“Mama?” Maria didn’t believe her.
“She even rocked him for a while,” Sarah told her. “I think she may be starting to like him.”
Maria stared at her for a long moment, uncomprehending.
Then her eyes filled with tears, and she started to cry. Sarah slipped an arm around her shoulders and led her into the parlor. By then she was fairly sobbing, and Sarah seated them both on the sofa, patting her back and murmuring words of comfort. She’d seen many new mothers reduced to tears after a sleepless night or two. Maria may not have given birth to this baby, but she’d experienced everything else—the doubts and the fears and the numbing exhaustion and the despair of not being able to soothe the little one’s anguish and pain.
She’d also experienced her sister-in-law’s murder and a near riot at her doorstep. Maria had earned the right to weep.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” she sobbed. “I did not dream it would be like this.”
“Of course not, but you’re doing very well at being a mother, Maria.”
“I want a baby of my own,” she said, scrubbing the tears from her cheeks. “I always want one, as long as I live, but it does not come. Then Nainsi marries Antonio. She is a foolish girl, but I am happy for her. I am happy to have a baby in the house. I think I will help her take care of her baby and play with it. He will love his Zia Maria more than anyone.
But I did not want her to die!”
She started sobbing again, and Sarah murmured words of comfort. “Of course you didn’t, but it was very generous of you to take him. Not many women would, under the circumstances.”
“What else can I do?” she asked between sobs. “I cannot let that woman have him, and . . . and he is my only chance to have a baby of my own.”
“Oh, Maria, you shouldn’t give up hope yet,” Sarah said kindly. “You’re still young, and—”
“No, it will not happen for me,” she insisted. When she looked up at Sarah, the tears had stopped and her eyes were dark with anger. “Joe, he . . . he does not come to me anymore. I will never have a child . . . except for this one.”
Sarah’s heart ached for Maria’s humiliating secret pain, and for the circumstances that had caused her to reveal it to a stranger.
“If he’s going to be your son, you should find a name for him,” Sarah said in an effort to distract her from her unpleasant thoughts.
It worked. The anger drained from her face. “A name,”
she echoed in wonder. “I didn’t think of that.”
“You can’t call him ‘baby’ forever,” Sarah said with a smile. “Is there someone you’d like to name him after?”
She considered for a moment. “Maybe,” she said with a touch of irony, “we should name him for his father.”
Gino Donatelli was much too cheerful for Frank’s taste. Frank couldn’t even remember being that young and excited about working on his first big case. Maybe he never had been. Gino, however, was taking great pleasure in having been selected to assist Frank with the mysteries of Little Italy.
They’d met at a coffee shop a safe distance from Little Italy, where they wouldn’t encounter any of Ugo Ruocco’s crew.
“As soon as Commissioner Roosevelt assigned me to this case, I started asking around about the Ruocco boys,” Gino was saying.
“And you found out they’re good Catholic boys who never got into any trouble and who respect their mother,” Frank guessed.
“How did you know?” Gino asked in surprised.
Frank sighed. “Did you find out anything useful?”
“Well, everybody knows that Mrs. Ruocco and her brother-in-law don’t get along too well. They even say . . .”
He glanced around to make sure nobody was listening, then leaned in closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. “They say he makes her pay protection money just like everybody else.”
Frank swore in surprise. “I guess that would explain why she doesn’t like him.”
“He gets along good with the rest of the family, though,”
Gino added. “Ugo never had any kids of his own, so he dotes on his niece and nephews. He spoils Valentina rotten, and he’s always getting the boys out of trouble, starting with ten years ago when Joe and Lorenzo knocked over a pushcart. A bunch of Jews chased them through the streets until they ran into Ugo’s saloon. So now whenever they have a problem, they go to Zio Ugo, and he takes care of it.”
“And we know Joe and Antonio went straight to Ugo the night Nainsi’s baby was born.” Frank rubbed the bridge of his nose. He’d thought he had trouble when it looked like one of the Ruocco family members had killed the girl. If Ugo had sent one of his henchmen, they’d never solve the case.
“We’re going to have to visit the Ruoccos and find out exactly what happened the night the girl was killed.”
“Right now?” Donatelli asked hopefully.
“No. We’ll wait until they’re too busy to object.”
7
Maria had washed her face and regained her com-posure. She’d seemed a bit embarrassed about her earlier outburst, but she quickly recovered and began to ply Sarah with questions about caring for the baby. While they talked, Maria picked up a half-finished baby shirt and absently started stitching on it.
Sarah was beginning to think she ought to at least mention that she should be going home when they heard someone running up the stairs. The light footsteps clattered down the hall as Maria jumped up to caution whoever was coming to be quiet.
“You will wake the baby,” she warned Valentina, who stopped dead at the sight of Maria and Sarah in the parlor doorway.
“I don’t care if I do wake him,” Valentina informed them.
“I hate that baby. I wish it had never been born!”
“You are a wicked girl,” Maria replied in a tone that told Sarah she’d said those words many times before. “Why are you running in the house? You are too old to act like a child.”
“I’m trying to get away from all the yelling downstairs,”
she said petulantly. “Everybody’s screaming at everybody else, and it’s making my head hurt.”
“Who is screaming?” Maria asked with a frown.
“Zio Ugo and Mama and Joe and Lorenzo. Zio was so mad at them that he forgot to bring me a present. He always brings me a present!” she added in outrage.
“Why are they arguing?”
Valentina’s young face twisted into an ugly smile. “About you. And that baby. Zio wants to throw it in the river!”
Maria made a strangled sound in her throat and grabbed Valentina by the shoulders. “Liar!” she cried, forgetting her own admonition about waking the baby. “You should burn in hell!”
“That’s what he said!” Valentina insisted, and Maria gave her a violent shake.
Valentina tried to twist free, but Maria shook her again, making her teeth snap together.
“Lorenzo won’t let him, though,” the girl quickly admitted, frightened now. “That’s why they’re fighting. Lorenzo and Joe, they said you were keeping it.”
Maria thrust the girl aside and fairly ran down the hallway to the stairs. Sarah stared after her helplessly. This was none of her business, and she certainly couldn’t do anything to help. She turned back to Valentina, who was rubbing her arms where Maria had grabbed her.
“Would your uncle really kill the baby?” she asked.
“How should I know? It’s just a little bastard. It doesn’t belong to anybody here.”
“He belongs to Maria now,” Sarah said.
“I don’t care if he does or not. He’s a lot of trouble, and he makes too much noise, and Zio Ugo never forgot to bring me a present before he came along.”
She really was a wicked girl, Sarah decided.
They both heard a tiny mewling sound coming from Maria’s bedroom.