“W hat the hell?” somebody shouted, and Mary froze. It was Ritchie, standing with his father in the open doorway of the other interview room, his cheek bruised and black T-shirt torn from the melee. “What’re you doin’ in there?” he bellowed.
“That’s enough, Ritchie.” Brinkley strode from the interview room and put a strong hand on Ritchie’s arm. Stan Kovich shot out, too, and another suit, while detectives hustled from the squad room to them, anticipating trouble. Only Mr. Po blinked calmly.
“Not here, big guy.” A stocky lawyer in an Italian suit hurried to Ritchie’s side. “We’re outta here.”
“Not until she tells me what she’s doin’ here!” Ritchie stepped forward, but his lawyer and Brinkley restrained him.
Mary edged backward, trying to process what was happening. Ritchie wouldn’t have known she was here. She and Anthony had arrived after they’d been taken in for questioning. Agents Kiesling and Steinberg came out of the interview room with Anthony.
“Mary, let’s go,” he said, touching her arm.
“What’s going on?” Kiesling asked, alarmed, and Steinberg stood protectively at Mary’s side.
“You with them now, Mare?” Ritchie glowered. “You were my brother’s girlfriend. Now you’re with the feds?”
Oh no. Mary felt exposed. Brinkley’s head snapped around, his eyes narrowing, and she could read his expression. Betrayal. She didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t told him about her history, and he was blindsided. Kovich’s lips formed an uncharacteristically tight line, his disappointment plain.
“Stay cool, big guy,” Ritchie’s lawyer said. “We’re outta here.”
“Not yet.” Ritchie’s eyes bored into her. “Not until I understand what’s goin’ on.”
Brinkley gestured to Anthony. “Get her out of here.”
Anthony grabbed Mary’s arm. “Let’s go,” he said, and they hurried her from the squad room, to the sound of Ritchie shouting after her. She let herself be swept to the elevator, through the lobby, past the display cases and finally out the front door, where the press mobbed them with cameras, flashes, and questions.
“Ms. DiNunzio, what’s your role in this?” “Mary, do police say this is the start of a Mob war? Is the Merlino crime family involved?” Reporters surged forward out of the dark, shoving microphones in Mary’s face, but she and Anthony hurried ahead, their heads down. “Any comment on the disappearance of Patricia Gambone? Do the police have any leads?” “Mary, Mary, look over here!” Videocameras whirred, and flashes fired from still cameras, bright and fleeting as lightning. “Ms. DiNunzio, is there a suspect in the murder-”
Mary and Anthony broke into a light run to his car, and they jumped in. He started the ignition instantly, gunned the engine, and zoomed out of the parking lot. They made the sharp left onto the Expressway entrance, and Anthony looked over.
“Let me take you home,” he said. “We can get your car another time.”
“Okay, thanks.” Mary looked away, wondering what Anthony was thinking. She hadn’t told him she knew the body in the black bag. He accelerated onto the Expressway, and Mary gripped the hand strap. Something to hold on to, when everything was falling apart.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to get the look on Brinkley’s face out of her mind. He’d think she was a liar, playing games with him and the Homicide Division. Why hadn’t she told him? The first time she’d seen him, she’d been with Giulia and she hadn’t wanted Giulia to know. But why hadn’t she mentioned it later?
The car streaked uptown in light traffic, barreling through the black night. The body bag flashed through her mind. The marble-gray of the flesh on his cheek. The blue of his eyes, frozen as ice. Could Trish be alive? The kidnapping cases that Kiesling and Steinberg had told her about were a gruesome sideshow. Dutroux. Girls dying while he was in jail.
“You okay?” Anthony asked gently, but she couldn’t begin to answer. “You hungry or anything?”
“No, I’m okay,” she answered finally. She spent the rest of the car ride facing out the window, watching the passing cars, red taillights, and drivers on cell phones, hiding her face from Anthony, and from herself. They reached her street in no time, and it was quiet and still, with most of the neighbors gone to sleep, the houses dark. A parking space was open near her front door, and Anthony pulled into it and turned to her.
“Thanks so much,” Mary said, making her door-handle move.
“I’d like to come in, if you wouldn’t mind.” Anthony’s voice sounded soft. “I don’t think you should be alone just yet.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Mary retrieved her house keys and got out of the car, but so did Anthony, closing his door.
