The Vendetta Defense

“Ms. Carrier, any comment about Kevin McRea’s disappearance?” “Judy, over here! What do you say to reports that Marco Coluzzi was trying to buy McRea Excavation?” “Ms. Carrier, do you believe Kevin McRea has met with foul play?”

“No comment,” she shouted. She threaded her way to the courthouse entrance, putting on a professional mask to hide her glee at their questions. Obviously her late-night telephone calls, placed anonymously to any newspaper that would pick up, had worked like a charm. She had planted the story about Marco Coluzzi’s attempted purchase of McRea Excavation, and eager reporters had investigated the facts and gotten sources to confirm. It had been a year or two since a Philly paper had won a Pulitzer and nobody was forgetting it.

“Ms. Carrier, do you care to comment on Marco Coluzzi’s expansion into the concrete and quarry business?” “Judy, who you gonna call now that Kevin McRea’s out of the picture?” “Ms. Carrier, what goes into a $130,000 driveway anyway? Gold?”

Judy didn’t break a smile. Headlines on the morning newspapers had read DEFENDANT DISAPPEARS, with sidebars like “Marco Coluzzi’s Expanding Business Empire,” and Judy couldn’t have written them better herself. Reporters had interviewed the McReas’ landlady and, more important, had unearthed Marco’s tax records and SEC filings, which showed an increasing concentration of power in the construction industry, much of it through shell companies that disguised their true ownership. Judy was hoping the acquisitions had been hidden from John Coluzzi as well, and that he would feel surprised and threatened by Marco’s growing might.

She looked quickly around, wondering when and how the Coluzzis would arrive. Together or apart? At peace or at war? She couldn’t stay to find out, because she had a murder case to defend.

“Ms. Carrier, come on, cut us a break!” “Ms. Carrier, is Pigeon Tony gonna get off?” “Ms. Carrier, did he do it or not?” “Judy, did you hire a bodyguard yet?” “Judy, how’s your car?”

Judy exchanged glances with Frank, who grinned, his teeth white and even against his freshly shaved olive skin. He looked handsome dressed up in a white oxford shirt, casual rep tie, and light tweed jacket he’d bought during a trip to the King of Prussia mall, when he was supposed to be calling his lawyer. But Judy could forgive men their shopping. They loved it so.

“Did I tell you how much I liked your phone message last night?” Frank whispered in her ear before he went through the revolving door.

“No comment,” Judy said, because it was time for work, not love. These Italians would never get it straight. She took Pigeon Tony by the hand and tucked him inside the courthouse.

The courtroom, though modern, was one of the smallest in the new Criminal Justice Center, and its size contributed to the uneasy hostility that filled the room, as if the tigers and the lions had been mistakenly placed in the same tiny cage. The Coluzzi family and friends sat on the Commonwealth’s side of the courtroom, with Marco and John sitting unhappily together, and the Lucia family sat on the right, with Frank, Mr. DiNunzio, Feet, and Tony-From-Down-The-Block in the front pew behind a sleek black panel. The scene was an unfortunate carbon copy of the arraignment, except that it was staffed by double the blue-shirted court officers, for security. Judy wished for the National Guard and a bumper sticker that read MY ITALIANS CAN BEAT UP YOUR ITALIANS.

She put the drama in the gallery behind her and took a seat at the counsel table next to Pigeon Tony. He seemed unusually quiet, but it could have been discomfort in the new striped tie and brown jacket that Frank had made him wear, over protest. They’d come from the boys’ department at Macy’s because Pigeon Tony was so small, and Judy, sitting next to him, felt more baby-sitter than lawyer. And she had wanted to get him a translator for court, but he had adamantly refused. Judy wondered if Pigeon Tony was turning into a problem child, in a clip-on tie.

“Let’s begin, people,” Judge Maniloff said, from the sleek, modern dais with a gray marble front. Judge Randy Maniloff, a middle-aged gold-spectacled judge, had been picked by computer for the hearing, but Judy preferred to think it was her lawyer karma at work. Maniloff was one of the smartest judges on the municipal court bench, which heard preliminary hearings on murder cases and held misdemeanor trials. He wouldn’t be the ultimate trial judge, but he’d be fair at this level. “We have a crowded docket today for a change, and we can’t waste any time.” He banged a gavel loosely. “This is the matter of Commonwealth versus Lucia. Who’s here for the Commonwealth?”

“Joseph Santoro for the Commonwealth, Your Honor,” said the district attorney, and he stood up. He was on the short side but powerfully built, with dark wavy hair and a black walrusy mustache. Santoro was the top assistant in the D.A.’s office, which was undoubtedly why he was picked for this high-profile case. His Italian surname wouldn’t hurt either. Judy resigned herself to being a minority for the duration.

Judge Maniloff acknowledged Judy, swiveling in his black leather chair. “I see we have Ms. Carrier here for defendant Anthony Lucia. Welcome, Ms. Carrier.” He smiled pleasantly, and Judy stood up briefly.

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

“Now that we’re all friends, Mr. Santoro, call your first witness,” Judge Maniloff said. He turned his attention to some papers on the dais, as Santoro stood up again.

“The Commonwealth will present just two witnesses today, Your Honor, and we would first call James Bello to the stand,” he said, and in the front row the heavyset man from the funeral home wedged himself from the right side of John Coluzzi, moved with difficulty down the pew, and came before the bar of court. He took the witness stand heavily and was sworn in as the D.A. took the fake walnut podium between counsel tables.

“Mr. Bello,” Santoro said, “please state your name and address for the record.”

“My name’s James Bello, but they call me Fat Jimmy,” he said matter-of-factly, though Judy wasn’t sure it was what Santoro had been looking for.

“And your address?”

He rattled it off.

“Fine, Mr. Bello. Let’s move directly to the morning of Friday, April seventeenth. Were you present at about eight twenty-three

A.M. at 712 Cotner Street in South Philadelphia?”

“Yeh.” Bello wore a black knit shirt with suit pants, and his thick wrist bore a gold Rolex. His lips were puffy, his nose a pockmarked bulb, and his eyes large, round, and unforgettable if they were glaring at you in a funeral home. If he recognized Judy, it didn’t show.

“And that address is a clubhouse for a pigeon-racing combine, correct?”

“Yeh.”

Judy opened her legal pad to a fresh page and shifted forward on her seat. At a preliminary hearing the Commonwealth had to prove only a prima facie case of murder, and the D.A. would have more than enough in this case. The hardest punches at a prelim were thrown beneath the surface, because the Commonwealth was trying to reveal as little as possible about its case, and the defense was trying to find out as much as possible. It was a legal fistfight, and only apparently civilized.

“Mr. Bello, please tell the court who else was present in the clubhouse on the day in question.”

“Mr. Tony LoMonaco, Mr. Tony Pensiera. Angelo Coluzzi was in the back room, and Mr. Tony Lucia, the defendant, went in there, too.”

“Was anybody else in the back room except for Mr. Coluzzi and Mr. Lucia?”

“No, Angelo and me opened the place that morning. He was the only one back there until Tony went in.”

Santoro nodded. “Mr. Bello, please tell the court what happened next, if you would.”

“Sure, yeh.” Bello cleared his throat of smoker’s phlegm. “Mr. Lucia went in the back room and there was a scream, and then we heard like a crash. And we went in and there was Angelo dead on the floor and Tony, Mr. Lucia, was standing over him, all worked up.”

Judy held her breath to know what Bello had heard, or what he’d claim he heard.

Santoro shifted closer to the microphone at the podium. “Mr. Bello, you said you heard yelling. What did you hear?”

“I heard yelling, in English and Italian.”

“Do you know who was doing the yelling?”

“Mr. Lucia.”

“Mr. Bello, what did you hear Mr. Lucia yell?”

“He yelled, ‘I’m gonna kill you.’”

Judy made a note, only apparently calmly. It would be home run evidence at trial. Worse, it was true.

“Mr. Bello, did defendant Lucia yell this in English or in Italian?”

“In Italian. Definitely, Italian.”

“And you understand Italian?”

“Very well. Been speakin’ it since I was a kid. Now, Angelo, he didn’t like to speak it. He wanted the old ways behind him. He wanted to be a real American. He didn’t have no accent either. Hardly.”

Santoro nodded, his soft chin wrinkling into his stiff white collar. “So you are sure it was Mr. Lucia’s voice and not Angelo Coluzzi’s?”

“I know Angelo’s voice and also, he’s the one who ended up dead.”

Santoro didn’t blink. “Then what did you do, Mr. Bello?”

“I got up and ran into the back room and there was Angelo, lyin’ on the ground, with the shelves over him and a big mess onna floor. I checked Angelo out but he didn’t have no pulse and his head was lying funny.”

“Where was the defendant at this time?”

“Standin’over Angelo.”

“What did Mr. Pensiera and Mr. LoMonaco do then?”

“Objection as to relevance,” Judy said for the record, but Judge Maniloff overruled her.

“They said to Mr. Lucia, ‘Let’s get outta here,’ and they got him out and they left.”

“Then what did you do?”

“I called 911 and they came and took Angelo away, and that was that.”

Judy made a note. It was the least emotional account of a murder she could imagine. Santoro would have to offer Fat Jimmy a dozen ravioli to shed a tear or two at trial, but for the time being the D.A. nodded in satisfaction, returned to counsel table, and sat down.

“I have no further questions, Your Honor,”he said, and he didn’t need any.

Judy stood up to pick Fat Jimmy’s brain for cross-examination, though she couldn’t win here anyway, and as a defense lawyer, wouldn’t want to. If the defense won at a preliminary hearing, the Commonwealth could rearrest the defendant and retry him, because double jeopardy hadn’t yet attached. Not that winning anything was in the cards today. Judy approached the podium.

“Mr. Bello,”she began, “describe where you were sitting when you allegedly heard Mr. Lucia yell, ‘I’m gonna kill you.’”

“I just come into the room from the bathroom, and sat down at the bar, when I saw Mr. LoMonaco and Mr. Pensiera. They told me that Pigeon Tony, Mr. Lucia, had gone in the back room.”

Judy recalled the layout of the racing club. “So you were at the bar.”

“Right.”

“How far is the bar from the back room?”

“About ten feet.”

“Which seat were you sitting in at the bar?”

“In the middle.”

“Were you having a drink?”

“I was gonna but I didn’t get to.”

“What was the drink?”

“Coffee.”

Judy made a note. It was good to take notes in court because it made you look as if you were getting somewhere. This note said NICE GOING, BUCKO. “Anything alcoholic in the coffee?”

“No.”

Judy made another note. OUTTA THE PARK, LOSER. “Now, you said you heard yelling. Did you hear anything else other than Mr. Lucia allegedly yelling, ‘I’m going to kill you’?”

“No.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yeh.”

“You didn’t hear Angelo Coluzzi say anything?”

“No.”

Judy made a note. NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME TO TELL US YOU HEARD ANGELO COLUZZI CONFESS TO A DOUBLE MURDER. Santoro looked over at Judy from his counsel table, and she knew she had him wondering what else had been said in that back room, and if it made a difference. Let him sweat. “Let’s change gears, Mr. Bello. Are you married or single?”

“I’m, uh, divorced.”

“I see. And are you related to the Coluzzi family in any way?”

“Yeh.”

“How so?”

“Uh?”

ENGLISH, PLEASE. “I mean, how exactly are you related to the Coluzzis?”

“I’m a second cousin, twice removed. I think. My father Guido married somebody’s second cousin.”

GUIDO. NOT TONY? “I see. And how long have you worked for the Coluzzi family?”

“Objection, no foundation, Your Honor,” Santoro said, popping up, but Judy waved him off.

“I’ll rephrase. Mr. Bello, do you work for the Coluzzi family?”

“Yeh.”

GLAD WE CLEARED THAT UP. “What is your job, Mr. Bello?”

“Office.”

“You work in their construction office?”

Jimmy seemed unsure. “Yeh. I help out.”

“How?”

“Whatever Angelo axed me to do, I do.”

“Like an assistant?”

Santoro stood up again. “Objection as to relevance and beyond the scope, Your Honor.”

“Overruled.” Judge Maniloff looked up from papers he had been reading. “I think the defendant is entitled to know something about the primary witness against him, don’t you, counsel?”

NO, HE DOESN’T, Judy wrote, but Santoro didn’t answer and sank into his seat. She cleared her throat. “So, Mr. Bello, did you say you were a personal assistant?”

Jimmy frowned at the term. “Kinda.”

“And were you a personal assistant to Angelo Coluzzi, or are you to John Coluzzi, or to Marco Coluzzi?” Then she added, because she couldn’t resist, “In his various businesses?”

“I guess, the whole family now. I’m like an office assistant.” Jimmy looked over at the front row uncertainly, and Judy acted like she didn’t notice. She didn’t want him coached out of it; she wanted him to repeat it in front of the jury, when she could get mileage out of it.

“And how long have you been an office assistant to the Coluzzi family, Mr. Bello?”

“Thirty-five years.”

Judy made a note. NOW WE’RE GETTING SOMEWHERE. “I see. And how much do you currently earn as their office assistant, Mr. Bello?”

“Objection!” Santoro said, shooting up like a booster rocket, but Judy wasn’t having any.

“Your Honor, how can it be of no relevance that the primary witness is on the family payroll?”

Judge Maniloff arched a graying eyebrow. “I’ll allow it, tiger, but do finish up here.”

Judy smiled. “Thank you, Your Honor.” IT’S GOOD WHEN A JUDGE CALLS YOU TIGER. “Mr. Bello, you were telling us what the Coluzzis pay you. Please proceed.”

Jimmy paused, undoubtedly trying to remember the difference between what he earned and what he reported. “Fifteen grand a year.”

EEEK. YOU NEED A LAWYER. Judy closed her pad and stepped away from the podium. “I have no further questions, Your Honor.”

“Excellent,” Judge Maniloff said, nodding at the district attorney. “Mr. Santoro, your next witness?”

“Commonwealth calls Dr. Patel to the stand.” Santoro stood up, turned to the second row, and gestured like Vanna White to Dr. Patel, reducing the distinguished medical examiner to the status of a free refrigerator. The medical examiner took the stand, raised his hand politely, and was sworn in.

“Please identify yourself for the record, Dr. Patel.”

“My name is Voresh Patel,” the coroner said, his voice soft and professional. He had the same kind brown eyes and steel-framed glasses Judy remembered from the autopsy, and he wore a trim brown suit. She would have to question him with care, because she didn’t want to show her hand.

“Dr. Patel, what is your profession?” Santoro asked.

“I am an assistant medical examiner for the County of Philadelphia.”

“I see. And did you perform the postmortem examination on the body of Angelo Coluzzi?”

“I did.”

“And when did that take place, Dr. Patel?”

“The day after the body was taken to the morgue.” Dr. Patel thought a minute, his eyes rolling heavenward. “April eighteenth, I believe.”

Santoro nodded, rolling a pencil between his fingers. “And did you form an opinion about the cause and manner of Angelo Coluzzi’s death, Dr. Patel?”

“Yes, it is my opinion that the cause of the decedent’s death was a homicide and the mechanism was a fractured vertebrae at C3.”

Santoro gripped his pencil. “In common parlance does that mean a broken neck, Dr. Patel?”

“Yes.”

“I have no further questions, Dr. Patel.” Santoro moved aside and sat down, as Judy rose with her legal pad. She stepped behind the podium.

“Dr. Patel, there has been testimony that the decedent fell against a bookcase. Just so the record is clear, did that fall have anything to do with Mr. Coluzzi’s death?”

“Objection, beyond the scope,” Santoro said, half rising, but Judge Maniloff was already shaking his head.

“Overruled, counselor. Please, let’s move along.”

Dr. Patel looked at Judy. “No, the decedent was dead by the time he fell.”

Judy wanted to nail him down. It would avoid sympathy for Coluzzi later, at trial. “And you can be sure of that?”

“Yes.”

“I have no further questions, Dr. Patel.” Judy grabbed her pad and sat down as Judge Maniloff reached for the next case filed and opened it.

“Mr. Lucia, I find that the Commonwealth has proved a prima facie case of murder sufficient to support their indictment on a general charge of murder, and I order you held over for trial. Your attorney will inform you of the schedule of further court appearances, sir.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Judy said, almost at the same time as Santoro. It was the last time they’d show any unanimity. She looked over at Pigeon Tony. “Now all we have to do is get you out of here.” As they had discussed, Frank left the gallery instantly to stand behind Pigeon Tony, and two courthouse security officers came from the side to flank him, as they would a prisoner in custody. They’d escort him out the secured exit to a waiting car Frank had rented. “I’ve made arrangements to get you out a secure way, where they take prisoners, so you’ll be safe.”

“I no afraid,” Pigeon Tony said quietly, but even with the precautions, Judy found herself wondering if they made bulletproof vests in a size 6X. The Lucia side of the gallery was lingering, evidently making sure that Pigeon Tony got out alive. The Coluzzi faction also filed out slowly, with Marco going with his mother, and John stalling, ostensibly to join Fat Jimmy. Each man eyed Judy pointedly, and if looks could kill, they’d already be in handcuffs.

Judge Maniloff began banging his gavel, loudly this time, his voice more urgent than during the procedure. “Clear the courtroom, please. Clear the courtroom immediately!”

Judy stood guard as Frank guided Pigeon Tony from his chair, and the guards flanked them quickly. “You got him?” she asked Frank, who smiled tensely.

“Don’t worry about him, worry about you.” He glanced back at the gallery, where John Coluzzi stood with Fat Jimmy, his dark gaze morphing into an undisguised glare.

“We’re ready to go, Mr. Lucia,” said one of the security guards, but Frank’s jaw clenched with anger.

“We go nowhere until that asshole is gone and she’s safe.”

“Frank, I’m fine,” Judy said, but the court security officer was already looking in the direction of Frank’s glare.

“Move it along, Mr. Coluzzi,” the guard called out. “We don’t want any more trouble from you.”

“Tell him that!” Coluzzi bellowed, drawing Judge Maniloff’s gavel.

Crak! it sounded, loud. “Clear this courtroom right now, Mr. Coluzzi, or I’ll find you in contempt! Bailiff?”

The bailiff hurried to the gallery, but two other security guards were already in motion, escorting Coluzzi and Fat Jimmy to the door.

Frank was looking at the guard. “You’ll follow her out, right?”

“Fine,” he said reluctantly, but Judy knew she’d lose him outside the courtroom. She’d been watching her back since she left the office and she’d be doing it until the day of trial. “Better get going,” she told Frank.

“Okay.” He nodded quickly and slipped an arm around Pigeon Tony. “I’ll call you, and thanks for everything today, tiger.”

“Grrrr.” Judy managed a smile, wondering when she’d see him again as the guards led them away.

BOOK FOUR

By 1870 . . . these somewhat self-contained communities were becoming the neighborhoods, or “urban villages,” of modern America. The Italian case had also attained a peculiar sociological anomaly that tends to mark most ethnic groups in complex societies. With its own internal order and partial autonomy, the Italian community in South Philadelphia formed a distinctive and separate social system in itself.

—RICHARD JULIANI,

Building Little Italy: Philadelphia’s Italians Before Mass Migration (1998)

Fratelli, flagelli. The wrath of brothers is the wrath of devils.

—Italian proverb

Chapter 28

Tony caught the look on Judy’s pretty face when she said goodbye to Frank, and he felt sad for them, lovers who were not yet lovers, because it was a feeling Tony knew well, its memory deep in his bones. He wanted to tell Frank to go back to her, to run to her, that he would be fine, but there was no time to speak, for the guards had clamped their hands on his arms and were rushing him along roughly, as police do even when there is no need. Frankie, who walked behind, where Tony couldn’t see him, had said that the police were working for them this time, helping them stay safe, but Tony had seen things in the world that his grandson never would, and he knew that in the end, police never worked for anyone but themselves, and that they were rough with others because they enjoyed the sensation it gave them, as the Coluzzis welcomed the pain they inflicted, their depravity so deep it coursed even in the blood.

The police hustled Tony down a plain white corridor, then another, which took a sharp right turn, then a sharp left, then down a flight of white stairs, bearing Tony along so swiftly he soon grew dizzy with the twists and turns, with no landmarks to orient him, or to make one corridor different from the next, and he became a field mouse in a pasture, vulnerable and confused. Fear grew in his stomach, anxiety rising from the police taking him away, and his knees grew weak and his palms damp, as they had so long ago, when his terror had been so real, but then it hadn’t been for him but for Silvana.

