She’d put in two calls to Roser but he hadn’t gotten back to her yet. Not that she’d sit on her hands in the meantime. She shoved them into her skirt pockets and stopped before the fifteenth photo.
A flash of strawberry-blond hair appeared in the photo, an unusually bright spot in a canvas of dark hair and black suits, apparently of men at the top of the stairs to the funeral home.
Judy leaned over and squinted at it. The awning cast a shadow that obscured the people, and the image was way too small to make out. Judy couldn’t see it well enough and she didn’t have a magnifying glass. But she did have a computer.
She hurried back to her desk, logged on to her e-mail, and called up the scanned computer photos she’d sent Roser, pausing at the fifteenth. There was the tiny strawberry swatch. Then Judy opened the Photoshop program, marqueed that section of the photo, and enlarged it once, then again. The strawberry head filled up half the screen. It was Theresa McRea, as Judy had suspected. But who was Theresa with?
Judy moved the photo to the man beside her and clicked the magnifying-glass icon to enlarge the image. The pixels went blocky on her and she stepped it down. A dark-haired man held Theresa’s hand. He had to be her husband Kevin. She clicked the icon again. His forehead was wrinkled, and his head close to another man’s, as if in confidence. Then Judy rotated the image to see who they were talking to. Only his profile was visible to the camera’s eye. Judy clicked the icon, and the image grew into itself, like the child to the man.
The man was Marco Coluzzi. Judy eased back in her chair. She had a shot of Kevin McRea talking to Marco the day the complaint was filed against them. And Marco had evidently come out of the viewing to greet him. Judy moved the image down and spotted a white line at the bottom. A cigarette, in Marco’s hand. He had wanted a smoke, but he was also, in the vernacular, showing McRea respect.
McRea had built the driveway for one of the Coluzzis, but Judy couldn’t remember which brother; she’d been so tired when she drafted the complaint. She closed Photoshop, opened Microsoft Word, and found their complaint, then skimmed down to allegation 55:
So it had been Marco, not John, who got the fancy driveway. Judy reasoned it out. It made sense that Marco had the alliance with Kevin McRea, not John. After all, John apparently hadn’t recognized Theresa as Kevin’s wife when he stuck his head into the lounge, or he might have wondered why the wife of one of his subs was so broken up over his father’s death. Or maybe he had and didn’t want to show his hand. Judy had no way of knowing, which made her worry for Theresa.
Judy glanced at the phone. Theresa hadn’t called. Judy was worried that she wouldn’t and equally worried that she would. What had she gotten the McReas into? Judy squirmed in her seat. She didn’t like waiting for witnesses to call any more than she liked waiting for men to call. Not that she was waiting for a man to call. Damn!
Judy scrolled to the top of the complaint, to the caption naming the parties. There was Kevin McRea’s name, right over his address. He lived in Glenolden, Delaware County, which wasn’t that far from the city. She considered going there, but Bennie would kill her if the Coluzzis didn’t. Judy opted for the safer and more boring approach. She picked up the phone, called information, got the McReas’ phone number, and called it.
Her heart was pounding as a woman picked up, but she didn’t have an Irish accent. Judy paused. “Hello, may I speak to Theresa or Kevin McRea?”
“They’re gone,” the woman said flatly, and Judy started.
“Gone?
“They just moved out. Right this afternoon. I thought their new house mighta been finished early but it ain’t. They left all of a sudden.”
Judy felt only slightly relieved. “They moved out? I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it, baby. I’m the landlady, and I’m just as surprised as you.”
“But Theresa’s a good friend of mine. I just saw her today. She didn’t say she was moving.”
“Well, she’s gone. They came home together this afternoon, packed their clothes, and left. Paid off the whole year lease plus the security deposit, and I got no complaint with that. They were in a real big hurry. Left all their furniture and kitchen stuff, and they’re payin’ me two hundred bucks to pack it up and put it in storage.”
Judy tried to think. Theresa must have told Kevin that Judy had approached her at the viewing, and they got the hell out of Dodge. He didn’t want to get caught between the Coluzzis and the lawsuit. “Did they leave you a forwarding address, or a phone number where they can be reached?”
“Nothin’. Said they’d call later. Now, no offense, I got to get back to work here. Theresa kept a real neat house, but she had knickknacks out the wazoo. Shamrocks. Linen tea towels. Leprechauns carved outta Connemara marble, whatever that is.”
Judy thanked the landlady and hung up, thinking about leprechauns and shamrocks. Unless she missed her guess, Theresa and Kevin were halfway to Ireland by now. Judy smiled in spite of her lawyerly instincts. The McReas were out of harm’s way, and she’d find another way to win her suit. She sat motionless with her hand on the phone, trying to process this new information. It made sense they’d take off, because a baby was portable, but how about a business? How could Kevin McRea leave his business? And for how long?
Judy turned again to her laptop, logged on to the Internet, and ran a Google search for McRea Excavation and Paving. Sure enough, it had a website, since everybody had a website now. Judy was hoping that www.sexwithanitalian.com was still up for grabs. She clicked the link, and onto the screen popped an amateurish but effective piece of brochureware. There were pictures of backhoes and front-end loaders, ghosted over a clunky MCREA logo. The copy was badly written, but Judy was a lawyer, not a critic. She read:
McRea Excavation and Paving is a complete, full-service company meeting the excavating and paving needs of numerous residents and commercial businesses in the tristate area for the past twenty years, with annual revenues of two million dollars. Kevin McRea is the CEO and sole proprietor of the company, and he supervises a workforce of 63 full-time employees, many of whom have been with the company for all of its 21 years in business. McRea never loses time on your construction job because of faulty or leased equipment. McRea owns all of its own equipment, and with it and its able workforce, McRea can meet any and all of your excavation and paving needs.
McRea’s business was a going concern, with a very healthy income stream. Kevin couldn’t leave it forever, could he? Then Judy remembered something Theresa had said, through her tears. That the Coluzzis had wanted to buy his business. McRea Excavation was a $2 million company, so that would be a major corporate decision, not a routine expenditure. Judy stopped to think, her gaze coming to rest on the photos tacked up in front of her. Why would they be talking about buying a new business with the leadership of the company thrown into doubt? Or, more to the point, who would be talking about buying a new business?
Judy’s eyes ran restlessly over the photos. Marco and John. John and Marco. It was Marco who came to greet Kevin, not John. It was Marco who got Kevin’s driveway, not John. What if Marco was the one who had tried to buy McRea Excavation, not John? And then Judy noticed something about the photos. In none of them did John Coluzzi appear with Marco or was he even shown speaking to him. They had arrived in separate limos. Their families weren’t speaking, even on the sidewalk. Or beside their father’s coffin. It was obvious there was a rift, and if the newspaper accounts were correct, it had to be over succession of the company. What else would divide two Italian princes but the kingdom?
Something Judy had heard recently came to mind.
Judy picked up the phone. She was hoping you could still make trouble for bad guys, even from behind a desk.
Chapter 27
The sun shone bright Tuesday morning, in an almost impossible run of good weather in Philly, but Judy was too psyched to care. She couldn’t see the blue sky for the TV and still cameras, tape recorders held high, and klieg lights. She couldn’t breathe the fresh air for the reporters exhaling coffee in her face. It was a Starbucks contact
