Killer Smile

by Lisa Scottoline

  “MARE, WAS IT THAT SARACONE? I’LL KILL HIM WITH MY BARE HANDS!”

  “It’s okay, Pop,” she answered, touched. “Please, you can help me the most by waiting for me in the waiting room. You don’t want to put Mom through this, do you?” Mary shot her eyes toward her praying mother, caught in the middle of the third round of Hail Marys, and her father understood. Good thing he spoke Meaningful Eye Contact.

  “AWRIGHT, AWRIGHT! I’LL TAKE YOUR MOTHER IN THE WAITING ROOM.” He looped a heavy arm around her mother, who blew Mary a weepy kiss behind her Kleenexes as she was led toward the door. “LET’S GO SIT, VEET! WE CAN WAIT FOR MARY OUTSIDE. MAYBE WE CAN HAVE A NICE CUPPA COFFEE AND SOME CAKE!”

  “Thanks, Pop.” Mary watched with a little tug as they left the room. She had no choice but to deceive them. She’d have to make them understand later. She turned to Gomez. “Now Detective, let me tell you what happened. But first off, have you heard anything about Keisha?”

  “No, she’s still out.” Gomez was already flipping open his notebook. Mary began the story about the blind date, then the lawsuit, then how she hit Justin, but she didn’t expect anything from Gomez anymore. The cops had dropped the ball and it had almost cost her her life. There was nothing more they could do anyway. She knew that Justin had sent the Lexus driver, maybe even before she went over and slugged him, but he was too smart to leave an evidentiary link. It was up to her now.

  Mary finished with, “So I think what happened was that Justin Saracone hired Mr. Lexus, who followed me into the restaurant and took a seat at the bar. He may have been following me for a while, for all I know. I got stalled looking around for my blind date, by this bald guy who asked me out, and then I spotted Mr. Lexus and made a mistake. It was a mix-up.”

  “I see.” Gomez closed his book when she finished and slipped it into his back pocket. “Well, that was quite an ordeal. You must be exhausted.”

  “I’m okay,” Mary said. Judy was the one who looked like she needed a rest. Her pale skin had gone even paler and her blue eyes glistened. Mary had never seen Judy cry and looked away, at the detective. “What do you know about this guy?”

  “We ran his prints and plate through VICAP. His name’s Al Denser, with a couple of aliases, from outta Baltimore. He’s wanted for murder in two states. We’ve been lookin’ for him for a while.”

  Mary shuddered. “He seemed so charming. Smart. Good-looking. I can’t believe I was fooled.”

  “He’s a Ted Bundy type, but a hired gun.”

  “Definitely. Chico’s replacement. Do you have any idea where that bad boy is? I didn’t see him or his car, when I served Saracone with the papers.”

  “No.” Gomez shook his head, buckling his lower lip. “Haven’t been able to find him. We have called the father’s house, and Mrs. Saracone said he’s gone and she doesn’t know where he is.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “We’re over there first thing in the morning, and we’ll stop by Justin Saracone’s, too.”

  “He’ll be in court in the morning.”

  “You going forward with that lawsuit, after this?” Gomez asked, surprised.

  “Of course,” Mary said, without batting an eye. It hurt to bat her eye anyway.

  “Just the same, we’ll go to Justin’s house and look around. Talk to his wife.” Gomez shot a look at Judy, who managed not to flip him the bird. He shifted his pants up by the belt. “I’d like to show you a photo array for ID purposes. Can we arrange that?”

  “For the Lexus driver? Why do you need me to ID him? You have his body, right?” Yuck.

  “We batten down all the details.” Gomez rose to go. “When’s a good time to call? Noon?”

  “Try my cell,” Mary answered.

  “Shall we go? I can give you and your family a lift home. You’ll need us to get through the press, and of course, we would appreciate it if you wouldn’t make any statements tonight.”

  “Of course.” But tomorrow, all bets are off.

  “I’ll even take Judy along, if she’ll let me.” Gomez glanced over at Judy, whose blue eyes frosted over. The girl had learned something about vendettas over the years, but Mary decided on the spot to use their feud as an excuse.

  “No, thanks,” Mary answered quickly. “Judy and I will go together, she can give me a lift. But maybe you could give my parents a ride now, and I’ll meet them at home, after I sign the form for the nurse. I would really appreciate it, if you could get them home right away and tell them I’ll be right there.”

