Lady Killer

by Lisa Scottoline

“You don’t think he’d hurt her?”

  “No. No way. He wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t hurt nobody. He’s a lover, not a fighter. His brother, maybe, he’s a fighter. But him, no. He’d never raise his hand to a woman.” Mr. Po came over and plunked down the mug of coffee, which smelled like cardboard.

  “It was hard for me to believe, too, knowing him the way I do.” Mary made it up as she went along, trying to get Mr. Po to open up. She waited while he sat in the wooden chair catty-corner to her, his eyes downcast behind his glasses, which were sliding down his veined nose.

  “Gonna drink your coffee?” he asked after a minute, looking up.

  “Sure, thanks.” Mary shook in some Coffee-mate and spooned in sugar, then took a sip of the horrible brew, biding her time. “I’m wondering where he could be.”

  Mr. Po eyed the sfogliatelle, then pulled the pastries to him by hooking an index finger inside the cardboard box, his fingernail oddly long.

  “They didn’t tell anybody they were going anywhere, and her girlfriends are all worried. Giulia Palazzolo, Missy, Yolanda. You remember that crowd?”

  Mr. Po snorted softly. “Spaccone.”

  Mary translated. Show-offs.

  “Not good girls. Not like you.”

  Mary felt a weight on her leg and looked down. Mr. Po’s gnarled right hand was resting on her skirt, while he was biting into a pastry as if nothing were happening. It was so unreal that it took her a second to process. She stood up abruptly.

  “Who’re you, honey?” asked a loud voice behind them, and Mary turned. A brawny man in a T-shirt and blue polyester sweatpants stood in the doorway, his expression a scowl, his posture a challenge. He thrust his strong jaw forward, threw back his massive shoulders, and displayed unashamedly his substantial paunch. His head was shaved, exposing a script neck tattoo, and he had rough features, like Mussolini in sweats.

  “Used to go out with your brother in high school,” Mr. Po answered, slowly eating his pastry.

  “I was wondering where he was,” Mary answered, standing between the two of them, suddenly afraid. No one knew she was here. She hadn’t told anyone. She had lied to Judy. She went for the door, but the brother stood his ground, blocking her.

  “Where you goin’?” His breath told her he was the cigar smoker. A diamond stud glinted from a fleshy earlobe.

  “I was just leaving.”

  “Then why were you comin’?” He grinned at the double entendre, then his grin vanished. “You one o’ these bitches callin’ baby bro a murderer? You one o’ them?”

  “No, I was just looking for him.”

  “It’s his business where he is, not yours.” The brother raised his voice. “He’s lyin’ on a beach somewhere with his girl. He don’t need anybody goin’ on the TV news, tellin’ this, that, and the other that he killed her.”

  Mr. Po said, “Lay off her, Ritchie. She’s a lawyer. Trish went to see her, but she threw ’er out. She knows your brother wouldn’t hurt his girlfriend. They go back.”

  Mary’s mouth went dry. She’d been foolish to think Mr. Po wouldn’t have heard something, accurate or not. But it could play to her advantage.

  “Right, Mare?” Mr. Po asked, looking up. “My son’s your old flame.”

  Gulp. “Right.”

  “You’re still in love with ’im, aren’t you?” Mr. Po chuckled, dropping pastry flakes onto the table.

  Mary didn’t know what to say. She had to get out of here.

  “You were into baby bro?” Ritchie’s grin returned, menacing. He took a step closer, but Mary edged backward, like a nightmare cha-cha.

  “Yes.”

  “How come I never met you?”

  “I don’t know. Did you go to Neumann?”

  “Neumann?” Ritchie laughed. “No, honey, let’s just say, I was away.”

  “Stop scarin’ her,” Mr. Po said from the table, his tone sterner, and Ritchie stepped aside with a ham-handed flourish.

  “Excuse me. Please, go.”

  “Thanks. ’Bye now.” Mary walked to the door as calmly as possible, but heavy footsteps pounded behind her. She startled as Ritchie appeared beside her and opened the door, flinging it wide.

