“Easier said than done,” O’Malley reminded them. “Murder is a capital offense.”
“He didn’t do it,” Mrs. Martin said coldly.
“We know it was someone from the Martin family.”
Jeanne sputtered and fell silent.
“Stop bugging my mom,” Zach said. “Leave my mom, Angel and my sister out of this.”
“Can’t,” O’Malley said.
“We both know the rules about interrogating a suspect,” Zach said.
“I’m trying to do this for your own good,” O’Malley said. “Because there’s still a part of me—a small part, admittedly—that believes in you. Maybe it’s just because you have Angel believing in you.”
He pulled a black-and-white 8½½-by-11 photograph from an envelope. He shoved the picture across the table. “Anna, did you go to the bank recently?”
“Is the bank the place where they keep money?” Anna asked, scrunching up her nose.
Jeanne pulled a pair of tortoiseshell glasses out from her purse. “Can’t you please leave my daughter out of this?” she asked.
“Do you know what’s in your safety deposit box?” O’Malley asked.
Jeanne shrugged. “Some jewelry, the title to our house, a little bit of money.”
“A lot of money. Who’s a signatory?”
“Any person within our family with the last name Martin.”
“Have you been to the bank lately?”
Zach took the picture from his mother. Angel leaned over his shoulder.
“No,” Jeanne said. “Mr. O’Malley, forgive me for interrupting, but I thought this meeting was about getting Zach out of jail.”
“O’Malley, what the hell is this all about?” Zach asked.
Anna raised her hand.
“Yes, Anna?” O’Malley said.
“I know what that is,” she said, pointing to the picture in Zach’s hand.
“What is it?”
“That’s a picture from when I went to the bank to count our money,” she said, pleased with herself for getting an answer right “I went two times. Isabel took me.”
“Isabel? You mean, Salvatore’s fiancée?” Angel asked.
“Yes, we went to count money and I did such a good job, she took me out for ice cream,” Anna said. “She’s very pretty and she played Barbies with me. Did you know she’s a model in Europe?”
“Dear God!” Jeanne exclaimed.
“When did you see her?” Angel asked, struggling to keep her voice calm so as not to scare Anna.
“It must have been when I dropped her off at Maria’s,” Jeanne said. “I’ve sometimes needed babysitting. Maria’s been a great help to me. On the day of your parents’ funeral she even sent her housekeeper over to take care of Anna. I didn’t know she was making friends with Isabel, too.”
“But, Anna, how did you get the key?” O’Malley asked impatiently.
“Key?”
“Yeah, every safety deposit box has a key.”.
“I didn’t have a key,” Anna said, eyes round with fear that she had done something wrong.
“You had to have used a key,” O’Malley corrected.
“Back off my sister,” Zach said.
“No, this is important,” O’Malley said. “She’s gotta tell us about the key.”
“Not so important you have to badger her.”
“Let him talk,” Jeanne said. “Zach, if this gets you out of jail, I’m willing to do it.”
“All right, Anna, dear,” O’Malley said, clearly laboring over the soft endearment “Don’t be scared of me. I’m just a cantankerous old man.”
“What does cantankerous mean?”
“An old jerk,” O’Malley said.
Jeanne chuckled. O’Malley allowed himself a brief smile in her direction and then refocused on Anna.
“The box is locked. You can’t open it without a key. How did you get a key? Did Isabel have it? Did someone give you the key?”
Anna shook her head at the myriad choices.
Zach sprung to his feet.
“Leave her alone!” he bellowed. “I’ve had enough from you, O’Malley. My sister has told you everything she can.”
“It’s all right, Zach, you can stop your steamin’. I’ve heard enough,” O’Malley said. “I’ll have Rocco, Isabel and Salvatore picked up today.”
“Now you think they killed our parents?” Angel asked, the horrible possibilities swirling in her head. “If that’s true, then do you really think they killed Tony?”
“I think your brothers represent a possible homicide theory,” O’Malley said. “It all fits together now. The younger brothers killed your parents and then Tony. Thinking they were going to run the business.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Angel said. “Rocco’s got a good heart and Salvatore doesn’t like to be in charge of anything.”
