Madeline glanced at her phone for the third time in a minute. “Angie, come on. Take a break, will you?”
Mike Webb appeared in the doorway behind Madeline. His sudden arrival was unannounced and unexpected. He wore gym shorts and a sweat-stained gray jersey. A blue sweatband was stretched across his head. “Mind if I use the can?”
His voice startled Maddy and caused her to jump a little. She moved aside to let Mike into the office.
“You came here just to go to the bathroom?” Angie tried to minimize the degree of her eye roll.
“I was playing pickup hoops down the street and I didn’t think I could make it home, if you know what I mean.”
“TMI, Mike,” Angie said, motioning toward the bathroom door. “TMI.”
Mike dashed into the bathroom and emerged moments later with a smile on his face.
“Better?” Angie asked.
“Much. Sorry. I didn’t think anybody would be here at this hour.”
“We’re not supposed to be here,” Madeline said with obvious disappointment. “We’re supposed to be at the movies, and now I think I’m going to go by myself unless you can help unglue Miss DeRose from her computer.”
“Conti?” Mike asked, knowing how overwhelming her obsessions could be.
“Yeah, Conti,” Angie said.
“Maddy’s right, Ange,” Mike said. “Take a break. Go see a movie. Isabella isn’t in any immediate danger, if you know what I’m saying.”
“You think she’s dead.”
“If you believe the code Bao broke, then yes. She’s dead.”
“But it’s also the same date they were supposed to go into witness protection.”
“A metaphorical death is still a death,” Mike said.
Maddy sighed. “Ange, remember how much fun we had in New York? Just take a breather from it all. You’ll get the answers later.”
New York . . .
Maddy’s reference brought Angie back to their recent visit with Jean Winter. Something Jean said had been simmering in Angie’s subconscious ever since. It seemed inconsequential at the time, but now Angie wasn’t so sure.
Life is too short for petty differences.
Those were Jean’s words, and it was also, Angie believed, a possible answer. She cringed because it was so damn obvious.
“Maddy, I’m sorry. I’m going to have to skip the movie. I’ll pay for my ticket.”
At the same time, Mike nonchalantly opened the top drawer of a three-drawer file cabinet and fished out a Snickers bar from one of the file folders within. He used his teeth to pry open the wrapper.
Angie frowned. “You store candy in my file drawer?”
“I thought you knew. I file it under S, for Snickers.”
“I’ve been looking under C, for candy,” Angie said with an edge.
“Come on, Angie,” Maddy said. “Please go. I’m dying to see this movie.”
“Say, I might go,” Mike said. “What’s the movie?”
“The new Tom Cruise.”
“Oh yeah? Hmmmm . . .” Mike took a bite of his candy bar and chewed it slowly.
Angie didn’t answer Maddy. She was too busy looking through another set of files in the cabinet compartment of her desk. She had one of her mother’s death certificates in there someplace. She was sure of it.
“Hello,” Maddy said. “Earth to Angie. Come in, Angie. What are you doing?”
“All these years I’ve respected my mother’s wishes about her family,” Angie said. “I never asked to speak with them. I had nothing to do with them. But Jean is right. Life is too short for petty differences.”
Mike suddenly got interested. “You’re going to contact your mom’s family?”
“Yes,” Angie said. “And I’m going to ask them about Isabella and Antonio Conti.”
“Cool,” Mike said. “How are you going to find them?”
Angie fished out the death certificate—a life summarized and encapsulated on a standard size sheet of paper. It was an official looking document, designed to be hard to forge, and authorized by the state of Virginia. On it was Kathleen DeRose’s social security number. “With this,” she said, holding up the certificate for Mike to see.
“A death certificate? How’s that going to help?” he asked
“I’m going to get my mom’s social security application,” Angie said.
“What for?”
Maddy seemed to forget about the movie as she walked behind Angie’s desk for a better look. Angie showed Mike and Maddy her browser window, which was open to a webpage on the Social Security Information website. The web page header read ELECTRONIC FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT. The sub-header read REQUEST FOR DECEASED INDIVIDUAL’S SOCIAL SECURITY RECORD. Specifically, Form SSA-711.
“Applying for a social security number requires all sorts of information about a birth, including family and employment details,” Angie said. “Lucky for me, the Paperwork Reduction Act put access to all this information online.”
Mike acted impressed. “How’d you know all that?”
Angie shot him a sideways glance. “We’re private investigators, Mike. It’s kind of our job to know these things.”
Mike got the subtext. “Right,” he said, acting like he knew. “I just forgot for a moment, that’s all.”
Angie gave him a weak smile, then returned to the web page. She was excited about her potential discovery, and felt no guilt about not heeding her dead mother’s wishes in regards to their extended family.
Mike took another bite of his Snickers bar.
Angie filled in the form. She gave special attention to the required fields and selected the option to pay a sixteen dollar fee for a computer extract of the social security card application. Angie entered her mother’s name as Kathleen Eleanor DeRose, provided the date of birth, gender, and her mother’s social security number. When all that was done, she took in a breath and held it. Maddy placed a comforting hand on Angie’s shoulder.
