"You know what?" I stare hard at him. "I'm not going to hear one more time that everything is my fault. I didn't do a damn thing to Righter. I don't know what's gotten him on this ridiculous kick unless it's Jay planting stuff."
"And I guess that ain't your fault, either. Sleeping with him."
"He's not doing this because I slept with him," I fire back.
"If he's doing anything, it's because I only slept with him once."
McGovern is frowning, leaning against the hearth. She says, "Dear oP Jay. Mister Squeaky Clean, pretty boy. Funny, I've never had a good feeling about him."
"I told Buford that you are definitely not mentally ill." Anna sets her jaw squarely and looks at me fiercely. "He wanted to know if I thought you were competent to assist him, if I think you are stable. See, he lied. This was supposed to be about our assisting him in the trial of Chandonne. I never imagined. I cannot believe Buford would slither out from under a rock and subpoena me like this." She places a hand on her breast as if her heart is bothering her and briefly shuts her eyes.
"Are you all right, Anna?" I start to get up.
She shakes her head from side to side. "I will never be all right again. I would never have talked to you, Kay, if I thought such a thing would happen."
"Did you tape her, take notes?" McGovern asks.
"Of course not."
"Good."
"But if I am asked…" she starts to say.
"I understand," I reply. "Anna, I understand. What's done is done." It is now that I must tell Marino the other news. While we are on such dreadful subjects, he may as well hear it all. "Your son, Rocky," I say his name and nothing more. Maybe I am trying to see if Marino already knows this, too.
He turns to stone. "What about him?"
"It appears he is representing Chandonne," I reply.
Marino's face darkens to a deep, scary red. For a moment, no one speaks. He doesn't know. Then Marino says in a flat, hard tone, "He would do something like that. Probably has something to do with what's happening to you, too, if that's possible. Funny thing about it, I halfway wondered if he had
something to do with Chandonne's ending up here."
"Why would you wonder that?" McGovern asks in amazement.
"He's a mob boy, that's why. Probably knows Big Papa Chandonne over there in Paris and would like nothing better than causing me trouble here."
"I think it's time you talk about Rocky," I tell him.
"You got any bourbon in this house?" Marino asks Anna.
She gets up and leaves the room.
"Aunt Kay, you can't stay here anymore," Lucy says to me in a quiet, urgent voice.
"You can't talk to her anymore, Kay," McGovern adds.
I don't answer. Of course, they are right. Now, on top of it all, I have lost my friend.
"So, did you tell her anything?" Marino says to me in an accusing tone that has become all too familiar.
"I told her the world was better off without Diane Bray," I reply. "In other words, I basically said I'm glad she's dead."
"So's everybody who knew her," Marino retorts. "And I'll be glad to tell the fucking special grand jury that."
"Not a helpful statement, but doesn't mean you murdered anybody," McGovern says to me.
"Not helpful is right," Marino mutters. "Damn, I hope Anna don't tell Righter you're glad Bray was whacked," he says to me.
"This is so absurd," is my response.
"Well," Marino replies, "yes and no, Doc."
"You don't have to talk to me about this," I tell him. "Don't put yourself in a bad spot, Marino."
"Oh fuck it!" He waves me off. "I know you didn't kill that damn bitch. But you gotta look at it from the other side. You had problems with her. She was trying to get you fired. You've been acting a little hinky ever since Benton died, or at least that's what people have been saying, right? You have a confrontation with Bray in a parking lot. The theory is you was jealous of this new big-shot police lady. She was making you look bad and complaining about you. So you killed her and disguised it to look like it was the same guy who whacked Kim Luong, and who better to do that than you, right? Who more capable of the perfect murder than you, right? And you had access_first dibs on all the evidence. You could have beaten her to death and planted Wolfman's hairs on her body, even switched swabs so they come up with his DNA. And it don't look good that you took that evidence from the Paris morgue and brought it over here, either. Or took that water sample. Righter thinks you're a nut case, I hate to tell you. And I gotta add that he don't like you personally and never has because he's got the balls of a soprano and don't like powerful women. He don't even like Anna, if the truth be known. The Berger thing's kind of the best revenge. He really hates her."
Silence.
"I wonder if they're going to subpoena me," Lucy says.
Chapter 20
RIGHTER THINKS YOU'RE A NUT CASE, TOO," MA-rino tells my niece. "The only point we're in agreement on."
"Any chance Rocky's been involved with the Chandonne family?" McGovern looks at Marino. "In the past? You're serious when you say you wondered it?"
"Huh." Marino snorts. "Rocky's been involved with criminals most of his goddamn life. But do I know details about what he does with his fucking time, day to day, month to month? No. I can't honestly swear to that. I just know what he is. Scum. He was born bad. Bad seed. As far as I'm concerned, he ain't my son."
"Well, he is your son," I tell him.
"Not in my book. He took after the wrong side of my family," Marino insists. "In New Jersey, we had good Marines and bad Marines. I had an uncle who was with the mob, another uncle who was a cop. Two brothers different as night and day. And then when I turned fourteen, Uncle Asshole Louie had my other uncle whacked_my other uncle being the cop, also named Pete. I was named after Uncle Pete. Shot down when he was in his own front yard picking up his fucking newspaper. We never could prove Uncle Louie had it done, but everyone in the family believed it. I still believe it."
"Where's your Uncle Louie now?" Lucy asks as Anna returns with Marino's drink.
"I heard he died a couple years back. I didn't keep up with him. Never had nothing to do with him." He takes the glass from Anna. "But Rocky's his spittin' image. Even looked like him when he was growing up, and from day one was bent, warped, just a piece of living shit. Why do you think he took the name Caggiano? Because that's my mother's maiden name, and Rocky knew it would really piss me off if he crapped on my mother's name. There's some people who can't be fixed. There's some just born bad. Don't ask me to explain it, because Doris and I did everything we could for that boy. Even tried sending him off to military school, which was a mistake. He ended up liking it, liked the hazing part, doing really crappy things to the other boys. Nobody picked on him, not even on the first damn day. He was big like me and just so goddamn mean the other kids didn't dare touch a hair on his head."
"This is not right," Anna mutters as she sits back down on the ottoman.
"What's Rocky's motive for taking this case?" I know what Berger said. But I want to hear Marino's slant. "To spite you?"
"He'll get off on the attention. A case like this will create a circus." Marino doesn't want to say the obvious, that just maybe Rocky wants to humiliate, to best his father.
"Does he hate you?" McGovern asks him.
Marino snorts again and his pager vibrates.
"What eventually happened to him?" I ask. "You sent him off to military school, then what?"
"I kicked his ass out. Told him if he couldn't follow the rules of the house, he wasn't living under my roof. That was after his freshman year at the military school. So you know what the little psycho did?" Marino reads the display on his
pager and gets up. "He moves up to Jersey, moves in with Uncle Louie, the fucking Mafia. Then has the balls to come back here for school, including law school, William and Mary, so yeah, he's smart as shit."