Daylight

Chapter 6

As Pine met Blum outside of the nursing home, she said, “There’s one thing that has bugged the crap out of me.”

“What is that?” asked Blum.

“How could Ito have possibly found out that my mother was a mole for the government? She never testified in court. Her identity was kept secret.”

“And we learned that before you and your sister moved to Andersonville, attempts were made on your lives while you were in WITSEC,” said Blum, referring to the Witness Protection Program run by the U.S. Marshals Service. “So how did those people find out?”

“Do you think whoever was behind that might have leaked the information to Ito or his brother, Bruno? He was still alive at that time, albeit in prison.”

“It certainly could be that the two things are connected.”

The nursing home looked like it had been built in the sixties with lots of poured cement and now-dated architecture. The roof-line was flat, and they could see rusty rooftop AC units perched up there in a linear formation.

They walked into the facility. The place had a musty odor, and the furnishings and wall coverings were old and frayed. Pine saw some elderly people moving slowly down the halls in either wheelchairs or walkers. Though old, the place looked relatively clean and uncluttered, but it certainly didn’t seem “cheery.”

Pine showed her creds and badge to the receptionist and they were directed to a supervisor’s office.

“What is this about?” asked the woman, who was in her thirties and dressed in a white smock. The remains of her lunch were sitting on her desk, in an office that was small and messy.

“We just want to ask Mrs. Vincenzo some questions in connection with an inquiry,” Pine began.

“Don’t you need a search warrant or something?” said the woman, who had not identified herself, but whose name tag read sally.

“Not for just talking to someone voluntarily, Sally,” replied Pine. “We’re not searching anything. Just asking questions. It’s about Mrs. Vincenzo’s husband.”

“I didn’t even know she had a husband. No one ever comes to visit except an old neighbor of hers.”

“She was the one who told me Mrs. Vincenzo was here, that she couldn’t care for herself any longer.”

Sally shook her head. “The poor folks forget to take medication, fall down, break a hip, try to drive, leave the cooktop on all night. It’s the old story.”

“So can we talk to her?”

“I’m not sure how much good it will do. She’s in our memory care unit.”

“ ‘Memory care unit’?”

“She’s been diagnosed with dementia.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but so long as we’re here? Can we at least give it a try? It’s important.”

“Well, I guess it can’t hurt. It might be good for her to have some visitors, poor thing.”

She led them down the hall to a set of double doors where a stenciled sign read MEMORY CARE UNIT.

Sally slid a card through a reader and the door clicked open. She led them to one room along the hall and knocked on the door. In a singsong voice she said, “Mrs. Vincenzo? Evie? You have visitors.”

She opened the door and they entered the room.

Evie Vincenzo was sitting up in bed and gazing placidly at them. She had on pink pajamas and there was a pink scarf over her curly hair. Many of the items in the room were also pink.

“She likes pink,” noted Sally. “It soothes her.”

“I’m fond of pink myself,” said Blum.

“I’ll check back in a bit,” said Sally. “Any issues, just hit that red button over the bed.”

She left, and Pine and Blum drew closer to the woman. Pine sat in a chair while Blum stood next to her.

Vincenzo gazed up at Pine. “Do I know you, young lady?” she asked in a pleasant voice.

“No, but I know your neighbor. She likes to knit. She called you Evie.”

Evie said nothing and her eyes started to close.

“She lived in the house to the left of yours?” Pine said helpfully.

The woman opened her eyes, but again didn’t respond.

Blum said, “Do you enjoy visitors? I think I would. It’s nice to talk to people.”

“I... I don’t know you, do I?”

Pine glanced at Blum. “No, but we wanted to visit you today.”

“My... I... not many visitors.”

“Your neighbor told us you were here.”

Evie shook her head, clearly frustrated. “Old woman.”

Pine drew closer. “Yes, I, uh, I was talking to her about your husband?”

“My... husband?”

“Yes, Ito? Do you remember him? She said he was a wonderful cook.”

Evie looked down at her lap. “I... used to... cook.” She glanced at a wall. “They took my... stove.”

Blum reached over and put a gentle hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I like to cook, too. I’m so sorry that you can’t.”

“Evie, do you think you could answer some questions about It — your husband?”