  “Boo,” he said, with a wink.

  It wasn’t until Mary was safely in the backseat of a cab that she breathed easily enough to get out her BlackBerry and plug the word Brick into Google. The results came up after a nanosecond: Brick the movie, Acme Brick, Brickwork Design, the Brick Testament, whatever that was, Brick Industry, and finally, the Official Township of Brick site. She connected to the link, and a glorious green-and-blue website filled the little screen. Brick Township was in south Jersey and was known locally as Brick. The site boasted, Brick Township Celebrates “Safest City in America” Honors!

  She scrolled down farther, and there was no other town on the first five pages. It had to be Brick, New Jersey, that Rosaria had moved to. Mary logged onto www.whitepages.com and plugged in Rosaria with her last name, praying that she’d kept her maiden name. In the next second, a single address and phone number popped onto the screen, in glowing blue letters. She called it.

  “Hello?” a woman answered, and Mary recognized the distinctive alto.

  “Sorry, wrong number,” she said, and hung up. She leaned forward and asked the cabbie to take a right, toward her garage.

  She’d need her own wheels.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was a two-hour trip on the New Jersey Turnpike because of the congestion, and Mary returned as many phone calls and e-mails as she could without crashing. She called twelve more shrinks for Dhiren and on the thirteenth, got lucky. There was a last-minute cancellation and the psychologist would see Dhiren tomorrow. She almost cheered, then called Amrita’s cell phone. No answer, but Mary left a message, her spirits soaring.

  In time, the traffic let up and she hit I-95 East, toward the coastline. The clouds dissipated and the sun burst through, which she couldn’t help but take as a good sign. She opened the car window and inhaled a lungful of fresh air, bearing a hint of the Atlantic, a smell she remembered from happy summers down the Jersey shore. The DiNunzios used to go to Bellevue Avenue, in an Atlantic City that didn’t exist anymore.

  She took a right, then a left, following the directions in www.yahoo.com, and finally passed a grassy stretch along the Metedeconk River. Seagulls squawked overhead, and the huge houses were uniformly lovely and well maintained, with costly cars parked in driveways. She could see why Rosaria would move here, away from the graffiti, even if a cannoli was harder to come by.

  Mary was trying to find the house when she spotted a slim woman in a pink tracksuit walking a little dog that danced at the end of the leash. The woman’s hair was gathered into a reddish brown ponytail that Mary recognized immediately. Rosaria had lost her studious, meek air and had come into her own, an attractive woman with the same blue eyes as her brother’s, a similarly long nose, and full lips. Mary grabbed her bag, got out of the car, and crossed the street, intercepting her in the middle of the block.

  “Hey, lady, weren’t you in choir?” she asked with a smile, holding out her arms for a hug, and Rosaria laughed and returned the embrace.

  “Mary? What’re you doing here?”

  “It’s a long story.” Mary released her, and the little dog hopped on its hind legs, pawing her shins like a miniature black lion. Its fur stuck out like a fright wig and it had the ears of a kitten. “What kind of beast is this?”

  “A toy Pomeranian.” Rosaria bent over and baby-talked to the dog, “Aren’t you adorable? Aren’t you?” She straightened up. “She’s my baby replacement, now that my son’s in high school.”

  “So cute.” Mary scratched the dense black fur of the dog’s domed head, which only made her jump higher, springing around like she had pogo sticks for legs. “Mind if I walk with you, for a minute?”

  “Sure, okay.” Rosaria smiled uncertainly and got back in stride. “How did you find me?”

  Mary fell in step beside her. “
I was at your father’s, saw a photo, and put two and two together.”

  “My father’s?” Rosaria’s expression changed instantly, her smile fading. Sunlight fell on her face, trying to fill the creases that had just popped onto her forehead. “I hate that he calls himself that. He’s my uncle, not my father.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It must’ve been an old photo.”

  “Your son, in a baseball uniform.”

  “Ha. Like I said. I don’t send him photos anymore.”

  Mary didn’t know what to say, so she decided to be honest. “You guys had trouble?”

