Mary picked up the pace, her breath coming in ragged bursts. Her arm hurt from carrying the briefcase and purse. She looked frantically around for Keisha. Passers-by looked at her like she was nuts. In the next instant she heard the distant blare of a police siren. The cavalry! “Is that siren the squad car?” she asked into the phone.
“Should be. The car’s on Spruce, heading toward you. Did your friend message you again?”
“No.” Mary ran harder.
“You’re sure you’re for real? I’m comin’ after you myself, if you aren’t.”
“I swear it!” Mary turned left onto the west side of the Square, thinking again. West or south were the residential sections, with less traffic than the business district. And they had parking. A bad guy’s dream.
The thought gave Mary her second wind and she veered around the corner at a streak. The Square was lined with the swanky restaurants, the busiest branch of the Free Library, therapists’ and plastic surgeons’ offices, and a ritzy art gallery.
Think! Then the answer popped into Mary’s head. Where else in a city did nobody ever go? A church! The Church of the Holy Trinity was right on the Square! She whirled around and doubled back. The police siren blared closer now. Help was on its way! She bolted across the street between cabs and sprinted toward the church, a huge brown sandstone edifice with a castlelike Norman tower, on the northwest corner of the Square. She shot toward its red doors.
“Keisha! Keisha!” Mary shouted as she ran up the church steps toward the door and yanked on the iron handles. It was locked! The church was closed! Police sirens screamed closer. They were almost here. Mary looked around, frantic. The Rittenhouse hotel sat beside the church, and cars drove in and out of the hotel’s circular entrance. Then she noticed a narrow concrete driveway tucked between The Rittenhouse and the church. An iron gate covered the entrance but the doors hung open, half-painted brown.
“Keisha!” Mary yelled. She ran for the driveway and grabbed the iron gate to stop her momentum, leaving rust-colored paint on her hand. A padlock and chain hung uselessly from the gate, which had been left open. A white painting truck was parked in the narrow driveway and beside it was darkness, where The Rittenhouse completely blocked the sun. Midway down the driveway was Tiffany’s stained-glass depiction of St. Paul, his palms open in appeal. Mary looked directly underneath it, in the shadow between the truck and the wall.
“No!” she screamed. Keisha, in a dark T-shirt and jeans, had collapsed in a sitting position. Beyond her was the silhouette of a man, running for the end of the driveway and the side door to the church. The man was large and thick. Chico.
“STOP!” Mary yelled, but Chico escaped through the door. She wanted to chase him, but she had to see about Keisha. She dropped her briefcase and purse and flew toward the fallen woman, throwing herself down on the concrete. Keisha slumped against the stone wall, her head tilted forward like a broken doll and her legs splayed out next to a few paint cans. Her eyes were closed and her mouth slack, but her lips moved as if she were trying to speak. Then Mary looked again, in horror. Keisha’s T-shirt wasn’t dark, it was drenched with blood. Blood bathed her neck and bubbled like a gruesome freshet from under her chin. Her throat had just been slit.
“HELP!” Mary screamed at the top of her lungs. She fought panic long enough to raise the cell phone and start talking.
Thirty-Six
Access Hollywood played on a TV mounted in the corner, and fluorescent lights glared harshly overhead, behind pebbled panels recessed in a white tile ceiling. Outdated copies of Cosmo, Time, and Car amp; Driver lay in a glossy fan on a low wooden table, and in the corner stood a Formica cabinet holding a Bunn coffeemaker. An orange-handled pot of coffee burned in its hot plate, filling the room with the odor of stale decaf. The small waiting room, reserved for families of patients in the intensive care OR, had been painted an allegedly calming blue and adorned with gauzy landscapes in forgettable hues. Its blue padded chairs sat empty except for Mary, who was in a sort of shock.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Drying blood stained Mary’s white silk shirt and navy suit, stiffening its light wool in patches. She had managed to wash most of it from her hands, but fine dark lines etched the network of wrinkles on her palm. She should wash again, but Keisha had been taken to the OR half an hour ago, and Mary didn’t want to be in the bathroom when everybody got here, especially Bill.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
The words struck home. Mary prayed it wasn’t the hour of Keisha’s death. It couldn’t be. Not because of Saracone or Amadeo or even Frank, or anything logical or tangible. Just because it could not be. There had been too much death and it had to be over. Keisha had to live. Mary willed it to be so, the only way she knew how. She started the rosary over again.
Bill arrived a half an hour later and sat slumped in the chair as Mary recounted a sanitized version of how she had found Keisha. He sank deeper and deeper into his clothes, flipping up the collar of his jean jacket as if to ward off a winter wind. Judy, her face a mask of well-scrubbed worry, arrived right after, and she couldn’t take her stricken gaze from the blood drying on Mary’s suit. “You okay, girl?” she asked, her tone hushed.
“I’m fine. Keisha’s in the OR still. She lost a lot of blood.” For Bill’s benefit, Mary didn’t add the details about the slicing of the carotid. Evidently, Chico had known what he was doing. “The doctors said we’ll know more later.”
“They’re great doctors here,” Judy said to Bill, and he nodded.
When Detective Gomez and his partner arrived, Bill listened only idly, all over again, as Mary filled them in. Gomez’s partner, Matt Wahlberg, was a grayish blond detective of about forty-five years who was as tall as Gomez was thick. His blue eyes seemed sunken in a gaunt face that Mary understood when she spotted his triathlete’s watch. Insanely fit, he wore a light tan jacket and khaki slacks, and sat back in the padded chair, legs crossed and arms folded, while Mary leaned toward Gomez.
“I’m telling you, it was Chico,” Mary said as she finished. “He left her for dead in the driveway. He must have gotten out through the church.”
“Did you see his face?” Gomez looked at her directly, and her mouth went dry.
“If I said I had, would you arrest him?” Mary was so tempted to lie.
“We’d question him.”
“Would you question him anyway? I mean, how many people does he have to kill? He killed Frank and now he tried to kill Keisha!”
“In other words, you didn’t see his face.” Even Gomez sounded regretful. His soft mouth had formed a deep frown and his thick eyebrows sloped unhappily.
“No, not really. But I saw him. His back, his shoulders, his outline. I know it was him. At least go out and question him.”
Wahlberg snorted. “An outline isn’t probable cause.”
“Who are you kidding?” Judy interjected. “What do you call a racial profile?”
Mary wanted to get back on track. “Didn’t anyone in Rittenhouse Square see Keisha with Chico? There had to be a hundred witnesses. She may have walked with him from Eighteenth amp; Walnut to the church.”
“We got uniforms canvassing right now. If they find anybody who can ID this Chico, we’ll haul him in for a lineup.”
“Detective Gomez, I know it was him. It makes sense it was him. Chico is a violent man, Saracone’s muscle, and he was there the night I accused his boss of Amadeo’s murder.” Mary felt a deep pang of guilt. If she hadn’t burst into Saracone’s bedroom that night, Keisha wouldn’t be in the OR right now. “I’ll swear out an affidavit, I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m making a formal complaint. He assaulted me. Please, please, please, at least go out there and question Chico.”