“I don’t understand why you’re so on his side, all of a sudden. Please recall, off the record, that he was abusive. Inhuman. A killer. You had a terrified woman crying in your office. I’m not feeling for him, are you?”

The words hit home. Mary was feeling for him, but she couldn’t tell Judy why.

“You’re way too involved with these people. It’s like you forgot your own life. You live in a different world from them now. They’re your past. They’re high school. They’re the past.” Judy threw up her hands. “I went to three different high schools. I can’t remember the name of even one of my classmates.”

“And I can’t forget them.”

“I’m the army brat who never stayed put, and you’re the home-town girl who never moved away.” Judy smiled, more gently. “But you went to college, then law school. You got a chance to reinvent yourself and stop being who you were in high school.” Her tone grew reflective. “The Mean Girls never got that chance, so they don’t understand. You’re not the loser they remember. You’re a lawyer now. You got a life.”

It rang true, but Mary couldn’t get past it. Somewhere inside, she sensed that she’d never get past it unless she started to look the truth in the eye, and that couldn’t happen unless she came clean. She’d told Anthony about Bobby. Why couldn’t she tell Judy?

“You gotta get your ass back into the office and beg Bennie for your job. Go in and face the music.” Judy leaned over the table, on her elbows. “I didn’t bring you up with Bennie, but I know she feels bad about what happened, I can tell.”

Mary wasn’t thinking about her job, she was thinking about what would have been her baby, and Bobby’s. Now he and the baby were gone, and she owed it to them both to find his real killer. She realized then that was why she’d cared so much.

“Bennie’s trial’s over, and the jury should be back on Monday. If she wins, she’ll be in a much better mood. She’ll listen to reason.”

“I don’t know if I can do it,” Mary said, after a minute, only because Judy was looking at her so expectantly, for a response.

“I know you can. Don’t worry. I’ll go in with you. I’ll be right there.”

Mary felt tears come to her eyes, at the offer.

“What?”

Mary couldn’t speak for a minute, her eyes filling.

“You didn’t know that? Of course I would do that, sweetie.” Judy put her hand across the table, and Mary swallowed hard, then took her hand.

“I have something to tell you, something very bad.”

“Like what?”

“I had an abortion,” Mary blurted out, before she lost her nerve. For a minute, Judy remained motionless. They both did, as if the words cast a spell on them both, freezing them in a girlfriend nightmare.

“You did?” Judy asked, after a moment, her voice quiet.

“I went out with Bobby in high school and I was so happy he asked me.” Mary tried to stop her lips from trembling, but it didn’t work. “And later, in the car, we were making out and he kind of pushed the issue and told me something about his blue balls or whatever and then we sort of, we sort of, we had sex, and I got pregnant. It was my first time.”

“That’s so terrible,” Judy said, her voice hushed, but Mary felt her heart breaking inside.

“I’m afraid you won’t be my friend anymore.” A deep sob gave way, and Mary’s nose began leaking like crazy, and while she wiped it with her greasy napkin, she heard the chair across the table move, the clogs clomp across the hardwood floor, and in the next second, Judy put her arms around her, hugging her.

“I’ll always be your friend, Mare.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You know what I love about you, Mare?”

“What?”

And Judy answered: “Everything.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

T he next morning, Mary picked out her best suit and hung it on the closet doorknob, feeling somber and wretched after a terrible night’s sleep. She didn’t know how she’d get through what lay ahead. She’d showered, put in her contacts, and blew out her hair for the occasion, though she tried not to think about where she was going. She took the black crepe jacket from the hanger and put it on, and the lovely fabric slipped chilly over her skin. Anne had made her buy the fitted Prada suit, and Mary usually felt like a million bucks in it, maybe because that’s what it cost.

She buttoned up the three buttons to the jacket, then took the skirt from the hanger and stepped into it barefoot, zipping it up on the side. She wondered who would be dressing Bobby this morning. She pictured the funeral directors buttoning his white shirt, arranging his hands so they were loosely linked, then threading a rosary through his fingers. It would have black beads, the boy rosary.

She slipped into her black pumps, then went to the bathroom sink, dug in her makeup kit for her foundation, opened the bottle, and patted some under her eyes and smeared it on her face. Were they putting makeup on his face, now? On his hands, too? They had done that for Mike, she knew, because when she went to touch his hands one last time, she’d come away with a stickiness like putty on her fingertips, and when she’d looked down at her fingers, her husband’s skin had made its own imprint on her. She’d cried then, for him.

And last night, right before sleep, she’d even cried for Bobby.

Outside it was still drizzling, the aftermath of the storm, but that didn’t account for the traffic standstill on Broad Street. The cab drew closer to the funeral home, and Mary realized that the jam was caused by the funeral itself. Parked cars filled the passing lane that ran down the center of the street, and uniformed cops in long slickers directed gawkers and other traffic around the bottleneck. A Mob funeral was Saturday’s big game.

“I’ll get out here, please.” Mary handed the driver a ten and stepped out of the cab. She put up her umbrella and hurried to the sidewalk, walking with her head down against the rain, her pumps splashing water. Noise and chatter emanated from the block ahead, where a crowd had formed, their umbrellas fighting for space.

She wedged her way into the crowd, holding her umbrella high and excusing herself all the way to the entrance, where a thin, synthetic red carpet covered the steps of the funeral home, as if this were a movie premiere. Stocky men in dark suits stood smoking around the entrance, their gaze shifting toward her. One thick-necked man looked her up and down, unashamedly. Mary hurried up the steps, braced herself against a rising nervousness, and went inside as if she belonged there, a lawyer among felons.

The scent greeted her first, as she knew it would, the sickening fragrance of refrigerated flowers, and vases of gladiola, lilies, and roses lined the walls on the console tables. She’d never been in this funeral home, the showiest on Broad Street, a dubious distinction. Gold-flecked walls surrounded her, and she sank deep into the blood-red carpet. She kept her eyes down, scanning the crowd when she could, but she didn’t see Trish or the girls as she made her way into the viewing room, which was packed. At the front stood a closed casket of glistening walnut, and the bier was mounded with massive sprays of flowers. To the left of the casket stood Mr. Po and Ritchie, both in dark suits, their expressions solemn.

Mary bypassed the reception line and took a seat on the right side, in the middle of the throng, hidden from the front. She didn’t want Mr. Po or Ritchie to see her because she didn’t know how they’d react, and she felt a tiny tingle of fear. She eyed the crowd, which seemed oddly quiet, without the incongruous, if typical, outbreaks of laughter or happy hugs when friends and relatives were reunited. Women talked among themselves in low tones, and the men gave each other quick and furtive glances. Mary wondered if they were wondering who among them was the killer, but to her the answer was simple. All of them.