When the Day of Evil Comes

by Melanie Wells

  Halfway through the second box, I saw a name I recognized. Rosa Guevera. I couldn’t place where I’d heard it. Her name was on a list of loan recipients who had received money from a nonprofit my mother supported. The organization gave small business loans—microscopic by U.S. standards—to help women in impoverished countries get on their feet. Rosa Guevera was part of a women’s cooperative in South America that had received such a gift. Each of the five women in the coop had received a grand total of five hundred dollars.

  It took me the rest of the day to dredge the name from my memory.

  Rosa Guevera had made my necklace. I’d learned her name in the gift shop of the Vendome. Each piece was one-of-a-kind, the man had said. Handmade.

  I went to my bedroom dresser, where I had casually tossed the necklace into a jewelry box, and picked it up, feeling once again that my mother was with me. Here in my room. Reminding me of the importance of her work. Somewhere in Guatemala, Rosa Guevera was making a living because my mother had sent her five hundred dollars. A tiny, slight little sliver of my mother’s estate.

  I sat on my bed, holding that necklace, and cried.

  Had my mother sent it to me? I’d never believed it was possible for a person to reach beyond the grave. Had Earl sent it? Perhaps he had been her messenger. Angelos means messenger in Greek, after all. Perhaps my mother had wanted me to understand fully the weight of her gift. Wanted me to know what five hundred dollars could do.

  Or had Peter Terry sent it? Had he tried to frighten me away from finishing my mother’s work? Was that why he had broken the glass in her photos and later in mine? Who had retrieved her wedding ring?

  Was the gift of the necklace intended to spook me away from following my mother’s lead? Or to entice me to follow it?

  I didn’t know. But I sat there that night, crying for my mother, grateful that she had left that five hundred bucks to Rosa Guevera rather than to me. Up until that moment, sitting on my bed with that handmade necklace in my hand, the money would have been wasted on me. I never would have understood the reach of her intentions. I vowed to myself to steward her legacy well.

  I wore the necklace that night on my date with David Shykovsky. He didn’t comment on it, and I didn’t mention anything about Rosa Guevera or the necklace or my mother. It was almost too private. A whispered gift from my mother to me.

  33

  I WENT TO CHICAGO ALONE on Monday, David Shykovsky’s offer notwithstanding. Liz and Andy had made arrangements for me to fly, first class, on Eagle Wing Air. The airline staff must have known I was flying as a guest of the Zoccis. They treated me as though I were royalty, waiting on me so attentively that I didn’t want to get off the plane.

  Liz and Christine picked me up at the airport.

  I got another “Miss Dylan!” from Christine, which sent my heart soaring. She tackled me by the knees again and asked me if I’d brought her a present.

  I produced a gaudy fake diamond tiara, complete with an enormous fake pink diamond in the center. Christine seemed delighted.

  Liz turned to me. “Thanks a lot. You know she’s going to want to wear that to the funeral.”

  “I don’t think Mariann will mind.”

  “Probably not.”

  We drove straight to the funeral, which was at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in downtown Chicago, and which was attended, I’m certain, by every last citizen of that city. We got there an hour early, and it was already standing room only.

  I would have been standing like everyone else had it not been for the generosity of the Zocci clan. They seated me in a reserved section behind the family, which gave me a perfect vantage point to observe them.

  They were a beautiful bunch. The girls, the oldest twenty-eight and the youngest just eighteen (I knew all their names from my research), were stunning. Black raven hair on all of them, their father’s sharp good looks and their mother’s quiet dignity. The two oldest were married, and each had two fussy children with them, whom they shushed throughout the somber service.

  Andy and Liz were there with their three, Andy poised and somber as the only remaining Zocci son. He sat on the end of the first row, in the patriarch’s position, his father’s absence palpable and rigorously unmentioned.

