Authors: Lisa Scottoline
There it was. Right in the middle of the stack. A bill, and under the client name, at the top, it read: Giovanni Saracone. Mary read the bill, which merely stated: Payment on semiannual retainer. The amount — $250,000.
What? A retainer of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?
Mary almost laughed out loud. That was insane! Not only was it way out of line with Frank’s other bills, even her old white-shoe firm, Grun & Chase, didn’t have more than a handful of clients with retainers of that magnitude. A case demanding those fees would be in the news every day! What type of case could Frank be handling for Saracone that would justify those fees? And twice a year?
Mary skipped back to the year before that, and thumbed through the bill copies. Again, midway in the pack, on the fifteenth, was a file copy of a bill to Giovanni Saracone. The amount was $250,000. Again, unlike the other bills, not even a brief description of the services rendered. What kind of client accepted that for a retainer accounting? None. Mary could barely contain herself.
What gives?
Five hundred grand a year billed to Saracone? For what? For how long? And did it have anything to do with Amadeo? It must have. Here was a link between Saracone and Frank. Mary just didn’t know what it meant. Her gaze shifted to the drawer with even older bills, and it took her only five minutes to find the June and December bills to Saracone, again totaling $500,000. She checked the year before that and the two before that, going back a total of five years. Each year had the same bill copies, coming to half a million dollars for five years.
Two and a half million dollars.
It bought a lot of softball jerseys. How long had it been going on, and why?
If there had been a Saracone case file, it had been taken, but Mary didn’t think there had been a case involving Saracone at all. Ever. The timing didn’t make sense; most small litigation matters didn’t last that long. And the killers hadn’t thought to look here in the billing files because they didn’t know about them — for once, the bad guys
weren’t
lawyers. Mary’s thoughts raced ahead. These had to have been some sort of payments from Saracone to Frank, disguised as legal bills. Did Frank know something — maybe about Amadeo’s murder — that Saracone wanted silenced? If so, why not kill him a long time ago? And who
invoiced
for blackmail?
Mary’s hands trembled as she held the folder. She didn’t want to risk Exhibits A through F disappearing when the bad guys figured out what they’d left behind. She’d lost enough documents for one case, in the drawings. She took the Saracone bill from the file folder, then went back to the other folders and took out all the Saracone bills going back all five years. She stacked the bills, folded them over, and stuck them in her purse; then she replaced the file folders, closed the drawers, and left the file room, turning off the light. Good girls conserved electricity
and
avoided detection.
She hurried down the hallway, climbed back out of the shattered window, and headed down the street in the rain. She had broken at least one commandment, THOU SHALT NOT STEAL LEGAL BILLS, but she was too jiggered up to question her conduct or even to feel guilty. She clutched her purse protectively to her chest, out of the rain. Because inside were the bills, with a very valuable address.
So she knew exactly where to go next.
The thunderstorm showed no signs of letting up, and rain pelted the roof of Mary’s ancient BMW and struck her windows, clouding what her breath didn’t fog. She’d gone home for her car and never once thought about turning back or even stopping for coffee, she was so excited. She drove pedal-to-the-metal past acres of dark hills, shadows of cornfields, and winding country roads, to a place called Birchrunville, then looked around for the house. It wasn’t hard to find in such a small, apparently exclusive place. The town boasted one intersection, a quaint post office, and an elegant restaurant called the Birchrunville Cafe, and was moneyed in a completely tasteful way. Mary never would have guessed that an Italian from Philly would end up in such ritzy country. But then again, she didn’t know enough about Giovanni Saracone.
His house was at the end of a long, narrow road, and she pulled up across the street from an apparently indestructible green mailbox, cutting the ignition. She’d broken a sweat that she knew wasn’t from the humidity. Mary couldn’t believe she was actually here, at Saracone’s house. A man who had been with Amadeo when he died. Was Saracone even still alive? The bills indicated he was, and Mrs. Nyquist had said he was one of the youngest in the internment camp. What had really happened the day Amadeo died? Had Saracone actually killed him? Part of Mary believed it already, but that was the part of her that jumped to conclusions. She told herself to calm down, then rubbed the steam from her car window with a fist and looked outside.
