri.  The girl was uninjured, but the father died some months later from the injuries he sustained. The little girl, so young, so small.  I remember her. I remember her name.  It was so ethereal, Angelique Valle - Angel of the Valley, and even at four, she was the vision of an angel.”

Lane looked up to see Salvatore Luciano staring across the table at her.

“You remind me of the little girl, Miss Parker.”

She smiled.  He knew.  She could see it in his eyes; he knew she was that child.  “Yes, Mr. Luciano, I was that little girl.  It’s one of the reasons I’m a person of interest in the murder.  The other is that I discovered the body.”

Ben reached out and took her hand.  “Uncle Sal, she had nothing to do with it.  A case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  But, someone also managed to plant the murder weapon in her home.  Yesterday someone set her car on fire.  I’m meeting the Leawood homicide detective and an Overland Park detective as well as the fire captain when I leave here.  Lei è sotto la mia protezione. She’ll be staying at my house until this is resolved.”

Vinnie Luciano looked at Lane.  “Please pardon me, Miss Parker.  I must speak to my nephew privately.” And, he began speaking in rapid Italian.  Even if Lane understood Italian, which she didn’t, he was speaking so quickly that she wouldn’t have caught a single word.

“Prima di andare, dovete sapere che il padre di omicidio vittima mettere 1,5 milioni di dollari, per la bambina dopo l'incidente. Ora è possibile aggiungere un denaro per qualsiasi motivo la polizia.”

Ben nodded and looked at his watch. “Lane, I need to go now.”

Vinnie Luciano spoke.  “Benito, leave the girl with us.  We will see that she gets home.”

“Grazie, Zio.  Mantenere la sua sicurezza, lei è il mio cuore.” He bent and kissed Lane’s cheek.  “I’ll call you after my meeting.  Please don’t run away with one of my uncles while I’m away.”

Ben walked out of the restaurant and pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

“Tanner, have you got anything yet?  I just spoke to my uncle Vinnie.  It seems that Gardner’s father put 1.5 million in trust for Lane when she was four years old.  That was a lot of money 45 years ago.  God knows how much it is now.  See what you can find out.  I’m on my way to meet McGuire and Hunter.”