A Different Light (19 page)

“What kind of leave?”

“Officially, it’s written up as some kind of medical leave.”

“She’s ill, then? She’s on a medical disability because she’s sick?” Of course, Athen sighed with relief. She had
known there had to be a logical explanation. Still, she shouldn’t have a car if she was out sick. “How long has she been out sick?”

“Well, I don’t know how sick she is. I mean, I see her around town all the time.” The implication was left hanging between them.

“But the city’s not paying her, right?” Athen paused expectantly.

“She gets paid every other week, just like everyone else.” Veronica shrugged, adding, “Mrs. Moran, I’d get killed if anyone knew I was telling you this. I only know because I overheard Mrs. Fulton on the phone to …” Veronica paused.

“To …?” Athen pressed her to continue.

“To Mr. Rossi.”

“When? Last summer? Last fall? Before the election?” she prompted.

“No. About a week before Christmas.”

Athen gestured to her to spill it all.

“Mrs. Fulton was in her office on the speakerphone with Mr. Rossi. The door was open. Everyone was at lunch. I came back early and I guess she didn’t hear me come in,” Veronica whispered. “I heard Mr. Rossi tell Mrs. Fulton to carry Mary Jo—continue to pay her full salary—and to keep the car in the department for Mary Jo’s use until he told her otherwise.”

“There must be reports from her doctor in her personnel file.” Trying to sort facts from ugly supposition, Athen glanced at Veronica for confirmation.

“There’s nothing in the file, Mrs. Moran.”

“Well, somebody must be authorizing her checks. Somebody has to sign them.”

“Mr. Wolmar signs all the checks,” Veronica told her
pointedly.

“How long has this woman been on sick leave?”

“Well, since right after I started, about four years ago.”

“Four years!”

Athen was stunned. Four years at full salary, with a city car and no medical reports to justify her infirmity?

“Mrs. Moran, Mary Jo is Mr. Rossi’s … um, his, ah . . .” Veronica visibly struggled to find the least offensive path to the obvious.

“I think I can guess what she is,” Athen said dryly. The full import of the unsavory news made her almost nauseated. With shaking hands, she unceremoniously dumped the copy of the automobile file into her bottom drawer. “Thank you, Veronica. You can go back to your office now.”

“But, Mrs. Moran, you won’t tell anyone that I told you?”

“Of course not,” Athen assured her. “It’ll be our secret.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Moran.” Veronica sighed with genuine relief. “I really need this job. At least until Sal—that’s my husband, Salvatore Spicata (don’t you just love alliterative names?)—till he finishes college.” The sound of tiny bells followed her as she headed for the door, the original file tucked under her arm.

“Veronica,” Athen called to her. “How old is Mary Jo?”

“I think she’s about three years younger than me, so she’d be about twenty-one.”

“Do you know if she’s related to the Theresa Dolan who lives on Prospect Avenue?”

“Mary Jo’s her daughter. I heard Mrs. Fulton talking
about her being sick.”

“Mrs. Dolan is sick?”

“She has cancer. They said it’s real bad—like, not- going-to-make-it bad.”

Athen nodded her thanks and motioned for Veronica to close the door.

She walked to the big window, drew open the curtains, and stared at the world outside.
Somewhere out there a young woman is being paid by the city for work she doesn’t do, driving a city-owned car that the city is insuring. She has been collecting a paycheck and driving the car since she was seventeen. And she is Dan Rossi’s mistress.

Athen’s stomach turned at the thought. She thought for a moment that she was going to be sick.

What to do with the worms, she wondered, now that the can has been opened?

 12 

Athen, Hal Brader from Channel Eight is on line three.” Edie spoke to her through the intercom.

“Tell him I’m in a meeting,” she grumbled. “Then get Dan on the phone.”

It was a given that she’d started the day in a state of agitation. She’d barely slept for the past several nights. The Mary Jo Dolan affair nagged at her continuously. She knew she had to do something about it, but what? To ignore it was to condone it, and she could not do that. On
the other hand, she had no idea how she could put an end to it. She’d gotten over the fact that Rossi was having an affair with a city worker. She hated that he’d started the relationship when the girl was under age, but she was now over eighteen, and Athen had no way of proving that anything had gone on before Mary Jo had reached the legal age of consent. So as far as the relationship was concerned, there was little she could do. But the fact that this girl was using expensive city property and had been for several years—well, Athen could do something about that. What, how, and when remained to be seen.

That the spring rain had continued for four days without ceasing did little to improve her disposition. March had indeed come in like a lion, the temperatures holding just above freezing, the wind blustering down sharply from the north. She’d had enough of rain and cold and didn’t really care who knew it. To top it off, the city’s churches had banded together in a show of solidarity to attempt to force City Council to hand over the keys to several vacant houses for the homeless to use.

“How are you, Athen?” Dan was obviously in a better frame of mind than she was.

“How do you think I am? Every reporter in the city is on my case over this standoff with the United Council of Churches. Dan, why can’t we just let these people stay in those houses up on Fourth Street? I don’t see any harm in turning those buildings over for a good cause. The city isn’t using them, and since the UCC is offering to do the renovations at no cost to the city, I just don’t understand …”

“You don’t have to understand,” he snapped abruptly. “You just stay out of it, do you hear me? No comments to the press. No meeting with these self-appointed do-gooders. Hear me? Athen, do you hear me?” he demanded
impatiently.

