You watch them cut her up and make sure they do not lie.”
Joe gaped at her in horror for a long moment, the color draining from his face. Then he slapped a hand over his mouth, lunged to his feet, and ran from the room. They could hear him retching in the kitchen and a woman’s voice chiding him shrilly. Maria, Joe’s wife. In another moment she emerged, holding the baby, her expression outraged.
“What is going on?”
No one answered her.
“I’ll go, Mama,” Lorenzo said. He rose to his feet with the enthusiasm of one going to meet his doom.
Mrs. Ruocco nodded her approval.
“Go where?” Maria asked. “Where are you going?”
Outside the crowd was dispersing to make way for the black ambulance wagon. Whatever Donatelli had told them at Headquarters had worked. The attendants jumped down and fairly ran inside, carrying a stretcher.
“You got a body here?” one of them asked.
“Upstairs,” Frank said. “I’ll show you.”
“Go with them, Lorenzo,” Mrs. Ruocco said. “And watch. Make sure they do not take anything.”
The attendants glared at her, but she just glared right back at them, and Frank had to admit she was probably justified to take precautions. He led them upstairs, and they immediately started grumbling about having to take the body down the twisting steps.
Behind them, Lorenzo said, “There’s an outside stairway that’s straight. You can use that.”
It was the work of a moment to load Nainsi’s body onto the stretcher. Lorenzo showed them the door to the outside stairway at the opposite end of the hall, and they started down.
“I’ll tell the ambulance to go around to the alley and meet you,” Frank said, thinking it was probably better than carrying the girl’s body out the front door and into the street for the crowd to gape at.
With any luck at all, they’d be out and away before Ugo Ruocco showed up.
“ You,” Patrizia Ruocco said to Sarah. “You bring all this trouble.”
“I’m so sorry,” Sarah said honestly. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I’ve got to be very careful in my profession. If one of my patients dies, I have to find out why, or else I could be in trouble, too.”
“So you make trouble for us instead,” she said bitterly, sitting down at one of the tables. She propped her head in both of her hands.
“You make trouble for yourself,” Mrs. O’Hara said, her voice raw with her pain. “You make up lies about my girl, and then you kill her!”
“Mrs. O’Hara,” Sarah said, going to her. “I know you’re grieving, but we should wait until we know the truth about Nainsi’s death before making accusations.”
Someone groaned, and everyone looked over to where Antonio sat. He’d straightened up and was rubbing his face, muttering in Italian. Then he realized everyone was staring at him. “What?” he asked defensively.
“This is all your fault,” his mother told him in disgust.
“You bring that whore into my house.”
“My Nainsi wasn’t no whore!” Mrs. O’Hara objected furiously. The Ruoccos ignored her.
“I didn’t know, Mama,” Antonio whined. “How could I know? You wanted the baby when you thought it was mine!”
As if he knew he was being discussed, the baby made a fussy sound. Instinctively, Maria bounced him gently, trying to soothe him, but Mrs. Ruocco glared at the bundle in her arms.
“I do not want him now,” she declared. “Let her take him!”
she added, gesturing at Mrs. O’Hara.
“No!” Maria fairly shouted, startling everyone. “No,” she repeated more reasonably but with equal finality. “I will keep him.”
“You will not!” Mrs. O’Hara declared, rising to her feet.
“I’ll not have my grandson raised by a bunch of ignorant foreigners!”
“Who are you calling ignorant?” Joe wanted to know.
“Stop shouting,” Antonio begged them, holding his head with both hands.
“I do not want that whore’s bastard in my house,” Mrs.
Ruocco insisted.
“He’s just a baby,” Maria argued. “He cannot help who his mother was. Or his father either,” she added with emphasis. “I will keep him.”
“Like hell you will!” Mrs. O’Hara screeched, making Antonio moan and hold his head again. “Give me that baby!
He’s mine!”
Before anyone realized what she intended, she hurtled herself across the room. She would have snatched the baby from Maria’s arms except Frank Malloy intercepted her as he emerged from the stairway.
“Whoa,” he said, forcibly restraining the nearly hysterical woman. “What’s this now?” He looked to Sarah for an explanation, but she didn’t get a chance to give it.
“They’re going to steal my grandson from me!” Mrs.
O’Hara wailed. “They killed my girl, and now they want her baby, too.”
“She cannot take care of a baby,” Maria argued. Frank really looked at her for the first time. She was a plain woman, no one he’d even glance at twice in the street, but fury had brought color to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes. She looked like a wild creature defending her young. “If she takes him, he will die!”
“I’d rather have him dead than with the likes of you!”
Mrs. O’Hara unwisely cried.
Even Mrs. Ruocco looked shocked.
“You see?” Maria said triumphantly. “You cannot just let him die.” She turned to her mother-in-law, her will like a flame that would scorch any who denied her. “Your son cannot give me a child, but you can. I want this baby, and you will give him to me.”
Sarah could see Mrs. Ruocco’s silent struggle. As much as she hated Nainsi, she also loved her family. Everyone knew how desperately Maria wanted a child of her own. Sarah had seen that desperation before, a longing that bordered on madness, and Maria looked as if she were very close to that edge.
Mrs. Ruocco laid a hand on her heart, as if it pained her.
She could not bear to refuse Maria any more than she could bear to consent. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she said, “Giuseppe, he . . . he must agree.” She looked at her oldest son. Everyone looked at him. Mrs. Ruocco must have been certain he would refuse.
“Yes,” Maria confirmed in an oddly mocking tone.
“Giuseppe must agree.”
His face was white, and this time Sarah didn’t think it was from his hangover. She almost expected him to bolt again rather than face such a momentous decision, but he swallowed down hard and said, “Whatever Maria wants.”
Sarah gasped in surprise, and so did several others, but she didn’t have time to notice who. Mrs. O’Hara started screaming and fighting Frank, who still held her back from attacking Maria.
“You can’t let them take the boy!” she was telling him.
“He don’t belong to none of them! He’s mine!”
“The law says the baby belongs to the woman’s husband,” Frank informed her as he wrestled her flailing arms.
“But they said he don’t!” she argued. “They said Antonio ain’t its father. That’s why they killed my girl!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sarah explained, going to Frank’s aid.
“Please, Mrs. O’Hara, listen to me. The law assumes a woman’s husband is the father of her children, even if everyone knows he isn’t. If she dies or if he divorces her, he still has custody of them. They’re his property.”
“But he ain’t the one that wants the boy,” Mrs. O’Hara argued, pointing at her son-in-law. “Don’t Antonio have no say at all?”
Everyone looked at Antonio again. He still held his head as if it would fly apart if he didn’t, and now his face was almost green. Paralyzed with indecision, he looked from his mother to his brother to Maria and back to his mother again. Mrs. Ruocco seemed to be daring him to stand up and be a man. Maria defied him to deny her, and
