One to Go (5 page)

“Not Janie—Rosie. She and Gino and Angela…staying over, and—”

“What happened?”

Lost among her sobs, her words were incoherent.

He shouted into the phone. “Gayle, what happened?”

“Gino—he beat Rosie to death.”

During the drive to Arlington, Tom turned the radio volume up full blast, hoping the Shirelles, the Five Satins, and the Marcels would help block his mind from any thoughts about green minivans and missed midnight deadlines.

It didn't work.

As he pulled in front of Gayle's house, an Arlington police cruiser was just leaving. He could see Gino in the backseat, wedged tightly between two cops. For a moment, Gino's eyes met his. Expecting to see anger or fear, Gino's expression could only be described as bewildered.

There was no sign of an ambulance; Rosie's body must've already been taken away. A small crowd of neighbors appeared to be dispersing.

Tom made his way up the steps. The door opened as he reached the porch. Janie, wearing her favorite purple Elmo pj's, shot through the doorway into his arms.

Her body wracked with each sob. “Daddy—Uncle Gino—”

“Shhhh.” He gently pushed her head down onto his shoulder. Gayle was sitting in the living room, responding to questions from a young guy with a crew cut wearing wire-rim glasses. Probably an Arlington County police detective.

On the other side of the room, Tom could see into the kitchen where Dave was comforting Angie. The girl was wrapped in a blanket. She sat at the table in front of a small plate of Oreos and a full glass of milk. Dave's head was bandaged.

Gayle spotted him and stood, her favorite blue terrycloth robe wrapped tightly around her body. Tom couldn't remember ever seeing his former wife look so forlorn.

“Didn't see you come in. This is Detective Berger.”

Not wanting to release his grip on Janie, Tom just nodded.

“What the hell happened?” asked Tom.

Gayle nodded toward Janie. Tom understood. “Maybe you and David can put the girls to bed while I finish up with the detective,” said Gayle. “I didn't mean to wake you, but she wouldn't go to bed without seeing you.”

“Glad you did.”

Gayle alerted Dave, and the two men carried the girls upstairs to Janie's room. There were two twin beds, but the girls insisted on sleeping together. As soon as their heads hit the pillows, they were out.

On the way down the stairs, Tom considered asking Dave about his head wound, but concluded it best to hear the whole story from start to finish. When they reached the living room, Berger was just leaving. He asked for Tom's card in case he needed to contact him later for additional background on Gino. As soon as Berger left, they sat around the kitchen table, and Gayle poured everyone a cup of coffee. “We were celebrating Rosie's birthday. She wouldn't turn thirty-five till Tuesday, but we thought we'd celebrate it on the weekend.”

“Gino had been acting weird all night,” said Dave. “He'd had a few beers before they arrived and more than a few after they got here. Nobody was concerned; in fact, Gino and Rosie had decided they'd spend the night so they could all have a few drinks and not have to worry about driving home.”

Tom knew Gino could put away the booze, but he was a big man, and Tom could honestly say he'd never seen the man drunk. He wondered if that information in the hands of the authorities would help or hurt Gino.

“So we'd just sung happy birthday,” said Gayle, “and right before Rosie blew out the candles, Gino pulls this folded piece of
notepaper from his pocket. Rosie, she just kind've froze up. Tom, I've never seen her so scared.”

Dave's face lit up as he relived the events of a few hours earlier. “Then all hell broke loose. Gino stands, turns over the table. Cake, drinks go flying everywhere. The girls are screaming. And Gino, he's waving this note back and forth.”

“What was it?” asked Tom. He didn't want to believe he might know the subject matter.

Dave continued. “Apparently, Rosie was having an affair.” He exchanged glances with Gayle, who looked away. “With a woman. The note was Rosie telling the woman she was ending it. Somehow, Gino discovered the note before Rosie delivered it.”

“So he starts screaming these vile, vile things at her,” said Gayle. “Rosie and I, we're covered in cake and ice cream. We try to protect Angie and Janie, you know, get them out of the room. Gino grabs Rosie's hair and yanks her back. David tries to intervene, but Gino's a big man and he hits David and—”

“I slipped on the ice cream,” said Dave. Tom figured if Gino Battaglia hit anybody full force they'd go down, ice cream or no ice cream, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

Gayle continued through her sobs, pausing frequently to catch her breath. Her eyes glazed over, and Tom could see she was reliving the horror.

“And then he, he holds Rosie's head by her hair in one hand, and he punches her in the face with his other. Oh my God.” She dropped her head into her hands.

“That's enough,” said Dave.

Gayle continued as if she hadn't heard him. “I think she went unconscious with the first punch. But Gino, he kept hitting and hitting, and I was screaming at him to stop and screaming at the girls to go to their rooms. I jumped on his back, but he knocked me off and kept hitting her, and after a while, she didn't have a face anymore. And the blood, everywhere the blood, and her cheek, there was this skin flap, and you could see her cheekbone, and he kept smashing and—”

Dave wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, cutting her off. She buried her face into his shirt, her shoulders heaving violently with each sob.

“The girls didn't see all of it, but they saw enough,” said Dave.

Tom ignored his cell phone buzzing in his pocket. “My God. Gino, did he say anything else?” asked Tom.

“Don't think so,” said Dave. “He just had this strange look on his face at the end.”

Gayle pulled away from Dave and reached for a paper towel to blow her nose. “He stared at her, this bloody rag doll, as if seeing her for the first time. Then he broke down and cried like a baby. Sat right there on the floor, rocking her back and forth until the cops came. It was like he'd just snapped out of some kind of trance.”

