Think Twice

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Thank you. It’s Armani. Are you interested in fashion?”

  “Uh, a little.”

  “I see that.”

  Fiorella kept eyeing Judy, or more accurately, her clothes. Judy had come straight from the office, so she still had on her work clothes—an oversized yellow T-shirt, a jeans miniskirt, and red patent clogs. Her hair, cut in its trademark choppy bowl, was dyed only one color today, crayon yellow. Mary was by now used to Judy’s eccentric wardrobe, but this morning she couldn’t resist telling her she looked like a McDonald’s franchise.

  “Do you always dress so?”

  “Sure.” Judy nodded happily, but Mary bit her tongue. She was starting to think that Fiorella was Strega Anna Wintour.

  “HERE’S COFFEE!” Her father poured a glistening arc of percolated coffee into Fiorella’s cup, then took care of everybody else. “CREAM AND SUGAR’S ONNA TABLE.”

  Fiorella was still scrutinizing Judy. “I must say, I’m absolutely appalled by your appearance.”

  Mary felt compelled to defend her friend. “Excuse me, Judy’s my best friend, and nobody can criticize her clothes but me.”

  Her mother froze, and her father and Anthony blinked. Fiorella recoiled, and Mary knew it hadn’t come out the way she intended, so she tried again.

  “I mean, Judy can dress any way she pleases. She’s a genius lawyer and a great painter, and at the office, we value her brains more than her looks.”

  “I wasn’t referring to her clothes, but her health.” Fiorella turned coolly to Judy. “Your head aches, does it not?”

  “Frankly, yes.”

  “Someone is thinking ill of you. They are giving you the evil eye.”

  Her mother gasped. The gnocchi pot bubbled like a cauldron. “Deo, the malocchio?”

  Her father’s resigned expression said, Here we go. Mary and Anthony exchanged looks because they knew what was coming. Mary’s mother could cast off the evil eye, too. In fact, she was probably kicking herself for missing the diagnosis.

  But Judy was worried. “Am I going to be okay?”

  “Yes, but only if you listen to me. I will keep you safe from harm.” Fiorella reached across the table, her bracelets jangling. “Give me your hand, my dear. I can help you. I am the most powerful witch in all of Abruzzi, the witch of all witches.”

  Mary said nothing, except to thank God that she hadn’t invited Bennie to dinner. It would have killed her partnership chances.

  Magic was one thing, but crazy was quite another.

  Chapter Eight

  Bennie lay in the box, exhausted and in pain. Pounding and screaming had burned off her panic. She swallowed hard, her mouth parched. Sweat drenched her. She’d had to go to the bathroom. She remained still, breathing shallowly. She needed to conserve her air and her energy again, so she could try harder.

  She wondered where the box could be. People might hear her screaming, unless the box was in the basement of Alice’s house. It was the one place that they hadn’t gone, but Alice was way too smart for that. Alice was brilliant, despite appearances. Bennie had learned that the hard way a long time ago, when Alice played her during her murder case.

  Bennie remembered how she’d started to lose her way, proving Grady right that if she took on the representation, she’d have no professional distance. She’d found out that Alice had been cheating on the murdered cop and she knew it wouldn’t have struck a sympathetic note with the jury. So Bennie did what few other criminal defense lawyers would have done. She cut her hair as short as Alice’s, and they dressed alike at trial, so they sat at counsel table side-by-side, like a double image. She figured that the jury would see the identity between them and project the goodwill that Bennie had earned onto her less likable twin. That her gambit had worked hadn’t made it any less uncharacteristic, and looking back, Bennie realized that during that trial, at some time she couldn’t pinpoint, she’d shed her own identity and merged in some uncanny way with her twin.

  Now, she couldn’t believe how far it had gone. Couldn’t believe that she had ever wanted to be with Alice, much less be her. It was Bennie’s loss of perspective that had put her inside a box that was God knows where, with her very life in jeopardy.

  Suddenly, in the quiet, she heard a noise, like a scratching. She waited, then heard it again. It was coming from outside the lid, right near her head. Was Alice scratching on the lid? Why? How? She listened for the noise to come again, but the only sound was her own panting. Then just as abruptly, the scratching returned.

