Lady Killer (23 page)

D
awn brightened the Philadelphia cityscape, turning it shades of gray, and a steady rain fell as Mary steered through the one-way streets, far easier to navigate than the wooded curves of the mountains. She was exhausted but had stayed awake for the drive by stopping for horrible coffee and more gas-station hot dogs, ensuring that she’d be completely nauseated by the time she pulled up in front of the Roundhouse.

“Wake up, sleepyhead.” Mary had been trying to wake Trish up since they reached the city limits, but she’d only slumbered away in the passenger seat, curled up like a black cat. Black ringlets strayed across her lovely features, but more important, her makeup looked perfect. Mary gave her a hard nudge.

“Wha?” Trish’s eyes fluttered open, and she frowned irritably, stretching her arms.

“Time to wake up.” Mary pulled up the emergency brake and eyed the parking lot, which was mercifully clear of the media at this early hour, maybe because they knew the press conference was later this morning. “We’re here to see Brinkley.”

“We’re not going home first?” Trish shifted up in the seat, squinting against the harsh gray light. Heavy rain pounded on the roof, matching Mary’s mood.

“No. He wanted to get your statement before the press comes calling.” Mary felt her fatigue lift, replaced by pre-game jitters. Her phone conversation with Brinkley had been brief, and she’d been surprised he’d wanted to see them so early, especially given how busy he sounded. “I think he might pump you for information, so I want you to follow my lead.”

Trish’s eyes flashed with alarm. “I’m no snitch, and I don’t want to get dead.”

“I know that.”

“I’m not making any deals. No immunity, nothin’.”

“I told him that. You won’t meet with the FBI at all. This is Homicide only.” Mary checked her watch. “Best-case scenario, we’re out of there by nine.”

“So this is it, huh?” Trish flipped the mirror visor down and fluffed her hair with her fingernails.

“Yes. All you have to do is tell him what you told me, about what happened at the house. Don’t answer when I tell you not to.”

Trish rubbed her teeth with an index finger.

“Don’t volunteer anything.”

Trish dug in her purse, found a bottle of foundation, unscrewed the shiny black top, and smeared a thin layer expertly over her skin.

“Trish. You hear me?”

“I know all that. I watch
CSI,
too.”

Mary let it go. Suffice it to say, she wouldn’t miss the girl when this was over. “Anything you say could make this interview last longer than it needs to. For your own safety, I want us out of there before the day gets started. If we do this right, nobody will even know you came in.”

Trish traded the foundation for a rosy red lipstick, which she twirled open and slid over her lips.

“Don’t be nervous.”

“I’m not.”

“Good.”

“Fine.” Trish shoved the lipstick back into the bag, and from the mess of Kleenex, cigarettes, and rewetting solution extracted her black Beretta, which she dangled at the end of her finger like a Christmas ornament. “What do I do with this?”

“Jeez!” Mary pressed it out of plain view, even though no one was around.

“Chill, Mare,” Trish said, but Mary couldn’t. She didn’t know if she could ever chill again and she didn’t know what to do with the gun. If Trish killed Bobby, it was a murder weapon. But then again, maybe she didn’t do it, or if she did, she wouldn’t have used that gun, like she said.

“Leave the gun,” Mary answered finally, which sounded oddly familiar. Then she remembered, from her dinner with Anthony.
My favorite is, “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.
” She hadn’t thought of him at all, with so much going on. She was supposed to call him back three years ago, but she had bigger worries, like the fact that she was having reasonable doubts about her own client.

“Okay, ready to go?” Trish opened up the glove box, popped in the gun, then shut it and looked over expectantly.

“Let’s rock,” Mary said, putting on her game face.

They settled into the interview room, with Brinkley looking weary from the night tour, his skin unusually shiny and a stubble shading his cheeks and chin. Still, he wore his dark suit with his tie knotted tight, rallying as he sat down across from Trish and pulled a thin pad from his back pocket. Kovich sat quietly in a chair slightly behind him, a reverse of their usual positions.

Brinkley flipped his pad open and slid a pen from the silky inside of his jacket. “Okay, so Mare, we wanted to talk to Trish to hear what happened to her, especially in view of the fact that Mancuso’s body was found Tuesday night.”