“Well, this is it,” Angie said, her eyes glued to the computer pointer hovering over the SUBMIT button on the web form.
In a moment, Angie’s maternal grandparents would materialize on the computer extract. From there, it would be a relatively easy task to track them down or locate other relatives on her mother’s side if her grandparents were dead.
Angie felt a sudden wave of sadness for all she had missed. What had been gained from keeping separate lives? Walt and Louise were fine substitutes for her blood relatives, but she craved a deeper knowledge, a connection with her past, and once more, Jean Winter’s words came to her. Life is too short for petty differences.
Angie hit the SUBMIT button and waited. The web page reloaded, but with an unexpected red letter error message posted at the top of the form.
NO APPLICATION FOUND.
Additional prompts implied that Angie might have entered the wrong information, a mistyped number perhaps. She checked and everything was correct as documented on the death certificate, so she hit SUBMIT again, counting on it having been a technical glitch. The web page loaded again and the same error message displayed. NO APPLICATION FOUND.
Mike scratched his head. “Angie, if your mom’s application doesn’t exist in the system, where the heck did her social security number come from?”
He was asking the right question and Angie feared her father knew the answer.
CHAPTER 50
It was Friday night when Angie entered her father’s house. She went in through the kitchen and pulled the door closed with a loud bang. The television blared from the living room, but she chose to remain rooted in the kitchen, hands clenched into fists at her sides. She took in a shaky breath that failed to calm her down. Her heartbeat continued to accelerate as her body heated up.
“Dad, I need to see you in the kitchen! Right now!” The imperative summoned her father with haste. The tenor of her voice suggested trouble. She hadn’t called ahead, didn’t want her father to have time to prepare an answer to the question she’d come to ask. And
the answer, “I don’t know,” was no longer acceptable. He knew something, all right. Angie was certain of it.
Gabriel burst into the kitchen, his slippers losing traction on the tile floor. The short sprint had left him breathless and evidently without time to tie his terrycloth robe. He was dressed for bed in the usual attire, white T-shirt and striped pajama bottoms.
Angie observed the rapid rise and fall of his chest. He had the look of someone roused roughly from a deep sleep, which at that hour was probably the case.
Gabriel fished out his glasses from a pocket on his robe and asked, “Angie, honey, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
To get herself grounded, Angie took a seat at the kitchen table in same spot where weeks ago she had shown her father the picture of a sweet little girl with a sad smile. She motioned for her father to take the seat across from her, which he did without hesitation.
To quiet the tremor of her hands, Angie kept them folded in her lap. She fell silent while her father waited patiently for her to speak.
During the lull, her ears picked up on the tick-tock of the wall-mounted kitchen clock—a Felix the Cat model with those traveling eyes she found more creepy than cute.
Gabriel decided the silence had lasted long enough. “What is this about, Angie? Is everything all right?”
She answered her father’s question by shaking her head. It took a moment before she could speak. “No, Dad, I don’t think it is.” A line of tears filled her lower lids and blurred her vision. She tilted her head back to hold them in place. It wasn’t the time to let them go.
“No more lies, Dad,” Angie said. “Who is Mom’s family?”
Gabriel lowered his gaze to his lap and then slowly raised his head to reveal a contrite expression. “Why do you want to know?” His voice lacked inflection.
“Because I want to know why my mom has a social security number that seemingly materialized out of thin air.“
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed to slits as the creases of his brow deepened. “I don’t understand. What are you getting at here?” He ran his fingers through his thinning hair and rubbed clean the lenses of his dark rimmed glasses using the cloth tie of his bathrobe.
Angie viewed both gestures as nervous tics, a subconscious reflex of a mind focused heavily on concocting an acceptable story.
“I ran Mom’s social security number through an online form to get a copy of her application. I wanted to find her parents so I could ask them about Isabella Conti, but Mom has no social security application, even though she has a valid number. I don’t know your family or hers, and I want to know why.”
“You know the story.”
Angie slammed her hand against the kitchen table, creating a clap loud enough to make her father flinch. “I know your story!” she bellowed, pointing at him with an accusatory finger. “Now I want the truth. Mom has a connection to a mobster and a phantom social security number. Who has that, Dad? Who? The people who need to disappear, that’s who! Now, tell me the truth. I won’t stop until I get it. You know me. You know how I can be.”
Gabriel took in a few ragged breaths. He knew, all right. “Angie . . . I’m having a . . . a hard time breathing here.”
All of the anger, Angie’s inner turmoil, quieted in a blink, and her focus shifted away from questions about her mother to the health of her father. She leapt out of her chair and leaned over him, feeling his forehead with her hand. His skin felt clammy to the touch. She tuned into the fast flutter of his heart.
“Daddy, are you all right? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that to you. Do I need to call an ambulance?”
Gabriel shook his head. “No, no, I’m fine,” he said, though he was still a bit breathless. “You just caught me by surprise, is all.”