  “Sure. What about the press?”

  “We can handle them.”

  “Okay. See you later. Rest easy, now.” Gomez smiled and touched Mary’s shoulder like Dr. Weaver had.

  “Thanks, doc,” she said, managing to return the smile. She was beginning to hate being a Crime Victim. Everybody was looking at her funny since she had Survived a Brush With Death.

  Judy closed in, eyes narrowed, as soon as Gomez had left. “That jerk.”

  “He’s doing his best.”

  “It’s not good enough.”

  “It doesn’t have to be. I have a secret plan.”

  Judy burst into a grin. “I knew it! What are we up to?”

  “We’re escaping from my parents. You have to take me to a hotel tonight so I can work. They’ll know if I go to your house or to the office, and so will the press. Where are you parked?”

  “Outside, illegally. But the press is out there.”

  “Okay.” Mary thought fast. “Maybe we can get you some scrubs and you can go and get your car, then meet me out front. I’ll go through the hospital.”

  “Sounds like us!” Judy’s eyes lit up. “We’re back in business! I bet I can find a nurse to lend me some scrubs. And maybe one of those puffy hats! I need a puffy hat!”

  I’ve created a monster. “Whatever. Go. I’ll meet you out at the main entrance. Don’t let my parents see you.”

  “Okay, got it.” Judy hustled out of the room, and Mary eased off the bed, her head spinning a little. She held on to the bed for a moment, hoping the dull pain throbbing in her temple would stop, but it didn’t. She tiptoed out of the room anyway, making sure the coast was clear. To her left was the nurses’ station, bright but still and empty. Beyond the station was a large plastic window, and she could see her parents being led out by Detective Gomez and his partner.

  Excellent. Down the hall to her right was a single white exit door, beside a sign that read RADIOLOGY. Presumably it was another way out of the emergency department and would get Mary back to the hospital, where she could find her way to the main entrance by the time Judy scored a new wardrobe.

  She snuck out of the room and made a beeline for the door. She almost had her hand on the doorknob when she heard a noise behind her.

  And she turned.

  Forty-Five

  “MARE!” It was her father, hailing her with a smile. “YOU’RE GOIN’ THE WRONG WAY! WE’RE OUT FRONT!”

  Busted again. “Dad, Jeez. Oh. Right.”

  “HOLD ON A MINUTE, I FORGOT MY LUCKY CAP. SEE, IT WORKED GOOD TONIGHT, DIDN’T IT?” He gestured at the door to the examining room, where his grimy tan cabbie hat hung on the doorknob. His lucky cap, easily older than she was, was the only dirty article of clothing in the house, because her father refused to let her mother wash the luck out. Mary had long ago forgotten why it was lucky, but she realized that he had worn it tonight for her. Her father plucked the cap from the doorknob and flopped his cap on his head, where it landed a little off center. “MARE, IT’S THIS WAY, THE EXIT!”

  “Pop, I know, I just—”

  “HOLD ON TO ME SO YOU DON’T FALL OVER.” He shuffled to her and offered her his arm, bunchy at the elbow, where his brown car coat wrinkled in its worsted way.

  Mary stopped, struck. It was just the way he always offered his arm, down the shore, when they were about to walk the boardwalk to get soft ice cream. Or when they were about to walk down the aisle, on her wedding day. Or at Mike’s funeral. Now, he offe
red it to steady her. Pick her up. Retrieve her. Help her. He had always been there, offering his arm. When she was little, it was practice, and later, it was support. That arm was the greatest gift a father can give a daughter, and he gave it to her, without question, and always. Suddenly his arm sank slowly, his expression bewildered.

  “WHAT? WHAT’SA MATTER? LET’S GO! YOUR MOTHER’S IN THE COP CAR, WAITIN’!”

  “Pop, there’s something I have to do tomorrow, on the Saracone case.” Mary collected herself. “I was gonna meet Judy out front and have her drop me off at a hotel or something. If I come home tonight, you and Mom will never let me do it.”

  “WHA’?” Her father blinked, then understood. She saw the realization creep over him, and his gaze traveled from her to the exit door and back again. “You were sneakin’ away from us?” he asked, his voice incredulous, his tone a fresh wound.

