Accused: A Rosato & Associates Novel (3 page)

“No, you’re not. Drones are male. People think drones are worker bees, but they’re two different things. Worker bees do all the work, collecting pollen, nectar, and water, but a drone doesn’t work. He exists to mate with the queen and he dies after, with his genitals still in her.”

“Yuck.” Mary recoiled.

“Nice,” Judy said, then, “I mean, yuck.”

Allegra smiled. “The way I see it, if this law firm were a hive, Ms. Rosato would be the queen bee and everybody else would be a worker bee.”

“Bingo!” Mary burst into laughter, and so did Judy and Anne.

Bennie shot them a sly smile. “Not exactly, Allegra. Mary is my partner, so at the very least, we have two queen bees.”

“You can’t have two queens in the same hive. It’s not possible.” Allegra lifted an eyebrow. “A new queen starts to emerge, laying superscedure cells, getting ready to take over. Then the new queen will fight the old queen to the death. I’ve seen it happen.”

Suddenly there was a commotion at the threshold, and Mary looked over, vaguely horrified. Her mother chugged into the conference room, bearing the platter of pastries and cookies, with her father right behind her, and Mary jumped up to head them off. “Ma, Pop! Thanks, but we’re kind of busy.”

“
Maria,
you no bring the
sflogiatelle,
the cannol’. Here, have!”

“MARE, I TOLD HER YOU WERE IN A MEETING, BUT YOU KNOW HOW SHE GETS.”

“Psssh!” Her mother waved her off, set the pastries down, then did a double-take when she spotted Allegra. “
Deo, che carina
!”

“She says you’re cute,” Mary translated, uncomfortably. She loved her mother, but this wasn’t good for client development. “Ma, thanks, but you should go—”

Her father shouted, “IS THIS KID THE RICH ONE?”

Her mother was already engulfing Allegra in a big hug. “
Che carina! Si carina
!”

“Whoa, hi.” Allegra giggled as she righted her cap, which had come askew in the love attack.

“Ma, please don’t hug the clients!” Mary hurried over to extricate Allegra. “Sorry, this is my mother and father.”

Judy jumped up to help. “Mrs. D—”

“So skinny, so skinny!” Mary’s mother let go of Allegra only long enough to pick up the pastry dish. “Have
sflogiatelle
,
cara
. Amaretti cookie, imbutitti cookie, musticiolli cookie.”

“Have what?”

“Ma, please, no force-feeding.” Mary touched her mother’s shoulder. “Sorry, Allegra, really.
Sflogiatelle
is a pastry stuffed with ricotta and orange pieces, and the cookies have pine nuts, hazelnuts, or honey. My mother thinks the world needs more saturated fats.”

“Sweet!” Allegra beamed. “Which cookie has the honey?”

“
Cara, prego!
” Mary’s mother thrust a brown musticiolli cookie at Allegra, who popped it in her mouth.

“This tastes awesome! I make my own honey, but this is almost as good!”

Mary caught Bennie’s eye, and the queen bee didn’t look happy. “Uh, Ma, Dad, you should go, we’re trying to—”

“No, Mary, it’s okay.” Allegra grinned, and brown flecks of cookie filled her braces. “It’s better than my birthday cake.”

Mary’s mother’s hooded eyes flew open behind her thick glasses. “Is you birthday?
Tanti auguri
!”

Her father’s face lit up. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DOLL! WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”

“Allegra,” she answered, between bites, and Mary’s mother started singing her the birthday song, clapping her gnarled little hands.

“
Tanti auguri a te, tanti auguri a te
…”

Then her father joined in, “
TANTI AUGURI, ALLEGRA, TANTI AUGURI A TE!
” The Tonys came up from behind with Anthony, singing, clapping, and transforming the conference room into an Olive Garden.

“
Bravissima,
Allegra!” Mary’s mother gave Allegra another hug. “
Tanti auguri!
”

“Please, Mrs. DiNunzio—” Bennie blanched, but Allegra jumped to her sneakers with a big grin.

“Mary, can I hire your parents, too?”

Chapter Three

Mary, Judy, Anthony, The Tonys, and her father crowded around the tiny kitchen table, eating, drinking, chattering away, and sitting hip-to-replacement-hip in the cramped DiNunzio kitchen. Fresh basil and garlic scented the air, and steam rose from hot plates of homemade ravioli and peppery sausage. Everyone sweated into his food, but it would never occur to Mary’s parents to eat anything cooler, even in a Philadelphia summer, and Mary wouldn’t have it any other way. Whoever said you can’t go home again wasn’t Italian.