  Joseph Zocci, of course, did not attend. He had been denied bail. I tried to squelch my private satisfaction when I heard this—I, after all, had made bail—by praying for him. But I was lying to myself. I could offer neither grace nor mercy to this man. Only God could do that.

  And though I knew God wanted me to do the same, He would have to change my heart. Because the truth is, I felt Joe Zocci was getting what he deserved. I pictured Mariann’s battered face, and then Joe in his six-by-ten cell at Cook County, watching him pace the room in my mind, and I was glad. Glad he was no longer terrorizing his family.

  After the funeral, at which no mention was made of how Mariann Zocci had died or of the violence that had marred her troubled life, the family and their close friends gathered at the Zocci mansion on Lakeside.

  It was strange to set foot on the Zocci estate under such radically altered circumstances. I had been there before as a fugitive of sorts, an interloper. As one who had been accused of harming this poster-perfect family.

  But now, of course, I knew they were not perfect at all. That in fact their lovely appearance clashed against the putrid reality of their secrets. And the discordance was astounding.

  The mood at the wake was light if not quite happy. No one seemed terribly sad to me. No one spoke of Joe. It was almost as though he had never existed. A strange silence surrounded his absence, made even more odd by the fact that he had wielded such a powerful presence.

  I remarked on the lightheartedness of the event, over a plate of smoked salmon and cream cheese, to Liz.

  “We’re all glad for her, I think,” Liz said. “That she’s out of her misery She’s in a better place now.”

  “Do you believe that?” I asked.

  “Of course. Don’t you?”

  “I guess it’s never been quite so real to me. To think that, literally, she’s better off. It’s a strange idea. Heaven always seemed to me a consolation prize for having to leave earth. It always sounded boring to me.”

  “I think Mariann is experiencing her first true joy in decades. Maybe in her entire life,” Liz said. “I hope she is, anyway. What a waste if not.”

  Andy walked up and offered his hand. We hadn’t yet been formally introduced.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “About all of it—Erik, your mom, your dad. I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “There really is no place to begin,” he said. “Or to end, I guess. You just get back on the train and ride it out.”

  “What will happen now?” I asked. “To the airline, I mean? Was your dad involved in daily operations? Will it fold without him?”

  “I doubt it. No company can easily survive the loss of its founder. Or at least the loss of his reputation, at this point. But a company that big has an infrastructure far beyond one man. It’ll take a hit, I think. The smaller businesses are the ones that will suffer.”

  “Like Garret Industries?” I asked.

  “Possibly.” Andy raised his glass. “To my father. The most vindictive man I’ve ever known.”

  I raised my glass as well, not sure how to respond to such a toast.

  Liz raised her glass. “To your mother. I’m going to miss her.”

  “So am I,” Andy said. He turned to me. “How do you know about Garret Industries?”

  “I ran across it in my research about a gift I received. I didn’t know at the time your father owned the company. Your father and a business partner, right?”

  He nodded. “Sheldon Garret.” He said the name without flinching. My guess was he didn’t know his mother’s secret. “Actually, Mother owned MAZco.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Mother. She was the owner of MAZco Incorporated, which owns Garret Industries.”

  “She used Garret t
o try to put you out of business?”

  “No, my father did.”

  “Come again? I don’t get it.”

  “MAZco is named for my mother. Obviously. She and my father started the business in ’69 or 70-something, I forget, with money from her family. Right after they got married. The charter specifies that all the profits be held in my mother’s name. I guess because of where the money came from. Technically she was the owner of the company, but he ran it. Every last decision down to the paper clips. She had no power … or at least she never wielded any”

  “So she ended up profiting from your father’s efforts to put you out of business?”

  “Yep. Sick, huh?”

  “Very” I let it sink in. “What did she do with the money?”

  “Gave it away. Every penny All the grandkids have huge trusts, though I hope to God they never know it. Talk about the kiss of death. And she provided for us all in other ways. Covert ways. She financed the purchase of our house, mine and Liz’s. There’s an apartment in Chicago that everyone seems to rotate in and out of. Stuff like that.”

