Killer Smile

by Lisa Scottoline

  Mary pointed at the desk. “Please set those roses by the phone, to soften the effect, no?”

  “Whatever,” said the man, obviously unentranced by her horticultural wizardry. He tramped in untied Timberlands to the desk, plunked down the vase, and walked out of the room, leaving Mary inside. She closed the door and locked it with the thumbscrew, just to be sure. She hurried across the thick carpet, almost tripping over an AstroTurf putting green, then went around the desk, and opened the top drawer.

  It was full of pens, almost all of them black Montblancs, and next to the Montblanc logjam was dirty loose change and paper clips. Not probative. Mary opened the top right drawer and found it full of papers, which she rifled through. StrayAmex bills, from two years ago, Mobil gas receipts, an anniversary card from Melania, and cash machine tapes. Saracone obviously hadn’t used the desk in a long time, which Mary guessed was to be expected, but why keep this crap? She had the feeling of a businessman carrying an empty briefcase, for show.

  She opened the Amex bill and scanned the charges. Morton’s Steakhouse, Ruth Chris, the Palm; an array of carnivorous restaurants. How did Saracone pay for these meals, this house, and this wife? She opened the next drawer. More of same, with photos besides, of a young Justin in front of a Christmas tree, then in a Boy Scout uniform, and finally in a graduation gown. She switched sides to the next set of drawers and it looked more promising. Financial statements, from a PNC brokerage account in his name only. Mary’s eyes widened at the first balance — a whopping $19,347,943. Jeez!

  She went to the next balance sheet, which read $18,384,494. The other balance sheets went back three years, all in a neat, chronological stack with a three-hole punch on the left side. Twenty mil and change, ten mil, eighteen mil; the balances fluctuated with the market, but the account always hovered in the extremely healthy twenty-to twenty-five-million-dollar range. Wow! Where did Saracone get all that money? The deposits didn’t tell the source, just the amounts, and a quick glance suggested they occurred twice a year. Mary went to the next drawer.

  More of the same. Bank checkbooks, at least five of them, with a stack of canceled checks stacked behind like bricks. She grabbed the first check register and opened it. The entries read PECO, Verizon, PGW, Time magazine, the Inquirer; the amounts were higher than hers, but otherwise it looked like her own checkbook. No checks to Giorno & Cavuto. Was there a business checkbook? There were only a few deposits; again, no source, just a modest amount. Hmm. She continued ransacking.

  Behind the registers was an array of mutual fund accounts with amazingly high balances. In the $30 million range, with deposits twice a year, but there was no indication of where all this money came from. Just then Mary heard a noise outside the door and froze. The door remained untried. She had to hurry. She closed the drawer and opened the next. More mutual fund accounts from an array of houses; Merrill Lynch, Smith Barney, and other institutions. But the dates on these reports were older — 1982, 1983, 1984 — so the money had been made a long time ago. How much could Saracone be worth now? Where would the recent records be? She double-checked the top; the address on the sheets wasn’t the home address like the more recent accounts, but an address downtown under the account name: Saracone Investments, Inc.

  Mary thought a minute, rereading the office address. Why hadn’t she been able to retrieve that address from the computer, when she’d searched earlier? Maybe because the phone number was unlisted. But what kind of investment company had an unlisted number? No time for answers now. She grabbed the sheet, folded it up, and stuck it in her purse. The records of an incredibly wealthy man, with no evident source of income. What gives? Drugs? Money laundering? The mob? And what, if anything, did it have to do with Amadeo?

  She closed the drawer and was about to leave when her gaze fell on the photos on the desk. All of them were of a Giovanni Saracone, flashing that smile Mrs. Nyquist had mentioned, standing tan and tall on the decks in a series of white sailing caps. The boats got bigger and bigger as Saracone got older. The end of the biggest boat — Mary didn’t know if it was called the prow, the bow, or the stern — read Bella Melania. There were photos of Saracone and Melania on the boat, and Saracone, Justin, and even a sunburned Chico holding fishing rods. Mary looked over the desk, and on the opposite wall hung a huge fish with a pointy bill. Or beak, whatever. A marlin, a tuna. It was a fish.