“My husband?” she said again. “I... no husband.” She shook her head. “I... so miss cooking.”

“Yes, I’m sure you do. Now, you have a son named Teddy and a grandson named Anthony.”

In response to this Evie took off her scarf, showing that her hair was mostly gone. The clumps that were left were a tinted red. She scrunched the scarf up in her hands. “I would bake bread. Knead, knead, knead, like this.”

Pine sighed and glanced at Blum in resignation. She leaned in and whispered, “Just keep talking to her.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Just look around.”

“Agent Pine, the poor woman, I mean.”

“Carol, I know. I feel for her, I really do. But if she has something in here that can help me find my sister, I have to look. I might not get another chance. I’ll be quick and efficient.”

Blum refocused on Evie and asked her what kind of bread she liked to bake. Pine quickly searched through drawers and bent down to look under the bed. If Evie noticed this she made no sign. She was still kneading her scarf.

Pine next started riffling through the closet and finally spied a cardboard box behind a mound of clothes, stacks of People magazines, and a collapsed walker. The box was packed with papers.

She pulled it out of the closet. “Mrs. Vincenzo, do you mind if I look through this?”

She was now lightly tapping the scarf while Blum looked over and shrugged at Pine.

“I don’t think she can give informed consent,” noted Blum.

“It’s not like I’m going to use anything I find to put her in jail.”

“But it might her husband.”

“Don’t go all lawyer on me, Carol. This could be my only shot.”

Pine sat down and went through the box while Vincenzo had set the scarf aside and now stared happily at her pink lampshade, seemingly having forgotten that they were even there.

There was so much in the box that Pine ended up giving Blum a stack to look through. “Old photos of her kids. Here’s one of her and Ito, I think. Looks to be on their wedding day.”

“These photos have the names on the back. Here’s Teddy,” said Blum as she went through a stack. “He looks to be a teenager. And this one is of Tony when he was a baby; someone’s written his name at the bottom. He looks so innocent. They all do at that age, of course, because they are.”

“And then some of them grow up to be felons.”

“Keeps us gainfully employed,” said Blum.

“Look,” Pine said excitedly. “Here’s an article on Bruno Vincenzo’s conviction. This is his picture.” She showed Blum the clipping with the photo of Bruno.

Blum recoiled a bit at the image. “He looks like he’d kill you over a piece of chewing gum.”

Pine scanned the article. “It says he was convicted of murdering two people, one of them a witness for the prosecution. The trial was in New Jersey, which still had the death penalty back then. He got a death sentence, but then it was commuted to life after he agreed to cooperate.”

“And then he was later killed in prison?” said Blum.

“Right. He was in solitary at the prison, but apparently somebody paid off a guard, and an inmate knifed Bruno.” She pulled a folded, yellowed newspaper out of the box, and when she opened it something fell out from between the folds. It was a piece of paper with writing on it. Pine started to read it and her eyes widened as she did so.

“What?” asked Blum, trying to read over her shoulder.

“This is a letter from Bruno to Ito. From the date on it he must’ve written it after he went to prison but obviously before he was killed there.”

“What does it say?”

“Bruno says he discovered a snitch but didn’t out the person to his mob bosses.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. He told his brother that the snitch had screwed him over somehow and that’s why he’d been arrested and was in prison now. He asked Ito to come see him.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to write down anything too sensitive. He wanted to tell his brother in person.”

“Yeah, to tell him that it was my mom who screwed him over. But this letter still doesn’t tell me how Bruno found out where we were living. Because he had to know. That was the only way Ito would have known.”

“I guess this confirms once and for all that he was the one to take Mercy.”

“I can’t think of another possibility. But what did he do with her?” She looked over at Evie Vincenzo, who was still staring in fascination at her lampshade. “And this poor woman isn’t going to be able to answer that question.”

“But maybe her son can.”

They finished searching the box but found nothing else nearly as earth-shattering as the letter. Pine slipped it into her pocket along with a few other items, including photos of various family members.

She rose and said to the woman in the bed, “Mrs. Vincenzo, thank you for seeing us.”

“I so miss my stove.”

She started kneading her scarf again.

Blum watched Evie for a moment, her eyes glistening, and then she followed Pine out.