I sighed and looked at Ella only to find her with her brows low. She pointed at my forehead. "What happened?"
I gently touched the wound. "Eyebrow piercing," I told her, then remembered that I was supposed to be a beacon of hope and beacons did not come with body piercings. "I came to my senses at the last second. Decided not to go through with it. It should be back to normal in just a couple days."
"I'm glad." Ella leaned over the desk and patted my hand. "A pretty girl like you doesn't need piercings. It's one of the things I talked to the girls about just last night. Right after I told them the story about how you'd really taken control. About all the extra work you've been doing."
She lost me at "taken control" and I would have stayed hopelessly confused if not for the fact that as she talked, Ella looked at the stack of newspaper articles on my desk. It was the first I noticed that someone had been in my office.
The piles on my desk had been straightened. On top of them was a new pile. And a note. I recognized Ella's loopy writing as well as her trademark pink marker.
Why didn't you tell me about your interest in A. S.? Had these set aside for research—relationship between G.V. and the LCC. Let me know when you're finished with them.©
"Oh, that extra work!" I tipped my head, hoping for a look at the stack of papers under Ella's note and some hint of what we were talking about. "You mean about AS and the led."
"LCC." Just to prove it, Ella pointed at her note. "That's local community churches. The relationship between Garden View and the—"
"Local community churches. I get that part. And AS?"
Ella laughed. "Augustino Scarpetti, of course. You are so much like my girls! You don't think I pay attention, but I do. Last time I was in here talking to you, I noticed that you had lots of extra research materials on your desk and that they were all about Mr. Scarpetti. I think it's wonderful that you're taking the initiative like this, Pepper. Trying to find out more about our residents even before you're asked. You're a real asset to Garden View."
"And you found information about Gus that I don't know about." Like it was a magnet and I was the helpless bit of metal caught in its pull, I looked at the new pile that had been added to my desk. Just as quickly, I warned myself to look away.
After all, I was quitting.
"Here are some photographs that I know you haven't seen." Ella set her note to me aside and pointed at the pile.
Which only proved how little she knew about me. I refused to get suckered. Instead of the pictures, I looked at a spot over her left shoulder.
"Photos from the church," Ella said. "That's why they weren't with the rest of the stuff about Mr. Scarpetti. I mean, not that anyone would have noticed. No one has looked through our information about him for years. But then I found out that you were doing your research. Like I just said. And I remembered that I'd put these in with the LCC stuff. Fascinating, aren't they? Funeral pictures always are."
Funeral pictures? Gus's funeral?
Against what little good judgment I appeared to have left, I took a look.
The picture at the top of the pile showed a crowd of mourners streaming out the front doors of a church. A casket led the procession. It was covered with enough flowers to make a Kentucky Derby winner proud.
Gus's funeral. Gus's casket.
I didn't care.
Just to prove it, I turned away and dragged the daily schedule in front of me. No tours scheduled for the day. No groups coming in. No—
"And did you see this one?" I heard Ella dig through the pile of photographs, but I stayed strong. I was quitting, and I had the eight thousand dollars to prove it.
"His family." I heard Ella's finger tap the photo. "I think that would be very important to your research. This is his wife—"
"Carmella?" I'd never seen a picture of the Widow Scarpetti and I admit it, my curiosity got the best of me. I looked to where Ella was pointing.
Too bad all the photo showed was a woman dressed head to toe in black, including a long, black veil that covered her face.
Not that I cared.
"Don't give up so easily." Ella must have noticed my sour expression, even if she did interpret it wrong. She clucked her sympathy. "Research isn't always fun and games. And you're not always successful finding what you're looking for the first time you look for it. Here's another picture of Mrs. Scarpetti and if you look really close… " She squinted and held the picture at arm's length. "You can see a little bit of her profile behind the veil. Look, she's got her sons with her, Rudy and Anthony."
"Gus only has one son." Sure, I was officially out of the private detective business. Almost. Still, as my final act in Gus's employment, I felt I had to set Ella straight. "Rudy the Cootie. That's his son. There is no—"
"Anthony." Ella slid the picture under my nose where I couldn't fail to see it.
This shot showed Carmella with a teenage boy on either arm. Even with a full head of wavy hair, I recognized Rudy right away. On the other side of Carmella…
I took a long look at a tall skinny boy with bad posture who was wearing a suit that looked like it was a couple sizes too big.
Carmella Scarpetti, the caption said. With her sons, Rudy and Anthony.
The words hit me like a punch from one of Albert's meaty fists. I sat up and pulled the picture closer.
"Two sons." I would have slapped my forehead if my eyebrow didn't hurt. "Well, doesn't that just prove what a lousy detective I am!"
"Don't be so hard on yourself." From down the hall, I heard the phone ring at the main desk. Ella heard it, too, and always worried about Garden View's image and customer service, she cocked her head, listening to hear how long it would take Jennine to answer. When Jennine did and didn't come running, Ella was convinced it wasn't anything earth-shattering and that no one needed her immediately. She turned her attention back to me. "Like I said, these pictures have been put away for years. There's no way you could have known about Father Anthony."
"Father—?"