It was the second Sunday in August, he could not forget it because nobody could; the second Sunday in August was the Torneo della Cavalieri, a festival in Mascoli since the fifteenth century. Although Tony had heard of the Torneo, he had never been to see it, for he had no time for such diversions and would not have been at this one except that he knew Silvana would be there. In the two months since they had shared their kiss wrapped in a kerchief, they had in fact kissed, as man and woman, seeing each other on a regular basis.

Tony would pack a basket of hard cheese, olives, fresh-baked bread, and juicy tomatoes, with a bottle of home-pressed chianti, and Silvana would meet him, leaving her house with some excuse, but only during the daytime. They would spread out a blanket in the hills around Mascoli, and while their ponies grazed, talk the entire afternoon, confiding in each other, kissing and laughing, and Tony grew to love the hills of Marche as his own, almost as much as he loved Silvana. In these talks, Silvana told Tony that she also saw Coluzzi on some nights for dinner, and that she appreciated the Fascist’s strength and cunning in ways Tony could not comprehend, so that in time the three of them—Tony, Silvana, and Coluzzi—were dancing that delicate tango that occurs when a woman is trying to make up her mind between two suitors.

It drove Tony crazy, waiting for Silvana to make her choice, but he knew it was folly to force her hand. His mother, being Abruzzese, had a proverb for everything, and counseled him to wait: Amor regge il suo regno senza spada, Love rules his kingdom without a sword. And his father, who knew more about politics, worried that the third leg of the triangle was a Blackshirt, and had a proverb of his own: I guai vengono senza chiamarli, Sorrow comes unsent for. He told Tony to forget Silvana, but Tony could not, and so he waited, withholding even the marriage proposal that was on his lips with each kiss, sensing that it was too soon. Then the Torneo was upon them, and Tony knew Silvana would be there with her family and so he journeyed to Mascoli to catch sight of her, and perhaps to meet them, to press his suit.

It was sunny that day and Tony arrived in Mascoli to find even its outskirts thick with revelers, honking automobiles, drunks on bicycles, and neighing horses. He tied up his pony for fear the beast would be terrified and made his way on foot through the raucous crowd to the Piazza Santa Giustina, where the opening ceremonies were held and the procession through the streets would begin. But Tony was late getting there, having spent much of the route trying to find Silvana, so he joined the procession at its raggedy end. Ahead of him, to clarion blasts and noisy drumbeats, strode the town mayor, in the role of Magnifico Messere, then the high magistracy, represented by local officials, all in colorful fifteenth-century costumes, surrounded by hundreds of costumed people and actors, all making merry. Groups of Blackshirts paraded in dress uniforms, laughing at the townspeople, delighted at the celebration encouraging Italian pride, but Tony didn’t see Angelo Coluzzi among them.

Tony started out following the procession but soon found himself borne along by it, his head swiveling this way and that to find Silvana, which he could see was a fool’s errand. The processants were in makeup and costumed as medieval knights, pageboys, ladies-in-waiting, and captains, and Tony had no idea if Silvana was masked as well. On all sides men juggled burning torches, swallowed swords, twirled flags, and performed magic tricks of every sort. Trained dogs did somersaults on a man’s shoulders, to the delight of Fascist schoolchildren dressed in little black shirts, black shorts, and black kerchiefs. The procession swept down one street, then turned at the next, then made a sharp right, and Tony was shoved from behind by a drunken knight. Tony picked up his pace, ignoring his flat feet, anxious lest the Torneo be over by the time he got there and Silvana gone.

The procession ended in the Piazza del Popolo, but even in its huge expanse Tony could barely breathe for all the people. He looked everywhere, but Silvana and her family had to be lost in the crowd, which was roaring for the tournament to begin. At the center of the piazza stood the Saracen, the false knight and horse constructed on a wooden frame and covered with rich velvet fabric, and standing to the side, representing the six ancient sections of Mascoli, were six knights on horseback, their costumed horses pawing the cobblestones and gnawing their bits to begin the contest. Each knight would have three runs at the Saracen, to try to hit the center of his shield with their lances in the shortest possible time. Tony knew there was a prize, the Palio del Torneo, but he didn’t care. He wanted to see Silvana, but it seemed he couldn’t stand in one place long enough to look around, there was so much pushing and shoving.

Tony wedged forward to the very front of the piazza to get away from the unruly revelers behind him and breathe easier, which was when he spotted Angelo Coluzzi. The squadrista stood on a black-draped dais at the near side of the piazza, in the forefront of a cadre of Fascists and their families. Coluzzi was frowning in emulation of Il Duce himself, his jaw thrust forward as if he were surveying parading troops, not pretend knights and toy horses. At the sight Tony recovered his footing, just as a shout went up from the crowd. The first knight was galloping full-tilt toward the Saracen, and his lance struck the shield with a loud clonk, setting the bogus Saracen spinning like a top and the crowd cheering wildly, especially residents of the knight’s district.

Coluzzi nodded in approval and turned to talk to his fellow, which was when he spotted Tony. Tony knew it the moment it happened, his gut told him before his two eyes did, and across the wildly cheering piazza, the two men locked glares; the farmer and the Fascist, in love with the same woman. The second knight spurred his horse leaping to a gallop and they thundered across the cobblestones, but neither Tony nor Coluzzi broke his gaze. The lance missed its target, to the disappointed aahs of the crowd, but Tony would not look away, nor would Coluzzi. The third knight was already off and racing flat-out toward the Saracen, and his lance struck boldly, making a dervish of the wooden target, obscuring Coluzzi from Tony’s view, and when the knight had passed, reveling in the crowd’s affection, Coluzzi had gone.

Good riddance. Coward. Pig. Filth. Tony thought Coluzzi was like the false Saracen, a hollow soldier waiting to be knocked down. How could Silvana see anything in such a poppet? Women apparently liked men who had strut and power, who wore confidence as thin as a uniform with epaulets. Though Tony had told her that Coluzzi had beaten the chemist, she had insisted that the chemist must have done wrong. Tony searched the crowd for her at the same time that the fourth knight was charging the Saracen, his lance raised, and this target struck the shield. A shout went up, and Tony felt hands suddenly clamped all over him and his neck yanked back by his collar.

“Come?” he said, not understanding at first, but Tony’s words were choked from his throat and the next thing he knew he was surrounded by black wool and strong hands were grabbing his arms and muscling him from the piazza. He cried out in alarm but a swift punch to the cheek brought blood bubbling to his mouth, and the next fist, expertly delivered, set pain arcing through his jaw and knocking him almost senseless.

There must have been ten Blackshirts and they hauled him off by his arms, his toes dragging on the cobblestones as the shouts of hundreds went up, cheering for the knights and drowning out the gurgling from his throat. Tony had to save himself. Nobody else would help him. He saw what had happened to the chemist.

He torqued in their grip but they hit him again and he was in such agony and shock that he was almost insensate as they dragged him back along the processional route, littered now with bottles and drunks retching on the sidewalk. The cobblestones rubbed off his farmer’s boots and flayed the skin from his bare feet as the streets grew quiet and they left the piazza, where celebrants could have borne witness.

They rushed him twisting and turning through streets as narrow as corridors, and Tony knew from their grunts and curses that they were loving this business, which sickened him to his stomach. He didn’t know where he was, or where or even why they were taking him, and the medieval streets all looked the same, each one like the next, which for some reason scared him more than the beating.

Then the rushing stopped and they began hitting him in earnest, raining blows everywhere on him all at once, to his back, his head, his gut, and he tried to raise his arms and cry out but they socked him in the stomach so hard he couldn’t breathe, and he crumpled to the ground, where they began kicking him with hard boots in his ribs, his legs, and his kidneys, so that he was thrashing and rolling in agony on the hot and gritty cobblestones. The hope of the Abruzzese lifted in his chest until more kicks came and Tony realized all that screaming was coming from him, and then even he began to lose hope, his limbs fighting back no longer. He barely remained conscious and gathered with peaceful resignation that he would die at their hands.

But just then the kicking came to an abrupt stop and everything went completely still. The air felt suddenly cool as a balm. Tony thought surely this was his death. His body had gone numb. He felt no pain. He didn’t think he could move, nor did he care to. It was so calm and nice lying here, like being in the hills under the trees where he and Silvana would have lunch. There was no sound. Tony opened his eyes to see at last the full glory of God.

Above him stood the outline of a helmet, shoulders with epaulets, and a chin like a dictator’s. The sun shone behind the outline, casting its long shadow on Tony. It wasn’t God, it was the Devil himself. Angelo Coluzzi.

“Congratulations, my friend,” Coluzzi said, laughing softly, but Tony didn’t understand.

“Che?” he croaked out incomprehensibly.

“I have excellent news for you, farmer. You would never guess it in a million years. Let us play a game, a guessing game. Can you guess my news?”

Tony was too weak to speak, and Coluzzi dealt him a swift kick in the hip, which sent agony through his spine.

“Speak, cur! Ask me what is my news!”

But Tony couldn’t, so Coluzzi kicked him again and again until he cried out in pain, but not for mercy. That he would not do.

“Good dog!” Coluzzi exclaimed. “Here is my news. Our whore has chosen you.”

What? Tony couldn’t believe his ears. Silvana had chosen him? Silvana had chosen him! The knowledge tasted like the most succulent of fruits. And then Tony closed his eyes, realizing that the taste on his tongue was his own warm, salty blood, and that this, the sweetest moment of his life, was also the bitterest. For in that moment he understood that if Silvana had chosen him, Angelo Coluzzi would not let her live. Tony should have foreseen this, but he hadn’t. He wouldn’t have courted her if he had realized. And now it was too late. Tears for Silvana sprang to Tony’s eyes, and his heart burst with fear, and with his last breath before he lost consciousness he screamed:

“No!”

“No!” Pigeon Tony struggled in the strong arms of the guards, his heart beating wildly and his breath coming only in short bursts, but the guards held him tighter. There must have been ten of them.

“Pop! Pop!” Frankie cried. “What’s the matter, Pop?”

“No! No!” Pigeon Tony kept shouting, screaming in Italian, panicking, surrounded by police in uniform. “No!”

“Let him go, you’re scaring him!” Frank shouted. “Let him go!”

Suddenly the grip released and Pigeon Tony felt the guards pushed aside and his grandson Frank holding him, talking to him in his ear, whispering in Italian like music, his voice as soft as his father Frank’s used to be, as a boy. The lullaby reached Tony’s heart and soothed him from the inside out, relaxing every muscle in his body, easing even the deepest grief within him, so that he allowed himself to be cradled as unashamedly as a child, and he dreamed in that moment that his own son Frank was still alive, as was his Silvana, and Frank’s wife, too.

And he dreamed that all of them lived together in eternal sweetness, as a family, whole again and full of love.

Chapter 29

After the prelim, Judy hit the office running, with a lot of work to do. The trial was a few months away, but she had learned something at the prelim and there was no time to waste. Also she had other cases she’d been neglecting, not to mention a general counsel who would fire her any day now. Judy stopped at the reception desk in the entrance room of the firm.

“They in there?” she asked the receptionist, as she picked up her correspondence and thumbed through her phone messages. There were twenty in all. The Daily News, the Inquirer, the New York Times. The Coluzzi story was white-hot. She’d return the calls later on the cell phone, to keep the Coluzzis’ feet to the fire.

“Sure, they arrived about ten minutes ago.”

“Will you tell ’em I’ll be right in? I want to drop this stuff at my office.” “Sure.” “Thanks.” Judy tucked her things under her arm with her briefcase, powered past associates and secretaries to her office, only to find Murphy sitting behind her desk.

“Huh?” Judy said, and Murphy shot up self-consciously. Her dark hair was slicked back, her lips properly lined, and she wore a white silk T-shirt with a yellow skirt the size of a Post-it. Murphy looked wrong, not to mention naked, behind Judy’s desk. “What are you doing in my office?”

“I wasn’t snooping or anything.” Murphy stepped away from the desk quickly. “I was leaving you something.” “What?” Judy dumped her stuff on her already cluttered desk and walked around it. Next to a leftover coffee cup and some old correspondence sat the fresh draft of an article. It looked like Judy’s article, but it was finished. “That’s mine,” Judy said, reading her own mind.

“Yes. But I knew you’d be too busy to finish it, given the car bomb and all. I picked up the file and drafted it for you.”

Judy skimmed the top page of the brief. A one-paragraph introduction, a statement of the legal issues, a crisp analysis of the law. It was really good. “Where did you get this?” she asked, but Murphy thought she was joking.

“Make any corrections you want and pass it back to me. I’ll make Bennie a copy, and if she likes it, I’ll submit it.”

Then Judy got it. Murphy was trying to make her look bad in front of Bennie. Judy turned to the last page of the article. The proof would be on the signature line. Judy was just about to shout Aha! when she read it. It was her name on the papers, not Murphy’s.

“You don’t have to use it if you don’t like it.”

“Well, jeez, thank you.” Judy felt touched. Only Mary did things this nice, and she was a saint. Judy picked it up and put it in her briefcase. “I’ll look at it first chance I get.”

“Good.” Murphy moved to the door. “Anything else I can do?”

“Uh, no, thanks.”

“Thank me over lunch,” Murphy said, and she left.

Seated around the walnut table in the conference room, still in their best going-to-court polyester, were Tony-From-Down-The-Block LoMonaco, Tony Two Feet Pensiera, and Mr. DiNunzio. They sat behind Styrofoam cups of office coffee, heat curling from each cup, and among the pencils and legal pads in the middle of the table sat a white bakery box the size of a briefcase. On the top it said, in script, Capaciello’s. “What’s that?” Judy asked, and Mr. DiNunzio smiled.

“Just a little something to thank you for what you’re doin’ for Tony.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block nodded. “You think we’d come over empty-handed? That ain’t right.”

Feet looked cranky. “Open it already. We all got our coffee here. We been waitin’.”

“I’m on it, Coach,” Judy said. She pulled the box to her, broke the light string, and opened the lid, releasing a sweet smell. The box was stuffed with pastries, but she didn’t recognize any of them. Some large pastries were shaped like flowers of dough, some looked like clams with fruit embedded in them, and others were long slices of flaky cake. God knew what these were. Judy’s family ate doughnuts and brownies. “How nice of you. Thanks, gentlemen.”

“Hand me a sfogatelle, will ya, Jude?” Feet asked, and Mr. DiNunzio shifted forward on his chair.

“I’ll take the pastaciotti, please.”

“Gimme a crostata,” said Tony-From-Down-The-Block.

Judy looked bewildered at the box. “Is this a test? There’s not even a cannoli, so I could go by process of elimination.”

“No cannoli, sorry.” Feet frowned behind his Band-Aid bridge, which Judy was getting used to. In fact, she was starting to like it. Some glasses, Band-Aids could improve. “They didn’t have the chocolate chip. They don’t have the chocolate chip, I don’t buy cannoli.”

“Not all Italians like cannoli,” added Mr. DiNunzio. “People think we do, but we don’t.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block rubbed his ample tummy. “Cannoli’s too heavy. If I eat one, I feel like I’m gonna blow up.”

Judy wanted to get on with it. “Okay, gentlemen, which one’s the what-you-said?”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block pointed, as did Mr. DiNunzio and Feet, but their wires kept getting crossed so Judy gave up and slid the box across the table. “You’re on your own. I called you here for a reason.”

“You got dishes?” Feet asked, pastry in hand.

“It’s a law firm, not a restaurant.” Judy grabbed a legal pad from the center of the table, ripped off the top three pages, and passed them out like plates. “Use these. Now to business—”

“Ain’t you eatin’, Judy?” It was Tony-From-Down-The-Block.

“No, thanks, I had lunch on the way over. A hot dog.”

“So? This is dessert.”

“At lunch?”

“People have rights.”

Judy blinked. “No thanks.”

He paused. “Well, if you ain’t eatin’, can I have my cigar?”

“No.” Judy stood up and went to the front of the conference room, while Mr. D and The Tonys munched away, poured coffee, and slid sugar packs around like bumper cars. The atmosphere was more family wedding than case conference, but Judy knew that would disappear when she started talking. She stood near the easel at the front of the room, which supported her delusion that, except for the pastry part, she was controlling this meeting. “Okay, here’s the problem,” she began. “Our firm has a great investigator, but he’s away and—”

“You want coffee?” Mr. DiNunzio was holding the pot in the air.

Feet nodded, his mouth full of mystery pastry. “We made fresh. The girl showed us how.”

“Feet, you’re not supposed to say ‘girl’ anymore,” Mr. DiNunzio said, placing his pastry carefully on his sheet of legal paper.

“Why not?” Feet shrugged. “Whatsa matter with ‘girl’? I like girls.”

“You don’t call them girls anymore. They’re women.”

“Hey, if she’s got her own teeth, she’s a girl.” Feet shoved his pastry into his mouth, and Judy cleared her throat as effectively as a substitute teacher.

“Gentlemen, listen up. We were just in court and we heard lots of testimony. Who can tell me the most interesting thing we heard this morning?” Mr. D’s hand shot up, and Judy smiled. Every teacher needs a pet. “Mr. D?”

“I didn’t know that Fat Jimmy heard Pigeon Tony say, ‘I’m gonna kill you.’”

Judy nodded. “Very good, but it’s not the answer I’m looking for. Tell me why that was interesting to you, Mr. D. Did you hear Pigeon Tony say that?”

“Of course. We all heard it, didn’t we?” Mr. DiNunzio looked at the other two for verification and they nodded, sure. “I was just surprised that Fat Jimmy heard it. He never looks like he hears anything. I guess it was really loud.”

Judy sighed. Case was going down the tubes. That made four— count ’em, four—witnesses to a murder threat by the client, who was, by the way, guilty as charged. “Did any of you hear anything that Coluzzi said, while they were both in there?”

“No,” Mr. DiNunzio said, and the others shook their heads, no.

“Why?” Feet asked. “Did he say something we shoulda heard?” He half-smiled in an encouraging way, but as much as she wanted to, Judy wasn’t writing scripts for witnesses.

“No, you heard what you heard. Okay, anybody else find anything interesting in the testimony today?”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block raised an unlit cigar. “I thought it was interesting that Fat Jimmy broke up with Marlene. Musta just happened, because I didn’t hear nothin’ about it. She’s a number, that Marlene. She makes a buck, too.”

“Not what I was looking for, but that’s very interesting.”

“It’s what I’m looking for,” Tony-From-Down-The-Block said with a snort, and Mr. DiNunzio gave him a solid shove.

“I thought you had that girl, on the Internet. In Florida.”

“She thinks I’m twenty-five. And anyway, I need a real girlfriend. I need Marlene. She’s got red hair.”

Feet wiped his mouth. “Her hair ain’t real.”

“So?” Tony-From-Down-The-Block sipped his coffee. “I got a bum ear and a prostate the size of Trenton. I’m gonna throw stones?”

Judy wished for a pointer and something to tap it on. “In any event, Feet, what did you learn in court today?”

“I heard something interesting.” Feet rubbed his hands over his legal pad, so that sugar crumbs fell like snow all over the table. “I heard Fat Jimmy say he only got paid fifteen large for blowing Angelo Coluzzi.”

Mr. DiNunzio’s head snapped angrily around. “Don’t say blowing.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block scowled. “Not in front of a girl.”

Judy winced. “True, it wouldn’t be the way I’d put it, but that’s close to what I was looking for. Fat Jimmy said he’d worked for Angelo for over thirty years. That’s a long time. What did he do for Coluzzi, besides the aforementioned? Mr. D? Do you know?”

“Not really. I wasn’t in the racing club, like these guys. I just know Pigeon Tony.”

Feet thought a minute. “Fat Jimmy was with Angelo all the time. He drove him around, went to the clubhouse with him. Showed up at all the races with him.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block was nodding. “He had to take Angelo’s shit, that’s what. Angelo bossed him around all the time.”

“You couldn’t pay me enough,” Feet said, and Mr. DiNunzio shook his head.

“Me neither.”

But Judy had stopped listening. She took a seat at the head of the table. “We all know that Pigeon Tony’s son and daughter-in-law were killed in a truck accident last year, and that Pigeon Tony thought Angelo Coluzzi was responsible for it. Tell me what happened with the accident, like where it was.”

Mr. DiNunzio looked up. “It was at the ramp off of I-95, you know where it goes high to get back into the city, like an overpass. It’s a sin.” He shook his head slowly. “They think Frank lost control of the car, maybe he was tired, and the car went over the side and crashed underneath.”

Judy tried to visualize it. “Did it hit anybody when it fell?”

“No. That time a night, there was no traffic. They say the Lucias, they died when the truck crashed. They didn’t suffer, which was good.”

