“Most women will,” Frank noted.
“Will most women kill? Patrizia killed my brother to protect her children,” he said, and the loathing in his eyes chilled Frank.
“Are you saying she murdered her husband?” Frank asked in disbelief.
“She sent him back to Italy to die alone so her children could stay here,” Ruocco said. “It is the same thing.”
Not exactly, at least to Frank’s way of thinking. This sounded more likely than outright murder, and it certainly didn’t make Patrizia Ruocco a killer. “Did Mrs. Ruocco kill Nainsi?” Frank asked.
“I am telling you what I know,” Ruocco reminded him sharply. “Do you think the boys do something without Patrizia knowing? Do you think Maria or Valentina can kill like that? No, only one in that house can kill. Patrizia, she is the one.”
10
“Do you really think Mrs. Ruocco killed the girl?” Gino asked as he and Frank made their way back to Headquarters.
“Ugo wants us to think so. What was he talking about when he said she sent her husband back to Italy to die?”
“I don’t know. She’s been a widow as long as I’ve known her.”
Frank reviewed what Ruocco had told them. Frank had considered Mrs. Ruocco a suspect, of course. She had a good reason to want Nainsi dead, the same reason everyone else in the house had. What Ruocco said about the boys was probably true, too. They’d do only what she told them, unless some irresistible passion drove them. If any of them was capable of an irresistible passion, Frank hadn’t seen any evidence of it yet.
“You can’t believe Mrs. Ruocco did it,” Gino was saying.
“She’s a woman.”
“Women can kill,” Frank assured him. “They do it for different reasons than men, but they do it just the same.”
“Whores do,” Gino argued. “But not respectable women like Mrs. Ruocco.”
Frank sighed at his naïveté, but he let it go. “Do you know anybody who’d remember the story about what happened to her husband?”
“My mother might. Do you want me to ask her?”
“Yeah, I do. How soon can you talk to her?”
“Right now, if you want. I’m off duty.”
Frank looked at him in surprise, pleased at his dedication to pursue this case on his own time. “Good. Find out everything you can, then come and tell me. I’ll be at Headquarters doing some reports.”
Gino gave him a mock salute and headed off at a sprint.
Frank sighed, wondering if he’d ever been that young and eager. He reached the corner and glanced down the street toward Mama’s Restaurant. Everything seemed peaceful enough in the waning evening light. A movement in the shadows caught his eye, and a uniformed patrolman stepped forward.
“ ’Evening, Detective Sergeant,” he said.
“ ’Evening, Officer. Keeping an eye on things?”
“Yes, sir. Commissioner Roosevelt, he ordered that we station a couple of men down here in case there’s more trouble. He wants to be sure we get officers down here quicker than we did last time . . .”
“I doubt you’ll see another mob so soon,” Frank assured him. “Most of the troublemakers from last night are still recovering. But if anything does happen, anything at all, let me know. I’ll be at Headquarters.”
“You’ll be the first to hear about it then,” the officer promised with a grin.
In the silent, deserted room where the detectives had their desks, Frank was feeling sorry for himself. Grumbling about the paperwork, he was wishing he’d gone home to have supper with his son when Gino found him. He’d changed out of his uniform into casual clothes and a soft cap, and as usual, he looked much too excited.
He set a paper sack down on the desk in front of Frank.
“My mother sent you some supper.”
Frank’s stomach growled in response to the aroma of garlic and fresh-baked bread. He tried not to look as grateful as he felt as he pulled open the sack to peer inside.
“What did you find out?” Frank asked. Inside the sack were two thick slices of bread covered with tomato sauce and melted cheese. Frank pulled one out and took an enor-mous bite. It tasted even better than it smelled.
“I found out that Patrizia and Ugo hate each other.”
Frank swallowed. “We already knew that,” he reminded Gino grimly.
“Yeah, but now I know why they hate each other.”
“The protection money,” Frank guessed.
“Oh, no, it’s about her husband. A story I never heard before.”
Frank sighed. “I’m betting it’s a long story.”
“Not real long,” Gino said with far too much glee, pulling up a chair next to Frank’s desk. “You see, Ugo came over from Italy first, about twenty years ago. Back then, a lot of men came over to work for a few years and send money home. When they saved up enough to buy some land there, they’d go back to Italy. Most of them never intended to stay here very long.”
Frank couldn’t understand why somebody would prefer a foreign country to America, but there was no figuring out Italians. “Let me guess, Ugo decided to stay.”
“Yeah, he found out he could be a big man over here. He was nothing in Italy and never would be, but here people listened to him. He made lots of friends and lots of money.”
“So he brought over the rest of his family.” Frank reached into the bag for the other piece of bread.
“No, not all of them, only his brother. At least that was the plan. He was going to bring Ernesto over to work for a while, too. Then they would send for their families. But it didn’t work out that way.”
“Why not?” Frank asked between bites.
“Because Patrizia Ruocco refused to stay in Italy. By then Ugo’s wife had been left alone for almost five years.
Patrizia didn’t think Ugo was going to send for his wife at all. Some men did that. They’d get here and forget all about their wives back home. Sometimes they’d even get married to another woman. The wives back in Italy, they called them white widows. Patrizia wasn’t going to be a white widow.”
“So she came along with her husband?”
“She convinced Ernesto not to come without the whole family, even Ugo’s wife. Ugo was plenty mad, but in the end he gave in because he wanted his brother here. Like I told you before, family is very important to Italians, and he needed somebody he could trust to help him in his business.”
“And Ugo never forgave Patrizia for making him bring over his fat, ugly wife?” Frank guessed.
“No, he never forgave her because when they got here, Ernesto couldn’t get in. Turns out he had consumption. He was dying, so they sent him back to Italy.”
Now Ugo’s accusation against Patrizia made sense. “Patrizia sent him back alone?”
“That’s right. Ugo thought she should go home with him, to take care of him, but she wouldn’t. She wanted her children to live in America, and she wouldn’t leave them here with Ugo. Ernesto asked Ugo to take care of them all, so he did. But Ugo never forgave Patrizia because Ernesto died alone back in Italy just a few months later.”
Frank considered this information. “So Ugo would have a good reason for trying to get Patrizia in trouble.”
“We call it a vendetta,” Gino explained. “When you carry a grudge against somebody until you figure out a way to get revenge.”
“Fifteen years is a long time to wait,” Frank observed.
“Not for an Italian,” Gino assured him with a grin. “Ugo might see this as his big chance to punish Patrizia by blaming her for Nainsi’s death.”
Frank licked the last of the sauce off his fingers thoughtfully. “Or maybe she did kill Nainsi, and he sees this as his big chance to turn her in for it.”