Lady Killer

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Okay. Did she say anything else?”

  “We set it up so she’d call me after the surprise, to let me know if she could go out to celebrate.”

  “Would he let her do that?” Mary asked, surprised.

  “No way, never. We only said it so she had an excuse to call me after she got the surprise, so I’d know she was okay.”

  Mary’s heart ached at the scheme set up by these women, desperate to protect themselves.

  “But she never showed up and she never called. We called her cell about a million times and her house. Then we went and stopped by her house and she wasn’t home. Neither was he. We chilled there awhile and—”

  “Where? At her house?”

  “Yeah, I have keys. I used to go over there a lot, borrowin’ clothes. So anyway we went to T’s house but she never showed up, and then we went home. She never even went on the computer. We IM each other at night but I didn’t get nothin’ from her. No e-mail, no IMs. Nothin’.”

  Mary understood why the Mean Girls had behaved the way they had. This was the worst-case scenario.

  “None of us slep’ a wink.” Giulia turned to the others for confirmation, and they nodded unhappily. “So we went back over her house this morning, and she still wasn’t home, so we called the cops.”

  “Good,” Mary said.

  “Not really.” Giulia snorted. “We told ’em what happened, and they said she mighta eloped, which we know she didn’t. They said they couldn’t do nothin’ about it because it wasn’t forty-eight hours yet. They said, what if they went on a vacation? Or a cruise?”

  “You believe that?” Missy muttered, disgusted. “They were all about that baby girl who got kidnapped, Amber Alert.”

  Mary didn’t enlighten her. “Giulia, did you tell the police that he was in the Mob?”

  “Totally. We thought it would get them interested, but with that dumb baby, it’s like T don’t even matter.” Giulia threw up her hands, nonplussed. “They had like fifty million phones ringin’. The cop said, if she isn’t a little kid or an old guy, she has to wait the forty-eight hours.”

  Yolanda shook her head, gravely. “T’s dead, I can feel it. I had a dream.”

  Mary’s gut tightened, but she knew enough not to ask anybody from South Philly about their dreams. She wanted to finish today. “You called the salon, and she’s not there?”

  “We didn’t have to call. We all work there. T got us our jobs. She didn’t show up today, and we didn’t either. The boss said it was okay.”

  Yolanda sniffed. “On the other hand, if we don’t show, the world don’t end. We only do manicures, except for G, who’s gettin’ into waxin’. She’s movin’ up. Or down.”

  “Shut up!” Giulia shoved her, but didn’t miss a beat. “Mare, if T didn’t go to work, something’s wrong. She’d never ditch a full book. Plus it’s not like her. No matter how hungover she was, she always went in. I’m scared, Mare. Real scared.” Giulia’s eyes glistened, and she wasn’t so streetwise anymore. She was just a girl whose best friend could be dead. She wiped her eye with the side of an index finger, and Mary handed her a Kleenex box from the credenza, but Giulia waved it off. “I’m not cryin’.”

  “It’s to wipe your mascara, then.”

  “I don’t wear mascara, it’s eyelash extensions. T has ’em, too.” Giulia drew an airy circle around her eyes. “Plus, see, my eyeliner ain’t runnin’. It’s permanent. Me and T got it tattooed on, together.”

  “Tattooed on your eyes?” Judy interrupted, incredulous, and Giulia nodded.

  “Yeah, sure. You never have to reapply, and your eyeliner always looks good, even when you wake up.”

  “My lipliner’s permanent,” Missy added, and Yolanda nodded.

  “So’s my eyebrows.”

  Judy looked, dumbstruck, from Giulia with her tattooed eyes, to Missy with her tattooed lips, and finally to Yolanda with her tattooed eyebrows. Mary was too upset to care. She put down the Kleenex box.

  “Didn’t it hurt?” Judy asked, astounded, and Giulia shrugged.

  “No more than a Brazilian.”

  Mary couldn’t hear anymore. Catholics shouldn’t get Brazilians. In fact, the words Catholic and Brazilian should never appear in the same sentence, except for: Brazilians are very good Catholics.