“They were good people,” Feet said. “Frank, he’d give you the shirt offa his back. Did free brick work for me and my cousin. And Gemma, my wife loved her.” His silver tooth disappeared behind the sad downturn to his mouth, and Judy realized they were all still grieving over the loss of the Lucias, despite their bravado. “They didn’t deserve to go like that.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block was shaking his head. “Nobody does, ’cept my ex-wife.” Feet laughed, and even Mr. DiNunzio smiled, which broke the grim mood that had fallen in the room.

Judy leaned over. “Well, if that wasn’t an accident, but was murder, and we can prove it at trial, maybe we can get Pigeon Tony’s charge reduced. And if Coluzzi was responsible for it, I’m betting that Fat Jimmy was involved.”

Mr. DiNunzio set his coffee cup down quietly. “Judy, I don’t think so. It had to be an accident, didn’t it? Maybe Angelo Coluzzi could get away with murder in the old country, in the old days. But here, in Philly? Nowadays?”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block chewed his unlit cigar. “They put a bomb under Judy’s car, for Christ’s sake. I wouldn’t put it past the Coluzzis, not at all. That scum was capable of anything, and he coulda made it look like it was an accident, since it was on the expressway and all.”

Only Feet looked grave. “I always thought Coluzzi did it. Always.”

“Why?” Judy asked.

“Just because. Coluzzi hated Pigeon Tony. He wanted to ruin him. Coluzzi was an evil bastard, and you know what? The next person Coluzzi woulda killed was Frankie. Frank.”

Judy shuddered. “So we have our work cut out for us. I want you all to help, but you gotta make me one promise before I give you your assignment.”

“What?” asked Mr. DiNunzio.

“Nobody tells Frank,” she said. “Agreed?”

Around the table, each of the old men nodded. Conspirators, covered with confectioner’s sugar.

Chapter 30

As soon as Marlene Bello answered the screen door of her brick rowhouse, Judy could see what Tony-From-Down-The-Block had meant. She was wreathed in the scent of a spicy perfume, her dark red hair was wrapped into a neat French twist, and her big brown eyes were expertly made-up. She had a cute little nose and full lips emphasized by chic rust-colored lipstick. Marlene had to be sixty, and it looked womanly on her, as if she had earned honestly the smile lines around her eyes and mouth. “Can I help you?” she asked with one of those smiles.

“Yes. My name’s Judy Carrier, and I’d like to talk with you if I can. For just a minute.” “Ha!” Marlene pursed glossy lips sympathetically. “Honey, I used to go door-to-door myself. Whaddaya sellin’?”

“I’m a lawyer. I—”

“A lawyer! You’re shittin’ me! They go door-to-door now?” She shifted her weight from one slim hip to the other, in black Spandex stirrup pants that clung to shapely, if short, legs. A pink T-shirt with a scoop neck revealed a small, gym-toned waist and a soft, natural décolletage. The whole package registered as European, except for the white letters across her chest that read MARY KAY COSMETICS. “Whaddaya got? Wills, contracts, like that?”

“No, I’m not selling anything, but I was wondering if I could come in. It’s private.” Judy felt nervous even though she had taken a cab here. Night was already falling. Her eyes swept the skinny city street. Nobody was out, and the beach chairs sat empty, in friendly little circles. The Phillies game was on, and the televisions in everybody’s front rooms flickered on the dark street like South Philly lightning. “It’s about your husband, Jimmy.”

“A lawyer looking for Jimmy? That’s unusual.” Marlene snorted. “Anyway, he doesn’t live here anymore. And you’ll never get the money he owes you.” She began to close the door, but Judy stuck her briefcase in the way. “Nice move,” Marlene said with admiration.

“Mrs. Bello—Marlene—please let me in. I need help, not money. I represent Tony Lucia—Pigeon Tony—against the Coluzzi brothers. I had Fat Jimmy in court yesterday, on the stand—”

“Shit, why didn’t you just say that? Any enemy of Jimmy’s is a friend of mine.” A huge smile broadened Marlene’s face, and the front door swung wide open.

Ten minutes later Judy was installed behind a pink mug of instant coffee at the white Formica in Marlene’s kitchen. It was the same size and shape as the DiNunzios’, but it was modern, lit coolly by an overhead fixture of Lucite. Cabinets of white laminate ringed the room, the counters were of lacquered butcher block, and the table and chairs had an IKEA style, which Judy mentioned to open the conversation.

Marlene laughed. “Are you kidding? I don’t build furniture. Please.” She sat down, tucking a calf underneath her and letting a black leather mule slip from a pedicured foot. “So what do you want to know, Miss Judy?”

Judy smiled. She felt cozy with Marlene, who reminded her of Mary on estrogen replacement. “To get right to it, you probably know that there is something of a vendetta going on between the Lucias and the Coluzzis.”

“Sure, everybody in South Philly knows that, but I don’t get real involved in the neighborhood anymore, sittin’ around with the girls in the coffee klatch like I used to. I have my own business now, with Mary Kay.” Her eyes scrutinized Judy’s. “You could use a little more foundation, you know. Especially with such a dark suit. What are you wearing, on your face?”

“Nothing.”

Marlene’s shadowed eyes widened. “No makeup?”

“No.”

“It’s not just a neutral look you got going?”

“No.”

“You’re shittin’ me!”

“I shit you not.”

Marlene laughed. “No wonder it looked so natural!”

“I’m an expert on natural. I have natural down to a science.”

Marlene laughed again. “That’s your problem! I could make you up, make your eyes look even bigger, and bring out the blue. For you, I would go with the Whipped Cocoa on the lid and White Sand up here, on the bone.” She pointed with a crimson-lacquered nail. “You could also use a blush, you know.”

“Lawyers don’t blush.”

“Then you need to buy it. We have powder and crème but for you I’d say the powder. Your best colors would be Teaberry and Desert Bloom.”

“Are you trying to sell me something?” Judy’s eyes narrowed, and Marlene smiled.

“Of course. It shows you what a great saleswoman I am. You come to my door, and I sell you.”

Judy clapped.

“I’m an independent sales director now. One of only eight thousand in the country. Got my pink Caddy and everything. I more than pay my mortgage, all by myself, and it all started with a hundred-dollar showcase. You can laugh, but it’s my own business.”

“I wasn’t laughing. Congratulations.”

“It’s just an expression. Thanks.” Marlene smiled and took a quick gulp of coffee. “Mary Kay is the bestselling brand of skin care and color cosmetics in the United States, six years running. They’re great products, take it from me. I’m an old dog under this paint.”

“Not at all.” Judy laughed.

“It’s true. And I wasn’t sellin’ you. It’s just that you seem like a nice girl and I can make you look a little prettier, is all. You wanna know about it, ask me.”

“Okay.”

“And you could use a crème lipstick. Something neutral. Mocha Freeze. Or Shell. I’ll give you a sample before you go.”

“Great.”

“So what do you wanna know?”

Judy sipped the thin coffee. “We were talking about the vendetta.”

“Okay. I see it made the papers, but I’ve known about it for a long time.”

“I get the impression that everybody in South Philly knows everybody else. Is that right?”

“Yes, it’s like a small town down here. Everybody knows everybody else’s habits, their cars, their kids, their problems. True, South Philly’s only an eight- or ten-block square. It used to be all Italian, but now it’s Italian plus Vietnamese, Korean, like that, south of Broad.” Marlene grabbed Judy’s teaspoon and hers and made a shiny line. “This is Broad Street, and you don’t cross Broad for the neighborhood. North of Broad is a little different, more like a twenty, twenty-five-block square on that side. It’s mostly still Italian, but you got some black. All middle-class, pay their bills. Everybody gets along. Good people.”

Judy blinked in wonder. “How do you know all this?”

“It’s my territory. You gotta know the territory. Like the Music Man says.” Marlene drank her coffee again. “Then you got Packer Park, which is like a place unto itself, and the Estates, which is the same, only ritzier. That’s where the Coluzzis live, by the way.”

Judy took out a pad and made a note.

“Write down that the homes cost five hundred grand and up. There’s a Mercedes in every driveway. Jimmy always wanted to move there, but not me. I’m old-fashioned. I love my house. I don’t like the mob snobs there.”

Judy smiled. “Mob snobs?”

“Everybody knows it.”

“Which Coluzzis live there? John or Marco?”

“All of them, and Angelo did, too. The wife still does, they all got the same model house, same upgrades, and all. Keepin’ up with the Coluzzis.”

Judy made another note. “So you probably knew that Pigeon Tony’s son and daughter-in-law were killed in a car accident last year, on the expressway.”

Marlene thought a minute. “I heard about that.”

“I’m investigating that crash, because I think Angelo Coluzzi was responsible for it, and if he was, then I bet Jimmy was, too.”

“Frankly, it’s possible.” Marlene’s smile vanished. “Jimmy’s business with Angelo, I didn’t know much about, and honestly, I didn’t want to. I was out all the time, working and building up my business. The less I knew, the better off I was.”

Judy sighed. “So you really didn’t know anything?”

“Not a thing.” Marlene shook her head regretfully.

“Do you know anything about John Coluzzi?”

“No.”

“About Marco?”

“Nope.”

“Anything about the Philly Court Shopping Center?”

“Sorry.”

Judy set down her pencil in disappointment. The visit had been a dry hole. Maybe Mr. D and The Tonys would find something.

“I’d like to help you but I can’t. Me and Jimmy lived two separate lives, just in the same house. He moved out last year, but it was over way before that.”

Maybe Judy could get some background. She picked up her pencil. “How did Angelo and Jimmy meet? Were you married then?”

“Sure, and Jimmy was sellin’ paint at the hardware store. Angelo used to go in there and they got to be friends, then Jimmy ended up working for him, and was gone all the time. His personality changed. He turned into a big bully. He let himself go. That’s when I think he started runnin’ around.”

“How much was he making working for Angelo, if you know? He said in court he only made fifteen thousand dollars.”

“Yeah, right, but that’s between him and the IRS. He had to take in at least a hundred grand, but it was all cash.” Her eyes glittered with a sudden ferocity, and she pointed at Judy. “And don’t think for one minute that I took blood money, because I didn’t. I’m no hypocrite. We didn’t even file jointly. I made my own money.”

Judy clapped again. Even though the visit was pointless, she was happy to have met Marlene. “I have to tell you, I don’t see how Jimmy could have left you. I don’t think he deserved you in the first place.”

“Thanks.” Marlene reached across the table and gave Judy’s hand a quick pat. “I don’t think he did either, but I didn’t know it then. He moved in with his young chippy, I hear. It’s supposedly the real thing, this time.” She sighed audibly. “It was tough.”

“I bet.”

“Face it, the man is not good-looking. Who woulda thought? You know how I found out?”

“You didn’t catch him, did you?”

“In a way. On tape.”

Judy frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I had the phone tapped. I paid a guy to do it.”

“You tapped your own phone?”

“Damn straight.”

“That’s illegal. Criminal, even.”

Marlene nodded happily. “I was out all the time and Jimmy had the place to himself. He was on the phone, making whoopee with twenty-year-olds. Sometimes he used the cell, but mostly not. I listened to the tape of him talking to the new one. I didn’t believe it until I heard it with my own ears, and then I threw his ass out.”

Judy thought a minute. “You taped his phone calls, from when?”

“Let’s see, he’s been out less than a year. So about six or seven months before that.” Her eyes met Judy’s, and the two women had the same thought at the same time.

“Where are the tapes?” Judy asked, but Marlene was already out of her seat.

A colonial rowhouse, with authentically melony brick, contained Judy’s apartment, and she stepped out of the cab in front of the house, her backpack slung over one shoulder, her briefcase tucked under the other, and a big cardboard box full of cassette tapes in both arms. Also a pink bag filled with Mary Kay cosmetics she couldn’t resist buying, in gratitude, though she had taken a rain check on the free makeover. She had to get to work.

It was dark out, but the narrow street was full of people. Judy was for once happy to see the summer tourists crawling all over her Society Hill neighborhood, which was chockablock with restaurants, ice cream parlors, clothes and record stores, all open late. She didn’t feel safe unless she was in a crowd lately, and sometimes not even then.

Judy glanced around. The traffic was thick, and cars moved down the cobblestone street so slowly Judy could feel the heat from their idling engines. Attractive couples and families walked hand in hand on the sidewalk. Lots of Liberty Bell T-shirts and Bermuda shorts. Ice cream in costly waffle cones and kids holding red, white, and blue balloons. Not a broken nose or a Glock among them. Excellent.

Judy hoisted the box higher, juggled her stuff to the front stoop, and leaned the box against the door while she searched for her keys in her backpack. The box was heavy. Maybe the couple on the first floor could buzz her into the front door. She glanced at the first-floor windows, but they were dark. It was only ten o’clock. They were overworked Penn med students and probably at the hospital. Damn.

Judy kept fishing and looked up. The second floor was dark, too. A couple of gay men who liked to say they were in the cruise business. They had to be out cruising. She dug deeper in the bag. Maybe next time she would take her keys out ahead of time, the way it said in the women’s magazines. How had she survived a car bomb? She heard a shuffling noise behind her and peeked timidly over her shoulder. Only a couple in work clothes, walking home. She finally found her key, shoved it into the lock, and pushed open the front door.

“Down! No! No jumping!” Judy yelled, surprised. It was her puppy in the front hall. What was she doing here? How had she gotten out? She was supposed to be up in the apartment, which was locked. Wasn’t it?

Judy’s gut tensed. She struggled to hold the cardboard box while the puppy jumped up on it, then scooted out the door past her. The street!

“No! Penny! Come!” she shouted, dropping everything and running panicky after the dog. “Penny! Come!”

But she needn’t have worried. Goldens chose people over cars every time. Unless the car had a tennis ball. The puppy was bounding over to greet the couple, but they recoiled when she leaked in delight on their shoes.

“Sorry,” Judy said, when she reached the pair. “It’s not her fault, I left her all day.” She grabbed the puppy by the red nylon collar and walked her like Quasimodo back to the front stoop, nervously assessing the situation.

Judy’s box, briefcase, and backpack lay in disarray. Her apartment was evidently unlocked. The house was completely empty, and it didn’t have the tightest security in the first place. The only blunt instrument in her place was a wooden clog. Her only protection was a drippy puppy. No way in hell was she going upstairs.

She unhooked the strap from her briefcase, latched it onto the dog’s collar, and picked up the box. She’d borrow tomorrow’s clothes from the office closet, if she had to. Then she gathered her stuff, moved it and the puppy to the curb, and hailed a cab.

The girls were on the move.

Chapter 31

Judy sat on the conference room floor at the office and slipped the tape for January 25 into the office boom box. Penny slept peacefully on the navy rug beside her, with a tummy full of chicken lo mein. They both felt well fed and reasonably safe, given the lock on the conference room door, the double lock on the firm’s reception area, and the armed guard at the desk downstairs. Rosato & Associates wasn’t Fort Knox, but it beat Judy’s apartment, for the time being.

She’d called the cops about the break-in, but Detective Wilkins was on the day tour this week and she’d had to settle for filing a complaint with the desk officer, who said they’d check it out when they could. He didn’t know about any follow-up on the car bomb or where her car was. So far the score was Coluzzi Family 1, Golden Lovers 0. It was against nature.

Judy hit PLAY on the tape machine, and Fat Jimmy’s gravelly voice came on the line, by now familiar:

JIMMY: I need that suit.

WOMAN’S VOICE: Sir, I told you Tuesday, not Monday.

JIMMY: So Tuesday, Monday, what’s the difference? I need it today.

WOMAN’S VOICE: Sir, we don’t have it. We sent it out. It will be back

Tuesday morning. You can get it then.

JIMMY: Why the fuck did you send it out? I don’t see why you had to

send it out. Where the fuck did you send it anyway? Camden?

WOMAN’S VOICE: No, sir, our plant is in Frankford.

JIMMY: Frankford? So get your ass inna car and go there! I need my effin’ suit!

She hit FAST FORWARD. The tapes were hand-labeled by date, but they had been running around the clock, and Jimmy spent more time on the phone than any man in creation. Judy had started listening to them the day before the car crash, on January 25, and gone backward in time from there, in case there was any conversation between Coluzzi and Jimmy that suggested the two men had planned it. She hit STOP, then PLAY:

JIMMY: Is that you? WOMAN’S VOICE: Who do you think it is? Cher? JIMMY: I don’t like Cher. Cher don’t do nothin’ for me. WOMAN’S VOICE: Um, how about Pamela Sue Anderson? JIMMY: The one with the tits? Her, I like. WOMAN’S VOICE: Okay, I’m her.

Judy fast-forwarded, with nausea. It made her never want to have sex with an Italian. It made her never want to have sex again, which was turning out to be a given anyway. Poor Marlene. Jimmy Bello was a pig. Judy hit PLAY when she thought she had gone far enough.

MAN’S VOICE: And don’t forget the baby oil. JIMMY: What do you need that for, Angelo?

It was Angelo Coluzzi, and Judy’s ears pricked up despite her fatigue. His voice was deep and brusque, and his English much better than Pigeon Tony’s. So far there had been just a few conversations between the two men, and they revealed only that Jimmy was a glorified errand boy. He ran personal errands:

ANGELO: I told you, get the Cento. I like the Cento. Sylvia likes the Cento. She don’t want Paul Newman. What the fuck’s she gonna do with Paul Newman?

JIMMY: So I forgot, I’m sorry.

ANGELO: What’s so fuckin’ hard to remember? Cento! Cento Clam

Sauce! White! What’s hard? Cento, that’s hard? JIMMY: Cento, I got it. I’ll bring it this afternoon. ANGELO: Cento, for fuck’s sake! It’s the only one without the MSG.

Sylvia can’t take the MSG, I tol’ you that. You know that.

He also ran pigeon errands:

ANGELO: You mix oil with the malathion, stupid. JIMMY: Baby oil? ANGELO: The oil holds the malathion. You mix it and brush it on the perches. The fumes go in the birds’ feathers at night. Kills all the mites. JIMMY: So you don’t want the borax now? ANGELO: Of course I want the borax. Bring the borax, too! You’re so fuckin’ stupid! And pick me up at ten tomorrow.

And he wasn’t always the best errand boy at that:

ANGELO: The peanuts you dropped off, they’re the wrong kind. JIMMY: What? Whatsa matter with the peanuts? ANGELO: They’re the wrong kind. JIMMY: They’re normal. They’re normal peanuts. ANGELO: You need raw Spanish peanuts, not roasted, no salt. The kind you got, they got at the ballpark. You can’t feed ’em to the birds. Why’n’t you just bring ’em a hot dog and a Bud Lite, you idiot? And make it two o’clock tomorrow, not three.

He also ran errands for the construction company:

ANGELO: No, stupid, I said 20,000 square feet of plywood, builder’s grade. They shorted us, the bastards. JIMMY: You said 2000 square feet. I wrote it down, Ange. 2000. ANGELO: 2000? I didn’t say 2000! What am I gonna do with 2000 square feet of plywood in a mall, for fuck’s sake? And pick me up at nine o’clock, can you get that right? Don’t be late.

Judy took notes on every conversation between Jimmy and Coluzzi, but as the tapes rolled on, her hopes sank. There was nothing to suggest that they had caused or planned the car accident with Frank’s parents. She flipped back through a legal pad full of notes. The only evidence she’d gotten was on the first tape, for January 25, the day of the crash:

ANGELO: I’ll be ready at ten tonight and I’m gonna be thirsty.

JIMMY: You got it. I’ll bring the Coke.

ANGELO: Good. Don’t be late.

Judy had listened to it over and over, excited when she first heard it. But on her notes she could see it for what it was. Nothing. All it proved was that they were together that night, not that they killed two people together. But still it was interesting, and it motivated her to keep going, despite her growing fatigue.

Judy checked her watch. It was three in the morning. Maybe she could lie down and listen. She put her legal pad on the floor, stretched out on the soft wool of the conference room rug, and curved her back against Penny’s, which felt surprisingly warm and solid. It was good to have a dog around, and Bennie couldn’t fire her for it, since she did it herself most of the time.

Judy snuggled back against the puppy, who leaned against her in response, then she rested her head on her arm, picked up her pen, and hit PLAY. She closed her eyes and listened to the tape drone on, hoping that, in the still of the conference room, in the middle of the night, she would hear the sound of men planning murder.

A lawyer’s lullaby.

The next thing Judy knew the tape had gone silent and the telephone on the credenza was ringing. She must have fallen asleep. Her navy suit bunched at the skirt. Her brown pumps lay discarded on the carpet. She looked at the windows. It was dawn. An overcast sky, with the clouds showing a pink underbelly.

