Killer Smile (10 page)

“He
deserves
it?” Judy set down her hoagie, shifted around, and faced Mary directly. “Mare, I understand that you went through hell when Mike was killed, but frankly, I think you’re getting a little nuts. Ever since Premenstrual Tom called, you’re like a freak.”

“You getting the TRO, right?” Mary asked, and Judy waved her off.

“Completely missing the point here. Let’s review. The Escalade is a very popular car. Files from 1942
should
be gone. Lots of big guys have zits, and you don’t know that
your
big guy with zits was the one who went to the Korean lady’s house.”

“He asked about me!”

“He asked about someone, that’s all. Or maybe he’s interested in you and Brandolini. After all, a reporter got interested in you and Brandolini, and he’s not a killer. Jeez, at any given moment, three of your uncles are blabbing about you.”

“But what about the deed business?”

“Maybe Giorno did Brandolini a favor and took it out in fees. It’s not inconceivable that a lawyer would do that for a client, especially in that day and age. Maybe Giorno wanted to help him out. You said he owned a lot of property in South Philly.”

“What about Frank firing me?”

“Maybe he’s sick and tired of hearing about Brandolini all the time!” Judy shot back, so sharply that a man on the bench opposite them looked up from his roast beef special.

Mary felt stung. She didn’t say anything for a minute.

“Sorry.” Judy sighed, then leaned over, her forehead knit with worry. “Mare, usually I’m with you, but I have to tell you, you’re losing it. Going to Brandolini’s house, and the way you said you felt in his house. You’re running around with
human hair
in your briefcase! That’s creepy!”

“It’s part of the case file. It’s in my desk now.”

“Next thing you know, you’ll be holding a séance.” Judy wrinkled her upturned nose, and Mary flushed, defensive. Not that she hadn’t thought of it, last night when she couldn’t sleep. Judy continued, “You’re too immersed in this case, too immersed in the past. In old people and ghosts. Let it go, will you? That’s why I’m pushing the blind date.” Judy’s voice softened, almost to a whisper. “You
are
going out with Paul, girl. You have a lot in common. You’ll like each other. You need to
move on
.”

Mary shook her head, hurt. She knew that Amadeo had gotten bound up with Mike and somehow it was all of a piece. But she couldn’t move on, not yet. She didn’t know how and, now, she didn’t want to.

“Don’t look like that.” Judy’s blue eyes narrowed. “You know, even if what you’re saying is true, about the Escalade and all, it’s even a greater reason to get out of this case. Because you could be in danger, and for what? Are you keeping an innocent man from jail? Catching a murderer? That, I’d understand. But this? I helped you find that FBI memo because I thought that it would end all this, but I’m sorry I did. On balance, it’s just not worth it.”

“But Amadeo —”

“Is dead! He’s dead and gone. Nothing you do can change that or bring him back. Nothing you do now can bring anybody back.” Judy’s fair skin colored with emotion, and Mary knew who she was talking about.

I wish this feeling would go away
, she thought, but didn’t say.

“And you’re working on Brandolini all the time, not your other cases. Did you get ready for those deps, for Bennie? Alcor and Reitman?”

“I’ll get to it.” Mary watched as a young mother approached, holding a toddler by its tiny hand. The baby wobbled along in blue overalls and new white sneakers, practicing his steps. “You think she’ll be mad?”

“Are you kidding?” Judy’s voice regained its familiarity, and they were on safer ground now, complaining about the boss. Judy was feeling good enough to eat her vegetables and opened a crinkly black bag of Yukon potato chips, to which she was currently addicted. “She won’t like it that you talked to the reporter, either. You didn’t have her permission and you know how she feels about the press.”

Mary shook her head. “Half the time she yells at me to assert myself, and the rest of the time she yells at me to ask permission.”

“Women.”

Mary looked away. The baby took a wiggly step forward, chest out, arms loose in the air, then stopped and swayed before plopping down on his cushioned bottom. He burst into a two-tooth smile. Mary said, “You know what that reporter said to me?”

“What?” Judy managed to get a large potato chip into her mouth, sideways like a pizza into a Tuscan oven. It wasn’t pretty.

“He said I should go to Montana. See Fort Missoula, the internment camp. It still stands, as a museum.”

