Lady Killer Read online

  Mary’s office window was a harsh pewter square, and the dawn sky cloaked her desk in a cold, gray light. She was at work by six thirty, moving the computer mouse and logging on to www.phillynews.com for the latest. The headline read DONCHESS BABY STILL MISSING. She skimmed the top stories, all about the child’s kidnapping, but there was no new news about Trish. Mary hadn’t slept well last night and she’d come into the office to get work out of the way before she made her next move, which she couldn’t do until nine o’clock. She was dressed for it, in a brown tweed suit, overpriced pumps, and with her hair back in its loose twist. Sleuthingwear.

  She flipped through her phone messages from the past two days, a dangerously high stack. The top one was from somebody named Alfred Diaz, Esq., then she read Marshall’s neat notation on the message: Diaz is Roberto Nunez’s new lawyer, he wants you to send file.

  “I’m fired?” Mary asked aloud, in dismay. She’d worked the Nunez case for six months, but she couldn’t blame Roberto. He’d wanted his lawyer with him at his deposition and he had a right to that. She thumbed unhappily to the next message, from Tom DeCecco, canceling their appointment tomorrow on a workmen’s comp case, and another was a cancellation from Delia Antoine, of a meeting at her house on Friday, about lead paint removal.

  Hmm. Mary would’ve rescheduled those meetings anyway, to deal with Trish, and she usually prayed for cancellations. But two? Uneasy, she sipped her take-out coffee, which tasted hot and good. Was something going on with her clients? Was it related to Trish? She flashed on the scene last night in her parents’ dining room.

  Mary’s a big shot now.

  Her BlackBerry started ringing, and she startled, wondering who could be calling so early. She checked the display, alarmed, and picked up. “Amrita, what’s the matter?”

  “Sorry to bother you at this ungodly hour, but I don’t know what to do. Dhiren won’t come out of the bathroom. He’s missed the bus. He says he won’t ever go back. He’s in there, crying.”

  “Poor kid. Don’t make him go.”

  “He’s so upset. He was taking a shower and one of the scabs on his head started bleeding. He’s afraid they’ll mock him.” Amrita sounded beside herself. “Did you make any progress with getting him tested? I can’t take this much longer, nor can Dhiren.”

  “They can’t see him or test him until April, but I want to improve on that.”

  “He needs help now.”

  “I understand.” Mary’s face burned. “I’ll get on it.”

  “Thank you. I must go. Talk to you later.”

  “’Bye,” Mary said, but Amrita had already hung up. She got back on the computer and logged on to the white pages to find a qualified child psychologist in Philly. She’d skip all the red tape. She couldn’t listen to Dhiren cry like that and she didn’t want to let another client down. In fifteen minutes, she had a list of psychologists to call, and a grinning Judy Carrier materialized in her threshold.

  “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” Judy said, fresh-faced in a yellow rain slicker. She carried a paper bag. “I thought you’d be in. I’m bearing breakfast.”

  “Wow. Why are you in so early?”

  “Same reason as you. Work, work, work.” Judy flicked on the light, entered the office, set down the paper bag, and shed the slicker, revealing a funky dress with orange-and-white swirls.

  “My God, you’re a Creamsicle.”

  “Thank you.” Judy flopped into a seat with a grin. Her blond hair was swept back from her wide face with a stretchy purple headband, emphasizing her broad cheekbones and forehead. Mary couldn’t see what color clogs she had on. She didn’t want to know.

  “Do they even have orange clogs?” she asked, anyway.

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “They’d be perfect for deer season.”

  “Or for feeling sunny and bright, on a gloomy hump day.” Judy dug into the bag and pulled out a corn muffin with a top like a mushroom cloud. “Look, your favorite.”

  “Thanks, sweetie,” Mary said, though the muffin showered crumbs on her desk, threatening to make grease spots on her letters, which she moved hastily aside.

  “So fill me in. What’s up with Trish?” Judy reached in the bag and produced two tiny golden packets. “I got butter, too.”

  “Oooh, butter,” Mary said, succumbing to the inevitable. She hit a button to print the list of psychologists’ names, then cleared a legal pad for a placemat and reached over for the muffin. “For starters, she called her mother the night she disappeared.”

