“I thought he could have another mistress,” Carrier interjected.
“Ross said he doesn’t, Miss Texas would kill him.” Murphy raised an auburn eyebrow. “We think it’s time for you to talk to Linette. Ask him what he did Tuesday night, in some casual way, and see if he lies to you. Then Murphy and I can follow up.”
“Follow up?” Bennie repeated. “You two?”
Carrier was nodding eagerly. “And you know what else we found out? Ross says that Linette has a big goon who hangs around him from the old days, when he did criminal defense. This guy supposedly does all sorts of sleazy jobs for Linette, and I was thinking maybe Linette hired him to kill Robert. His name is Luke Deal.”
Oh, no. Bennie’s mouth went dry. “Luke Deal was tried for a brutal double murder ten years ago, in Bridesburg. The case made all the papers. Linette was his lawyer, and he got him off on a technicality, by suppressing his confession.”
Carrier’s face lit up “That’s incredible! Maybe Deal’s the one! We should definitely follow this up. I’ll research Deal online and find out where he lives.”
Murphy bubbled with excitement. “What if Linette was with Deal the night Robert was killed? They could have been in it together! I’ll call Ross and see if he wants to meet me for dinner, and afterward I’ll make up some excuse to stop by Linette’s office. I wonder if there’s a way I can slip away from him and sneak into the financial records and see if there are any suspicious payoffs and then-”
“Are you two nuts?” Bennie shouted, suddenly furious, and the associates looked at her in surprise. “Why do you think you can go running around after murderers!”
“What are you so mad about, boss?” Carrier asked, confused. “You do it all the time.”
Murphy frowned. “And why do you have to get so freaked out? We know what we’re doing!”
“I can take risks like that, but you can’t!” Bennie shot back. Then she heard herself shouting. She was so freaked out. She couldn’t let them get hurt solving this case. It made her realize something. She loved them. Loved them. The thought silenced her, at least for the moment. And the two girls, oblivious, kept chattering away.
“It only got dangerous when Ross made his move,” Carrier was saying with a smile. “He tried to grab Murphy’s knee under the table. Then I stepped in and saved the day, like Batgirl.”
Murphy looked askance. “You saved the day? Please. I handled him.”
“Oh, don’t even start with me! I was the one who dropped my fork and stabbed him in the ankle, accidentally on purpose. That’s why he yelped!”
“That’s not why! He yelped because I kicked him in the shin. It was nothing my Manolo couldn’t fix.” Murphy wiggled her overpriced designer pump, and Carrier laughed.
“No way! You needed me!”
“Who needs Batgirl when she has Blahnik?”
“Oh, blah blah Blahnik. You did!”
“Did not!”
“Did too!” Carrier gave her a playful shove, and Murphy shoved her back, less convincingly.
“Bennie, she hit me!”
Bennie let them bicker-her thoughts were going elsewhere. Her smile faded, and a chill came suddenly over her. Because she had realized something else:
She knew who had killed Robert St. Amien.
32
But there was a commotion outside her office, and Bennie and the associates jumped up and went for the door. The associates got there first and collided with a whirlwind of worsted wool, wrapped around a hysterical Vita DiNunzio. She was rushing headlong into Bennie’s office, her short little legs churning in their support hose and black orthopedic shoes, so quickly that Carrier and Murphy reflexively held her back, one on each arm, in her bunchy winter coat.
“You! You! Benedetta Rosato!” Mrs. DiNunzio was shouting, pointing her arthritic finger at Bennie. Her magnified eyes flared behind her thick glasses, and the wrinkled skin on her face was a streaky red. Only her hair remained unemotional, a perfect swirl of pinkish cotton candy. “My Maria! My Maria! My Maria, she’sa hurt!”
“Mrs. DiNunzio, hello, and what are you talking about?” Despite her confusion, Bennie extended her hand, but Mrs. DiNunzio took a taloned swipe at it. How had the woman gotten through Marshall? What the hell was going on? “Mrs. DiNunzio, Mary’s on a business trip. She’s in Washington. I’m sure she told you, she’s was coming home on the train today.”
“Washington! Washington! Maria is onna train! Onna train onna TV!”
“What?” Bennie asked, bewildered, and Carrier jumped between them.
“Turn on the TV, Bennie,” she shouted over the din. “There must be something about Mary on TV.”
“Maria! Maria!” Mrs. DiNunzio kept shouting, waving her little fists and struggling to get out of the associates’ grasp. “Devil! Witch!”
Mary. Bennie hurried to the small Sony on her credenza and turned it on. She had wanted to tell the associates about Robert’s killer, but that would have to wait. The TV came on and the screen was showing news of a huge train derailment, with car after car crumpled hideously, lying sideways like a grotesque Jacob’s ladder beside a railroad track. Bennie gasped. “Oh, no. Not Mary.”
“It’s not Mary, it can’t be!” Murphy said, restraining Mrs. DiNunzio as she pointed to the bottom of the screen. The banner underneath the picture read, Outside Seattle, Washington. Murphy turned to the raving Mrs. DiNunzio. “The train crash isn’t in Washington, D.C. It’s in Washington State! Mrs. DiNunzio, you understand what I’m saying? This isn’t the same Washington! Mary is fine!”
“Maria! Maria!” Mrs. DiNunzio kept yelling at Bennie. “You no care about my Maria! You only love money! Money!”
Bennie tried to figure out what had happened. Mrs. DiNunzio had heard the word “Washington” on TV, had seen the wrecked train, and had made the wrong connection. There were no fatalities in the Washington State train wreck anyway. Evidently Mr. DiNunzio hadn’t been around to talk sense to her, and she wouldn’t listen to anybody else. Or even leave her kitchen, except to come here and try to kill Bennie.
“Mrs. D., Mrs. D.!” Carrier was shouting, holding her other arm. “Mary is fine! That’s not where she is! Mary wasn’t on that train! You can call her cell phone right now! She’ll answer!”
“She no answer! I call, I call! She no answer! She’sa inna Washington!” Mrs. DiNunzio ranted as Bennie went to her desk for her cell, opened it, and punched in the number for Washington information. She waited for the call to connect to the National Archives and pressed her way through three levels of automated operations until she finally got through to a librarian in the Research Room.
“Could you page her please?” Bennie said into the phone. “She must have her cell turned off in the library. It’s an emergency.”
“Devil! Witch! You no care about Mary! You no care about nobody but yourself!”
In a minute, Mary’s cute little voice came on the line, and Bennie handed the cell phone to her mother, who stopped struggling long enough to put the phone to her gold earring hanging from a stretched-out earlobe, and in the next second, she erupted in joy and relief.
“Maria! Maria!” Mrs. DiNunzio shouted, with a hiccupy sob that would break even a lawyer’s heart. “Grazie, Dio! Grazie mille! Maria! Maria!” Tears sprang to her eyes and she lapsed into rapid and deliriously happy Italian, while Carrier and Murphy relaxed their grip. “Maria! Maria! Hokay, hokay, Maria! Bye-bye, Maria! Ti amo, Maria! Ti amo!” Mrs. DiNunzio closed the phone and returned it to Bennie with new, wet, and completely adoring eyes.