Second Chance (Hudson Valley Murder Mysteries #2)

Chapter One #2

There’s a weird moment where they’re standing in the parking lot between Daniel’s Honda and Tony’s Toyota, and no one knows where to go from the mention of Mario.

Eventually, Colette says, “This is ridiculous. I did my hair differently; it’s not a crisis.”

“And it still looks great.” Tony’s probably repeated it enough to be weird, but he’s grateful for the out. “I gotta get to work. See you later, babe?”

“Yeah.” Daniel gives him a weak smile. His big brain is still thinking. Tony can tell. “Hey, wait,” he adds as Tony turns to leave.

“Hm?” Tony jiggles his car key in the lock. It needs its biweekly oil treatment.

“Forgetting something?”

He turns to Daniel, who has his arms crossed across his chest and an eyebrow raised like there’s about to be some sort of naughty student/professor roleplay happening in broad daylight.

Tony blinks.

Probably not.

Daniel’s eyebrow inches up a fraction higher, and Tony remembers.

“Have a good day.” He presses a kiss to Daniel’s lips.

“You too.”

It does something for Tony’s ego to make Daniel look so pleased with such a little interaction.

“Yes, yes, see you later. You’re both insufferable,” Colette mutters as she slides into the passenger seat.

“Don’t get involved in any murder investigations,” Tony calls to both of them and gets into the car. The radio’s on the fritz again when he turns on the ignition. It’s been getting more and more annoying now he drives between Kingston and Rhinebeck almost daily. The drive isn’t that long, but the car is that old.

He gets to the shop ten minutes before opening. The AC is already on full blast against the oppressively hot and muggy Hudson Valley late summer. By eleven, it will be miserable in the garage if they don’t cool it down in time.

His pa is on his back, under Mrs. Cooper’s car.

“I’m not late,” Tony announces to the garage.

Pa rolls out from under the car. “Well, I couldn’t have known you’d be on time.”

“Weird, given I’ve never been late.”

There’s a stack of coveralls in the closet by the entrance. Tony doesn’t enjoy wearing them, but he has plans after work today and no time to go home and shower and change in between, so he pulls one out.

“You never know, do you.” Pa shrugs. “I mean, kids these days, so much going on in your lives—”

“Pa,” Tony says. “Stop doing undercarriage work.”

“But—”

“You pay me to do it, so let me do the work you can’t.”

Joe d’Angelo is many things: a great dad, a lenient boss, and a doting grandfather. He isn’t what Tony would call great at admitting his own weaknesses though. He grunts a noncommittal sound, definitely not an agreement, and heads to the storefront to unlock the doors.

Tony shakes his head at Pa’s retreating back and gets to work on Mrs. Cooper’s car. It’s not a big job. She just has an inspection coming up and wants to make sure everything is in order. If it were a job of more than five minutes, they’d have put the car on a hoist yesterday.

Still, it’s the principle of the thing. Since Pa’s slipped disc three years ago, Tony has tried to take on more of the physically strenuous workload, especially the parts involving scrambling around on the floor or bending at weird angles. Pa has not been gracious about it.

“Mornin’,” Kyle calls as he comes in. Kyle is also on time, and Pa could easily have left the check on Mrs. Cooper’s undercarriage for him if he didn’t want to give it to Tony.

“Hey, Kyle.” Tony finishes up what he’s doing and rolls out from under the car. “How’s Susan doing?”

Kyle shrugs. His wife has been struggling with Lyme disease all summer, and it’s taken a toll, not that he would say so in so many words. “She’s getting there.” He’s said the same thing every day this week. He sets about putting on his coveralls and then makes a beeline for the coffee machine.

“Pour me one too?” Tony gets the clipboard his dad left on the roof of the car and fills out the checks for the undercarriage.

“Here ya go.” Kyle sets Tony’s cup on the table. “Your pa around?”

“I’m right here,” Pa calls from the front office. “Still my shop.”

Christ. He already sounds ornery. It’ll be a long day.

Around eleven, a tow truck brings in a carload of Lobell students with a flat and a dented front fender. Apparently, the driver swerved to avoid a deer and hit the guardrail head-on. This doesn’t explain the flat, but the kid looks shaken out of his mind as it is, and his two passengers lingering by the door to the garage aren’t helping.

Kid.

