Free 1 Dog Collar Crime by Adrienne Giordano

track pants and white T-shirt, handed Brian his sandwich and he took it to one of the corner tables.
    “Meatball?” Petey asked, retying his grease-stained white apron. The apron tended to slide under his growing belly and he had to keep hiking it up. Between the gut and the thinning gray hair, Petey looked way beyond his fifty-five years.
    “Throw some mozzarella on it,” Frankie said.
    “Living a little today, eh?”
    Frankie considered responding with scathing sarcasm but decided to let it go. He probably deserved it since a meatball sandwich was the only thing he ever ordered. And wasn’t that one of Lucie’s complaints? That he liked his meatball sandwiches from Petey’s? And why not? Petey made an exceptional meatball.
    “Kid,” his father yelled, emerging from the back room wearing a white dress shirt with no tie and tan dress pants. His typical daytime look.
    “Hey, Pop.”
    “Petey, feed my son.” His father clapped him on the back once, put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him into a chair. “You off today?” Pop snagged an unoccupied chair from another table, hitched his pants up and sat.
    “Yeah. Can I get a minute outside?”
    Away from any bugs planted in here .
    His father angled his chin toward the back door. “Sure.”
    Frankie opened the door leading to the alley and the pungent smell of four days’ worth of garbage smacked into him. He held his breath for a minute.
    “What’s up?” his father asked, clearly oblivious to the smell.
    “This dognapping thing with Lucie took a turn.”
    Pop crossed his arms, readying himself for bad news. “What happened?”
    This was where his famous temper could fire. He had promised to take care of the Rizzo family while Joe was in prison, and he took that promise seriously. Someone hiding a stolen diamond in Joe’s house would be a serious infraction.
    Here goes . “Lucie found a real diamond in her craft supplies.”
    His father stared at him, his face full of nothing in particular, and Frankie wondered if he’d understood.
    “Heh?” Pop finally said.
    “Yeah. It’s nuts. Roseanne found it and did a scratch test. It’s real.”
    “Whose is it?”
    “We don’t know. Joey doesn’t think it belongs to their father and Lucie won’t ask Theresa. She doesn’t want to upset her. We think someone hid it in her dog accessory crap and that’s why the dogs are getting boosted. We’re guessing the dognappers think one of the dogs is running around with the diamond on it. Joey just got—”
    “Hang on, Frankie. You’re telling me you think someone snuck into Joe’s house and put that diamond there?”
    “Exactly.”
    “No chance.”
    Disagreeing with his father had never gotten him anywhere, but in this instance, he needed to try. “How else would it have gotten there? If it was Joe’s, he would have told Joey about it.”
    Pop ran his palm across his lips, curled his fingers around his mouth and blew air into his hand. “A diamond.”
    “Yeah. So far it’s the only one. Lucie is checking her stock to make sure.”
    “That’s good. Does Joe know about this?”
    “Not about the diamond. Joey talked to him on the phone and told him about the dognappings to see what his reaction would be, but that’s it. Joey is convinced Joe doesn’t know about the diamond.”
    The screen door, one of those rickety wooden deals, flew open and smacked against the brick building. Jimmy stuck his head out. “Ho, your meatball is ready.”
    Frankie did a thumbs-up. “Thanks.” Jimmy went inside and Frankie turned to his father. “Can you ask around? See if you can find out about this diamond? Who it belongs to?”
    “It better not be one of my guys. I’ll tell you that much.”
    * * *
    Lucie sat at her mother’s dining room table setting a new collar for a customer Mrs. Lutz had referred. The dog’s owner was a stickler for detail, and Lucie wanted to get the placement of the rhinestones in a perfect X pattern. Not so easy on a collar barely an