  Saracone fished, too? Why hadn’t she thought of it? She had learned from Mrs. Nyquist that Saracone was from Philly. What if he and Amadeo were both fishermen? It wasn’t impossible, and in fact, these photos suggested it was likely. But then why didn’t Saracone know about the fisherman’s knot? Mary didn’t have time to figure it out now.

  She hurried to the drawer just as she heard another noise from beyond the door, in the living room. She’d have to make sure the coast was clear, then start talking lightly all the way out the front door. Soon the Saracones and their guests would return, and she had to get out. Or did she? Mary paused with her hand on the doorknob. The guests at the luncheon would have to be the people who knew Saracone the best; maybe even his fishing buddies or other people he boated with. Maybe they would even have known Amadeo. Could she take the chance of being recognized? There was talking on the other side of the door. She couldn’t stay any longer. She opened it. Waiting for her were three florists, two caterers, and a heavyset guy holding a laundered stack of white linen tablecloths.

  Eeek! “Yes?”

  The heavyset man spoke first: “My boss told me you were the funeral planner and to ask you where to set up the tables.” The young caterer next to him added, “Also we’re out of Sterno. Do you know where the nearest market is?” “Are there enough lilies in the dining room?” asked another florist’s helper, holding the umpteenth vaseful.

  Mary waited a beat, then started directing, answering their questions in character and improvising when she got to the Sterno. But all the time in the back of her mind, she was wondering. Should she stay? Could she take the chance? Then she solved her problem, the answer coming to her in a flash. She followed the smells of baking ziti and chicken cacciatore and hurried into the kitchen, where caterers were running around and the maid was struggling to keep the place clean, wiping black-and-tan granite counters until they glistened.

  Mary made a beeline for her, looped an arm around her shoulders, and said sotto voce, “We have a problem.”

  “What?” The maid looked up, setting her little wipecloth aside.

  “I forgot my guest list.”

  “Guess list?” The maid looked confused again, and Mary kept her tone light, light, light.

  “Melania gave me a guest list, of course, to make sure that only Giovanni’s best friends would be admitted.”

  “Giovanni no have friends. He worse as Chico.”

  Okay. “That’s not what Melania thinks, and after this article in the newspaper, I’m sure you saw it, people may try to get in today that shouldn’t. Reporters even.” Mary leaned closer as a white-jacketed chef dashed past with a mountain of shrimp cocktail on crushed ice. “Do I have to tell you how private the Saracone family is? I wouldn’t want to be responsible for letting a reporter in, would you?”

  “No, no.” The maid’s short forehead creased under her little white hat. “So we do what?”

  “You get me a copy of your guest list, and I’ll check it as the guests come in.”

  “I no have lis’. She no give me!”

  “Okay, then, let’s make a new list.” Mary grabbed a pink Melania’s Memos pad from the counter and slid it in front of the maid. “Write down all of Giovanni’s friends, especially the ones from fishing or from his boat. But don’t forget the ones from his business, too. All his friends. Anybody you think will be here to pay their respects.”

  “Okay, okay, good.” The maid opened a drawer and reached for a pencil, and Mary watched her write down the first few names.

  “Now, are these the ones from fishing?”

  “Yes, yes, these. And more, I know.”
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  Wahoo! “Oh, and one more thing,” Mary added as the maid wrote. “Let’s let this be our little secret. I don’t want anyone to know that we lost our lists. Chico was supposed to make sure I had it, and he wouldn’t like that I lost it.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “In fact, don’t tell anybody I was even here. I told Chico I’d have all of this done on the phone. We don’t want Chico mad at us, do we?”

  “No, no, no,” the maid said, shaking her head as she wrote.

  Mary sent up a silent prayer to the Patron Saint of Escalades.

  Thirty-Four

  Mary eyed the shiny skyline of her hometown from inside the conference room at the law offices of Shane & Baker. That afternoon she had to return to her day job, having left the Saracone house before family or guests arrived, including Chico. The pink list of Saracone’s friends was burning a hole in her purse, but she couldn’t do anything about it yet, though she couldn’t resist leaving another message on Keisha’s cell phone. The nurse hadn’t called back, so Mary had no idea if she’d gone to the funeral. The Saracones’ maid hadn’t included Keisha on the guest list. Mary pushed it from her mind and concentrated on defending Jeff Eisen’s deposition.