Being a Lobell student means he’s probably Gianna’s age or maybe a little younger since she’s older than most college seniors after taking a leave of absence last year. He has a handlebar mustache Tony’s willing to bet is ironic, which doesn’t make him seem particularly mature, but he’s not a kid; he’s only six or seven years younger than Tony. Of course, Pa disagrees because they’re all kids to him, which Tony guesses is fair.

This guy’s behavior doesn’t make a case for being an adult, anyway. He’s shaking all over, and sweat beads on his forehead as he tells them what happened. The tow truck guy, Carl, scratches his head as the student narrates, which supports Tony’s impression that the story isn’t quite adding up. Carl, who happens to be Tony’s mom’s cousin, often brings them easy fixes knowing that Pa squeezes in all the customers he can manage, keeping the wait times lower than other places. This saves Carl the trouble of putting a bunch of cars in his tow lot, which can barely fit five.

Pa takes the story at face value. “Never try to avoid the deer,” he says. “Hit the brakes and stay on the road.”

“Uh-huh.” The student nods frantically. “Um, do you know what it’s gonna be?”

Even someone with Pa’s experience can’t answer the question until they’ve inspected the damage. The car, an ’07 Toyota Camry, isn’t a luxury model in the first place, but up close, Tony can see they have more to fix than the fender. It looks bad, sure, but a little heat and elbow grease can work wonders. The light above it on the other hand was smashed to bits in the accident. Adding to which, ’07 Camrys are absolute shit, and Tony’s willing to bet there are some other issues hiding under the hood.

Pa shrugs. “I’ll let you know.” He heads into the front office. Tony knows he’s probably looking for parts, but the student doesn’t and looks like he got slapped in the face in addition to being in a car accident.

“We don’t know yet,” he tells the student. “We have to take a look at the damage before we can give you an estimate. I’m Tony, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Sean.” The guy works up a weak smile, which mostly makes his mustache look especially dumb. “Sean McAllister.”

“Okay, Sean.” It’s not every day they get an accident in, but Tony’s learned to keep his voice calm when they do. When it comes to breaking news to customers about unexpected and potentially expensive damage, half the battle is being kind, especially when they’ve just been through something scary. “You had a pretty rough morning, huh?”

Sean’s shoulders slump. “Oh my god, yes. I have to call my parents. This is almost as bad as when I told them I wanted to be a film major.”

Tony tries not to laugh. “How ’bout you have a seat in the office with your friends, and we’ll get you all some water, and when we know what’s going on, I’ll let you know?”

“Thanks, man.” Sweat still beads on Sean’s forehead, far more than the cool air in the shop should allow, but at least he doesn’t look like he’s about to throw up anymore.

It’s literally Tony’s job to help, but he doesn’t say so. He’s well aware not all mechanics view themselves as being in customer service. He ushers Sean and his two friends, a girl with blue highlights who’s worn red marks into her palms with her fingernails from worrying and a tall, gangly Black guy in a jean jacket with about seventeen patches for bands Tony’s never heard of, into the office.

“Hey, you’re Gianna’s brother, right?” the girl asks.

“Yeah.” Tony looks at her again. Her face seems familiar. “Oh hey, we’ve met before, haven’t we?”

“I’m Lily. Lily Peterson? We met in January when—”

“Right.” Tony did meet her in January, standing in front of her dorm room with her parents on New Year’s Day after she tried to commit suicide because the professor who got Tony’s sister pregnant and dumped her had died. Daniel gave Gianna her email address. And since then, Tony’s gotten a consistent barrage of updates all summer on Lily’s personal life and return to studies, courtesy of Daniel advising her through Colette’s new program. Trying to act as if he doesn’t know more about her than he probably should, Tony overcompensates. “Hey, you’re back. That’s great.”

She nods, smiling a little shyly. She’d look sweet if Tony didn’t know so much about her. “Thanks. It was great of you to get me in touch with Gigi. We signed up for some of the same classes this year.”

“I’m glad,” Tony says, a little wrong-footed. He had no idea Gianna got in touch with Lily or even wanted to talk to anyone about the professor she was having an affair with. She certainly doesn’t talk to him. Still, it’s good Gigi has friends who get what she’s been through. She’ll need them. Getting through her senior year of college with a baby won’t be easy, and it’s only the first week.

He gets the students set up with a bottle of water and some glasses and heads to the garage again. Carl leans up against the pickup with the rusted bumper Tony was working on before he showed up, shooting the shit with Kyle though they can’t stand each other.

Carl looks up when Tony approaches. “Hey kiddo. They say anything about who’s gonna pay for the tow truck?”