Ring! Ring! Judy propped herself on an elbow and checked her watch through scratchy eyes. It was 6:30 A.M. Ring! Penny lifted her head and blinked dully, clearly hoping voicemail would pick up.

Ring! Judy got her feet under her, sleepwalked to the credenza, and picked up the phone. “Rosato and Associates.”

“Judy! You there? It’s Matty, Mr. DiNunzio.” His voice sounded urgent, and it woke Judy up.

“Sure, what is it?”

“We been callin’ you all night, at home. What’s the matter with your phone?”

“I don’t know, what’s the matter with it?”

“It don’t work. I called the company, they said there was something wrong with the line, inside the house. They can’t even send a guy to fix it, they only fix the outside lines.”

Judy felt a tingle of fear. Her apartment, unlocked. Her phone, possibly tampered with. It sure sounded like a trap. Her gaze found Penny, who had gone back to sleep curled into a golden circle on the rug, reminding Judy of a glazed doughnut. The dog had saved her life. Judy resolved to be a better mother.

“Judy, you okay?”

“I’m fine. I stayed here and worked. I got these tapes of Coluzzi and Jimmy, but they’re not much help—”

“Judy, I don’t have time to talk. I’m at a pay phone and I don’t have another quarter and I’m almost out of time.”

Judy couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to anybody calling from a pay phone, but it had probably been Mr. DiNunzio. In fact, the DiNunzios still had a black rotary phone at home, resting on something that they called a telephone table. Soon the whole family would be on display in the Smithsonian.

“You gotta come,” Mr. DiNunzio said. “Now.”

“Where? Why?”

“Down by the airport.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but we need your help. Come now. Get a pencil.” He recited an address as if it were familiar, and Judy grabbed a pencil, scribbled it down, and reached for her clogs lying under the table.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

But the line went dead.

The metal scrapyard lay alongside the highway in an industrial section of South Philly, and it was immense, taking up at least three city blocks. Mountains of rusty oil barrels, fenders, bumpers, aluminum duct work, brake drums, and railroad wheels reached like houses to the sky, and between each was a dirt road. It looked like a veritable City of Scrap, and if it was, its city hall sat at its center: a huge metal tower of dark corrugated tin, with a series of conveyor belts reaching to it in a zigzag pattern, like a crazy walkway. Judy had never seen anything like this, except in the cartoon The Brave Little Toaster, but she didn’t say so. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing you’d want your lawyer knowing, much less saying.

Cyclone fencing, concertina wire, and a heavily chained and padlocked gate kept the world out of the scrapyard, although the only world interested in entering was Judy, Tony-From-Down-The-Block, Feet, Mr. DiNunzio, and a golden retriever puppy, sitting patiently and only occasionally nosing Judy’s hand to be petted. Judy hadn’t wanted to leave her at work without telling anybody, and Penny was already turning out to be useful, finding ossified dog turds where nobody else could.

Three senior citizens, the puppy, and the lawyer stood in a stymied line facing the front gate. Everybody but the dog held a take-out coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, and a half a dozen glazed were left in the car. Judy was coming rapidly to the conclusion that no Italian went anywhere or did anything without a saturated fat nearby. It turned a job into a party, even a job this filthy. Trash lay everywhere, litter clung to the Cyclone fencing, and the increasing traffic on the highway spewed air scented with hydrocarbons. Soon it would be the morning rush hour, and they all would suffocate.

Mr. DiNunzio read the sign on the front gate, a long notice posted by order of the court. “No admittance, it says, and then some court lingo. What’s it mean, Jude?”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block snorted, an unlit cigar in the hand with the paper Dunkin’ Donuts cup. “It means you can’t go in, Matty. Whaddaya think it means, siddown and have a cuppa coffee?”

Judy ignored them in favor of the notice. It had been posted by the bankruptcy court and was dated February 15, a year ago. She juggled Penny and the coffee cup to run a finger along the fine print. “Apparently the business that owns and operates the scrapyard went into receivership, and its assets—the land, the machinery, the equipment—were frozen pending the outcome. In other words, this scrapyard is just the way it was on February fifteenth.”

“That’s what Dom from Passyunk Avenue said,” Mr. DiNunzio added, and Judy looked over.

“Tell me how you found it, Mr. D.”

“Well, we figgered that the truck that they died in, Frank and Gemma, was totaled. I mean, the way it went over the overpass, and the fire, it couldn’t not be.” Mr. DiNunzio swallowed at the memory, his eyes, behind his bifocals, still puffy from lack of sleep. He had a fresh shave, a new brown cardigan, a white shirt, and baggy pants. It was a given that he smelled like mothballs.

“So we knew it had to be sold for junk, and the junkyards everybody uses in South Philly are the ones on Passyunk Avenue, because it’s close.”

Feet nodded eagerly. “Also that’s where you get the best deal. They got five or six there, and you can bargain. You can—”

Judy interrupted him with a wave. “Don’t say ‘Jew ’em down,’ okay, Feet?”

Feet’s lips parted in offense. “I wasn’t going to say ‘Jew ’em down.’ I never say ‘Jew ’em down.’ I’m Jewish.”

Judy closed her eyes, mortified. “Sorry. I don’t use that expression either. I never say it. I just know that some people do.”

Mr. DiNunzio cleared his throat. “There are Italian Jews, Judy. Many people don’t realize that. They assume all Italians are Catholic, but they are incorrect.”

Feet resettled his T-shirt huffily. “Well, I hope you don’t use that term, Judy. It’s not nice.”

“I don’t, I swear.” Judy crossed herself, backward. This religion thing was so confusing. Maybe she should get one. She turned to Mr. DiNunzio. “Anyway, you were saying, Mr. D.”

“So we asked all the junkyard dealers ’til we found the one they brought it to, named Wreck-A-Mend. Ain’t that a stupid name? Anyway, the guy’s name is Dom and he had a record of the title and he said that he sold it to these guys for scrap, right after they were killed, which was on January twenty-fifth. I know because I still got the Mass card. He said if they didn’t scrap it yet, or whatever they do, then the car should still be here.”

“Great work, gentlemen!” Judy said, excited. It was more than she’d hoped when she gave them the assignment, yesterday in the conference room. But her bomb theory wasn’t panning out. “Did the junk dealer really say the truck was still whole, though?”

“Yes. He said he had enough to sell. Got two hundred and fifty bucks for it, which ain’t bad.”

“Tullio’s car ain’t worth that now,” Feet said, but Judy was thinking ahead.

“So they couldn’t have planted a bomb on it, or there wouldn’t be anything left. But if they tampered with it somehow, there should be some evidence of it. Or what’s left of it.”

Mr. DiNunzio sipped his coffee reflectively. “I still don’t unnerstan’ why the cops didn’t think that, if it’s really a murder.”

Feet looked over. “They weren’t lookin’ for it. They thought it was an accident. It’s possible that it wasn’t, and we’ll know when we find it, like Judy said. She said she’d get it tested, like from a professional car tester guy. Right, Judy?”

“Right. A car tester guy.” She nodded, relieved that Feet had apparently forgiven her gaffe. “Way to go, gentlemen.” Judy felt a cool nose under her hand and petted the dog, who apparently felt left out of the praise. “So where are the junked cars?” Feet pointed to the left, and Judy looked over with a start. On the far side of the scrapyard, behind piles of dark, shredded metal and bales of crushed aluminum cans, sat junked cars stacked as high as skyscrapers. Judy almost dropped her coffee. “Are you serious? There have to be a zillion cars there.”

Feet shook his head. “No, only two thousand forty-four. We counted while we were waitin’ for you. We had nothin’ else to do.”

Judy blinked, astounded. “But how will we know which one it is?”

“It’s an ’81 red Volkswagen, a pickup. He used it for the construction business. It had a gold Mason emblem on the back, because Frank was a Mason.”

Judy smiled. “How do you know their truck, Feet?”

“Frank and Gemma lived down the block from me. We all know each other’s cars in South Philly. How else you gonna double-park?”

Mr. DiNunzio nodded. “We were thinking, if you only look at the red ones, that narrows it down to only 593 wrecks we gotta look at.”

“But we gotta check the burned ones, too,” Tony-From-Down-The-Block added, “since I think the truck caught on fire.”

“How many burned trucks are there?” Judy asked, but Feet shrugged.

“We didn’t count. We got tired and ate doughnuts instead.”

Judy smiled and faced the Cyclone fence around the scrapyard. She didn’t know how’d she’d scale it, much less get them over. It was easily ten feet high, and the concertina wire would slice like a razor. “Only one obstacle left. We gotta climb the fence.”

“The hell with that,” Feet said, and Mr. DiNunzio laughed.

“You think a fence can keep out a coupla boys from the neighborhood?” He hooked an arthritic index finger on one of the fence’s wires and yanked. A waist-high door opened in the fence, its metal crudely severed. “I know it ain’t right, so don’t tell my daughter on me.”

Judy’s eyes widened. “Mr. D, this is breaking and entering.”

“No, it ain’t,” Tony-From-Down-The-Block said. “We didn’t break nothing.”

“Let’s go.” Feet ducked down and shuffled with his coffee through the makeshift gate, and Tony-From-Down-The-Block went behind him, while Mr. DiNunzio held open the door for Judy, who balked.

“I can’t do this,” she said, albeit reluctantly. All the Italians were going inside to have fun. Even the puppy tugged at the leash. “I’m an officer of the court. I’ve never broken the law in my life. It’s the only rules I follow.”

“Don’t be a party pooper!” Tony-From-Down-The-Block shouted from the other side of the fence, and Feet agreed.

“You tol’ us to find the truck, we found the truck. Now come on, Jude! It could be in there somewhere. We gotta get goin’.”

Judy thought hard. She could petition the bankruptcy court for permission to enter, but that would show her hand, publicly and to Frank, and they wouldn’t grant it in the end. Maybe if she called the counsel for the scrap company, but that could take days. She couldn’t see any alternative.

“You gotta do it, Judy,” Mr. DiNunzio said. “For Pigeon Tony. How’s he ever gonna get justice if we don’t help?”

Judy smiled at the irony. “Is it okay to break the law to get justice, Mr. D?”

The old man’s eyes narrowed, and though none of them had ever discussed the direct question of Pigeon Tony’s guilt, Mr. DiNunzio knew just what she was saying. “Sure it is,” he said with certainty.

Judy considered it, standing her ground, feeling like a hypocrite, then a fool. It had started as a simple question but had become freighted. Still, an ethical question didn’t have to be a momentous one to present the issue; the fact that it seemed minor only eased glossing over the ethics. Judy was confronting the white lie of break-ins.

“Penny, come! Come!” Feet shouted suddenly, with a loud clap, and Penny, on the leash in Judy’s hand, leaped forward and tugged them both through the gate, lunging for the doughnut Feet was offering.

“No fair!” Judy said, landing confused on the other side.

Mr. DiNunzio came through and patted her on the back. “Let’s go save a life,” he said, but Feet shook his head.

“What’s the big deal, Jude? You may be a lawyer, but you can lighten up a little.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block threw an arm around her, with a cigar between his fingers. “Sometimes education makes you dumb,” he said.

Judy wasn’t sure she agreed, but she was already on the other side of the fence.

And the gate was closed behind her.

Chapter 32

The toxic wind from the expressway lessened inside the scrap-yard, and Judy and The Two Tonys, the puppy, and Mr. Di-Nunzio made their way to the junked cars, past a thirty-foot-high pile of car parts. “Looks like crab shells,” Feet said.

They passed a lineup of used rubber tires.

“Looks like chocolate doughnuts,” Feet said.

They passed bales of smashed tin cans.

“Looks like shredded wheat,” Feet said.

Judy smiled as they walked by a yellow crane that said KOMATSU on the side in black letters. “What’s that look like, Feet?”

“My mother-in-law,” he said, and everybody laughed.

They walked on, down one of the makeshift streets of scrap, and in time Tony-From-Down-The-Block took on the role of tour guide. “See, Judy, that thing there”—he pointed at the corrugated tower, his cigar between two fingers— “that’s the shredder. It shreds the metal.”

“Interesting,” Judy said, meaning it. She thought all cars got flattened, like in The Brave Little You-Know-What.

“The cars and scrap metal go up the conveyor belts, then inside the tower is a row of magnets, and it separates the aluminum, copper, and brass from iron scrap. Aluminum don’t get attracted to magnets, you follow? Also it shoots out the rest of the stuff that’s not metal, like car seats and shit like that. That’s called fluff.”

Feet looked over. “How do you know that?”

“I been around, that’s how. A scrapyard this big, they could do three, four thousand cars a day. Usually the cars get collected in the day and shredded at night.” They walked past a ten-foot triangle of chewed-up metal, and Tony-From-Down-The-Block pointed. “That’s frag. Comes outta the metal shredder like that. Worth a lot of money. They use it in new cars. Recycled metal.”

“Looks like fried clams,” Feet said, and Penny looked over with interest.

About five miles of trash, scrap, twisted metal, and rusty train wheels later, Judy and Company stood dwarfed before a wall of junked cars, bound by heavy chain. The cars had been stripped of their tires, exposing the brake drums, the headlights had been pulled out, leaving the cars eyeless, and the chrome and the car roofs had been cut off, so that only the bodies remained.

“Looks like a stack of pancakes,” said Feet, who now held Penny’s leash. The dog had fallen in love with him on the way over, for obvious reasons.

Judy skimmed the names on the carcasses. Delta 88. Monte Carlo. Sunbird. Ford Granada. They were all old cars, judging from the ridiculous lengths of the car bodies. It was hard to see how earth had room for all the cars in the eighties. “I’ve never heard of half these cars.”

“I owned half these cars,” Tony-From-Down-The-Block said, and Feet smiled.

“We better get to work,” Mr. DiNunzio said, finishing his coffee and wiggling the empty cup. “Wait, what’re we doin’ with our trash?”

“Just throw it on the ground,” Tony-From-Down-The-Block said, but Mr. DiNunzio shook his head.

“That ain’t right. You don’t throw litter on the ground.”

“It’s a junkyard, Matty.”

“It still ain’t right,” he said. He folded his empty cup carefully in two and stuffed it into the pocket of his brown cardigan.

“Let’s get it done,” Judy said. She scanned the cars, whose rows extended unevenly to the sky, inevitably reminding her of a mountain range. “Feet, you and Penny take the far end. We’ll all space ourselves along and start looking. It’s a red Volkswagen pickup with a Mason’s emblem. There can’t be many of them here.”

Feet nodded hopefully. “True. I remember it was a pretty unusual thing. I don’t think they made a lot of ’em. Frank, he loved that little truck.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block put a comforting hand on Judy’s shoulder. “We’ll find it, Jude. Anybody can find it, we can.”

Mr. DiNunzio chimed in, “Sure we will. Red is easy to see.”

Judy forced a smile, from the foothills of the junked-car mountains. “How hard can it be?” she asked.

Only Penny had the sense to look doubtful.

Four hours later, the noon sun burned high in a cloudless sky, and its heat reflected on the discarded metal everywhere, transforming the scrapyard into a furnace. Judy sweated through her suit, even with the jacket off, and Penny lapped bottled water from Mr. DiNunzio’s unfolded coffee cup. But all of them forgot the heat when they discovered the short red truck in the middle, third from the bottom, in the stack of junked vehicles.

“You think this is it?” Judy asked, checking her excitement. Mr. DiNunzio had been the one to find the truck and had let out a yelp at the discovery, but she didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.

“Sure, it is!” Mr. DiNunzio answered, pointing at the smashed grille. “Got the VW circle and all. It’s smashed and burned but it’s there.”

Judy looked. The VW logo hung in a circle from the truck’s broken black grille, and its red paint was visible only in dull splotches that weren’t blackened by fire.

“Look!” Feet shouted from the back of the truck, and Judy’s heart skipped a beat as she remembered the bomb that Tullio had found under her bumper. She hurried over to Feet, who was almost jumping with happiness. “It’s got the Mason thing and all! This has gotta be the truck! See it?”

“Jeez,” Judy heard herself say. A Masonic emblem, its fake gold charred, could barely be identified by its embossing. It seemed that the truck was the Lucias’, and seeing the wreck this close saddened Judy. She couldn’t see the driver’s side, and the only obvious point about the wreckage was that nobody could have walked away from it alive. And as odd as it felt finding the truck without Frank’s knowledge, she was glad he hadn’t been here to see it. “Nobody tell Frank we found this, okay?” Judy said as a reminder.

“Okay,” Mr. DiNunzio said, and the others nodded gravely.

She surveyed the situation. She had a junker that had been confiscated by court order, three very tired but victorious senior citizens, and a puppy shredding a paper cup with vigor. “Now all we got to do is get the truck out of here,” she said, thinking aloud, and Tony-From-Down-The-Block brightened.

“Piece a cake. We snip the chains and yank—”

“NO!” Judy said. Instantly Penny dropped the cup, but Judy considered her obedience as temporary insanity. “We can’t just take it. It’s here under court order.”

Mr. DiNunzio frowned. “Can you call the court?”

“It’s not that easy, especially bankruptcy court. You have to petition for it. And we can’t get it out by police order unless we’re willing to go public with it, which I’m not.”

“You don’t want Frank to know.” Feet nodded.

“I don’t want the Coluzzis to know either. If this was murder and not an accident, I don’t want them to know we’re onto them.” Judy tried to think, but Tony-From-Down-The-Block kept talking, tempting her like a devil with a Macanudo.

“All it takes is a crane operator,” he was saying. “Crane’s right over there. Drive it over, pick the cars off the top, and pull out the red truck. Friend of mine can work a crane, and another friend got a flatbed.”

Judy shook her head. “It’s illegal.”

“We won’t get caught. This place is friggin’ deserted. Both of my buddies are in the club. They’d be glad to help Pigeon Tony out, and they won’t say nothin’. Be done in five minutes.”

Judy shuddered. “I took an oath.”

“People get divorced all the time. Look at me and Feet.”

Mr. DiNunzio snorted. “You two make a bad couple. I wouldn’t a given it ten minutes.”

Feet laughed, but Judy didn’t. “It’s not the same thing,” she said. “And if we get caught, it’s my license.”

“So don’t be there. What we need you for?”

Judy shook her head. “Maybe we can bring the expert to the truck, instead of the other way around.”

“How’s he gonna test it, like a pancake in a stack?”

“Gimme a minute.” Judy bit her lip. “There has to be another way.”

“You think too much, even for a lawyer.”

“Okay, gimme a day. I’ll come up with something and let you know.”

Feet laughed. “This is like that joke where the rabbi shoots a hole in one, but he’s playing golf on a high holy day.”

Judy smiled. Gazing at the car, she couldn’t completely disagree.

“Not that I tell Jewish jokes,” Feet added.

“Never happen,” said Tony-From-Down-The-Block.

Judy didn’t have to fight the press to get to the door of her office building. There were fewer reporters clogging the sidewalk than usual, and she was guessing it wasn’t her new perfume, Eau de Scrapyard. Judging from their questions, they had deserted her for the Coluzzi Construction offices.

“Ms. Carrier, what do you say to today’s news that Marco has thrown his brother John out of the company offices?” “Ms. Carrier, do you have any comment on the feud between the Coluzzis?” “Judy, where are you hiding Pigeon Tony and why?”

“No comment,” she said, suppressing her excitement as she hit the building, grabbed an elevator, and punched the button for her floor. She could hardly wait for the doors to open so she could jump out. “Is Bennie in?” she called when she hit the reception area, but the receptionist was leaving, bag in hand.

“Uh, Bennie?” the receptionist asked. She was apparently a temp, a tall, thin woman with a long, dark braid and too much makeup; but then to Judy, everybody but Marlene Bello wore too much makeup. “Bennie Rosato? She said she went on an emergency TRO, whatever that is. On a First Amendment case. She’s in court.”

Damn. No wonder Bennie hadn’t answered her cell phone. Judy had wanted to talk to her about the red truck before she got arrested, not after. “May I have my messages and mail? Also the newspapers.”

“Hold on a minute.” The receptionist turned reluctantly back to the desk, rooted through the papers to locate Judy’s phone messages, correspondence, and today’s newspapers, and handed them all to her. “Your name is Judy Carrier, right? Where’s the dog?”

“With a man named Feet. Thanks for the mail.” Preoccupied, Judy flipped through her phone messages. WCAU-TV, WPVI-TV, ABC, NBC, CNN, Court TV and an array of newspapers. “You a temp, by the way? Where’s Marshall?”

“Gotta go. Late lunch and all.”