“At least let me walk you in.”
Mary went to the doorstop, dug her keys from the bottom of her purse, and looked up as Anthony appeared in front of her on the sidewalk. He had shoved his hands into the pockets of his sport jacket, and his dark eyes were concerned.
“Listen,” he said. “Why don’t you let me come in? I won’t attack you or come on to you. I know you’re not interested.”
Ouch. “It’s not that. It’s that…I don’t think I’d be great company tonight.”
“I don’t mind. Let me come in for a bit. You could use a friend. A nice, safe, gay friend.”
Mary couldn’t find a smile. She felt empty and numb. She couldn’t believe what she’d seen tonight, and what it meant for Trish.
“Come on,” Anthony said softly, slipping the keys from her hand. “Let’s go inside.”
Mary entered her apartment, and Anthony followed, throwing the deadbolt and putting her keys on the side table. She’d grabbed the mail downstairs and set it on the coffee table, then shed her purse and jacket on a chair in the dark living room. On autopilot, she headed for the kitchen across the hardwood floor. She switched on the light and found herself going straight for the fridge.
“Can I get you anything?” she asked, surveying its contents. Two old tomatoes, a slim container of skim milk, and a plastic tub of mozzarella balls, which she knew would stink. She hadn’t been food-shopping since her last confession.
“Come here.” Anthony took Mary’s arm and gentled her into a kitchen chair. “Please, sit. The doctor is in.”
“You’re doing the honors?”
“Yes. You stay there and check your BlackBerry three hundred more times.”
“I’m not that bad.”
“Oh yes you are. You’re more addicted than I am. We should enter rehab.”
“Hey, I left it in my purse.”
“Uh-oh, it won’t like that.” Anthony slid out of his jacket, placed it around the chair opposite her, and rolled up the sleeves of a white shirt with a European fit, showing lean forearms. His waist was trim in a nice black belt, and his dark pants kept a perfect crease. He went to the fridge and opened the door. “Sure you’re not hungry?”
“Not at all.”
“Got wine?”
“In the cabinet.”
“Which one?” Anthony shut the door, turning, and when Mary pointed, he went to the cabinet and opened the door. “Let’s see, a can of white clam sauce, ceci beans, and four boxes of Barilla spaghetti, each half full. Here we go. A single bottle of merlot. You sot.”
“It was a gift.” Mary’s head was still pounding.
“Corkscrew?” Anthony asked, and Mary pointed until he had located a corkscrew, two wineglasses, two napkins, and a wedge of hard locatelli that he shaved into fragile, thin slices and set on a salad plate with green olives. He smiled, holding the wineglasses crossed in one hand. “Let’s go in the living room. It’ll be more comfortable. Come along.” He tucked the wine bottle under his arm, grabbed the corkscrew and the cheese plate, then led the way into the darkened living room, where he set the stuff on the coffee table.
Mary trundled behind, as if it weren’t her own house. “I’ll turn on a light.”
“No. Let it be. It’s better.”
“Leave it off?”
“Sure. It’s not that dark. I can see.” Moonlight streamed through the front window, falling on Anthony’s back, bringing out the whiteness of his shirt and making a ghostly circle of the rims of the wineglasses. He bent over and poured some wine, which made a sloshy sound when it hit the glass.
“Okay.” Mary sank onto the couch and kicked off her pumps.
“Drink up. Doctor’s orders.”
“Thanks.” Mary took her first sip, which was delicious. She couldn’t help feeling awful that she was home, drinking merlot, while Trish was missing, maybe dead.
“This is good wine.” Anthony sat in the soft chair catty-corner to her, the moon shining on the dark filaments of his hair. Shadows obscured his eyes, but not his smile, which was a little sad. After a minute, he said, “I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.”
Mary took another sip of wine, the thin crystal warming under her fingers. “That makes two of us.”
Anthony didn’t laugh, which was good because she wasn’t kidding. He leaned over and slid the cheese plate close to her. “Mangia, bella.”
Mary felt herself respond to his voice, soft and deep, or maybe the Italian, the language of her childhood. She broke off a piece of locatelli and nibbled it before it crumbled between her fingers. It tasted tart and perfect with the wine.