O’Malley shrugged.
“But then, who did you think took Anna to the safety deposit box?” Jeanne asked pointedly. “Before Anna told you it was Isabel?”
O’Malley ducked his head.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Martin, I thought it might be you. Just because you are so devoted to taking care of Anna that we thought…”
“You thought,” Angel corrected.
“All right, I thought it might be you.”
“I want an apology right now,” Jeanne said.
“Sorry,” O’Malley said, as contrite as a schoolboy.
“I think you don’t know what the hell you’re doing,” Zach said. “Am I free to go?”
“Yes, I’ll call Processing and tell them to let you sign for your stuff.” O’Malley looked up. “I’m glad to find out I was wrong about you.” He glanced at Jeanne Martin. “And about you.”
“You shouldn’t have doubted me in the first place,” Zach groused. “I’ve always played it straight.”
“He’s right,” Jeanne agreed.
O’Malley held up his palms. As close to an apology as anyone would ever get from him.
“Where are you headed?”
“To get the one man you’re too scared to touch,” Zach said.
“I said we’re bringing in Rocco and Salvatore. Isabel, too. And Maria, for questioning, if she’s up to it”
“I’m not talking about them.”
“If you’re talking about your brother, I want one thing perfectly clear. If you know where he is, you should be helping me bring him in for questioning, too.”
“I don’t know where he is and that’s not who I’m talking about.”
O’Malley blanched.
Zach calmly kissed his mother’s cheek, startling her, and leaned over to tousle Anna’s hair. “Don’t let the bad man scare you.”
“Zach, don’t go,” his mother cried.
“Zach, wherever you’re going, I’m going, too,” Angel warned, scrambling to her feet.
Zach looked back from the doorway.
“No, Angel, you take Anna with you,” he said. “Right, Mother? She needs my protection. Now more than ever.”
Jeanne took a deep breath.
“You’re right. Anna, stay with Angel.”
“Kill a few hours and then meet me at the airport at noon,” Zach directed. “This time we’ll leave together. All three of us.”
“I’m going with you?” Anna asked excitedly. “I’ve never taken an airplane ride.”
“Well, you’re going to today,” Zach said. “But first, I have to take care of a few things.”
“Zach, I’m going with you,” Angel insisted. “If you’re planning some kind of showdown with my brothers, I want to be there.”
He shook his head. “Angel, she needs your protection now,” he said. “I’m asking you to do it.”
“You’re ordering me and it’s not going to work.”
“Angel, I’m not ordering you around, I’m asking for your help.”
Angel looked at Anna, who sat with wide-eyed anticipation.
“Please,” he added.
“All right, b
ut we’ll go out of here together,” she said.
“Mom, is it okay if I go with them?” Anna asked.
Jeanne wiped away tears from her cheeks. “Yes, darling,” she said, struggling to compose herself. “Zach and Angel will take care of you. You’re going to have a great time on the airplane.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“Because I love you very much.”
“I love you, too, Mom,” Anna said, and got up to give her mother a hug. “Goodbye, Mr. O’Malley.”
O’Malley glanced at Zach and then tousled Anna’s hair.
“Goodbye, Anna. And goodbye, Barbie. Have a nice plane ride. And, Zach?”
“What?”
“Don’t take the law into your own hands. Just say what you have to say and get out.”
“I think that’s advice you should have followed yourself,” Zach said. “Many years ago, O’Malley, many years ago.”
Chapter Sixteen
He walked down the hallway swiftly, feeling rather than seeing Angel and Anna struggling to keep up. He didn’t like pushing them, but he knew that he didn’t have a lot of time.
“Zach, Zach, what’s going on?” Angel demanded. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Seeing the line at the elevator bank, he shoved open the door to the inside fire escape, disengaged the alarm and took the stairs two at a time. The fire escape was cool, a relief after the pressed-in heat of the rest of the building. The concrete walls were painted in a muted industrial gray.
“Zach, you have to tell me what’s going on or I’m stopping right now,” she said.
“As long as you keep Anna out of trouble, that’d be fine with me.”
He walked halfway down the landing to the next and then realized that Anna and Angel hadn’t moved. He looked up the stairs. Angel stood at the top of the landing above him.