  “I had to. I have to.”

  “I’m surprised at you, Mare.” His brown eyes went round. “I can’t believe you would do that.”

  “I’m sorry, Pop.” Sorrysorrysorry. “But I have no choice.”

  “Yes, you do.” His forehead wrinkled with the only disapproval she had ever seen on his face. “Lemme ask you somethin.’ Were you doin’ somethin’ wrong?”

  “No. I’m doing something I have to do.”

  “Then why you hidin’ it?”

  Mary didn’t have an immediate answer.

  “You don’t sneak. You never sneak.” Her father pointed a thick finger at her, and his eyes flashed. “You have to do somethin’ tomorrow? Then, when the time comes, you stand up straight and you talk to us.”

  “But, Pop, Mom’ll never go for it.”

  “You show your mother the respect she deserves. You talk to her. Tomorrow. But tonight, you come home and sleep.” He sighed, his heavy shoulders letting down. “You’re sick and you shouldn’t be runnin’ around, Mare. I signed the paper for you, they gave me the pills for your head. You gotta rest. Tonight you stay home.”

  Mary felt a tsunami of guilt wash over her. She would rather be locked in a trunk than this. And what were the odds she’d get out of her parents’ house tomorrow morning? She’d have to defy not only her father, but also her mother, who still looked so thin. Mary seized the moment. “Pop, what’s the matter with Mom?”

  “That’s not for now. That’s for later. For her and you.” His face softened, falling into familiar sad lines. “Come on, Mare. You don’t want it to be this way. You were such a good girl, never snuck around. I heard the stories about the other girls at school, but not my Mary. Never you.” He offered his arm again. “Come on, let’s go home.”

  How much longer will I have that arm to hold on to? And what about Mom? Mary took his arm, appreciating its gift anew. “You win, Pop.”

  “Of course.” Her father smiled. “Judy in the getaway car?”

  “She’s my wheelman.”

  They both laughed, and shuffled out together.

  It wasn’t until later, when she was putting fresh sheets on her childhood bed, that Mary got her mother alone. At least, alone except for the press outside, crowding tiny Mercer Street with their videocameras, klieglights, and microphones, waiting for Mary to come out. Earlier, Mrs. DiTonio had shooed them from the block with her trusty BackSaver snow shovel, but they’d come back in force, knowing Mary would have to come out sometime. But not tonight. Tonight was for family.

  She and her mother were in the stop-time bedroom Mary had shared with her sister. Two single beds sat against the side wall, and between the front windows, a small white-painted bookshelf crammed with the artifacts of an American girlhood; stuffed Easter bunnies with legs that had inexplicably hardened like concrete; a chubby Latin-English dictionary, soft, blue hatch-marked copies of Nancy Drew, and random Archie comics; brown teddy bears with dilated pupils, eyelashes that stuck together and black noses that never wore off, and a mass grave of half-nude Barbies stacked on a shelf, so that only their stiff plastic feet showed. There was only a single desk that nobody used anyway, now cleaner than it ever had been, and above it hung a cork bulletin board cluttered with wrinkled track ribbons, photo-booth strips of girlfriends with matching braces, sewn felt letters in school colors for honors in English and religion, pointless sayings cut out of advertisements (“Slicker All Over. Yardley of London.”), and a curling Time magazine cover of the Prince of Wales by Peter Max.

  Between the beds stood a single wooden night table, and on it rested a plastic Flintstones lamp that nobody had the heart to discard, even when it went well beyond outgrown into campy and back again. Its yellowed paper shade had pictures of Pebbles and Bam-Bam, and its base was outdated enough to permit only a forty-watt bulb, which barely illuminated the room but emitted a soft, friendly, old-feeling glow. It bathed Vita DiNunzio’s newly pale face with warmth, magically filling the hollows that had appeared in her cheeks.

  “You got?” her mother asked, in her shorthand. She had both hands on her side of the sheet, wanting to know if Mary was ready with her side, and she didn’t need to say more. Mary had made so many beds with her that she could do both sides of most of their conversations. But not the one they were about to have.