  The plaintiff in Schimmel v. Eisen, Marc Schimmel, was represented by Joe Baker himself, who sat across the glistening conference table; a forty-year-old lawyer in a slick gray suit, bright yellow Hermès tie, and brownish handlebar mustache waxed at both ends. Mary liked mustaches, but wax was for tables, and any man affecting an eighteenth-century look in the second millennium had Something Seriously Wrong. She liked better his down-to-earth court stenographer, a compact man named Jim who wore a flowered cotton tie and an earnest expression. The stenographer had positioned himself, as was typical, at the head of the table, with his gray steno machine off to the side.

  Mary snuggled shoulder-to-padded-shoulder with Jeff Eisen, who wore an open-collar white shirt with a tan wool suit that reeked of cigarettes. He was smoking again thanks to Mary, having puffed two Winstons outside the building before the deposition. She had guiltily declined to join him, telling him she was back on the patch, but his relapse made her feel like Mary Magdalene on Nicotrol. Eisen had eventually settled down and the proceedings had been a day-long question-and-answer session — until this minute, when the plaintiff, Marc Schimmel, suddenly opened the door and entered the conference room.

  Eisen’s moussed head swiveled to Mary. “You told me he wasn’t gonna be here. He’s not allowed in here!”

  Mary quieted Eisen with a touch and addressed Baker. “Joe, I thought you said your client wouldn’t be attending Mr. Eisen’s deposition today.”

  Baker went palms up, nonplussed. “I didn’t know he—”

  “I decided to come in the end,” Schimmel interrupted, rounding the polished conference table and taking a seat beside his lawyer. He was a solidly built man of medium height, with layered brown hair. He blinked too frequently from blue-tinted contacts and sported a leathery tan from expensed jaunts to the Caribbean. He glared at Eisen from across the table, his fake-blue eyes bright against his dark skin. “I have a right to be here. I’m the plaintiff.”

  “It’s my deposition,” Eisen said.

  “It’s my lawsuit,” Schimmel shot back, and Mary half rose.

  “That’s enough of that, Mr. Schimmel,” she said, from the squat that trial lawyers learned early. It was the I’m-almost-outta-here squat used for profanity breakouts, fisticuffs, or when the coffeepot was empty. The only reason Mary’s thighs were reasonably toned was because of this specialized maneuver, which required a law degree to perform. “You’re a party, so you have the right to be present, but you don’t have the right to abuse my client. Once more and I end this deposition.”

  “Yeah, kiss my ass, Marc,” Eisen added.

  “Wait just one minute!” Baker shouted, squatting to I’m-almost-outta-here.

  “Your client started it,” Mary said, and it took the ensuing five minutes to send everybody to their figurative corners and settle down.

  Baker continued his questioning: “Now, Mr. Eisen, beginning in January of this year, how many recliners did plaintiff, Mr. Schimmel, order for E & S Furnishings?”

  “I don’t remember,” Eisen answered, simmering. The court reporter tapped silently away on the black keys of the steno machine, and Mary thanked God transcripts didn’t record the bubbling of testosterone.

  “You may consult Exhibit 62 to refresh your reflection,” Baker said. On cue, Mary flipped through the stack in front of her and showed Eisen Exhibit 62, which was an order sheet. Baker cleared his throat. “Now, how many recliners did plaintiff order in January?”

  “Depends on what kinda recliners you’re talking about.” Eisen pushed the sheet away like cold leftovers. “You’re question isn’t specific enough.”

  Good boy. Mary had instructed him not to answer general questions, though she had no illusion that Eisen was following her instructions. He was just making trouble, and she liked that in a client.

  “What kind of recliners do you sell at E & S Furnishings?” Baker asked.

  “We sell Broughley Lady Executive recliners, Power Glide recliners, Merrie Olde England recliners, Long-Leg recliners, Massage Me recliners, Big Boy recliners, and the top of the line, the Comfort Regent Recliner.” Eisen rattled them off without the exhibit.

