“You called her Saturday? Was it around two?”
“Yes.”
Judy realized that Daniella had been the one who’d called Iris, in the rose garden.
“I don’ know what happen. I hear she die and I know they kill her. I feel terrible, so terrible about Iris. I pray and pray for God to forgive me. I don’ forgive myself. I don’ know how they kill her but they do.”
“You’re right, they did.”
“How? How do you know?”
“Before we discuss that, let me ask you something. Why did you come forward now?”
“I don’ know what to do. I am safe now Carlos is dead but I no feel safe. Other bosses know we take the money. They wan’ the money, so I come to Barb to ask her for it.” Daniella’s eyes turned pleading, and she faced Aunt Barb in bed. “Please, give me the money so I can give it to them. So they will not kill me or my family at home.”
Judy held up a hand, interjecting. “Daniella, I don’t think it works that way. If you show yourself, they’ll kill you. Whoever else is in the conspiracy, they’ll kill you. They can’t let you live, even if you give them the money back.”
“Wha’ can I do?” Daniella’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Wha’ can I do? They will kill my family!”
Judy’s thoughts raced ahead. “Let’s go to the police. I’ll go with you. We can make a deal.”
“No, no, never.” Daniella shook her head. “They will kill me. You see how they do.”
“Let me try to get you a deal.” Judy dug in the pocket of her sweatpants and pulled out the array of business cards from the various government agencies. “Look, I just met with all of these cops. FBI, ICE, too. Let me make some phone calls and talk to them. I’m a lawyer. I won’t tell them where you are.”
“No, I no go to the police.” Daniella shook her head again, frightened.
“You can and you should. You have something to trade for a visa. You know about the other stash. There’s probably a lot of things you know.”
“No, no, no.”
“What else do you know about the cartel? Did Carlos ever talk to you about the cartel or his business, when he was drunk?”
“Yes, okay, he did. He brag, all the time. He wan’ to be the boss, the top.”
“Did he say who he’s in business with?”
“Yes, I know, he tell me.”
“Are some of the mushroom growers in on it? Mike’s? And the treatment plant?”
“Yes, yes.”
“What about the police in East Grove?”
“Yes.”
“Great,” Judy said, then realized how wrong that sounded. “The point is, the government will trade for that information. They want names. That’s how they make their case.”
“No, they kill me. They kill my family. The cartel, they do what they want.”
“What if I could make a deal to protect your family, Daniella?”
“They will find them. They will kill them.”
“Let me call. Let me see if I can get a deal to protect them. I won’t tell the government where you are until they agree.” Judy spoke from the heart. “Daniella, won’t you take a chance, for Iris?”
Chapter Forty-four
It was after midnight when Judy finally left the federal building in downtown Philly, turning left and walking down a chilly Chestnut Street. It had rained again, leaving the asphalt a shiny black and the sidewalk slick. Gutters flowed with rainwater, cigarette butts, and other debris. There was almost no traffic except a white Septa bus that rambled by empty, going her way, but Judy didn’t try to catch it. She wanted to walk home, to clear her mind.
She shoved her hands in her pockets, heading home, head down. She and Daniella had met with the top brass at the FBI, DEA, and ICE, and Daniella had given the government plenty of good information. They had succeeded, with the help of an immigration lawyer, in securing an S-visa for Daniella, which was a special visa given to confidential informants, the so-called “snitch visa.” They also got a deal to protect Daniella’s mother and older sister, still living in Mexico, and the three of them were already on their way to their respective safe houses.
Judy passed the Constitution Center on her left and the Liberty Bell on her right, sights that usually gave her a lift, but not tonight. She supposed, at some level, she had gotten justice for Iris, with the killers now dead and the government on its way to making a case against the rest of the conspirators. She had even learned the reason they had killed Iris, but she felt an emptiness inside that she hadn’t anticipated.