"Sure." Ella dug through the pictures. The one she pulled out showed the same skinny kid a few years later. Not so skinny anymore. And hardly a kid. He was dressed in black and wearing a Roman collar. "That's why these photographs were with my research and not with the Scarpetti materials. Father Anthony is the pastor at Blessed Rosary. You know, the church right down the street. He's quite a history buff. He used to be very active here at Garden View. Loved to attend our lectures and tours. Now that I think about it, we haven't seen him in a while. I wonder why."
Which was definitely not what I was wondering.
I was wondering why Gus had never bothered to mention Son #2.
Before I had a chance to formulate any sort of theory, Jennine poked her head into my office. "Somebody named Dan called," she said, waving a piece of pink paper at me like I could see the message she'd written on it. "He says he has time for you this morning if you can make it."
Ella gave me that mothering look that said she'd listen if I was willing to talk.
I wasn't. I mumbled something about an appointment and an early lunch hour and headed out of the office.
Sure, going to see Dan looked like an act of surrender. But that is so not true! We were going to have it out, me and Dan. About those empty files. About what he was up to. And why.
As for Gus…
Well, it looked like he'd been playing me for a patsy, too. Which meant that if I wanted information, I was going to have to find it somewhere else.
Was I changing my mind and getting back into the investigation?
Hell, no. All I was looking for was answers.
Just to prove it, when I walked out of the office, I left the brown paper lunch bag in my desk.
"You're kidding, right?" From behind his wire-rimmed glasses, Dan blinked at me. "You think the file folders I showed you last night are empty?"
"I didn't say empty." I took another step into his office but didn't go anywhere near the chair he had pulled away from the desk and waiting f
or me next to a machine that looked like the lie detectors I'd seen on cop shows on TV. It had cords and pads and electrodes attached to it on one end and on the other, a thing that looked like a mini copier complete with graph paper and an ink wand attached to it. "I said they were blank."
"Yes. Of course. I'm sorry. That is what you said." Dan came around from the other side of his desk. When he took my hand, I should have known he was up to no good. But hey, I'd had a bad few hours, what with Albert's visit, Quinn's questionable rescue, and the news about Anthony Scarpetti. I took Dan's action at face value.
I should have known better.
He gently piloted me toward the waiting chair.
"No." I brushed away his hand. "I said we needed to get this straight before I'll do any more testing. If you're pulling some kind of scam on me—"
"Does this look like a face that could scam anyone?" Dan pointed at his own face and I have to admit, his grin was so sweet and so honest, I knew he would never lie.
Which didn't mean I was convinced.
And Dan knew it.
He reached for my hand again. "I think I know what's going on here, Pepper."
"You do?"
"I do." He tugged me toward the chair and when I was close enough, he put a hand on each of my shoulders. Even then I refused to cave.
Or at least I refused to sit.
"You're downplaying the whole thing," he said, "and just so you know, that's a perfectly normal response. But I think it's time to face reality. Right here and now. That head injury of yours might be more serious than we thought in the first place."
"It is?" I didn't even realize my knees had collapsed until I was sitting. "You mean—"
"I mean… " Dan reached onto his desk and picked up the file folder with my name on it. "The answers to your questions tell me that something is going on."
"They do not!" I dismissed the notion instantly. I'd been careful not to let on. Not about Gus. Not about my investigation. There was no way Dan could know anything.
Was there?
He flipped through my file. "It's not what you say in here, it's what you don't say. When I asked about hallucinations—"
"No hallucinations. That's the absolute truth."
"Yet your answers… " He read over something inside my file and shook his head. "Listen to me." Dan pulled over the nearest chair and sat down. When he leaned forward, we were eye-to-eye. "I haven't seen you since you were here yesterday evening, right?"
I was reluctant to answer a question that obvious, but he kept on staring, so I nodded. "Right."
"And we haven't talked since then either, have we?"
"Right again."
"Then, up until you walked into my office and mentioned it to me, there was no way I could have known that you were worried about this empty file thing."
"That's right, but—"
"So there's no way I could have done anything to fix the problem because as far as I was concerned, there was no problem. You hadn't told me about it. I had nothing to hide."
I sat back and cocked my head, wondering what he was getting at.
"Pepper… " Dan grabbed for the rest of the files. They were the same ones I'd seen on his credenza the night before. He flipped through them, tipping the folders so I could see. Last night, the pages were blank. Today, they were—
"There's information." I sat up straight and glanced over the pages and pages of notes and charts and statistics. "In all of them."
"That's right." Dan closed the last file and set them all back down on his desk. "Now do you believe me?"
"I believe there's information in those files and it wasn't there last night."
"Do you really think so?" He gave me the same kind of understanding look I'd seen from Ella so recently. "Think about it, Pepper. Why would I go through that much trouble just to fool you?"
"You're saying—"
"That we need to get to the bottom of this. If you're not seeing things that are there and seeing things that aren't… " He reached for the first electrode attached to the machine at my right arm. "If you'll just hold still, we'll get this over with. Then we'll know for sure."
Of course we didn't know for sure. Not right away, anyway. And by the time I'd spent three hours being tested, poked, and prodded, Dan had changed his tune. We wouldn't know for sure, he said, until he had time to calculate and evaluate, measure and assess.
