Iris Avenue (7 page)

Her kitchen was at the end of the hallway, with french doors and a cast iron balcony that overlooked the alley behind her building and the backyards of the big houses on Lilac Avenue. Looking out the back window into one of the big houses, she could see preparations for a dinner party taking place, with candlelight reflecting off sparkling glassware. In another house she could see a woman working in a kitchen while a child did homework at the table.

Maggie looked at her own kitchen, a gleaming stainless steel and granite showplace that had been installed by the previous owner. Maggie only used one gas ring to heat water for tea and one shelf in the glass-door fridge to keep milk cold for her cereal. There were no provisions in the house to cook an actual meal. Maggie couldn’t see the point of buying a bunch of groceries to cook for one person.

She picked up the phone, dialed PJ’s Pizza, and gave her usual order. In about twenty minutes the delivery person buzzed to alert her, and she ran down the steps to open the door.

“Hey Paulie,” she said, surprised to see the owner making the delivery. “Julie making you work tonight?”

“Most of my delivery kids have that stomach virus that’s going around,” he told her, as he handed her the box. “I’m afraid they’ll infect the whole town if I let them go out when they’re sick.”

“I appreciate that,” Maggie said. “I certainly can’t afford to be sick.”

Paulie hesitated, obviously wanting to say something else.

“What?” Maggie asked him. “Didn’t I give you enough money?”

“No, that’s not it,” he said. “I want to ask you something but I don’t want to make you mad.”

“I’m not promising anything,” Maggie said.

“Well, I know you and Scott aren’t seeing each other anymore, and I was wondering if I could fix you up with my brother Tony.”

Tony Delvecchio owned an insurance agency in town, and had never married. One of the middle children of four brothers, he lived at home with his parents, the diminutive Salvador and the statuesque Antonia.

“I thought Tony had a girlfriend in the city.”

“He hasn’t been going to see her lately and we think they may have broken up. He’s very private and doesn’t talk about that kind of stuff. He never brought her home to visit so we don’t think it was ever serious.”

“That’s nice of you, Paulie, and I certainly like Tony, but I’m just not looking for anyone right now.”

“Keep him in mind, though. He’s a good guy, and we’d all like to see him settle down. My family thinks the world of your family.”

“Thanks, Paulie, I’ll keep him in mind. Tell Julie I said hi.”

The Delvecchio and the Fitzpatrick families owned several businesses in Rose Hill. Sal had been a close friend of Maggie’s father for many years. Paul and his wife Julie were the P and J in PJ’s Pizza. Paulie’s brother Matt had taken over the local grocery store when their father retired, his brother Sonny owned the hardware store, and Tony had the insurance agency.

A marriage between the two families had always been a much-desired wish of both sets of parents. Maggie, being the only single female Fitzpatrick left in Rose Hill since Hannah married and Claire went to California, was probably seen as the natural choice for Tony.

Maggie took her pizza back up to her apartment, walked down the long hall to the kitchen, and placed it on the table, all the while thinking about Tony Delvecchio. He’d been several years ahead of Maggie in school, and although she knew him well enough to make polite conversation, and sat near him and his mother every Sunday at Mass, she didn’t know him all that well. The thought of going out on a date with anyone made Maggie shudder, but still, she had to admit Tony wasn’t a bad choice for her. He would understand about her crazy work hours and family responsibilities in a way many men would not. His mother was a fierce Gallic Amazon, but she’d always had a soft spot for Maggie. It was a pleasant diversion from thinking about Scott, with whom she was still so angry, or Gabe, whom she didn’t want to think about at all.

Ed went to the Rose and Thorn to check in on Mandy at around ten o’clock, only to find the bar empty and her crying in Patrick’s arms. As soon as she saw Ed she pulled away and Patrick went to the back room.

“What’s going on?” Ed asked her.

“I’m just having a bad day,” Mandy said. “Don’t mind me.”

“What happened?”

“Nothin’,” she said. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Except to Patrick.”

“When you and me talk honest it don’t always go so well.”

“You have to be able to confide in me,” Ed said. “Or we can’t have a relationship.”

“You do whatever you got to do,” Mandy said. “I got a right to keep some things to myself.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Ed said. “But whatever it is, I don’t want Tommy to get hurt.”

“Everybody gets hurt,” Mandy said. “I don’t want Tommy goin’ around thinkin’ nothing bad can ever happen. That won’t prepare him for nothin’.”

“You’re really not going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Nope,” Mandy said. “And I guess me and Tommy will just have to live with the consequences.”

Some customers came in and Mandy wiped her eyes with her apron.

“Could you yell at me later?” she asked. “I need to get back to work.”

Ed considered confronting Patrick, then decided it would only upset Mandy more. He left the bar and walked back toward home, not seeing anything that surrounded him.

“Hey,” Scott said, and Ed realized he’d just walked past his best friend.

“Sorry,” Ed said.

He stopped and Scott caught up with him.

“What’s going on?” Scott asked. “You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“Something’s going on with Mandy,” Ed said. “And for some reason she can tell Patrick but not me.”

“I wouldn’t make too much of that,” Scott said. “They’ve known each other a long time. They’re more like brother and sister than anything.”

“No,” Ed said. “She was crying and he was holding her, but it wasn’t like you’d hold your sister.”

“What do we know?” Scott said. “Neither of us has a sister.”

“Let me put it this way,” Ed said. “I would not have been surprised if the next thing Patrick did, if I hadn’t interrupted them, was kiss her.”

Ava was expecting an FBI agent, so when one showed up at the back door with a suitcase, she wasn’t surprised.

“Agent Brown,” she said politely as she opened the door to him.

“Hi, Ava,” he said, and smiled at her.

