R itchie Po exploded through the crowd toward the barricades. Men flanked him, running interference, though cops tried to stop them, pulling them back. People shouted, and there was a panicky scream as cops brandished pepper spray. Ritchie thrashed this way and that, throwing punches. Brinkley reached the barricades and signaled to other cops to help. A metal stalk of lights toppled over, scattering onlookers and crashing to the street. People started yelling, and in the melee, reporters got shoved aside and the rowdy crowd took up for Po, hollering at the police.
“What a mess!” Anthony said, almost drowned out by the din.
“Stand aside, people!” came a shout from behind, and Mary realized that she and Anthony were sandwiched between the alley and the shouting crowd. They sidestepped out of the way, and crime techs, startled at the sudden violence, scooted from the alley. The coroner’s assistants bent over and rolled the metal gurney with the black vinyl bag, rushing it bumping on the street.
Ritchie and his friends charged the barricades, and in front of him, the press struggled to catch the bag shot as the coroner’s assistants collapsed the wheels of the gurney and hoisted it into the van.
“I wanna see my brother!” he was screaming. “Get outta my way! Lemme see my brother!”
“Hurry!” The coroner’s assistants shoved the gurney into the van and darted to safety as the crowd rolled toward them, Ritchie in the lead.
Suddenly, reporters and cameramen were pushed forward from behind, the barricade toppled over, and a crowd of uniformed cops, Brinkley, Kovich, and Ritchie Po trampled the barricades and barreled ahead. “Stop right there!” Brinkley yelled, reaching out as Ritchie, carrying cops with him, rushed the van.
Mary watched, stunned. The cops grabbed Ritchie and the men around him, finally tackling them to the street. The crowd booed and shouted, and above the din, she could hear Brinkley and the cops. Ritchie stopped screaming, and the shoving and pushing finally subsided, ending almost as quickly as it had begun.
Mary stood speechless, trying to process what she had seen. She felt a squeeze around her shoulder and looked over, realizing that somehow she and Anthony had ended up at the edge of the crowd, out of harm’s way.
“Jeez, this is incredible.” Anthony looked down at Mary with a bewildered smile. “Is your life always like this?”
She couldn’t share the joke. Someone in the restless crowd had caught her eye. There, at the edge of the white light, stood Mr. Po, in a tan windbreaker and baggy pants. He rested a gnarled hand on a remaining sawhorse, and he was looking toward the black van. Wisps of his flyaway gray hair blew in the night air, and the ragged edge of light fell on the sunken planes of his face, reducing his eyes to black slits.
Mary was struck by a single thought: He’s not half as upset as he should be.
Later, Mary and Anthony followed Brinkley and Kovich down to the Roundhouse, where they were taking Ritchie Po and his father for questioning. She was dying to watch Ritchie’s interview, but unlike TV and movies, there were no two-way mirrors in Homicide. Instead, Mary, Anthony, and two FBI types, Special Agents Jimmy Kiesling and Marc Robert Steinberg, found themselves thrown together in another interview room, sitting in their mismatched chairs with cooling cups of terrible coffee. The agents were undoubtedly wondering why two civilians were getting so much respect, and Mary could feel how much they wanted to be in on the Po interview. The feds didn’t like to sit at the kiddie table.
“Michael Chiklis,” one of the agents said abruptly, looking from his newspaper. He was Steinberg, the quieter and older of the two, with a cute gray mustache, chubby cheeks, and ruddy skin. He’d pushed his wire-rimmed glasses on top of his head, which made his coarse salt-and-pepper hair stand up like a boar-bristle brush.
“What?” Kiesling asked, looking over with an amused frown.
“Remember I was saying that Po looks like somebody? The guy’s name just came to me. Michael Chiklis. The bald guy in The Shield.”
“I don’t watch The Shield.”
“It’s almost as good as Barney Miller.”
“So you say, Dad.” Kiesling almost smiled. He was in his forties, with a pointy chin and his skin stretched tight over gaunt cheekbones. His eyes were small and brown, and his dark hair thinning. He’d mentioned that he ran marathons, but to Mary, he looked like he could use a nice cannoli.
She asked, “So, do you two deal with organized crime?”
“We’re on the Task Force.” Kiesling cocked his head. “What do you know about the case?”
“Kind of a lot.”
“Anything that could help us? Why don’t we compare notes?”
“Good idea.” Mary realized they should know what she’d told Brinkley. She wasn’t about to play jurisdictional games, not after tonight’s murder. “Here’s what I know that you might not: Trish Gambone thought that her boyfriend was skimming profits on his drug sales.”
“How do you know?” Kiesling asked.
“She told me, and it’s in her diary.” Mary filled him in on all the details, and his expression changed. “There’s a mobster named Cadillac, who also suspected he was skimming.”
Kiesling shifted forward on his seat, and Mary caught a glint of recognition in his eyes. Steinberg eyed her over the top of his newspaper.
“Do you guys know who Cadillac is?” she asked.
“I can’t really discuss that,” Kiesling answered.