  “Anyways, I’m not like some very negative people.” Giulia jerked a spiked thumb toward Yolanda. “I’m not saying he killed her. I can’t go there, not yet. Alls I know is she never woulda gone away without tellin’ us. That means she’s in trouble, real trouble.”

  Mary felt it, too. It was too coincidental to be otherwise. “Has anyone seen him?”

  “No, he’s gone, too. They’re both gone.”

  “Does he go to work?” Judy interjected.

  “Whaddaya think, blondie?” Giulia looked at her like she was crazy. “He packs a peanut-butter-and-jelly in a paper bag?”

  “There’s no call for that,” Mary said. “She’s only asking if he has a regular job, on the side. A front or whatever you call it.”

  “No, he doesn’t.” Giulia leaned forward in the chair, her eyes meeting Mary’s directly. “You gotta help us find T.”

  “I’m in,” Mary said, her chest tight.

  “Great.” Giulia smiled briefly, and Missy sniffled.

  “Preciate it, Mare.”

  “Me, too,” Yolanda said, grim.

  Judy touched Mary’s elbow. “Can I talk to you a minute?” she asked, then turned to the Mean Girls. “Would you wait for us in the reception area, please?”

  “We get the message.” Giulia rose with a smirk, pushing out her chair, and so did the others.

  “Thanks,” Mary said, and both she and Judy waited while the Mean Girls left the conference room. In the next minute, low laughter came from down the hall. Judy cringed, then turned to her.

  “Mary, don’t let them guilt you into this. This isn’t your problem, and it could be dangerous. He’s in the Mob.”

  “I can’t not.” Mary felt a tug in her chest. She had a full day of work, including calls for Dhiren and another for Dean Martin, but Trish was out there somewhere. She couldn’t help but feel responsible. “I have to help, this time.”

  “Why? They’re using you, don’t you see that?” Judy gestured outside the door. “They’re laughing at us, right now. Didn’t you hear?”

  “It’s not for them, it’s for Trish.”

  “What do you owe her? She was horrible to you.”

  “This is life and death, Jude. You saw them. They need help. They’re…”

  “Dumb?”

  “A little.”

  “Rude?”

  “Okay.”

  “Bitchy?”

  “All of the above.” Mary met Judy’s eye, so blue and clear, and she could see the love there, and the loyalty. “I have a deposition to defend at ten today. It should take an hour, tops. It’s a contracts case, a roof that leaks. The client’s a sweet old guy, Roberto Nunez. Will you go for me?”

  “This is crazy.”

  “I prepared him last week. I even gave him a list of questions, so he’s good to go.”

  “Mary, they tattoo their faces.”

  “And you pierced your you-know-what.”

  “Touché.” Judy smiled. “Anyway I let it close.”

  “The point remains.”

  Judy rolled her eyes. “Okay, get me the file, you loser.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Keep the change.” Mary handed the aged cabdriver a ten, and he accepted it without taking his rheumy eyes from the butts of the Mean Girls piling out of the backseat. She climbed out of the cab while they took their first drags on their cigarettes, and she surveyed the block. It was typical South Philly, a little grimy even in full sun, with identical brick rowhouses differentiated by their stoops, awnings, and bumper-sticker front windows. The Korean grocery store Trish had mentioned was to the left of the house, a dingy stuccoed affair with its windows covered by painted plywood and a faded Dietz & Watson sig
n that read HOAGIES CHEESE FRIES PLATTERS.

  Next to the grocery, Trish’s house was well maintained, of newly painted brick with shiny black bars over the glass door and a black-framed bay window. Nothing was in the windowsill. Mary eyed the cars parked in front, a dusty lineup of older American cars, except for a shiny white Miata with a vanity plate that read DYE JOB. She pointed at the Miata. “Is that Trish’s?”

  “Ya think?” Giulia laughed, emitting an acrid puff of smoke, and the others joined her.

  “What’s he drive?” Mary asked, trying not to breathe.

  “A BMW, what else?”

  “Where’s he park it?”

  “Anywhere he wants to,” Giulia answered, and they all laughed again. She pointed at an empty slot behind the Miata. “That’s his spot. You wanna be the jerk who takes it?”

  “What color and year is his car?”