“I’m booked up,” she said, refusing to be defrosted by his familiar manner.

“I have a reservation,” he said. “It’s under James Randolph.”

“Oh,” she said. “I see.”

He followed her through to the front parlor, where she checked in her guests. She went through the motions of checking him in without saying a word. He seemed comfortable enough with her silence, and she wasn’t willing to waste her hostess chit chat on him. She showed him to his room, the tiny single with a three quarter bath in the attic. He was so tall he could only stand up straight in the center of the room.

“If you need anything, press zero,” she said. “I’ll pick up.”

“Could I possibly have some coffee?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said, reminding herself he was a paying guest. “I’ll brew a fresh pot.”

Agent Jamie Brown had shown up in Ava’s kitchen one night the month before, while her husband was still at large. It was right after she’d been threatened by Mrs. Wells, Brian’s drug supplier, that if she didn’t cough up half a million dollars within thirty days something bad would happen to her children. Jamie was a tall, handsome man with dark eyes and hair, and he seemed kind and friendly, but the information he brought her was horrible and hard to believe.

Jamie had asked for her cooperation in the federal investigation and Ava knew she had no choice. He knew things he could only know if Ava’s home and phone were bugged. They struck a deal that allowed her to get custody of Little Fitz and Brian was apprehended. Although Jamie treated her with compassion and delicacy, once Brian was behind bars, Ava hoped never to see the agent again.

When Jamie came downstairs he had on jeans and a sweatshirt with “ARMY” printed on it. Ava poured him a mug of coffee and offered him a plate of muffins, cheese, and grapes.

“Thank you so much,” he said. “I’ve been driving all day and didn’t take the time to stop and eat.”

Ava softened a little toward him as her innate graciousness was stimulated, and she replenished the plate as soon as he finished all she’d offered.

“I guess you heard,” he said, in between bites.

“Oh, yes,” Ava said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“Have you seen or heard from him?”

“No.”

“How’s the baby?” he asked her.

“Fine. He’s upstairs sleeping,” she said, gesturing to a baby monitor on the kitchen counter.

“They’ve officially declared his wife’s death a homicide,” Jamie said.

“You said before you expected they would,” she said evenly, determined not to reveal anything by her expression. “But you didn’t tell me how it happened.”

“He took her scuba diving and came back without her. He reported her missing, and after they found her remains, he stayed long enough to get the death certificate so he could collect the life insurance. The police in Bimini were tipped off that he’d taken out a large insurance policy on her right before she died, but he fled with the baby before they could bring him in for questioning.

“The woman traveling with him, who was caring for the baby, had been working as a housekeeper for the wife, who was very wealthy. She’s back in Bimini now, and she was able to tell the police a lot of what happened before and after they fled. Evidently Brian cheated on the wife, she threatened to divorce him, he talked her around, and then they went scuba diving. The housekeeper said there was a prenup, and if he cheated he got nothing in a divorce.”

“So he killed her for the insurance money.”

“The authorities think so.”

“He abandoned the baby. He might have died.”

“If not for you,” Jamie said.

“Are you only investigating Brian because of what he did in Bimini?” Ava asked.

“No. That’s someone else’s investigation.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To talk to you about Mrs. Wells.”

Ava said nothing, just looked at him with as blank an expression as she could muster. She realized she was gripping the baby monitor so hard her fingertips were white. She took a deep breath and willed herself to stay calm.

“I know you applied for a home equity loan of half a million dollars, Ava, and I know that Brian owes Mrs. Wells that much. I’d like you to tell me about that.”

Ava felt her body start to tremble although she willed it to stop. She could feel a lump forming in her throat and tears stung her eyes.

“My children are my reason for living,” Ava said. “I won’t risk their lives because you want to catch a drug dealer.”

“Mrs. Wells is much more than a drug dealer, Ava. If we don’t put her behind bars and break up her business, there will be more death and destruction in this region than you can imagine. You may not know it, but there’s a war going on, a battle for territory, and she needs to show her enemies just how powerful she is. She’ll kill as many people as she has to just to make that point.”

“I just want to pay her off so she’ll go away.”

“But she won’t go away,” Jamie said. “She’ll come back for more money, or worse, for favors. You’ll never be free. You can’t even run away. She’ll threaten every person in this town that you love. She’s a sociopath. She has no conscience, no scruples.”

“Why don’t you arrest her?”

“We want to be sure our case is a slam dunk, and that takes time. We are so close, and if you cooperate, it will happen even faster.”

“What about my kids?”

“We won’t let anyone harm your children,” Jamie said.

“Those are just words,” she said. “They don’t mean anything.”

Jamie put his hand over Ava’s, which rested on the kitchen island.

“I promise to personally do everything I can to insure that you and your children are safe. Between the two of us, we can accomplish that.”

Ava felt as if the decision to cooperate had already been made, and all she could do was go along with it.

Scott knocked on Ava’s back door just then, and Ava let him in. He looked from Ava to Jamie, who stood and offered his hand while Ava introduced them. Scott shook the agent’s hand, and took a seat at the kitchen island, accepting the coffee that Ava offered.

“I trust Scott,” Ava told the agent. “I won’t help you unless he’s involved.”

“I know all about Chief Gordon,” Jamie told her, and then to Scott, he said, “I was planning to bring you on board tomorrow, but we may as well get you up to speed tonight.”

Maggie closed the front door of Fitzpatrick’s Bakery and locked the door behind her. The streets of Rose Hill, which had felt so safe to her for most of her life, now seemed to be made up of places in which someone could hide and then jump out at her when she least expected it. She walked in the middle of the street instead of on the sidewalk, down two blocks and then left on Marigold Avenue toward the high wall that separated the Eldridge College campus from the town.