Until then…
Until then, I needed to keep busy. What with empty file folders that weren't and the half truths I'd been getting from my one and only client (who happened to be dead), it was the only way I could think to keep myself from dwelling on the fact that I really might be crazy.
Maybe what I decided to do instead proved I was past hope. I didn't question it, I just did it.
The priest who answered the door of the Blessed Rosary rectory introduced himself as Father David. He was barely older than me, an African American with a deep voice and a ready smile.
"Father Anthony is in the garden," Father David said. "He said if anyone came around to see him, I should send them back. But I don't think he was expecting you."
"I won't be long." I headed toward the back of the house where Father David looked when he mentioned "garden." "Just a couple minutes. I promise. I just need to talk to Father Anthony. I swear."
"No need for that!" Father David laughed. "Go ahead. It's nice and warm out there this afternoon."
Nice and warm weren't the words for it. The garden at the back of the rectory was a little piece of heaven on earth. There must have been a thousand daffodils in bloom along the brick wall that ringed the place, as well as a few early tulips and some purple flowers that were small and delicate and smelled wonderful. A stone path led around a tree that was just about to flower. In the center of the path was a bench and on it sat Anthony Scarpetti in a pool of sunshine.
"Father Anthony?" He sat very still, and I wasn't sure if he was awake or asleep, so I approached carefully. "Father, are you—"
"Still alive? I'm pretty sure." Father Anthony laughed and turned to face me. He didn't look much like the picture of the man I'd seen in the cemetery archives. That Anthony Scarpetti was young and vital, with a full head of curly, dark hair and eyes that burned with faith so strong that it was scary. This was a shadow of that man.
Father Anthony was wearing a baseball cap but I could tell there wasn't any hair under it. His skin was as white as chalk and mottled with blotches of red. He was dressed in jeans and a Notre Dame sweatshirt that gaped around his scrawny neck.
"I don't know you." Like every muscle ached, Father Anthony moved over. He patted the seat on the bench next to him. "What can I do for you?"
"I just… " I dropped down on the bench. "I didn't mean to disturb you. I just wanted to talk."
"Two ears, no waiting." Father Anthony pointed to either side of his head. "Listening isn't a vocation, but it is a big part of my job description. You should excuse my secular wording."
I smiled. "You sound a lot like your father."
Father Anthony tipped his head to one side. "You aren't old enough to have ever known my father."
"No. I'm not." I told myself I should have paid attention to the voice of logic inside my head that said I shouldn't have stopped to see Anthony until I knew exactly what I was going to say to him. Of course, I hadn't listened to my own advice. And now it was too late.
"I came to see you, Father, because of your father. That is, I've been doing some research about your father, Father, and… " I sighed. Father Anthony was watching me carefully, his dark eyes sparkling like the sun against the daffodils. I shrugged. "He's not resting in peace," I said.
Odds are, another man would have told me to get the hell out of his garden. Father Anthony nodded. "I suppose I knew that," he said. "Even after all this time, it's hard to imagine that Pop could find any sort of peace. But how do you… " He looked at me carefully. "You didn't know him. You said so yourself. You're too young."
I nodded. "I work
over at Garden View. I give the tours. One of the places we stop is at your father's mausoleum."
"And you're looking to find out more about him."
"Something like that."
There was a book open on Father Anthony's lap. He closed it and set it down on the flagstone pathway at his feet. "You want to define that 'something?' "
I would have. Except that I wasn't in the mood to look like a nutcase.
I guess that was the reason I didn't explain myself more fully. It didn't explain why I said, "He's looking for closure."
Father Anthony sighed. "That makes two of us."
"But not in the same way, I bet."
He studied me, his dark eyes like pools against his washed-out skin. His fingernails were thick and yellow, and he scratched his ear. "Have you talked to him?"
I winced. "I'm not Catholic," I told him. "If you're looking for me to make a confession—"
Father Anthony laughed until he started to cough. It was a heavy, ugly cough and it took him a couple minutes to get settled again. He laid a hand on my arm.
"I'm not looking to give you absolution. I'm thinking maybe you're here to do that for me."
He was so darned sincere, I didn't have any choice but to set him straight. "I don't think so, Father. I mean, all I wanted to do was ask you a couple questions. But absolution… " I whistled low under my breath and shook my head. "That's definitely not in my job description!"
Anthony was not so easily put off. "I'll tell you what… " He shifted on the seat and I swear, I could just about hear his bones creak. He couldn't have been very old in that picture I saw of him at Gus's funeral. Which meant that now, Father Anthony was somewhere around fifty. He looked one hundred and fifty.
"You ask what you want to ask," Anthony said. "I'll make the decisions about absolution. Sound okay to you?"
"Sure." I put both my feet flat against the pavement and drew in a breath. "Did you know that Benny Marzano is dead?" I asked him.
He didn't look surprised. "Haven't heard that name in years. Benny No Shoes! He used to bring me Hershey bars when I was a little kid. He didn't have any kids of his own and… " The rest of the memory was lost in time and Anthony shook it away and looked at me. "I thought you came here to talk about my father."
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