  “Black. New.”

  “Does he have a vanity plate, too, like DYE JOB?”

  “Yeah, WHACK JOB,” Giulia answered.

  “BLOW JOB,” Missy said.

  “HAND JOB,” Yolanda added, and they all started laughing again except Mary, whose exasperation got the best of her.

  “You ladies want to help or not? Because when Trish shows up, I’ll be happy to tell her how funny you all were.”

  “Okay, whatever,” Giulia said defensively. “I don’t know his license plate. It wasn’t a vanity plate. It was normal.”

  “Thank you.” Mary cleared her throat. “Okay, so obviously, wherever he and Trish went, they took his car. So she probably went with him voluntarily, because he couldn’t have forced her into the car and driven it at the same time.”

  Giulia stopped smiling, and so did the others. She squinted through the cigarette smoke, or maybe her tattooed eyeliner made it look that way.

  “He coulda drugged her,” Missy said.

  “He coulda killed her and put her in the trunk,” Yolanda said, and Giulia turned on her, red-and-black curls flying like a blurry checkerboard.

  “Shut up with that, Yo. It’s like you want T to be dead.”

  “I don’t want her to be dead,” Yolanda shot back. “Ga’ forbid!”

  Mary sensed another catfight. “While you guys mix it up, I’m going inside and look around. Can I have her house key?”

  “Here.” Giulia clamped her Marlboro between her lips, dug in her black purse, and produced a key ring that held a red Barbie pump, a Taj Mahal ersatz-gold horseshoe, two red plastic dice, and a St. Christopher medal. Mary took the key ring without bringing up what had happened to St. Christopher, then walked up the two-step stoop, unlocked the door, and pushed it open, surprised by the sight.

  In contrast to the house’s mundane exterior, inside it was glistening, modern, and expensive, with warm white walls, a shaggy white area rug, and white marble flooring. It had been remodeled to make one large room out of the first floor, with the entrance hall, living and dining room divided by frosted white screens, like a high-end Winter Wonderland.

  Would this have been my life?

  Mary walked through the contemporary entrance area, where a fake ficus provided a splotch of color, passing a white laminated side table and a louvered closet. Light shone from a white Murano-glass chandelier, and when she walked around the divider, the focal point of the living room was an oversized, colorized photograph of the couple, he in a wide-lapel tux and she in a low-cut, melon-hued dress. Mary’s gaze shot to the boyfriend, who had once been her boyfriend, at least for a time. His face hadn’t changed; the same eyes, the strong, wide nose, and a smile just this side of I-don’t-care. He had prominent cheekbones and a strong chin, and Mary used to imagine it on an ancient gold coin, but she was always too into Latin Club.

  “That picture was taken at my wedding,” Giulia said, coming up from behind, her stilettos clacking on the marble floor. “The first one, that is. T was my maid of honor both times.”

  “So how long have they been living here?”

  “Five years or so.” Giulia crunched an Altoid, releasing a blast of toxic peppermint. “They remodeled the whole thing. Gorgeous, huh?”

  “Yeah, wow.” Mary looked around. A sectional couch of white leather sat against the wall, catty-corner to two matching chairs and a white laminated coffee table, spotless but for a white marble ashtray and three silvery remote controls. Hanging on the opposite wall was a huge plasma TV.

  “To me, it’s too clean, but T had to keep it that way, for him.”

  “Trish told me.” Mary looked back at the entrance hall. “No sign of a fight or struggle on the way out.”

  “Maybe Missy’s right. Maybe he drugged her. Or slapped her one.” Giulia pursed her lips. “I know he knocked her around. T told me once, and I think it was worse than she said.”

  “I do, too.” Mary considered it. “But if he hit her, how would he get her out, then? Carry her? It’s still light at seven o’clock this time of year. People would see.”

  “He could kinda hold her up, like she was drunk or somethin’.”

  “Maybe, but look.” Mary gestured at the entrance hall. “The rug near the door is still flat, not even moved or wrinkled. It’s the kind that slips easily. That suggests they went peacefully.”

  “You’re right, Mare.”

  “We’ll see. It’s just a working theory.”

