Authors: Lisa Scottoline
“Eeew.” Melania wrinkled her nose like a varsity cheerleader, and Mary stopped missing her determination. If the bad guys were going to kill her, they would have already. They had probably assumed that she’d told people she was coming here, thus making the classic bad-guy mistake of overestimating her.
“Melania, I know it’s late, but do you think it would be possible for me to meet your husband?”
“No, sorry, but you can’t. He’s really ill.”
Mary wondered if she were telling the truth, but she seemed to be, and the nurse had said the same thing. “I’m sorry. What is he ill with?”
“He has cancer, pancreatic cancer.”
“How terrible,” Mary said, with an inward moan. She thought reflexively of her mother. “Can I come back another time? Tomorrow, maybe? I promise I’ll be brief, and I —”
“To be honest with you, he’s terminal. I’m not sure how much longer he has left.” Melania blinked away tears that barely challenged waterproof mascara. “The doctor can’t say, so we take it day to day.”
“I’m so sorry,” Mary said, with regret, not grief. She had come so far, from the National Archives to Montana and back, tracing Saracone to this very house. If he was alive, it wasn’t too late. “So there’s no way, just for a minute, I could see him?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Melania swallowed in premature grief, but Mary wasn’t buying it for a minute. Anytime a sophomore marries a rich eighty-year-old, she’s not only prepared for the death part, she’s counting on it. Melania added, “I only let you in because Keisha said you were so nice. It’s really only family at the house at this point.”
“Family, of course. Do you have children?” Mary switched tacks for the moment, taking discovery.
“Giovanni does, from his previous marriage. A son, Justin. He should be here any minute.” Melania checked her watch, a gold Rolex. “He must be running late, with this weather.”
Mary could meet him if she stalled. “Oh yeah, I think I met Justin once. In town.”
“You might have. He did graduate from law school, but he doesn’t practice anymore.”
Melania smiled with new interest. “Where did you meet him?”
“If memory serves, it was at a bar function of some kind,” Mary answered vaguely. “So many lawyers quit practice, nowadays. I think of quitting all the time. Why did he quit?”
“Justin didn’t really quit, he works for the business.”
“What business?”
“Giovanni’s. You know, his investments.”
How had Saracone made all this dough?
“What type of investments?”
Melania’s smile faded. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m just making conversation, to distract you from your grief. Is it working?”
“No.” Melania laughed, and Mary leaned over.
“Look, I know this sounds weird and awful, but can I please see Giovanni? I swear, I’ll stay three minutes and that’s it. I could show him the photo of —”
“No, of course not.” Melania recoiled. “My husband is on his
deathbed
.”
“Is he awake now? Did he get my message about Amadeo?”
“Yes, Keisha told him.”
“You’re sure?”
Melania bristled. “I was there. What’s wrong with you? Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that it matters so much, to my client’s estate. My client had a special affinity for your husband. What did he say when Keisha told him?”
“Now stop right there.” Melania’s fair skin flared in anger. “That’s none of your business!”
“I know it seems rude, but it
is
my business.” Mary struggled for an explanation. “It would mean so much to my boss if I could tell him what your husband said. Could you just let me know, girl to girl, so I don’t get fired? I need this job.” It was Keisha’s line, but it had hit home with Mary, and it seemed to hit home with Melania, too.
“All he said was, ‘Amadeo.’ Okay?”
Amadeo
. “He didn’t say anything else?”
“No. He put his head back on the pillow and fell asleep.”
“You sure he didn’t say anything else? Something that didn’t mean anything to you could mean a lot to my boss.”
“No, nothing else. He’s been saying things all the time, things that make no sense, because of the morphine and the other drugs.”
“Things that make no sense? What do you mean? What things?”
“The man is dying! The man is dying, and he knows it. Have some decency, why don’t you!” Melania stood up suddenly and brushed her wool slacks down over her taut thighs. “I tried to be nice, but I’m over this. I’m going upstairs, and you’re leaving. Right now. I’ll walk you to the door.”
Mary couldn’t walk out, could she? She’d come so far and if she waited another day, Saracone could be dead. She rose to go, hoisting her purse to her shoulder. She couldn’t just give up and go home, but she didn’t know what else to do.
“You have some nerve, you know that?” Melania was saying, over her shoulder, but Mary was thinking.
Should I take a chance?