  “What’s Angel Wing Air?” I asked. “One of her charities?”

  He nodded. “She founded it with MAZco money. It’s basically a worldwide airline, made up of small single-engine planes whose sole purpose is to support humanitarian and charity work in remote areas. Angel Wing planes bring supplies and support into areas, all over the world, that are otherwise inaccessible. There are missionaries all over Africa, for instance, who have water and antibiotics because of my mother.”

  And because of your father, I thought. Who could have anticipated that his cruelty would yield, in the end, such a beautiful legacy?

  “Who will run MAZco now?” I asked.

  “You’re looking at him. Mother passed ownership to me. It’s written in the company’s charter that she can choose her successor. And that the new owner will have power to run the business.”

  “And Angel Wing?”

  “One and the same,” he said.

  “I guess Garret Industries is going out of business. As of today,” I said.

  “Actually, no. My company, A&E Oil, and Garret will probably merge. Much better solution. Works out well for everyone.”

  “Will Sheldon Garret agree to that?”

  “Sheldon Garret died six years ago.”

  “But I thought he was a co-owner of Garret Industries.”

  “He was, when it was founded.”

  “So you knew him?”

  “I did. Really nice guy. Decent. Never understood why he went into business with my father.”

  I had my suspicions about that, of course, but whatever the truth of it was, Mariann Zocci had taken it with her to her grave. And I suspected Joseph Zocci would never tell.

  “Guess who named the airline? Angel Wing, I mean?”

  I smiled at him. “Christine?”

  He nodded to the corner of the room. “Look at her.”

  Christine was twirling around in circles, her dress flying up around her, that gaudy tiara still sparkling on her head.

  “That kid is the joy of my existence,” he said. “The other two, those hoodlums,” he laughed and nodded at his boys, who were banging on the grand piano, “will be the death of me. But that one, she’s got my heart.”

  “Mine too,” I said.

  My cab arrived to take me to my suite at the Vendome. Liz and Andy had paid for the room, insisting I have a suite. Not on the twelfth floor, and not even on the same end of the hall as the suite where the Zocci boys died, thank goodness.

  “But it is the best,” they had said to me. “Just relax and try to enjoy it. You’ll see what we mean.”

  I’d never stayed in such a nice place. I scheduled myself a massage and a pedicure for the morning—rare and wildly extravagant treats for me. I was due for an interview with Detective Thornton at noon, to wrap up loose ends before I headed home.

  I spent the rest of that evening taking a bubble bath and sitting around in my fluffy white bathrobe, ordering room service and thinking of Mariann Zocci. And of my mother. And of Rosa Guevera. And of Tony and Jenny DeStefano and their kids, toughing it out on the mission field in Haiti and Guatemala.

  My mother’s estate didn’t have near the resources that the Zocci clan did. But I had learned recently what even five hundred bucks could do to change a life.

  After I finished my supper, beautifully prepared and presented by the crack staff at the Vendome, I sat down and, on Vendome stationery, began to make my own list of missions, my mother’s ring on my finger and her purpose in my heart.

  34

  ON THE WEDNESDAY MORNING after Mariann Zocci’s funeral, I received a hand-written note in the mail, on stationery from the Chicago Four Seasons Hotel.

  Dear Dr. Foster,

  I have read my son’s words and they have broken my heart. I believe that his death is mine to answer for. I cannot live the rest of my days wondering what would have been different for my children if I had never caused the terrible anger that their father felt toward me.

  I have never told anyone about that day at the Vendome. Never spoken of it. You shall be my father confessor.

  I was with another man the day Joey died. It was my neglect that led to Joey’s death. My husband spent the rest of his life punishing me for this terrible mistake. I tried all my life to put it behind me, but my life was full of daily reminders of my sin.