“Have fun.” Judy grabbed the papers and her correspondence, chugged to her office, and ignored everything but the front page of The Daily News. IT’S OVER, JOHNNIE, read the tabloid headline, and Judy flipped the page to read the story.

In a major power grab, Marco Coluzzi, chief financial officer of Coluzzi Construction Company, this morning blocked his brother John’s entrance to the company offices. The surprise move almost caused a riot on this tiny block of South Philadelphia. Private security guards apparently employed by Marco Coluzzi were able to keep John Coluzzi, chief operating officer of Coluzzi Construction, and others from reporting to work without violence. Philadelphia police arrived quickly on the scene, and one highly placed company official commented that they had been called in advance to keep a lid on any potential disturbance.

Neither Coluzzi brother could be reached for comment, but Coluzzi Construction has issued a press release stating that, “Effective today, Marco Coluzzi has been named president and CEO of Coluzzi Construction. All previous contracts made under prior management will remain in force and be honored.”

My God. So Marco had made his move. What sort of king waited to be crowned, when he could crown himself? Judy read the tabloid’s account, then the next newspaper’s and the next, sinking into her desk chair in her sunny office, soaking it all in. It couldn’t have gone better if she’d planned it. She flipped the page to continue reading the story, and next to it was a sidebar that was even better.

Coluzzi Construction, considered a shoo-in for the construction contract for the new waterfront shopping complex, was today denied the nod. City officials state that the contract was offered to Melton Construction instead because of “their high quality of workmanship and price, of course,” but insiders say that the recent racketeering lawsuit against Coluzzi Construction over the nearby Philly Court Center was behind the upset. The contract was valued at $11 million.

Judy was stunned. She had cost the Coluzzis a fortune. The timing of Marco’s takeover was no coincidence. If John had been responsible for the Philly Court debacle, it had to have been the final blow against him. Judy changed her plans. She had come back to the office to press her lawsuit against the Coluzzis, to prepare and file the first wave of interrogatories and document requests, but the takeover became instant priority. Marco had declared war, and she could only guess how John would react. Judy had no way of knowing. Then she thought about it. Yes, she did.

The tapes, between Fat Jimmy and Angelo Coluzzi. They were her only way into the inner workings of the Coluzzis, and she hadn’t finished listening to them yet. They’d been a dry hole for the murder of Frank’s parents, except for the fact that Angelo and Fat Jimmy had been together that night. But what could the tapes tell her, if anything, about the warring brothers?

Judy considered it. John Coluzzi and Fat Jimmy were allies now, maybe they had been for a long time. Maybe there had been discussions of Marco on the tapes. It was likelier than not. She tossed the newspaper aside and hurried to the conference room, where she had left the box of tapes.

But when she got there, they were gone.

Chapter 33

Judy couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The conference room was the way she’d left it this morning, minus the lo mein cartons, the dog dish, and the big cardboard box of tapes. “Who took my tapes?” she shouted.

She turned on her heels, but the office looked empty, normal for lunchtime. Nobody would have gone into the war room and taken evidence from it. It was an unwritten rule, observed by everyone. Who was new on the scene? Then Judy remembered. There had been a temp at the front desk. The temp was the only possibility. And she had been on the way out when Judy came in.

One of the secretaries appeared behind her. “The temp was in there this morning,” she said. “She told me you told her to clean up the food and all—”

“Thanks, but I didn’t do that.” Alarmed, Judy sprinted from the conference room, past the astonished expressions of the lawyers, including Murphy, who was escorting clients to the reception area. Judy didn’t care. “Murphy, call Marshall’s house and check on her!”

“Why? What?”

“Our regular receptionist, Marshall. Just do it!” Judy called over her shoulder, and took off for the reception area. “Where’s that temp?” she shouted, but the reception desk was empty.

“You just missed her,” one of the associates said, waving a brief. “But don’t use her, she’s terrible. She’s been trying to go home all morning, but I needed her to type something for me. Look at it! She types worse than I do.”

But Judy was already hustling for the elevator. The steel doors were sealed closed but she heard the cab ping downstairs as it landed on the ground floor. She couldn’t wait for it to return. She ran for the staircase next to the elevator, banged open the fire door, and ran down the concrete steps, her clogs clumping on the steel tread of each step. She wound down the one flight, then hit the fire door and slammed into it, banging it open.

“Where’d that woman go, with the braid?” she called to the alarmed security guard, who pointed to the service entrance of the building.

“Out the back. Said she wanted to avoid the press. Is there a problem?”

Judy was off and running, down a short corridor, past a green time clock with white cards in slots underneath, and out the back exit, which dumped her into an alley. She looked down the street just in time to see the receptionist’s dark braid flying around the corner.

Judy darted up the alley after her and found herself on a hot sidewalk crowded with businesspeople coming back from lunch. She looked left. The dark braid wasn’t in sight. She looked right. Up ahead, running now against the current of the crowd, sprinted the woman with the dark braid. She was tall enough that her head bobbed above the crowd.

Judy barreled through the crowd, keeping a bead on her. The temp had on running shoes, but they were no match for clogs. Judy could do anything in clogs. She could leap tall buildings. Running down a fake temp was a no-brainer.

Her heart beat faster. She sweated through her days-old suit. Questions flew through her brain. How had they known about the tapes? Had they been watching her? Who had sent this woman? Judy kept her eye on the dark braid, who swerved around a corner toward Chestnut Street, heading into the heart of the business district, clearly hoping to lose Judy in the crowd.

Judy put on the afterburners, becoming breathless, and the dark braid picked up her pace, too, tearing down the street. Startled passersby jumped out of the way and looked on curiously. The distance between Judy and the woman was widening. The crowd thickened. Judy was losing her. Clogs were stupid. Then Judy got an idea. If the dark braid could use the crowd, so could she.

“Stop that woman, she took my purse!” Judy called out, dimly aware that Bennie had tried that trick once, with success. But nobody stopped. They just let the woman run by. Damn. Judy charged ahead and got another idea.

“Stop that woman, she took my baby!” Judy shouted, louder, but nobody stopped the woman with the dark braid, who tore down the street, slipped through traffic and made it to the next curb, and took off. So much for the City of Brotherly Love. Judy got another idea.

“Stop that woman—it’s Cher!” she screamed, but this time a ripple of excitement went through the passersby and they stopped and stared at the woman with too much makeup and a long black braid. One thrust a pen and paper at her for an autograph, and a young man started chasing after her. Bingo! “Hey, everybody!” Judy hollered at the top of her lungs, to anyone who would listen. “That’s CHER!”

In no time a small crowd was running after the tall woman with the dark braid, and Judy trailed them by a furlong. They chased the woman into an alley, where they cornered her and had her backed against the brick wall, panting like a dog. Judy peered over their heads, blocked the alley, and waited for the inevitable.

“That’s not Cher!” “She’s not Cher!” “You don’t even look like Cher!” “Wannabe!” “Poser!” called the crowd, and after some commotion they dispersed, filing disappointed out of the alley, leaving Judy and the temp alone.

Judy went to the back of the alley and faced the woman, who didn’t even try to run past her but looked plainly exhausted, her head to one side, as if she were nodding out. She didn’t even move as Judy approached, and up close Judy could see that the woman was just a girl, with heavy black eyeliner, greasy from exertion, and her hair dyed black as midnight. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen or weighed more than a hundred pounds in tight Guess jeans and a thin white sweater. Her skin was pale, her cheekbones too prominent to be healthy, and her pupils pinpoints. It wasn’t because of the sun.

Judy grabbed the girl’s skinny arm and pinned her against the wall with ease. “Where are my tapes?”

“Don’t hurt me. I put them in the incinerator, in the basement. They’re gone.” The girl’s eyelids fluttered and her green eyes filled with tears of fear, which disarmed Judy. She had never acted this way before. Nobody was afraid of her. She could barely housebreak a golden. Nevertheless she tightened her grip. Her tapes, gone.

“Why’d you burn the tapes?”

“Because they made me. They said they’d beat me up if I didn’t. Please don’t turn me in. Please lemme go.”

“Who said they’d beat you up? One of the Coluzzis?”

The girl pursed her lips, as if to resist Judy’s prying out the answer, so Judy tried hardball.

“You destroyed critical evidence in a murder case. That’s obstruction of justice. If I call the cops to arrest you right now, that’s federal time. Who made you do it? Was it Coluzzi? Jimmy Bello?”

“I can’t say.” The girl shook her head, jittery against the rough brick. “I’d rather do the time than end up dead.”

“You think they’d kill you?”

“I know they would.”

Judy shuddered, thinking about Marshall. “Did they hurt our receptionist?”

“No, they said they’d detain her is all.”

“Did they hurt Marlene Bello?”

“Nobody hurts Marlene.” The girl grinned crookedly. “Lemme go, please. I didn’t have a choice.”

Judy considered it. There weren’t a lot of alternatives. She felt too sorry for the girl to turn her in. If the girl told the police who’d sent her, she’d be in danger herself. Judy flashed on Theresa McRea, who had to flee the country in fear. Judy was suddenly tired of causing so much pain, even in the name of justice. She was becoming her enemy and that she couldn’t stand. Let the bad guys do the bad things from now on. If Judy was a good guy, she had to do the good things. Her karma reserves were already in the red zone, from the scrapyard.

Judy released the girl’s arm. “Go. Run. Get clean. Learn to type. But do me one favor. Tell them you think I copied the tapes.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed with street savvy. “You didn’t make copies.”

“You’re not Cher, but those people thought you were. And look what happened.”

The girl giggled, and then the laughter disappeared as quickly as it had come. “They’re trying to kill you, whoever you are. Lawyer with a dog.”

“I know, the car bomb gave them away,” Judy said, forcing a smile she didn’t feel. The threat by the Coluzzis was a constant now, gnawing at her stomach. “But why didn’t they send you to do it? You could have killed me as easily as burned my tapes.”

“Me?” The girl put up her palms. “Oh no, I don’t go there. Not me. No. Besides, they do that themselves.”

Even Judy’s fraudulent smile vanished. “Better go now. Before I change my mind.”

The girl broke free and ran off, without looking back.

“Hey, kids,” Judy said, rushing into the reception area at the office, worrying about Marshall and Marlene Bello. Murphy and the secretaries were standing around the front desk talking. Judy gauged the scene instantly and relaxed. They wouldn’t have been loafing if the receptionist were in trouble. “I gather Marshall is okay?”

Murphy nodded. “She got stuck in an elevator. It broke, they think. She’s on her way in.”

“Great.” Judy smiled with relief. The Coluzzis were killing only when necessary. They must have been off their game. “I gotta go make some calls. Thanks for your help.”

“You didn’t catch the temp?” Murphy asked, surprised, but Judy shook her head.

“Bennie woulda caught her, but I couldn’t.”

“Damn!” Murphy turned to Letisha, one of the secretaries. “I owe you a tenner.”

Judy laughed, on her way to her office. She was liking Murphy more and more. She reached her office, shut the door, and punched in Marlene Bello’s number, holding her breath while the phone rang one, two, three, and finally four times before Marlene picked up. “You’re alive!” Judy said.

“Last time I checked.” Marlene laughed in her throaty, smoke- cured way. “Very alive, in fact.” “Oh, yeah?” “Yeah, you want to talk to Tony?” Judy raised an eyebrow. “Tony? Tony who?” “Tony-From-Down-The-Block. He’s paying me a visit, for lunch.

He says to tell you hi.” Judy smiled. So he hadn’t been as tired as she’d thought. She filled Marlene in on the story of the tapes and told her to watch her back. “Don’t you worry about me, sugar. I keep a Beretta in my purse.” “Great, I guess.” Judy wondered fleetingly how many Mary Kay reps carried concealed. “You didn’t make copies of those tapes by any chance, did you?” “No way.” “You think the PI you hired did?” “Doubt it. He died anyway, three months ago.” Judy paused, suspicious. “How’d he die?” “Kidney failure.” Marlene put a hand over the phone, then came back on the line. “Hold on. Tony’s buggin’ me for the phone. He wants to tell you something.” “What?” “First, he says, ‘Don’t be mad.’” Judy knew instantly what he meant. “Damn him! Put him on!”

Chapter 34

The detective at the front desk was on the phone, but Judy wasn’t waiting for him to get off. She passed the desk and entered the squad room, where most of the Homicide Division looked up without surprise. Their ties loosened and their jackets off, they’d been eating lunch and waiting for jobs. Yellow Blimpie’s cups dotted the messy desks and the oily papers left over from take-out hoagies remained, many with a pile of shredded onions scenting the air. The detectives had undoubtedly been alerted to Judy’s visit, since she’d called Wilkins before she came, and she wondered if they’d been taking bets on whether she’d come bare-legged or not. She had. No pantyhose could withstand the way she lawyered.

“Miss Carrier,” Detective Wilkins said, standing and hitching up his slacks on slim hips. His white shirtsleeves were rolled up and his tie was on and knotted tight. “You came to file another complaint.”

“Let’s review. A bomb on my car, my apartment broken into, and now a fake temp in my office. Call me crazy, but I think someone’s trying to kill me.”

Detective Wilkins smiled without mirth. “We don’t think you’re crazy. We take all of your calls and complaints very seriously, and I’m glad you came down to talk to us about it.”

It sounded like the policeman-is-your-friend lecture they gave in third grade. Evidently Judy couldn’t have this conversation in an open squad room. “Is there someplace we could talk in private?”

“I’ll do you one better,” he said, lifting his jacket from behind his chair. “Come with me.”

Ten minutes later she was sitting in the beat-up passenger seat of Detective Wilkins’s ancient blue Crown Victoria, telling him everything that had happened over the past two days, with the exception of that silly little felony at the scrapyard. She felt vaguely hypocritical, seeking police protection after she’d conspired to boost a junker. In the law, this was known as “unclean hands.” Judy tried to put it out of her mind. In the law, this was known as “denial.”

There was almost no traffic, it being the lull between the lunch and the evening rush hours, but Detective Wilkins drove as if there were, rushing even to red lights and gunning the engine when they turned green. They were heading toward her apartment in Society Hill, and Judy was glad it wasn’t far.

“So we’re checking out my apartment?” she asked, and he nodded. He kept his gaze straight ahead and his hands loosely on the wheel. His eyes were flinty in the sun coming through the windshield.

“I heard your message when I came in. You said your apartment door was open, but so was the front door downstairs. You said there were no signs of a break-in or forced entry of any kind.”

“There wasn’t, but someone got in there. I’m not imagining this, Detective.”

“I didn’t say you were. But isn’t it possible that you left your apartment door open?” The Crown Vic lurched to a red light.

“I didn’t. I never leave my door open. And the front door wasn’t open when I left yesterday. I had to unlock it to get in last night.”

“We’ll do a walk-through together when we get there and you’ll tell me if anything is wrong.”

“Okay.” Judy thought a minute. “What about the guys who were shooting at us and then wrecked? Is there anything new on that?”

“No new leads. We’re still canvassing the neighborhood. Talking to the neighbors. Trying to get a description of whoever stole the car. So far, nothin’.”

Judy sighed. “What about the bomb on my car bumper? What did they say about it?” It was like a laundry list of calamities.

“It’s a pipe bomb. Homemade, nothing fancy.”

“That’s a relief. I wouldn’t want a fancy bomb.”

Detective Wilkins’s eyes went flintier. “We don’t have enough to charge anybody for it. We dusted the car bumper for prints and got nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“No matches to any known felons. No matches to anybody with a history of arrests for making bombs or incendiary devices. No matches to any of the Coluzzi family members or even their associates. That enough for you?”

Judy remembered what the fake temp had said, about the Coluzzis liking to commit their own murders. It gave new meaning to the term do-it-yourselfers. “Does John or Marco Coluzzi have a criminal record?”

“Not your business. But no.”

“So you have no record of their prints?”

“No.” The Crown Vic sped past the new federal prison, rising like a grim, gray nail next to the huge, red brick United States Courthouse, and Judy gazed out the window in frustration.

“All this law and order, and it’s not protecting anybody.”

“Yo, enough of that. I don’t do this for everyone, you know. I’m not even on this tour. I got ten uncleared cases on my desk right now. My partner’s in court for four days. I’m doing it because of the car bomb and the case you’re involved in. The department has done more than its part for you. There’s no flies on us, dear.”

“But I’m no safer. That temp could have killed me today. I’m a defense lawyer, and I spend all my time defending myself.”

“Well, you don’t make it easy, do you?” Detective Wilkins’s tone sounded testy, and he fed the big engine more gas. “Filing lawsuits. Holding press conferences. Thumbin’ your nose. What did you think was gonna happen?”

Judy’s head snapped around. “You saying that makes it right?”

“I’m saying that you gotta expect that. You can’t have it both ways, lady.”

The argument had some force, but she still had a problem. “Did you question the Coluzzis about any of this? The car chase? The bomb? The apartment?”

“I paid them a visit this morning, but I couldn’t find Big John. Marco was otherwise occupied, and his secretary said he’d call me back.”

“Can he just say that? That he’s too busy to see the police?”

“When he’s in the middle of a riot, I cut him some slack. He’s not a suspect, not officially, and you don’t know what those offices were like today, after he took over. It coulda been a riot. We put twenty uniforms on it just to keep the peace.” The Crown Vic zoomed down Sixth Street, with Independence Mall on their left. A dappled draft horse, sluggish in the heat, carted tourists past the Constitution Hall, with its ivory spire and cupola.

“So what should I do? Should I hire protection?”

“You could do that. But if I were you, I’d get off the Lucia case.”

“No,” Judy said reflexively, but something made her stop. She had a fleeting suspicion that Wilkins could be involved with the Coluzzis, but dismissed it as paranoia. Maybe. “Why do you think I should get off the case?” she asked, fishing.

“Your client’s going down, and I don’t think a killer’s worth gettin’ killed for.”

“Do you know the Coluzzis?”

“No.” The Crown Vic shot down Market Street, past the Greek restaurants, gentrified coffeehouses, and junky storefronts of Old City selling men’s clothes, gold jewelry, and Liberty Bell thermometers.

“You never met John or Marco?” she asked.

“No.”

“You never had any dealing with them?”

“No, and I don’t care to be cross-examined, counselor.”

Judy reddened. She never was good at fishing. She didn’t know how to be anything but blunt, so she went with that. “I’m not accusing you, Detective, but you can’t blame a girl for asking.”

“Yes I can.” Clenched teeth strained his voice, but Judy wasn’t sorry.

“Gimme a break, Detective. My life is on the line, as is my client’s, and the police don’t do anything. My client’s house has been trashed, he’s in hiding, and the police don’t do anything. At some point, you start to wonder, and it’s not out of the question, with the Coluzzis. They bribed half of L and I, not to mention whoever gives out the construction contracts at City Hall. The Philly cops haven’t been immune from corruption in the past.” She didn’t give him the particulars, because the Crown Vic was already screeching to an extremely pissed-off stop in the middle of Market Street, blocking a full SEPTA bus, with no red light in sight.

Detective Wilkins turned to face Judy, his dark eyes glowing with anger. “Please don’t even think that I’m dirty, or that any of the men in my division are dirty, when I am driving you around like a cabbie and kissing your ass. Got it, lady? I have only so much restraint.”

Judy nodded. Judging from his vehemence, he was telling the truth. Either that or he was in “denial.” Her neck whipped back as he stomped on the gas pedal and the Crown Vic took a right by her favorite storefront, Mr. Bar Stool, and zoomed down Second Street until he reached the cobblestone streets of Society Hill. Judy felt vaguely guilty while he fumed. Oh, what the hell. She was supposed to be a good guy. “I’m sorry if I insulted you,” she said, meaning it. Sort of.

The Crown Vic bobbled on the bumpy gray cobblestones. The detective said nothing.

“I do appreciate what you’re doing.” Judy managed not to say, what little you’re doing.

The Crown Vic swerved right and headed west. Colonial townhouses whizzed by. The detective had fallen mute.

“Look, I don’t have to kiss your ass either.”

The Crown Vic pulled up in front of Judy’s apartment house and Detective Wilkins cut the ignition, yanked up the emergency brake, and got out of the car and slammed the car door, all without a word.

So be it. Judy got out of her side of the car, slammed her door even harder, walked to the front door of her apartment, and dug in her backpack for her keys. It took her fully ten minutes to find them, which proved her karma had dipped to an all-time low, and during that time neither she nor the constabulary spoke. She let them in the front door, and they tramped up the stairs, with Judy in the lead.

Her stomach tensed as she climbed to the first-floor landing, then went up to the second. What if someone were there? What if someone had come in since this morning? She would have asked Detective Wilkins to lead but she’d rather be dead than break the silence first. Lawyers call this “pigheaded.” She reached her apartment door, unlocked it, and let it swing wide open.