She walked down the dark street and crossed into Old City, where all the stores were closed and the shops dark. She thought of the horrors she had witnessed, the loss of poor Domingo, and she felt a wave of sadness sweep over her. Somehow listening to the litany of names that Daniella had given the authorities made her feel even worse, and she wondered if justice was possible in a world full of profoundly evil and damaged human beings, in a veritable universe of damage.
Judy found herself in her apartment without even realizing it, having let herself in from the key in the lockbox that the landlord required them to keep there, for the fire department. She flicked on the light, closed the door behind her, and set the key on the sidetable, with a little clink. She didn’t bother to check her mail.
She looked around for her mother, or her aunt or whatever, but nobody was downstairs. Her mother had probably gone upstairs to sleep. Of course Frank wasn’t home, and Judy tried not to focus on how empty the apartment seemed without him. Penny bounded over, then plopped her butt on the hardwood and started scratching her ear with her back leg, signaling that the fleas were back.
“Hey, girl,” Judy said to the dog, petting her. “Can you wait on that walk? I need a shower.”
Penny trotted behind as Judy climbed the stairs quietly, so as not to wake up her mother. But when she got to the second floor, she looked down the hall and noticed the bedroom door was open. Her mother slept with the door closed, so Judy tiptoed to the bedroom, peeked inside the room, and could tell in the streetlight from the windows that the bed was empty. She flicked on the overhead light, and her mother wasn’t there.
Judy reached for her pocket to get her cell phone, then remembered her cell phone was gone. She still had a landline on the nightstand next to her bed, so she went over, picked up the receiver, and heard the telltale signal that she had messages. She barely remembered how to retrieve them, but she hit the right numbers, then deleted a series of junk calls until she got a message from her mother.
“Honey,” her mother said, her tone uncharacteristically tentative. “I’m going to be staying at the hospital tonight. They said I’m allowed, and Barb and I both thought you might like to see Frank, after the hell you’ve been through. We feel just terrible about displacing him, and when Barb gets discharged tomorrow, she wants to go home to recuperate, instead of the apartment. We both love you, very much. I hope things went well with Daniella, and I’ll keep my cell phone on if you want to talk. Good night.”
Judy hung up the phone, shaking her head. She turned away from the bed and started to leave the room, then she did a double-take, realizing what she had just seen. She backed up to her closet and looked at it again, but she had been right the first time. The closet door had been rolled back to expose Frank’s side of the closet, but his clothes were gone, including the hangers, leaving an empty hole. The sweaters, sweatshirts, and T-shirts that he used to jam into the shelves above his clothes were gone, too. She looked down and she could see the floorboards on his side of the closet, which had been covered for as long as she could remember by his pungent jumble of sneakers, loafers, and slide flip-flops. Frank must’ve come to the apartment today and moved out.
It was over.
Judy blinked, surprised, though she shouldn’t have been. Frank wasn’t the kind of man to drag things out, and she knew she had hurt him. Her mouth went dry. Something about his being gone seemed inconceivable, though she had willed it to happen. She found herself shak
ing her head. She crossed to their dresser and pulled out his drawer, which started with the fourth, but it was empty. She closed it and went to the fifth drawer, opening it even though she knew what she’d find, like a psycho ex on autopilot.
She left the drawer hanging open, straightened up, and looked around, seeing a bedroom she barely recognized, now that she started noticing things. Frank’s framed photos and favorite Oakley sunglasses were missing from the top of the dresser, and his series of black kettlebells in graduated weights were no longer lined up against the wall, where she used to trip over them. In place of the Frank-things were her mother’s things—a pump bottle of Cetaphil hand lotion, a small green jar of La Mer eye cream, and an old-school folding travel clock by the bed—and her Aunt Barb’s things—the compression bras she’d bought at the mastectomy boutique, a large-size Ziploc bag of medication in brown plastic bottles, and a stack of mystery novels.
