“Dead. She was found murdered in her apartment the next day. I saw it in the papers. It was headlined in the
Daily News
. I saw at a newsstand in the airport just before I got a plane out of Philadelphia. It was supposed to be a rape-murder. They said the person was in her apartment waiting for her—like you were in mine.” She half laughed and half sobbed, wiping her eyes. “I figured you would have killed me already if you were one of them. They said some things were stolen, like her purse, jewelry. But I knew better. Vicki didn’t have any jewelry worth stealing. She was a simple person—a physical therapist just making ends meet. She tried to help me and she died. They killed her because they knew I told her what happened. They couldn’t get to me because I caught a cab from her apartment to the airport and got the first plane out. I knew I had to cover my tracks, so I went to a MAC machine with the card Vicki had given me and drew out as much cash as I could. I used cash to pay for everything. I went to Chicago, transferred to Memphis, Seattle, and then L.A. I rented a car and drove to Pasadena. I got a new driver’s license in L.A., ID, Social Security number, everything.” She laughed. “It’s amazing what you can do with cash. I bought Jane Welles, a thirty-two-year-old nurse, five feet seven inches, blond, blue eyes. And see, I even have her nursing diploma from Stanford University. Impressive, isn’t it?” she laughed tearfully.
No one said a word when she stopped. Donna reached into her purse for a cigarette. After lighting it, she drew in the smoke without inhaling. She offered the pack. “Want one? Don’t worry, these won’t kill you. If they know you’re here, you won’t have time to get cancer.” She paused. “So, Mr. Ceratto—what now?”
She exhaled. “Now that I’ve contaminated you with the information that’s going to get us all killed—do you still want me to testify?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Be at the Complex Litigation Center in Philadelphia at the Wanamaker Building on Friday at nine a.m.” He held out his hand. “Gimme one of those.” He took a cigarette from the offered pack, put it in his mouth, and then guided Donna’s hand with the lit match as she held it to the tip.
Rudi had heard the match being struck and Nick drawing in on the cigarette as he watched the black sedan from his hotel room across the street. Everything had gone according to plan. He had been on a six a.m. flight out of Philadelphia, ahead of Ceratto by two hours. After locating the Jane Welles apartment, he had only needed twenty minutes to install the digital bug and transmitter that had transmitted everything said in Donna Price’s apartment to the laptop in Rudi’s hotel room. The laptop had, in turn, transmitted in real time over the Internet to the conference room computer at Silvio and Levin, P.C.
Rudi had been able to watch them carefully from the moment they had stepped out of the car and had broken into the gate and gone to the third floor apartment. He chuckled at the amateurish comings and goings of Nick, Grace, and the stupid hood. Probably couldn’t shoot straight if his life depended on it, he thought. It was clear that they were all amateurs. His high-powered telescope picked up every movement made from the outside, and the bug picked up every sound from inside. His equipment was the best— state-of-the-art, the envy of spies the world over. They were the tools of his trade, expensive and worth every penny he paid to contacts who inventoried equipment for the CIA.
Silvio and Levin were ecstatic, high-fiving each other. This bitch had eluded them for two years, and now they had the break they had been waiting for. They had paid Jerry Fisher handsomely for the information he had given to Grace. Fisher had become suspicious when Grace had asked him to say nothing to anyone at the firm. Loyal to the source that always paid his inflated bills, he went to Silvio to find out what was going on. He was paid a hundred
times the normal rate for this address and the phone number to match.
Rudi saw the elevator door open on the ground level as the threesome emerged. He typed a simple command into the laptop. The screen flickered for a second and then filled with a view of the interior of Donna Price’s apartment, transmitted from the cigarette package sized box that he had taped under the coffee table when he had placed the bug in the overhead light. The lens, the size of a pin head and the thin fiber-optic filament connecting it to the transmitter was invisible as it lay under the lip of the table, but it showed a 180-degree view of the room. He watched, fascinated as he saw Donna close the door behind them.
Donna’s nightmare had become a reality. She pulled the barrette from her hair and sat on the sofa, looking bewildered. She unlaced her white shoes, and then undressed down to her bra and panties. She lay on the sofa and closed her eyes. Her long, blond hair spread out loosely over the sofa arm. Her body was white and sinewy, a Nordic type, much like Christy Maglio’s.
He found the type beautiful. It was pure. It was cold and distant.
Shame
, he thought. The cell phone rang. “Yeah,” he said. “Good stuff, right? I know what you want, but I can’t be two places at the same time. So who do you want me to do first?” He smiled as he received his orders. “Fine. Consider it done.”
Mike Rosa flipped his copy of the
Raiders
video cassette over on his desk as he talked to Muriel Gates on the telephone
.
It was tagged with an orange label marked “MAGLIO.”
“I think we have to work together on this one, Muriel. Our suspicion right now is that Maglio was murdered. The powder burns were on his
right
hand. He was left-handed. No way could he handle a gun with his right hand. I had forgotten about it until recently, until I saw the videotape of him—yes, I was his friend. I also went to law school with him. We used to kid him about being a lefty. When he broke his left arm in a softball game and tried to write with his right hand, his classroom notes were illegible. Even
he
couldn’t read them.”
“Where’s the connection with the Lopez murder?” she challenged. “I just don’t see it, Mike. Just because she worked in the same office doesn’t mean all the deaths are connected. Your guy and his family lived in a mansion in Gladwyne. My lady lived in a ghetto. Her purse was stolen and then emptied. I understand that none of the Maglio possessions were missing.”
Gates eyed the pretty young woman sitting on the couch across from her desk. She was dressed in tight jeans and a pink angora cable-knit turtleneck. Gates couldn’t wait to get her hands on all that soft material and what was under it.
