Lisa Scottoline - Lady Killer

Fifteen minutes later, they were back in another cab, with Mary giving another aged driver the address and the Mean Girls squeezing in the backseat. She took the seat up front again, feeling like the chaperone on a field trip of underachievers. She twisted around in the seat and eyed Giulia, whose red highlights blew in the breeze from the open window. “You did a good job, girl.”

“Hmph,” was Giulia’s only reply. She’d barely said a word since Mary had rebuked her in front of Fung.

“We helped, too,” Yolanda said, beside her, and Missy nodded.

“My feet are killin’ me from all that walkin’.”

“You all did great. Fung placed Trish’s departure in time and confirms our working theory.” Mary managed a smile, but Giulia still held her grudge. “By the way, I’m curious, did you guys know that they were sleeping in separate beds?”

“Get out.” Giulia came to life, her dark eyes wide.

“For real?” Yolanda asked, blinking.

“Why didn’t she tell us?” Missy raised a permanent eyebrow.

“That’s my question.” Mary looked to Giulia for the answer, and so did the others.

“I guess she was embarrassed?”

“Why?” Mary asked. “She told you they were having problems. She told you she wanted out, right?”

Giulia nodded, curls blowing in her face, and she speared one with a long nail and pushed it back.

“So, why?” Mary asked again.

Yolanda slid her gaze toward Giulia. “We woulda blabbed it.”

“We would not!” Giulia shot back. A frown folded in the shape of a pitchfork on her forehead.

“You woulda,” Missy said, and Mary let them fight it out, watching.

Giulia: “I can’t believe you said that, Miss! I wouldn’ta told nobody.”

Yolanda: “Who you kidding, G? You woulda told Joey.”

Giulia: “Well, yeah, Joey. I mean, whaddaya think, I’m married to the guy.”

Yolanda: “Just ’cause you’re married don’t mean you have to tell him everything.”

Giulia: “No? That’s why you’re divorced. Twice.”

Yolanda: “Whatever, Joey woulda told Tommy and Tommy woulda told Jerry and Jerry woulda told Johnny Three Fingers who woulda told Cooch, who hangs at Biannetti’s because he’s a wannabe. And Cooch woulda told the boys at Biannetti’s and T woulda gotten herself dead.”

The Mean Girls fell silent, suddenly chastened. Giulia said, “She’s right. That’s exactly what woulda happened. That’s why T didn’t tell us.”

Mary still didn’t get it. “But Trish told you that he roughed her up. Why is it okay to blab that and not that they had separate beds?”

Giulia snorted. “Hello? One makes him look like a man, and the other makes him look like a jerk.”

Mary didn’t have to ask which was which. She’d already learned more than she wanted to know about Trish’s world. They all fell silent again, and the cab lurched through the streets, the driver pretending he wasn’t watching the girls in the rearview and the traffic increasing as the noon rush approached. On the radio, KYW news was reporting still no suspects in the disappearance of baby Sabine Donchess, who turned out to be the only daughter of the Gentech CEO. Even the governor had weighed in, already calling it the crime of the century.

“Stupid baby,” Giulia muttered, looking out the window.

Mary changed the subject. “By the way, Trish did keep a diary.”

“No, she didn’t,” Giulia said, certain.

“Then what’s this?” Mary teased the diary from her purse, and the Mean Girls reached for it, talons outstretched.

“Gimme that!” Giulia said.

“What’d she say about me?” Yolanda asked.

“And me?” Missy asked.

“Sorry.” Mary slid the diary back into her purse, gloating like crazy. “I’m surprised at you guys. I would think you’d respect Trish’s privacy.”

“Oh, come on.” Giulia snorted. “You read it, didn’t you?”

“Of course, but I can. It’s covered by attorney-client privilege.” Sorta kinda.

“Gimme an effin break.” Giulia rolled her eyes.

“That doesn’t sound right,” Missy said.

“What a bunch a crap!” Yolanda said.

Mary turned back around in the seat, smiling to herself. “Maybe you should’ve been nicer to me in high school.”

The driver looked over, lifting an eyebrow.

H alf an hour later, they arrived at the police administration building, called the Roundhouse because it was a round concrete building, circa 1970s. The cab pulled to the curb, and Mary paid the driver while the Mean Girls piled out of the backseat and reached in their bags for their cigarettes.

“Okay, listen, kids,” Mary said. She stood downwind while they lit up. “I can only take one of you inside. But whoever comes with me has to behave.”

“What do you mean by ‘behave’?” Giulia cocked her head, eyes flinty behind the smoke.

“I do the talking, and you stop moping.”

“Whatever.” Giulia stepped forward, clearly an underboss to Trish’s capo di tutti capi.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“I’m not finished my cigarette.”

“Yes, you are.” Mary turned and walked toward the building through the parking lot, which buzzed with media covering the baby Donchess kidnapping. The case had been all over the cab radio on the way over, with audioclips of the parents pleading for her safe return. Reporters milled around, talking in groups, and cameramen sipped coffee, resting their videocameras on their shoulders.

“Mare, wait up!” Giulia hollered.

“G, catch up!” Mary hurried past a male TV anchor with orangey makeup and a paper towel folded into his shirt collar like a bib, doing sound checks with a logo microphone. She reached the smoked-glass entrance doors, opened them, and stopped at the plastic security window, manned by an older uniformed cop with an official smile. She introduced herself and said, “I’m here to see Detective Brinkley.”

“This about a homicide?”

“No, I’m a personal friend of Mack’s,” Mary said, using Detective Brinkley’s in-the-know nickname. She had worked a case with him not long ago, and they’d become friendly. He adored her mother and had even fixed her pilot light, but that was another story. The desk cop looked skeptically from Mary to Giulia, who appeared beside her.

“Who’re you?” he asked.

“My paralegal,” Mary answered, but Giulia was miffed.

“I’m no paralegal. I can walk.”

Oops. “She likes to joke around. I’ll sign us in, Officer.” Mary spun the clipboard toward her, signed them both in, and grabbed Giulia’s arm, hustling her to the metal detector.

“Don’t yank me around.” Giulia took her arm back. “Like I said, I can walk.”

“The deal was, say nothing. Capisce?” Mary got through the metal detector, entering a lobby crowded with uniformed police and other employees. She passed display cases of old police cars, but noticed that the clatter of stilettos had stopped. She looked back to see Giulia chatting up two cops, who were smiling down at her. Mary called out, “Giulia?”

“Comin’, Mare!” Giulia called back, looking over. She blew the cops a good-bye kiss and clacked to the elevator bank, her dark eyes reanimated. “Are they hot or what? How’s my makeup?”

“Permanent.” Mary hit the elevator button. “They friends of yours?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d you meet ’em?”

“They arrested me once.”

“Really?”

“Okay, twice,” Giulia said sheepishly, and the elevator doors opened.

Five minutes later, Mary was hugging her old friend, Reginald “Mack” Brinkley. Brinkley was typically well dressed in a brown sport jacket and khaki pants, with a crisp white shirt and shiny loafers. He hugged her back warmly, then held her off, smiling at her like her own father-if her father were tall, thin, and black.