Seven Minutes to Noon (33 page)

“Not that tacky black and red one, I hope.”

“Not that one. I bought something new, something you’re going to love.”

Pam and Ray exchanged adoring glances.

“That’s okay,” Giometti said, indicating his notepad. “This’ll be fine.”

Ray shrugged his shoulders and positioned himself
against the wall at the head of Pam’s bed, one hand resting on her shoulder as she spoke. She lifted her left hand to cover his, and began.

“Our sweet little Sylvie?” Pam said ominously. “An angel, she’s not.”

Everyone listened as Pam told them the story of what happened to her on the morning of her staged suicide.

“I was trying to find out who your landlord’s partner was,” she told Alice, “like I said I would. No biggie. I asked around the office and no one knew anything. Judy was gone for the day and since she’s the boss, her files go back farthest, so I thought I’d take a look in her computer. I was poking around and I accidentally got into the network that links her up to her home computer.”

“Accidentally on purpose, you mean?” Esther said. “Just like I taught you.”

Pam grinned. “Judy works a lot at home.”

“Works.”
Ray rolled his eyes. “Drinks, is more like it. Pam’s been carrying that office for years.”

“Well,” Pam continued, “so I was poking around a little and I saw a few very interesting things. There was a lot on Metro in Judy’s home files, let me tell you,
a lot.
Turns out she not only does business with those jokers, but she’s got a personal connection that’s about as strong as it gets.”

Of course, they had all figured by now that Sal Cattaneo had had an adulterous relationship with Judy, but in silent agreement they let Pam continue as if nothing had happened in all the time she’d been asleep.

“The partner,” Pam said, “is none other than Sal Cattaneo, our local butcher.”

They held their silence, allowing Pam the satisfaction of delivering a surprise.

“And my spinster boss, Judy, turns out not to be such an angel herself.” Pam paused for dramatic effect. “Turns out Judy and Sal are an item. And they’ve been an item for a long, long time.”

This
was
news to Alice. But possibly not to Frannie; her expression remained steady as she asked, “How long?”

“At least thirty years, the whole time Sal’s been married. It started before he even got married. Judy’s a real piece of work. She’s got it all written down in her computer like it’s some kind of heartbreaking romance novel. I couldn’t stop reading once I started.”

“Why should you?” Esther said. “She had it there for anyone to see.”

“It was in her personal journal on her home computer, Esther.” Ray clamped his lips tight; clearly he didn’t agree with Pam and Esther’s policy of random investigation.

“Anyhow, Sal was engaged to his childhood sweetheart, Angie, but he got involved with Judy when she was new to the neighborhood. That was when people who weren’t
from
here were outsiders, big time.”

“It still feels that way,” Alice said.

“Oh no, honey, back then it was ten times worse. Judy Gersten was an independent woman, and she was Jewish, and she came all the way from Michigan. She was a
foreigner.”

“Hurry up,” Esther said. “Get to the good part.”

“You already know this story?” Ray asked Esther.

“No, I’m hearing it for the first time, just like you.”

“Then how do you know there’s a good part?”

“Because I know how to tell a story.” Esther nodded. “And so does my Pammie.”

“Will you two let me talk?” Pam said with a twinkle of love in her eyes for her husband and mother and their aggravating yet comfortable routine.

“So, talk,” Esther said.

“So Sal’s engaged to Angie, and along comes Judy Gersten, who opens up a real estate office on Court Street. An outsider. By now Sal’s already started buying up neighborhood real estate. He likes Judy, so he gives her some of his business, then he gives her all of his business. Wink wink. By the time he hooks up with Julius
Pollack, buying up tenement buildings together as Metro Properties, Judy gets a big chunk of their business. She’s profiting big time from them. So the three of them, they’re all getting rich together. And Judy and Sal? They’re in love.”

“But the guy marries Angie anyway?” Ray asks.

“You bet.” Pam nodded with a wobble of skin that used to house her double chin. “Angie told him she was pregnant.”

“But I thought Sal and his wife don’t have any children,” Alice said.

“They don’t.” Pam nodded decisively.

“She miscarried?” Esther guessed.

“Nope,” Pam said.

“Just tell us,” Ray said. “What happened?”

“Angie told Sal she was pregnant, but she wasn’t.”

“Why?” Ray asked.

Pam savored this moment, looking from face to face before telling them, “Because Judy
was
pregnant.”

