“Call me G, everybody does. I’m G, Trish is T. Yolanda is Yo.”
“What’s Missy?”
“A pain in the ass.”
Mary laughed. “When Trish came to my office, she had on a fox coat.”
“That’s what she wears to dress up. The one she normally wears is just like mine.” Giulia gestured at her coat. “We bought them together.”
“Okay, so do me a favor. Go check in the closet and see if her fox coat or her leather coat’s in there.”
“I’m on the case.” Giulia pivoted on her heel and clack-clacked over to the entrance hall.
“Thanks.” Mary walked ahead into a white dining room, which had a long, white laminated table and eight high-backed chairs. A matching breakfront displayed a Franklin Mint plate of Madonna and Child, next to photos of the couple with their arms wrapped around each other in front of Epcot Center, the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, and on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. There was even one of them in front of some palm trees with Joey Merlino, the mobster who kept South Philly on the crime map.
“Mare,” Giulia called out, clacking back to the dining room. “Her fox coat’s not there.”
“Interesting, good. So she took her dress coat and she had time to take it and to make a choice. So she wasn’t drugged. She went voluntarily. So far, our theory is holding up.” Mary picked up the photo with Joey Merlino. “They went away with Merlino?”
“Nah, that was taken in prison.”
Mary blinked. “But there’s palm trees.”
“That’s a fake background they have in the joint. Didn’t you know that?”
Uh. “No.” Mary set it down. “I was just looking at the photos, and they seem so happy. When did it turn bad?”
Giulia squinted, thinking. “About two years ago.”
“What happened?” Mary opened a drawer in the breakfront, but it was empty, then reached for the next.
“He’s old school. He wanted her home at night, dinner on the table, makin’ babies. Like a homebody, a wife. But T’s not that type. She liked to have fun.” Giulia’s expression darkened. “Then he started drinkin’ more and more. I hate him, I hate the way he treated her. He was a loser and he blamed her for everything, like that he wasn’t movin’ up fast as he wanted.”
“In the Mob, you mean?”
“Yeah, the Mob. Oooh.” Giulia made claw-hands with her fingernails, but Mary walked into the kitchen area.
“So why did she stay with him?”
“In the beginnin’, she kep’ hopin’ it would get better, then she was too afraid to leave him. I woulda been, too.” Giulia crunched her Altoid. “The only way out was if he dumped her. My husband says if you’re with a wiseguy, it’s like a roach motel. You’re gettin’ in, but you ain’t gettin’ out.”
Mary glanced around the kitchen, so clean it appeared unused. She walked over to a pad under the wall phone, and nothing was written there. She asked, “When did he get involved with the Mob?”
“After high school, I think.”
“I don’t remember that. His family wasn’t in the Mob, were they?”
“Sure, and his brother might even be made.”
“There’s something to be proud of.” Mary started searching the kitchen drawers, which contained only ladles, silverware, and the like. While she looked, she tried to remember what she knew about his family. He had an uncle who had raised him and an older sister. She didn’t remember him talking about a brother, but most of their conversations were about school or the Gallic war.
“Anyways, we haven’t hung here for a while. My house is our hang.”
“I didn’t see Trish’s purse. Did you?” Mary thought that Trish’s big black bag would have stood out on the sea of white.
“I don’t see it, either.” Giulia frowned, looking around.
“I keep mine in the living room.”
“So do I.”
“Hers isn’t here, not that I saw. If it’s not upstairs, then she took it with her, which supports our theory, too.” Mary opened the next drawer. “She took her purse and coat.”
“Our workin’ theory is workin’!” Giulia grinned, and Mary went through the contents of the drawer, but it held only potholders and napkins.
“Doesn’t she have a junk drawer? I thought everybody had a junk drawer.”
“I dunno,” Giulia answered, just as Mary reached the last drawer and pulled it out. It was a mess.
“Bingo.” Mary rifled through the drawer, keeping an eye out for receipts or anything that might suggest where they could be. Or maybe even the diary Trish had mentioned, or the gun. But there was nothing inside the drawer except old Chinese take-out menus, Valu-Pak coupons, and a YMCA brochure, along with pencils, pens, matches, and more matches. “You were telling me about how they were in the beginning, and why it went wrong.”
“Okay, right. At first, T liked it he was connected, and we all thought it was cool. My husband’s got a plumbing supply business, and Missy sees a maitre d’ at Harrah’s. Yo broke up with a guy works the docks. T was the one who got the big catch.” Giulia leaned against the counter. “Least that’s what we thought, then.”
Mary kept looking in the junk drawer, but wasn’t finding anything, which made sense because she didn’t know what she was looking for.
“He was so crazy about her. He loved her since high school. T was everything to him.”
Mary felt a stab of envy, then caught herself. Was she really jealous of an abused woman? Lusting after a mobster? Had she lost her mind? She closed the drawer and reached for the phone, lifted the receiver, and heard an interrupted dial tone, which meant there were messages. Verizon was the most common Philly carrier; Mary had it at home, too. She pressed 00, reached a prompt, then turned to Giulia.
“What password does Trish use generally, do you know?” Mary asked. “I want to check her messages.”
“Try Lucy. She uses that for everything. It’s her mom’s old dog.”
“Thanks.” Mary pecked the keys, then the voicemail said that there was one new message. She pressed 1, but it was a telemarketer. She hung up. “Rats.”
“No luck?”
“Not yet.” Mary thought a minute. “Trish told me she kept a diary. That’s probably in her bedroom, right?”
Giulia frowned slightly. “No, she didn’t. She said that? You sure?”
“Yes. She had a gun, too, didn’t she?”
“Sure.” Giulia seemed distracted, her forehead creased slightly. “I don’t think she had a diary. She woulda tol’ me.”
“Do you know where she kept the gun?”
“No.”
“I’m wondering if she took it with her.”
“I don’t know. Prolly.”
Mary thought the gun and the diary would be upstairs. “Let me ask you something else. Where would he take her for her birthday? Which restaurant?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t like to take her out. He liked her home. It drove her nuts.”
“Okay, where does he go when he goes to work, or whatever Mob guys do?” Mary didn’t know much about organized crime and wasn’t going to pretend otherwise. “Where does he sell drugs?”
“I dunno. We never talked about it. She didn’t wanna know the details, and neither did I.”
Mary remembered Trish had said that. They don’t know the whole story.
“Once she told me that the boys hang at Biannetti’s, down Denver Street. But he never took T there.”
Mary made a note on an imaginary legal pad. AVOID BIANNETTI’S AND DENVER STREET. “Did she ever mention any friends of his in the Mob, or just guys he knew? Maybe Mob guys he hung with at Biannetti’s? Guys who might know where they went?”
“No. Like I said, we didn’t talk about it.”
Mary scanned the kitchen and dining room one last time. “How many bedrooms in this house?”
“Two, one and a half baths, no cellar.” Giulia frowned again. “I can’t remember the last time I was even
