Lady Killer (13 page)

“Thanks for the help. It was great seeing you again.”

“You, too.” Rosaria stood up. “Take care.”

“You, too.” Mary rose, gave her a brief hug, and turned to go.

“Mare? One last thing.”

“Yes?” Mary turned, and Rosaria’s expression was pained.

“I don’t want to know about it, if he kills her.”

“I hear that.” Mary turned away and hurried back to the car.

Back in the car, Mary checked the clock. 2:25. She had to do something with the information about Ninth & Kennick. She considered calling Giulia, but she couldn’t trust her not to blab the information and that wouldn’t do any good, anyway. When traffic slowed, she reached for her phone and plugged in Brinkley’s cell number, reading the pen marks still faint on her hand. The call connected with his voicemail, and she left a complete message, telling him about Ninth & Kennick. Still she felt vaguely unsatisfied.

She called information, asked for the Missing Persons department, and the call connected. “Hello, I’m calling about the abduction of Trish Gambone. I may have information as to their whereabouts. With whom should I speak?”

“Hold, please,” a man answered, and the call went
click,
then came back on. “Sorry, is this a tip about the Amber Alert? We’re fielding calls in that case.”

“No, this is a woman, an adult. She was on the TV news last night.”

“Oh, is this the case that they had in Homicide?”

“Yes.”

“We have it logged in here. Who did you say you are?”

Mary told him, spelling her name and giving her cell number, against the background noise of ringing phones.

“Give me your information. I have to get these other calls. The Amber Alerts are just a monster.”

Mary sighed. The car moved an inch. She told him everything she knew and hung up, feeling assured of nothing. The BlackBerry rang again before she could even set it down, and she checked the display before she answered. It was Amrita, returning her call.

Yay!
Mary could give her the good news about Dhiren’s upcoming appointment. She pressed the green button. “Amrita?” she said, excited until she found out what had happened to Dhiren.

Then, the good news didn’t matter anymore.

M
ary fought traffic for two hours to reach Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She parked on the street and hurried down the hospital corridor, its tile floors gleaming. A male nurse walked past in blue scrubs, a plastic daisy attached to the stethoscope that lay doubled around his neck. At the end of the corridor, she could see two older women standing outside the door to the room, and when she got closer, she recognized Elvira Rotunno, Anthony’s mother, in her old-school housedress and black plastic slip-ons, with another older woman.

“How is he?” Mary asked, walking up, and they both turned.

“Good as he can be.” Elvira managed a shaky smile. “It’s nice you came, Mare. Rita’s calm now, but she was a mess.”

“I can imagine.” Mary turned and introduced herself to the other woman, whose hooded eyes and lined expression were disapproving behind her oversized plastic eyeglasses.

“Sue Ciorletti,” the woman said, barely getting the words out before her mouth snapped back to its previous tightness, like a rubber band returning to shape. She seemed too cranky to wear a pink sweatsuit that read COOL GRANDMA.

Elvira continued, “Sue and me were talkin’ to Rita when the school called, and Sue gave her a ride here ’cause we didn’t want her drivin’ so upset. Amrita’s in there with the doctors now.” Elvira gestured at the closed door behind them, with a gnarled hand. “She’s been in there for a long time. Fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, right, Sue?”

Mrs. Ciorletti didn’t answer, maintaining her silence, and Mary assumed it was another neighbor who hated her.

“You okay, Mrs. Ciorletti?”

Elvira answered, “Sue don’t like hospitals because you could get an infection. Even if you’re just vistin’. She heard a report on the TV news.”

“I see,” Mary said. “Mrs. Ciorletti, you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. I have a car and I’ll take Elvira home.”

“I’ll stay,” Mrs. Ciorletti answered. The door opened as if on cue, and the women watched as two young male doctors came out, led by an attractive woman doctor with an authoritative air, Dr. Sharon Satterfield, according to the red script embroidered on her white jacket. Three young male interns followed her, with weary faces and professional smiles.

Amrita came out behind them, her eyebrows a crestfallen slope, her large eyes somber, and her mouth a line. She shook the woman doctor’s hand. “Thanks, Dr. Satterfield. I appreciate all you’re doing for Dhiren.”

“We’ll get back to you when we have the results.” The doctor left, trailing interns.

Amrita sighed, then collected herself. “Mary, how kind of you to come.”

Mary gave her a big hug. “Sorry it took so long. How is he?”

“He’s fine, and they think he’ll be fully recovered in a month.”

“A month?” Mary groaned, but Amrita shook her head.

“No, that’s good. When they first called me, I was terrified.” She didn’t elaborate, and her dark eyes betrayed little emotion. But Elvira misted up with enough emotion for both of them, in addition to much of the eastern seaboard.

“We all thought Dhiren was gonna die,” Elvira blurted out, and Mary slid an arm around her.

“It’s okay now.”

Mrs. Ciorletti’s lips stretched tight, under control. “Be strong, El. We’re here for Rita, remember?”