  “Really?” Judy asked, and Mary told her about the scene at her parents’ house, and later, about Anthony. By the time she’d finished, Judy had sprouted little worry lines on her forehead. “Hopefully, the cops will find her.”

  “Right.” Mary didn’t tell her about the plans for the day, because she’d be sure to object.

  “But you had a date? Hallelujah!”

  “I guess.”

  “So what’s the matter?”

  “I’m not ready, I decided.”

  Judy almost spit out her coffee. “You’re so ready you’re dying on the vine.”

  “Thanks.” Mary smiled.

  “Mare, why don’t you like him?”

  “At my parents’, he sat in Mike’s chair.”

  “He needed a place to put his ass. Your parents have four chairs at that table. When I eat there, I sit in Mike’s chair. There’s no other choice.”

  “He’s going too fast, is all.”

  Judy’s eyes glittered evilly. “Why? Did he go for the tongue?”

  “No. We didn’t kiss.”

  “Then how is he going too fast?”

  “I don’t know.” Mary tried to shrug it off, but couldn’t. She reached for her coffee and noticed her e-mail in-box had gotten a new e-mail, the sender in boldface: Giulia Palazzolo. The re line read, Have you seen Trish Gambone? Mary said, “Uh-oh, incoming Mean Mail.”

  “What?” Judy brushed crumbs off her fingertips and came around the desk, while Mary opened the e-mail and they read it together. It was a flyer that showed the photo of Trish from Giulia’s cell phone, and underneath was a description of Trish, with Giulia’s phone number and Reg Brinkley’s, too.

  “Oh, no.” Mary moaned. “Brinkley will go nuts. Giulia’s been calling him, but I didn’t get a chance to yell at her yet.”

  “Not a bad idea, to send a flyer. But they’re going about it the wrong way.”

  “What do you mean?” Mary looked up, and Judy’s clear blue eyes moved rapidly back and forth as she read the screen, its light throwing white shadows on her chin and cheeks.

  “The flyer, it’s all about Trish, and that’s not good. They don’t need to find her, they need to find him.”

  Mary felt like kicking herself. “You’re right. I’m the one who told them to send a flyer. How could I have missed that?”

  “They’ll never find her this way. This is all wrong.” Judy gestured at the screen. “They need a photo of him. They need to find out where he went last, where he hangs, where he was last seen, where he could have taken her. Once you find him, you find her.”

  “You’re a genius.” Mary reached for her phone, searched the received calls, pressed Call, and set it on speakerphone. It was almost seven o’clock, so Giulia should be getting up soon.

  “Hello?” she answered sleepily.

  “Hi, Giulia, it’s Mary. Sorry to wake you.”

  “Wha?”

  “Giulia, I’m here with Judy and we have you on speaker. First, do me a favor and please don’t call Brinkley anymore. We almost got him fired. Second, I got your flyer and instead of making it about Trish, we were thinking you should do a new one and—”

  “Oh, yo, Mare. Yo, Judy. Thank God you bitches woke me up to tell me what I’m doing wrong.” Giulia’s voice went from sleepy to angry faster than a Maserati. “What a relief that you called. You know, I been sleeping on my back but maybe I should turn over? Whaddaya think?”

  “Giulia, it’s just that—”
r />   “What’s your freakin’ problem, Mare? I heard you dissed Trish’s mom last night. How ignorant can you get?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Mary controlled her temper, remembering what Mrs. Gambone had said about her rebuking Giulia. “I’m not trying to be critical of you. I’m—”

  “We’re the ones runnin’ around—me, Yo, and Missy. I was up until three in the mornin’. We went to all the places where they know Trish, askin’ everybody if they seen her, postin’ the flyer on telephone poles around work and the bars she used to like. Everywhere she goes or used ta go.”

  “That’s the problem. You need to go where—”

  “What’re you doin’ for Trish, Mare? Makin’ with Ant’n’y Rotunno, who, p.s., in case you didn’t know, is friggin’ gay?”

  Judy’s eyes widened. He’s gay? she mouthed, but Mary waved her off.

