Jessica was just starting to formulate a plan for distracting Sophie so she could get to the sink with her salad bowl full of Cocoa muck when the phone rang. It was Jessica's first cousin Angela. Angela Giovanni was a year younger, and was the closest thing to a sister Jessica had ever had.
"Hey, Homicide Detective Balzano,"Angela said.
"Hey, Angie."
"Did you sleep?"
"Oh yeah. I got the full two hours."
"You ready for the big day?"
"Not really."
"Just wear your tailored armor, you'll be fine,"Angela said.
"If you say so," Jessica said. "It's just that…"
"What?"
Jessica's dread was so unfocused, so general in nature, she had a hard time putting a name to it. It really did feel like her first day of school. Kindergarten. "It's just that this is the first thing in my life I've ever been afraid of."
"Hey!" Angela began, revving up her optimism. "Who made it through college in three years?"
It was an old routine for the two of them, but Jessica didn't mind. Not today. "Me."
"Who passed the promotion exam on her first try?"
"Me."
"And who kicked the living, screaming shit out of Ronnie Anselmo for copping a feel during Beetlejuice?"
"That would be me," Jessica said, even though she remembered not really minding all that much. Ronnie Anselmo was pretty cute. Still, there was a principle.
"Damn straight. Our own little Calista Braveheart,"Angela said. "And remember what Grandma used to say: Meglio un uovo oggi che una gallina domani."
Jessica flashed on her childhood, on holidays at her grandmother's house on Christian Street in South Philly, on the aromas of garlic and basil and Asiago and roasting peppers. She recalled the way her grandmother would sit on her tiny front stoop in spring and summer, knitting needles in hand, the seemingly endless afghan spooling on the spotless cement, always green and white, the colors of the Philadelphia Eagles, spouting her witticisms to all who would listen. This one she used all the time. Better an egg today than a chicken tomorrow.
The conversation settled into a tennis match of family inquiries. Everyone was fine, more or less. Then, as expected, Angela said:
"You know, he's been asking about you."
Jessica knew exactly who Angela meant by he.
"Oh yeah?"
Patrick Farrell was an emergency room physician at St. Joseph's Hospital, where Angela worked as an RN. Patrick and Jessica had had a brief, if rather chaste affair before Jessica had gotten engaged to Vincent. She had met him one night when, as a uniformed cop, she brought a neighborhood boy into the ER, a kid who had blown off two fingers with an M-80. She and Patrick had casually dated for about a month.
Jessica was seeing Vincent at the time-himself a uniformed officer out of the Third District. When Vincent popped the question, and Patrick was faced with a commitment, Patrick had deferred. Now, with the separation, Jessica had asked herself somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion times if she had let the good one get away.
"He's pining, Jess," Angela said. Angela was the only person north of Mayberry who used words like pining. "Nothing more heartbreaking than a beautiful man in love."
She was certainly right about the beautiful part. Patrick was that rare black Irish breed-dark hair, dark blue eyes, broad shoulders, dimples. Nobody ever looked better in a white lab coat.
"I'm a married woman, Angie."
"Not that married."
"Just tell him I said… hello," Jessica said.
"Just hello?"
"Yeah. For now. The last thing I need in my life right now is a man."
"Probably the saddest words I've ever heard,"Angela said.
Jessica laughed. "You're right. It does sound pretty pathetic."
"Everything all set for tonight?"
"Oh yeah," Jessica said.
"What's her name?"
"You ready?"
"Hit me."
"Sparkle Munoz."
"Wow,"Angela said. "Sparkle?"
"Sparkle."
"What do you know about her?"
"I saw a tape of her last fight," Jessica said. "Powder puff."
Jessica was one of a small but growing coterie of Philly female boxers. What began as a lark at Police Athletic League gyms, while Jessica tried to lose the weight she had gained during her pregnancy, had grown into a serious pursuit. With a record of 3-0, all three wins by knockout, Jessica was already starting to get some good press. The fact that she wore dusty rose satin trunks with the words JESSIE BALLS stitched across the waistband didn't hurt her image, either.
"You're gonna be there, right?" Jessica asked.
"Absolutely."
"Thanks, cuz," Jessica said, glancing at the clock. "Listen, I gotta run."
"Me, too."
"Got one more question for you, Angie."
"Shoot."
"Why did I become a cop again?"
"That's easy,"Angela said. "To molest and swerve."
"Eight o'clock."
"I'll be there."
"Love you."
"Love you back."
Jessica hung up the phone, looked at Sophie. Sophie had decided it was a good idea to connect the dots on her polka-dot dress with an orange Magic Marker.
How the hell was she going to get through this day? WITH SOPHIE CHANGED and deposited at Paula Farinacci's-the godsend babysitter who lived three doors down, and one of Jessica's best friends-Jessica walked back home, her maize-colored suit already starting to wrinkle. When she had been in Auto, she could opt for jeans and leather, T-shirts and sweatshirts, the occasional pantsuit. She liked the look of the Glock on the hip of her best faded Levi's. All cops did, if they were being honest. But now she had to look a little more professional.
Lexington Park was a stable section of Northeast Philadelphia that bordered Pennypack Park. It was also home to a lot of law enforcement types, and for that reason, there were not a lot of burglaries in Lexington Park these days. Second-story men seemed to have a pathological aversion to hollow points and slavering rottweilers.
Welcome to Cop Land.
Enter at your own risk.
Before Jessica reached her driveway, she heard the metallic growl and knew it was Vincent. Three years in Auto gave her a highly attuned logic when it came to engines, so when Vincent's throaty 1969 Shovelhead Harley rounded the corner and roared to a stop in the driveway, she knew her piston-sense was still fully functioning. Vincent also had an old Dodge van, but, like most bikers, the minute the thermometer topped forty degrees-and often before-he was on his Hog.
As a plainclothes narcotics detective, Vincent Balzano had an unfettered leeway when it came to his appearance. With his four-day beard, scuffed leather jacket, and Serengeti sunglasses, he looked a lot more like a perp than a cop. His dark brown hair was longer than she'd ever seen it. It was pulled back into a ponytail. The ever-present gold crucifix he wore on a gold chain around his neck winked in the morning sunlight.
Jessica was, and always had been, a sucker for the bad-boy, swarthy type.
She banished that thought and put on her game face.
"What do you want, Vincent?"
He took off his sunglasses and calmly asked: "What time did he leave?"
"I don't have time for this shit."
"It's a simple question, Jessie."
"It's also none of your business."
Jessica could see that this hurt but, at the moment, she didn't care.
"You are my wife," he began, as if giving her a primer on their life. "This is my house. My daughter sleeps here. It is my fucking business."