Killer Smile Page 16

  “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.

  Twenty-Six

  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?”

  “Please do, I’m listening,” Gomez answered, pulling over the metal chair, and Mary began telling him about Amadeo while he started to take notes on a pad that rested on his crossed legs. She went on to tell him about Montana and how she figured out that Amadeo’s suicide was really murder, but then she slowed the story when she got to the part about her breaking into Frank’s office. Oops. Detective Gomez looked up sharply, his Bic poised above the legal pad. “Did you say you broke into Cavuto’s office last night? The office on South Broad?”

  Gulp. “Well, yes.”

  Detective Gomez frowned, a tiny pitchfork appearing on his otherwise smooth forehead. “That office is a crime scene, Ms. DiNunzio.”

  “Please, call me Mary.”

  “Mary, it’s a crime scene. My crime scene.” The detective set the Bic down and leaned back in his chair, and Mary could see they were about to have their first fight.

  “I didn’t compromise any evidence, and I don’t think of it as a crime scene, since I knew Frank so well.”

  “Are you trying to tell me, if it’s not a crime scene to you, it’s not a crime scene?” Detective Gomez’s dark eyebrows flew upward, so Mary shifted gears.

  “There’s no way he was killed during a robbery, Detective. Frank Cavuto wasn’t the type to work at his desk late at night. I think he had arranged to meet the bad guys, Chico and Saracone Junior, or maybe the wife, at the office. And the
re’s also that reporter I told you about, we can’t forget about him. I showed him the circle drawings and told him about Frank.”

  Gomez made another note.

  “It’s possible that Frank let them in, that’s why there was no sign of a break-in, and they killed him to silence him.”

  “Silence him about what?”

  “About whatever he knew about Amadeo’s death, and Saracone.”

  That pitchfork again. “The evidence points to a robbery gone wrong. The vault was taken, and the secretary said it had almost ten thousand dollars in it. The whole office was ransacked, all the petty cash stolen, as was everything else of value. Computers, adding machines, a portable TV, even gold earrings the secretary kept in her top drawer.”

  “They took that stuff after the fact, to make it look like a robbery. And in the files, I found—”

  “You looked in the files?”

  “—a series of legal bills from Frank to Saracone, who owns the thug who hit me in the face. The bills totaled five hundred thousand dollars a year for five years. That’s over two million dollars in payments, for no apparent pending case, which I still can’t explain, but at least I got Saracone’s address from the bills and that’s what led me to—”

  “You found bills where? In that file room, where the vault was?”

  “Yes.” Mary noted that Detective Gomez was getting bogged down in the details. “I had the bills with me last night when I went to Saracone’s, but they took them after they beat me up.”

  “Mary.” Detective Gomez folded his arms, testy. “Are you telling me you took evidence from a crime scene, in an uncleared case? I can’t imagine you would take evidence from a crime scene and carry it around with you.”

  Uh. “Yes.” Sorry. Mary felt her face flush with embarrassment.

  “And now, thanks to you, this evidence is gone?”

  “But I can testify that I saw them, because I did. And we can subpoena the files and maybe find copies of them.”

  Gomez had stopped listening. They were beyond pitchfork now. “That’s hindering, obstruction of justice. Tampering with evidence. Destroying the chain of custody.”

  “You could still bring Saracone and Chico in, ask them about the bills, and investigate their connection to Frank. Saracone has some kind of investment business and maybe Frank had dealings with that.”

  “You want me to pick up a dying old man who you think is guilty of a sixty-year-old murder?” Detective Gomez looked at her like she was nuts. She was rapidly losing any credibility she’d earned by her busted cheek. “Whose only connection to Cavuto’s murder you carried around in your purse and then lost?”

  “They took it, I didn’t lose it,” Mary said, but it sounded lame, even to her. “Don’t you think it’s strange that the Saracones didn’t call the Birchrunville cops? That I’m the one who had to come to you?”

  “No, I don’t.” Detective Gomez was shaking his head. “Not everybody would call the cops on a prying lawyer, and who knows what they got out in that burg? The force can’t be that big.”

  “Why don’t we go over to the Saracone house and investigate? I swear, if I confront that old man in front of you, he just might admit that he killed Amadeo.” Mary had thought about it all night. As pathetic as Saracone had been, he was still a murderer and he should still be brought to justice. For Amadeo. “He was this close to telling me last night. He wants to confess. He knows he’s on his deathbed and he’s getting religion. I can see it, it’s an Italian thing.”

  “No, no, no. I can’t take you over to Saracone’s. I can’t get involved with this, or you. I have to talk to my sergeant.” Gomez shook his head. “Obtaining evidence by burglary! You should know better, as a lawyer.”

  “Okay, so don’t take me over, then.” Mary switched tacks. “Just go to the Saracones yourself. Talk to them. Don’t tell them I was here and told you what happened last night. Tell them it came in through an anonymous tip.”

  Detective Gomez thought a minute. “Were there other witnesses to this conversation you had with Saracone?”