  “You could say that. Haven’t spoken to the man in ages. This is about as far from South Philly as you can get, in my book.”

  “Plus it has driveways.”

  “There is that.” Rosaria smiled. “So what are you doing here, out of the blue? You came to see me, after all these years?”

  “I’m trying to find your brother.”

  Rosaria looked grim again. “I haven’t spoken to him in about four years. I have no idea where he is.”

  Mary wondered what had happened. “You knew he was living with Trish, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know if you heard, but he and Trish are missing.”

  “Ask me if I care,” Rosaria shot back.

  “The police haven’t contacted you?”

  “No.”

  Mary let it go. “He abducted her. She was able to get a call to her mother that she needed help. He may have killed her.”

  Rosaria kept walking, her dark expression contrasting with the perfect suburban setting and the happy little dog, who pranced along with her baby muzzle in the air.

  “I’m trying to find them, which means I have to find him. Hopefully before he does something stupid.”

  “Too late,” Rosaria said flatly, and Mary felt that chill again.

  “I can’t give up on Trish. She’s in trouble.”

  “Trish Gambone?” Rosaria laughed, without mirth. “This may be poetic justice.”

  “You don’t mean that.” Mary hid her surprise. Rosaria had always been such a sweet, benevolent girl. “I don’t want anything to happen to Trish, I don’t even want anything to happen to your brother. I want to prevent something terrible.”

  “You a cop now, Mare?” Rosaria picked up the pace, her soft jowls jiggling with the faster step.

  “No. They’re investigating, but there’s things I can do, too. Find you, for example.”

  “Look.” Rosaria stopped and faced her matter-of-factly. “I don’t know where my brother is or what he did to Trish. I washed my hands of him.”

  “What turned you so bitter? What happened?”

  “That family was a dark, dark place to me.” Rosaria started walking again, faster this time. “That’s all I want to say on the subject.”

  “Okay, I understand,” Mary said quickly. She was thinking of Mr. Po’s hand on her leg.

  “They’re sick. My so-called father and his son, that pig.”

  “Ritchie?”

  “You met my cousin? What a waste of life.”

  Mary couldn’t disagree. And she couldn’t keep up the pace, either. They had made their way all the way back to the park, and she spotted a bench. “Can we just sit down for a second and talk about this? I need help. Trish needs help. Also my feet hurt.”

  Rosaria sighed heavily.

  “Please, for me? For old times’ sake? For Jesus, Mary, and Joseph?”

  “Oh, all right.” Rosaria smiled, becoming herself again. She tugged the little dog away from a fascinating stick, and they walked to the bench and sat down, where Mary kicked off her pumps.

  “I’m so professional.”

  Rosaria smiled. “I heard you became a lawyer.”

  “So news travels, all the way to paradise.”

  “Is Brick paradise?”

  “Looks like it to me.” Mary surveyed the huge houses across the river, which must have cost over a million dollars. They were three stories tall, with plenty of shiny windows and facades of gray stone. Other people would have called them McMansions, but Mary was no snob. She’d take a McMansion. Then she could be a McHome-owner. “I would love to have a house.”

  “Why don’t you?” Rosaria asked, with the bluntness Mary remembered from high school.

  “The down payment’s tough, but I almost have it.” Still, Mary knew that wasn’t what was holding her back. “You married?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Best decision I ever made. I’m getting smarter and I got great alimony. And the dog.” Rosaria smiled.

  “Then I’m happy for you.” Mary chose her next words carefully. “Look, you don’t need to tell me your personal history. I know we weren’t that friendly. But if you could just tell me where you think your brother could be, or where he could have taken Trish, it could save a life.”

  “No idea,” Rosaria shrugged, but close up her nonchalance looked more contrived.

  Mary felt on edge. She wasn’t getting anywhere, and coming here had taken so much time.

  “I don’t know who he is anymore. He drinks. He’s mobbed up. He sells drugs. I cut him out of my life. I couldn’t stand to see the path he was going down and I didn’t want my son exposed to that. The curtain went down between us when he told me he opened his first ‘store’”—Rosaria made quote marks in the air—“as he called it, at Ninth and Kennick. That became his corner, though he always said that one day when he made enough money, he’d get out.”

