Lisa Scottoline - Lady Killer

“No.” Mary got up with her plate. “You’re the guest and you have nice clothes on.”

“Let me, I like to.” Anthony slipped one of her mother’s flowered aprons from the handle on the oven, and tied it around his waist. He grinned. “Too gay?”

“Nah.” Mary laughed again. Actually, she loved the look. What was it about men in aprons? It was so homey, and in some odd way, kind of sexy. Maybe because it meant that somebody else was doing all the work?

“So.” Anthony turned on the water. “You didn’t mind me barging in?”

“No. I wanted to apologize, too, for not calling you right back.”

“You weren’t blowing me off? ‘You broke my heart, Fredo.’”

“Ha!” Mary turned back to the table, ostensibly for the other dishes, but she didn’t want him to see her smiling. She felt a little dorky and worried that she had gravy spots on her glasses, spaghetti blowback.

“I knew you were busy, saving the neighborhood.”

“Well, just one, who I’m not sure deserved it, anyway.”

“We both knew that.”

“I guess,” Mary said, but didn’t elaborate. Her doubts were confidential, and she didn’t want to spoil her nice mood. Maybe that’s what moving on meant, but she didn’t know. She hadn’t done it before. She took more plates to the sink and set them on the counter. “I decided I was right about the neighborhood, by the way.”

“Funny, so did I.” Anthony rinsed a dish, making a landslide of tomato sauce. “I think you were right. That’s what community is. People taking care of each other.”

“Really.”

“That’s what you said.”

“It is?” Was I drunk? “I mean, it is.”

“So you know what I did?”

“What?” Mary stood beside Anthony, their arms almost touching, side by side at the sink. She felt as if they were playing house, and it wasn’t uncomfortable, but natural. He seemed to warm to it, too. It was the sort of domestic vibe that would have sent most men running, but not this one.

Anthony said, “I know some people in the psychology department at school. They put me in touch with the chairman of the department, Dr. Rhonda Pollero. She specializes in educational testing of younger children and she agreed to test Amrita’s son as a favor to me.”

“Really?” Mary felt a rush of gratitude, and Anthony looked down at her with a smile.

“She’s one of the biggest experts in the country, and she’ll even come down from New York, as soon as Dhiren’s well enough.”

“That was so nice of you.” Mary felt touched, as if Anthony got her in some fundamental way. In the next minute, he leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips, as if he’d been doing that all his life. His kiss left her standing on tiptoe, and when she opened her eyes, he was smiling sweetly.

“Cara mia,” he said softly, in Italian.

“My dear,” it meant, in English.

Mary liked the sound of it, either way.

M ary was cleaning up her bedroom when she got a call on the cell, but she didn’t recognize the number. She picked up. “Yes?”

“Mare, it’s me.” Trish sounded panicky.

“Did the feds call?”

“Yeah, they wanna meet with me tomorrow.”

Yikes! Mary wished she knew more about dealing with the FBI, and now she couldn’t call Bennie.

“I can’t talk to them. I’m sure the boys are watchin’ me. If they think I’m gonna snitch, I’m dead.”

“I know, relax. We can deal with this.” I hope.

“You’re the one who convinced me to come back. You’re the one who convinced me to go to the cops.”

“You did the right thing, Trish.”

“You were at the funeral home. You saw. Everybody’s crazy right now. All of ’em, on edge. That’s when people get dead.”

“Where are you?” Mary asked, bearing down.

“At my mom’s.”

Mary checked her watch. Eight o’clock. “I’m leaving now,” she said, tense, and went back outside, not completely surprised to find it raining.

Half an hour later, she was standing in the dark drizzle on the Gambones’ front stoop, and Mrs. Gambone opened the door. She looked tense, her affect flat, and she wore a dingy pink tracksuit with Uggs knockoffs. In her hand, she held a long brown cigarette that trailed smoke.

“Mare, thanks a lot for comin’.” Mrs. Gambone admitted Mary to the living room. “I appreciate you helpin’ out.”

“No problem.”

“You can’t let her go to the FBI. She won’t live another day.” Mrs. Gambone smoothed her hair into an old denim scrunchy, and she had no makeup on, showing a weepy puffiness around her eyes.

“Don’t worry. Where is she?”

“Upstairs in her room.” Mrs. Gambone gestured with her cigarette, making a smoke snake.

“Thanks.” Mary crossed the darkened room, more contemporary than her parents’, with blue-patterned couches and chairs under a rectangular mirror. She climbed the staircase, and at the top was an opened door, with light spilling from it into the dark hallway. “Trish?”

“In here.”

Mary entered the small bedroom, which was like stepping into the past. A girl’s bed with a pink chenille coverlet stood out from the wall on the right, and plush animals sat in a saggy little line on the bed. On the bedpost hung a mortarboard, dangling its Goretti tassel. There was an undersized wooden desk, and a bulletin board on the wall, which had black felt varsity letters thumbtacked to the top and an array of old photographs, mostly pictures of Bobby. Mary looked away.

“What took you so long?” Trish asked, sitting up. She’d been flopped on the bed, reading a magazine. The light from an undersized lamp on the night table showed her eyes as swollen as her mom’s. “Close the door behind you.”

Mary closed the door. “How you doin’?” She pulled a wooden chair out from under the desk.

“How do you think I’m doin’?” Trish sniffled, smoothing back her dark hair, flowing loose to her shoulders. She had on a black Eagles sweatshirt that read Division Champions and she somehow made it look sexy. “The government’s after me.”

“They’re just sending a feeler, so don’t overreact.”

“Easy for you to say.” Trish crossed her legs in skinny jeans. She was barefoot, and her pedicure was perfect. “Your ass isn’t on the line.”

“Okay, so who called and what did he say?”

“Name was Kiesling. He said he wanted to come and talk to me tomorrow.”

Mary remembered. The FBI agent she had met that night at the Roundhouse. “What did you say?”

“I told him, no, I don’t know anything, and he said they could subpoena me. Is that true?”

“I think so, but like I told you in the car, I don’t have a lot of experience with this. Tomorrow, let me make some calls and get you another lawyer, one who specializes in this kind of thing.”

“So you’re really dumpin’ me?”

“Trish, I’m not the best lawyer for you. I’d be doing you a disservice-”

“Good loyalty,” Trish snapped, her mouth twisting into an ugly sneer.

Loyalty? Mary couldn’t help but chuckle. She flashed on Giulia, then her cheating husband Joe.

“Why is that funny?”

“Nothing.”

“No, what?” Trish shot back, itching for a fight. “You laughed.”

Mary kicked herself for reacting. The girl was under stress.

“You don’t think I’m loyal?” Trish put a spiky acrylic nail to her chest. “I’m totally loyal. I’m a loyal girl. I went to you when I needed a lawyer because I knew you from school.”

Also you thought I’d give you a discount.

“I’ve had the same friends for, like, thirty years. G, Yo, and Missy, we go way back. G is my best friend from, like, when we were two.”