The Vendetta Defense

still wanted to know.

“Is there anything else you didn’t tell me?”

“No, no.”

Judy’s eyes narrowed. “Promise?”

Pigeon Tony crossed himself, which Judy decided was an acceptable substitute.

Then she remembered something. The conversation with Frank at his parents’ gravesite. Frank had said Pigeon Tony suspected it wasn’t an accident, not that he was told. Why hadn’t Frank told her? Maybe he hadn’t had a chance to talk with his grandfather after his arrest. But why hadn’t Frank told her since then? Picked up the phone? “Why didn’t Frank tell me?”

“I no tell Frank.”

Judy’s mouth opened slightly. “Why not?”

Pigeon Tony made a quick wave. “Not for him.”

“What? It’s his family. It’s his mother and father.”

“You no tell. Understand? No tell!” Suddenly Pigeon Tony pointed at Judy so sternly she was taken aback.

“I don’t tell him anything you tell me. I can’t. But why didn’t you tell him?”

“No! I no tell! Why I’m gonna tell? Break his heart?”

Judy agreed. It would hurt Frank, that much was true. Still. “But doesn’t he have a right to know?”

“Che?”

“A right. He has a right to know.” Judy fumbled for a synonym. How could she explain the concept of a legal right to someone who didn’t believe in the law? Or a moral right to someone who thought he was justified in killing? “Frank is entitled to know. He should know. It’s his business.”

“No! Is for me, not Frankie. I make vendetta, not him!” The gloom vanished from Pigeon Tony’s face as he scrambled to his feet with a tiny grunt and motioned to Judy to get up. “Come. Andiamo!”

“What?” she asked, confused, but Pigeon Tony grabbed her wrist with surprising strength, yanked her to her feet, and tugged her from the oak trees into the sun. Intrigued, she let herself be led like a child, even though Pigeon Tony was so short he reached only to her shoulder.

They passed the rock piles and stopped when they got to the edge of the muddy construction site, still hand in hand. The yellow backhoe stood at the center of the mud, its huge arm rattling and creaking, toeing the earth among the pale butterflies. Frank was at the controls, absorbed in his work.

“See!” Pigeon Tony pointed at the backhoe with his free hand. “Is sign. See?”

“The sign?” Judy didn’t see any signs. She looked around and found a painted strip on the window of the backhoe’s cab. LUCIA STONE. “The company sign?”

“Si, si! E vero! E Frankie. Alla Frankie. La macchina, l’auto- mobile, alla. Alla Frank. Alla Lucia Stone.” Pigeon Tony’s eyes were bright with emotion and his hand squeezed Judy’s tight. “See? Frankie, he make—come se dice—he make a— che?” He turned to Judy to supply the English word.

“A company?”

“No. No.” Pigeon Tony let go of her hand and waved his impatiently, freeing them. “Frankie make a—”

“A building?”

“No! No!”

“He make a wall?”

“No! No!” Pigeon Tony faced the backhoe and threw his arms up in frustration. “You no see? Judy, whatsa matter you, you no see?”

“I don’t know what he’s making!” she answered, equally frustrated, but Pigeon Tony turned her bodily to face the construction site.

“See, Judy! See, la macchina. See sign, see alla!”

“I see, I see!”

“Frankie, he make futuro! Capisce? Futuro?”

Judy understood then. It wasn’t a company, or a wall. LUCIA STONE. “A future.”

“Si, si!” Pigeon Tony almost exploded with relief. “Futuro! Frankie make futuro. Here, for his children. For alla who come.”

“I see.” Judy’s throat caught unaccountably, but Pigeon Tony was wagging a finger at her.

“Understand? No you tell Frankie. About father, my son. Or no futuro for Frankie. Only vendetta. Only murder. Only morte. Capisce?”

Judy nodded.

“Promise?”

Judy couldn’t help but smile. She had created an Italian monster. “Yes.”

“Bene.” Pigeon Tony nodded curtly, then turned to the noisy backhoe, calm coming over him as he watched Frank make his future.

Judy watched, too, the sun warming her back, and after a time, without knowing why, she reached for her client’s small, withered hand.

Fifteen minutes later they had piled into two cars, Judy into the green Bug and Frank and Pigeon Tony leading the way in the white pickup, as they snaked from the countryside back to the highway. Judy had replaced her wilted daisy on the console with a fresh spray of blue forget-me-nots, but she wasn’t completely sorry to leave the country sights and smells. Now that she had a client again, she had a defense to stage. Not that she had resolved everything.

She hit the gas, whizzing past sunny open country that became cloudy housing developments, but Judy was lost in thought. Images of Angelo Coluzzi in death ran through the back of her mind, but the situation wasn’t black and white anymore. As an artist, she knew there were shades of gray and had always counted herself lucky for that. Dark gray underlined a stormy sky in her landscapes; light gray hollowed a human cheekbone in her portraits. So why couldn’t there be shades of gray in a murder defense? She was painter and lawyer both; art and a defense were both her creations. So she could take responsibility for the colors in her cases. She liked the notion.

Judy took a bite of her lunch, crunching through the crusty bread and sinking her teeth into the spongy-soft mozzarella, and she became convinced the sandwich was helping her think. Mozzarella had superpowers. She followed Frank’s big truck as it climbed onto the expressway, watching him talk animatedly with his grandfather as they drove. They both used their hands when they talked, and Judy wondered briefly if Italians had more traffic accidents than normal people.

Frank’s big hands chopped the air, and she flashed on their conversation at his parents’ grave. So they had been murdered. She had been touched by Pigeon Tony’s keeping that from Frank, and though she understood his reasons for it, the knowledge burdened her. Judy had grown up in an American family, as patriotic as a military family could be, and she had been trained in law, a code of rights and responsibilities. In her view, Frank had a right to know how his parents had died; it was a truth that shouldn’t be hidden from him. And why did Pigeon Tony think it was okay to hide one truth—the way they died—and not the other—the way Angelo Coluzzi died? This case had more cultural conflicts than legal ones, and more ethical conflicts than both. She needed emergency mozzarella.

Judy took another bite. If she ate enough of it, she could figure out how to do all the work she had been ignoring this weekend. She remembered the unfinished article on her laptop; she would have to get to it tonight. Sunday wouldn’t be enough time, and she didn’t want to face Bennie on Monday. Judy glanced out the window, and the sky was tinged with gray.

She couldn’t help but think it was appropriate.

Chapter 16

CONGRATULATIONS, SOUTH PHILLY COMBINE! read a white plastic banner that hung from the flat roof of the clubhouse, oddly parallel with the yellow plastic crime-scene tape that sagged across the front door. The clubhouse, a brick rowhouse used for the purpose, stood by itself on the city block, because the other houses had been leveled and the lots strewn with brick and mortar rubble, bottles, and other debris. Judy climbed out of the