A Cruel Season for Dying (31 page)

“Te amo, Lucia.”
He spoke to the girl behind the glass.
“Dormi in pace, mio piccolo angelo.”

Sakura let Willie take the lead, while he followed, watching her arm hook around Dominick Mancuso’s shoulder as the man’s
feet trod over the short broken walk, up the slightly uneven concrete steps to the door of his modest brownstone. It was a
brownstone in a long string of brownstones that lined the street of the old neighborhood, a neighborhood like many others
in Brooklyn that willed itself to stay alive.

Mr. Mancuso stepped up, opened the glass weather door, and fumbled inside his pocket. The nose of a key clicked a staccatoed
beat against the brass plate as it sought an opening. Finally it made contact and Mancuso turned the key. For an instant he
remained still. There was a kind of painful resolve in the steely way he held on to the door, fighting it seemed to maintain
the last barrier against the horror forcing its way inside his home.

In the end he pushed open the heavy door already decorated with a Christmas wreath. Mrs. Mancuso was waiting, like a trapped
bird beating against the bars of its cage. Her arms were frantic wings at her sides, her hands balling and unballing the fabric
of her robe. Her wild dark eyes, hungry for hope, darted from her husband’s face to Willie’s to his.

“You have found my baby?” Her hands suddenly quit the fabric, leaving a network of wrinkles, bundles of thin capillaries in
her dress.

“Sophia …”

She screamed, understanding what terrible message the three syllables of her name held, her body aflame with the misery of
what her life was now destined to become. Yet her husband seemed not to want to comfort her, allowing her to feel what she
must, completely, inexorably, so that she would never experience more pain than the pain of this moment, so that nothing again
would ever hurt as much.

When the hellish fire inside her slowly extinguished itself, Sophia Mancuso seemed reduced to little more than ash. She spilled
into her husband’s arms and he led her from the room, the muffled noise of their feet sounding against the hardwood floor.
Then the soft thud of a door closing.

“It will take time,” Mr. Mancuso said softly when he returned. But it was a lie.

“We can come back later,” Sakura said.

The man shook his head. “Today is like tomorrow.” He braved the truth now. Time would heal nothing.

“Mr. Mancuso, we believe your daughter was targeted,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“The killer had been watching Lucia before he abducted her,” Willie explained. “He may have been following her for some time.”

“She would have said something. My Lucia was smart.”

Sakura nodded. “I don’t believe she knew she was being followed.”

“Or maybe she knew her abductor and did not feel threatened,” Willie added.

“Someone we know killed my baby?”

“That’s always a possibility in the murder of a child,” he said, “that it’s someone close to the family. But we believe Lucia’s
killer was someone she had met recently.”

Mr. Mancuso’s silence willed him to go on. “This man would not have shown himself to your daughter in a way that would have
frightened her,” he said, “or made her suspicious. He would appear friendly. Maybe someone who needed help. A handicapped
person. Would Lucia help someone in trouble?”

Mancuso nodded. Then his face tightened, his expression hardened. “You know this person.” It wasn’t a question.

He waited. “There have been a series of murders. You may have heard about them.”

“Those gay men?”

“Yes.”

“But Lucia …”

“Was a beautiful little girl,” Willie spoke softly. “But there are reasons why we believe that the person who killed those
men also killed Lucia.”

“What reasons?” Mancuso’s voice had become less controlled.

“The disposition of the bodies is similar,” he said.

“My Lucia was raped?” The words exploded darkly.

“No, Mr. Mancuso,” Willie answered him. “As far as we can tell there was no sexual assault on any of the victims.”

There was no way of avoiding it. Sakura removed a black-and-white photograph from a folder and handed the picture of Lucia
Mancuso hanging over the crèche to her father. It was not a gruesome photograph, Lucia hovering over the scene of Bethlehem.
Her face peaceful. The wings, full and bright, casting shadows that obscured the nudity.

Mancuso stared at the picture, trying, it seemed, to reconcile this holy tableau with the obscenity of his daughter’s murder.
In the end his brain erred in favor of kindness, accepting the image’s orchestrated beauty, denying the darker truth.

“Angel …” His single word.

“The killer places wings on all his victims,” Sakura said quietly, taking the photo from Mancuso. “It’s important we learn
everything we can about the weeks before Lucia disappeared.”

“Why is that so important?”

“Because we have to discover how and where the killer crossed paths with your daughter,” he said.

“Lucia’s life was the same every day.”

Sakura replaced the photograph in the folder. “But something changed, Mr. Mancuso.”

“I got sick, Papa.” Her voice was a light going on in a dark room.

“Celia.”

She was an older, fairer version of her sister, dressed in a long flannel gown, her feet bare. On the brink of adolescence,
Celia Mancuso was beautiful.

“Hello, Celia.” Willie moved closer to the girl, who seemed thinner and paler than she should have been. She smiled. “I’m
Dr. French. But everybody calls me Willie.”

“That’s a boy’s name.”

“Short for Wilhelmina.”