“Yes, of course, I hear you.” She bit her lip, taken aback by his outburst. “But I can’t continue to avoid this issue and to dodge the reporters.”

“Yes, Athen, you can. And you will. Do you understand?”

“No. No, I don’t. There are people in my face every time I open my office door. They want answers. Why is the city refusing to talk to these people? Why am I taking so long to review a sixty-page proposal? And I have no rational answer, Dan. I have no explanation for it. The newspapers are crucifying me.”

She could still see Quentin Forbes’s icy blue eyes as he challenged her two days ago, demanding to know just when Her Honor would complete her review of the Council of Churches’ request that the city turn over three old twin houses—confiscated by the city three years ago for nonpayment of taxes—for use as shelters for the homeless who, in ever-increasing numbers, lined the streets of Woodside Heights. That she’d had no answer had been humiliating, and played into his worst opinion of her. She wasn’t sure why it still mattered what he thought, but it did.

“Let them,” he told her coldly. “Let them do whatever they want. But you are to continue to ignore it. You are not to get involved in this issue. When asked, you say the citizens of Woodside Heights are already overburdened with taxes. You say that the hardworking citizens are having a tough enough time supporting themselves without having to support a bunch of freeloaders.”

“These aren’t freeloaders,” she snapped. “That’s the point! Not so long ago, most of these people were hardworking taxpayers themselves—people who lost their
jobs when the mills cut back or closed down. I will not insult them by calling them names and pretending they don’t count.”

“Then you say, ‘No comment,’” he growled into the phone. “But you do not meet with them and you do not get involved. Period.”

“But I want to meet with them. I want to help them, and I don’t understand …”

“It doesn’t matter whether you understand or not. This is none of your business.”

“None of my business? Are you serious?”

It took her a long moment to realize that he had hung up on her. She quietly replaced the receiver and sat at her desk, turning a pen over and over in her hands, her cheeks burning. Rossi had completely disregarded her concerns over the untenable position he was putting her in, he’d ordered her to do something she did not believe in, and then, to top it off, he’d made it clear that she was not to publicly address the issue.

His last words—“This is none of your business”—had stung the most deeply. She was the elected mayor but the most vital concerns of the people who had elected her were none of her business?

Shattered and shamefaced, Athen sat motionless at her desk. She had no one to blame but herself for the way this was playing out. She’d allowed herself to get caught up in this and she was beginning to hate it. She was stuck here for another eighteen months, trapped in this office. Her palms began to sweat and the room grew smaller around her. She went to the window and opened it, letting the cold rain blow in on her. When she’d had enough, she closed the window and brushed the rain from her face.

Why are those three houses so important to Dan that he would risk making her an object of scorn not just to the press, but to the growing number of citizens who appeared to be supporting the idea of a shelter? The city had no use for the properties. Two blocks from City Hall—a block from a series of abandoned warehouses—of what possible value could they be to Rossi?

“Damn it, it
is
my business.” The anger grew hotter inside her chest. “And he had no cause to speak to me like that, as if I have no right to an opinion of my own, no right to question his
orders
…”

His
orders
. Of course, she had no right to question his orders. He had made that perfectly clear in the beginning, although she hadn’t realized it at the time. He would tell her what to do and she would do it. She had forgotten the rules and Dan had put her back in her place. Whether or not she would stay there was another matter.

Athen reminded herself that fate had handed her one trump card. Several times during her conversation with Rossi, the name had almost slipped from her lips. But given only one weapon, she’d have to be very judicious in choosing where, when, and how to use it.

Depending on how Athen played it, that card could prove to be an ace … or a joker.

“THAT WAS MR. LOWRY ON
the phone, Callie.” Athen poked her head into the living room. “Softball practice has been called off again tonight because of the rain.”

Callie barely nodded.

“Callie?” Athen poked in a little farther. “What are you watching?”

Athen came into the room and stood behind the chair where her daughter sat, riveted to the television screen.

“Oh …” whispered Athen.

“Is that all you can say?” Callie demanded angrily. “People are standing out in the freezing rain because you won’t unlock the door so they go inside that house to get warm and dry and all you say is ‘Oh’?”

“Callie, it’s not that simple.”

“It
is
that simple.” Callie spun around in her seat, eyes crackling with accusation. “The city owns that house—it said so on the news—and you are the mayor of the city. You can open up that house, Mom. You know it and I know it. I just don’t know why you won’t.”

Callie got up and rushed from the room, yelling over her shoulder, “Sometimes I wish you weren’t my mother.”

Stung to her very core, Athen lowered herself onto the chair Callie had vacated. She had never felt so small, so humiliated, as she did at that moment. Nothing Dan had said to belittle her and remind her of her place, nothing the press had said about her, none of Quentin’s jabs had dug as deeply into her soul as her daughter’s words.

“It’s not worth it,” she whispered aloud.

She picked up the remote to turn off the TV, but the scene on the screen held her motionless. The United Council of Churches had organized a sit-in, and for the past four days the news had been filled with the stories of the individuals who had kept the vigil in spite of the storm. She leaned forward to study the faces, old and young, men and women, black and white and Hispanic.