  “Giulia, I understand that you’re working hard, but you should think about going after—”

  The line went dead. Giulia had hung up. Mary rubbed her forehead. “That went well.”

  Judy cocked her head. “He’s gay?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did she say that?”

  “It’s a long story,” Mary answered, sipping her coffee, preoccupied.

  “You look worried.”

  “I am.”

  “You think she’s dead already?” Judy’s expression went grim, and Mary didn’t want her muffin anymore.

  “I pray not.” Their eyes met over the desk, and Mary lied, “I guess I have to let it be.”

  “You do, you can’t help anymore. You don’t know anything about the boyfriend.”

  “No, not really.” Mary kept her mouth shut. She knew a lot about the boyfriend, but this wasn’t the time for a confession. There was no confessional, for one thing.

  “It’s for the best. I don’t want to worry about you getting mixed up with the Mob.”

  “Me neither.” Mary faked a shudder, which wasn’t difficult. She had a second chance to help Trish and she wasn’t about to blow it. She got up, gathered their muffin trash, and said, “I gotta go.”

  “Where?” Judy asked, rising.

  Mary tried to think of a lie, grateful she hadn’t told Judy about the cancellations. “A breakfast meeting with a new client.”

  “Will you be back for lunch?”

  “I doubt it.” Mary tossed her trash into the wastebasket, slid the list of shrinks from the printer tray, and grabbed the manila envelope that held Trish’s diary, to be hand-delivered to Missing Persons.

  “Okay, have fun.” Judy handed her her trenchcoat from the hook, and she took it with a smile.

  “Thanks,” Mary said, avoiding the trusting eye of her best friend.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Mary hurried down the street under the gray sky, her trenchcoat billowing behind her, her handbag bumping against her side, and her pumps clacking self-importantly on the filthy pavement. There was no one else on the street this early, especially in this seamier side of South Philly. Trash blew in the gutter, and the rowhouses were badly maintained, the awnings cracked here and there. Plywood boards covered most of the first-floor windows, and she hurried past a noisy auto-body shop where she drew an anachronistic wolf-whistle.

  She picked up the pace. His house used to be number 3644. She wasn’t sure if his father still lived here, but nobody moved in South Philly, or if they did, the neighbors would know where they’d gone. It wasn’t the kind of information you got from Google. Mary approached the house, the typical two-story with shutters that needed painting, and she noted with a city-girl’s eye that the brick hadn’t been repainted in years. She walked up the steps, knocked, and waited. There was no answer, so she knocked again, trying not to be nervous.

  In the next minute the door opened, and an older man she barely recognized stood stooped in the threshold. He had to be around seventy, but seemed much older. He was bald, and his skin was gray as the stormy sky. Lines etched his face behind greasy black eyeglasses, which sat so heavily on his ears they bent them forward. “Yeah?” he asked, his voice quavering.

  “Mr. Po, I don’t know if you remember me. We met a long time ago, when you used to—”

  “Pick up my son from your house, from studying. In high school.” The old man smiled shakily, his lips dry, and he pointed at her with a tapered index finger. “I remember you.”

  “How nice.”

  “Never forget a face. Names, yes. Don’t know your name.”

  Mary introduced herself and raised a pastry box she’d brought. “Would you mind if I come in a minute, to talk with you?”

  “No, come in. I like a little company.”

  “Great, thanks.” Mary stepped in as he opened the door and backed up, admitting her to a living room that had no lights on. It was modestly furnished, with an old-fashioned dark green sofa against the far wall under a rectangular beveled mirror that hung in every rowhouse in Italian-American history. If Mr. Po was in the Mob, maybe crime really didn’t pay.

  “Come on inna kitchen.” Mr. Po gestured, and Mary followed him into a dark square of kitchen that was the same dimensions as her parents’, though it smelled of stale cigar smoke. A patterned curtain covered the only window, in the back door, and cabinets refaced with dark fake-walnut ringed the room, matching a brown Formica counter. On the right side of the room sat the sink, stove, and an old brown refrigerator covered with fading photos.

  Mary sat down and opened the box of pastry while she stole a glance at the photos, some from as far back as high school. She recognized instantly those light blue eyes and that lopsided grin. He was dressed in a black football uniform, and there were pictures of another boy, bigger and brawnier, and a studious girl with glasses and long, dark hair. Mary didn’t know the boy, but she recognized the girl. Rosaria, his sister, older by a year.

