“T rish?” Mary called out, closing the front door behind her. She scanned the living room. It was as she had seen from the window. Nothing out of order except the broken lamp on the floor. She stepped over the shards from the lamp and the window, then moved quickly through the dining room. She could be contaminating a crime scene, but it was an emergency if Trish was alive. And if she wasn’t, her killer was beyond conviction.
Mary called out again, the tremor in her voice echoing throughout the house. She reached the Biannetti’s bag and peeked inside. A stack of tinfoil trays with white cardboard lids sat inside. She felt the bag. It was stone cold. She eyeballed the room. A new dining room table with four chairs. Nothing on the walls, and it smelled like fresh paint. She glanced at the walls, eggshell white, and imagined a likely scenario: Bobby had brought Trish here, to show her the house and even got take-out diner to celebrate. Then he’d popped the question, and all hell had broken loose.
Mary turned and looked behind her at the shards on the floor, wondering. Had he hit Trish with the lamp? Dragged her out to the car? Taken her somewhere? Killed her? Could she still be alive in here?
“Trish!” Mary went from the dining room to the kitchen, then looked around. All cleaned and untouched. A six-pack of Bud sat on the counter, unopened, next to a bottle of Chianti and three of Smirnoff vodka, one half full. Next to them sat a white cake box with dancing musical notes around the side, from Melrose Diner. She peeked inside the box’s clear plastic window, knowing what she’d see. Happy Birthday, Sweetheart, read the pink icing.
“Trish!” Mary hurried from the room and up the stairs, her heart pounding. If Bobby had killed her, would he have done it in the bedroom? Would there be a body there? She flashed on Trish’s mother, heartbroken in Mary’s parents’ house, and then the Mean Girls, hysterical in her office. She stowed those thoughts in the back of her mind and reached the top of the stairs, then entered the first room on the second floor, holding her breath as she flicked on the light switch.
No body. Nobody. Merely a queen-sized bed, with a white coverlet and flanking night tables, just like in the house in South Philly. Not slept in. Nothing on the walls. A small single closet with an open door. Empty. No clothes or shoes inside, or anything awful, either. Mary glanced around. There was no bathroom off the bedroom, so she went back out in the hallway, sick with fear. Where could Trish be?
Mary came upon a doorway next to the bedroom, braced herself, and flung the door open as she flicked on the light, then looked inside. Nothing. A new, bright white bathroom, also apparently unused. She turned around, puzzled. There was only one room left, off the hall, at the darkened end. She swallowed hard and crossed the hall, then reached inside the door for the light switch.
“Trish?” she said, hearing the fear in her own voice. She couldn’t find the switch with her fingers and got so nervous that she raked the wall with her hand until the room came to life, illuminated. Nothing. Another bedroom. Nothing in it except a double bed and a single night table. She blinked, confused.
“Trish!” she called out, then jogged back down the hall, went downstairs, and looked around for a cellar door, then found one in the kitchen. She hadn’t seen it before. She told her heart to stop jumping around, and her brain began to function. If Bobby were going to kill Trish, he wouldn’t leave her body in his basement, incriminating him, would he? Maybe she was locked down there, alive?
Mary descended the skinny staircase. It had no rail, and as she went down she could see that nothing was amiss in the basement. The concrete floor was clean, with a new washer and dryer against one wall, of gray cinderblock. A hot-water heater sat on the right, next to the usual collection of incomprehensible heating things. She reached the bottom and looked around. No Trish.
She went back upstairs, unaccountably spooked that somehow she’d be locked in the basement for the rest of her life, then breathed a relieved sigh when she reached the kitchen again. She took the time to search the drawers, which had been filled with new kitchen gear. She found a set of striped dishtowels, still with their price tags from Target. Clearly Bobby had been setting up house. She turned to the last drawer and pulled it open. It was full of bills and papers, and she recognized the logos for Verizon, and PECO. She picked up the first few and looked at the name: Marty Slewinsky.
Mary knew that name, heard it like an echo from her past. It was a name that Bobby always called himself when he felt dumb. His stupid alter ego. He’d be struggling with his declensions, and when she quizzed him and he got the answer wrong, he said it was Marty Slewinsky. She didn’t know if anybody but her knew the nickname. Bobby wouldn’t be telling his fellow mobsters about his insecurities, and by the time he’d grown up, he’d be masking those feelings with vodka. She reached for a thick packet of papers and opened the trifold. The yellow one on the top was a purchase agreement for a Ford 150, 4WD, also in Marty Slewinsky’s name. She remembered what the realtor had said, no four-wheel drive and no flannel.
Bobby would need that truck in this terrain. So this was his house. His bills. His new identity, just waiting for him whenever he left the Mob. But where was the truck? Had he driven it back to the city? And what was his grand plan, anyway? Trish would leave her mom, friends, and job for a cabin in the middle of the woods? And if he had proposed that to her, what had happened?
Then Mary remembered about the cheating, and Trish’s nooners with Miss Tuesday Thursday. Had Trish told him she’d been cheating? Had he found out? What would he do to her if he did? She shoved the bills back inside the drawer and went over to the lamp, broken on the floor. She examined the shards without touching them, bending over, which was when she saw it, on the jagged edge of one of the broken pieces. Red-brown droplets spattered against the light green. She looked closer. The flecks were dried blood.
“Trish,” she heard herself whisper.