Tom felt his phone buzz again. Maybe it was Jess, wondering what happened. He pulled the phone from his pocket. The screen showed a video of a young couple waving.

Oh my God. Chad and
—

A text message flashed over their picture: “
Scratch one
.”

“Tom, what's wrong?” asked Gayle. “You look like you've just seen a ghost.”

Tom hit the “return call” button. Nothing happened. The smiling couple continued to wave. He turned off the power, but the video remained.

Another text: “
Two weeks
.”

Then the screen went black.

Tom lay on his bed, fully clothed, staring at the ceiling. Physically and mentally exhausted, he knew he needed to sleep, but the churning in his brain wouldn't allow him. Besides, part of him was afraid to sleep. What would he dream? What would he see?
Who
would he see?

He had to talk to somebody. But who? And what could he say that would sound believable? That one was easy—nothing.

He immediately considered the option that the cell phone message had been another hallucination. But he hadn't suffered any head trauma, he'd been wide awake, and hadn't ingested any weird drugs other than a few Irish beers and some Greek liqueur. And what if there was just a tiny
possibility
he wasn't hallucinating, and his daughter might actually die in two weeks? Would that be enough to do something? To take the threat seriously? What if there was only a 1 percent chance the Chad & Brit show was real?

His back stiffened and he rolled over onto his side. Logic. He was an attorney, trained to examine a problem logically. Okay, for the sake of argument—
arguendo
—assume there was some chance he hadn't been hallucinating. After all, who could've predicted Rosie would've been driving that morning, and that Gino Battaglia, who'd never shown anything but love and respect for his wife, would mash her face to a pulp shortly after the passing of the deadline. What, then, would he be prepared to do to save his daughter? Could he kill someone about to murder Janie? Of course, any parent would do that without hesitation. Could he kill
a stranger about to murder any innocent child? Absolutely. Again, not an issue.

The sound came from behind him. He rolled over and saw his alarm had gone off. Sunday morning was the one day he didn't set the alarm, but he'd never gotten around to turning it off the night before. Giving up on sleep, he shuffled into the shower, turned on the hot water to only a few clicks short of scalding, and remained under the spray until the hot water faded to cold.

Tom was as tech addicted as everyone else under forty, and satisfied his daily news fix by tapping into online publications from his phone, iPad, or—that dinosaur of technology—the computer. The only exception was Sunday, the one day he didn't have to get up before dawn. On those mornings, he enjoyed eating a huge, leisurely breakfast with the
Washington Post
spread out across the kitchen table.

But this morning was not one for guilty self-indulgence. He barely nibbled at a piece of dry toast, and only drank his coffee because he needed the caffeine jolt to concentrate. He completely ignored every story in the paper except the one about the Battaglia murder leading the front page of the Metro section under the headline: “
Construction Co. President Charged with Beating Wife to Death
.”

The article was sketchy—not much lead time between the murder and the morning edition, but it did include Gino's mug shot. The photo was strange: rather than coming across as a TV Mafia enforcer, which he actually resembled in real life, the man appeared frightened and confused.

He broke his habit and tapped on his iPad to read the
Post's
latest edition. Gayle was quoted liberally, and there was a picture of her holding Angie, face away from the camera. A statement from Ralph Ziti, the company's lawyer, lauded Gino as a model husband, father, and citizen, and hinting this may have been a case of temporary insanity brought on by post-traumatic stress from Gino's heroic turn in Iraq, or poorly prescribed medication for his back pain. Nowhere could he find any reference to a pleasant preppy couple from hell who forced Gino to kill his wife simply
because his scatterbrained brother-in-law had negligently forgotten to slaughter a complete stranger before midnight.

Tom's cell buzzed. He grabbed it, simultaneously fearing and hoping he'd see Chad's face on the screen. He needed to talk to him, discuss alternatives.
Negotiate
. Most importantly, he needed to confirm that Chad and his companion were real. Well, maybe “real” was the wrong word. The only thing worse than confirmation they were authentic would be uncertainty. Then what would he do? Go out and kill a complete stranger on the off chance that if he didn't, Satan's disciples would kill his daughter? Asking himself the question was beyond surreal. But what was the answer?
What would he do?

The call wasn't from hell; it was from Arlington, Virginia.

“How is she?” asked Tom.

“Janie's hanging in there,” replied Gayle. “But Angie keeps asking for her daddy. God, to have to witness that—”

“What can I do?”

“Dave and I need to go deal with the coroner and the funeral home. Can you come and get the girls? You'll need to take Angie home to get some clothes. She'll obviously be staying with us.”

“Be there in forty-five minutes. Any word on Gino?”

“A bail hearing's scheduled for tomorrow. We're sure the judge will keep him locked up. You're a lawyer, what do you think?”

“I don't do criminal, but sure makes sense to me.”

Tom picked up the girls in Virginia and the ride back to the District was quiet. He'd been unsure how to deal with Angie. Should he act cheerful to try to keep her mind off the horror she'd witnessed? Or appear somberly sympathetic?

In the end, he decided to take his lead from her. She'd elected to remain silent for most of the forty-minute trip, although over the last few miles she'd been drawn to the video game Janie played on her Nintendo. When he and Gayle had
been together, he'd imposed a strict rule against video games in the car, or, even more so, at a restaurant. But now, he was thankful for the diversion.

Scratch one
. He couldn't get those words out of his mind.

“Janie, who were the two girls who rode with you guys when you went to the museum a couple of weeks ago?”

“Uh, Abby Jackson—” She turned to Angie. “Who else?”

“Emma 2,” replied Angie.

“Two Emmas?”