“True. But we have a suspiciously blank video tape in the security system,” Rosa quickly responded.
“But there was no burglary, right?”
“Right.”
“Well that’s enough for me. Case closed.” She wanted the pretty woman.
“Muriel, you’re going to look like shit if my investigation leads to a connection you’re ignoring. The press will devour you. And
how will it look come campaign time? The Republicans will call you incompetent. Or better yet, they accuse you of conspiracy. You know how those law-and-order types can be, and how far they’ll go.
“You threatening me, Rosa?” The DA frowned deeply and her voice dropped an octave. She wanted to pull him through the phone line and squeeze his neck until his eyes popped.
“No, Gates. I’m warning you. This case is a lot bigger than you think. And I’m asking for your help—as politely as I can. I want to work with you, not against you. I don’t want to step on your toes. That’s why I’m talking to you first and not the attorney general— not just yet. But I will if I have to, and you’ll wind up looking like a smacked ass if I do.”
Rosa knew that he had gotten her attention. She hadn’t interrupted him, and then there was silence when he finished. Did she have nothing to say for the first time in the fifteen years he had known her? Was that possible? “Muriel, you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
Prick
, she thought.
He has me where he wants me.
Then she thought again. “Let me think about what you’re asking.”
“No, Muriel. What I’m
telling
you is that you have twenty-four hours to pick up the ball before I call the attorney general. I’d like to tell him you’re cooperating on this case.”
“I need to look at the file again.”
“Files, Muriel.
Files
.”
“What do you mean—
files
?” She crumpled the Styrofoam cup she had been holding, wishing it were Rosa’s neck that she was squeezing.
“Maria Elena Maglio is one you should look at.”
“Who?”
“Muriel, aren’t you aware that she was Joe’s relative—his cousin to be exact. She’s a Maglio. Her last name was Maglio. Doesn’t that ring a bell with you?”
“The hit and run? The girl who was run over by a gypsy cab that fled the scene and couldn’t be traced? You think that was intentional—that was a murder?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why? Because her last name was the same as Joe’s?”
“No—because she knew too much, that’s why. She came to the States to do her own investigation since we weren’t interested, she said. Committing suicide and murdering one’s own wife and kids is frowned on there, especially by the Catholic Church, and particularly within Italian families. It’s a disgrace the family carries with it forever. She wanted his name cleared to protect their name and reputation.”
“Mike, this is all too much, right now. You know—conspiracy around every corner, Italian culture mandates and their sense of justice. But I promise to pull the files if that’ll make you happy”— she exaggerated the
s
in
files
—“and I’ll get back to you tomorrow. Does that satisfy you?”
“Tomorrow morning, OK? Get your staff to do some work for a change.” He thought that would get her blood pressure up and that she’d react in her normal, loud-mouthed, pushy fashion.
Instead, she chuckled. “By the way, Rosa, how did you know all this about the woman? Her mission, her purpose, and all that?”
“Because I met with her, personally. She came to me for help.”
The DA laughed deeply. “I see. And on how many occasions did you meet with her?”
“None of your business,” he snapped. Rosa was about to sign off and avoid Gates’ verbal abuse. He had touched a nerve and knew she wanted to touch his.
“Did you fuck her, Mike?” she laughed.
“What the Christ are you asking, Muriel? If you’re trying to piss me off, you are. What I do with my personal life is none of your goddamn business. Do I ask you which woman you’re sleeping with?”
Rosa’s blood boiled. He hated the bitch. Had she sensed his personal involvement? Had she picked up on his tone when he talked about Maria Elena? Had she read his mind? Had she had Maria followed? Was he just transparent, or did she actually know?
“Oh, touchy, touchy,” she said mockingly and winking at the young woman. “Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. Sorry, Rosa. I just had to give you some of your own medicine.”
“I’ll expect your call by nine a.m. tomorrow.” Rosa hung up, wondering what the dyke had up her sleeve. And why would she have asked him that question? That is, unless she knew much more than he gave her credit for.
“He’s going to stir up a lot of shit,” Gates said, getting up from her desk and walking over to the couch.
“I know,” Margo Griffin responded, kissing Muriel Gates’ caressing hand as it swept across her pink angora sweater.
It had been a terrible trip. The seat belt sign lit again, as it had throughout most of the miserable flight. But this time it signaled that the plane was finally going to land after circling JFK for an hour. There were mounds of snow piled up along the recently plowed runway, which was quickly becoming slick with fine snow mixed with ice. Nick Ceratto simply stared out of the window into the blackness, not really caring whether the fucking thing crashed. He was too tired and too strung out to worry about a simple thing like an air disaster. The Boeing 747 finally touched down and fought to stay on the runway as its brakes engaged, slowing the forward motion of the aircraft.
Shoes was joyous. A large smile crossed his face, pulling at his jaw—sore from his incessant gum chewing. He had been hesitant about boarding in California when it was announced that their flight out would be delayed at least three hours due to the weather along the East Coast. Four inches of snow had already fallen, and they were expecting six more along with high winds and temperatures in the single digits. Not a nice picture. But Shoes thought about home, the guys on the corner at Eighth and McKean, the Melrose Diner, his mother’s meatballs, and how pissed DiCicco would be if he stayed behind and something happened to Ceratto. He would never get to eat another dish of penne with asparagus, a favorite that his mother made for him every Friday.
Grace thanked God for bringing her and her unborn child safely back to earth. She squeezed the rosary in her pocket, and when the plane rocked to a stop, she said a special prayer of thanks to Saint Christopher, patron saint of travelers. It wasn’t that she was afraid of flying. It was flying in horrible weather that scared her.
The seat belts started to click open, but Nick, deep in thought, didn’t budge until Grace gently nudged him. She was worried about him and how he would handle the dilemma he found himself in.