Tony sighs. “You didn’t ask them?”

Carl shrugs. “The one with the dumbass mustache had a Triple A card, but with someone else’s name on it.”

“I don’t work for Triple A,” Tony reminds him. “You do.”

“What was I gonna do, leave those kids at the side of the road? It’ll work out, always does.”

It does, Tony thinks bitterly as he retraces his steps into the storefront because he, unlike everyone else in this business, developed some semblance of people skills. It only takes him five minutes of awkward conversation with Sean, Lily, and their friend to work out that Sean’s mother left her Triple A card in the glove compartment when she gave Sean the car for college and never told him whether or not he’s covered by it. Sean doesn’t want to call until he has an estimate, and it takes another five minutes of carefully hinting the bill for the tow truck will be significant if Sean can’t work out how he’s insured. Especially given Carl’s still sitting around, losing working hours while he waits, talking to Kyle about how he wants to close up shop early on Friday and head for Tivoli Bays while the fishing’s still good. All of this time will be on the insurance bill, and Sean doesn’t seem to know what company he’s with.

Tony leaves it to Sean to make the unpleasant phone call home and returns to the shop.

“You gotta stop towing people until you get their insurance details,” he tells Carl.

Carl scratches his head. “I don’t really do the paperwork side of things. That’s all Cindy.”

Tony takes a deep breath, considering how to explain that Cindy, Carl’s wife, is the world’s worst bleeding heart. She keeps sending him out to pick up cars without getting their insurance or Triple A numbers, a clear destination, or, in some particularly memorable cases, a name and address from the drivers. While this leads to great business for Angel Automotive, it’ll get Carl in trouble with Triple A sooner or later and, by proxy, Pa. Someone has to pay him for the repairs they do in the shop.

“Carl, god love you both, but someone’s gotta run your business, and it ain’t Cindy,” Pa says, ambling into the garage.

Carl’s chest puffs up, and he seems like he’s about to answer something they’ll all regret, but Pa steamrollers right on.

“Got a new headlight sourced, and I think we can get the fender straightened out as is. Tony, get her up on the lift and see about that tire. I’ll write up an estimate for college boy in there.”

College boy. Tony shakes his head. As if Gianna weren’t attending the same school and wasn’t friends with at least one of the kids in the front office. Kids. Again, Tony reminds himself he’s not much older; he might spend a lot of time with Pa and Kyle, but he isn’t their age.

“See,” Carl says righteously. “Kid going to Lobell can afford the tow, insurance or no.”

“Not with school bankrupting him he can’t.” Kyle is right, of course, but not helpful. Lobell is one of the most expensive schools in the country, and Gianna’s going on a combination of grants and loans that make Tony’s head hurt to think about. If Sean has the money to pay for it out of pocket, Tony doubts he still will after graduation. Carl, whose kids went to community college in the early aughts, is convinced taking out a loan for school is a matter of a few thousand, easily paid back with a cushy office job. Kyle has a stepdaughter who finished high school in June, and Tony’s heard this argument about five times in the last four months.

“Carl, could you get the car on the lift for me?” Tony asks before the workday turns into a discussion on rising tuition costs and whether or not a good part-time job should cover them.

He situates himself in the driver’s seat as Carl maneuvers the tow truck so Tony can reverse the car gently onto the lift, flat tire squelching uncomfortably as he does.

With the car set up, he and Kyle crank the lift up until the dented fender is at eye level. Of course, Tony can’t find the spare tire anywhere in the trunk or under the car, but thankfully, they have the right replacement in stock. Switching it is the easy part. After twenty minutes, the busted tire is in the trash bin in the corner of the shop. The rubber boasts a long, narrow cut. There must have been broken glass on the shoulder where the car hit the guard rail. Tony can’t think of any other way to explain it.

Either way, the flat tire is not the problem. Pa’s estimation they can even out the bent fender without replacing anything, generous to say the least, remains the issue.

Around one, Tony gets called into the office to go over the estimate with Sean and his friends. By now, they’ve all got their phones out. Sean animatedly describes the accident to Lily, who’s filming him as he speaks. It’s become a herd of deer Sean only narrowly avoided, saving their lives in the process. Valiantly, Tony tries not to judge them. Sean’s hands are still shaking, and Lily looks about ready to fall asleep in her seat. Their friend stares out the window, totally silent. Tony wonders idly which of the two guys might be Lily’s boyfriend, the one who was supposed to take her to therapy this morning.