Colonial glass lanterns mounted atop stone pillars cast the only light on a seven-foot-high cedar gate that blocked the driveway and the entrance. It had to be an electric gate, because a gold-toned keypad on a gooseneck stem sat beside the cobblestone driveway. Mary tried to see over the gate, but rain and dense trees obscured her view. She rolled down her window, blinking against the rain, when suddenly the front gate started to open.
Mary slumped in the driver’s seat just as a black sedan glided from the gate and took a left turn down the road. She followed its red lights with a nervous gaze, and when it had driven out of view, she slid up in the seat. The cedar gates were closing. She only had a minute to make a decision. She wanted to see inside. She flung open the car door, grabbed her purse, and bolted into the rain. The gate was closing, narrowing her entrance to three feet, then two. Mary darted through the opening as the gate closed noiselessly behind her and she ran for the shelter of a huge, leafy oak tree and looked around.
A winding driveway slick with wet cobblestones and lined with low lamps curled to a huge stone mansion, four stories high and constructed entirely of fieldstones, their natural earth tones vivid with rainwater and illuminated by bright lights aimed at the house. How did Saracone come to afford such a place? What did he do for a living? How had he come so far? And the mansion was only part of the compound. Beyond the house along the driveway sat a large stone carriage house, and next to it, a barn converted to the most swanky four-car garage in history. In front of it were parked two black Mercedes sedans, the model favored by Eastern Bloc diplomats. Mary looked over the cars to a stone cottage, also of fieldstone, and to the cedar fence beyond that apparently enclosed a built-in pool.
Her gaze returned to the stone mansion and its massive front door, of dense mahogany with an ornately cut glass. Giovanni Saracone lived behind that door. If he were still alive, he’d be in his early eighties and was evidently wealthy. He would have survived a world war and maybe killed a man with his bare hands, alone in a Montana beet field.
If you can’t be brave, be determined. And you’ll end up in the same place.
She left the shadows of the oak tree and walked directly down the middle of the driveway toward the front door, with far more bravado than she felt. She reached the front step of a slate flagstone, too high-rent to be called a stoop. Tall white pillars on either side of the front door soared two stories high, supporting a white-painted porch that sheltered the entrance from the storm. Mary braced herself, pressed the lighted doorbell, and tried to remember that she was a cowgirl.
The door was opened by a young African-American woman wearing a fresh white nurse’s uniform embroidered with the slogan
HomeCare, WeCare.
Above the stitching glinted a fake-gold pin that read
KEISHA
. Keisha was a pretty twenty-something, with her dark hair close-cut and her lightly lipsticked mouth forming a puzzled frown. “Did somebody ring you in through the gate?” she asked.
“No, I was about to push the button for the intercom, but a car went out, so I just walked in.”
“You shouldn’ta done that.” Keisha took in Mary’s wet blazer and khakis with disapproval. “Are you selling somethin’?”
“No. I’m a friend of Mr. Saracone’s and I’m here to see him.”
“A friend?” Keisha repeated uncertainly, blinking against the rain spraying under the porch.
“Maybe if I could come in for a second, we wouldn’t both get wet.”
“If you’re Mr. Saracone’s friend, you know he’s very ill.” Keisha was still squinting against the rain, or maybe in suspicion. “He’s not taking visitors except for family, and certainly not tonight.”
“To tell the truth, I’m not really
his
friend.” Mary scrambled to cover, digging a business card from her purse and handing it to the nurse. “I’m really a lawyer, and I represent a man who’s a very old friend of Mr. Saracone’s. A man named Amadeo Brandolini. I really do need to see Mr. Saracone, about him.”
“I don’t know.” The nurse edged away from the door, but on impulse, Mary thrust her hand inside.
“I swear, Mr. Saracone would be angry with you if you sent me away. He might even fire you.” Mary was winging it, but the nurse stopped closing the door.
“You serious? I need this job.”
“I’m very serious.”
“
What’s
your client’s name?”
Mary repeated it. “Please, just show Mr. Saracone my card, and tell him I’m here. I promise, if you tell him that name, he’ll want to see me.”