“You’re exhausted.”
“You might be right.”
“I won’t stay long.”
Mary looked out the window, and from her third-floor vantage point, she could see the lights of the other rowhouses, and beyond that, the Philly skyline, twinkling in the distance. She wondered if Trish was somewhere in the city, then thought of Mrs. Gambone. “People are crying in the city tonight.”
“Yes. It’s all very ugly and sad.”
“You’re right. Well said.” Mary felt at such a loss. She rubbed her face. She sipped her wine, then changed it to a gulp. “I can’t believe this all happened. That Trish is gone. That he’s dead.” He’s dead. “It’s awful.”
“I won’t mind if I never see another crime scene. I think they’ll find Trish, though.”
“Why? How do you know?”
“They learn so much from the body, like Detective Brinkley said. They’ll find clues as to where she is.”
They’re doing the autopsy right now. He’s on a metal table.
“Brinkley seems pretty damn competent to me.”
“He is. Still it feels so selfish to be sitting here. I should be doing something.”
“You’ve done enough. You’re the one who gave them the tip tonight. You helped them find the body sooner rather than later. As you said, that matters, in terms of finding Trish while she’s still alive.”
“If she’s still alive.” Mary heard herself say it out loud, for the first time, the wine loosening her tongue.
“She is. You have to have faith, and you did an amazing thing tonight, tipping them off.”
Mary couldn’t hear it. “That’s not why I said it, for you to tell me how great I am. I know when I mess up and I messed this up to a fare-thee-well.”
“You can’t feel responsible for what happens to Trish.”
“Let’s not make this about me, okay?” Mary drank more wine, hoping to speed its effect. “There’s a woman missing, and she’s who it’s about. Not me.”
“Okay. Fair enough.”
Mary tried to get back in emotional control, glad of the darkness.
“Fine.” Anthony cocked his head, with a smile. “Is this a fight?”
“No.”
“Good. In any event, I would worry if you got any more involved in this case. You made an enemy in Ritchie Po tonight, and he’s a scary dude.”
Mary shuddered. “You afraid of the Mob?”
“Damn straight I am.”
“Me, too.” They laughed together, and Mary could feel the alcohol bringing a welcome fuzziness to her thoughts. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She could still taste the locatelli, salty and grainy on her tongue.
“I told you I’m researching Carlo Tresca’s murder, didn’t I? He was shot dead in the middle of Little Italy, and the case was never solved. It’s the Mob, only the names and the places have changed.” Anthony chuckled ruefully, then it died. “The cops know what to do, and if Brinkley wants to reach you, he’ll call.”
Mary shook her head, and her brain sloshed from side to side. “I should have told him. I didn’t get the chance.”
“Told him what?”
My secret. But Mary wasn’t drunk enough to give that answer. She felt so tired suddenly, burdened with all of it. With what she had done, with what she hadn’t done. With lives lost tonight, and before. “I’m a widow, you know.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“My husband died.”
Anthony nodded, and Mary heard how stupid she sounded.
“Sorry, I sound dumb,” she said.
“No, you’re just beat.”
Mary took another sip. “I knew him, I guess you heard Ritchie say that.”
“You knew who?”
“The deceased.”
“Your husband?”
“No.” Mary’s thoughts caromed off the walls of her skull. “The man in the body bag. I dated him in high school.”
“I heard Ritchie. I didn’t know if it was true.”
“It was.”
“I didn’t know.”
“No one did. It didn’t last very long. He thought I dumped him, apparently.” Mary was remembering what Rosaria had said, on the bench in Brick. “It was a misunderstanding.”
“That’s too bad.”
“I’ll say.”
“Were you in love?”
“Yes.” Mary didn’t hesitate. It wasn’t love, like with Mike, but it qualified. It was first love.
“Was he?”
“In love? I didn’t think so, until recently.”
“Sorry then, about your loss.”
Mary blinked. It was her loss, wasn’t it?
Anthony said, “That explains a lot.”
“What?”
“You’ve survived two men you loved, already. That’s odd, for our age. It’s a lot.”
Mary absorbed the observation. It hadn’t occurred to her before. But he wasn’t exactly right. “Actually, it’s three, with my friend Brent.”
“That’s three too many.”
It’s four, all told.