“I’ll keep it confidential. Who’s Cadillac?”
“Sorry, I can’t.”
“Listen, I’m a lawyer, representing Trish. I have a right to information that could lead to her whereabouts.”
“I wish I could tell you but I can’t.”
“You said we could compare notes. I told you what I knew.” Mary knew it sounded lame. “My client’s out there somewhere, and I’d like to know where she is.” She couldn’t bring herself to say, or if she’s dead or alive.
“They’ll find her, don’t worry.” Anthony put a hand on Mary’s arm, but it didn’t comfort her, or shut her up.
“Are you thinking that the killer could be someone else in the Mob? Like a competitor who wanted his corner, to sell drugs.”
“Anything is possible.” Kiesling clamped his mouth shut, and Mary simmered like her mother’s gravy.
“It would depend on who he sold drugs for, wouldn’t it? Do you know who he sold drugs for in the Mob?”
“We can’t discuss that with you.”
“I know he hung at Biannetti’s. He was there all the time.”
“What makes you say that?” Kiesling cocked his neat head.
“I read it in Trish’s diary. Do you know about Biannetti’s?”
“I’m not going to discuss that.”
“Fine, I get it. It’s a one-way street.” Mary’s emotions bubbled over, which never happened with her mother’s gravy. “But here’s what I don’t get-if everybody knows the Mob hangs at Biannetti’s, why don’t you guys just go there and take them in for questioning? Why not take those thugs in one by one, and ask them if they know where Trish is?”
“It’s not as simple as that, as you should know. You’re a lawyer, correct?”
“As a lawyer, I don’t understand it.” Mary couldn’t help but raise her voice. “I think you should go there and get to the bottom of this. A woman’s life is on the line.”
Anthony interjected, “Mary, I have a question, for you, as a lawyer. Ritchie Po and his father are being questioned about Trish’s whereabouts. They don’t have to cooperate, do they?”
“No, and they probably won’t,” Mary answered, knowing that he was either trying to distract her or preempt her assault charge. “Their lawyer’s probably in there already, and he would’ve told them to shut up, even if they knew where she was.”
Steinberg lowered the newspaper. “Don’t kid yourself, they know where the girl is.”
“You think?” Mary asked, turning to him.
“Of course.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Don’t be naive.”
Gulp. “I admit it, I’m naive. Are you saying that’s not how the Mob works?”
“No.”
“That’s not how it works, or you’re not saying that?”
Steinberg pursed his lips somewhere under his mustache. “Look, in my opinion, they know where she is and they also know who left that body tonight. The brother, Ritchie, is a lousy actor.”
“I disagree,” Mary said, speaking from the heart. “I think it was real. Ritchie was genuinely surprised that his brother was killed, but his father wasn’t.”
Kiesling and Steinberg looked at her like she was too dumb to live.
Mary added, “I saw Ritchie, and I heard him, and I know them, at least a little.”
“How do you know them?”
“From high school, and I’m from the neighborhood. To an extent, I’m of them. I know their people.”
“Their people?”
Anthony nodded, understanding.
“Forget it.” Mary couldn’t explain the concept to the FBI agents, who her mother would have called ’Medigan. Growing up, it took years until Mary realized that her mother was saying American, with an Italian accent. “Let me ask you this, do you think there’s a chance that Trish is alive?”
“We don’t speculate about cases.”
“I’m asking in general, then. You’re experts. Have you ever heard of situations in which someone is found alive, after their abductor is found dead?”
Kiesling answered, “Usually, with adults, kidnapping and false imprisonment happen for two reasons-ransom or sex. Obviously, ransom would be the motive in the Donchess kidnapping.” His tone lapsed into lecture mode, his expression official. “With an adult, especially a female, we typically see a sex-slave situation.”
Mary scoffed. “But that’s not this case. Trish was his girlfriend.”
Kiesling lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t think we were talking about this case. You asked in general.”
Oh.
“A friend of mine worked a case in Wisconsin where a neighbor kidnapped a teenage girl and held her in a basement.”
“Did they find her?”
“They did, and they prosecuted, too.”
Mary smiled, hopeful.
“She lived right next door.”
“Really? How long did it take to find her?”
“Two weeks.”
“Two weeks, and she was right next door?” Mary asked, aghast, but Kiesling was unfazed.
“More often, in the sex cases, they aren’t found that quick. Take that case in Belgium, where the girl was held for ten years. She finally escaped.”
Steinberg looked up from the sports page. “Natascha Kampusch. In Belgium, I believe it was. A man held a group of schoolgirls for over ten years. Marc Dutroux. If memory serves, two of the girls starved to death in the basement when Dutroux went to jail for car theft. Nobody knew they were there.”
Mary felt heartsick. That could happen here, and that was if Trish were still alive. Guilt, exhaustion, and grief washed over her, threatening to take her under. She needed a bathroom break and stood up. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.”
Anthony met her eye with a sympathetic smile, but Mary felt too crappy to respond in kind. She crossed the small room and left, closing the door behind her.
She couldn’t have timed it worse.