Con Artist Legacy

Chapter Five: The Pineapple Mango

Chapter Five: The Pineapple Mango

There were so many pieces of paper around me that I didn’t know where to begin. Russell had just deposited a box labeled 1991 (the year Carlo died) in my room and I had immediately dumped the contents on the floor. As I stared at the mess on my floor, I felt the start of a migraine. Maybe this wasn’t the best method, but oh well.   

Pulling my hair into a messy bun, I started separating out the letters addressed to Carlo from the ones addressed to Russell.  The more I sorted, the more obvious it became that these were actually very aggressive threats. Leave it to happy-go-lucky Russell to believe these were just letters from concerned citizens.   

In fact most of them were from extremely pissed off customers that had been denied important loans or had just lost their homes. Rosswood was a small town, even smaller twenty-five years ago and it was easy to pair up each letter with a familiar face. Of course most of those faces were now old and wrinkly, making it difficult to believe that the killer (if there was one) was among them.

Then there were the letters that weren’t signed, which was immediately suspicious. What were these people hiding? As I skimmed through that pile, Elena ran into my room and almost knocked everything over.

“Whoa Elena, be careful!”

“Sorry, Sorry,” she said as she maneuvered around my expertly laid piles.

“How did mission pineapple go?” I whispered eagerly.

Elena was the only person known to hold a conversation with Aunt Sophie for longer than a minute and had a true talent for understanding her rambles. I felt confident that she would be able to get the information that I couldn’t, and so secret mission pineapple was born. 

“Excellent,” she began as she plopped herself down in front of me. “Carlo was allergic to common painkillers like codeine and aspirin.”

“How did he have a reaction then?” I asked. How does a person accidentally take a painkiller if they knew they were allergic?

“Don’t know, but mom said he didn’t actually crash. His car was just parked on the side of the road,” Elena said knowing she had found something valuable.

“No crash?”  

“Nope, and there’s more.” She added triumphantly.

“You plan on telling me?” I asked after a minute of silence.  

“His car was on Parker Road…heading out of town.” She finished.

Parker Road was an unpaved section of town that lead towards isolated farms and large empty plots of land. There was no reason for Carlo to be on that road, at least not one that made sense.  Oh Carlo what did you get yourself into?

“I did a good job, right?” Elena was all smiles as she bounced in place. I was just about to tell her to be careful when her foot knocked down the pile of letters closest to her. It was Russell’s pile…a pile that I had glazed over thinking it was irrelevant.   

That’s when I saw it, a letter similar to the one I was reading before Elena walked in. It was a typed, unsigned letter with only one sentence.  I immediately reached for it, placing it next to the one from Carlo’s pile. With the exception of who they were addressed to, they were word for word.

Give back what you took from me.

* * * * * * *

It was the only letter that was sent to both men, we had double and tripled checked all the piles. Russell and Carlo had worked separate areas of the bank, so why would they get the same letter? It was hard to believe that such a cryptic message was a coincidence.