No. Yes. No. “Sorry,” Mary said. She followed Melania to the front door, but her determination returned in the nick of time. As Melania opened the door, Mary spun about-face and bolted for the carpeted stairwell that led upstairs. She didn’t stop to question or wonder or even double-check.
She just
ran
.
“What! No! Hey! Don’t you dare!” Melania shouted from the door, but for once Mary didn’t apologize.
Go!
She darted up the stairs as fast as she could. She could get there. She could see Saracone. She wasn’t too late, not if he was alive. She reached the landing at the top with Melania on her heels. Where was Saracone’s bedroom?
“Stop!” Melania shouted. “No!”
Mary looked wildly right and left, panting hard. Two rooms were at either end of the long carpeted hall. Which was Saracone’s? An open door, with lamplight behind it!
Left! Go!
She bolted for the lighted bedroom just ahead of Melania, fueled by thoughts of Amadeo, the hanging tree, and the noose, which trumped a StairMaster any day.
“No! Chico, help! Chico, hurry!” Melania screamed, the sound reverberating in Mary’s ears.
Go, go, go!
Mary tore down the hallway. There! She could barely stop in time as she reached the bedroom door and grabbed the doorknob. She scooted inside the bedroom, slammed the door closed behind her with a
bang
, and twisted a brass thumbscrew above the doorknob to lock herself inside.
Thank you, God!
Almost instantly, Melania started pounding on the other side of the bedroom door, which shook with the force of each blow. “Get out of there! Chico! CHICO!”
Mary didn’t want to meet anybody named Chico. She whirled around on her heels and came face-to-face with Giovanni Saracone himself.
The old man sat bolt upright in his huge, fancy bed, his wobbly head egg-shaped and bald. His dark, sunken eyes had gone wide with alarm in their withered sockets, and his parched lips formed a wasted circle of alarm. A transparent greenish oxygen tube snaked from under his nose to a portable tank beside the bed, and he was hooked up to an IV and a small home monitor for his vital signs.
The sight took Mary aback, or maybe it was just the shock of what she had just done, breaking into his bedroom. But what she saw in Giovanni Saracone was stark, cold fright. Saracone was
afraid
of her, terrified
of her
, and in that one instant, eye to eye, she knew exactly why. Because he had killed Amadeo. He had been told she was here and he knew why she had come. He must have been dreading this day, and now it had finally come, on his deathbed. The knowledge flooded Mary with unholy power.
“You killed Amadeo Brandolini!” she shouted at Saracone, against the pounding on the bedroom door.
“Stop!” Melania screamed from outside the door. “Chico, here! Break it down!” In the next minute a huge
thud
pounded against the door, almost tearing it from its hinges.
“Please! Please!” Saracone rasped, and his head tottered. He put his hands up feebly, the IV tubes slack. “Please don’t hurt me! Please! God!”
“God won’t help you!” Mary shook with a rage she didn’t know she had. “God doesn’t help
murderers
! You strangled Amadeo with your
bare hands
! You tied a rope on his neck and you tried to make it look like he killed himself! You got away with
murder
!”
Suddenly, the door began to splinter. Melania’s shouts were joined by a man’s. “Let me in, you bitch! Let me in!”
“No. Please. No!” Saracone’s head kept shaking, and Mary saw wetness spring to his eyes, but his tears didn’t soften her heart. He hadn’t denied what she said. He was afraid only for himself. He had done it. He had killed Amadeo and now he was crying for himself. Only she stood for Amadeo, traveling across space and time to face his killer, at death’s door. Saracone might never be called to court to pay for what he had done, but after all this time, he would account to her.
“You killed him! You murdered him, and I want to know why.” Mary stepped toward the bed, and Saracone didn’t recoil from her but instead inclined toward her, seemingly transfixed. He raised his arms as if to embrace her, and Mary wondered fleetingly if he was so drugged that he thought she was an avenging angel. In a way, she was. “Why did you kill your friend Amadeo? A man who trusted you? An innocent man?
Why?
” Then Mary heard herself speaking to him in Italian, which she hadn’t spoken in years. “
Perché, Gio? Dicami! Dicami perché!”
“Miss DiNunzio, please don’t hurt him,” said a woman’s voice, almost drowned out by the clamor at the breaking door. It was Keisha, who had risen from a chair in the back of the room. Mary hadn’t noticed her in her frenzy, but the nurse’s expression remained calm. “Please. Don’t hurt him.”