Judy scanned the room, which struck her as a total mess, strewn with debris, damage of its own kind. She couldn’t help but see it as a mirror of her life, in matching disarray, with Frank gone and her mother and aunt jumbled together, the lines between the two women blurred, their respective roles impossible to delineate, much less define. Mother and aunt, aunt and mother, both women seemed to be occupying the same place at the same time, which everyone knew was impossible, most especially Mother Nature.
Judy turned away, left the bedroom, and walked stiffly to the bathroom, with the dog at her heels. She flipped on the light switch and avoided looking in the mirror because she didn’t want to play match-the-facial-feature again. She reached inside the shower and turned on the faucet, trying not to think another thought or feel another emotion. She undressed while she waited for the water to warm up, shedding her borrowed sweatclothes, which Penny came over to sniff avidly.
Judy stepped naked into the shower, letting the warm water run over her cuts and bruises, feeling it wash away the manure and the ashes, cleansing her of the blood and the grime, and she didn’t know when she started crying, but she was pretty sure she would never, ever stop.
Chapter Forty-five
Next morning, Judy emerged from her front door, reflexively raising her hand against the press stationed outside the row-house that held her apartment. Photographers aimed cameras with wide rubber lenses at Judy’s face, and TV reporters rushed forward, extending their black bubble microphones. She’d known they were there, having seen them from her window, so she plowed through them with her head down, ignoring their shouted questions.
“Ms. Carrier, was the car bomb intended for you?” “Why were you in Chester County?” “Did you know Carlos Ramiro and Roberto Rivera?” “How are you involved?” “Who are you representing?” “Is it true that Father Oscar Vega assaulted you?”
“No comment!” Judy called, hustling down the street, looking for a cab. Traffic clogged both lanes, and passersby stared at the scene, stopping on their way to work. It was a sunny day, and she knew she’d look like a freak in this light, with foundation hardly covering the tiny cuts on her face and lip gloss doing nothing to her split lip but making it look slicker. She’d dressed in a boring navy sweater and pants, with a trenchcoat on top, in case she had to go back to the FBI offices. Her trenchcoat flew behind her as she broke into a light run, but the reporters ran after her.
“Come on, Judy!” “Don’t you have a comment for us, Judy?” “Are you or Bennie Rosato stepping in for the defense of anyone? Do you know who the targets of the federal investigation will be?” “Can you comment on the murder of Domingo Gutierrez?”
Judy cringed at the sound of Domingo’s name. She’d thought of him all last night, hardly sleeping and replaying their meeting over and over in her mind. She spotted a cab and flagged it down, with reporters at her heels.
“Ms. Carrier, did you know the men who died at the treatment facility, Carlos Ramiro and Roberto Rivera? Were they conspirators with Domingo Gutierrez?” “How did you get involved?” “Are there any persons of interest? Any indictments coming down the pipeline?”
Judy ran to meet the cab as it pulled over to the curb, and when it stopped, she jumped inside and turned away from the reporters as camera flashes fired at her, inside the backseat.
“You somebody important?” the cabbie called over his shoulder, as the cab took off. He was young and African-American, in a mesh Sixers cap.
“Not in the least,” Judy answered, then told him where she needed to go.
Chapter Forty-six
“Hi, Mom, Aunt Barb.” Judy entered the hospital room, trying to suppress the tension she felt inside.
“Good morning, dear,” her mother said, looking over with a nervous smile. She’d been packing items from the bed table in a white plastic bag, but she walked over, bag in hand, and gave Judy a quick peck on the cheek. She was freshly made-up, back in her favorite long gray sweater, black knit leggings, and black ballet shoes, but her manner was stilted. “Did it go okay, at the FBI?”
“All fine, as expected. That’s why I didn’t call. Sorry.”
“Sure. We understand. And Daniella?”
“She’s fine, and in their hands.”
“Wonderful.” Her mother smiled, almost politely. “Did you sleep well?”
“I did, thanks.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“You sure you don’t need to be seen by a doctor? We’re in a hospital, after all.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“I bet Frank was glad to see you.”
