Lisa Scottoline - Lady Killer

“Don’t talk to me that way!” Mrs. Gambone yelled back, straining her voice and setting her neck veins bulging. “You’re scum, Mare, pure scum!”

“Mary’s a big shot now!” a man shouted from the dining room, and the crowd murmured in angry assent. All that was missing were the burning torches, and Mary felt like Frankenstein with a law degree. If she wasn’t Responsible For The Neighborhood, somebody forgot to tell the Neighborhood.

“Let me explain,” Mary began, but Mrs. Gambone cut her off with a hand chop.

“My daughter came to you for help. You coulda helped her but you didn’t! Now she’s gone!”

“I wanted to help her,” Mary almost cried out, as the words hit home.

“She knew he was gonna kill her and now he did. She’s gone!” Mrs. Gambone’s lower lip trembled. “I told her to go to you. She didn’t know what to do. She was too scared to leave him. But you didn’t lift a finger! You didn’t care what happened to her!”

“Mrs. Gambone, I did care. I wanted her to go to court and I went to the Roundhouse today-”

“Yeah, right, and you yelled at Giulia because she went on TV! She’s tryin’ to save my baby’s life. Why didn’t you help my Trish? If you had done something, she’d be home now. All safe.”

No, no. Mary felt stricken. It was true. Once she set aside her lawyerly rationalizations, the fact remained that she was the one Trish had gone to for help.

“She called me, last night, but I musta missed the call. She left a message, she said he was gonna kill her, she said where she was, but it was all static.”

“What?” Mary couldn’t process it fast enough. “Please, slow down and tell me what happened.”

“What do you care?” Mrs. Gambone shot back. “I told the police, they know. She called me for help. She said he was with her, he was going to kill her. Then he grabbed the phone. She didn’t have time to talk, she said he was comin’ right back in the room.”

“What time did she call you?”

“It was around ten o’clock she called, but I didn’t get her message till today. I must not a heard the phone, sometimes it’s weird, it don’t get messages right away.” Mrs. Gambone’s voice broke, anguished. “I came here because I wanted your family to know what you did to my daughter. She’s all I had, all I had, and he took her! She’s gone!” Mrs. Gambone’s eyes welled up. “My beautiful, beautiful baby. My only baby, my little girl.”

Mary felt her heart break. Her father, her mother, and the crowd fell silent, stunned by the depth of Mrs. Gambone’s agony, raw and unvarnished, echoing in the quiet house.

“Can you know…what that feels like? To be a mother, and your baby…your baby’s gone?” Mrs. Gambone finally broke down, and her ladyfriends supported her as she sagged, still trying to speak. Suddenly, she banged her fist on the kitchen table in sheer frustration, and the force of her hand jostled a cup of coffee sitting next to the christening dresses. Before anybody could stop it, the cup tipped over and coffee spilled on the pristine white dresses.

“No!” Mary yelped.

“Dio!” Her mother plucked the tiny dresses from the table, but it was too late. The espresso soaked instantly into the soft cotton, even as she hurried them to the sink. Mary sprang to her side, twisting on the cold water.

“I didn’t mean it…I’m sorry,” Mrs. Gambone said, her tears subsiding.

“We’ll pray for you and your daughter,” her father said softly. He handed her some napkins from a plastic holder, and the ladyfriend accepted them for Mrs. Gambone, who turned miserably away and left the kitchen under support, followed by the crowd. They found their way out the front door, closing it behind them, and only then did Mary notice that her mother was chewing her lower lip in an effort not to cry.

“I’m sorry, Ma. So sorry.” Mary couldn’t do anything but stand by her mother’s side at the sink and hug her.

“S’all right, Maria, s’all right.” Her mother ran cold water over the soggy white clump until her knobby knuckles turned red, but the coffee stains had already set. All four dresses were ruined.

“Aww, Veet.” Her father came over and rubbed her mother’s back. “Maybe we put a lil’ bleach and it’ll come out?”

“No, no, no,” her mother said, shaking her head, washing the dresses and trying not to cry. “No, the dress, they no matter. I no like what they say about my Maria. That hurts my heart.”

“What’s going on?” came a new voice, and Anthony appeared in the kitchen, his dark eyes wide as he took in the scene.

“Ma, it’s okay, it’s all okay.” Mary gathered her mother in her arms, meeting Anthony’s eye. Surprisingly, his pained expression mirrored her own.

Half an hour later, the four of them were sitting at the kitchen table, trying to get back to normal. The christening dresses soaked in the cellar in a pot of cold water and Clorox, and the kitchen table was set with spaghetti, hot sausage, and meatballs. Steam from the plate, carrying the comforting aromas of fresh basil and peppery sausage, warmed Mary’s face. She was trying not to be bothered by the fact that Anthony was sitting in Mike’s old chair, or that her parents seemed overly happy it was filled again.

Her father twirled his spaghetti against his plate. “So you and Mare were out to dinner, huh?”

“Yes,” Anthony answered, suppressing a smile. “This is one of the more unusual first dates I’ve ever had.”

Mary smiled, uncomfortably. He was a sweet guy, but she didn’t know if she was ready for him to sit in Mike’s chair. Or maybe she was upset at everything that happened. The image of Mrs. Gambone, weeping, would stay with her always. She’d already called Brinkley and left two more messages for him, hoping that he wasn’t boycotting her. It made her feel guilty to be enjoying a meal. What had she been thinking, going out to dinner while Trish was still missing? The neighborhood was judging her, no more harshly than she judged herself.

“Mary doesn’t see anybody,” her father said, and Mary looked up.

“Pop. Please.”

“It’s all right. I don’t either.” Anthony stabbed a meatball with a fork. His sport jacket hung over the back of the chair, and he tucked a napkin in his collar, as if he’d eaten here before. He turned to her mother, who’d finally sat down to her meal. “These meatballs are great, Mrs. D.”

“Grazie molto,” her mother said, brightening.

“Prego.” Anthony caught Mary’s eye, and she faked a smile. He didn’t know her mother well enough to be calling her Mrs. D. Judy didn’t call her mother Mrs. D until she’d known her for a year, or after twenty-seven spaghetti dinners.

“Parli Italiano, Antonio?” her mother asked, cocking her head.

Mary couldn’t shake her disapproval. Her parents were practically offering Anthony the house keys.

“Si, si,” he answered. “Ho insegnato all’Università di Bologna per tre anni.”

“Excuse me,” Mary interrupted, rising with her BlackBerry. “I want to call the Roundhouse again.”

“Sure, Mare,” her father said, and she could feel his puzzled gaze on her back as she left.

She entered the darkened dining room, pressed Redial for the Homicide Division, and listened to the inevitable busy signal while the conversation resumed in the kitchen. She was in no hurry to go back into the light and the warmth and the family around the table, with all the chairs filled. For the time being, she sat alone in the dark.

Beep beep beep, went the busy signal.

It wasn’t until ten o’clock that Mary and Anthony got back to Center City and the silvery Prius cruised to a stop on her skinny back street. Her end of the street was dark, and everybody was inside, the windows aglow. Unlike South Philly, nobody here hung out on stoops talking or trading gossip, and everyone had quit smoking. Center City was just off the business district, revitalized by the city’s young professionals. It was a neighborhood, too, but one formed by gym memberships and gourmet muffins, both less constant than church parishes and blood ties. Mary had been trying to feel at home here for years.