get up and she feex her makeup and Fontana feex de seam and she pretend like no ding happen.'
Mary tried to visualize it. Then what?'
'An' den she go out and dey taka her picture. Howa you like dat?'
That's terrible,' Mary said, meaning it. She knew there had been something very wrong between mother and daughter. She wondered how long it had gone on, emotional abuse like that. A long time, for Paige's powers of recovery to be so fast, her emotional scars hidden by makeup and a professional smile. Had Jack known about it? Had it been hidden in dressing rooms and behind closed doors, or was Mary making excuses for him? What had her father said, that night over coffee? If your mother was doing bad things to you, it would be my fault. 'Did anybody else see?'
'Si! Si! One person know what I say ees true.' Fontana stopped in her tracks and held up a finger.
'Who?' Mary asked, breathless.
'Jesus Christ, he know/ she said, with a faith that Mary couldn't begin to understand.
For her part, she could never fathom where Jesus Christ was when a mother called her daughter a whore.
17
Jack paced in his holding cell, waiting to use the pay phone outside. The guard said he'd get to it before they left for county jail, but that was an hour ago. He'd made a stink, claiming he had to call his lawyer, but it was a lie. Mary was the last person he'd phone right now. He had to call Trevor and get him down to the prison. Find out where that kid was the night Honor was killed. He'd shake the truth out of him.
'Guard! I need to make that call now!' Jack turned on his heel when he reached the bars of the cell, then turned back. The cells were a lineup of vertical cages, their white-painted bars chipped and peeling. Grime covered a concrete floor that sloped down to a small drain, and there was no toilet. They allegedly took the prisoners out for that, though the stench of urine filled the cell like a zoo.
'Fire! There's a fire!' Jack shouted, but even then there was no answer. An old man in the next cell laughed softly; he had been laughing to himself since they put him in there. Jack paced back and forth, driving himself crazy with what-ifs. What if Trevor had killed Honor? What if he and Paige had done it together? What if Paige had lied to him completely?
The prisoner in the next cell laughed louder, reading Jack's thoughts.
18
'Ms DiNunzio,' Brinkley said, standing beside Kovich, 'before you lay down the law, mind if we sit?'
There's chairs at the dining table behind you.' DiNunzio gestured, and Brinkley looked around Paige Newlin's elegant, feminine apartment. The couch, chairs, and coffee table were decorated in shades of white, and he felt suddenly like an anvil on a cumulus cloud.
'Here we go, Mick,' Kovich said jovially, yanking a chair from the dining room to the coffee table, and Brinkley dragged one over for himself. The chairs raked four wiggly lines in the thick white rug. Brinkley and Kovich sat down as the lawyer kept talking.
'Here's the way it goes, Detective Brinkley,' DiNunzio was saying, from a seat next to Paige Newlin. She had a pretty face but wore a blue suit with a high collar that made her look tight-assed. 'You can ask the questions you need to, but Paige cannot answer if I instruct her not to. She's been through a lot and she's feeling awful. As I told you on the phone, I don't know why you had to meet with her.'
'It's just for background information.' Brinkley slipped a pad from his breast pocket and flipped it open. Another woman lawyer whose name he forgot sat catty-corner to the sofa in a shapeless corduroy dress. He wasn't surprised that woman lawyers dressed as lousy as men lawyers. 'Ms Newlin,' he said, 'first let me say how sorry we are for the loss of your mother.' Beside him, Kovich nodded in sympathy, like he always did when they did next-of- kin notifications. 'Please accept our condolences.'
'Thank you.'
'I do need to ask you a few questions.' Brinkley worked a ballpoint from the spiral of his notebook. 'How old are you?'
'Sixteen.'
Brinkley was starting with the softballs, to get her talking. He didn't want her threatened and he wanted to observe her. The first thing he observed was that she had pierced ears. She was wearing tiny pearl earrings, smaller versions of her mother's. He thought of the earring back in the rug. 'Date of birth?'
She told him, sipped water from a glass, and replaced it on a coaster on the coffee table. Grief weighed each perfect feature and her mouth sagged with pain. She looked obviously bereft, even to his suspicious eye. Still it was hard to ignore her looks. Dressed in blue jeans and a classy white turtleneck, Paige Newlin was a knockout. Big blue eyes, pillow mouth, and glossy red hair that cascaded beyond her shoulders.
Brinkley made a note of her birth date. 'Born in Philly?'
'No. Actually, in Switzerland. My parents were traveling.'
'You reside here; at Colonial Towers?'
'Yes.'
'I understand that you used to live at home with your parents. When did you move here?'
'Early last year.'
'Your parents' home is beautiful, by the way. Antiques and such, everything nice.' Brinkley gestured vaguely. 'It's very well kept. Do your parents have help, for the house?'
'Yes. A maid.'
'How often did she come?'
'Twice a week, Monday and Thursday.'
'So she had been there yesterday?'
DiNunzio leaned toward Paige. 'If you know,' she said, and Paige shrugged.
'I don't know. I live here now.'
'I see.' Brinkley nodded. He was thinking about the dirt
on the coffee table. If the maid had come on Monday, it could have been new the night of the murder. 'How was it you came to live here?'
DiNunzio interrupted, 'Your question isn't clear. Detective, and I'm not sure I see the relevance anyway.'
'I'm just trying to get some background information.'
'Background or not, she doesn't understand the question, and neither do I.'
He shifted his weight and addressed Paige. 'I was asking you why you moved out of your parents' house.'
'I wanted to be on my own. Live alone. Be independent.'
'Did you get along with your parents?'
'Yes.'
'With your mother?'
DiNunzio cleared her throat. 'She just answered that, Detective Brinkley. Again, I'm not sure it matters who she got along with.'
'I'm wondering why she moved out of her house at such a young age. It's unusual, and we like to fill in all the questions the captain will ask us. He gets feisty about the details.'
That's your problem.'
Brinkley, his annoyance growing, addressed the daughter. 'Did your parents get along?'
DiNunzio cut him off with a chop. 'I'm instructing her not to answer that.'
Brinkley was getting pissed. He'd never met a lawyer who hadn't interfered with getting to the truth. He couldn't understand that kind of job. 'You're disrupting a police investigation, Ms DiNunzio.'
'I disagree, but I won't bother to argue with you.' DiNunzio turned to Paige. 'Don't answer.'
Paige nodded shakily, and Brinkley looked at his notepad. 'Did your father ever strike your mother?' he asked,
