CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

M ary sat, numb, in the backseat of the Prius, having taken the news like a physical blow. She couldn’t breathe a word of what Brinkley had told her to Anthony or his mother, because it wasn’t public knowledge. Luckily, the car radio was off, and the only sound was the familiar cadence of the back and forth between the two, who talked in the front seat, oblivious to what had taken place only ten blocks away.

Mary struggled to keep her composure, only half listening.

“How about Judy Garland?” Anthony was saying.

“Now she was a star, a real star. But Sue hates her, too.”

“Mrs. Ciorletti hates Judy?” Anthony scoffed. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Sue’s grumpy, but that’s just her way.”

“It’s called depression, Ma.”

“Nah. She just don’t like things, or people. Like Mary here. Sue don’t like her at all.”

“Ma!” Anthony said, embarrassed.

Mary’s ears pricked up. “Why not?” she asked, not that she really cared. Before Brinkley’s call, she’d cared.

“There’s a lotta talk about you, Mare, and it’s not very nice.”

“Ma, please,” Anthony said, looking over.

“Don’t be so fresh and don’t make that shut-up face. Mary knows I love her.” Elvira twisted around to the backseat, her coarse gray hair making a frizzy halo, backlit from a streetlight. “People are sayin’ that you forgot where you’re from, you know what I mean? It started all of a sudden, with Trish Gambone, because her mother told everybody that you wouldn’t help her and then it’s on the TV. They’re blamin’ you for what happened to her.”

Mary felt sick. She could only imagine what they’d say when they knew what had happened tonight.

“Then the other day, you stood Roberto up.”

“Roberto Nunez? You know him?”

“I don’t, but my camarr Linda does. She knows his son who used to buy life insurance offa her brother-in-law from St. Monica’s.”

Mary didn’t bother to follow it. Her head was starting to pound.

“I heard that you didn’t go to his case, or his trial, or whatever it was. You were too busy. You told him it wasn’t worth your time. You sent your secretary instead.”

Mary closed her eyes. It was like playing telephone.

“It’s like you’re gettin’ a bad rep, and it’s gonna get worse, with Dhiren.”

“Dhiren? What about Dhiren?” Mary asked, bewildered.

Anthony shook his head as the car cruised along, entering South Philly. “I told you this was a bad idea,” he said, hitting the gas.

Elvira harrumphed. “Don’t get me wrong, Mare. I stick up for you. But you didn’t get Dhiren outta that school, and now he’s up in the hospital. People will say you don’t care about the old neighborhood no more. That’s what Sue thinks. You’re Center City now.”

“It’s only ten blocks north, Elvira, and she’s wrong. They all are.”

“I know, that’s what I tell ’em. You and Celine Dion, I always fight for.”

“Okay, Ma, say good night.” Anthony stopped the car in front of the Rotunno house and after Mary had kissed Elvira good-bye, he got out to walk her up the steps. When he got back in the car, he asked Mary to come up front, and she took the passenger seat, stiffly. Anthony looked over, his smile warm in the darkness. “Please forgive her.”

“It’s okay.”

“Now I see what you meant at dinner the other night, about the neighborhood. Maybe I was too glib.” Anthony cocked his head. “You wanna get a coffee? Or go straight to the impound lot? Up to you.”

“Unfortunately, neither.” Mary tried to stay in control. She hardly knew him and she didn’t want to lose it now. “Can you take me somewhere else?”

“Sure, why?”

Mary gave him the address. “There’s been a murder.”

This section of the city was normally deserted after dark, but tonight it was alive with activity. The full moon was a bullethole in a black sky, and people filled the street. Anthony double-parked down the block, but almost before he braked, Mary was in motion, opening the car door, grabbing her bag, and climbing out onto the sidewalk. “Thanks,” she called out. “I’ll get my own ride home.”

“I’m coming with you.” Anthony unclipped his safety harness and got out of the car.

Mary hurried heedless into the crowd. People stood smoking and talking on the sidewalks, swigging beer from a can or watching the scene at the end of the street, their arms folded over their paunches. She threaded her way through them, toward where police cruisers had been parked and wooden barricades had been erected. She got to the uniformed cops behind the sawhorses and picked one, his face shadowed by the black patent bill of his cap, then went up to him.

“I’m a lawyer and I got a call from Mack Brinkley, and he told me to come down here right away.” Mary ducked under the barricade, and Anthony followed, until the cop grabbed him by the elbow.

“Wait a sec, sir.”

“Let him go, he’s with me.” Mary dug for her wallet and flashed her bar admission card, and the cop waved Anthony ahead, and he kept going.

“Thanks,” Anthony said, on her heels, and they passed groups of uniformed cops talking in tight circles, silhouetted in the headlights from the cruisers. Up ahead, she spotted the calcium white of klieg-lights and headed straight for them.

Ahead had to be where they’d found the body.

Mary screened out the noise and the curious stares and reached the TV lights, like electrified trees on their aluminum stands, with black cables that stretched like roots to boxy generators. The press was kept at bay behind the barricades, but they had cameras and lights, too, and she picked up the pace as she went toward the light, past the brick rowhouses, decrepit in this part of South Philly. On the right, next to a house with a sagging front porch, a tall, boxy white truck was parked, its side reading CRIME SCENE UNIT in reflective blue letters. The truck sat near the mouth of an alley, and Mary remembered Brinkley saying that the body had been dumped in the back of an alley.

“Almost there,” Mary heard herself say, her heart racing.

“Right behind you,” Anthony said, thinking she was talking to him, but she wasn’t. There was noise and talking around them but she didn’t hear it. She heard only her own heartbeat and the echo of Brinkley’s voice:

I have bad news. We got a body.

Mary felt her mouth go dry when she spied Brinkley, slim and well dressed, talking with a crowd of men in suits and loosened ties, undoubtedly from the DA’s office. He stood with his partner, Stan Kovich, big, brawny, and gray-blond, whom she remembered as open and friendly as Brinkley was reserved and self-contained. She made a beeline for them, giving a discreet wave to catch their attention, in case they didn’t want to acknowledge her in front of the suits.

Kovich bent his head over some notes, and Brinkley spotted her first, then broke from the group to meet her. A gleaming black van stood on her right, its white MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE letters shiny in the lights, more reflective paint. The two back doors of the van hung open. It meant the gurney was out, pressed into service for the body.

Mary had gotten here as fast as she could and she guessed they would be finishing up about now. The reporters swelled toward the barricades, sensing it, too. They held cameras high over their heads, trying to get the “bag shot.” Mary had been to some crime scenes, but not like this. Not where she knew the body.

“Mare, how you doin’,” Brinkley said quietly, reaching her. “Sorry we didn’t get there sooner. We could’ve prevented this.”

“You tried. We all did.” Mary forced herself to say it, but she knew she should have tried harder.

“You sure you can handle it? I thought you should know.”

“Sure.” Mary glanced over, distracted. More lamps had been set up inside the alley, flooding it with light. Men in ties and coroner’s assistants in dark blue jumpsuits crammed the alley, and others working at its mouth made shifting shadows, blocking Mary’s view of what lay beyond.