  “Stop it!” she screamed. “Let me out! What are you doing? Stop it, stop it, stop it!”

  But the scratching didn’t stop, so Bennie started pounding with all of her might.

  Chapter Nine

  Alice found Bennie’s home office, dumped the cloth bag on the floor, and sat down at her laptop, switching on the desk lamp. She hit a key and the screen came to life, but it asked for a password. She thought a second. She had no idea what password Bennie used, and she didn’t know the name of the dog. She took a guess and typed in their mother’s name, Carmela.

  INVALID PASSWORD.

  She looked through the papers on the desk, but there was no list of passwords on a sheet of paper or random Post-it. The desk had file drawers on the right, and she opened the first, searched through manila folders stuffed with bills, bank statements, and legal papers, but found no passwords file. She went through the second drawer, but still no luck. She sat back in the chair, her gaze falling on an old-fashioned Rolodex. She flipped through the business cards, then on impulse, skipped ahead to P. The first card was handwritten, and at the top it read Passwords.

  Bingo.

  She skimmed down to Laptop, Home—2424bearmom. She typed it in and the screensaver appeared. She spotted Quicken, clicked it, and read the screen. USABank Household Account, USABank Business Account, and USABank 1717 Building Account. She skimmed the online registers as her heart beat a little faster. There were three major accounts with nine subaccounts, all at USABank. She logged on to the Internet, typed in USABank .com, and clicked Online Banking, but the page asked for her username and password. She went back to the Rolodex, looked up USABank, got the username Bennie Rosato and the password Bearly01, then went back to the bank’s site and plugged it in. She clicked onto the main page, where her gaze shot like a bullet to the balance.

  Three million dollars and change.

  She hadn’t known for sure that Bennie was a multi-millionaire, but she wasn’t surprised. She clicked on the first account, the Home account that was divided into Personal and Business, and checked the balance—$78,016. The second account, Rosato & Associates, had subaccounts titled Payroll, Expenses, and Travel & Entertainment, with a balance of $2,437,338. She clicked on the third account, 1717 Building, which she knew from the website was Bennie’s new office building. It had subaccounts entitled Rent, Expenses, and Miscellaneous, and the balance was $536,393. She checked the bottom of the page, for liabilities.

  Zero. None. Nada. Zip.

  She should have known as much. Bennie didn’t have a mortgage for the house or office building, nor loans of any kind, not even a home equity or car loan. Bennie played everything safe, so she wouldn’t carry a debt load if she could help it. Everything was bought and paid for, and the girl was a saver, which explained her wardrobe.

  Alice considered the implications. All of Bennie’s money at USA-Bank was liquid, and the online transfer functions had been enabled, so any or all of the money could be transferred among the different accounts or out of the bank. She wouldn’t dream of doing it from a home laptop, not with assets this large, and she’d start tomorrow. She had a plan, which was to set up an offshore account and move the money to it, then leave the country. It would take a few days to accomplish, but she could impersonate Bennie for a day or two, until the jig was up.

  She thought a minute. Bennie should have some stock and investment accounts elsewhere, or maybe T-bills and bonds. That money would be more difficult to convert to cash quickl
y enough, but she opened Outlook and skimmed Bennie’s email anyway. There was a note from someone named Sam Freminet, a friend on vacation in Maui, and Bill Pontius of Plexico Plastics, a client who needed to reschedule his deposition, and after the first twenty emails, Alice knew everything about Bennie’s work and personal life, emphasis on work. She couldn’t find anything from an investment house, another bank, or a stockbroker.

  But she’d keep looking.

  Chapter Ten

  Mary would have been mortified when Fiorella announced she wanted to cast off Judy’s evil eye, but she knew that their friendship was strong enough to survive a family exorcism.

  “Excuse me.” Fiorella glanced around the table. “Everyone but Judy must leave immediately.”

  “Why?” Mary asked, surprised. Her mother never made anybody leave when she was casting off spells. That was the kind of professionalism that ran in the DiNunzio women.

  “You must do as I say or I cannot help your friend.”