“
You?”
Judy’s cheeks bulged like a giant squirrel’s, her blue eyes wide. “Go to
Montana
?”

“Yes, me. Of course, me, go to Montana.” Mary felt miffed, even though she’d had the exact same reaction. “I can find Amadeo’s grave.”

“But Montana! It’s just so not
you
.”

“Why isn’t it me, Jude?” Mary really wanted to know, because she agreed and wondered why.

“I don’t see you in big sky country. You’re so totally Philadelphia. You went to college in Philadelphia, you went to law school in Philadelphia, you grew up here and you’ve lived here all your life. It’s like your dad said the other night at dinner, remember?”

Mary remembered.
Cowboy country. Pluto.

“Do you even know where Montana is?”

“Somewhere to the left.” Mary watched the baby, almost in front of their bench now, holding on to his mother’s hand. He made cute little grunting noises from the effort,
eah eah eah
. He couldn’t have been more than eleven months old, but he wanted to walk so badly. You could see it.

“Montana is directly under western Canada, Calgary, and it borders Idaho and Wyoming. Glacier National Park is there. It’s a beautiful state. Mountains, plains, great trout fishing, deer, elk, moose, and antelope. Have you ever seen an antelope?”

“Sure. Looks like a dog with horns. Don’t you tire of being my straight man?”

Judy smiled. “Montana’s great. You’d love it. I’ve fly-fished near Butte with my dad and hiked there, in the West, with my sisters and brother.”

“Show off.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t go. Go.”

“It’s a free country.”

“Clearly.”

“I have the money, I can buy an airplane ticket.” In fact, Mary had never even been on an airplane, which was the first of three secrets she kept from the world. The second was that she couldn’t swim. She fell silent, watching the baby take its wobbly steps. It passed right in front of them, tottering by.
Eah eah eah.

Judy was watching the baby, too. “Mare?”

“What?”

“Did you pay the baby to walk by us, just now?”

Mary burst into laughter, and Judy laughed with her, which was when they became best friends again. “Isn’t it funny how things happen like that? Sometimes you’re thinking about something and then something like that happens, and they seem to connect? Like you hear a song. As if someone’s sending you a sign.”

“You’ve lost it, Mare.”

“Things like that are happening to me lately. Signs.”

“No, they’re not. It’s spring, time for new babies and little lambs to walk around. They’re not signs, they’re just coincidences.”

“Maybe,” Mary said, but she didn’t think she was wrong, or that lambs had anything to do with it.

“You know, if you want to go to Montana, you absolutely should go. Maybe out there you’ll find whatever you’re looking for, and then you’ll be done with the case. Get Brandolini out of your system. Go. You can do it.” Judy paused. “Tell you what. If you decide to go, I’ll cover your desk and take Bennie’s depositions.”

“You will?” Mary looked over, and Judy was herself again, grinning crookedly.

“So, you gonna go?”

“I don’t know.”
Airplanes. Pluto. Montana scares me.

“Of course, if I take those deps for you, you’ll have to do something for me in return.”

“What?” Mary asked, but she already knew the answer.

Mary spent the afternoon following up on the internee files that she and Judy had found, double-checking for references to Amadeo, and being ambivalent about going to Montana. She didn’t bother to run home, shower, and change for her blind date, not only because she was Definitely Not Trying, but also because somebody could have been following her, which was an excellent excuse.

She took a cab from the office to Dmitri’s, a Greek restaurant in Olde City, which she liked on sight. Three rows of tables filled the small, unpretentious room, and an open grill was located behind a counter in the dining area, filling the air with the fresh smells of broiling fish and greens sizzling in olive oil. The tables were cozy, the dishware heavyweight, and every place setting had a spoon. Mary felt comfortable immediately and not only because nobody was colorizing her butt. She peeked over the top of her menu at her date.

His name was Paul Reston. His brown hair was wavy, and his eyes smallish behind fairly nondescript horn-rims. He had a straight nose and a full mouth that gave his face an appealing, if not wildly handsome, look, and he was dressed in a tweed jacket over a white oxford shirt. She forgot what kind of pants he had on, but he was the Dockers type. Paul seemed more down-to-earth than her last blind date, which meant that she would have a harder time finding fault with him. Mary knew she could succeed, if she just put her mind to it.

