Accused: A Rosato & Associates Novel (24 page)

Mary slid out her BlackBerry on-the-fly and scrolled through her email, to see if Lou had been able to find out anything about Alasdair overnight. She still felt funny working without Judy, but she told herself to suck it up and opened the email, which was typically terse:

Alasdair Leahy, born, Manchester, England, May 3, 1960. Graduated high school. Emigrated to U.S. 1980. Became U.S. citizen 2003. No criminal record. Employment, Gardner Group, 1992–present. Horse trainer and horse sales, Hagan, Ltd, Unionville, PA, 1987–1992. Jockey and exercise rider, Delaware Park, 1980–1987. Lives in tenant house on Gardner property, 2 bedroom, 1½ bath. Wife Maeve, no children. And he’s not on Facebook and her settings are private. LOL!

Mary hit Reply and took a right on Twenty-second Street, then hustled down toward Walnut. She wrote,
thanks and see you at the office around noon xo,
thumbing the keys and trying not to collide with a fire hydrant, vaguely aware that the sidewalk was busier here, with other overachievers doing the same thing, texting their way into high blood pressure heaven, followed by an early grave. She checked her watch, and it was 5:45, too early to call Alasdair yet. She slid her BlackBerry back into her pocket and reached the end of the block where she had parked the car, but halted, confused. Her car was gone.

Mary double-checked the street sign, but she was on the right street. She looked around at the surrounding shops and remembered that she had parked in front of a soft yogurt shop, which was right behind her. Her car should’ve been at the end of the block, but there was only an empty space. Her first thought was that her car had been stolen, but her gaze found the NO PARKING—TOW ZONE sign that she must have missed last night, maybe because she was exhausted or cranky that she had to park in Timbuktu.

“Damn!” Mary said, but nobody looked over because they were on their BlackBerrys. If her car had been towed, it would have to stay where it was for now. She had to get on the road right away or she’d be responsible for the death of six thousand bees, which was more guilt than even a Catholic could take.

She needed a car and she needed it fast. She thought about using Mike’s old BMW, but it was parked ten blocks in the other direction and she couldn’t risk its not starting, since it hadn’t been driven in months. She could wake Anthony up and borrow his car, which would serve him right, but he needed it. She could ask Judy, but she didn’t want to bother her and/or admit that she was wrong. There was only one person left, who was awake at this hour and who could help, and would even be happy to be asked.

Mary reached for her BlackBerry and pressed P, for POP. She waited while the call connected, thanking God for the umpteenth time that her father was still alive, not only because she adored him, but because he was her own personal 911. The phone rang and rang, because even though he was awake, he wouldn’t hear the ringer until her mother, who was probably getting dressed for Mass, told him so. The phone stopped ringing but no voicemail came on, because her father didn’t know how to set it, so Mary pressed P again, let it ring, and the call was answered on the third time.

“MARE, HOW YOU DOIN’? YOUR MOTHER SAYS HI.”

“Say hi for me. So Dad, you’re awake?”

“SURE.”

“Thank God.” Mary felt lucky all over again, that her father rose at the crack of dawn even though he had no job to go to anymore. “Can I borrow your car?”

“SURE. WHEN YOU NEED IT?”

“Right now. Sorry about the short notice.” Mary stepped to the curb to hail a cab to go to South Philly. There was only light traffic on Walnut Street, with the SEPTA bus heading toward the bus stop. “I don’t see a cab yet, but there’ll be one along any minute.”

“DON’T TAKE A CAB, MARE. I’LL PICK YOU UP.”

“Aw, you don’t have to do that.”

“I WANT TO. THE CAR’S RIGHT OUT FRONT. I WAS ABOUT TO GO TO THE DINER, BUT I DON’T HAFTA.”

“Wait, the diner?” Mary blinked. “You meeting The Tonys?”

“YEAH.”

“Perfect!” Mary said, getting an idea.

An hour later, she was steering her father’s massive Buick Electra along the expressway, trying mightily to hold it steady despite the softness of its aged tires and the shimmy in a steering wheel the size of the equator. The car was thirty years old, but white as a set of new dentures, with a black interior that must’ve looked badass in the eighties. It had only twelve thousand miles, since her parents never left the kitchen, and the air conditioning blew a filmy soot, albeit weakly. They drove with the windows half-open, which not only added humidity to the cigar-and-mothballs smells, but rendered it impossible to hear each other. Mary didn’t bother playing the radio, which boasted not only AM but FM, and even at speed, the constant chatter of the three Tonys surrounded her on all sides. Her father sat in the passenger seat, and Tony-From-Down-The-Block, Pigeon Tony, and Feet rode in the backseat, jazzed to be on an adventure.