  “Maybe we should forget this,” Judy said. “It’s just a little headache, a sinus thing. I’m fine.”

  “No, you are not fine.” Fiorella shook her head. “I know better. Please, everyone, leave immediately.”

  “Mary has to stay.” Judy clutched Mary’s arm. “I want her here.”

  “She cannot.” Fiorella frowned. “Only you and I may be present.”

  Mary said, “She’ll take her chances, and everybody else can wait in the living room.”

  “I’ll be in the living room, no problem.” Anthony rose, but her father looked longingly at Mary’s mother, or more accurately, at the stove.

  “CAN I GET A MEATBALL TO GO, VEET?”

  “No, no, go! Come, Matty, Anthony, we go.” Her mother lowered the flame under the burners and wiped her hands hastily on her apron. It had taken her three hours to make homemade gnocchi, and now it would taste like wallpaper paste.

  Fiorella raised a hand. “Vita, before you leave, bring me what I need.”

  “Sì, sì.” Her mother hurried to the cabinet, extracted a white bowl, filled it with water, then placed it before Fiorella, who merely sniffed.

  “Vita, the olive oil should have come first. Get me the olive oil.”

  Judy shot Mary a look that said, Is she going to eat me?

  “Mi dispiace, sorry, Donna Fiorella.” Her mother turned to a shelf over the oven, grabbed a big tin of Bertoli olive oil, and toted it to the table.

  Fiorella frowned. “The olive oil must be the best.”

  “Is all we have, Donna Fiorella.” Her mother’s hands fluttered to her chest. “Is all we use.”

  “Leave, Vita.” Fiorella sighed heavily as her mother hurried from the kitchen. “Judy, place both hands on the table, with your palms down. Close your eyes. Mary, you, too.”

  Judy obeyed, but Mary tilted her head down and watched as Fiorella picked up the olive oil and poured some into the bowl. The oil spread over the water, forming a map of Italy, but that could’ve been Mary’s imagination.

  Fiorella said, “Judy, I’m preparing what I need to help you, but you must clear your head.”

  “My head is—”

  “Speak only when I tell you to. This is very important. Listen to me and clear your head.”

  Judy clammed up, and Mary watched as Fiorella stabbed the water with her scary thumbnail and swirled the oil and water together, though they didn’t mix. They were like, well, oil and water.

  “Now I will begin the prayer for you, for God to deliver you from the evil that threatens you.” Fiorella kept stirring the olive oil, making a culinary whirlpool. “I will say a secret prayer, known only to me. It will be in Italian, so you won’t understand it, but you are not meant to.”

  Mary suppressed an eye-roll as Fiorella reached over the table, made the Sign of the Cross on Judy’s forehead, and began praying softly, in dialect. Then she seemed to notice a stain on her dress, below her breast, and kept praying as she reached for her napkin, dipped it in a glass of water, and swabbed at the stain. When she had finally blotted it dry, she stopped praying.

  Mary frowned, disapproving. Fiorella couldn’t deliver a full-strength prayer if she was playing with her Armani. She wasn’t a witch queen, she was a designer fraud.

  “Ladies, open your eyes.” Fiorella’s lipsticked mouth curved into a smile. “Judy, you feel better now, don’t you?”

  “I do!” Judy blinked, then broke into a grin. “Thank you!”

  “Yes, thank you,” Mary managed to say, but now she was wondering about Fiorella Bucatina.

  And she worried that her parents were about to have bigger problems than mushy gnocchi.

  Chapter Eleven

  Bennie waited for the scratching to start again. It was driving her crazy, and she wondered if that was why Alice was doing it. Her palms stung from pounding on the lid. Her knees ached, her feet throbbed. Urine soaked the back of her skirt. The box reeked of sweat. She had a hard time breathing.

  She tried to get a grip on herself. Something about the scratching wasn’t like Alice, who always had a purpose for what she did, an angle she was working to get something she wanted. Alice was an excellent planner, she just didn’t dress like one.

