Killer Smile
Authors: Lisa Scottoline
Lisa Scottoline
In memory of my father,
Frank Joseph Scottoline,
and my grandparents,
Giuseppe and Mary Scottoline
A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she’s in hot water.
— E
LEANOR
R
OOSEVELT
ONE
“Rosato & Associates,” Mary DiNunzio said into the receiver, then kicked…
TWO
“Go away,” Mary said without looking up. She was in…
THREE
Mercer Street was a typical side street in South Philly,…
FOUR
Mary eyed her latest blind date, one Jason Pagonis, as…
FIVE
WORLD WAR II ROOM, read a paper that Mary had…
SIX
At her apartment, Mary downed a bowl of Special K,…
SEVEN
First thing Monday morning, Mary stopped by Frank Cavuto’s law…
EIGHT
Mary waited at the bus stop outside Frank’s building. There…
NINE
Mary stood on the welcome mat, and an older Asian…
TEN
Philadelphia’s City Hall was under renovations that hadn’t yet reached…
ELEVEN
A troubled Mary charged off the elevator into the firm’s…
TWELVE
Mary spent the afternoon following up on the internee files…
THIRTEEN
“My God,” Mary said, uncomprehending as she surveyed the scene.
FOURTEEN
Fort Missoula was a quaint edifice of soft red brick…
FIFTEEN
Mary found an empty space in the congested parking lot…
SIXTEEN
The words
ST. MARY’S
were chiseled into the stone pillars that…
SEVENTEEN
Mary went back to the Doubletree Inn and stopped at…
EIGHTEEN
“It’s almost closing time,” said the cashier at the Fort…
NINETEEN
The Montana sky deepened from cobalt blue to a rich,…
TWENTY
“My goodness!” Mrs. Nyquist said.
TWENTY-ONE
“Frank Cavuto is dead?” Mary asked, in pain. She slumped…
TWENTY-TWO
Mary edged away from the window, hustled along the Broad…
TWENTY-THREE
The thunderstorm showed no signs of letting up, and rain…
TWENTY-FOUR
Five minutes later, it wasn’t the nurse who opened the…
TWENTY-FIVE
“What! No! Hey! Don’t you dare!” Melania shouted from the…
TWENTY-SIX
Mary regained consciousness in the dark, slumped in the driver…
TWENTY-SEVEN
“My God in heaven! What happened to
you
?” Marshall asked.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Mary spent the afternoon in her office behind a closed…
TWENTY-NINE
Mary hit *86 to double-check if there was a message.
THIRTY
LAWYER IN MURDER MYSTERY, screamed the headline on the thick…
THIRTY-ONE
Mary had got off the D bus in West Philly,…
THIRTY-TWO
It was a black Town Car, behind her. Mary wouldn’t…
THIRTY-THREE
By Monday morning, the sun was struggling to burn off…
THIRTY-FOUR
Mary eyed the shiny skyline of her hometown from inside…
THIRTY-FIVE
Mary hit the humid air outside with her purse swinging…
THIRTY-SIX
Access Hollywood
played on a TV mounted in the corner,…
THIRTY-SEVEN
When Mary got home, she dropped her briefcase and bag…
THIRTY-EIGHT
Only fifty-six more to go.
The late-morning sun peeked through…
THIRTY-NINE
The sun was setting on the other side of town,…
FORTY
Mary was back in her semi-repaired war room at Rosato…
FORTY-ONE
At noon, Mary stuck her head out of the conference…
FORTY-TWO
The restaurant in Fairmount turned out to be dark, smoky,…
FORTY-THREE
Mary woke up in darkness, lying down on her side.
FORTY-FOUR
The examining room was white, ringed with institutional cabinets in…
FORTY-FIVE
“MARE!” It was her father, hailing her with a smile.
FORTY-SIX
The rain didn’t faze the throng of reporters and photographers…
FORTY-SEVEN
It was Mrs. Nyquist, standing up from the middle of…
FORTY-EIGHT
Rovitch drew himself up to his full height at the…
FORTY-NINE
The Four Seasons Hotel was where Philadelphia lawyers went to…
FIFTY
“Ma, what goes in next?” Mary asked, from over the…
“Rosato & Associates,” Mary DiNunzio said into the receiver, then kicked herself for answering the phone. The caller was Premenstrual Tom, a man who wanted to sue the Philadelphia Police Department, the United States Congress, and a local cantaloupe. He’d been calling the office at all hours, and Mary felt sorry for him. He was obviously off his meds and had reached one of the few lawyers in the city who wouldn’t sue fruit.
“This is Mr. Thomas Cott!” he shouted. “Who’s this?”
“I’m Mary DiNunzio. We spoke yesterday —”
“Get me Ms. Benedetta Rosato!”