“Yeah, I know, I’m sorry.” Elvira bit her lip not to cry.

Mary asked, “Amrita, can I see him?”

“Sure, come in. He’s asleep, still under sedation.” Amrita went back inside the hospital room, then stood aside to let Mary enter. She tried not to gasp at the sight.

The little boy looked so small, and his skin was dark against the sheets and thin white blankets. His head was bandaged, his black hair rumpled, and his left cheek was purplish and swollen. His left arm was propped up and away from his body in a cast, and the large lump under the sheets suggested that there was a cast on the leg as well.

“Thank God, he’s alive.” Amrita went over to Dhiren’s bed and touched the playground-dirty fingers that curved out of the sleeve of his cast. She stroked his hand, though he didn’t move. He was completely asleep, his head to the side. His bed sat on the left side of the room, on the same side as a sink, a small white counter, and a cork bulletin board with a crayoned drawing left behind. The other bed was empty, and the divider curtain, covered with happy giraffes and laughing cartoon tigers, drawn halfway back. A TV was mounted high in the corner, its screen black, and a largish monitor protruded from metal brackets on the wall, above an array of high-tech gauges and greenish tubes that led to Dhiren.

“So he’s gonna be okay,” Mary said, confirming it for herself. “When will he wake up?”

“The doctor said it would take a couple of hours for him to come around completely.” Amrita checked an institutional clock on the wall. “Barton should be here any minute.”

“Amrita, how did it happen, exactly?”

“At recess, they told me. You know how the morning went. I sent him anyway. The boys were restless in class. But I left, right before recess.” Amrita shook her head. “Right before it happened. I feel so terrible.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“No?” Amrita looked up sharply, her lips tight. “If I had been there, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“You can’t be there all the time. No parent can. And two can play that game. If I had gotten him some help sooner, I could have prevented this.”

“Not at all. You did what you could. The school did not. The school let him down.”

Mary didn’t agree. It was her job to make the school do right by Dhiren, and she hadn’t fought hard enough. She had only lucked out in getting him the appointment, and even that was too little, too late. But right now, it was about Dhiren. “You were telling me how it happened.”

“His teacher told me it started in the schoolyard. They were mocking him, and he ran away, so they gave chase. Usually he goes to the teacher, that’s what I tell him to do, but this time he ran into the street.” Amrita paused, but remained in control. “He wasn’t looking, and then the car came around the corner and hit him.”

Mary shuddered. “How awful.”

“The impact was on his left side.” Amrita gestured at her own body. “Luckily, his head wasn’t injured too badly, just some cuts and a concussion. That was their main concern, as it was mine. His leg and arm are broken, and a few ribs. But those bones can mend.”

“He must have been in so much pain.”

“Yes.” Amrita winced. “The car was driven by a mother of a boy in the school, one of the older children, a sixth-grader. She even came to the hospital, very upset. She blames herself, but Dhiren darted in front of her. She was going under the limit because she was dropping off her child, after a dentist’s appointment. If she hadn’t been, Dhiren’s injuries would’ve been far worse.”

Mary marveled at Amrita’s grace. Her own mother would have beaten the driver senseless with a wooden spoon.

“But I am so furious, Mary. I played by their rules. For weeks they told me I was crazy, that he was fine. Then they told me he is simply naughty, that boys will be boys.” Amrita frowned deeply. “Then I hired you, and we continued to play by the rules. All of this good behavior has gotten my son in the hospital.”

“I know,” Mary said, saddened.

“It’s a miracle he’s still alive. It’s sheer luck she wasn’t going faster or that it wasn’t a bus that hit him.” Amrita’s tone hardened to steel. “I cannot send him back to that school. He will not go back to that school.”

Suddenly the door opened, and a tall, scruffy blond man in a white shirt and maroon windbreaker burst into the room. He looked at the bed, and his brown eyes widened with alarm and anger.

“Barton, you’re here!” Amrita said, moving toward him, her arms outstretched, but her husband hugged her only briefly, his gaze fixed over her head, on Dhiren.

“My God!” he said. “What have they done to him?”

“He’s going to be fine, Barton.” Amrita released him and gave him a calm rundown of their son’s injuries, but Mary could see he was barely listening. He crossed to the bed.

“This is outrageous. He could have been killed.” Barton snapped his head up, his eyes flashing. “They permitted him to be bullied for years. They did nothing.”

“I know, Barton,” Amrita said, her voice soothing. She gestured at Mary and introduced her. “This is our lawyer. She’s been helping to get him tested. She even got him an appointment for tomorrow.”

“Fat lot of good it will do him now.”

“Barton, please. Mary is on our side.”

“Then she’ll understand my frustration with the bloody school district that doesn’t give a damn about a child who needs extra help.” Barton turned on Mary, his lips taut with emotion. “If you’re our lawyer, I want you to sue them. This is negligence. They permitted this to happen. They’re on notice, yet they permit it. He could be
dead
.”

“I know, I understand,” Mary said, but she could see she wasn’t reaching him. The anxiety he had about Dhiren’s condition was being channeled into anger.