  “I like it, a workin’ theory.” Giulia smiled. “That sounds good. Now what do we do? I mean, what’re you lookin’ for in here?”

  “I’m trying to learn what I can and hope it gives us a clue about what happened to Trish. We’ll test our theory as we go along.”

  “Another good idea. Thank God you’re here.” Giulia clapped her on the back, and Mary couldn’t help but smile.

  “Giulia, what kind of coat does Trish usually wear?”

  “Call me G, everybody does. I’m G, Trish is T. Yolanda is Yo.”

  “What’s Missy?”

  “A pain in the ass.”

  Mary laughed. “When Trish came to my office, she had on a fox coat.”

  “That’s what she wears to dress up. The one she normally wears is just like mine.” Giulia gestured at her coat. “We bought them together.”

  “Okay, so do me a favor. Go check in the closet and see if her fox coat or her leather coat’s in there.”

  “I’m on the case.” Giulia pivoted on her heel and clack-clacked over to the entrance hall.

  “Thanks.” Mary walked ahead into a white dining room, which had a long, white laminated table and eight high-backed chairs. A matching breakfront displayed a Franklin Mint plate of Madonna and Child, next to photos of the couple with their arms wrapped around each other in front of Epcot Center, the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, and on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. There was even one of them in front of some palm trees with Joey Merlino, the mobster who kept South Philly on the crime map.

  “Mare,” Giulia called out, clacking back to the dining room. “Her fox coat’s not there.”

  “Interesting, good. So she took her dress coat and she had time to take it and to make a choice. So she wasn’t drugged. She went voluntarily. So far, our theory is holding up.” Mary picked up the photo with Joey Merlino. “They went away with Merlino?”

  “Nah, that was taken in prison.”

  Mary blinked. “But there’s palm trees.”

  “That’s a fake background they have in the joint. Didn’t you know that?”

  Uh. “No.” Mary set it down. “I was just looking at the photos, and they seem so happy. When did it turn bad?”

  Giulia squinted, thinking. “About two years ago.”

  “What happened?” Mary opened a drawer in the breakfront, but it was empty, then reached for the next.

  “He’s old school. He wanted her home at night, dinner on the table, makin’ babies. Like a homebody, a wife. But T’s not that type. She liked to have fun.” Giulia’s expression darkened. “Then he started drinkin’ more and more. I hate him, I hate the way he treated her. He was a lose
r and he blamed her for everything, like that he wasn’t movin’ up fast as he wanted.”

  “In the Mob, you mean?”

  “Yeah, the Mob. Oooh.” Giulia made claw-hands with her fingernails, but Mary walked into the kitchen area.

  “So why did she stay with him?”

  “In the beginnin’, she kep’ hopin’ it would get better, then she was too afraid to leave him. I woulda been, too.” Giulia crunched her Altoid. “The only way out was if he dumped her. My husband says if you’re with a wiseguy, it’s like a roach motel. You’re gettin’ in, but you ain’t gettin’ out.”

  Mary glanced around the kitchen, so clean it appeared unused. She walked over to a pad under the wall phone, and nothing was written there. She asked, “When did he get involved with the Mob?”

  “After high school, I think.”

  “I don’t remember that. His family wasn’t in the Mob, were they?”

  “Sure, and his brother might even be made.”

  “There’s something to be proud of.” Mary started searching the kitchen drawers, which contained only ladles, silverware, and the like. While she looked, she tried to remember what she knew about his family. He had an uncle who had raised him and an older sister. She didn’t remember him talking about a brother, but most of their conversations were about school or the Gallic war.

  “Anyways, we haven’t hung here for a while. My house is our hang.”

  “I didn’t see Trish’s purse. Did you?” Mary thought that Trish’s big black bag would have stood out on the sea of white.

  “I don’t see it, either.” Giulia frowned, looking around.

  “I keep mine in the living room.”

  “So do I.”

  “Hers isn’t here, not that I saw. If it’s not upstairs, then she took it with her, which supports our theory, too.” Mary opened the next drawer. “She took her purse and coat.”

  “Our workin’ theory is workin’!” Giulia grinned, and Mary went through the contents of the drawer, but it held only potholders and napkins.