The living room looked just as she’d left it, as a first impression. She entered the room, listening for commotion, but it was dead quiet. She walked around the sofa, the coffee table, and past the windows, looking for anything amiss. She went into the adjoining galley kitchen, but the dishes were still soaking in the sink and nothing was disturbed, then she hurried to her bedroom. The bedclothes were a happy tumble, the bureau drawers hung open with overflowing clothes, and the disarray on the bureau top looked normal. She walked to her jewelry box and saw that nothing had been taken.

Judy sighed. Maybe she had left the door open. Maybe no one had been here. She went through the bathroom, but it looked fine, and then went on to the studio. She froze on the threshold.

It was her painting on the easel, the one she’d started not too long ago. It was a self-portrait, the way she’d looked that night when the moon was full and she was changing the way she painted. No more landscapes from a nomadic childhood, long ago and far away. Judy had been starting over, with herself, so her first painting had been a self-portrait as she had been that night, in the nude.

But the painting horrified her now. A knife gutted her portrait, running from the base of her neck, slitting her chest between her breasts, and ending between her legs. The knife jutted crudely from her pubis. Vermilion paint the color of fresh blood had been smeared all over her knifed body. The meaning was unmistakable.

“Jesus H. Christ,” said a voice behind Judy. It was Detective Wilkins, and his stricken expression as he stared at the painting matched her own. She didn’t know which was worse, that a complete stranger was seeing a painting of her nude or that he was seeing a painting like that. Blood rushed to her cheeks and she turned away from the image.

“Please don’t look,” she said, her voice choked. She didn’t know why she felt so shaken. Somehow this was worse than a car bomb. More terrifying, more personal. It threatened the heart of her. And it showed her that whatever war was being waged between the two Coluzzi brothers, they weren’t too distracted to scare the shit out of her.

Detective Wilkins put an arm around her and led her from the studio. “Judy, we’ll look into this. I’ll follow up, I promise you. I will personally do everything I can to nail whoever did this.”

“Thanks.”

“But I’m not charging the Coluzzis on this evidence, not yet. You’re a lawyer, you know that. I’ll follow up, but all this is is vandalism.”

“I know that.”

“And you have to be realistic, even though you’re upset. You’re gonna want me to dust this whole place for prints and I’m gonna tell you we don’t have the manpower for it, and even if we did, it wouldn’t yield anything. I’ll ask the Coluzzis where they were last night, and there’ll be twenty witnesses to swear that they were having three-pound lobsters at The Palm.”

Judy knew it was true but her heart beat harder just the same. This was sick and twisted and scary. She didn’t want to live here anymore. She never wanted to come home again. She tried to think of a way to fight back. What could she do, legally? There had to be something. “How about a TRO, a restraining order, against the Coluzzis and members of their family? None of them could come within a hundred feet of me, the apartment, or the offices. I could prepare and file it this afternoon.”

“A restraining order? Could you get one on these facts? With no proof?” he asked, but his tone told her he knew the answer, and so did she, thinking about it.

“Probably not. No proof that the Coluzzis are behind it. It’s the same problem, every time. And the Coluzzis wouldn’t heed a court order anyway.” She felt herself begin to shake uncontrollably, and Detective Wilkins’s arm steadied her.

“Don’t let this get to you. Whoever did this, even if it is the Coluzzis, they’re playing mind games with you. Don’t let them win.”

She liked the sound of it, but she still couldn’t get in control. The law was no help. Had Frank been right? She found herself missing him suddenly, when she hadn’t thought about him in so long.

“Judy, listen,” Detective Wilkins said, his voice gentler, “I have a daughter of my own, younger than you, and that’s why I told you to get off this case. Not because I’m dirty. I’m just telling you what I’d tell her. No job is worth your life.”

Judy almost found a smile. “What do you mean? You’re a cop. You get shot at for a living.”

Detective Wilkins had no immediate reply.

Chapter 35

It was all Judy could do to act natural in front of The Two Tonys, Mr. DiNunzio, and Penny, lying in a furry but sleeping pile. Judy didn’t tell the old men what she’d found at her apartment for fear of worrying them. She had to keep moving forward and concentrate on the task at hand. She skimmed the books on the expert’s shelves to get her thoughts back in order. Low-Speed Automobile Accidents, Basic Collision Investigation and Scene Documentation, The Traffic Accident Investigation Manual, Engineering Analysis of Vehicular Accidents. Judy’s mind kept wandering back to the self-portrait. She folded her arms, aware that she was practically hugging herself, and looked elsewhere. Anywhere but in her own mind.

The room was windowless but immense, appearing bigger because of its walls of white-painted cinderblock. It was actually a converted garage in West Philly; gleaming red tool chests sat against the far wall, and the near one was lined with textbooks, accident-reconstruction newsletters, and chrome tools mounted on brown pegboards in carefully calibrated size order. The back end of the room contained a built-in work counter with three black microscopes, a fax, a printer, a Compaq computer with a twenty-one-inch monitor, and file cabinets, also in white. Fluorescent panels overhead illuminated the room so it was brighter than most operating rooms.

Judy, Feet, Tony-From-Down-The-Block, and Mr. DiNunzio watched as Dr. William Wold circled the charred wreck of the Lucias’ red truck in silence. The Two Tonys and Mr. DiNunzio had taken it upon themselves to steal the junked truck from the scrapyard, having cut a hole the size of a whale in the Cyclone fence. They were quite proud of themselves, but Judy was considering sending them to bed without their cigars.

She felt terrible that they had done it and somehow worse that she had deniability for it. But once Tony-From-Down-The-Block had told her what they’d done, she’d asked him to bring it here on the flatbed. Judy didn’t know if she could still be a good guy and benefit from a bad act. She was less and less certain she wanted to be a good guy at all. She used to think she was hard-wired to be ethical, but her wires had gotten crossed and were sparking, especially after the self-portrait with the nasty incision.

She gazed at the Lucias’ wreck, which rested on its blackened chassis in the middle of an unwrinkled white tarp. The tarp had been placed atop a spotless white linoleum floor, in order to catch any debris the truck “shed,” as Dr. Wold had explained. Dr. Wold was turning out to be big on explanation, a prerequisite for an expert witness. He had testified on “accident reconstruction” and “automotive forensics” in 135 cases, which proved that, in America, there was an expert on everything. For a price.

Dr. Wold made a note on his metal clipboard with a silver Cross pen and cleared his throat. “You are quite right, Ms. Carrier,” he said finally. “This is, or was, a Volkswagen Rabbit pickup. These trucks were manufactured here in Pennsylvania from 1979 through 1983, and were later produced in Yugoslavia. They came with a diesel or a gasoline engine, and about eighty of them were produced in the United States in 1979, then the figure jumped to 25,000 in 1980, and 33,000 in 1981. This model is definitely a 1981.”

“How do you know all that?” Judy asked, her voice echoing off the hard surfaces in the large, open space.

“I looked it up after you called.” Dr. Wold pushed his heavy, steel-framed glasses up his small nose. An apparently humorless engineer—which could well be redundant—he wore a fresh white short-sleeved shirt and pressed navy pants. “It’s not as important to keep information in your head as much as to know how to retrieve it. I know how to retrieve it.”

“I bet,” Judy said, just to make him feel that she was participating in the conversation, which was proving completely unnecessary. Dr. Wold didn’t care if she participated or not, which The Tonys and Mr. DiNunzio must have instantly perceived, because they remained uncharacteristically quiet.

Dr. Wold walked around the front of the truck, which was bashed in and eyeless. Its hood had buckled almost in two. “You see that the headlights are gone. This model had the square, four-by-six-inch sealed halogen beams. It also had turn signals to the immediate outer corners of the truck, resembling the 1983 to 1984 Rabbit. Of course the accident has demolished most of the truck’s front end; it clearly absorbed most of the impact.” Dr. Wold looked up. “I understand it fell off the overpass onto the highway below.”

“I think so, but I don’t have the police file on it. There must be one.”

“Of course there is. I’ll obtain it from the AID, the Accident Investigation Division. It’s public record. I’ve already begun to gather articles about the accident, and I will visit the scene. I should be able to reconstruct the way the accident occurred and make you a computer-animated video of it, should you need it for the jury. They are usually quite effective.” Dr. Wold made another note. “Of course, as we discussed, I’ll also examine the wreck from stem to stern. I provide that as part of my service. Many accident reconstructionists don’t.”

Judy nodded, and Dr. Wold consulted his notes.

“From my specs, the vehicle was 4.46 meters in length, 1.64 meters in width, and 1.43 meters in height. I can tell you, just eyeballing the wreck, that it’s no longer than 3.2 meters at this point, and much of the distortion is at the front, although there is some damage here.”

Judy nodded again, but Dr. Wold didn’t notice.

“You have asked me to determine if there was evidence of tampering of any sort to the truck, and that I can do. I generally run a complete battery of tests, mostly in products liability cases and wrongful death matters, but I suppose I can do it in a murder case as well.”

“I’m sure.”

“Of course, you made mention I should determine if the engine had been tampered with, but that would be difficult.” Dr. Wold laughed shortly, a loud ha!

Judy reddened. It had turned out the truck had been junked without its engine. She hadn’t realized it. It was a sore point. “Of course not. No engine. I guess it was sold for parts.”

“Or scrap. Either way, cars are rarely junked with engines. They’re too valuable.”

“I knew that,” Judy said. She could hear Feet laugh softly beside her. “You can check if there was a bomb used, can’t you?”

Dr. Wold cocked a furry eyebrow. “Of course, but that’s not likely, given that the wreck is basically intact.”

Judy sighed. This wasn’t her day. “Can you can test anything, and everything, just to see if there is evidence of any kind of tampering? Maybe the brakes would be messed up. They’re still there, right?”

Dr. Wold frowned. “In part.”

“Okay, so check that. Check everything. I need to understand everything about how the accident happened. Why do two people drive off an overpass in the middle of the night? We have only the truck to go on.”

“As you wish.” Dr. Wold nodded. “I should tell you that I will render an expert opinion based on the facts as I see them, not as you wish them to be. I’m not one of those experts who tells you what you paid to hear, do you understand?”

“Understood.” Judy hated experts like Dr. Wold. She liked experts who told you what you paid to hear.

“Excellent. Then you won’t mind if I tell you that, from my preliminary examination of the wreck, and the information I have retrieved, I find the explanation for this accident fairly obvious, and simple. In fact, it is one of the most common types of traffic accidents, given the conditions.”

Judy had to bite her tongue. She couldn’t tell him what Pigeon Tony had told her, not in front of the others. She knew the conclusion but had to get the proof. A murder case in reverse.

“Step over to my computer, if you will,” Dr. Wold said, and led them to the workstation, with Penny waking to trot happily behind. “Since I had some time this afternoon, I took the liberty of retrieving some of the articles on the accident in question, from the online archives of the Philadelphia newspapers. One of the photos was particularly instructive.” He hit a key on his keyboard and the enormous monitor crackled instantly to life.

Judy couldn’t help but stare. It was a huge black-and-white photo of a highway overpass, with the guardrail bent out like a bow and the Cyclone fencing ripped apart. The power of the image came from what it didn’t show, rather than from what it did; from the fact that Judy knew that the couple who had gone through the gaping hole had crashed to their death. It reminded her sadly of the photo of the Challenger astronauts, waving as they boarded the rocket that would kill them.

“The articles report,” Dr. Wold was saying, “that the truck flipped over the guardrail, which, as I said, is one of the most common types of highway accidents, particularly in the tri-state area. It crashed onto the underpass below and burst into flame. You can see here,” he pointed with the silver pen, “that this guardrail is a vertical concrete bridge rail, an older design. It lacks a rubrail, the double section of W-beam on the top rail, and extra posts, and it has been crash-tested with catastrophic results. No doubt it contributed greatly to the ease with which the truck went over the side.”

Judy shuddered.

“In addition, the article reports that the accident took place on January twenty-fifth, and I took the liberty of researching the weather that day.” Dr. Wold scrolled down to find the article. The newsprint filled the screen. SOUTH PHILLY COUPLE DEAD IN TRUCK ACCIDENT. Dr. Wold went on, “It was well below freezing most of the afternoon, plummeting to ten degrees at night. It had rained only that morning, in fact, and there had to be icy patches everywhere on the roads, making them treacherous, especially at that hour. I believe it was one in the morning when the accident occurred, according to the article.”

Judy nodded.

“This, too, is significant. The Better Sleep Council estimates that about ten thousand auto deaths occur each year due to drowsy drivers. Sleepiness seriously impairs reaction time, awareness of surroundings, and ability to discern potential roadway and traffic conflicts. And the danger is greater if alcohol is involved. A drowsy driver is as potentially dangerous as the drunk driver. The combination is lethal.”

“Yo, they weren’t drunk,” Feet said defensively. “Frank had two beers at a shot, tops. Gemma never touched the stuff. She was a lady.”

Dr. Wold’s eyes fluttered at the interruption. “I wasn’t suggesting your friends were drunk, sir. I was suggesting that if he had even a single drink at that late hour, such as one would have at a wedding, and drove on such an unsafe highway, it is extremely likely that this fairly light truck would meet with catastrophic accident.”

Judy wasn’t buying. Pigeon Tony had told her different, and she couldn’t doubt him now, even with the facts going against her. And the attacks against her were giving her a new insight into why Pigeon Tony had killed Angelo Coluzzi. He was a good man, driven to a bad act. Judy was starting to feel exactly the same way. She was understanding how vendettas got started, and once started, took on a life of their own.

“Your decision, Ms. Carrier?” Dr. Wold asked, interrupting her thoughts. “Do you want me to go ahead, or do you want to save your money? I’m being honest with you. I think my findings won’t be greatly different from those of the police.”

Judy met his eye evenly. “Get it done, Doctor. Somebody’s counting on me.”

Part of her knew she was talking about herself, and even Penny looked up, not recognizing the new tone in her mistress’s voice.

Chapter 36

It was dark by the time Judy got back to the office, alone except for Penny. The Two Tonys and Mr. D had offered to stay with her while she worked, but she knew they had homes and lives to return to and hied them off. She’d spend the night at a hotel and tell them about the dog when she checked in, but she had a long night of work ahead. Judy had kept Penny for protection and made sure security downstairs was alerted to the fact that she was alone in the office.

She sat at her desk finishing a motion in the Lucia case. The office was empty. The window behind her was a square of black. The only sound was the clicking of her keyboard. She’d had the idea for the motion on the way back; she had decided to ask the court for an expedited trial in the Lucia case, in view of the string of lethal events directed at her and her client. It seemed the only thing Judy could do legally that had any chance of success, and she had been enthused about it when she’d started.

But as she reread the finished product, her mind grew restless and her bare foot tapped constantly. She couldn’t remember when she’d eaten last. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in days. She was too antsy even for coffee, and Penny, sensing her mood, watched her alertly, her head between her paws, at the threshold to Judy’s office. Judy thought of returning Frank’s many calls to her cell phone, but she didn’t want to talk to him yet, not in her present mood, and she didn’t want him to know what had happened at her apartment. Bennie was unreachable and had left a message she would be at her client’s until midnight, in settlement negotiations. Judy considered calling Mary but didn’t want to worry her either. Even Murphy wasn’t around. It left Judy feeling isolated, cut off, and more homeless than usual.

She tried to focus on the brief and read: As the attached affidavit will show, it is undisputed that since leaving his preliminary arraignment, Mr. Anthony Lucia and his family have been the target of a riot at the Criminal Justice Center and an attempted murder in the form of a shooting and high-speed pursuit through the streets of South Philadelphia. Mr. Lucia’s home and property have been completely . . .

Judy shifted in the chair. The more she read, the angrier she got. It had barely been a week since she took his case and already there had been a litany of violence against Pigeon Tony, Frank, and her. The cops couldn’t do anything until they were all dead. The situation was insane. Out of control. Which was close to the way Judy felt. Beneath the veneer of professionalism, she was off the reservation. Slightly deranged. She realized now that it had been brewing all day, since she’d seen her self-portrait smeared with blood. A hunting knife between her legs.

Judy stopped reading, shot up from her seat, and began to pace. Penny watched from between her paws, her large brown eyes rolling back and forth. The office was small and there wasn’t far to pace; even that frustrated her. Her own defense could barely get off the ground, the accident reconstructionist was telling her she couldn’t prove murder against Angelo Coluzzi, and the tapes had been incinerated. Jimmy Bello would be testifying that he had heard Pigeon Tony say, “I’m going to kill you.” All of it was going down the toilet in a hurry. And the violence against her could end only one way, inevitably, on a case she refused to quit.

Judy paced this way, then that, in endless motion, like the proverbial loose cannon, rolling back and forth on a ship’s deck. She paced forward. Wishing she could see her car again. Back. Wishing she could go home again. Forward. Wishing she could do something—anything—more effective against the Coluzzis than filing lawsuits and briefs. It may have gotten them angry, it may have distracted them, it may have pitched one against the other, but it wasn’t making them stop.

Then Judy came to an abrupt stop. She wiped her brow, suddenly damp. Penny lifted her head, sensing something new.

It struck Judy that there was something she could do. Something she hadn’t tried yet. It was undoubtedly a little crazy, it was equally dangerous, but it sure beat writing briefs. She ran to her computer and sent an explanatory e-mail to Bennie, then resolved to do it. She had a rented Saturn. She had a golden retriever. She felt her sense of humor returning. What else did a girl need?

Judy grabbed her backpack and the dog, caught the elevator downstairs, took the back entrance to her waiting Saturn, and drove off, her eyes on the rearview mirror. Penny sat in the passenger seat, very upright and looking straight through the windshield, the way she always did. Judy always thought of it as the date position, but tonight it felt different. Tonight Penny was riding shotgun.

Judy pointed the Saturn in the usual direction and in no time was threading her way through the streets of South Philly like a professional Italian, instead of an amateur. Like a native she didn’t notice the illegal double-parking, the little shops, or the cool brick colors. Girl and puppy were on a mission.

She took a right on McKean Street, traveled down the number street, then took a turn on Ritner. The traffic was slight. The beach chairs were empty. The Phillies were playing a doubleheader, but South Philly watched it on TV. The seats were better and the beer was cheaper. It actually made sense to Judy, now that she had changed citizenship. After all, these were the people who gave the world Michelangelo and Mike Piazza. Maybe they knew what they were doing.

Judy took another left and cruised down the street until she saw the sign. This was the place. The offices were red brick, with slitted anti-burglary windows on either side of plate-glass doors. She could see the large outline of a security guard through the glass, but the guards and crowd of the morning had died down. The coup of Coluzzi had been accomplished.

Judy parked the Saturn across the street from the offices of Coluzzi Construction, cut the ignition, and turned off the lights. She inhaled deeply to slow her breathing and calm her nerves. She was sweating profusely, odd for her, and she pushed clammy bangs from her forehead. She scanned the street, up and down.

It was dark, with only one of the four mercury vapor streetlights working. It made a purplish halo in the humid night air. The street was typically narrow, with room for parking on only one side. There were no residences in this part of South Philly. Small businesses, closed at this hour, lined the street, their lights off and their buildings empty. Nobody was out, but a light was on inside Coluzzi Construction. Given the events of the day, Marco and his people had to be working late. Judy had hoped as much.

“This is it, Penny,” she said aloud, and the puppy looked over and shifted closer to Judy, the better to lean into her shoulder. Penny was the Lean Machine in the car, but Judy never pushed her away, despite the traffic hazard. And tonight she could use the comfort, however furry.

Judy was supposed to be getting up and going inside, but she was having second thoughts. Why had she come here? She’d been planning to go in and confront Marco Coluzzi. Tell him to call off the dogs. Convince him to let the jury decide the case. Explain to him that if they got her off the case, or killed her, another lawyer would take her place. God, there were hundreds of them, everybody knew that.

Judy set her jaw. She had intended to look the man in the eye and confront him. If Bennie was negotiating a settlement, so could Judy. Lawyers convinced. Cajoled. Compromised. Wheedled and manipulated. And she had a bargaining chip. In return for Marco’s stopping the violence, Judy would withdraw her lawsuit. It was costing the Coluzzis big money, and the loss of the waterfront project was only the beginning. She could make that end. The bleeding would stop on both sides. And if anything happened to her, her laptop would tell everybody where she had gone and who had done it.

Cold comfort. Very cold. Judy flashed on the morgue and felt the chill of refrigeration wreathing the black body bags.