“Well, wait here for a minute,” Keisha said, her voice softening. Her gaze lifted to the rainstorm. “Sorry I have to make you wait outside in this weather. I can’t let you in until I ask Mr. Saracone.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Mary waited while the front door closed and was locked. Not only was Saracone alive, she would be meeting him any minute. Mary had no sooner had the thought than her determination evaporated, replaced by good old-fashioned fear.
Still she managed not to run back to the car and made herself stay until the front door opened again.
Five minutes later, it wasn’t the nurse who opened the front door, but instead a beautiful woman about Mary’s age. She had glossy black hair that grazed her shoulders in a chic cut, dark almond-shaped eyes with no crow’s feet, and a body that strippers would kill for. She looked way too young to be Saracone’s wife, which had to mean she was Saracone’s wife.
“Hello, I’m Melania Saracone, Giovanni’s wife.” She pursed thin lips and extended her manicured hand in a confident, if not friendly, way. “Please come in.”
“Thanks.” Mary felt her hand gripped a little harder than necessary as Mrs. Saracone fairly pulled her inside the house and shut the door behind her.
Okay, I’m intimidated.
It had been a stupid idea to come here without telling anyone, putting herself inside this house, alone and vulnerable. Her determination had vanished, evidently figuring she would get them both killed. She could only hope it was calling 911.
“Would you like a drink? Diet Coke, or water?” Mrs. Saracone asked, leading her over a thick Oriental carpet through a dimly lit entrance hall, with one of those pretentious staircases that curved around in a costly curl. Her hair bounced like a shampoo commercial and her head was cocked stiffly to the side, as if awaiting the answer.
“No, thanks.” Mary followed her into an immense living room lined with books that reached all the way to a vaulted ceiling, topped by a dramatically arched skylight. Plush couches and matching wing chairs clustered in three different areas — one near a stone fireplace, one on the right, and one on the left — but the furniture looked more stage-set than living room. Mrs. Saracone sat down in a navy velvet chair next to a mahogany end table and motioned Mary into the identical chair opposite her. “Thanks,” Mary said, sinking into the down cushion. “This is a lovely house, Mrs. Saracone.”
“You can call me Melania. So you’re the lawyer for a man named Amadeo Brandolini.” Melania crossed one long leg over the other and brushed down charcoal slacks that broke above pointy black velvet mules. She wore a pressed white shirt with darts that emphasized the curve of an amplified C cup, and her waist didn’t bulge at her belt when she sat down. It was easy to see she worked out, and Mary tried not to imagine how many lawyers she could bench-press.
“Yes, actually, I represent his estate.”
“Then your client died?”
“Yes, a long time ago. In 1942, by suicide.” Mary didn’t want to show her hand, at least not until her determination got off the cell phone and came back. All was forgiven. “It’s my understanding that your husband was with him when he died.”
“That’s odd, he never mentioned it.” Melania cocked her head again, either by habit or affectation, and Mary wondered what she really knew. It was doubtful that Giovanni would have told his trophy about Amadeo’s death, especially if he was involved, and there was nothing in Melania’s manner that suggested she was uneasy. If anything, she seemed interested, if only politely. “You say your client committed suicide?”
“Yes. He and Giovanni were very good friends, and ended up in an internment camp together in Montana. During the war.”
That would be World War II.
“I so didn’t know that. Are you sure?”
“Yes, positive.” Mary reached in her purse, carefully avoided the Saracone legal bills, and pulled out a scanned copy of the photos she’d found at the camp. She had made three copies of the photos and left them at work, hiding the original in the coffee room; this time she was taking no chances. She showed the paper to Melania, both photos on the same page. “Isn’t that Giovanni, in the hat?”
“Whoa!” Melania’s liquid-lined eyes flared. “God, he looks hot! He must have been twenty or so!”
Read it and weep.
“Yes, he was younger then. The short man with him is my client, Amadeo Brandolini. Giovanni never mentioned him? They were good friends.”
“No, not at all.” Melania handed the picture to Mary, who tucked it back in her purse. “How did your client commit suicide?”
“He hung himself.”