“Seems like dog years,” Mary said, and Brinkley half-smiled.

“I hear that.”

“Before we start, do you have any leads on Mancuso?”

“No.”

“What about the autopsy or ballistics tests? What type of gun killed him, anyway? I haven’t read a paper in days.”

“You won’t see it in the papers, not on my case.”

“So what was the gun?”

“We probably shouldn’t discuss those details,” Brinkley answered, an official response that took Mary by surprise.

“We have an obvious interest in the case, and I’ll keep it confidential, if that’s your worry.”

“I know you well enough to know you will. We need to keep our friendship out of it, like I told you before. Let’s move on, and we’ll get you two ladies out of here.”

“Fair enough.” Mary let it go. “Just tell me, has the coroner released the body yet? I’m curious about when the funeral will be.”

“It’s released, and I think they’re burying him tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Mary said, looking over at Trish, who remained stony in her wooden seat, her legs pressed tightly together and her hands linked in her lap. She showed no reaction to the news of the funeral. Earlier, she had refused Brinkley’s offer of fresh coffee and declined to participate in the small talk about the storm. Mary didn’t know if Trish was afraid or contemptuous of the detectives, or a little of both.

“So, Trish,” Brinkley said with only the briefest of smiles, “I’m happy to see that you’re well, after your ordeal.”

Trish nodded, her glossy lips pursed.

“You’ve been missing since Tuesday night, around six, is that right?”

Trish nodded.

“Why don’t you begin by telling us what happened that night?”

Mary cleared her throat. “Reg, I wanted to reiterate that Trish is here at your request, that she’s been through a terrible and exhausting time, and that we’d like to conclude this interview as soon as possible. Also, we won’t be going into areas related to Mancuso’s murder or his involvement in the Mob, which Trish knows nothing about. She was his victim for many years, subject to domestic violence at his hands, and was very poorly served by the Philadelphia Police Department and Missing Persons.”

“Duly noted,” Brinkley said, and turned his attention to Trish. “My apologies for the way your case was treated. Missing Persons was dealing with the Donchess kidnapping, as you know, and still is.”

Trish nodded again, her mouth still tight, and Mary saw her in a new light. Out of her element, with her sensational looks doing nothing for her, Trish was a Queen Bee dethroned.

“Now, please tell me about Tuesday night, in your own words.”

“What do you want to know?” Trish shot back, but Brinkley looked undaunted.

“I understand from Mary that it was your birthday, and you were going out to dinner with Mancuso, with whom you lived, correct?”

“Yes.”

“So tell me what happened the night of your birthday.”

“We went out.”

Mary kept her own counsel. If Trish wanted to be tight-lipped in the beginning, she’d let it go for a short time, but she’d stop her if it kept up. It could make her look guilty, at least it did to Mary.

“Where did you go?” Brinkley asked, his tone characteristically quiet.

“To a house.”

“Where was the house?”

“I don’t know.”

Mary interjected, “Near Bonnyhart, in the Poconos.”

Brinkley made a note.

Mary looked at Trish, who pointedly didn’t catch her eye. The rest of the interview continued in that vein, with Brinkley pulling teeth to get each answer, like the most patient of dentists. Trish never relaxed, nor did she refuse to answer, cooperating just enough to get the story out. It took longer that way, probably by half an hour, but Brinkley was handling Trish with kid gloves. If he suspected her of Bobby’s murder, he was too professional to show his hand. The interview seemed to be winding down when he reached into an accordion file, extracted a transparent evidence bag, and held it up. Inside was an opal ring with a gold band.

Brinkley asked, “Can you identify this?”

Trish peered at the bag, but didn’t touch it. “Sure.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a ring.”

“Is it yours?”

“Yes.”

Huh?
Mary held out a hand. “May I see that?”

“Yes.” Brinkley handed her the evidence bag, and Mary double-checked it.

“Where’d you get this, Reg?” Mary asked.

“Uh…in the alley, by Mancuso’s body.”

Whoa.
Mary handed the bag back, realizing she might have inadvertently messed up his interview. If he suspected Trish at all, he would’ve asked her any questions before he told her where it was found. Mary had done some fancy defense lawyering, if only by accident.