Angie retook her seat, but with a different attitude, no longer on the offensive. She reached across the table and took hold of her father’s hands, then looked him in the eyes. “Daddy, listen to me. I love you. I don’t want to upset you, but I have to know the truth. And I’m going to get the answer with your help or without it. My investigation won’t be subtle. I’m going to turn over every last stone and I might attract the attention of the same people Mom was trying to hide from. I think that’s what’s going on here. I think Mom knew the Conti family. She was connected to them somehow and she went into hiding just like they did.
“Maybe the people Mom ran away from would come looking for you and me, if they knew where to look. I don’t know. But I do know some grudges last longer than generations. Some members of the Giordano family, I bet, would love to find Antonio Conti, same as I think someone would like to find Mom and her family. I don’t know who, but I won’t stop looking until I get the answer. I know the relationship you had with Mom, and I know she wouldn’t keep that kind of secret from you. I know it in my heart. I’ll dig into your past the same as I dug into Mom’s until I find someone who knows something.
“Now, you can make it safer for us both by telling me what I want to know. Don’t make me go looking. Just tell me and I’ll stop.”
Gabriel’s mouth slipped into a grimace. He rested his head in his hands, and his gaze turned distant. “Angie, please.”
Angie shook her head. “You know me. You know how I can be. Who is my mother? Who is she really?”
Gabriel swallowed a breath. He looked to the ceiling, then back at Angie. “You promise you’ll stop asking questions?”
“Yes, Dad,” Angie said.
“It’s not safe if you don’t.”
“I promise, Dad.”
“What I’m going to say will shock you.”
“Just tell me.”
“Angie, sweetheart, what I’m going to tell you—well, it changes everything.”
“I’m prepared for anything, Dad. Honest, I am.”
“No,” Gabriel said, with a slight shake of his head. “I can assure you, you’re not prepared for this.”
CHAPTER 51
It wasn’t the kind of manhunt to which Bryce Taggart was accustomed. Instead of donning body armor and making sure Little Pig was oiled and ready for action, he manned the phones, tracked tips, and fed information to his fellow marshals working as part of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force, CARFTF for short. Teams from the SOG—Special Operations Group—were on hand and on the front lines doing the kind of fieldwork Bryce hoped to be doing when the Baltimore office volunteered him and Gary Graves for the Ivan Markovich task force.
Bryce and Graves were working out of the DC office, which was a lot nicer than his digs in Baltimore. Newer cubes, better lighting, but it still looked like an office anywhere, except that a lot of the employees carried guns. The room they shared was a cramped space with poor lighting, two phones, two laptop computers and not much else. Soon they would be moved to the official war room—a state-of-the-art command center with satellite feeds, banks of high-tech monitors, computers, the works. But until the IT wonks got them established, they had to make do with the accommodations.
Bryce didn’t think he’d be on desk duty for long. Markovich had vanished without a trace and as the hours slipped away, more marshals would be called in to assist with fugitive apprehension. The media wasn’t helping to spread the word. A story about a guy jumping bail didn’t carry the same weight as a prison break, so coverage had been spotty at best. Still, the tips were coming in, and Bryce was busy entering them into the tracking system while trying to figure out which ones merited a closer look.
“I’m going to get some more coffee,” Graves announced, sounding a little apathetic. He wanted to be in the field, as well, but was dressed for office duty in a blue polo fronted by the U.S. Marshals insignia, black belt, and dark pants. Bryce had on the same outfit.
“If they have any more of those peanut packets bring me one, will you?”
Bryce’s desk phone rang. It was another tip on Markovich, somebody in Alaska swearing the alleged trafficker was on his charter fishing trip. That one would go to the bottom of the pile. But at least the
tips were coming.
Graves returned with two coffees, but no peanuts. “They’re out.”
Bryce looked disappointed, an expression that changed to curiosity when a U.S. marshal Bryce didn’t recognize poked his head into their small office.
“Cormack Donovan,” the man said. He was a tall and thin fellow with brown hair, a boyish, clean-shaven face, and canny eyes.
Bryce didn’t believe Donovan was on the Markovich task force, hadn’t seen his name on any of the circulating memos, or noticed him at the multitudes of debrief meetings.
“How are you Baltimore boys adjusting to life here in DC?” Donovan asked. He had a sort of fluty voice, not exactly threatening.
“Good,” Bryce said, entering more data into the system. “It’s not too different.”
Donovan stepped fully into the office and took a look around. “Listen, boys,” he said, sitting on the edge of their worktable. “If you could put in a good word for me, let the right people know you’re short-handed and could use a little help on Markovich, I’d really appreciate it. I’d like to get in on this detail, even if it means the phones.” The envy came off Donovan like a bad case of BO.
“What are you supposed to be doing?” Graves asked.
“I’m actually working witness protection. I’m supposed to relocate a guy named Dante Lerardi, but I popped over here first because I’m trying to get in good with the SOC, career stuff, you know? So anything I could do to help out with their ops, I want to do it. I’d love the opportunity, if you know what I mean.”
Bryce shrugged, his way of saying he understood. Witness protection wasn’t as glamorous as fugitive apprehension. Marshals jockeying for position and status among the ranks wanted in on the hottest action, and it made sense Donovan wanted a seat at the Markovich table.
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