Maybe making dumb videos is a good alternative to therapy. Everyone processes stressful shit differently. Tony hopes they’re not posting this online. Gianna’s shown him a few TikToks. He thought they were funny. Car accidents are not funny in Tony’s book, but how they process the event is up to them.

When they see him approach, they put their phones away hurriedly, which is both funny and sad. Tony’s really, really not that old.

He gives Sean the estimate. It makes him wince but not panic, so he’ll probably be fine. Tony takes down Sean’s parents’ insurance, which they thankfully put him on when he got his license, but he never asked about, and passes it on to Carl. This means Carl can leave, Kyle can relax, and they can all get some work done.

Lunch gets shifted to 3:00 p.m., when Tony’s finally done with the pickup he was working on before the invasion of the college students. Said students haven’t left the storefront and, instead, are now watching loud videos on their phones. Tony doesn’t particularly want to end up going viral for the way he eats a ham and cheese, so he has lunch in the shop, leaning against the table with the coffee machine while Pa and Kyle work.

“Your ma packed you an egg salad sandwich.” Pa eyes Tony’s clearly-not-egg-salad when he gets off his welding mask.

“Sorry,” Tony says with his mouth full. “Should have told her I wouldn’t be home.” It slipped his mind last night when the evening got late enough that the drive home to Kingston sounded less appealing than sleeping in Daniel’s warm, comfortable bed. Anyway, Tony doesn’t like egg salad much.

Pa shrugs. “More for me. You getting your sandwiches made for you over in Rhinebeck now?”

Kyle pulls off his welding mask and looks between them. The question is writ large on his face, but he doesn’t ask it, bless him.

Tony takes another bite. “I can put some ham and cheese between bread myself, thanks.” Asking Daniel to make him lunch would be—bizarre. They did make their lunches together last night, standing side by side in the kitchen, handing each other condiments and plastic packaging while Daniel complained about its effect on the environment. It makes Tony ache somewhere in his gut, but that’s also not something he’s about to express to his father.

“I didn’t mean…” Pa starts, and then he sighs and shakes his head. “Whatever. So long as you’re not hungry.”

“Nope. All good.” Tony keeps his tone light, but it niggles at him even more when he has to go out and handle the transaction with Sean, Lily, and their friend (his name’s Frank, “like Frank Ocean,” which doesn’t mean anything to Tony). With college starting up again, Gianna only works two shifts a week so she can attend classes, and when she is at the shop, she’s always got Lia with her. As a result, Tony picks up extra shifts so someone can cover the front desk, and for some reason, “someone” is always him.

It’s those darn people skills. Pa gets grumpy if he has to talk to too many customers, and Kyle straight up doesn’t talk.

All told, Tony only gets around to giving his own car the oil treatment it’s been after at five, and it’s six thirty before he manages to finish up all the paperwork for the day. Kyle’s long gone, and the temperature in the lot has gotten less oppressive. The AC still hums away, blasting cold air through reception and the garage.

Tony struggles out of the coveralls he hates wearing and dumps them in the hamper. It’s getting full; it’s a good thing tomorrow is one of Ma’s workdays, or Tony would have to ferry the laundry home too.

“Pa?” he calls into the garage. “You good to close up?”

“Yeah.” Pa’s voice is distant and muffled.

He’s under Mrs. Cooper’s goddamn car.

Tony closes his eyes. “I checked the undercarriage. Put it on the clipboard and everything.”

“I know.” Pa rolls out from under the car and struggles to his feet. “Dropped a screw; it rolled under. Don’t give me that look, Tony.”

“No look,” Tony lies.

Pa shakes his head.

Irritation claws up Tony’s throat sharply. He spent all day caught between customers and the shop. He’s hungry and tired and late for his evening plans, and he’s doing it all so Pa can run the shop without hurting himself, so Kyle can work without being fussed at, so Carl can keep towing every idiot in the state, and so Gianna can finish her degree in peace. All he gets for it are veiled comments about his personal life and Pa ignoring the one request Tony actually makes of him.

Pa claps a heavy hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Good work today. Couldn’t do it without you.”

“Thanks.” From somewhere, Tony manages to conjure up a smile. He lets his shoulders relax, tries to swallow down the frustration. He’s not entirely successful.

“You coming home tonight?” Pa doesn’t deal in heavy-handed hints or subtext. He sounds like he just wants to know. It still grates at Tony’s nerves.

“Probably not,” he says.