“Would you mind if I made a suggestion for an entrée?” Paul asked, looking over the top of his menu, and Mary smiled inwardly. If the scene felt familiar, it was. All of her blind dates started this way, then had the same middle and end, as predictable as a dialogue in high school French.
Où est la bibliothèque?

“What would you suggest?”
Là-bas, près de la gare.

“Everything’s good, the bluefish especially. I’d start with the avocado salad.”

“Okay, sounds good.” Mary closed the menu and set it down on the tiny table, beside a flickering votive candle. Now if Paul would just order, they could eat and get out of here, go home to separate beds, then get up and go to work the next day.

“You seem in a hurry.”

Oops
. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“Sorry.”
It’s my forte.

Paul set down his menu. “Judy tells me you’re her best friend.”

“Guilty.”

Paul smiled. “Judy and I grew up together.”

“Judy’s still growing up.”

Paul laughed. His laugh sounded masculine and deep, and it wasn’t a charity laugh either. He was her age, but he seemed more mature than she was, which wasn’t difficult. He could probably swim, too. “She’s worried about you.”

“I didn’t realize you two were that friendly.”

“We’re not, she’s just that worried, and she was trying to make excuses for why you keep canceling on me.”

“Sorry.” Oh, oh. Bad to worse.
Où est la salle de bain?

“She said she had to put a gun to your head to go out tonight, that you made some kind of deal.”

True
. Mary also had to agree to baby-sit Penny next weekend. She was a lousy negotiator. “It’s not personal, obviously. I’m just busy at work, on this case.”

“She also said you’re not allowed to talk about whatever that case is, and I’m supposed to get your mind off it and talk about my job.” Paul smiled. “She thinks you’re becoming dangerously obsessed.”

Mary flushed. “I come with a lot of directions, it seems.”
Wait’ll I get her. I’ll pierce her myself
. “Okay. What do you do?”

“I teach engineering.”

“Interesting.” Actually, Mary didn’t even know what it was, not specifically. She was an English major, which meant all she could do was compare and contrast. “Where do you teach?”

“I started in September at Penn.”

“My alma mater! You’re a professor there?”

“Yes. I am Professor Reston.” Paul nodded in a courtly way, and Mary laughed.

“In the conservatory, with a wrench.”

“Everyone says that.”

“Sorry.”

“That’s three times you’ve apologized.”

Mary hated that he kept count. Couldn’t he let her apologize in peace? The relationship was doomed. “Do you like teaching?”

“Very much. It’s a challenge. The kids are smart, able, energetic. I like it.”

“Great. It’s good to like your job.” Mary hadn’t liked hers, until Amadeo. But she wasn’t supposed to talk about that. “How do you like Philly? You have to say you love it.”

“I do love it.” Paul smiled. “It’s hard to get to know people, but I’m getting there. This dinner is a good start. A great start.”

Mary felt her face redden. Paul was making her job of hating him harder. Inconsiderate man. “Where do you live?”

“A few blocks from here, in Bella Vista.”

“Nice.” Bella Vista, in addition to being the immigrants’ name for Fort Missoula, was also a neighborhood near Olde City, but she couldn’t tell Paul about this coincidence because she wasn’t allowed to talk about work. Or suicide.

“It’s a rental with an option to buy, and if I get tenure, I’ll go for it. Real estate is a helluva lot cheaper here than the Bay Area.”

“Jeez, your own house. That’s great.” Mary felt happy for him. She was working toward a house, too. But when you bought a house, people always said the same thing: “Owning a house is a lot of responsibility.”

“That’s okay. I like responsibility.”

Mary smiled. So did she. Then she realized that, so far, she hadn’t thought at all about Mike.

Paul looked at her.

Mary looked back at him. She sipped some water, impossibly cold. The candlelight flickered. An animated man at a nearby table burst into laughter. She felt suddenly fresh out of conversation.

“Okay, I give up, tell me about your case,” Paul said, with a smile.

“It’s just a case, sort of historical, but it seems a little sketchy, the way it’s unfolding.”

“Judy said you’re way too involved with it. She says you’re showing an unusual interest in laundry and worshipping dead hair.”

“It’s just the file!”