He drew in a deep breath, his posture straightening, his broad chest puffing out. He clenched his jaw and dropped the garbage bag onto the floor. He met her eyes. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s see what you got.”
Chapter 49
November 20, 2014
“Anita looked it up. Davey Pantalone was a senior in 2000. Same as Sydney and Lonnie. He was, by all accounts, a loner. At least Lonnie remembered him as always being by himself, smoking pot behind the bleachers during lunch periods, that sort of thing. We couldn’t get his juvenile record, but Anita sweet-talked the school secretary and found out that he’d been suspended twice in his junior year for drug violations. She says at some point, he actually was charged with possession. In his senior year, he was linked to the ongoing vandalism. He was charged, convicted, and expelled.”
Trent said, “Wait. The vandalism they had the big Home and School meeting about? The meeting Francine, Lonnie and Hubbard were at the night that Sydney was murdered?”
Jocelyn nodded. “The very same. Before the vandalism started, Pantalone had been going to the school nurse—Francine—for headaches, dizziness, fatigue, and occasional GI distress. It went on for months. Sydney was murdered in May. Pantalone had been spending the better part of his school day in Francine’s office, starting back in October, before Sydney’s murder. Then his mother died of a drug overdose. Cash says Francine had him over for dinner right after she passed.”
Trent held up a hand. “Hold up a minute. You talked to Cash Rigo?”
“Yeah.”
He pointed at her. “You? You, personally?”
Jocelyn shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Yes, me personally. Listen, Trent—”
He laughed, shaking his head. “You shot the man’s wife in his home, and you went back to talk to him. You’ve got balls, lady. I’ll give you that. Big, hairy balls.”
Jocelyn put a hand on her hip. “Hairy balls, yes. Are you listening to me or not?”
“This kid had dinner at the Rigos.’”
“Francine invited him. It was a couple months before Sydney’s murder. About the same time the vandalism started at Franklin West. Then a few weeks after Sydney’s murder, he was arrested for the vandalism. He was expelled, obviously. The damage to school property was so extensive, he was charged with a felony count of third-degree criminal mischief. He pleaded down and spent eighteen months in prison. But listen, everything fits. Francine had plenty of access to him and plenty of time to cultivate a sick, inappropriate relationship with this kid. Then his mother dies, and he’s even more vulnerable to her manipulations. His mom died of a drug overdose, so we can assume his home life wasn’t perfect. He murders Sydney, and then he goes to prison for something else, effectively taking him out of the picture—and the suspect pool at that time—completely.”
Trent frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “Francine Rigo had this kid over for dinner one time after his mom died, and that makes you think he killed Sydney Adams? Rush, you get how much of a stretch this is, right?”
She groaned in frustration. It wasn’t a stretch to her, not since Whitman helped her put the pieces together, but she really didn’t want to have to discuss her relationship with Whitman at all. Ever. With anyone. So she just said, “I talked to a criminologist who used to be with the University of Pennsylvania. He’s very—” the word good stuck in the back of her throat like a bitter pill that wouldn’t go down. She settled on, “Knowledgeable. Just hear me out.”
She recapped her conversation with Whitman. Trent’s posture loosened as she spoke, but he kept one brow raised skeptically.
“Plus, Francine told Knox she was responsible for the bees in Becky Wu’s gym bag, but she said a former student had done it for her. She said he was troubled and probably in prison. Cash told me that Davey Pantalone was working with a contracting company at Franklin West at the time Becky Wu was murdered. He’d already killed once for Francine. She had that over him already. I think he put the bees in Wu’s gym bag.”
“So now we’re looking at this guy for two unsolved murders, based on nothing more than a dead woman’s husband’s claim that they had dinner once. Oh, and a criminologist’s theory.” He stepped toward her, index finger extended toward her heart. “You know that nothing you heard Knox and Francine say is even admissible in court. Rush, you’re on thin ice. That shit that went down at the Rigos’ house? If you weren’t a cop, if you didn’t have friends in the DA’s office, if Knox wasn’t my friend—” His breath caught. He looked down momentarily then back up at her, his voice quieter. “You’ve got credibility, but you’re on very thin ice. Now you want me to talk to this guy, based on shit. That’s what you got, Rush. Shit.”
She put her other hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes at him. “Maybe it’s shit, but it’s more than anyone’s had in fourteen years.” She thought again of the night she’d spent doubling as a vomit spray hose and of Knox taking his last labored breaths in her lap. Anger ignited inside her. She could practically hear it, like the sound a flame makes when you set your lighter to a blown pilot light. Whoosh. She poked his chest, hard. “You know what, Trent? Fuck you. I’m closing this goddamn case with or without you. I’m tired of waiting around for you to take a fucking minute. I’m going to talk to this guy. If what I’ve got is really shit, then I’ve lost nothing but a little bit of my time. But if it’s not shit, I’m fucking going for it. You can come and maybe solve two murders, or you can stay here and sulk like a fucking toddler. So what’s it going to be?”
Chapter 50
November 20, 2014
In and around Jocelyn’s Roxborough neighborhood, new homes were popping up like a fast-moving rash. It was a great neighborhood, she had to admit. She wasn’t surprised that people wanted to live there. Now, it seemed wherever there was a square inch of unattended ground, some contractor tried to slap a trendy three or four-story home on top of it. The new homes towered over the neighboring twin and row houses. They were tall and exceedingly narrow with no yards to speak of. The lots they were built on were barely large enough to accommodate the houses themselves.
One day, after a week-long Dr. Seuss obsession, which culminated in three days of watching Horton Hears a Who on a DVR’d loop, Olivia had pointed to one of the houses while they drove past and said, “Look, Mommy! A Dr. Seuss house!” Jocelyn knew her daughter identified the houses that way because they were so tall, narrow, and unusual-looking compared to every other house in the area. That was how Jocelyn came to think of them, and it made her laugh every time she passed one after that.
Until today.
She and Trent stood before a half-finished row of four Dr. Seuss houses that had been thrown up in an empty lot in Roxborough. They were four stories each and sat crammed onto a one-way street between the neighborhood’s two main thoroughfares, Ridge and Henry Avenues. Two of the houses already had windows and tan siding. The other two were just framed two-by-fours and plywood. Dirt spilled out over the sidewalks and into the street from where they’d dropped the concrete foundations. It was late in the day, and the job site was quiet. Three beat-up pickup trucks sat half on the pavement, half in the street, their dusty beds empty, save for one, which was filled with clean, new lumber. The truck in the middle had small, black capital letters stenciled on its side, spelling out norman schmeck contracting with a 610 phone number beside it. The R in Norman was missing so that it read: no man schmeck contracting.