“Ms. Rosato is gone for the day, sir.” Mary checked her watch. 10:16
P.M.
Everyone had gone home hours ago, and until now, the offices had been blessedly quiet. “The office is closed.”
“Then what are
you
doing there, Ms. Mary DiNunzio?”
Good question, Mr. Thomas Cott.
Mary was working late again, reading until her brown eyes turned red and her contacts dried to the crispness of breakfast cereal. Documents blanketed the conference table like a legal snowstorm, and her compact figure had been curled into the swivel chair for so long she felt like a meatball. “Mr. Cott, I’ll take a message and tell Bennie —”
“I refuse to leave any more messages! Get Ms. Benedetta Rosato on the line! I demand to know why she won’t represent me! She specializes in constitutional rights, it says so on the computer!”
“The computer?”
“In the library! The website,
your
website! It says it right there! That’s false advertising! What about
my
constitutional rights? They don’t matter?
I
don’t matter?”
“Mr. Cott, no lawyer can take every case,” Mary answered, then hesitated. Bennie had told the associates not to engage Premenstrual Tom, but if she could explain it to him, maybe he’d stop calling. “I think Bennie told you she didn’t think your case could prevail in court. She’s practiced constitutional law for a long time and has excellent judgment, so —”
“All those judges are in on it! All of them are crooked, every single one of them! City Hall is a pit of conspiracy and corruption! They’re all in the mayor’s pocket!”
“Mr. Cott, the judges in City Hall aren’t crooked, and your case would be in federal court anyway —”
“You’re not fooling me, either of you! Put Ms. Benedetta Rosato on the telephone right now! I know she’s there! She must be, she’s not at home!”
Mary blinked. “How do you know she’s —”
“I went to her house! I knocked on her door, I waited for her to answer! The windows were dark!”
Mary stiffened. “How did you get her address?”
“It’s in the phone book, I looked it up! What do you think I am,
incapable
? I may not have a fancy law degree, but I am not
incapable
, MS. MARY DiNUNZIO!”
Mary suddenly stopped feeling sorry for him. He was shouting louder now, almost screaming.
“I SAID, get MS. BENEDETTA ROSATO on this telephone RIGHT NOW! I KNOW she’s right there with you!”
“Mr. Cott, if you’ll just —”
“DON’T LIE TO ME! Don’t you DARE LIE TO ME!”
“Mr. Cott, I’m not —”
“I’ll come down there, you LYING WHORE! I’ll come down there and SHOOT —”
Mary hung up, shaken. The conference room fell abruptly silent. The air felt charged. It took her a moment to process what had just happened. Okay, Premenstrual Tom had morphed into Psychotic Tom, and it wasn’t funny anymore. Bennie was at an ACLU dinner, but it would be ending soon. She could be going home. Mary had to warn her. She reached for the phone to call the boss’s cell.
Rring, rrriiinng!
The phone rang underneath Mary’s hand, jarring her.
Rrrriiinng!
She gritted her teeth and let it ring twice more so voicemail would pick up. She should never have engaged Premenstrual Tom. When would she learn? Her good-girl reflexes — Help Out, Be Nice, Tell the Truth — sucked in the practice of law.
Mary pushed the button for her direct phone line and called Bennie, but there was no answer. She left a detailed message, then hung up, uneasy. She’d call her back in five minutes to make sure the boss had gotten the message.
Mary eased back in her swivel chair, wishing suddenly that she weren’t alone in the office. She eyed the doorway to the conference room, surprised to find the threshold dark. Who turned out the lights in the reception area? Maybe the cleaning people, when they’d left.
I’ll come down there and shoot
Mary eyed the phone, daring it to ring again. She didn’t leave it off the hook because the drill was to record threatening messages for evidence, in case the office had to go for a restraining order, like with Premenstrual Fred. Mary wondered fleetingly if she could find a career that didn’t attract garden-variety homicidal rage or bad television commercials.
She told herself to get over it. Premenstrual Tom had been blowing off steam, and there was a security desk in the lobby of the building. The guard wouldn’t let anybody upstairs without calling her first, especially after business hours, and nowadays you couldn’t get past the desk without a driver’s license and a mortgage note.
She got back to work, tucking a dark blonde tendril into its loose French twist, and picking up the document she’d been reading. It was a letter dated December 17, 1941, from the provost marshal general’s office, a federal agency that no longer existed. Its type was grainy because it was a Xerox copy of a photocopy of a carbon copy, and on another night, Mary would have gotten a charge out of its vintage. Everybody in the office called her case the History Channel, but she loved the History Channel. Mary loved mostly everything on cable except The Actor’s Studio, which she wouldn’t watch at gunpoint. But she didn’t want to think about gunpoint right now.