“Wait,” said Franco. “I picked up fifty bucks on the way home from a guy who was having car trouble. Let’s celebrate. Il Vicinato. Pollo Vesuvio. ”
Angela looked at Lew and knew what to do.
“Tomorrow, maybe,” she said.
As they moved into the house, Angela said, “I’ve got that envelope. Thick. Guy brought it here a few days ago. Well-dressed, little pudgy, you know?”
Lew knew who he was.
“It’s on your bed, Teresa’s bed,” she said, taking his duffel and handing it to Franco who walked off with it.
Nothing had changed except for the large screen television in the living room. Sicilian memories pre-1950s. Nothing modern. Everything comfortable, musky dark woods. Chairs and a sofa with muted dark-colored pillows that showed the indentation of three generations of Fonescas who had lived here.
“Drink?” she asked, touching his shoulder as Lew sat in the chair Catherine always sat in when they came here. “Sangria? Just made a batch from Uncle Tonio’s wine.”
“Sure,” Lew said.
“Coming up,” she said with a smile.
When she left, Franco came back in the room and moved to the window.
“I figure they know how to find us,” he said. “They got my license plate number. They’re doing the same thing to us we’re doing to them.”
“I know.”
“What do we do now?” Franco asked, moving from the window with a smile and a clap of thick hands.
“Drink sangria, close our eyes, hope the wheels slow down, have something to eat,” Lew said as his sister came back with a tall green and blue ceramic pitcher on a tray surrounded by three tumblers. The pitcher, which Lew had forgotten, had been made by his great-grandfather when he was a boy in Palermo. Seeing it, Lew remembered.
He wanted to go back to Sarasota. Now.
“So, after dinner?” Franco asked, holding his beaded glass of sangria.
“I’ve got some reading to do. And then I need a nap.”
“Okay,” Franco said.
“A toast,” Angie said.
The glass felt moist and cold in Lew’s hand and the almost transparent slice of lemon floating on the wine looked like the reflection of the moon.
“Great to have you back, Lew,” said Franco, holding up his glass.
“Find peace,” said Angie.
They waited for Lew.
“ Cu a fissa sta a so casa, ” he said.
It was one of no more than a dozen things Lew could say in Italian. They drank.
Franco looked puzzled.
“‘The fool should just stay home,’” Angie translated. “When do you want to eat?”
“If I sleep more than three hours, wake me up,” Lew said, putting his empty glass on the tray, picking up and chewing on the lemon moon.
They nodded and Lew went to Teresa’s room, closing the door behind him. He hadn’t remembered his niece’s room, hadn’t remembered how small and neat it was, bed against the wall now covered by a sky-blue blanket covered with soap-bubble circles, her grandmother’s rocking chair in the corner near the only window, an old walnut teacher’s desk complete with inkwell. A computer keyboard and mouse sat in front of a darkened monitor. Next to the desk stood a floor-to-ceiling bookcase, its shelves shared by books, CDs, DVDs and colorful three-ring notebooks.
If it weren’t for his search for Catherine’s killer, he would have darkened the room, taken off his shoes, gotten into bed, curled into a ball and slept for a day, a week, forever.
On the bed was the thick envelope. He was reaching for it when there was a knock at the door.
“You sleepin’?” asked Franco.
“Not yet.”
Franco opened the door. In his left hand was a bag of potato chips. He popped a handful into his mouth. A single orange-red crumb floated to the floor.
“Lewie, we’re worried about you. Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it. You missing it, Lewie?”
“You got that from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
“Doesn’t make it wrong. There’s a lot of truth in movies if you really listen.”
He held out the bag.
“Instant energy,” he said.
Lew nodded.
“Angie’s making dinner. It’ll be ready whenever you want. Want some?”
Franco held out the bag. Lew took two. Franco stood there chewing and Lew sat there chewing.
“Okay, so we’re goin’ to find this guy Pappas?”
“Yes,” Lew said.
“Say, listen, Angie’s worried about you. We run into trouble looking, I’ve got guys who’ll be there whenever you give the word. Billy Bavitti, Marty Glickman, Tony Danitori. Guys you know.”
“Thanks, Franco. If we need them…”
“You’ll tell me. Want me to leave you what’s left in the bag?”
Lew took the bag from him and he left. He sat eating potato chip crumbs and looking at the envelope. When the bag held nothing more to search for, he picked up the envelope and opened it, pulling out a stack of reports, leaving salty grease smudges. The unmarked envelope had been dropped off by Milt Holiger who, like Lew, had been an investigator for the Cook County State Attorney’s Office. Catherine had been Milt’s favorite prosecutor. Unlike Lew, Milt was still there. He had done a lot of work for Catherine. Milt and Lew were working friends.
Lew had called only two people when he decided to come back to Chicago, his sister and Milt, whose help he needed. By giving him what was in the envelope and violating the confidentiality of the State Attorney’s Office, Milt had taken a big chance. He and his wife Ruthie had a son in his second year at Northwestern and a daughter who had been accepted by Vanderbilt.
The only question Milt had asked Lew was, “Will this help you find who killed Catherine?”
Lew’s right hand had a slight tremor, real or imagined. He did not want to be here. He would find the person who had killed Catherine. That would close one door behind him but the slow circling ball of depression would stay safely inside him. And if he somehow managed to lose it, he was afraid he would lose what he had left of Catherine.
The copy of a brief, neatly typed Illinois traffic accident report was on top of the pile. The investigating officer, a detective named Elliot Cooledge, had gotten the call at 3 P.M. and arrived at the scene, Lake Shore Drive and Monroe, at 3:22 P.M. Traffic was backed up. Catherine’s body was on the side of the drive. Cooledge talked to two people standing over her. Both the man and the woman who had been witnesses stated that it had been a hit- and-run driver. Cooledge called the office of Emergency Communications and requested a Major Accident Investigation Unit be dispatched immediately.
The next report was by a Major Accident Investigation Unit detective named Victoria Dragonitsa. It was nine-pages long. Distilled, the report said that the hit-and-run driver was in a small red sports car, probably foreign. Both the witnesses agreed that the car appeared to be deliberately targeting the victim who, they thought, saw it coming a second or two before it struck her. The red sports car speeded up after hitting Catherine. Her body bounced and thudded to the side of the drive. Neither witness had clearly seen the driver, but both, in spite of the sun on the windshield and the fact that they were watching a woman dead or dying, said there was only one person in the car. The driver was thin, not very tall and wearing a baseball cap. The woman witness, Eileen Burke, said the driver was wearing glasses. The man, Alvin Fulmer, said he saw no glasses. Both witnesses said Catherine had not been carrying anything other than the black purse flung over her shoulder.
Lew put the report down on the bed on top of the traffic accident report. The grease-stained envelope lay