She tuned out the merry chatter and let her loving eyes travel around the kitchen. The cabinets and counter were clean, white, and simple, and on the walls hung an ancient church calendar with Jesus Christ, next to faded newspaper photos of John F. Kennedy and Pope John, the three Lifetime MVPs in the DiNunzio Hall-of-Fame. Nothing ever changed at her parents’, who were like the Amish, but with better food. They still drank perked coffee, from a dented coffeepot always brewing on the stove, while they read an actual newspaper, a quaint custom from the days of colonial America. The kitchen didn’t have a TV or radio, much less an automatic coffeemaker or a dishwasher; her mother was the coffeemaker, and her father was the dishwasher. There was no air conditioner, only an oscillating counter fan, which distributed the humidity evenly. Her parents didn’t own a computer, and they thought a laptop was something children sat upon.

Mary’s gaze went to the cast-iron switch plate, which had tucked behind it a frond of dried Easter palm and a collection of Mass cards. A Mass card was given when someone died, and she remembered when there were only a few, then ten, and now it looked like practically a full deck. More of their relatives and friends were passing, and her parents were in their eighties. Her father could see fine with his trifocals, but he was almost deaf and his back ached from a working life of setting tile. Her mother’s hearing was surprisingly good, but her eyes had only worsened, from macular degeneration and sewing piecework in the basement of this very rowhouse. Still she hovered happily over the kitchen table, topping off water, fetching second helpings, and ladling extra gravy onto pasta and sausage, like the CEO of the DiNunzio family—or maybe the queen bee.

“Ma, sit, and I’ll help,” Mary said, though she knew her mother would wave her off, which she did. Vita DiNunzio would never give up her wooden spoon to anyone, like a regent with a scepter, if you could stir gravy with a scepter.

“
Maria,
you eat, alla eat! Alla good?”

“VEET, THAT WAS GREAT!” her father boomed, rubbing his tummy in his white short-sleeve shirt. “I’M GONNA BUST A GUT!”

“Great, Mrs. D!” Judy twirled her spaghetti against her tablespoon like an expert, having been taught by Mary’s father. Judy was their honorary daughter, and Mary could remember the first time she brought Judy home and her mother had fallen in love with her, the same way she had with Allegra today.

“Good,
grazie.
” Mary’s mother came up from behind and touched Mary’s hair, a gesture that always made her feel warm and cozy, like an adored kitten. “We so proud,
Maria,
you work so hard alla year. You deserve alla good dings inna world.”

“Thanks, Ma.” Mary didn’t need affirmations if she had a mother.

“Here, here,” Judy said, raising a thick glass.

“I second that emotion.” Anthony smiled, and so did The Tonys, adding a chorus of
salud
and
cent anni,
and it struck Mary how lucky she was in this cobbled-together collective of best friend, lover, family, and random senior citizens. She smiled up at her mother.

“So Ma, what did you think of our new client? Why did you like her so much?”

“So young, so serious like you.” Her mother shrugged happily and pushed her heavy glasses up onto her nose.

“SHE’S
TOO
SERIOUS,” her father added. “SHE PROLLY READS TOO MUCH.”

“Prolly.” Mary smiled. Her parents never pushed her to work hard in school, but she went to Goretti, where she got straight A’s and became Most Likely to Achieve Sainthood. They wanted her to go and play outside, but she buried herself in Nancy Drew books, which worried them no end. They believed that reading ruined your eyes and they could have been right. She was nearsighted by the time she graduated from Penn and Penn Law. Mary said to her father, “Dad, guess what, she keeps bees.”

“FOR REAL? WHY?”

Mary smiled. “She likes it. She’s really smart, a genius.”

“She good at numbers?” Tony-From-Down-The-Block interrupted, fork in mid-air. He was single again, having broken up with his girlfriend Marlene, which meant he was dyeing his remaining hair a shade of orange that looked better on orangutans.

Tony Two Feet looked over, his hooded eyes blinking behind his Mr. Potatohead glasses. “Yeah, Mare, can she count cards, like the movie?”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block elbowed him, frowning. “Feet, that’s not why I was axin’.”

“The hell it ain’t.” Feet turned to Mary, squinting in thought. “What’s’a name a that movie, Mare? With the ’49 Buick? Boy oh boy, I was, like, twenny years old when they came out with those babies. I wanted one so bad. Came in green, like a new C-note.”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block snorted. “When’s the last time you saw a new C-note?”