“And the driver, she should be sued, too. I want them both joined in the suit. Is that possible?”

Amrita interjected, “Barton, we know the driver. It’s Suk Yun, one of the other mothers. She’s very sorry.”

“Oh, she’s
sorry
? She’s
sorry
for putting our boy in the hospital? She’s sorry she almost killed him. She should have been watching.”

“She was, dear. She’s a lovely woman. She was driving very slowly—”

“Amrita!” Barton threw up his hands. “Why are you making excuses for this woman? She could have killed our son. You expect so little of people, that’s why you get so little. What are you thinking? What?”

Mary sensed she shouldn’t be here, in this private time, and moved to the door. “I’ll let you two talk. Call me on the cell, if you need me.”

Amrita said stiffly, “Thank you for coming, Mary.”

“Yes, thanks,” Barton called after her, and Mary let herself out without looking back. She closed the door behind her and when she heard the shouting resume, she stepped away. Elvira was sitting in the patterned chair against the wall, a forlorn figure, her gray head bent.

“I met Barton.” Mary went over and sat down beside her, suddenly exhausted, and Elvira made a funny face, her glasses popping off the bridge of her nose.

“I don’t like him,” she said. “He’s a jerk.”

“He’s just upset.”

“Nah, he’s always like that. Bossy. He leaves Rita alone all the time and when he comes home, all he does is gripe.”

“Where’s Mrs. Ciorletti?”

“She left a while ago. I wanted to stay and make sure Rita was okay.”

“You take good care of her, Elvira.”

“She’s my neighbor.”

Mary smiled, touched. “I think she’s fine now. Can I take you home?”

“Nah, you don’t hafta.” Elvira waved her off. “I called my Ant’n’y, from the nurses’ phone.” She gestured at the desk down the hall. “He’ll be here.”

Uh-oh.
“I could have taken you.”

“I didn’t know if you were gonna stay or not, and he likes to help me.” Elvira patted Mary’s leg. “When you get to be a mother, I wish for you a son as good as my Ant’n’y, even though he plays for the other team.”

Mary suppressed her smile. “He doesn’t seem gay to me.”

“A mother knows these things, and you know what? I love my son. Like we were sayin’ the other day, there’s Hindus and there’s gays in this world. It’s all mixed up nowadays, and you know what? The sun still comes up.” Elvira leaned forward and looked down the hall. “Shhh, here he comes.”

Mary helped Elvira up and caught Anthony’s eye as he bustled down the hall, concerned. She had to admit that he was a great-looking man, and a nurse at the station peeked over the top of the high counter as he strode by, his tan jacket open. He had on long, slim jeans and shiny loafers, and Mary couldn’t help but smile at him.

“Look at these two beautiful women,” Anthony said, giving his mother a quick kiss on the cheek, and then Mary, too, which he pulled off before she could react one way or the other.

“Sorry I didn’t call you back,” she said. “I was so busy today.”

“That’s okay.” Anthony grinned, and if he was hurt, it didn’t show. Then his face changed. “How’s Dhiren?”

“Okay,” Mary said, as Elvira grabbed Anthony by the coat sleeve and pulled him close to her.

“That jerk’s in there, with Rita,” she stage-whispered.

“Shall we go, ladies?” Anthony looped his arm through his mother’s, turned her around, and got her going down the hall. Mary fell into place beside them, and Anthony looked over. “Mary, if you didn’t know yet, my mother is a woman with very definite likes and dislikes. There’s no middle ground. Gray is the new black and white.”

“That’s not true.” Elvira smiled.

“Oh yeah?” Anthony asked, “What do you think of Celine Dion?”

“She’s a great singer.”

“What about Barbra Streisand?”

“She’s a commie.”

Mary laughed, relaxing, and the three of them walked down the hall, making surprisingly easy small talk until they got outside the hospital. It was early evening, an indigo wash darkening the sky from top to bottom, with a full moon rising. Yellow lights glowed inside the hotel across the way, and the round, orange-tiled roof of the University Museum caught the streetlamps, a bit of old Florence in West Philly.

“Where’d you park, Mary?” Anthony asked, but she was already frowning at the spot where her car had been, on 34th Street. An empty space sat where she had parked, unwelcome as a missing front tooth. “There. But it’s gone.”

“Under the No Parking sign?” Anthony pointed, and Elvira clucked.

“I wouldn’t do that, Mare. They’ll tow ya, around here.”

“I didn’t realize it.” Mary groaned. She’d been in such a rush when she’d arrived at the hospital. No wonder she’d gotten such a great parking space.

“I know where the impound lot is.” Anthony touched her shoulder. “Let me take you. Wait here with my mother, and I’ll go get the car. Be right back.”

“Thanks.” Mary threw an arm around Elvira as he left, then thought of Brinkley and Missing Persons. Her cell phone had been turned off in the hospital. But somebody should have called back. “Excuse me, Elvira. You mind if I take a second to check my calls?”