  “I got it, Ma,” Mary said, and they flipped the white flat sheet into the air, releasing a stored-up scent of mothballs, hard soap, and city air. The sheet would have been line-dried outside, on a clothesline less imaginative than Amadeo’s, but equally useful. The sheet caught the air, making a momentary cloud between them, before it billowed soft to the bed. “So, Ma, tell me what’s the matter with you.”

  “Nothing.” Nut-ting-eh, it came out.

  “Something’s wrong, Ma. You’re thin, I can see that. Tell me.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Ma, you’re making my head hurt more.” Mary sat on the bed, refusing to make her hospital corner. “Tell me. I’m ready. I can handle it, whatever it is. We can handle it together.” Her words rang with an authority unusual for Mary, and she realized she couldn’t even have faked that tone before.

  Her mother remained silent as she folded her corner, her lips forming a tight line. She smoothed out the sheet with the flat of each hand in brisk, practiced strokes, and in no time, her side of the bed was completely made and Mary’s was a complete mess. Her mother pretended that she didn’t notice as she picked up the white thermal blanket, bleached to the soft hue of city snow, and held it bunched in her hands, ready to put on the bed. Her mother tilted her head in appeal. “Maria.”

  “I’m not moving until you tell me.”

  “Per favore.”

  “No.” Mary folded her arms. It was stubborn meets stubborn, in a face-off over the hospital corners. Her mother couldn’t stand an unmade bed. It was like a ringing telephone for some people, or a form of torture by electrocution for others. After a minute, her mother gave a small, final sigh and eased onto the bed, hugging the blanket to her chest. Mary swallowed hard. She was getting ready to say something.

  “I’m a little sick.” Leetle seek.

  Mary felt her heart stop. “How sick? What do you have?”

  “Little sick, inna, inna—” Her mother frowned in a squeamish way and made a swirling gesture near her pelvis. “Ovaie, itsa sick. Little bit, sick.”

  No. This isn’t happening. What? Mary struggled to translate from the hand motion, “Like your ovaries? What does ‘sick’ mean?”

  “Little bit sick.”

  It had to be. What else could it be? She didn’t want to say the word. “Ma, did he say it was cancer, in your ovaries? That you have ovarian cancer?”

  “Sì, sì, è cancro” — her mother made the swirling gesture again, yes, it’s cancer, and Mary felt as if somebody had thrown a switch on all the circuits in her brain.

  Her mother said quickly, “No worry, Maria, dottore, he say I ’ave operation.” Operaysh.

  “Operation? What kind of operation?”

  “Isterectomia,” her mother answered in Italian, a word Mary had never heard, but s
he could guess.

  “A hysterectomy?”

  “Sì.” Her mother flushed, mortified.

  She needed a hysterectomy. Maybe they had caught it early. Maybe she’d be okay. Mary was terrified and relieved, simultaneously. She tried to collect herself. “Ma? You scared? It’s a normal thing, a common thing, to be scared.”

  “No scared. I pray, I no scared. God, he take care of me.” Her eyes remained unflinching, richly brown and clear, gazing back at her daughter, as always, with honesty, love, and something new. Bravery. Vita DiNunzio had never ridden a bucking bronco, climbed anything taller than a footstool, or kicked her way out of a Lexus. But she was braver than all of them, and Mary felt a sudden shame that she had never realized it before. She got up on weak knees, went around to the neat side of the bed, and put her arms around her mother, who felt so terribly frail in her arms.

  “Don’t worry, Ma. I’ll take care of you, Pop will take care of you. You’ll be fine.” Mary searched for the words, never having comforted her mother in her life. “Ma, I’ll make sure everything’s okay for you, you’ll see.”

  “Sì, sì,” her mother said, holding tight to the white blanket, and for a single moment, she permitted herself to be cradled like a child.

  By the very child she’d brought into the world.

  Mary had a sleepless night, between trying to work and trying not to worry about her mother, and was up at seven, showering in the bathroom down the hall, then changing into one of her sister’s old brown suits, which almost matched a beat-up pair of Aerosoles she kept at her parents’ for emergency Mass. Her black clutch bag and her cell phone had been confiscated for evidence, but she wouldn’t need them where she was going today. She took a second to peek out the bedroom window, and there were only a few reporters out front, leftover from last night. MacIntire was among them, looking up at her lighted window, and she drew away. Mary was glad he had survived the snow shovel. He would come in handy today.