My father, propped up slightly in his hospital bed, squinted through his bifocals at the photo. “It’s a knife.”
My expert. “I know that, Dad. What kind of knife is it?”
“All-purpose, like a buck knife.”
“But it’s not a buck knife?”
He held the photo closer. “No.”
“Told you,” Cam said, sitting on the other side of the bed, still in dirty gardening gear.
“Could it kill someone?” I asked.
“This knife? In a New York minute.”
It sent a shiver through me. “Who would own this kind of knife, Dad? What would it be used for?”
“Anything, everything.”
“Like what?”
He peered at the picture. “Hunting, fishing, working in the garden or somethin’. Even around the garage. You could cut boxes with it, maybe wire. Anything.”
My heart sank. “Really, anything?”
“General purpose.” He set the photo down on his tummy and picked up the next one by its edges. “You think it’s the killer’s knife?”
“Yes. Who would have this kind of knife around?”
“Anybody.”
“Shit.”
He wet his lips, which looked parched. “It’s a good knife to have around, what can I say? I have one just like it in the back kitchen, even old like this. I use it on the fig tree, to trim it.”
“I never saw it. You never pointed it at me.”
He smiled weakly. “Maybe it’s not the murder weapon.”
“It looks like blood to me,” I said, gathering up the photos. “What do you think? You’re the hematologist here.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He closed his eyes, suddenly fatigued. “What’d the cops say?”
Cam laughed. “We didn’t wait around, Vito. We hadda see a man about a horse.”
It had taken an hour to get the pictures developed but far less than that to summon the Radnor police to the Mateer property. I had called them from the flip phone but opted not to stay on the scene until they arrived. No need to tell them I was perpetrating a fraud in a work shirt, not to mention corrupting the morals of a major.
“What I don’t understand is why the cops didn’t find it,” Cam said. “It was right there.”
Which is what was bothering me. Cam and I had gone back and forth about it in Thrift Drug, while we waited for the pictures. The technician kept looking at us funny, he didn’t hear many conversations about murder weapons in front of the Midol.
“I mean,” Cam continued, “how come I could find it and they couldn’t?”
“You found it?” my father asked. “With your eyesight?”
Cam looked offended. “My eyes are good. Right, Rita?”
“Right, Cam. It’s your hearing that sucks.”
“Bullshit,” my father said. My heart warmed to hear him regain his profanity. “Your eyes are lousy. Half the time you’re asking Herman whether it’s a club or a spade.”
“I did that once,” Cam corrected.
“Come on, more than once.”
“I can still see better than you, Vito.”
“That’s not saying much,” I said, and my father nudged me with his foot. His color had improved and the nudge felt strong, but I noticed his lunch had barely been touched. He felt terrible that he couldn’t go to LeVonne’s funeral. It had been set for tomorrow because the coroner had just released the body. “So why do you think the cops didn’t find it, Pop?”
He set the photo on his belly with a sigh. “Who knows? Cops. They can’t find who killed LeVonne either, even though I gave ’em a good description.”
“Still no leads?” Cam asked.
“That’s what Herman says. He calls ’em all the time, the detectives. He gives ’em hell.”
Cam chuckled, but my father didn’t. He sank deeper into the thin pillows. I worried he was becoming depressed. “You sleeping okay, Dad?”
“Fine.”
The nurses had told me he slept only off and on. “You eating okay?”
“Like a horse.”
What a load. “The nurses say you’re not.”
“The nurses think they know everything,” he said, his eyes still closed. “They love to boss you around. Except that little one with the red hair that Sal likes. Betty.”
“Are people still named Betty?” I asked.
“This one is,” Cam said. “Madonne, she’s a tomato.”
Va-va-va-voom. “Do men still say that?
What is this, a time warp?”
My father smiled. “Sal likes her, but he’s too chickenshit to talk to her.”
“Where is Sal?” Cam asked.
“Out with Herman.” My father opened his eyes and reached for my hand. His felt rough and warm, familiar. “You all right, kid?”
“Fine.”
“You all wrapped up in your case?”
“Yep.”
“Don’t work too hard now.”
“Me? Never.”
“Miss Fresh.” He closed his eyes but hung on to my hand. “I can hear that brain of yours, workin’ away.”
I laughed, but he was right. I was arriving at one explanation why the police hadn’t found the knife during their investigation: It hadn’t been there. Did the killer plant it after the fact, and why? It was a risky, risky thing to do.
So if I couldn’t learn anything from the knife itself-because I was guessing the killer was too smart to leave his fingerprints all over it-I learned something from the fact it had just been deposited beside the begonias. This killer wasn’t afraid of risk any more than I was. He was playing a game with the police, or even with me.
And he was upping the ante.
It used to be that the billboards along I-95 North had directions to Sesame Place in Langhorne, and Big Bird pointed the way with a feathery index finger. Now the billboards advertised the casinos in Atlantic City. POKERMANIA. HIGHROLLERS. QUARTERMANIA. The Casinos took in $350 mil last month. Bigger business than Big Bird, any day.
I was still in gardening disguise, driving to the home of my favorite motorcyclist, Tim Price. He’d been ignoring my calls, but the shorter tone on his machine signaled he’d been retrieving his messages. I was hoping I could scare him with pruning shears during my interrogation, and if that failed, federal court litigation. I was organizing my threats when I got a call on the car phone.