The bedroom door was about to break from the pounding. “No! Stop! Come out of there!” Melania screamed.
Saracone wept fully now, tears trickling down his slack cheeks, and Mary knew she wouldn’t hurt him. It wasn’t for her to hurt him. The bedroom door was about to burst open, and she felt nothing but pity for the terrified man. Not even anger anymore, but merely sympathy. She leaned over the bed and whispered to him in Italian:
“Dica al vostro Dio perché. Dica al Dio.” Tell your God why, Giovanni. Tell God.
Mary went weak in the knees, and in the next instant, the bedroom door burst open and a huge man rushed through like a charging bull. He was followed by another man, short but brawny, and Melania, who hurried to the bed to check on Saracone.
In the next instant, a force with the impact of a freight train rammed Mary, grabbed her by the shoulders, and hurled her backward into the entertainment center. The back of her head exploded in pain. Her neck snapped backward, then forward. It happened so fast she caught only a glimpse of her attacker. Pitted skin. The Escalade driver. He came after her, picked her up by her shoulders, and was about to hit her again when she thought she heard the other man shouting, the man who must be Saracone’s son.
“No, Chico! Stop!” the son shouted, clearly an order.
Thank God.
Mary’s heart eased and she slumped in the Escalade driver’s powerful arms. Her eyelids fluttered open long enough to see the son standing before her, his face contorted with rage.
“Mind your own business!” the son shouted, spitting in her face, and the last thing Mary saw was the awful blur of his balled fist.
And the sneer on the face of Justin Saracone.
Mary regained consciousness in the dark, slumped in the driver’s seat of her car. Her keys and her purse rested in her lap. The car’s clock read 3:18. Rain pelted the roof, and the sound made her head throb. Her thoughts were muddled. She closed her eyes a minute and waited for her head to clear, but it didn’t. Her right cheek stung, and she touched it gingerly.
Ouch
. She flipped down the car’s visor, checked the mirror, and even in the dim light, almost yelped in surprise. Blood covered her right cheek, the skin broken, and her right eye was red and swollen.
She turned her head, and pain arced through her neck. Saracone’s front gate stood closed, as if she had never been inside. Her brain struggled to function. So Saracone had killed Amadeo. And the Escalade worked for Saracone. Saracone must have had him follow her after she’d started investigating Amadeo. But now that she’d seen Saracone, she didn’t understand. The old man had terminal cancer. There was no statute of limitations on murder, but could he seriously be worried about being prosecuted at this point? What about Frank’s murder? Had Saracone, or his wife or son, been involved in it? And what were those legal bills for?
The bills.
Mary reached for her purse. Her wallet, cell phone, and date book were inside, but the legal bills and the scanned photo were gone. Her mouth went dry. They had taken the bills, and they were originals. There were no copies that Mary knew of. With the legal bills missing, there was no physical evidence linking Frank to Saracone. What was she gonna do now?
She didn’t have time to puzzle it out. She wanted to get out of here before Chico and Justin came back for her. She jammed her keys in the ignition, started the car, and headed back to Philadelphia.
It had to be safer than Birchrunville.
The next day dawned bright and clear, and Detective Daniel Gomez turned out to be young for a full detective, at about thirty-odd years old. He had a warm, friendly smile and looked compact and powerful in sleek gray pants and a white European-cut shirt. He had sounded so professional on the phone, but his eyes softened to a sympathetic frown when he met Mary and saw the angry red bruise on her puffy cheek.
“You told me it was bad, but that’s a beauty.” Detective Gomez peered at her like a family doctor. “Who’d you say hit you?”
“An SUV named Chico, then his boss, Justin Saracone.”
“You want to charge them with assault?”
“No, I want to charge them with murder.” Mary sat down, looking briefly around. She hadn’t spent as much time at the Roundhouse as the boss and she needed to get oriented. Interview Room C was small and windowless, painted a dingy green, and scuffed by heel marks halfway up the wall to a largish two-way mirror. The only furniture in the room was a rickety old-fashioned typing table and a mismatched metal chair, on which rested a white legal pad and a sheaf of blank forms. Mary cleared her throat. “It really started as a lawsuit, a document case. Ancient history. Should I begin at the beginning?”