  “Sure. A nurse was right there. Saracone’s nurse.” Mary flashed on the gold lapel pin. “Keisha, from HomeCare. I’m telling you, I think Saracone, or at least this Chico guy, killed Frank Cavuto. I’ll testify that I saw the bills from Frank to Saracone. They exist, and I bet they exist in back files, too. If we ask Frank’s secretary and—”

  “Quiet now, I’ve heard enough.” Detective Gomez stood up and hoisted his pants by his thin black leather belt. “I need to end this interview, Ms. — Mary.”

  “Why? We’re just getting started.”

  “For your own good. I do have to talk to my sergeant. What a mess.” Detective Gomez kept shaking his neat head, solid as a cinder block. “We’re sitting here, you tell me you have information on the Cavuto case, and you end up confessing to burglary, obstruction, and evidence tampering.”

  “I didn’t tamper with evidence, I lost it.” Eeek. “I mean, somebody stole it from me.”

  “After you stole it!” Detective Gomez rested his hands on his hips and eyed Mary unhappily. “You need to get yourself a lawyer.”

  “You’re going to charge me? I’d have a criminal record?” It was almost beyond belief for Mary DiNunzio, valedictorian at St. Maria Goretti High School. She didn’t even curse. Out loud.

  “If I have to, I assume. I’m new, and I can’t say I have a lot of experience with this type of thing. Evidence stuffed in a purse.” Detective Gomez snorted. “I heard your law office was like this. My partner warned me about the Rosato firm, but I didn’t listen. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Now, I don’t think I have to arrest you—”

  “Arrest me?” Mary jumped to her feet and felt instantly dizzy, either because she got up too fast or her career was over.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary, yet. But don’t you dare make a fool of me.” Detective Gomez pointed a thick finger in Mary’s face. “I’m releasing you on your own recognizance. Don’t leave the jurisdiction, you hear me?”

  “I won’t, I promise. I love this jurisdiction. It’s my favorite jurisdiction.”

  “Well, then, this is ass-backward, since you’ve already incriminated yourself, but I’ll play it safe and inform you of your rights under Miranda. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right…” Detective Gomez recited the Miranda warnings, facing Mary squarely in an on-the-spot ceremony that reminded her oddly of being sworn in to the Pennsylvania bar. He cleared his throat when he finished. “Do you have any questions?”

  “Yes. When are you going to follow up with Saracone?”

  “As soon as I can.”

  “You can’t waste a minute, Detective. Saracone is dying and you need to get over there right away. If Saracone isn’t behind Frank’s murder, he’ll know who is. And he’ll know why. Will you call me as soon as you’ve seen him?”

  “Yes.” Detective Gomez walked to the gray door of the interview room, opened it, and gestured to Mary to leave. She didn’t.

  “You have my office number, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did I give you my cell number?”

  “When we spoke on the phone.”

  “Try there, too. And please make the appointment this morning.”

  “I’ll do it right away, dear.” Detective Gomez made another gesture for her to go, but Mary had a second thought.

  “Wait! Why didn’t I think of this before? How about I stay right here while you call—”

  “No.”

  “Or I can wait in the squad room, to give you some privacy?”

  “No. Absolutely not. Now, if you please.” Detective Gomez gestured again out the door, and beyond it lay the squad room, which, unlike on TV, was always quiet and still in the daytime.

  Two of the detectives looked up from their desks, obviously eavesdropping. A woman in a suit walked by, and Gomez eyed her. “I’ll follow up as soon as I get back to my desk, get it? The sooner you leave, the sooner I call.”

  “Okay,
then I’m leaving.” Mary went to the door. Detective Gomez rested a heavy hand on her shoulder, then all of a sudden he poked her in her swollen cheek.

  “That hurt?”

  “Of course!”

  “Good. Bullets hurt way more than that, and you only feel the pain if you live.”

  Mary knew as much, but she wasn’t about to skip down memory lane with him.

  “Leave the police business to the police from now on. Stay away from the Saracones. No more investigating, breaking and entering, or any of that funky stuff. Next time I lock you up! You hear me?”

  “Yes, Detective.” Mary hurried out, feeling as if she’d just dodged a bullet. In fact, she was starting to feel positively bulletproof.

  Which even she knew was a bad sign.

  Twenty-Seven

  “My God in heaven! What happened to you?” Marshall asked. She glanced up from the reception desk and did a double-take when she saw Mary’s bruised cheek, then stood and examined the wound with the laserlike absorption of a new mother. “Mary, what happened? You need to get that looked at!”

  “I’m fine.” Mary was about to explain but noticed the reception area was full of clients ensconced on rental furniture. One of them was that reporter, Mac, who was already making a beeline for Mary. His eyes weren’t espresso anymore but were closer to shit brown. Mary said under her breath, “I have a deposition, right?”

  “Great minds,” Marshall muttered back, and Mac joined them at the desk, his handsomeness arranged into a mask of concern.

  “Mary, what happened to your cheek? It looks like you took a really nasty punch!”

  Marshall interjected, “Mary, you remember Mr. MacIntire. I told him you have a deposition this morning, but he insisted on speaking with you.”

  “I have a deposition,” Mary repeated matter-of-factly. “Sorry, I can’t talk now. Though I checked with my Uncle Joey and he said he doesn’t know any reporter named Mac from the Philly News.”