It was Lieutenant Dunstan, from the Radnor police. “I’d like you to come in to the station, Ms. Morrone.”
I had expected he’d still be unhappy with me. The radio news was already reporting that a lawyer had found the murder weapon. “Look, Lieutenant, I’m sorry about this morning. I know I should have notified you I was going to the crime scene-”
“It’s not about that, Ms. Morrone,” he said tightly.
“What then?” I passed the billboard for Trump Castle. SLOTS OF ACTION. SLOTS OF MAGIC.
“We have some information for you.”
“About the knife?”
“No, as I told you, the testing will take some time. It’s about the shooting at your father’s store.”
My pulse quickened. “Is there a lead?”
“The Philadelphia police called here, after they couldn’t reach you. They found the man who they believe did it. He was found dead, out by the airport.”
Dead? “Who was he?”
Papers rustled on the other end of the phone. “A thug, in and out of jail.”
“How do they know he’s the one who did it?”
“He had a gun on him, a nine-millimeter Beretta, that ballistics matched to the bullet found in the young man who was killed.”
Poor LeVonne. “They can do that?”
“Sure. When a bullet lodges in soft tissue, it maintains its integrity. They match the markings, like engravings.”
So they had LeVonne’s killer, who was himself dead. I felt a bitter sort of satisfaction.
“The shooter’s name was Danny Suri. His last known residence was in Port Richmond.”
Also in Northeast Philly, not far from the motorcyclist’s. “Could this Suri have known Tim Price? Have you met with Price, Lieutenant? Have you questioned him?”
“We haven’t been able to locate him for questioning, but we investigated him thoroughly. He has no prior criminal record.”
“Did you know he was living with Patricia Sullivan?”
“Sure we did. We checked him out, Ms. Morrone, regardless of what you suggested at the preliminary hearing. We knew about Price as soon as we found the motorcycle. A woman couldn’t drive a 750, not in a BMW.”
Sexist. “Why not?”
“She wouldn’t be strong enough to hold it up at a stoplight.”
Oh. “Could Price know this Suri? Is there a connection?” I passed a billboard that said BET THE PONIES BY PHONE-PHILADELPHIA PARK. Underneath was an 800 number.
“We have no evidence of any connection. Suri was a thug with a long criminal record. Assault, aggravated assault, two robbery convictions by age twenty-five.”
“But why would Suri rob a butcher shop? My father made next to nothing, and it showed.”
“There’s evidence of drug use. He was in and out of rehab, for cocaine use.”
I remembered what Paul had told me. “Price did cocaine, too. Maybe they met each other in some rehab place?”
Dunstan paused on the other end of the line. “The Philadelphia police say Suri’s services were for hire.”
“What services?”
“He roughs people up.”
“But who would hire somebody to hurt LeVonne?” It didn’t make sense. Then I thought of what my father had said in the hospital. LeVonne gave his life for me. LeVonne didn’t call me in. Of course. “Lieutenant Dunstan, what if Suri was hired to hurt my father? Rough him up? Even kill him?” I heard my voice sounding panicky.
“Why don’t you come to the station? I prefer not to discuss this over a mobile phone.”
A stall, I’d used that trick myself. “Do you have evidence that connects Suri to my father in any way, Lieutenant? Or to me, or the Hamilton case?”
“We have no evidence like that at this point. That would be speculating, Ms. Morrone.”
“So speculate.”
“I wouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
But I would. “It’s not your father, Lieutenant.” My hand knotted around the steering wheel. Had somebody tried to harm my father and killed LeVonne in the process? Did somebody want me distracted, warned off the case? Was my father in danger, even now? Rage swept through me, and fear. I floored the gas pedal, cut a swath through the grassy median, and picked up the highway going south, back toward the city.
“Ms. Morrone?” It was the lieutenant, right in the middle of my felony-level moving violation.
“I have to go, Officer,” I said, hanging up. My thoughts raced along with the car. Would Paul do such a thing? Would Fiske or Kate? And how did Price know Suri? How did any of them know Suri? I couldn’t puzzle it out anymore and I didn’t want to. It was time to end it.
Time to flush the killer out. Nobody would threaten my father again. Nobody would kill another innocent.
I flew toward the city and in no time got a bead on William Penn, standing atop the clock tower of City Hall, one of the most beautiful buildings in my hometown. I’d known that clock tower all my life, visited it with my father as a child. He used to take me up the skinny elevator inside the tower and we’d pass behind the huge yellow clock face, past the oiled brass gears as they ground time forward. The dark innards spooked me, and I would hold tight to my father’s hand. Now someone had attacked him, threatened him.
I had to do something about it, but the first order of business was to make sure he was safe. I called his room and told Cam to stay with him, that I’d explain later. I hung up the phone, lost in thought, blowing past billboards and exits. The speedometer needle edged upward and the engine surged in response. I wished my brain worked as good as this car. I needed a plan.
YOU GOTTA PLAY TO WIN, read a billboard for the Pennsylvania Lottery.
“Damn straight,” I said, but the slogan stayed with me. Resonating.
You gotta play to win. I knew how to play games. I knew how to win. If the killer was playing a game, then I would play, too. And I would win. It took me until the Callowhill exit to figure out how. I would go with my specialty.
A bluff.