  Bennie remembered at trial, toward the end, the prosecution had produced a surprise witness, the proverbial jailhouse snitch who falsely testified that Alice had admitted she’d killed the cop and later recanted. Bennie was sure that Alice had gotten her to take back her story. She confronted Alice, only to realize that she had engineered both days of testimony, the original confession and the recanting, which left the prosecution’s case in shambles. Although Bennie knew Alice wasn’t guilty of the murder, she hadn’t known Alice had her own back-up plan to ensure her acquittal. It showed Bennie just how long-range Alice’s plans could be, and how purposeful.

  Bennie frowned, coming out of her reverie to hear a new noise, a rumbling that sounded far away. She closed her eyes and tried to listen. It could have been a truck going by, but it didn’t disappear.

  Suddenly the scratching started again, but it was faster, which terrified her. If it wasn’t Alice scratching, what was it? And what was the rumbling? Were they the same thing, related or not?

  She started pounding and yelling again, fighting against the maddening noises, the confusion, and the pain.

  Chapter Twelve

  Alice walked to Bennie’s bedroom, tossed her cloth bag onto the bed, and unzipped it, just to take a peek inside. Packets of twenties, tens, and fives sat jumbled together, wrapped by rubber bands. It was ten grand total, which seemed like chump change after Bennie’s millions, but it was all in a day’s work for Alice. She’d started embezzling from PLG six months ago, and before she left the other day, she’d grabbed a few hundred from petty cash. The rest was profit from her business. She wondered if Bennie had any cash lying around.

  She walked to the dresser, where Bennie’s jewelry box sat open like a treasure chest. A passport lay on top, but the first tray held only a few pairs of hoop earrings and two gold bangles. She looked through the trays, but all that was left was silver jewelry, not even the good kind from Tiffany’s. She lifted up the tray and found a wad of bills. She grabbed the cash and counted over eight hundred bucks.

  Now we’re talking.

  She searched the top drawer, but all it contained were cotton bras and panties, the kind that came three-in-a-pack at CVS. She opened the next drawer; no hidden cash, only thick T-shirts stacked in messy piles. The third drawer had jeans and sweaters. She went back to the bed, put the money in the cloth bag, zipped it closed, and stowed it under the bed, for later. Then she crossed to the closet and opened the louvered doors. Blue suit, blue suit, khaki suit, khaki suit, and yet another khaki suit. Underneath that, brown and black pumps, and a huge pile of sneakers. She grabbed one of the khaki jackets and tried it on over her black tank, then went to the bathroom and checked her reflection in the mirror. She looked more Century 21 than Bennie Rosato, but it wasn’t her clothes that were the problem.r />
  She washed and dried her face, leaving leftover eyeliner on the towel. She wet her hair and rummaged through a bin of wide-tooth combs until she found a clip, then twisted her curls into a messy topknot, checking her reflection again.

  It was Bennie Rosato, looking back at her.

  Bingo.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mary sat in the passenger seat, with Anthony driving and Judy in the back, sticking her yellow head between the seats like a very golden retriever. “Can you believe her?” she said, after she’d told them about Fiorella. “She’s no witch queen. What a fake!”

  “I don’t get you, babe.” Anthony maneuvered around the double-parkers endemic to South Philly. “You knew she wasn’t for real.”

  “I know, but I thought she thought she was a witch queen, and now I don’t even think that!” Mary was confusing herself. “I don’t like her staying in my parents’ house, making my mother feel bad about herself. God knows what she’s up to. She might steal something.”

  “Right. Count the spatulas.” Anthony hit the gas, turning onto Broad Street, and Judy raised her hand.

  “Um, hello. She did cure my headache, Mare. How did she do that?”

  “She lucked out. My mother coulda done it, faster.”

  “Relax. I like your mother better, too. Anyway, if you ask me, the little flower was gettin’ her flirt on.”

  “I know, right? She was hitting on my father.”

  “Good luck with that.” Judy leaned closer. “How is Fiorella related to you anyway?”

  “She’s on my mother’s side, in Italy. I think she’s Little Uncle Geno’s wife, but he died.” Mary had long ago accepted that the DiNunzio family ties were a mystery. Her mother had two brothers, but Mary had thirty-six uncles. In the DiNunzio family, you qualified as an uncle if you were male, a family friend, and lived in the tri-state area.