  “So, why don’t you break it down by recliner and tell me how many of each were ordered in January of last year? Again, you may consult the exhibit.”

  “I don’t need the exhibit, I know our inventory.” Eisen folded his arms. “In January, last year, Marc ordered three each of the Lady Executive, the Power Glide, the Merrie Olde England, the Long-Leg, the Big Boy, and the Comfort Regent. And he ordered eighteen of the Massage Me because his girlfriend loved to screw him on it.”

  “Jeff, please,” Mary said, but her client was too angry to hear.

  “Screw you!” Schimmel yelled back, going bright red under his tan. “I ordered eighteen because they flew out of the store for Christmas. They dissolve tension, reduce pain, and revitalize the entire body! You don’t know the product line, Jeff! You never did!”

  “Marc, please!” Baker said, but his client was too angry to hear, too.

  “Who do you think you’re kiddin,’ Schim?” Eisen leaned over the table, with Mary hanging on to his arm like a baby monkey. “This is me, your old partner, your old roommate! Remember freshman year? Speakman sucks, remember? You gonna lie to my face?”

  “The Massage Me has the Lovin’ Touch System!” Schimmel leaned over, too, and the former partners were screaming nose to nose. At the head of the table, the court reporter tapped his keys, recording everything but the noses. Schimmel had launched into recliner frenzy. “The Lovin’ Touch is a genuine innovation in recliner comfort! It has remote-controlled accuracy! It gives a lifelike, professional massage, right at home!”

  “Gimme a break!” Eisen roared. “You charged our company for your girlfriend’s vibrator!”

  “Jeff, please stop!” Mary shouted, and just then the melee was interrupted by the ringing of a cell phone. Silence dropped like a bomb, and they all froze in place, then the men’s hands flew instantly to their belt holsters. But Mary recognized it. It was her phone. She dove under the table for her purse, as fighting resumed.

  “Then how come they sold, Jeff?” Schimmel screamed. “Every single one of the Massage Mes sold! All of ’em! The proof’s in the pudding!”

  “That was January! But what about February? Ten sold! And March? Seven!”

  Mary found her phone and flipped it open. Shouts flew overhead.

  “It’s not my fault the economy went in the toilet!”

  “Gentlemen, please!” It was Baker. “Stop this right now! This isn’t serving anybody!”

  “In April, Marc, we’re down to one lousy sale! One lousy unit!”

  Oh my God. Underneath the table, Mary had a text message. The blue display on her cell read:

  meet me at
5. 18th & Walnut. keisha.

  “I told you, it’s the economy, stupid! Everybody took a hit in April! There was a war on! Don’t ya read the papers?”

  “Then why’d you keep ordering the Massage Mes? They weren’t goin’ anywhere, we couldn’t give ’em away! But you got two times, three times, the normal order! Don’t lie to me, Marc, I know why! So your girlfriend could double her quota and win the trip to Tortola!”

  “Where do you get your information? She hates Tortola!”

  Under the table, Mary had to read the message again to believe she was really seeing it. Keisha wanted to meet with her. Why? It had to be about the Saracones. She checked the display for a little electric envelope but there wasn’t one. No voicemail message. She couldn’t hear over the yelling anyway.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself! Your wife and kids never even saw Tortola! You send ’em to Ventnor, if they’re lucky! You don’t even go down with ’em, like Jake! Not even on the weekends!”

  “You spend the weekend with my mother-in-law! I wish that on you, just once! See how you like it, Mr. Perfect Marriage! And what about that secretary, at the auto tag place?”

  “Gentlemen! Marc, please! Sit down! I want this on the record! Mary? Where’s Mary?”

  Under here. Mary wasn’t ready to come out yet. They weren’t hitting each other, and she needed a minute alone to think. She crouched under the table with her phone. Keisha wanted to meet her at five o’clock? How would she ever make that? She checked her watch. 4:35. The dep would go to until six, easy, and at this rate even later. And on top of it, Eighteenth & Walnut was ten blocks away.

  “I never said I had a perfect marriage! And Courtney didn’t mean anything to me! At least I didn’t leave my wife and kids for her! I have some self-control, unlike you!”