Killer Smile

“I come in, I hadda redo all the plumbing and the electric. Fresh coat a paint, all three floors. New water heater, new toilets, the old ones use too much water. This place hadn’t been touched in years.” Frank gestured around the office, and his pinky ring glinted in the faint sunlight from a sooty window. Traffic was picking up on Broad Street, making noise and casting shadows on the pane. “What are you gonna do? People are people.”

Mary couldn’t help but smile. Everyone in South Philly said things like this, which passed for content. She should have countered with, Ain’t it the truth, but said instead: “Well, when I found the memo, I started to wonder. Why would Joe go all the way to Montana to tell Amadeo about Theresa’s death? It’s a long way to travel, especially in wartime. It must have cost a lot, for a cheap guy.”

“Joe would have charged the client, no doubt.” Frank paused. “I don’t know why he went, maybe just to be nice.”

“He doesn’t sound that nice, in the memo.” Mary hadn’t been able to sleep last night, thinking about it and the Escalade. “I mean, to go and tell Amadeo, Your wife’s dead. Get over it.”

“Maybe he went because he was Theresa’s executor, I don’t know.”

“Was he? Did Theresa have a will?”

“I don’t know.”

Mary shook her head, puzzled. “It’s your firm, Frank. If she were a client, wouldn’t you know it? If your founder were her executor, wouldn’t you know?”

“Depends. When did she die?”

“In 1942, right after Amadeo was sent to the camp. Tony was at the front.”

“This is 1942 we’re talking, Mare? Psh!” Frank waved his hand. “If there was a will, no way do I have that will anymore. I checked the will vault before, but we don’t keep the wills that old. There’s no point to it.”

This would be the point, Mary wanted to say, but didn’t. She knew it cost money to archive legal files and solo practitioners like Frank didn’t have the resources of Rosato amp; Associates.

“Just like Brandolini’s old business files, it’s all gone. I only joined the firm in 1985. To me, 1980 is archives. And 1943 is nowhere.” Frank shook his head, clucking. “When Joe left in 1981, he took his files with him. That’s how they did it, him and Locaro. Split the clients and the files, went their separate ways. That was in 1981. Joe musta had the files for Theresa and Amadeo, but who knows where they are now. She died of cancer, right?”

“No, like it says in the memo, she fell down the stairs in her house. I guess she broke her neck.”

“It’s a sin.” Frank was still clucking. “Poor Tony, that cancer’s no picnic either. That’s what got him. You knew that, right? At least he went quick.”

Mary thought of her mother, then shooed it away. “Did you go to Tony’s funeral? Where was he buried?”

“Of course I went.” Frank checked his watch, a heavy fake-gold Timex, but Mary knew it wasn’t even nine o’clock. He shook it back into place on his wrist and gave a little cough, hough-hough. “He’s at Our Lady of Angels.”

Everybody in the neighborhood was buried there, but not Mike. Mike wasn’t there, by her choice. “Is Amadeo there?”

“No. Theresa is. Not him.”

Mary made a mental note. It meant that Amadeo was probably buried in Montana, like the other internee had been.

“Come to think of it, I doubt they had a will. They didn’t have much money, that much I know.” Frank chuckled. “Amadeo used to pay Joe with crabs he caught down Wildwood. They ran all over the office, the way crabs do. You know.”

“Okay, so we don’t know if they had a will and we don’t know why Joe went to Montana. You know what else I don’t get?”

“What, Mare?”

“I don’t get why Tony, when he needed a lawyer to do a will, would come to you and not Joe. Joe was the family lawyer, but when Tony needed a lawyer to trace his father’s property, he came to you.”

“Joe was retired by then. Besides, I’m twice the lawyer that Joe was, believe me. But I won’t speak ill, may he rest.” Frank crossed himself.

“Did Joe have any partners who might know where the file or a will could be?”

“No. Joe went solo, then retired. We went over this before. Things change, Mare.”

“So I hear.” Mary didn’t add, and it totally sucks. She kept thinking that lately all she did was chase missing files. “Will you double-check for a file? The house on Nutt Street, I don’t know if they owned or rented, and the bank accounts I can’t find, either personal or Amadeo’s business. There used to be a Girard Bank near them on Nutt, my father remembers it. That was the closest branch of any bank to their house, and probably where they banked.”

“There you go.”

“But Girard got bought by Mellon and that branch got closed, and nobody at Mellon could find records of Amadeo or Theresa Brandolini. It was before computer records, too. All ink and paper.”

“I’m impressed, Mare. You’re doing your homework.”

Mary sighed. Doing-your-homework was her middle name. She had to make up for her lack-of-forte.

Frank checked his watch again. It was only two minutes later. “You say you didn’t find any of his business records at the Library of Congress?”

“National Archives, and no.”

Frank handed Mary the FBI memo. “Win some, lose some.”

Not me, she wanted to say. Not this, anyway. She put the memo back into her briefcase, then retrieved Amadeo’s black wallet, which she’d put in a Baggie for safekeeping. She opened the billfold, slid out the thick packet of scrap drawings, and handed it to Frank. “Last question. Do you remember these drawings? They were in the wallet in the box of stuff you gave me from Tony, when you hired me.”

“I don’t remember the stuff in the box.” Frank barely glanced at the drawings before he pushed them and the wallet back.

“It was only last year. You gave it to me after Tony died.”

“Mare, gimme a break here. I didn’t look in the box.” Frank leaned over the desk, hunching his shoulders at the seams, where the pinstripes matched. “You know the number of people who come in my office with a cigar box? A shoe box? A little wrinkly paper bag from Passyunk Avenue? You know the crap these people have, that they save for decades? You think I look at that?” Frank’s voice grew louder with exasperation, but Mary was used to being exasperating. It was the double-checking that put people over the top.

“Do you know if the box was from before Amadeo went to the camp or after?”

“I don’t know. Tony gave it to me. Said it was all his father’s things. That’s all I know. Sue me!”

Mary looked at the drawings. The crude pencil lines. The circles. “I think Amadeo drew it and I think it meant something to him. What do you think?”

“I think I have to get to work. Now.” Frank cleared his throat. “I gotta earn a buck.”

“Just a minute more. Do you know what they’re drawings of?” Mary pointed to one view of the circle.

“No.”

“They look like something, don’t they?”

“No, they don’t.”

“How can you tell without your reading glasses?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Frank picked up his glasses, slipped them on, and thumbed through the drawings. Mary eyed him. Was he just antsy or was it something about the drawings? He seemed more testy than before she’d shown them.

“You can see, he drew it several times. It looks like a circle, doesn’t it?”

“No, it’s a doodle, so what? He’s drawing the same cockamamie thing over and over.” Frank’s glare challenged her over the rims of his glasses. “So this is it. The end of the line.”

“Okay, I’ll let you get to work.” Mary picked up the drawings, folded them, and slipped them back in the wallet, then into the Baggie. “Thanks for your time.”

“No, I meant the end of the line with Brandolini. It’s time to give it up, Mare.” Frank rose, pulling up his belt so that the change jingled in his pants. “You tried to get reparations for the estate, but you couldn’t. There’s no shame