  Mr. Po shuffled to the sink in brown moccasins. “You like some coffee? It’s instant. See, I got Folgers.” He held up the red-labeled jar like Exhibit A.

  “Thanks. I bought some sfogliatelle.”

  “Good girl.”

  “Where’s Rosaria these days?”

  “Were you in her class?”

  “No, but we were in choir together. We’re both altos, so we stuck together. She was nice. How is she?”

  “Got a kid.” Mr. Po shook his head, abruptly cranky, which warned Mary off the subject. She looked away, and her gaze found one of the smaller photos on the fridge: a picture of a little brown-haired boy in a green-and-gold baseball uniform. The green cap had a B on it, and the front of the shirt read Brick Titans. Mary made a mental note. “Mr. Po, I came to you because I want to find Trish.”

  “Know why you came. The police got here already, yesterday, ahead a you. You’re wonderin’ where Trish and my son went. Tell you what I told the cops. I don’t know where they are. How you take your coffee?”

  Mary blinked, surprised. She broke the string on the pastry box, moving aside a Daily News, which lay open on the table near a black magnifying glass. A curvaceous jug of Coffee-mate, a plastic-crystal sugar bowl, and a colorful stack of Happy Birthday napkins sat in the middle of the table.

  “Cream and sugar onna table.” Mr. Po spooned some Folgers into a mug he got from the cabinet, and the brown crystals made a tinkling sound. “He always liked you, my son did. Talked about you a lot.”

  Mary felt a disturbing thrill. It threw her off. It wasn’t why she’d come. She had to find Trish. Time was slipping away.

  “Used to say you were smart. A nice girl, a good girl. Different from the others.”

  Mary smiled, in spite of herself.

  “Puppy love, I guess.” Mr. Po turned, lifting a sparse gray eyebrow. “You’re the one that got away, eh?”

  “Nah,” Mary said, though she wasn’t about to tell him what had happened.

  “Too bad. He wasn’t my real son, you know. I’m his uncle. My brother was his father. A drunk.”

  Mary hadn’t known the whole story. “But you raised
him, right?”

  “Me and my wife did. Now she passed, too. We raised him with our son. Him and his sister, we treated ’em like they were ours.”

  “That was very kind of you,” Mary said, meaning it, but Mr. Po only shrugged knobby shoulders.

  “Blood is blood.”

  “When did you see him last?” Mary asked, getting to the point.

  “Six months ago, maybe more. He don’t come home much anymore. The things they’re sayin’ about him, it’s lies. He didn’t kidnap Trish, or whatever they’re sayin’.”

  “So where do you think they are?”

  “They’re young. They go where young people go.”

  Right. “I know they had problems, and he was abusive to her.”

  “That’s not true. That ain’t the boy I raised. I think he changed.”

  “So do I.” Mary felt surprised at the words coming out of her mouth, and Mr. Po eyed her from the stove, seeing her as if for the first time.

  “Funny how life is, eh?”

  “Yes. When did he start to change, Mr. Po? What changed him, do you think?”

  “The wrong crowd.”

  The wrong crowd being the Mob? Mary wasn’t going there, at least not yet. She needed information. “Did he ever talk to you about Trish?”

  “No.” Mr. Po turned off the pot, picked up the handle, and poured the hot water, crackling in protest, into the mug. “High school sweethearts. He started seein’ her after you, right?”

  Ouch. “Right. When did you hear they were missing?”

  “Yesterday on the TV.” Mr. Po reached in the silverware drawer, took out a spoon, and mixed up the coffee.

  “Aren’t you worried about him? It’s going on two days.”

  “My boy can handle himself.”

  Mary hadn’t even considered that somebody could have abducted them both. She knew from Fung that they’d left the house alone, but that didn’t preclude anything. What if they had both been abducted? Maybe a Mob thing? Maybe this guy Cadillac? Mary filed it away.

  “I taught him how to take care of himself. In the basement, I taught him how to throw a punch. I made sure he knew that. That’s a father’s job.”