  Mary made a mental note. She knew that corner.

  “We used to be so close.” Rosaria smiled at the memory, almost talking aloud, her voice soft as a tear. “He used to tell me everything. I was his big sister, and it was just the two of us, really. He needed a best friend, and I was that, for him, all through grade school and high school.”

  “He used to tell me about you.” Mary thought back, remembering.

  “He used to tell me about you,” Rosaria said, pain flickering through her eyes. “He really loved you, you know.”

  Mary’s throat caught.

  “I think you were his first love.”

  It was impossible to believe, given what had happened.

  “You look surprised,” Rosaria said, and Mary’s mouth went dry.

  “Try shocked.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t tell you everything. “He didn’t tell me he loved me, or show me, in any way.”

  “I’m not surprised. In that house we weren’t exactly taught how to express affection.”

  Mary felt herself go into a sort of emotional stall.

  “After you broke up with him, he just shut down. Closed up. We talked about it, but I don’t think he ever got over you.”

  Mary felt a wave of sadness. How did it all go so wrong?

  “I mean, it’s not like it’s your fault, what he did or the choices he made later. He chose to hang with Ritchie and his hoods, who were in and out of juvy. He chose Trish, too, but they were never happy, at least they never seemed happy.” Rosaria sighed. “Then the drinking got worse. I think his life didn’t turn out the way he thought it would.”

  Mary let her gaze run over the lush green grass and the shifting splotches of light that filtered through the leaves of the tall trees. An older man drove on a riding mower, its green-and-yellow John Deere gleaming like new. She wished it had all been different, or at least part of it.

  “But that’s in the past. It doesn’t matter now.”

  How wrong you are.

  “The fact is, my uncle’s toxic, that’s what my therapist says, and so is my cousin.”

  Mary came out of her reverie, her heart heavy. She had to get back to the city. She didn’t have time for the guilt, for the second-guessing, for the woulda coulda shoulda.

  “You okay?”

  “I think so.” Mary straightened up and slipped her heels back on. “So he sold drugs around Ninth and Kennick. Anything else you
can tell me?”

  “No. That’s all. I have no idea where he could be now, or what he’s thinking, taking Trish. You know, I used to try to talk to him, but he said he knew what he was doing.” Rosaria paused. “Oh, wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “He might have a place, somewhere.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I used to tell him I was afraid for him, getting in with the boys, but one time, he said not to worry.” Rosaria frowned in thought. “That he had a place to go, to get lost, when he finally got out.”

  “Like a second house?” Mary asked, puzzled.

  “I don’t know.”

  Mary thought of the diary. There had been no mention of a second house.

  “He said it, just once, and I wasn’t sure he was telling the truth. I told him, you can’t quit, they don’t let you quit. And he said, you can quit if they can’t find you.”

  Mary’s heartbeat quickened. “That could be where he took Trish.”

  Rosaria nodded. “It could.”

  “So where could it be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mary thought a minute. “It would have to be out of the city. Away.”

  “That’s possible.”

  Mary felt on edge. “You have no idea where he could have been talking about? This is important.”

  “Sorry. I’d like to help, but I can’t.”

  “How could he buy another house? Could he afford it?” Then Mary realized. Maybe that’s why he’d been skimming profits from the drug sales. She knew herself how hard it was to make a down payment. Still, where was the house? “Did he have any hobbies, so he’d buy a house with that in mind?”

  “Hobbies?” Rosaria looked at Mary like she was crazy.

  “Did he fish? Hunt?”

  “Are you kidding?” Rosaria laughed, but Mary didn’t. She wracked her brain.

  “Did he like the ocean? Would he buy in Jersey?”

  “It’s expensive.”

  “Was there any place he talked about? A place he considered a refuge?”

  Rosaria snorted. “Who has a place like that?”

  “I do.” Mary thought about it. “Church.”

  Rosaria stopped laughing, then looked away. “Not that I know of.”