There was silence as everyone absorbed the information. Alice noticed that Frannie continued to look unperturbed. She had been questioning Judy Gersten at the precinct. Alice could picture it: Judy unraveling in the cold light of the interview room, rubbing the table’s long, deep scratch with her fingertip, over and over, as if it were a thread she yearned to pluck from history and weave into a better past.

“It was nineteen seventy-three,” Pam continued. “Abortion was legalized just that year. But Judy
loved
Sal—”

“Judy Gersten had Sal Cattaneo’s baby?” Alice blurted out. “And he still married Angie?”

“Because he believed Angie was pregnant, and she was his designated wife, and that was how it was here back then. Before he even had a chance to find out she wasn’t pregnant, and that Judy was going ahead with having her baby anyway... let’s just say Angie’s father didn’t give him much choice.”

“Wait a minute,” Ray said. “Isn’t her father Anthony Scoletto?”

“You got it.” Pam took a breath. There was more. “You don’t say no to the Scoletto family. And Sal probably loved Angie. They were children together, already family. So they married. And she never had that baby or any other baby. But Judy, she was independent, and she was angry, and she was in love, so she went ahead and had her baby.”

“So where is it?” Ray asked. “It would be grown up by now.”

“Thirty years old,” Alice said, as heat fanned through her body. Her simple question to Pam — who was Julius Pollack’s partner — had led to someone taking pains to try to kill Pam and disguise it as suicide. “Did Judy raise the baby?”

“She chickened out at the last minute,” Pam said. “There weren’t many single mothers back then. There wasn’t even a word for it. Babies born out of wedlock were still called bastards.”

Or
little bitches,
Alice thought, as it all came clear. She lowered her face into her hands.

“She gave it up for adoption. It was a little girl, adopted by a French family — father was a diplomat. They went back to France when Judy’s daughter was still an infant.”

Now Frannie’s expression flinched, just slightly. But Alice saw it. So Judy hadn’t confessed this part. Which meant she had wanted to hide it. But why?

“Judy tried to find the baby but she never could,” Pam continued. “It caused her a lot of pain, and I think that’s where the drinking comes in. Do you know, she still loves Sal and they still do business together? But he’s still married to Angie.”

“Go figure.” Esther shook her head.

“Let me guess.” Alice looked up. “Judy never found her daughter. But her daughter found her.”

“Bingo,” Pam said.

Pam’s biggest mistake wasn’t discovering the secret history of Judy Gersten and Sal Cattaneo, but tossing
off a gossipy comment to Sylvie at the end of a workday. “What a day I’ve had,” she had said to Sylvie as they closed up the office together the evening before the attack. “Please, whatever you do, don’t tell me you were adopted.” Sylvie had looked at her with such sharp surprise that Pam didn’t pursue it, and she certainly didn’t explain to the young assistant the details of their boss’s past.

The next morning, Sylvie arrived unannounced at Pam’s house, just before Pam was to have met Alice at the Third Place house.

“Judy told me to come,” Sylvie said with her sweet smile.

Sylvie shared some coffee with Pam. Pam had planned on walking to the Third Place house, but Sylvie complained of having hurt her foot at the gym, so it was decided they would drive. They went together to the downstairs garage and settled into the car.

“Sylvie turned to me with the worst look on her face,” Pam said soberly. “She had a gun. I told her she was out of her mind. Then she stuck the thing into the side of my neck.”

That was the last thing Pam remembered.

They didn’t stay long at the hospital after that. Pam was depleted by the conversation, and the detectives had what they needed. Alice kissed Pam on the forehead, promising to visit again soon. She smelled antiseptic now; Alice missed the baby-powder scent.

“I’ll take your picture next time you come,” Ray promised. “I’ll put it in the album.”

“Okay.” Alice shook his hand, and hugged Esther. “Take good care of her.”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Esther offered a smile of yellowed, crooked, eighty-year-old teeth, which Alice suspected were all hers. “She’s all I got, aside from Ray here.”

Frannie and Giometti insisted on dropping Alice off at Simon’s house. She rode in the backseat, watching
scenes of the neighborhood flash by from the open police car window. The air was a weave of cool and warm breezes — the end of summer, autumn’s approach.

They pulled up in front of Simon’s house.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Frannie said as Alice stepped onto the curb and slammed shut the back door of the blue sedan.

Alice hesitated. “Is that an order?” She smiled as if she were joking, but they all knew she wasn’t.