Mary ran back to the car in the rain, hardly feeling the chilly drops. The sight of the blood had set something loose inside her. Her worst fears. She ached to find Trish. It wasn’t a lot of blood. It hadn’t been a mortal wound. Maybe she was still alive.
Mary hit the gas. She had to tell Brinkley about the house and the blood. He would know what to do. She fumbled for her cell phone as she drove, then pressed in his cell number, heading for the main road, which she remembered was off to the left. The call connected, and she waited while it rang and rang.
“Please pick up, Reg,” she said, but the call went to voicemail. She cursed to herself, then waited for his message to end. “I found Bobby’s house in the Poconos, but no Trish. Call as soon as you can.”
She pressed End, taking one turn in the woods, then another. Should she call 911, for the local police? Did that make any sense? Maybe. She pressed 911 as she drove.
“What is…emergency?” the dispatcher asked when the call connected, but Mary could barely hear her for the static and the rain.
“I was just at 78 Tehanna Lane in Bonnyhart and I believe a woman may have been injured, if not killed in that house. She’s been missing for two days and her name is Trish Gambone.”
“Did you…see…woman?” the dispatcher asked, breaking up.
“No, but I saw her blood.”
“Who…you, miss?”
Mary filled her in, but couldn’t hear what she was saying. “Hello? Hello?”
“Miss…you must…cell phone. You’ve reached the Bruman Police… New York.”
“What?”
“We must be the nearest…relay station…not a bona fide emergency… Pennsylvania State Police…they can follow up.” The dispatcher gave Mary the state police number, and she repeated it while she drove, then pressed it in and waited for it to connect.
“Pennsylvania State Police,” the new dispatcher answered, and the connection was improved, but still not good. Mary had just begun when the dispatcher cut her off. “Excuse me, but we’re stretched pretty thin tonight with this weather, and it doesn’t sound like we need to send a car over there tonight.”
“But you do. She could be in the vicinity, still alive. She could be hidden somewhere or even buried alive.” Mary had been spinning nightmare scenarios in the back of her mind since she’d seen that blood. “I almost got out and started looking myself.”
“I’m sorry, but it sounds as if the Philadelphia police are handling the matter, and we wouldn’t interfere with them.”
“But the house is up here. I think he brought her here, and I can’t reach anybody in Philly.”
“Miss, please give me your name and number and we’ll call you as soon as we can.”
“When will that be?” Mary sensed she was pressing a lost cause but she couldn’t help herself.
“Tomorrow, business hours. That’s the best I can do for you, miss.”
“Okay, thanks.” Mary gave her the information, then hung up, and when she set the cell on the passenger seat, she looked up and realized she didn’t know where she was. She slowed to a stop at an intersection of two gravel roads, disoriented in the woods and the rain, then pulled over and flicked on the interior light to read the realtor’s map. She traced the route from Bonnyhart with a finger, then looked around for a road sign. Rain pounded the windshield, and she could barely see outside. There were no street signs. She couldn’t use the map if she didn’t know where she was.
She set the map aside, switched off the light, and drove farther, sensing that the main road had been in this direction. She tried to plug the street name into the BlackBerry but didn’t have enough info to retrieve the map. Last, she tried to call Judy to tell her what was going on and ask her to help, but there was no answer and the phone kept cutting out. Fifteen minutes later, Mary still hadn’t hit any paved road. She must have been wrong. She started to panic a little. Where was she? How had she gotten so turned around? She thought the turnpike was off this way, but she’d been mistaken. She checked the dashboard clock. Almost midnight.
Brinkley still hadn’t called her back. She took a right, then another right when she saw some lights through the trees, then kept on the roads that headed toward the lights, vowing to buy herself a navigation system when she got back to the city. In another half hour, she saw the lights getting closer. They were the lights of a snowmobile and used-tractor dealership, but up ahead twinkled new lights.
“Yay!” Mary shifted upward in the seat and hit the gas, feeling reassured as she took a right onto a paved road, which counted as progress. Ahead was an auto-body shop and a hunting-supplies store, both closed, but at least she was out of the woods. The sky glimmered gray up ahead, and she guessed it was the reflected lights of a town or maybe from the turnpike. She breathed easier and accelerated, and when she took a left turn, found herself behind another vehicle, an old red Jeep.
“Mirabile dictu,” Mary said, a little Latin for the road, and honked to get his attention. She wasn’t too proud to ask for directions, but the Jeep driver must have misunderstood her, because he sped up. She honked again, more lightly this time, and the driver stuck his hand out the window and flashed her the bird.
Mary kept heading toward the light, growing brighter in the sky. On the left, down the road, was a blinking sign for a cheesy motel that read EZ-Stop, which she took as a good sign that she was going the right way. Another car pulled out from a side road in front of the Jeep, and she began to relax as they slowed to a stop to permit the car to turn onto another dirt road.
Mary glanced idly at the motel, left over from the sixties but trying to be modern. Its sign read AIR COND, C BLE TV, in front of the space-age building, and its rooms overlooked the parking lot. The all-glass office was barely lit, though the lot was almost full, probably with travelers too wise to drive on such an awful night. Mary squinted through the rain, and her eye caught one of the cars parked near the front. Its distinctive European grille stuck out in a lot crowded with older American SUVs and trucks. It was a new black BMW.
Mary wiped the steam off her window and double-checked. The shiny grille winked at her from the parking lot. She had been right, but she didn’t know if it mattered. There were lots of black BMWS in the world, and if not in this part of the world, then easily off the turnpike.
But when the Jeep took off, Mary turned left into the motel lot.