‘Cops say you were there that night,’ said Jimmy.
‘Yeah, but I don’t remember much about it. She’d already been taken away by the time I got there. I pushed my way into the hall, found her necklace lying on the floor and I just knew she was dead. I took the necklace. I just couldn’t leave it lying there.’
At that moment, I felt the need to touch my neck. I wore a Saint Christopher’s medal on a chain, for good luck. I’d kept Harper’s necklace, got the links mended, and wore it alongside my own. It felt good to let something of ours be together, even if it was only cheap gold.
‘I need what’s in that envelope, Jimmy. I wasn’t thinking straight that night. There might have been something I missed,’ I said.
‘What’s in here ain’t good for you to see. I got it, but I don’t think you should look.’
‘I have to,’ I said. ‘I can’t trust the cops on this one. It’s too important. She was too important.’
Jimmy nodded, handed over the envelope.
‘You get anything on Frank?’ I asked.
‘Sure, I’ve been busy is all. One of my guys from the restaurant, Little Tony P, he’s in the goddamn hospital with a brain injury. He got run over crossing the street, for Christ’s sake. I’m gonna go see him when we’re done here. I got a lot on my mind. Sorry it took so long, but I also had to wait until all my little birds came back to tell me their tales. Frank had a lot of friends and a lot more enemies. I had to be sure his murder wasn’t a hit. All the little birds have come home with the same story. There was no motive, no opportunity, no old scores that needed to be settled, no money floating around in the wind, and no contracts on our dearly departed Frank either.’
I had thought as much, but I had to be sure. Jimmy confirmed my fears – this was not a hit on Frank. It was patricide. No question.
‘How close were you to Frank?’ I said.
‘Depends who wants to know. If you’re asking me, yeah, we were close. If the DA is asking, then I hardly knew the guy.’
‘Did you know Sofia or Alexandra?’
‘Frank kept family separate for the most part. Like a lot of my business partners, it’s better if the IRS, the FBI and any other three-letter government organization are none the wiser about our relationship. We didn’t socialize together when he was in office, but have no doubt, I put his ass in the mayor’s chair. He wouldn’t have gotten past the primary without the unions. His girls? Birthdays, family celebrations – not that there were many of those – Frank came to the restaurant with them.’
‘Either of the girls strike you as peculiar?’
‘Peculiar like they could chop up their old man for no reason? No. They didn’t like each other, I knew that. Frank was always bitching about it. I know they had a lot of money in that house, but green isn’t everything. Family is the most important thing you got. Frank was a widower twice over. You know? That’s gotta leave a mark. That wasn’t no happy home for those kids. Frank told me …’
Jimmy hesitated.
He liked to talk. We had grown up together. Jimmy didn’t see me as a lawyer, and I knew enough details to put him in jail for the rest of his life. Not that I would. Ever. We had a mutual trust. The fact that he had hesitated meant he didn’t want to betray a confidence that had been given to him by someone else – Frank. Jimmy was old-school that way.
‘You can trust me,’ I said.
Jimmy looked out the window, gazing up at my building.
‘Why don’t you got somewhere nice to live, Eddie? This place ain’t fit for a man like you.’
‘I do fine. Come on …’
‘Look, what I’ve got to tell you may not help. It may not help at all. It’s probably nothing but …’
‘Jimmy …’
‘Frank’s first wife. She fell down the stairs, got her neck caught in the bannister. Both girls were in the house. They saw the body. It was fuckin’ tragic, you know? Frank came to see me the next day. I got a guy in the city morgue on my payroll. Don’t ask me why …’
If I was sure of one thing, it was I didn’t want to know why Jimmy had a man in the morgue. I could guess though. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that some body bags might go into the furnace with an extra corpse inside.
‘He asked me for a favor. My guy spoke to the medical examiner. I took care of it.’
‘What did you take care of?’
‘The autopsy report.’
Harper had obtained this as part of our background. I’d read it. Accidental death. Cause of death was massive trauma to the spinal cord from the tumble on the stairs, resulting in instantaneous death.
I didn’t press Jimmy. I simply stayed quiet and let him come out with it.
‘There was something missing from the report. It wasn’t related to the cause of death. Jane Avellino had a mark on her calf. A bite mark. Small. About the same size as a child’s.’
An image flashed into my head, causing me to squeeze my eyes shut. The image felt like a sharp blow, painful, but not physically so. I saw Sofia in the interview room at the First Precinct – blood on her lips and cheeks, a bite mark on her wrist. I shook the thought away, shivered and told myself that was something totally different – it wasn’t the same as biting someone else – and she only did that to herself because she didn’t have a razor. The scars on her arms spoke to that. Then there was the bite expert, who said the mark on Frank Avellino’s chest matched Alexandra’s dental impression.
I began to wonder whether Jane Avellino’s death was accidental.
‘Jesus, you think Sofia or Alexandra bit their mother, she fell down the stairs and broke her neck?’
A darkness drew upon Jimmy’s face.
‘No, whether she fell or she was pushed is impossible to say. The medical examiner said the bite mark came after.’
‘After she was dead?’
‘None of this helps you because Frank never found out what really happened. He put both girls into boarding school the month after the funeral. Who could blame him? He made sure the girls saw shrinks while they were away and they kept Frank informed of progress. One of them shrinks told him the bite could’ve been a reaction to the trauma of finding their mother dead, and maybe they were trying to wake her up. Some shit like that,’ said Jimmy, rolling his eyes.
‘You don’t think so?’
‘Frank told me Jane was a hard woman. Tough on the kids, you know? Frank was a tough guy, but he loved his girls. Jane though, I only met the once. I didn’t take to her. She was cold. Frank told me she hit the girls. Bit them, too. My old man was good with his fists, but I loved him and I never raised a hand to him. He was my poppy. One of those girls was as tough and cold as their mother.’
‘Abuse can scar people. It ruins lives.’
‘There’s more to it than that. It’s a sickness, too. In the soul. All I’ll say is this. I don’t know no little girl who would find their mother dead on the stairs and then take a bite clean out of her corpse. You still go to church?’
I shook my head.
‘I go every Sunday. I spoke to Father Loney about it. He said Frank had a demon living in his house. One of those girls was evil.’