It seemed like a crazy plan now that it had become real, and she sat in the car in front of the building, reconsidering. Judy was unarmed; Marco was not. She had a fuzzy puppy; he had uniformed guards. He may have been a Wharton grad, but he could still shoot her and dump her in the concrete foundation of a shopping center. She could be a Blockbuster Video by morning. And that was the best-case scenario. There was always the hunting knife. Eeek.

Judy scratched Penny behind the left ear, where her fur had matted in clumps, and told herself she wasn’t stalling. Puppies needed quality time. It was so quiet she heard the digital clock tick to 11:50 and she sighed deeply. She should go back to the office, erase the last will and testament on her laptop, and talk to Bennie, who would be back soon. She would file her motion for an expedited trial, find a hotel room, and feel better in the morning.

Judy had no business here. It wasn’t just a crazy idea, it was a stupid idea. She’d be lucky to get the hell out of here with her life. She reached for the ignition and was about to switch it on when the skinny street filled with light. The bright high beams of a dark sedan, which was roaring suddenly down the street.

Judy frowned in confusion. The car would crash at that speed. It was barreling her way. She reached for the dog in shock.

The sedan screeched to a stop in front of Coluzzi Construction. Reflexively Judy looked for the license plate, but there wasn’t one. The car was big and dark. Its four doors sprang open simultaneously and four men in ski masks jumped out, carrying huge assault rifles. Judy’s lips parted in horror. Her heart pounded in her ears.

Suddenly the front doors of the construction office exploded. The sound was deafening and thundered in Judy’s chest. Orange flame flared to the sky. Smoke clouded the entrance. Plate glass fell to the sidewalk in a shattered sheet. It looked like a movie scene but Judy could smell the burning in the air. Penny yelped in fear and began barking. Judy grabbed the dog’s muzzle to silence her. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

The four men charged through the smoke and rushed over the broken glass of the office entrance. The lights blinked twice, then went off inside, plunging the place into darkness. Rapid pop-poppops like firecrackers sounded from inside the building. Gunshots, a fusillade of them, all coming at once.

Judy could only imagine what was happening inside. Had they come to kill Marco? Was John in one of the ski masks? Would John go so far as to kill his own brother? Judy knew they were bad guys, but this was true evil. She had to do something.

She dived to the car floor for her backpack, dug inside for her cell phone, found it, and hit the 911 button. She shoved Penny down so the dog wouldn’t get shot. Judy’s eyes were glued to the entrance, which was still smoking when three men ran out through the fog and jumped back into the sedan, which took off with a scream.

The operator picked up but Judy couldn’t wait for the may-I-help-you or whatever they said. “Please, come quick! The offices of Coluzzi Construction, in South Philly. There’s been an explosion! A shooting! Hurry!”

“Did you see the shooter, miss? Can you give me any description?”

“There were four of them. They wore masks. Hurry! Come. Send an ambulance!”

“How many did you say?” asked the dispatcher, but Judy held the phone to her ear and leaped from the Saturn. Maybe she could do some good. She didn’t know CPR, but the dispatcher could talk her through it.

She raced across the street, put her hand up to screen the smoke, and ran over the broken glass. She fell once on the slippery shards, then got up and darted inside the building. She found herself in a darkened and destroyed reception area that had been intact only seconds earlier. All she could see was that the front counter was splintered and smoldering from the blast. A huge framed picture on the wall had been blown to smithereens.

“Don’t shoot! I’m here to help!” Judy screamed, but realized in the next second that it wasn’t necessary. The reception area was deadly silent. The smoke on the tile floor was lifting. Judy felt something at her feet and looked down.

It was a security guard, his stilled eyes staring wide in death. Gunshot wounds strafed his chest, shredding his blue uniform in a soaked red line. Judy’s hand flew to cover her mouth and she forced herself to move on.

Ahead lay a dark, smoke-filled corridor, and she ran a hand along the wall for guidance. In her path lay two more bodies, in uniform. Guards. Judy scrambled from one to the next, pushing up their tight cuffs and feeling for a pulse. Their wrists were still warm with life, but their pulses had ebbed away. Three men dead. How could this be? It was awful. Judy felt her gorge rise but willed it back down. She couldn’t lose control now.

“Marco!” she shouted through the smoke, without knowing why. Yesterday she had wished him dead. Today she wanted to save his life. She ran down the corridor and heard moaning when she reached an office at the end of the hall.

It was large, dark, windowless. Judy couldn’t see anything but she guessed the desk would be on the back wall, with Marco behind it. A moan confirmed it and she ran in its direction, then fell to her knees and fumbled for the body lying on the floor. The outline of Marco Coluzzi was faintly visible. But it had stopped moaning. Wetness gurgled dark from the corner of his mouth. Judy could feel it hot under her fingers. Blood.

She went into autopilot, tucking the cell phone under her ear and pressing rhythmically on Marco’s chest. “Tell me what to do!” she called to the 911 dispatcher, but the connection was breaking up. She pumped frantically up and down. A siren blared nearby, joined by another. They were on the way. They had gotten her message.

“Marco, Marco!” she called out, but no sounds came from the body on the floor. She leaned on his chest with all her might, let off, then did it again. He still wore a knotted tie, even at this hour, and somehow that touched her. But he wasn’t coming around. She couldn’t save him.

“Operator, what do I do?” she called, panicky, but the dispatcher’s voice vanished into static.

“No!” Judy dropped the cell phone and gathered Marco in her arms. His head fell back instantly, and Judy could see the glistening black blood staining his neck. His shirt was soaked. He had lost so much blood. He was bleeding to death. It was her fault. She had pitted one brother against the other. She never realized it would come to this. She should have known.

“Help!” Judy shrieked, cradling her enemy in her arms, but she knew they would come too late. He was already gone and she couldn’t do anything but hold him.

“No! Please! Stop! This has to stop!” she heard herself cry out and she didn’t know if she was talking about the blood or the killing or the vendetta. And Judy was relieved when she felt the warm tears fill her eyes and stream down her face, because they told her she was still a human being, with a heart, a conscience, and a soul, and nobody could take that away from her, least of all the poor man who was dying in her very arms.

The next hours blurred paramedics and gurneys and uniformed police asking her questions. There were Mobile Crime techs in jumpsuits and booties and Dr. Patel from the coroner’s office, acknowledging her with a grim nod, and then there was yellow crime-scene tape and bodies being carried out in bags. Then came TV cameras and klieg lights and anchorpeople in orange makeup and Judy’s cell phone ringing nonstop.

She said “no comment” to anybody who didn’t wear a badge, and she must have said it at least a hundred times. Someone handed her a paper towel, and she wiped her face with it. When she pulled it away, it was streaked with blood redder than any oil paint.

Judy bore up under all of it and answered the police questions numbly, describing to Detective Wilkins, who came later, what she had seen and why she had been there, racking her brain for details of the sedan and the men and anything that could help him prove who did it, though they both knew it had to be John Coluzzi. He didn’t make her go down to the Roundhouse because Bennie arrived and scared him and the press off, scooping Judy up like a lost child and hurrying her back to the Saturn and sitting her in the driver’s seat next to a completely agitated Penny, who became frantic sniffing the blood on Judy’s clothes.

“How are you?” Bennie asked, kneeling down in front of the open door on the driver’s side, so that she was eye level with Judy. “Do you want to go to a hospital?”

“No, not at all. I’m fine. I really am fine.” Saying it seemed to make it so, and Judy could feel herself coming back to herself, in a way. Penny scrambled over and licked her face. Judy laughed, despite the situation. “Dogs are good.”

“Dogs are essential.” Bennie grinned. “Now, I want you to get out of here. Do you want to stay at my place tonight?”

“No, I have a hotel reservation and everything. I’m fine. I really am fine.”

“A hotel? You want me to take the dog? She can play with mine. Have a sleepover.”

Judy considered it. It only made sense. It was in the best interests of the golden. “No. I want her with me.”

Bennie laughed. “Meet me in the office at nine. We’ll talk then. Take the back way in. I’m hiring two new guards downstairs and two upstairs, every day until this trial is over.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“Now get out of here. Here comes the press.” Bennie peered over the hood of the Saturn. Anchorpeople were advancing, with bubble microphones and whirring video cameras, and Bennie fended them off like a mother grizzly. Her concern remained with Judy. “Are you okay to drive?”

“Okay enough to lose those clowns,” Judy said, and Penny assumed the shotgun position.

“Then go, girl!” Bennie stood, rising to meet the press, as Judy gunned the Saturn’s engine, backed out of the space, and took off, leaving the orange makeup, the blue uniforms, the yellow tape, and all the other colors behind.

Judy had lost the last of the two press cars twenty minutes later, mainly because their pursuit was only half-hearted. She switched on the radio news, KYW 1060, and it was all Coluzzis, all the time. The big story was at the crime scene and apparently the home of Marco Coluzzi. Judy sympathized with Marco’s wife and small children. John Coluzzi couldn’t be reached for comment.

Judy felt a wave of guilt. She should have foreseen this. She had underestimated John’s ruthlessness. Killing his own brother. Three other men dead. Innocent men. Their blood stained her hands and clothes. Judy stopped at a red light but didn’t notice when it changed. A van driver honked her into motion, and she cruised down Broad Street toward the hotel. Exhaustion was catching up with her, as was sadness. Would the killing end now? Would it only get worse? Would John assume power? The questions bewildered her.

She cruised to another traffic light, barely concentrating on her driving, letting her thoughts run free, and they brought her to an insight. The Coluzzis had waged a war against her and had pushed her to the extremes of irrational behavior, namely driving over to the Coluzzi offices to confront Marco. So she was no different from Pigeon Tony. If they had pushed her as far as they had pushed him, killing someone she loved, would she have killed in return? It was at least conceivable, but she hadn’t known that before. It made her understand what she had been wondering about from the beginning of the case. Bennie had asked her to decide whether Pigeon Tony was innocent or guilty.

Well, she had decided.

He was innocent.

The knowledge, or at least the certainty, brought Judy a sort of peace. The events of the day, as heinous as they were, ebbed away. She rolled down the windows and drove through the quiet city in the dark of night. In time the air cooled and a light rain blew up, dotting the windshield, and she drove to the sound of the beating wipers, gliding past the hotel. She didn’t think twice. Didn’t stop to go back.

Judy took a left onto the expressway and put on the cruise control. There was no traffic at this hour. The decorative lights outlining the boathouses on Boathouse Row reflected in wiggly lines on the Schuylkill River, its onyx surface disturbed by the shower. Judy turned smoothly on the curve past the West River Drive, heading out of the city.

It was a straight shot out the expressway to Route 202 and off at Route 401, winding through cool, forested streets. She slowed to permit a herd of deer to leap nimbly over a post-and-rail fence and smiled at Penny’s astonished reaction. In time the streets turned into lonely country roads without stoplights or streetlights. There was nothing to guide Judy but the stars and she couldn’t navigate by them at all, though her father had tried to teach her. But the Saturn found its way through Chester County to the abandoned spring-house, navigating by something much more reliable than the stars, though an equally natural phenomenon.

The human heart.

Judy pulled up on the wet grass, but Frank was already there to meet her, rushing toward the car and lifting her into his arms, warm and so powerful. She didn’t have to say a word because he was kissing the blood and pain from her face and soul, and when she asked him finally if she could spend the night, he said:

“I thought you’d never ask.”

BOOK FIVE

La massima giustizia è la massima ingiustizia.

Extreme justice is often extreme injustice.

—Italian proverb

Justice must follow its regular course.

—BENITO MUSSOLINI,to a journalist, December 10, 1943

“Calm down, old man! You will see, it will be nothing at all.”

—A member of the firing squad to one of the Fascists he would execute on January 11, 1944, among them Mussolini’s son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano

Chapter 37

The piazza in Tony’s village was small, a single square of gray cobblestones bordered by the church, a bakery, and a butcher shop. Beside the butcher’s on the corner squatted a tiny coffee shop where Tony took his little son Frank every Friday at four o’clock, early so as not to ruin his dinner, as Silvana had asked. Tony didn’t mind occasionally being bossed around by his wife, especially as it concerned their child. Silvana was a devoted mother, tempering her rules with tenderness, and for that reason Tony felt especially guilty that he was sitting outside the coffee shop having an espresso with a two-year-old.

“Espresso is not good for young children,” Tony whispered, as if Silvana would hear him, even with the house kilometers away. His guilt didn’t stop him from his practice, however, and, weather permitting, father and son occupied the front table, sipping their coffees and watching the townspeople walk by. “Take little sips, son.”

“Si, Papa.” Frank nodded, held the tiny white demitasse in two sets of chubby child’s fingers, and concentrated mightily to bring the cup to his little lips. Tony watched his son with pride and pleasure in even this small act, taking in the soft fringe of Frank’s black eyelashes as he looked down, the rosiness of his cheeks, and the pinkness of his lips. The summer sun, low in the sky now that the farmer’s work was done, shone on Frank’s coal-black hair, finding strands of earth brown and even dark gold. Tony marveled that he never grew tired of looking at his son, drinking in all the details of him, even when Frank made the face he always did at his first taste of the hot coffee.

“Is hot, Papa,” Frank said, lowering the cup partway to his saucer.

“What do we do then?” Tony asked, for he was teaching Frank the manners of gentlemen in society.

“Watch, Papa.” Frank formed a little circle with his lips, not easy for him, and blew across the surface of the hot espresso. “See?”

“Yes. I see. Very good. Just like the wind. Pretend you are setting a boat sailing across a large, blue ocean,” Tony said. He had never seen a boat, much less a large blue ocean, but he hoped his son would someday leave the farm and see the ocean, for it wasn’t very far away. Unlike his own father, Tony wanted his son to grow up better than he, to go to school, to learn to read and write, and associate with city people without feeling like their servant. “Very good job, son.”

“See, Papa.” Frank blew so hard he made ripples in the tin cup. “Do you? See?”

“Very good. Blow gentler, son,” Tony said, keeping the harshness from his tone, for he knew children needed praise more than they needed lessons on coffee drinking or good manners.

Frank stopped blowing, his face now quite red. “Can I drink?”

“Yes, yes. Good job.”

Just then Signora Milito walked by, carrying her brasciole from the butcher shop in a cloth bag on one arm and her heavy purse of needlepoint in the other arm. She was a wealthy woman, with her face made up and expensively powdered, but she was kind, and she paused at the table and smiled at Tony and Frank. “Good day, gentlemen,” she said, which was what she always said.

“Good day to you, Signora Milito,” Tony replied, and both adults waited while Frank lowered his demitasse slowly to his saucer. It was a long descent for a two-year-old, and only after the cup had been nestled in place did Frank look up eagerly.

“Good day, Signora Milito,” he said in perfect imitation of his father, and Signora Milito nodded with approval.

“No biscotti today, for such a good boy?” she asked, and Tony smiled.

“Not today. Today is Frank’s birthday, and Silvana has a special dinner planned, with cake. We mustn’t ruin his appetite.”

“A birthday!” Signora Milito’s purse slipped down her arm as she reached over and pinched Frank’s soft cheek. “Happy birthday, little one!”

“Thank you,” Frank said, pleasing Tony.

Signora Milito was equally delighted. “And what a lucky boy you are, to have a cake on your birthday. Your mother must have saved her sugar rations.”

“She did,” Tony said. The whole family had saved for the cake, for with Italy entering the war, so many things had been impossible to get. The coffee shops produced only the watered-down coffee they now drank and NO COFFEE signs hung on many espresso machines. Gasoline was short, and in the city a special permit was required for use of the cars. Meat could be sold only on Thursdays and Fridays. Farmers like Tony often had no electric light or running water. The telephone worked only when it wanted to. Everybody said soap, fats, rice, bread, and pasta were next to be restricted. Tony couldn’t imagine it. Italy without pasta?

“Have you read the notice, posted on the kiosk near the church?” Signora Milito asked, but Tony shook his head, no. He didn’t add that he couldn’t read, though part of him suspected Signora Milito knew as much and was saving his face by informing him. “It says Il Duce needs our copper, from our houses. Pans, pots, tools, whatever you have. They need it for the war effort.”

“Then we must turn it over,” Tony said, in case anyone was listening. You could never be sure. The Blackshirts held absolute power, and those who spoke against the regime were as good as dead, the massacre of partisans well known. Tony, who hadn’t been conscripted because of his feet, thought Italy was fighting only to serve Mussolini’s vainglorious needs and abhorred the war. Nevertheless he said, “We will do what is necessary according to Il Duce.”

“We must.” Signora Milito nodded without enthusiasm, and Tony knew from their encoded conversations that she loathed the Blackshirts as much as he did. Signora Milito and her family had been prominent in Veramo for generations before the Fascists came. Everything that went on in Veramo, she knew. “Well, I must be on my way. Don’t let the boy drink too much coffee.”

“I won’t. Don’t tell Silvana, should you see her.”

“It’s our secret,” Signora Milito said, and with a wink, hobbled away on her dark shoes.

“Ciao, Signora Milito,” Tony called after her, and didn’t add that it was not only their secret, but a secret many of the townspeople shared, a vast but benevolent conspiracy.

The piazza began to fill with townspeople, strolling to this store or that, or hurrying home to change into their best clothes for the passeggiata. A group of Blackshirts rushed by, black tassels on their corded caps jumping with each step, their leather boots clattering across the cobblestones. Fascist presence was conspicuous in Abruzzo, with war wounded and party officials returning from the Ethiopian and Russian fronts. One of the passing Blackshirts caught Tony’s eye, then quickly looked away.

It gave Tony a start. Who was that man? Tony knew him from somewhere. Then he remembered, with a bolt of fear.

The day Tony was beaten, the day of the Torneo. The man was one of his assailants. He had been on the dais, whispering into Coluzzi’s ear. He was Coluzzi’s lieutenant. Tony found himself rising to his feet at the table, his eyes trained on the Blackshirt, and he felt as if he were back on the narrow vias of Mascoli, writhing like a whipped dog.

“Papa?” Frank asked. “Papa?”

Tony looked down and the sight of the child brought him back to the present. He had a son; he had won Silvana. But his thoughts raced ahead. If Coluzzi’s right-hand man had returned, had Coluzzi himself? It was likely. Holy God. Coluzzi was still a threat. Bad things had happened to the Lucias when Coluzzi was home; directly after Tony and Silvana’s engagement, but before Coluzzi had gone to the war in Ethiopia, Tony had found his beloved pony gutted in the pasture one morning, and his first car had been set afire one night. Tony knew that Coluzzi had done these criminal deeds, but he was too terrified to tell the police, who were all good Fascists. The crimes had stopped when Coluzzi had gone. But was he back? Reassigned? In Mascoli? In Veramo? Here?

“Papa?” asked the child, his round brown eyes clouded with worry, and as much as Tony wanted to, he couldn’t dismiss his anxiety. Suddenly it filled him, setting him trembling.

“We must go, son.” Tony reached for his wallet, pulled out the lira, and left it crumpled on the table. “Come, now. We go.”

“But Papa, my coffee. Is not all gone.”

“We’ll have coffee at home.” Tony came around the table and took Frank’s hand as the child slid obediently out of the chair. “Special for your birthday.”

“At home?” the boy asked, bewildered. “Mama says no coffee.” Frank raised his arms to be lifted from the seat, and Tony grabbed him more quickly than usual. The mention of Silvana’s name had reached his heart. At home? Could Coluzzi be back? The fear in Tony’s stomach was undeniable.

“We must go,” was all Tony could say, his voice unaccountably choked, and he carried Frank along to his bicycle, set him on the middle bar where he always sat, jumped on the bike and pedaled off.

“Whee!” Frank squealed, delighted at the unaccustomed speed, but Tony kept a steadying hand on the boy’s chest. Tony’s fear powered his feet. His thoughts were on Silvana. This would be the perfect time for Coluzzi to strike. Everybody in town knew that Tony and the boy had coffee on this day, at this time. In fact, it was the only time all week Silvana was alone. And it was the boy’s birthday. Tony picked up the pace, as fast as safety allowed.

They pedaled through the town, dodging farmers, cars, horses, carts, and other bicycles, into the countryside, with Tony fueled by sheer terror. Tony’s breath came in labored gulps. His legs began to ache. Sweat dampened his forehead.

The child screamed gleefully on the middle bar. “Yiii!”

Tony avoided each large rock as the paved road turned to dirt, swerving dangerously, and one time Frank yelped in fright. Then came another rock, and another yelp. Frank was becoming frightened, sensing his father’s mood, and with a child’s wisdom realizing that something was going very wrong. His hands reached up for his father, and Tony held fast to him. The bicycle barreled ahead, flying past a stray sheep, on a momentum of its own. Silvana was alone, unprotected. Silvana. Coluzzi. Tony’s feet raced around the pedals. Silvana. Coluzzi. Silvana. Coluzzi.