“No wonder it’s hit you so hard.”
Mary felt like she wanted to tell him. That she had to tell somebody. She wanted to make a confession, without a confessional. At least it was dark and maybe it was time. She’d held it in for so long. Nobody knew, not even Judy and certainly not her family. She set down her wineglass. She asked, “What happens to a Goretti girl who gets an abortion?”
After a minute, Anthony answered, “You tell me.”
“She keeps it a secret. A big secret.”
“Really?”
“I was May Queen, you know, at the special Mass. Wore the white dress, the flower crown. The whole faculty voted for me. I was the one who most embodied her virtues.”
“Whose?”
“Goretti’s. You know the fable.”
“Of course.”
Then Mary didn’t have to tell him. Maria Goretti was a young Italian girl who died defending her honor, when a man had tried to rape her. She had died to remain a virgin. The irony was too much. Mary swallowed hard, noticing that Anthony didn’t look away from her or seem to judge her. At least she could tell, in the moonlight. Maybe he wasn’t that religious anymore, or he would judge her later, on the way home.
“Things happen, Mary.”
“Evidently. I felt like a fraud. I feel like I cheated them, all those teachers, all those nuns, everybody who loved me. Who had confidence in me.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. I didn’t die protecting my virginity.”
“So, you’re not a saint,” Anthony said softly, and it comforted Mary a little. But she fell silent and after a moment, he asked, “So was he the father? Trish’s boyfriend, Bobby Mancuso?”
“Yes,” Mary answered, without hesitation. It felt right to say it out loud, to acknowledge Bobby in public. She couldn’t have confessed the pregnancy to her family, who would have been devastated. Or to Judy, who would have been hurt that she hadn’t been told long ago. Mary sensed that this was her public declaration, and that she was doing it for the baby. Her baby. Their baby, who never made it to the christening, and never got to wear a little white gown.
“I see.”
Mary cleared her throat. “I got pregnant in the backseat of a car, my first time ever. How’s that for luck?”
Anthony groaned.
“Bobby said he had blue balls, whatever that was, and he sort of guilted me into it, but I admit, I was in love. I wasn’t ready to go all the way, but I did love him. Even after.”
Anthony fell silent.
“We saw each other a few more times, but we never had sex again, and I couldn’t even look him in the eye. When I missed my period, I knew. I had the abortion and I didn’t tell anyone, not even him. Especially not him. I was too embarrassed to see him ever again. I quit tutoring him. I thought he was ignoring me, but I was ignoring him. I avoided him. And it, just, ended.”
“I can understand you not telling him.”
“Can you?” Mary felt her throat thicken. “I regret it now. I’ve regretted it for a long time.”
“Why?”
“I used to regret it because I thought he had a right to know, but that’s an intellectual concept. Abstract. Legal. Now I regret it because things might have been different, if he had known. If I had told him.”
“How different?”
“Everything.”
“You would have been the one who lived with him, and not Trish?”
Mary considered it, and for the first time, knew the answer. “No, not per se.”
Anthony smiled. “Now that’s a lawyer’s answer.”
“It’s the what-if that gets me. What if it had been me? Would he have turned out differently, good instead of bad?”
“I see.”
“I mean, aren’t there some decisions in your life that are so critical, so central to everything that follows, that they change everything? The whole course of your life, and not only that, the course of the lives of the people around you?” Mary wondered aloud, giving voice to thoughts that had been running through her mind since that first day in the office, with Trish. “If I had told him or we had stayed together, would he have followed the straight and narrow? Would he have gone to college? Would he be alive tonight? And Trish? Would she be safe?”
“I understand.”
“What if I had lived with him? Would I have died with him, too?”
“Good question,” Anthony answered, and they both fell silent.
Mary set down her glass, leaned back in the soft couch, and closed her eyes. Her body sank into the couch, and she felt her strength ebb from her muscles and her every emotion leach through her skin. She was worried about Trish, but she couldn’t do anything to help her right now. She had to let it go. She had to let everything go, all of her regrets. She thought of Dhiren, oddly, and felt him beyond her, too. All of it, just out of reach. In time, she must have drifted off to sleep, and later, when she woke up, Anthony was gone and the moon had deserted the sky.
Leaving Mary in total darkness.