“Yes,” Judy answered, avoiding her mother’s eye. She wasn’t about to tell them about Frank. She had known both women her whole life, but felt as if she couldn’t trust them anymore.
“You’re all over the news.” Her mother nodded in the direction of the television, which was playing morning shows on mute.
“I know, right?” Judy found herself hesitating before she went over to Aunt Barb, who was sitting inclined in bed, pale and tired under a multicolored cap and buried by a white blanket, her finger hooked up to a monitor and her hand to an IV. Judy learned over and gave her aunt a quick kiss on the cheek, feeling as if she were going through the motions. All of them were.
“Hi, honey.” Aunt Barb managed a shaky smile. “Who knew what a mess I’d get you into, huh? We’re so proud of you, for everything you did, and for helping Daniella.”
“Thanks. How do you feel?” Judy lingered by the bed, glancing at the array of monitors with their blinking lights. The cottony straps of Aunt Barb’s vest, with the drain pockets, were visible because her neckline had slipped to the side.
“Not too bad. It feels like there’s pressure on my chest, but it’s not that bad. They’re weaning me off of morphine and onto Demerol.” Aunt Barb gestured at the IV drip that ran to a port in the top of her hand. “It supposedly makes your back itch, so I have my back scratcher. See, look.” She patted a bamboo backscratcher by her side.
“So, everything went okay?”
“Perfect.” Aunt Barb smiled. “I’m relieved to have it behind me. The doctor said I might not have to have radiation, but we’ll see.”
“I’m so happy for you,” Judy said, meaning it, but she didn’t feel happiness, strangely apart form her own emotions. Before, she and her aunt would have been giggling, laughing, and high-fiving. But that was Before, and this was After. “So you ready to go home today?”
“More than ready.”
“When do you think you’ll be discharged?” Judy asked, making small talk, filling the air with words to dispel the awkwardness.
“They said the doctor should be here in about an hour, then I have to fill out forms and such. Noon, I hope to be out.”
“You sure you want to go back to your house?”
“Yes, thanks for the offer of your place, but I’ll be more comfy at home, now that it’s safe, thanks to you.”
Judy’s mother returned to the bed table and slipped a brown jug of Sunsweet prune juice in a bag. “We ha
ve everything planned. We’ll take my car to your apartment, pack her bags, then get her home. Will you join us or do you have to work?”
“No, I have to work,” Judy lied. She didn’t know what she was going to do today, and nobody at the office would blame her for taking the day off.
“But you’ll come out to the house tonight? Say hi? Have dinner?”
“If I can. We’ll see.”
“Good. I’ll make a nice salmon with parsley. You know how you love that dish. Frank can come, too.” Her mother wrapped the top of the plastic bag around the bottom, making a neat roll. “Aunt Barb will rest for the afternoon, then she has to do her range-of-motion and breathing exercises.”
“Breathing?” Judy faked a smile. “In, out? In, out?”
“With that gadget, a spirometer.” Her mother pointed at a transparent plastic tube by the side of the bed, with graduated numbers up the side and a blue plastic bottom. “You inhale and try to get the ball in the air. She has to do it every day, twice a day.”
Aunt Barb patted the bed. “Judy, come sit down and tell us how last night went, with the FBI. I’m so curious about how it works, negotiating deals and such.”
“It’s very bureaucratic,” Judy said, suddenly sick of the small talk, of avoiding the subject. She wished she had gone straight to work.
“I doubt that,” Aunt Barb said, gently. “Is it like on TV?”
“Barb, of course it isn’t.” Her mother came over, setting down the bag. “I bet it is bureaucratic. All those government agencies are the same. Everything is political. Right, Judy?”
“I don’t want to talk about that,” Judy said, the words slipping out of their own accord. “I want to understand what happened with me and you two.”
Betrayed: A Rosato & DiNunzio Novel (Rosato & Associates Book 13) Page 28