CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

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.”

“Okay, whatever. Don’t get all worked up.”

“I don’t like you sayin’ I’m not loyal, when you’re the one who’s not loyal.”

“How am I not loyal?” Mary couldn’t help but take the bait. “I just dropped a week of my life for you.”

“You didn’t tell me about you and Bobby.”

Ouch. Mary felt stung.

“Yeah, right.” Trish puckered her lip. “You didn’t know I knew, did you? Ritchie told me yesterday, after the cemetery. He said you dated Bobby. Did you?”

Mary’s mouth went dry. “Not for long, okay?”

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s the truth.”

“When was this?”

“Senior year.”

“Was he goin’ out with me at the time?”

“No, you two had broken up.”

“I dumped him, he didn’t dump me.”

Mary thought of what Judy had said. You got a chance to reinvent yourself. The Mean Girls never did.

“So how come you didn’t tell me?” Trish’s eyes narrowed.

“What difference did it make?”

“I don’t know, it musta made some difference, because you didn’t tell me. If you’da tol’ me, I woulda thought it didn’t matter. Now I think it does.”

Hmm. “Trish, this is old news, from high school.”

“Yeah, well, I was livin’ with him till last week, so it ain’t old news to me. Why didn’t you tell me? You said we were friends. I’d never keep a secret like that from a friend.”

“Ha.” Mary’s mouth dropped open.

“What?”

“You’d never keep a secret from a friend? How about Miss Tuesday Thursday? How about your boyfriend?” Mary couldn’t stop herself. “Why didn’t you tell the girls about him?”

“I thought they might slip and tell Bobby.”

“Bull! They never hung with Bobby, and you know it.”

Trish’s eyes flared. “You callin’ me a liar?”

“I know you’re a liar. You lied to me about who your boyfriend is.”

“I did not.” Trish flushed, and the words came out of Mary’s mouth before she could stop them.

“You’re such a good, loyal girlfriend that you’re sleeping with Giulia’s husband.”

Trish gasped, momentarily dumbfounded.

“Yeah, right.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, please.” Mary waved her off, disgusted. “Stop it, just stop it. I don’t know how you live with yourself. Giulia’s so sweet, and she’s your best friend. She went crazy trying to find you. She cried over you in my office. She was so worried, she didn’t sleep nights. You’re a terrible, disloyal friend to her.”

“I’m a great friend to her.”

“You’re the worst.”

“No, the best. Because I saved her life.”

Mary scoffed. “What? When? In gym class? You lend her socks?”

“No, you jerk.” Trish shot back. “You think you’re so smart? I have news for you. That opal ring they found in the alley? My ring?”

“Yes, so what?”

“I lent it to Giulia two years ago, when she got married again. For something borrowed, something blue, you know that rhyme? And she never gave it back.”

Mary sat stunned, not knowing whether to believe her.

“So if the cops found it in the alley, it’s because Giulia had it on.” Trish met her eye, evenly. “It wasn’t Cadillac who shot Bobby, or any other wiseguy. It had to be Giulia.”

Mary couldn’t deal. It was impossible.

“She musta thought he killed me. Plus she always hated his guts. She knew he worked the corner at Kennick, so she musta went over and shot him dead. And she has a gun.”