  By now you know my choice. I believe that no heaven waits for me. “I will die in sin as I lived in sin. I hope I leave peace behind me. Without me to hate, maybe Erik’s father will learn to love.

  Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been thirty-four years since my last confession.

  —Mariann

  I fought with myself briefly about whether I should have given Mariann Erik’s journal. His words seemed to be the final exhibit in her long litigation of liability. The evidence with which she finally convicted herself. But I knew, even as I felt my own twinges of guilt, that Mariann’s choices had ultimately been her own. Erik’s pain, and certainly the pain of her other children, could not have been a surprise.

  They were prisoners of war, all of them. Guilt, hard and unyielding, for a sin committed more than thirty years before had imprisoned them all.

  I wasn’t immediately sure what to do with the letter. Mariann had obviously meant for it to be read only by me. But my indecision lasted only a moment. My thoughts turned to Joe Zocci, who was sitting in jail in Chicago. He surely deserved, by my measure at least, punishment for his own heinous sins. He had inflicted years of horrific violence on his family, and may have murdered his own son. But of this crime he was not guilty. Joe Zocci had not killed his wife. Though I had so eagerly searched for the gavel to convict him with, I now held his exoneration, for this offense at least, in my hand.

  I reached for the phone and dialed Detective Thornton. I was, after all, in no position to withhold truth. God had demonstrated ample sovereignty. He would know what to do with Joe Zocci in the end.

  I grieved for the emptiness of life without grace. The Zoccis’ had been a marriage of punishment, not of mercy. They had never known forgiveness. Never exchanged healing words. Mariann, I knew, had never sought forgiveness even from herself, nor had she asked it of God. Not, at least, until the last terrible moments of her life.

  I hoped that Liz was right in guessing that Mariann was finally free to experience joy, that she had accepted the grace of the cross at last. The grace that had been hers the entire time, had she only known to look for it.

  Are you ready for Peter Terry’s return?

  Don’t miss Melanie Wells’s suspenseful sequel …

  Coming June 2006

  A sneak peek at Peter Terry’s return.

  Watch for The Soul Hunter, book two in the Heavenly Realms series

  Available June 2006

  The clear day had left no warm blanket of clouds for the city, and I shivered through that bitter night. My quilt and my electric blanket
—meager defenses against an inadequate heating system in an old, drafty house—could not keep the cold at bay.

  So I slept in shallow dreams, whipped by snow and wind. White, swirling cold bit at my extremities like packs of wolves. My toes were icy, my fingers curled under my chin to ward off the freeze. And my nose a little sniffley block of ice.

  Somewhere around 3:30—a witching hour for me, for many terrible and frightening things have happened to me at 3:30 in the morning—I heard a thump. I do not know if this was a thump in my dream or in my house, but it terrified me, coming as it did from the door that leads from my bedroom to the kitchen. I’d closed that door. Wanting to close myself into the smallest corner of the house. An innate nesting instinct, perhaps, to provide for myself some illusion of safety.

  But after the thump, I swear I heard footsteps on my creaky wood floor, coming from the kitchen and striding through the bedroom, stopping at the garage door. I lay there, careful not to move, and slowly opened my eyes, my heart in my throat, fully expecting to see an axe murderer standing at the foot of my bed.

  No one was there. The bedroom door was still closed. I moved my eyes around the room.

  I had just about convinced myself I’d dreamed the whole thing when the door to the garage burst open, letting in a blast of icy air.

  I bolted out of bed, slamming myself against the garage door and dead bolting it from the inside. I reached to the bedside table, fumbled for the light, and then stared, panting, at the empty room.

  It dawned on me that someone might have come in through the front door. I raced out of the bedroom and hurled myself against the front door, grabbing the dead bolt.

  It didn’t move. It was already locked.

  I chained the door, raced to the kitchen, and snatched the phone out of its cradle. To call whom? The police? David? Just exactly who did I think was going to rescue me? And from what? A draft?