Bank, Nordstrom, and Target. She closed the drawer and walked around the bed to Trish’s night table. The surface was characteristically neat, but dull-looking in the lamplight. She ran a finger over the surface and checked her fingerpad. It was dusty. And again, no ashtray.
Mary pulled open the drawer, and it contained a few Cosmopolitan and People magazines. She checked their dates. December; months ago. She followed her hunch, left the room, and went down the hall to the other room and turned on the light. It was a spare room with a desk. An overhead fixture illuminated a single bed, neatly made, flush against a light-blue wall, across from a wooden desk with an older Dell laptop. Trish’s computer. Mary went over and moved the mouse. The screen came to life, the screen saver yet another photo of the couple. She clicked on AOL, which signed on automatically, and watched the e-mail load for the screen name TRex193.
Mary skimmed the list of incoming e-mail, the usual spam about penis enlargers, stock tips, and pleas for money from Ethiopian royalty. Seven e-mails piled in from Giulia, Missy, and Yolanda, and Mary clicked on one, which read: T, WHERE ARE YOU? I’M OUTTA MY MIND! She clicked on a few of the others, also from the Mean Girls. She closed the e-mail, logged on to the Internet history, and scanned the websites Trish had visited last. They were all the same: www.protectionorder.org, www.domesticviolence.org, www.womenslaw.org.
Mary’s heart sank, and she turned away. Next to the desk was another louvered closet, and she slid the door aside. Black Tumi suitcases sat piled one on top of the other. So they hadn’t gone on a trip. She searched the closet for the guns, just to make sure, but found nothing. She turned around, preoccupied.
Next to the bed sat a white night table with an electric clock, a pump bottle of Jergens hand cream-and an ashtray. She walked over to the night table and opened the drawer. People magazine from last week. She stepped back and almost tripped on the black cord of a cell phone charger, then put two and two together:
Trish had to have been sleeping in here. It made sense, together with the fact that she was miserable. The birth-control pills were a loose end, but Mary didn’t need to go there. They had separate bedrooms, or at least fights frequent enough for Trish to sleep in here. Mary closed the drawer. No gun, no diary. Trish could have the gun with her, but where was the diary? Then a thought struck her.
She still had one place left to search.
Outside, Mary chirped Trish’s Miata unlocked, using the keys from the jewelry box. She opened the door and climbed inside. The car matched the house, with its gleamy white enamel paint and beige interior, and it was equally clean. She shut the door and opened the tan console between the seats. Nothing but a cell phone charger, E-ZPass statements, and an open pack of Trident. She closed the console lid and popped open the glove box. The lid hung open, revealing a multicolored stack of folded maps.
Mary blinked, surprised. There had to be at least ten maps squeezed in there, which was nine more than most people from the neighborhood had, and ten more than most women, especially from the neighborhood. She herself had one map of Pennsylvania in her car, which her father had given her and she’d never used. She pulled out the maps, wondering if the gun was hidden behind them. It wasn’t, but sitting in the glove box was a slim clothbound book, also black.
Mary reached for it and opened it up. The first page read, Patricia Maria Gambone, and it was written in ballpoint in perfect Palmer method, with detached capital letters. She opened the book near the front and read the page:
I know he’ll just love it and I can’t wait to see his face when he opens it! I never thought I’d be this happy in my life!
The diary! In a car? Mary considered it, and it made sense. Trish couldn’t leave her diary in the house, where it could be found. Her car would be the second-best place, both secure and private. She flipped ahead, scanning the entries. Evidently, Trish didn’t write in it every day, only from time to time. God knows what we’ll do for Valentine’s Day. He’s drinking again, and when I called him out, he blew up. He started screaming that I was a lying whore and that he was going to kill me with his bare hands. Mary turned the page and a Polaroid picture fell out, and she picked it up.
It was a horrifying photo of Trish, and it looked as if it had been taken in the bathroom. A hideous red bruise, just beginning to go purple and black, covered her upper arm. The edge of the photo caught her profile, and she had obviously been crying. Mary’s mouth went dry. She replaced the photos and read ahead a few pages, picking up words here and there. Terrified. Scared. Screaming. Punched. Hurt. Bruised. Cut. Gun. There were more photos. Red bruises to a taut stomach, and one that made a cut near her navel. It sickened Mary, and she put them back with care. It was the perfect set of proofs for a lawsuit that would never go to trial. She felt disgusted and bitter at the law, at justice, and most of all, at herself.
She skipped to the most recent entry, praying it could provide a clue about where Trish had been taken. She turned to the last page, and her cheeks flushed hot: I went to see Mary but she didn’t do anything. Now I don’t know what to do. If you’re reading this now, whoever you are, I’m already dead. But at least this can prove he did it.
“Hey, Mare, yo!” somebody shouted, and Mary slapped the diary closed with the photos inside and looked through the windshield.
“MARE!” It was Giulia, hollering from down the street, because South Philly was a neighborhood without volume controls.
Mary waved to Giulia through the windshield, shoved the diary in her purse, and slipped the maps back in the glove box. She gave the car one last look around, got out, and chirped it locked, while the Mean Girls clack-clacked down the sidewalk like a tiny black locomotive, puffing smoke.
And it looked as if they’d picked up a passenger.
CHAPTER TEN
G iulia, Yolanda, and Missy stood beaming in Trish’s living room, surrounding an older Asian man who had a lined face and a delighted, if slightly bewildered, expression. He wore baggy black pants and a thin plaid shirt buttoned up to his neck wattle, and his hair was thin, steel gray, and slicked back. He was very short and never took his eyes from Giulia’s face. Okay, chest.
“Mare, look.” Giulia looped her arm around the tiny man and squeezed him close. “This is Fung Lee. He’s Oriental.”
“Chinese,” the man corrected good-naturedly, in thickly accented English.
“We went up and down the street like you said, and nobody saw nothin’ except Fung.”
“Good work, ladies.” Mary introduced herself and shook Fung’s hand, though his attention remained glued to Giulia. He nestled next to her body, fitting neatly beside her breasts, obviously enjoying his new best friends.
Giulia smiled down at the man. “Fung goes to the corner store the same time each night to buy a lottery ticket. He always goes at six thirty, right before they announce the winner, because he thinks that’s good luck.”
Fung nodded, ensconced.
“So I showed him the photo, and he recognized T because he sees her all the time, goin’ in and out of the house. He lives around the corner with his daughter and her husband.”
“Got it.” Mary held up a hand. “Let’s let him say what he saw, in his own words, okay?”
“Sure, Mare.” Giulia bristled, but Mary didn’t want words put in Fung’s mouth.
“Fung, what did you see last night?” she asked. “Can you tell me?”
But Fung only smiled up at Giulia, his free arm encircling her waist.
“Fung?” Mary repeated.
“Talk louder, Mare,” Giulia said, snuggling him, but Mary suspected his hearing wasn’t the problem, unless a breast blocked his ear. She raised her voice before he reached orgasm.
“Fung! What did you see? Did you see something at the house last night?”
“Tell her what you told us, doll,” Giulia said, gesturing at Mary. “It’s okay. She’s a lawyer. She can’t help being mean.”
Fung answered, “I see woman. Woman from picture.”
Giulia interjected, “I showed him Trish’s picture.”
Fung continued, “Woman very pretty. She with man. Leave with man and go in car.”