Feet was saying, “Jesus, Mare, how far out is this place? We been in the car forever.”

“We’re almost there.” Mary glanced at the rearview mirror and caught his eye behind his Mr. Potatohead bifocals.

“What?” Feet shouted, his few wisps of frizzy gray hair blowing in the wind. He had on a white short-sleeved shirt and brown pants, and his skinny frame looked swallowed up by the big bench backseat, his narrow shoulders caving in on themselves, as if he were folded in half cross-wise, like an origami octogenarian.

“It won’t be long now, Feet,” Mary shouted back, loud enough to be heard. The traffic was moving quickly out of the city, since the rush-hour commuters were going the other way. The top speed of the Buick was fifty miles an hour, and at this rate they’d be at the post office by the time the bees were writing their wills. “I’d say an hour more, at most.”

“An hour?” Feet groaned. “Can we stop again?”

“Do you really need to? We just stopped.”

“I do.” Feet shrugged with regret. “What can I tell you?”

“I GOTTA STOP, TOO, MARE.” Her father looked over, his lower lip puckering. “SORRY. BETWEEN US, WE ONLY GOT A PROSTATE AND A HALF.”

Mary nodded. “It’s okay, Pop. Next stop, you got it.”

Feet craned his neck toward the front seat. “We must be in Camden by now. Mare, we in Camden yet?”

“No, Camden is in the other direction.”

“What did you say, Mare?” Feet frowned.

“We’re going the opposite direction, toward Delaware.”

“I can’t hear you!” Feet shouted.

“We’ll be in Camden soon!” Mary shouted back.

Tony-From-Down-The-Block leaned over, peering past Pigeon Tony to scowl at Feet. “What’s’a matter with you? Don’t you know anything? We’re going southwest.”

“Get offa my back.” Feet glared back at him. “I got a bad sense of direction, is all.”

“Camden’s
north
, Feet. You don’t know that? Who don’t know that?”

“Awright awready. Don’t make a federal case.”

“I wasn’t making a federal case. I’m just saying. You’re acting like a
cafone.
”

Up front, Mary worried that the kids in the backseat needed to be separated.
Cafone
was Italian for country bumpkin, or in the modern vernacular, redneck. “What’s the matter with you two, lately? You seem to be fussing a lot.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block turned away, looking out the window on the right. “He’s got a problem with me.”

Feet turned the other way, looking out the window on the left. “I got no problem with him. He’s got a problem with
me.
”

Mary was about to follow-up when her father nudged her arm. She glanced over to see him flaring his milky brown eyes at her, which was his version of a Meaningful Look. Her mother was the master of Meaningful Looks, able to convey don’t-be-fresh, put-that-down, or lower-your-voice merely by subtle changes in her eyebrows. Her father was an amateur by comparison, but Mary got the gist, so she went to safer ground. “You guys are gonna love it. We’re going to the country, the rolling hills of Pennsylvania. It’s beautiful.”

Feet brightened. “Like Rolling Rock, from the rolling hills of Latrobe, Pennsylvania? Like on the commercial?”

Mary had no idea what he was talking about. “Right, exactly.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block shook his head. “Me, I only drink Heineken. It’s
imported.
”

Feet scoffed. “Big deal. It’s named after heinies.”

Mary decided to change tacks. There was a purpose to this field trip, and one of The Tonys was about to prove indispensible. “So Pigeon Tony, do you know what to do with the bees?”

“
Che
?” Pigeon Tony cupped a gnarled hand to his ear. His thin lips curved into their omnipresent smile, though he sat in the crossfire between Tony-From-Down-The-Block and Feet.

“You know what to do with the bees?” Mary asked, louder. She eyeballed Pigeon Tony, who was about five feet tall, and would fit easily into Allegra’s beekeeper outfit. “You know how to get them into the beehives?”

“
Si, si, certo.
” Pigeon Tony nodded, his bald head as hard and brown as a filbert. He had a faded red handkerchief tied around his scrawny neck, which managed to look jaunty with his white shirt and baggy jeans. In his lap sat a wrinkled old paper bag that held the bee mister and other supplies. “I do alla, I take care, you see,
Maria,
I do.”

“Good, thanks,” Mary said, vaguely reassured. She wanted to touch base with Alasdair, so she slid her BlackBerry from her pocket, scrolled to the email she had sent herself last night, and highlighted his phone number.