“Are you a real doctor?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve had a bad cold. That’s why Lucia went to the drugstore. To get me medicine.” Celia isolated the event that had brought
Lucia to her fate, had shifted the Mancuso universe.

He walked over. “I’m Lieutenant Sakura, Celia. Do you feel well enough to answer some questions?”

“I’m being brave for Mama,” she said. Her skin was slightly mottled, but her large blue eyes told the truth. They were clear
as glass.

Dominick Mancuso placed his hands on his daughter’s shoulders, gave her a kiss on the top of her head.

“Did you and Lucia often walk around the neighborhood?” he asked.

She stared, her eyes wary. “Yes, but not far. Mostly to school or the park. Usually never past the Fazios’ house.”

“Did you walk to the drugstore?”

“Sometimes.”

“When did you last go to the drugstore together?”

Celia closed her eyes. “Maybe last Tuesday or Wednesday.”

“Did you speak to anyone?”

“Of course. Miss Tessa.”

“Who is Miss Tessa?”

“She works behind the counter.”

“Did you speak to anyone else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you see anyone you didn’t know in the drugstore?”

“No.”

“What about outside the store?”

“Freddy Brinks came riding up on his bike.”

“Anyone else, Celia?”

She shook her head.

“Would Lucia talk to someone she didn’t know?” Sakura asked.

“Lucia would talk to anybody. She was always talking, kind of showing off.” She stopped, suddenly aware of how her words must
sound. She looked down at her feet, ashamed.

“It’s all right, Celia,” Willie said.

But it wasn’t all right. It never would be. When Celia looked up, she was crying, unable to keep the brave promise she’d made
for her mother. “I’m the one who got sick. Lucia’s dead because of me.”

Sakura stood in the kitchen, obviously the room that got the most traffic. Even here the walls were crowded with religious
artifacts. The Mancusos were a good Catholic family.

On the counter near the phone was an envelope of photographs, an entire roll taken of Lucia in her Halloween costume. It was
from this set of pictures that the officer filing the earlier missing-person report had taken an identification shot. One
glossy color print after another showed the pretty eight-year-old dressed as a ladybug, in bright redand-black satin, fuzzy
antennae bobbing atop her short, shiny black hair. Though it wasn’t the costume you really noticed, but the girl. She was
clearly posing, smiling for the camera, shouting out for the whole world:
Look at me.
He ran his fingers over one of the prints.
Is that what happened, Lucia? Is that what got you killed? Your fearless eight-year-old heart?

The photographer was good. He’d gotten it right. Somehow Sakura knew that these images were as close to truth as flesh. Except
for one. There was something vaguely disturbing about this photograph, the naked curve of Lucia’s shoulder brought up under
her chin, her full red lips bowed into a kiss. For all her playfulness and self-possession, this shot seemed coaxed, resurrected
not from Lucia’s energy but from something inside the photographer.

“Who took these pictures?” he asked as Mancuso walked up behind him.

The man reached for the photographs in his hand. He stared at the top shot for a long moment. When he spoke, it wasn’t to
answer Sakura’s question, but to ask one of his own.

“Didn’t you say”—his voice gone cold—“that the killer might be someone close to the family?”

The woman who opened the door to Agnes Tuminello’s home stared at Rozelli’s badge as if it were an indecent object.

“I’m Detective Rozelli. This is Detective Johnson. We would like to speak to Mrs. Agnes Tuminello.”

“Come in.” The woman’s voice was husky, too deep for her slight form. “I’m Mrs. Tuminello’s daughter, Connie Venza.” She closed
the door and stood with her arms pressed against the frame as if she needed support. “Mama’s not doing well. I don’t want
her upset any more than she is.”

“We understand, Mrs. Venza,” Johnson said softly. “We’ll be as brief as possible.”

Connie Venza nodded, releasing her grip on the door. “Okay if I’m with her when you talk to her?”

“Sure.” Johnson smiled.

The room was almost dark, except for the light coming from a floor lamp in the corner. Mrs. Tuminello sat in a large overstuffed
chair, an afghan thrown over her lap.

“Mama …” Connie touched her mother’s shoulder.

“What … what has happened?” Mrs. Tuminello’s voice rattled with fear.

“Nothing, Mama. Just some people who want to talk to you.”

“People? What people?”

“The police, Mama.”

“Hello, Mrs. Tuminello.” Johnson approached the woman. “I’m Adelia Johnson. And this is Johnny Rozelli.”

“Rozelli … I knew a Rozelli family.”

“Probably some of my cousins.” The young detective stepped forward and smiled.

“You are a handsome man, Johnny Rozelli.” The woman smiled back.

“That’s what they tell me, Agnes.” He moved closer, sitting on the sofa opposite her chair. “We’re so sorry about what happened.
But if we’re going to catch the man who did this, we’ll have to ask you a few questions.” He reached out and took one of her
hands.

“Father was such a good man. Who would …” She let her head fall back against the soft padding of the chair and closed her
eyes.

Johnson waited a moment. “That’s what we have to find out—why someone would kill Father Kellog and the little girl.”