Brinkley asked Trish, “Were you wearing the ring the night Bobby was murdered?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how it got in the alley?”

Mary made her face a mask. The ring could’ve gotten in the alley if Trish had dropped it there, when she went to kill Bobby.

“He took it from me,” Trish answered.

“When?”

“That night, at the house in the woods. Right before he showed me the engagement ring, he took my ring off my finger and put it in his pocket.”

“Got it.” Brinkley made a note, as did Kovich.

But Mary couldn’t visualize that scene. It didn’t sound like Bobby at all, elegantly slipping a ring from Trish’s finger. It sounded like some fairy-tale engagement story. He would’ve been drunk by that point, too. But if that didn’t happen, how did the ring get in the alley? Mary avoided looking at Trish as Brinkley pulled out from the accordion a second evidence bag, which held a silvery LG cell phone decorated with pink rhinestones, thick as sugar frosting.

“This yours, too, Trish?” Brinkley asked.

“Yeah.”

“We found this on the body, too.” Brinkley rattled off a phone number. “That’s the number of the last call. Do you know that number?”

“Yeah.”

“Whose is it?”

“My mother.”

“That would be the call you told us about?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re in the homestretch, ladies.” Brinkley flipped to a clean page of his notebook. “Now, Trish, you lived with Mancuso for how long?”

“Seven years.”

“And during that time, he sold drugs for the Mob, didn’t he?”

Mary interjected, “We’re not going there, Reg.”

“You opened the door. You told me he was in the Mob the first time we spoke.”

“That was when she was missing, and I had to go begging to get somebody to look for her.”

“You gave us her diary, too.” Brinkley went into an accordion file he got from the floor, and Trish’s head snapped around, glaring at her.

“You gave them my diary, Mare?”

“Please,” Mary said, and at this point, she didn’t know who was making her madder, Brinkley or her own client.

“Here, Mary, she discusses Cadillac at length.” Brinkley pointed to a photocopy of the diary, underlining an entry with an index finger. “We believe that it’s a nickname for Al Barbi, who was just killed, and she may have information about him that may help our investigation of his murder.”

Mary shook her head. “That’s the end of the Mob questions. She told you everything she knows about that night, and I can’t let you pump her to get information.”

“Mare, I’ll level with you.” Brinkley leaned forward, his elbows resting on his legs, lean in pressed slacks. “We have information that both Mancuso and Barbi were members of the Guarino crime family. They’re the up-and-comers, the young Turks waiting to take over now that Stanfa’s defunct and Merlino’s in jail. Both were low-level soldiers.”

“Why do I care?” Mary heard herself say. Trish remained mute, watching the action.

“If she knows anything about the Guarino organization, it’s going to prevent a lot of murders in this town. We have information that Barbi’s murder is just the beginning.”

“I understand that, but she doesn’t know anything, and it can’t circulate that she does or she ends up dead.”

Brinkley frowned. “I don’t leak. You know that. None of my investigations leak. That’s why you didn’t read about the gun.”

“I’m not saying you’d leak it, Reg. For all we know, the Mob could be watching the Roundhouse right now. I’m Trish’s lawyer and all I care about is her interest. Not yours and not the city’s.”

“If she talks to me, she doesn’t have to talk to the feds. You know, they can subpoena her.”

“And she can shut up.” Mary felt anger rising in her chest. She figured that this had been why Brinkley had been so nice to Trish and why he’d wanted to see her so early. “This doesn’t seem fair to me, Reg. She was ignored by the police, and I’m not gonna let her be used by them.”

“She wasn’t ignored, and it was only a day. We don’t move that fast, especially with an Amber Alert.”

“It was still a day she couldn’t afford. She wouldn’t be alive today if she hadn’t run away from him. She had to protect herself.”

“Trish,” Brinkley turned and appealed to her. “We’ve been in touch with the feds and we can get you into the witness-protection program, if you help us. You don’t have to worry. We can find Barbi’s killer and prevent an all-out war. You’ll be saving lives.”

“No comment,” Trish said, as if Brinkley were a pesky reporter.

“I’m sorry.” Mary rose, hoisting Trish to her feet. “I assume we’re free to go.”

“Of course you are.”