“Not really.” Frannie leaned into the open window, eyes squinted, desperate for rest. “We might need you, Alice.”

“But—” Alice wanted to argue that she was no longer needed. Sylvie had revealed herself. As had Julius Pollack. Somehow, they were both related to the crimes.

“Forensics analyzed the prints at the crime scene.” Frannie’s eyes were steady on Alice, doling out one crumb of information to pique Alice’s curiosity, fuel her insomnia and glue her to
here.
“Sylvie’s were the only match, besides about a dozen Mr. Frosty drivers, every one of whom we have tracked down and crossed off our list.”

“Julius Pollack?”

“Nope.”

“Sal Cattaneo?”

“Nope. And not Judy Gersten, either, in case you’re wondering.”

“So you’re saying that Sylvie did this all alone?”

Alice stepped closer to the car, bending down a little to catch Frannie’s eye, but the detective just shook her head. She had that
no assumptions
look on her face as she slid the stick shift into gear and drove away.

The friends decided collectively to stay put, hold tight, and resume normal life; it would be best for the children and also for themselves. And so the next morning, Mike and Simon took Ethan, Nell and Peter to their respective schools. Mike then went to his workshop in Red Hook and Simon subwayed into Manhattan to teach a late morning class. Maggie and Alice had a few hours alone in the house before Blue Shoes was due to open at eleven. Two days had passed since Sylvie’s great escape and one day since Pam’s awakening. If anything was going to happen today, the detectives would know where to find them: at home or at work, pursuing the possibility of a regular day.

It was just past nine in the morning when the doorbell rang. Alice and Maggie, who were in the kitchen finishing their morning coffee and tea, looked at each other.

“Maybe we shouldn’t answer it,” Maggie said.

“It’s probably just a delivery.” Alice pulled her pink chenille robe closed over her massive tummy. “Unless,” she smiled archly, “it’s Simon’s secret
lover.”

“Or a mad killer, after you!” Maggie laughed her sharpest cackle, and both women flew to the front hall. Maggie reached the door first, glanced at Alice and turned the knob.

Standing on the front stoop was neither lover nor killer but a true surprise. Lizzie, in full California flower — tanned and wearing a pale yellow pants suit — held
out the morning paper as if she had simply stopped by to deliver it.

“Mom!” Alice shouted.

“Babydoll.” Lizzie embraced Alice, who felt herself melting in her mother’s arms. “How could I stay away?”

Alice wiped the mascara-tinted tears off Lizzie’s cheeks. “They’re okay,” Alice said. “They’re back at school. Everything’s okay.”

“How could everything be okay?” Lizzie composed herself. “That would be impossible, wouldn’t it?”

Maggie picked up Lizzie’s red suitcase from the front stoop’s landing, carried it into the foyer and shut the door.

“Hello, Maggie.” Lizzie offered a cheek and the two women did a double air-kiss. “How are you?”

“Addled, as usual. Men trouble, you know.” Maggie offered Lizzie her most brilliant smile.

“So you’re back with your husband, I see.” Lizzie walked into Simon’s living room and looked around. “Very nice. A little baroque, but basically I like it.”

At the word
baroque
Maggie’s eyes found Alice’s and rolled dramatically.

“Actually Simon and I are not back together, not officially.” Maggie joined Lizzie in the living room. Alice followed her mother and her friend, who had always managed to get along despite an underlying competitiveness; Alice hoped this would not be the moment it bred fireworks. “I decorated the entire house myself. Simon, of course, is free to redecorate, but I must say he hasn’t changed a thing.”

Lizzie peered up at Maggie through her calico-framed glasses, then broke into a wry smile and reached up to pinch Maggie’s cheek. “It’s gorgeous,
bubbelah.”

Maggie forced a smile. “Think I’ll see if we have the makings of some real English scones. You must be starving, Lizzie darling. Shall I make you eggs and bacon as well?”

“Make for everyone,” Lizzie said, plopping down on the couch and sighing deeply. “We’ll eat together.”

Alice sat with her mother on the couch, holding the
newspaper on her knees, still in its blue plastic sleeve. She was dying to open it, to learn Erin Brinkley’s latest discoveries, but knew that the minute she did, the knot of anxiety that had taken up residence in her chest would instantly tighten. She and Maggie had deliberately avoided the paper all morning, and now here it was in her hands.