Lisa Scottoline - Lady Killer

“Oh, you don’t need the yearbook for that. I’ll just print you out a copy from the database. It’ll only take a minute or two.”

Uh-oh. “Great. Well, maybe, I’ll just look at the books anyway, for fun.”

“Go right ahead. Now, you want both Goretti and Neumann addresses for your year, correct?”

“Yes, thanks.” Mary set the Goretti yearbook aside and reached for the Neumann yearbook. She opened the book and thumbed through it quickly, the front section a black-and-white flip book of grinning boys, nuns, and coaches. She slowed when she got to the next section. Sports. Bobby had played football, and she turned the pages until she saw him, front and center, in the team photo.

“Here we go,” Mrs. Edgar said, half to herself. “I’ll just print this and you’re good to go.”

“Thank you.” Mary looked at Bobby’s football photo, ignoring the catch in her throat. It was so hard to believe he was really gone, or that he’d grow up to be a monster. In the picture, he stood tall in a black-and-gold football uniform, grinning self-consciously and holding the football, displaying the old-fashioned Wilson script. The team grinned in a say-pizza way, and Mary scanned the young faces, none of which was familiar. Who would have been his friends, back then?

Mrs. Edgar was saying, “I see your name and address in the database. Do I have them correct?” She read off the name and address.

“Yes, right.” Mary eyed the photos, her memories coming back. She never went to football games at Neumann and didn’t travel in the jock crowd. She didn’t recognize any of them except for Bobby. She read the names under the front row of the photo: J. Ronan, M. Gordon, R. Mancuso, G. Chavone, B. Turbitt. None of the first names was listed, and none of the last names jogged her memory. She wracked her brain. Chavone maybe, but she didn’t remember that he was Bobby’s friend.

Mrs. Edgar was saying, “We’ve been sending you the materials for Spirit Day, the walkathon, and the new journalism scholarship. Did you get them?”

“Yes, thanks.” Mary flipped through the yearbook, looking for Bobby among the candids of boys in plastic goggles in chem lab or hanging in the hall. He wasn’t in any of the activities photos, either. She skipped to the back of the book, to the seniors’ individual photos, and turned pages until she found the M’s. Robert Mancuso.

“I see that we have an office address for you, and it’s a law firm. Are you a lawyer, dear?”

“Yes.” Mary looked at Bobby’s senior photo. His eyes were clear and his smile broad, and her gaze dropped to the caption he’d written: Wildwood forever! Shout out to the Bad To The Bone Gang-Jimmy 4G, PopTop, and Scuzzy! We’re history!

“I ran into Sister Helena in the office while I was fetching those yearbooks, and she remembered you fondly. She had to go, but sends her love to you and your parents. She said you’d been in all the papers, apparently involved with another Goretti grad, who’s gone missing. Are you she? The famous lawyer?”

“Not exactly.” Mary hid her excitement, not over the alumnae lists, but over the caption of Bobby’s senior photo. Jimmy 4G, PopTop, and Scuzzy had to be Bobby’s three best friends. Now that the caption had jarred her memory, she recalled him talking about a Jimmy. She flipped backward to the G surnames and scanned them, but there was no last name that started with a G that also had Jimmy or James as a first name.

Mrs. Edgar continued, “I’m not surprised that you’re a big success, of course. So many of our Goretti girls have gone on to be professionals. Doctors, lawyers. Kathy Gandolfo, you know, the TV newscaster, she went here.”

“Really.” Mary considered the Jimmy 4G problem. So it was a nickname, not a last name. She flipped back and scanned the pictures of the Jimmys until she found one with the last name she recognized. Waites. Jimmy Waites had to be Bobby’s friend. She had no idea what the G stood for, but it didn’t matter. She made a mental note.

“By the way, Mary, I notice that you haven’t made a contribution to the school in quite some time. We have so many items on our wish list. We need computers, and desks for one room are $5000. Audio-visual equipment is $1000, and we still need $6000 to paint the cafeteria.”

“Really, hmm.” Mary tuned her out, searching for the other two of Bobby’s friends, cross-checking their senior photos to see if they mentioned him. She skimmed the first names and found one. Paul Meloni. He mentioned the Bad to the Bone gang, too. Bingo!

“Of course, if those amounts aren’t within your means, we’d be happy for any amount you can spare. It all adds up, and I know you understand that much of your professional success is due to the education and values you learned here.”

“I sure do,” Mary said, but she was turning the pages, looking for Scuzzy.

“So, do you think you’re in a position to make a contribution? I hate to be so direct, but it’s rare that I get a captive in my office. You’re like the little fly in my web.” Mrs. Edgar laughed. “May I put you down for a hundred dollars?”

Mary lucked out on the next page. John Scaramuzzo. He had to be Scuzzy. She set down the yearbooks, having identified all three members of the Bad to the Bone gang. She felt like cheering. “Yes!”

“Wonderful!” Mrs. Edgar turned to the printer, slid out some sheets, and handed her the address lists, across the desk. “Don’t forget these.”

“Thanks so much.” Mary could barely hide her excitement, and Mrs. Edgar beamed.

“You’re welcome. Now, did you bring your checkbook, dear?”

Huh? Mary blinked.

Fifteen minutes later, she burst through the front doors of the school with the addresses, a hundred bucks lighter.

Hurrying from her past into her present.

M ary found it almost impossible to believe that the short, overweight accountant in a Bluetooth and an Italian suit was Jimmy 4G Waites. He had a salesman’s grin, but had aged more than his thirty-odd years; two deep wrinkles divided his eyebrows, and soft jowls draped his mouth like a pug’s. His hair was almost gone, with a brown-gray fringe encircling a thick, flattish head.

“I understand, but you’re not hearing me.” Waites spoke to the air, his brown eyes darting around the large, bright office, alighting on nothing in particular. “You wouldn’t be doing this if he wasn’t a friend. He’s asking you to invest five mil? Tell him you’re comfortable with one. You can afford to lose one.”

Mary waited in a leather sling chair opposite a glistening glass desk. The accounting firm had three floors in swanky Mellon Center, and Waites’s office was beautifully appointed with Danish modern furniture. A huge square of window overlooked the mirrored skyline, the reflections of the skyscrapers dull in the overcast sky. Mary had introduced herself to Waites’s secretary as an old high school friend, and Waites had gestured her in just as he picked up the phone, waving his fleshy hand with enthusiasm, thinking she was someone he was supposed to recognize.

Waites was saying, “Then if it doesn’t work out, which we know it probably won’t, you two stay friends. I always say, you can have bad deals with good people, but you can’t have good deals with bad people. Got it? Good. See ya.” He pressed his Bluetooth to hang up. “Sorry about that.”

“That’s okay.” Mary introduced herself. “I went to Goretti, graduated the same year you did, from Neumann.”

“You look familiar.”

“I had braces, glasses, and an inferiority complex.”

Waites laughed. “That makes two of us.”

“But I’m here about Bobby Mancuso.”

Waites’s smile faded. “I read that he was killed last night. I couldn’t believe it.”