Feet kept his head turned away and ignored the question, which may have been rhetorical. “You know that movie, Mare. What’s the name again? With the guys?”

Tony-From-Down-The-Block chuckled. “The movie with the guys. How’s she supposed ta know?”

Feet stiffened. “Everybody knows.”

“Everybody but you.”

“
Rain Man,
” Mary told him, to end the conversation before fisticuffs. Feet and Tony-From-Down-The-Block were bickering so much lately, but it wasn’t the time or place to press the point. She turned to Pigeon Tony, who was generally the quiet one because he spoke only broken English. “Pigeon Tony, our new client keeps bees. That’s like keeping pigeons, right?”

“
Si, si.
” Pigeon Tony shook his head, slurping his coffee. He was only five feet tall and bird-thin, with a nose curved like a beak and round quick eyes that would have looked fine on any one of his homing pigeons.

“They say bees know their territory, too.”

“
Si.
” Pigeon Tony shook his bald head, which was tan and spotted as a hen’s egg, from him being outside at his loft. “Pigeon racing, bees, alla old. Egiziano.”

“From the Egyptians?” Mary translated, surprised. “So is beekeeping.”

“I ’ave bees, in Abruzzo, alla time.” Pigeon Tony gestured with his gnarled hands. “I make ’oney, for Silvana, she love.”

“Aw.” Mary could see his eyes tear up at the mention of his late wife, so she let the topic alone. They all finished dinner, after which her father and The Tonys retired to the living room to watch the Phillies game, her mother went upstairs to bed, and Mary, Judy, and Anthony stayed at the table, talking over pignoli nut cookies and coffee strong enough to melt teeth.

The sun had set outside, the kitchen had cooled, and the play-by-play from the Phillies game blared from the living room, a half-step behind the play-by-play blaring from a neighbor’s TV, which wafted through the screen like an electronic echo. Mary felt her mood depressing, and it wasn’t a sugar crash. “I have to tell you,” she said, picking pignoli nuts off a cookie, “I’m worried about this case.”

Anthony put a gentle arm around her. “You shouldn’t be worried about anything tonight, babe. This is your day to celebrate. You’re a partner now.”

Mary forced a smile. “But we partners are responsible people, especially when there’s a kid involved.”

Judy nodded. “I’m having buyer’s remorse, too. You go first, Mare. Tell me what worries you.”

“It’s so emotional. If Allegra goes forward, it’s so difficult for her and her family. It’s hard enough to get over a murder the first time, much less to reopen it.” Mary didn’t need to remind anyone that she had lost her husband Mike Lassiter to violent crime, many years ago. He had been struck and killed when he was riding his bike, and though it had looked like an accident, it had turned out to be murder. They had been married so young, only a year, and Mary felt haunted by the loss, still. She hadn’t dated anyone seriously until Anthony, who had been so patient with the aftershocks of her grief. “And part of me thinks, what if her parents were right, and she is obsessed with her sister’s murder?”

“I know. Who wouldn’t be?” Judy shuddered. “Also she seems like the obsessive type, right? We get it, with the bees.”

Mary winced, on Allegra’s behalf. “She just likes bees. Why, didn’t you get into anything at that age? Buy all the stuff, wear all the gear? Like me, with Catholicism.”

Judy smiled because she was agnostic, and as such, incapable of disillusionment. “Do Brownies count? I was majorly into Brownies.”

“It would be the last time you wore brown.”

“Or matched.” Judy smiled with her, then it faded. “Anyway, I think Allegra’s wound too tight, for a kid.”

Anthony nodded, listening. Mary and Judy had briefed him on the way home, and he was a good listener. He had to be, in this crowd. “I think lots of kids are, these days. There’s too much pressure on them, and life is more complex than it ever was before. I see it in my students. Some of them, they break by the time they get to college.”

Mary sipped her coffee, which tasted like distilled caffeine. “And the fact that she’s a minor poses a lot of questions. Should we be talking with her parents before we go forward? We don’t have to legally, but it might make sense to meet with them, just to get them on board.”

Judy shook her head. “I don’t agree. She can hire us, and there’s nothing unethical about representing her. It’s like a custody case, where a guardian ad litem is appointed. Allegra may be a minor, but she’s entitled to an advocate.”

Mary met her eye. “I know, but I’m just saying we might want to meet with the parents. I’d like to hear why they think Stall did it, and they’re a good source of information until we get the police file.”