Her father gasped in alarm. “DON’T DO THAT WHILE YOUR DRIVIN’, HONEY! THAT’S NOT SAFE!”

“Pop, I’m sorry, it will just take a minute. It’s really important.”

“NO, STOP! THAT’S DANGEROUS! MARE, PULL OVER!”

“I can’t pull over, I’m in the fast lane.” Mary pressed Call before he made a move to stop her. Her father wasn’t angry with her, just terrified for her, and he’d never yelled at her as long as she’d known him, except for the fact that he yelled all the time because he couldn’t hear anything. “It’s a really important business call, about what we’re doing this morning with the bees. I waited all night to make this call. Don’t worry, I’ll be safe.”

“THEN WAIT ’TIL WE STOP.” Her father’s tone softened. “MARE, GOD FORBID ANYTHING HAPPENED TO YOU! YOUR MOTHER WOULD KILL US BOTH!”

In the backseat, Feet frowned in disapproval. “Mary, you’re not supposed to talk on the phone while you’re driving. You could die. We could all die. Didn’t you see the commercial?”

Mary began to wonder if all of Feet’s information came from commercials, and in that case, he was fairly well-informed. “I’ll make it fast, Feet, don’t worry.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block craned his neck, scowling. “Mare, that’s the only thing he’s been right about all year. You’re not supposed to talk on the phone and drive.”

Mary heard the phone ringing, or at least she thought she did, over her father’s yelling, The Tonys’ clucking, and the wind noise. She would’ve pulled over, but that was even more dangerous than talking on the phone or driving around with the crazy Tonys. “Okay, everybody, tell you what. I’ll put it on speaker, then I can drive.”

“NO YOU CAN’T.”

“Please?” Mary couldn’t believe that she had just become a partner, but she still had to ask her father’s permission to make a business phone call. “The call’s about to connect, I swear, I’ll be one second.”

“THEN I’LL HOLD THE WHEEL.” Her father plunked a hammy hand on the steering wheel. “YOU TALK.”

“Thank you.” Mary held the phone to her ear, but there was no answer and it went to voicemail. She was about to leave a message, but a mechanical voice came on saying that the mailbox was full. She pressed End Call in frustration.

“YOU OKAY?” her father asked, his hand on the wheel.

“No answer. Thanks for the help, Pop.” Mary slipped the BlackBerry back into her pocket, as her father relaxed back in his seat with a sigh. She remembered that Alasdair didn’t text, so she’d have to go to Plan B. “Okay, now I have to tell you guys the plan.”

“WHAT PLAN?”

“That’s what I’m going to tell you, Pop. What we’re going to do after we get the bees.” Mary checked the windblown Tonys in the backseat. “Pigeon Tony, can you hear me?”

“
Che?
”

“WHAT?”

“Huh?” said Tony-From-Down-The-Block.

“Wasn’t that the rest stop, Mare?” Feet asked, pointing out the window.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Mary pressed the buzzer at the gate, her heart pounding. She’d called Alasdair again from the post office, but he hadn’t picked up, so she didn’t know what she was in for, and it worried her. She’d been with Judy the last time she’d been at the Gardners’ farm, but her only hope for today was her father. Otherwise she felt like the harried mother to the superannuated children fighting in the backseat, as well as the six thousand live bees buzzing angrily in the trunk. Pigeon Tony had been surprisingly adept at retrieving them while everybody else stood aside, but Mary knew the big test was yet to come, which was getting past John Gardner, making contact with Alasdair, and installing the bees without being stung to death or, worse, getting arrested and thrown in a jail cell with three Tonys and one toilet.

Feet squinted up at the
Houyhnhnm Farm
sign behind his Mr. Potatohead glasses. “Is that even a word, Mare? Hownym Farm? Hunyim Farm? How do you say that word?”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block snorted. “You pronounce it heinie, like the beer. It’s Heinie Farm.”

“THIS IS SO SWANKY, HONEY! WHERE’S THE HOUSE?”

“Over to the right, wait’ll you see.” Mary waited for the response to the buzzer and told herself to remain calm. She’d have to deal with whatever happened on her own. The farm seemed sunny, quiet, and still, but she couldn’t see anything through the ivy climbing the gate. “Pop, can you imagine growing up here?”

“NO. I DON’T THINK THE KID IS CRAZY. I LIKED HER.”

“Me, too.” Mary had told him a little about the case on the way over, omitting the part about the police.

“I’D GO CRAZY IF I LIVED OUT HERE, TOO! IT’S TOO QUIET.”