“No, but he wasn’t going to say anything else voluntar-ily, and I didn’t see any point in roughing him up. If I need to ask him more questions, I know where to find him. He’s not going anywhere. Now let’s see what brother Joe has to say for himself.” Frank pushed himself out of the chair.
“Did Joe do it, then?” Gino asked hesitantly.
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
“But if Lorenzo didn’t, it has to be Joe, doesn’t it?”
Frank couldn’t help smiling. “Don’t forget Mrs. Ruocco.
Ugo is sure she did it.”
“But she’s a female,” the young man said dismissively.
Frank just shook his head in dismay.
Gino followed him next door to the room where Joe waited. He wasn’t as calm as Lorenzo had been or as panicked as Antonio. He did, however, look guilty as hell.
“We just had a nice little visit with your brother,” Frank reported, taking a seat opposite Joe.
“Did you lock him up?” Joe asked with concern.
“No, we let him go home.”
“Then you know we didn’t cause any trouble. Those two men came into our place and started fighting. We had to throw them out before they broke something or hurt somebody.”
“I told you, Joe. Those men are cops. We sent them in there to get you outside so we could bring you into the station for questioning.”
Joe frowned. He didn’t know what to make of it. “But we didn’t do anything wrong,” he insisted again.
“Someone did, though,” Frank pointed out. “Or Nainsi and her mother would still be alive.”
His confusion cleared instantly. “Why are you asking me about this? I already told you, I don’t know who killed Nainsi, and I don’t know who killed Mrs. O’Hara, either.”
“Where were you the other night, Joe?”
“I . . . I was out with Antonio,” he admitted reluctantly.
“Oh, yes, at a dance house,” Frank remembered. “At least that’s what Antonio said. That’s kind of funny, isn’t it? A married man going to dance houses?”
“I went along to make sure he didn’t get into trouble,”
he said defensively.
“Oh, that’s right,” Frank said. “Antonio said Maria ordered him out of the house because he was making her nervous.”
Joe nodded gratefully. “That’s right. She’s been very nervous since the baby came. She . . . Mama says she’s tired.”
“Joe, I found out some disturbing news about you.”
He stiffened. “What?”
“It’s about those dance houses,” Frank said as if he re-gretted having to bring up the subject. “We found out that even though you’re a married man, you were the one who started taking Antonio to them in the first place.”
Joe rubbed his hand over his face. “I . . . Well, we couldn’t let him go alone, could we? He’s too young. He might get into trouble.”
“So your mama decided you should go with him?” Frank asked skeptically.
“Oh, no . . . I mean, it was my duty. I’m the oldest son.”
“You’re also the married son,” Frank reminded him.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for Lorenzo to go with him?”
Joe made a helpless gesture, as if he were trying to snatch the correct response out of the air. “Lorenzo doesn’t like to go to places like that,” he finally said.
“So you decided you’d do your duty to help your innocent little brother go out and meet girls who are no better than they should be and get him drunk and see how many of these girls he could poke.”
“No!” Joe protested, although Frank knew he had described the situation accurately.
“Are you saying that’s not what happened?”
“Antonio is just a boy,” Joe tried. “He . . . he wants to have a good time.”
“What about you, Joe? Do you want to have a good time, too?”
“I . . . I guess.”
“What does Maria think about that?”
Joe felt on firmer ground here. “She knows her place. She doesn’t tell me what to do.”
“So she didn’t mind when you went out to the dance houses by yourself, either,” Frank said.
“By myself?” he echoed, as if he didn’t know what Frank was talking about.
“Yeah, you remember. You used to go out to the dance houses long before Antonio decided he wanted to start going along. That’s where you met Nainsi, wasn’t it?”
“I . . . I never met Nainsi there,” he said, but even Gino could see he was lying. The color was seeping from his face and his eyes were starting to look a little desperate.
“That’s not what her friends told us,” Frank lied. “They said she was seeing you way back in the spring.”
“They didn’t know that,” Joe insisted.
Frank frowned thoughtfully. “Why not?”
“Because . . . because they couldn’t,” he replied lamely.
“Now let me get this straight. Are you saying they didn’t know that you were seeing her?”
“Yes . . . No . . . I mean, I wasn’t seeing her at all.” Joe was starting to sweat.
“But you were, Joe. Don’t lie to us. You were seeing her on the sly. You told her not to tell her friends, but she did.
She couldn’t help bragging about the rich Italian man she was going to marry.”
“But I’m not rich!” Joe pointed out.
“Nainsi thought you were. She also thought you were single, so when she turned up pregnant, she was sure you’d marry her.”
“You’re wrong!” Joe tried.
“About what, Joe? Are you telling me Nainsi knew you were married?”
“No!”
“So you lied to her.”
“No! I didn’t lie. I . . . I didn’t even know her,” he said, but with less conviction than before.
Frank slapped the table as he had with Lorenzo. Joe yelped in surprise.
“Stop lying, Joe. You’re making me angry. You knew Nainsi, didn’t you?”
“I . . . Yes, I did, but I never—”
“And you seduced her with a promise of marriage.”
Frank was almost shouting.
“I never promised her anything!”
“And when she threatened to cause trouble, you took your little brother so she could get her hooks into him.”
“No, I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did, Joe. You took your little brother and gave him to your mistress—”
“No!”
“And you let him think your bastard was his—”
“Stop!” He clapped his hands over his ears, but Frank grabbed his arms and forced them away.
“And you let him marry her, but it was all lies, Joe. You ruined your brother’s life with your lies!”
“No, no! It wasn’t me! It was all Maria’s idea!”
14
Maria jumped up to go see who had come in, and Sarah followed, stopping in the doorway. Maria had found Lorenzo in the hall, and Sarah felt a frisson of alarm. Why was he here?
“Lorenzo,” Maria said with what sounded like relief.
“You are back.”