“Papa! Stop! Papa!” On the bar, Frank was crying fully now.

“Hang on!” Tony called to him. He couldn’t stop now; the road led to home.

“Papa! Stop! Please! I said please!”

“Hold on!” Tony yelled, as the bicycle turned down the road to their farm, and as soon as he got home in his sight he found a reserve of strength and pedaled faster. The ache vanished from his thighs and the sweat evaporated from his brow. Even his child’s screams seemed far away. Home. Silvana. Coluzzi.

They zoomed toward the house, and when they reached the front door, Tony slowed the bicycle on the soft grass, scooped Frank in his arms as he let the bike fall, and ran with the boy crying under his arm into the house.

“Silvana!” he cried, charging over the threshold with the sobbing child.

“Papa! Papa!” Frank wailed, squirming from Tony’s arms to collapse in a crying heap on the floor.

“Silvana!” Tony looked wildly around the living room, gaily decorated with flowers and homemade notes for Frank’s birthday. The lace tablecloth had been put out, and a white cake sat in the middle of the table with noisemakers, pieces of nougat, and a large wrapped present. Silvana had readied everything for Frank’s celebration, to surprise him when they came home, according to plan. But she was nowhere in sight. Tony’s heart was seized with a fear he had never known.

“Silvana!” he screamed, the sound so unaccustomed coming from the gentle farmer that baby Frank began to cry even harder, covering his ears in horror amid his birthday decorations.

“Silvana!” Tony ran to the kitchen. No Silvana. He ran to the bedroom and through the small house, yelling. “Silvana!” He ran outside to the pasture.

“Silvana!” Only the sheep looked over, peering with their slitted eyes. He ran to the olive groves, hill after hill of flowering trees, their fragrance usually intoxicating to Tony. But not tonight. Where was she?

“Silvana!” he bellowed, cupping his mouth with his hands, but only her name came back, a hollow echo. “Silvana!”

Tony’s thoughts were panicky. Where had she gone? She had few friends, her sister had moved and she had lost both parents. Silvana never went anywhere alone. What woman did? He racked his brain. What hadn’t he checked? The pigeon loft? Perhaps she was visiting them. She liked them as much as he did.

Tony sprinted for the loft and threw open the wooden door. Birds fluttered on their perches at the intrusion, sending pinfeathers into the air. No Silvana. Tony ran from the loft for the house, but then he heard the sound of the horses neighing.

He stopped in his tracks.

The stable. It was the only place he hadn’t checked, for Silvana never went in there. She was afraid of horses. Still. Tony ran for the stable and yanked open the rolling door.

The only sight worse than the one before him was the one behind him.

“Mama?” asked the boy, his eyes wide with shock at the body that lay lifeless in the hay.

Chapter 38

“All rise!” announced the court crier, and everyone packing the largest courtroom in the Criminal Justice Center rose as one. “All rise for the Honorable Russell Vaughn!”

Judy stood up next to Pigeon Tony, dressed in a dark blue suit that fit him better than the last one and matched her regulation courtroom wear, with navy pumps. In the four intervening months, she had sprung for a boring new wardrobe and her first pair of lawyer pumps. In her view, it wasn’t progress.

Judge Vaughn, a tall man, gray-haired and ruddy-faced, whose voluminous judicial robes couldn’t conceal the power of his frame, swept into the courtroom from a pocket door, ascended the walnut dais, and took his leather seat as if he were born to it. In fact he was. His father had been a common pleas court judge before him, and both were equally respected. Judy considered his assignment to this case a good sign.

“Good morning, all,” he said. “Please sit down. Court is now in session in the matter of Commonwealth versus Lucia. This trial has been expedited on request of defense counsel, and it’s already taken two weeks to pick a jury, so let’s not waste any more time.” Judge Vaughn glanced at the bailiff. “Please bring them in, Bailiff.”

Judy watched as the jury filed in through another pocket door and took their seats, in bucket swivel chairs of black vinyl. The jury consisted of two rows of seven, including alternates; there were an equal number of men and women. Judy felt lucky to have gotten five people over age sixty-five onto the panel, in the hope that they’d be sympathetic to Pigeon Tony. But since it was a case of murder in the first, they had been death-qualified. So as sympathetic as they seemed, every one of them had sworn that he or she would be able to sentence Pigeon Tony to death.

Judy gazed at them now, one by one, behind a sleek panel of walnut veneer. In time she would come to know their faces and they hers, in the oddly remote familiarity that occurred in every jury trial. But right now the jurors sat as stiff as the courtroom furniture, avoiding meeting anyone’s eyes, almost blending in with the beige acoustic panels on the wall, a wool carpet of a graphite color, and walnut pews of the gallery. The only odd element of the courtroom’s modern decor was the expanse of bulletproof glass that separated the gallery from the bar of court.

Judy glanced back at the gallery through the clear shield. In this case, security would be in order. The two guards Bennie had hired sat solidly in the front row; they had become Judy’s new best friends, shadowing her everywhere, advising her when it was time to change hotels. They’d even followed her to her few visits with Frank, and between the guards and Pigeon Tony, ensured that the affair remained unhappily chaste. Judy sought Frank out in the gallery, and he was sitting in the front row next to Bennie, Mr. DiNunzio, Tony-From-Down-The-Block, and Feet, wearing new glasses. Judy tried to catch Frank’s eye, but he was watching the Coluzzi side of the aisle.

John Coluzzi, in a black suit and tie, sat on the right side of the gallery with his meaty arm around his mother, who was also dressed in black, next to Fat Jimmy Bello. No one had been charged in the death of Marco, and the police said they still had no leads. Like Frank, Judy found herself glaring at John, unable to look away. Flashing on the image of Marco, dying in her arms. Judy hadn’t been able to get far even in her lawsuits against them, without a live witness in Kevin McRea, but he was still nowhere to be found.

“Let’s get started. Mr. D.A., Mr. Santoro?” Judge Vaughn was saying, and Judy turned around. The judge was slipping on a pair of black reading glasses, with half frames. “Your opening statement?”

“Yes, sir.” Joe Santoro drew himself up, buttoned his well-made Italian suit at the middle, and strode to the podium facing the jury. His dark hair glistened in moussed waves, and his fingernails shone with nail polish, but his self-important grooming belied the time he had to have spent on case preparation. Judy knew it had matched hers, and she picked up her pen to take notes. The Commonwealth had turned over its evidence, which was predictably overwhelming. Given the evidence, the case was his to lose.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “my name is Joseph Santoro, and I represent the people of the Commonwealth. I’ll keep this short and sweet, because I prefer to let my witnesses do my talking for me, as you will see.”

Santoro took a breath. “In my view, lying at the core of every murder case is a simple story. This case is no exception. This case is a story about defendant Anthony Lucia, a man who has hated Angelo Coluzzi for sixty years and has harbored malice against him, going back all the way to when they both were young men in Italy. The reason for this hatred? Defendant Lucia mistakenly believed that Angelo Coluzzi killed his wife sixty years ago and even killed his son and daughter-in-law in a traffic accident. Of course, this is pure fantasy, the imaginings of an angry man, who lives alone, with nothing but his malice.”

Next to Judy, Pigeon Tony emitted a low growl, but she put a hand on his to calm him. She had warned him to behave during the trial, as she had Frank and The Tonys. She couldn’t afford another courtroom war between the Lucias and the Coluzzis. It would play right into Santoro’s opening argument. Santoro had been clever to bring the vendetta into the case, recasting it as one-way grudge, or pure malice.

“Defendant Lucia’s hatred for Angelo Coluzzi has been brewing for all of these years. And the defendant carried his malice with him when he immigrated to America, where Mr. Coluzzi built a successful construction company in his adopted homeland. In contrast, the defendant’s construction company, essentially a one-man bricklaying business, failed to thrive, feeding his hatred for and jealousy of Angelo Coluzzi. It was then that the defendant began planning to kill an innocent man.”

Pigeon Tony’s mouth dropped open in offense, but Judy squeezed his hand, though she was equally outraged. None of what Santoro was saying was true, but she couldn’t disprove it.

The proof of Silvana Lucia’s murder was long gone, and the accident reconstructionist who had examined the Lucias’ charred pickup had reached a disappointing conclusion: Negligent driving, poor weather conditions, and a substandard guardrail resulted in the lethal accident involving the Lucia family on January 25. The report also noted that the crash had killed the Lucias instantly, and found no evidence of tampering with the truck, as only residues of engine oil, diesel fuel, and gasoline appeared, not unusual in accidents involving construction vehicles.

“Acting on this mistaken belief, defendant Lucia took his brutal revenge, and after lying in wait for decades, killed Angelo Coluzzi on April seventeenth. That morning, which was a Friday, defendant Lucia entered the back room of a pigeon-racing club that both men belonged to. Angelo Coluzzi was inside the room alone. You will hear that a fellow club member was sitting nearby and heard the defendant shout at Mr. Coluzzi, ‘I’m going to kill you.’” Santoro paused for dramatic effect, and the jury looked predictably surprised. One of them, an older woman in the front, glanced at Pigeon Tony, then looked away.

“You will hear, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that this same club member heard a scream, then a crash coming from the room, apparently the sound of a bookshelf falling over. He ran into the room. Too late, unfortunately. Defendant Lucia had gone into that room, attacked Angelo Coluzzi, and broken the poor man’s neck with his bare hands.”

Judy set down her pen. The opening worried her, if she wasn’t already worried enough. She had prepared for something more conventional and had outlined a complete defense, described witness by witness in black notebooks. But Bennie had warned her to try the case that went in, from word one. She struggled not to panic.

“By the end of this case,” Santoro said, “the Commonwealth will have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant murdered Angelo Coluzzi and that he is guilty of murder in the first degree. That is how the story of this murder case will end. It can by no means be considered a happy ending, for it will never bring Angelo Coluzzi back to his loving wife and family. Nor will it be an unhappy ending. What it will be is an ending that serves justice. Thank you.” Santoro left the podium, crossed to the prosecutor’s table, and sat down.

Judge Vaughn looked at Judy. “Your turn, Ms. Carrier,” he said, and nodded.

Judy stood up and took the podium, after a thoughtful moment. “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Judy Carrier, and I stand before you to defend Anthony Lucia. I will keep it short as well, because I want you to be clear on the one and only question in this case, which is this: Has the Commonwealth proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Anthony Lucia is guilty of murdering Angelo Coluzzi? The Commonwealth must prove that answer beyond a reasonable doubt, and that is the one question before you. I heard nothing about such proof in Mr. Santoro’s opening. And proof is the only thing that matters.”

Judy came out from behind the podium and, when Judge Vaughn didn’t rebuke her, leaned on it. “As you listen to the evidence that follows, please keep your focus on the question at hand. Has the Commonwealth proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Anthony Lucia is guilty of murdering Angelo Coluzzi? And I submit to you, the answer to that question will be no. My client, Anthony Lucia, is not guilty of murder. And finding him not guilty is the only just ending to this case.” Judy looked at the jurors for a moment, but they seemed attentive, which was the best she could hope for. She left the podium and sat down.

“Call your first witness, Mr. Santoro,” Judge Vaughn called out, and Santoro gestured to the court officer through the bulletproof glass to the gallery. Judy half turned, expecting to see Detective Wilkins or Jimmy Bello getting to his feet, but entering the courtroom through the double doors at the back was an elderly, frail woman she didn’t recognize. Her face was wrinkled and her cheeks gaunt behind plastic glasses with upside-down frames. Her hair was as poofy as Mrs. DiNunzio’s.

“The prosecution calls Millie D’Antonio to the stand, Your Honor.”

Judy didn’t recognize her name, but the witness list had been endless, covering most of South Philly. Judy had interviewed as many as she could and only vaguely recollected a Millie D’Antonio. She leaned over to Pigeon Tony. “Who is that?”

“She live next door,” he whispered, and gave the woman a happy wave as she walked by. Judy forced herself not to grab his hand away, but Pigeon Tony kept smiling at his neighbor even as she was sworn in and took the stand. She wore a flowered dress with a worn red cardigan over the top, and Judy remembered speaking with her. But why would Santoro call her? Their conversation had been innocuous.

“Mrs. D’Antonio,” Santoro began, “please tell the jury where you live.”

“I live next to Pigeon Tony.” Mrs. D’Antonio’s hand trembled as she adjusted the microphone. “I mean, Anthony Lucia.” She smiled apologetically.

“And how long have you lived there?”

“All my life. It was my mother’s house. When she passed, she left it to me, may she rest.” The woman crossed herself, and Judy caught the jury’s approving reaction.

Santoro nodded. “How long has Mr. Lucia lived next door to you, if you know?”

“I lived next to him since he came to this country, I guess. A long time ago. Seventy years ago, maybe sixty.”

Judy half rose. “Objection, Your Honor. This is completely irrelevant to this case.”

Santoro looked up at Judge Vaughn. “Your Honor, the relevance of her testimony will become clear in just a few questions.”

“Overruled,” Judge Vaughn said. “Better make good on that, Mr. Santoro.”

Santoro held up a finger. “Mrs. D’Antonio, have you ever had conversations with Mr. Lucia about his late wife?”

Judy half rose again. “Objection, relevance, Your Honor,” she said, but Santoro barely waited for her to finish.

“It’s relevant to the defendant’s motive, Your Honor.”

“Overruled.” Vaughn eyed the lawyers. “But this fighting stops now, counsel. There are no cameras in this courtroom. This is too slow a start on testimony for me. Let’s get on with it.”

“Yes, sir,” Santoro said, then addressed Mrs. D’Antonio. “Now, as you were saying, what was the substance of these conversations?”

Judy wished she could object. What conversations? When? But Vaughn wouldn’t like it, and a hostile judge could be lethal to a defense. It was always a choice between not pissing off a judge and not sending a client to the death chamber. To Judy’s mind the Constitution guaranteed rights to the defendant, not the judge. But she had to be practical.

“The substance?” Mrs. D’Antonio asked, confused.

“What were the conversations about? Take the most recent one, for example. The last conversation you had with the defendant, which was six months before Angelo Coluzzi was murdered, I believe.”

Objection, leading, Judy wished she could say. But she was picking her battles.

Mrs. D’Antonio nodded. “They were about Angelo Coluzzi.”

“And what did Mr. Lucia say about Angelo Coluzzi?”

“That he hated him, and that Angelo Coluzzi killed his wife and his son.”

Judy sat stoically. Pigeon Tony looked unsurprised. It was undoubtedly the truth, but it didn’t look good at all for the defense. And Santoro kept casting the hatred as one-way. Should she do anything about it? It was risky.

“Mrs. D’Antonio, was that the only time Mr. Lucia said those words to you, or words to that effect?”

“No, he said it all the time. Everybody knew it. He made no bones about it.”

“So it is your sworn testimony that Mr. Lucia said that Angelo Coluzzi killed his wife, son, and daughter-in-law?”

“Well, yeah.”

Santoro paused. “Mrs. D’Antonio, to the best of your knowledge, have any of these alleged murders ever been prosecuted by police, either in Italy or in the United States?”

Pigeon Tony started to speak, but Judy shot up instantly. If Santoro wanted to prove it wasn’t murder, he’d have to do it another way. “Objection, no foundation.”

“Sustained,” Judge Vaughn ruled, and Judy sat back down.

Santoro nodded quickly. “I have no further questions. Your witness, Ms. Carrier.”

Judy was on her feet, fueled by an anger she couldn’t hide from the jury. She couldn’t let this testimony go unanswered, even for a minute. “Mrs. D’Antonio, do you know anything about the events of Friday, April seventeenth, the morning on which this alleged murder occurred?”

Mrs. D’Antonio wet her lips. “No.”

“You didn’t see Mr. Lucia that morning, did you?”

“No.”

“You weren’t at the pigeon-racing club that morning, were you, Mrs. D’Antonio?”

“No.”

“So, in truth, you don’t know anything about the murder for which Mr. Lucia is now standing trial, do you?”

“Uh, no.”

Judy considered stopping there. No lawyer was supposed to ask a question she didn’t know the answer to. But these were friendly witnesses, asked only for half the story. She decided to take the risk. “Mrs. D’Antonio, you testified that Mr. Lucia hated Angelo Coluzzi, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it well known that Mr. Coluzzi hated Mr. Lucia as well?”

Santoro jumped up. “Objection, Your Honor. Mr. Coluzzi’s motives are irrelevant here. The poor man is dead!”

Judy stood her ground. “Your Honor, it is extremely relevant to the defense that there was ill will between the two men. It’s important for the jury to see both sides of the story.”

Judge Vaughn said, “Sustained, but let’s dispense with the speaking objections, counsel. I give the speeches in my courtroom, not you.” The judge turned to the witness. “You may answer the question, Mrs. D’Antonio.”

The witness nodded. “It is true. Mr. Coluzzi hated Mr. Lucia, too. They hated each other.”

Judy wanted to ask why, but she let it be. It was tempting but was too risky. She sat down. “Thank you, ma’am. I have no further questions.”

Santoro was up in a minute. “The people call Sebastiano Gentile to the stand,” he said, and Judy turned, almost recognizing the old man entering the door in the bulletproof panel. Sebastiano Gentile, a small, wizened man wearing a white shirt, baggy dark pants, and a cabbie’s hat of sky blue, came in shyly and approached the witness stand. He took off his hat when he was sworn in, leaving wisps of white hair like cirrus clouds around his pink head. His eyes were blue as his cap, magnified by thick bifocals.

Judy leaned over to Pigeon Tony, to confirm her suspicion. “Is Mr. Gentile another neighbor?”

“Si, si,” Pigeon Tony said, nodding happily at the stand. The anger caused by Santoro’s opening argument had left him. It had become old home week, and Pigeon Tony was having the best time anyone could have at his own murder trial.

Santoro faced the witness after he was sworn in. “Mr. Gentile, where do you live?”

“Across the street from Pigeon To— I mean, Mr. Lucia.”

“And have you ever discussed his late wife or his son with him?”

“Yes. All the time.”

“And when was the most recent of those conversations?”

“Uh, last spring, after his son passed. He was washin’ his stoop, and I was puttin’ out the trash.”

“And what did Mr. Lucia say on that subject, as you recall?”

“He said Angelo Coluzzi killed his wife and his son. And his daughter-in-law. He told everybody that.”

Pigeon Tony remained pleased, evidently glad the facts of the murders were stated as truth, but his lawyer’s head began to throb. Judy knew what Santoro was doing. He was beefing up the evidence of Pigeon Tony’s motive, even front-loading the witness line-up with it, because his evidence of intent to murder and his physical evidence were borderline. If the jury knew Pigeon Tony’s avowed motive, it would make it easier to find that he had killed Coluzzi in that room.

“Mr. Gentile, did you hear Mr. Lucia say this on more than one occasion?”

The witness didn’t even have to think twice. “Sure. All the time.”

Santoro nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Gentile, I have nothing further.” He crossed to counsel table and hit a key on his laptop as Judy stood up.

She lingered at the podium. “Mr. Gentile, were you present at the pigeon-racing club on the morning of April seventeenth of this year?”

“No. I’m allergic to animals.”

Judy smiled, as did the jury. But it was important to stay on message. “So isn’t it a fact that you don’t know anything about the murder for which Mr. Lucia is now standing trial?”

“I really can’t say nothin’ about no murder. I don’t know.”

Judy nodded. So far, so good. “Mr. Gentile, you testified that Mr. Lucia hated Mr. Coluzzi. Isn’t it true that Mr. Coluzzi hated Mr. Lucia, too?”

Mr. Gentile smiled, revealing even, white dentures. “Oh, yeh. Angelo hated Pigeon Tony. I mean, Mr. Lucia. There was bad blood between them, very bad.”

“I have no further questions.” Judy sat down, pleased.

As Mr. Gentile left the stand, Judge Vaughn looked over his glasses. “Next witness, Mr. Santoro?”

Santoro nodded. “The Commonwealth calls Mr. Guglielmo Lupito to the stand.”

Judy could see where this was going. The cavalcade of Italian senior citizens, all of whom had heard our hero announce his hatred of the deceased, would continue. The cumulative effect would hurt the defense, even given whatever small points Judy made on cross. She had to do something. She half rose. “Your Honor, the defense objects to the repetitious nature of these witnesses.”

Santoro’s glistening head snapped around. “Your Honor, it is important that the jury see the witnesses, and how many there are.”

“Your Honor, it’s a waste of the court’s time and resources for a tangential line of questioning. Perhaps I could save time if I stipulate—”