“Zach, you always act as if I’m so fragile and in need of protection,” Angel said. “Like you’re my protector, my guardian angel.”
“You do need protection,” he said, adding for the sake of her pride, “Sometimes.”
“But not always.”
“Hey, are we having a domestic dispute? Because this isn’t the kind of thing I have time for today. There’s a murderer loose, O’Malley’s too scared to take him in and God only knows which one of your family is going to die next. If we live through the day, I’d be happy to argue with you later.”
She didn’t budge.
“Fine. You can stay here. In the stairwell. It’s nice and cool. Just make sure that you get to the airport by noon. With Anna.”
He walked down two more steps before her voice stopped him cold.
“It’s just like ten years ago.”
“How?”
“You’re protecting me from something,” she said, and he nodded. “But you’re not giving me enough information so that I can even know what I should be afraid of. And you’re not letting me help you.”
Anna, bored and tired, sat down on the top step next to Angel’s legs.
“Zach, how am I supposed to protect Anna if I don’t even know what I’m protecting her from?”
Zach hung his head, running through a dozen options with the precision of a high-speed computer. He liked to work alone. He didn’t trust easily. He felt responsible for the people he loved. He was a man who had trouble with thinking of Angel as a woman with her own mind.
“All right, you two are coming with me,” he conceded, knowing as the words left his mouth that he wasn’t being any less autocratic by letting them tag along. “I’ll explain what I can along the way. But when I tell you I want to do something alone or if I tell you to do something, you have to respect that. Understand?”
Anna nodded because she always did.
Angel gave him a smile that made him feel like a goof for wanting that smile so much.
“Okay,” she said. “But that kind of deal’s off after today. I’m not living the rest of my life like some kind of wench out of the sixteenth century.”
“After today, I don’t care how much trouble you are. Let’s get moving,” he ordered. “We’re doing what we have to do and then we’re getting out of this city.”
THE PROCESSING DESK CLERK handed him a plastic zip bag. Inside were his tie, his shoes and shoelaces, all of which were routinely confiscated from prisoners so that they were not used as weapons. Also inside was his wallet—his money and credit cards intact.
“Where’s my gun?” he asked, running his shoelaces through. Angel worked on the other shoe.
The uniformed desk clerk looked up from her fashion magazine with an I-was-not-put-on-this-earth-to-help-you snarl.
“We keep the weapons.”
“I have a license to carry,” Zach replied evenly, pulling his ID from his wallet. “I had a Walther PPK, a shoulder holster and a second clip of ammunition.”
She shook her head. “We keep the weapons.”
“I want mine back,” he said, shoving the ID across the desk. “I’m an assistant district attorney. I’m entitled to my gun.”
She looked at the ID. Unimpressed. She shoved a quarter across the counter.
“You can call the district attorney’s office and take it up with them,” she said. “But I got my orders. You don’t get your weapon back. Nobody does. Can I help you, sir?”
She strained her neck, as if the next man in line were of great interest to her.
“Zach, give it up,” Angel said. She held up his shoe. “Why don’t we get out of here?”
Zach looked once at the quarter and again-at the clerk and calculated the headache factor involved in getting his gun back.
“All right, we’re out of here,” he said. “Do you have my car?”
Angel held up the keys. He reached, but she snatched her hand away.
“I’ll drive,” she said.
He was about to tell her how it would be. And then he smiled. Let her drive, he thought. It would give him a moment to rest and it would make her feel, just for a moment, as if she were in charge. Because later he might have to tell her to do things his way. And he might not have the time to argue.
“First stop, my apartment,” he said. “Come on, Anna.”
UPSTAIRS, IN THE penthouse conference room, Jeanne Martin took in the panoramic view of Chicago. To the north were the glamorous Gold Coast town homes, to the south the University of Chicago and its Gothic buildings. To the west were the projects, hulls of good intentions now burnt out by gang. wars.
Beyond the projects, nearly clouded over by the exhaust mist of morning traffic, was Bridgeport, where it all began for her.
Where too many dreams had died.
Too many foolish choices had been made.
Choices she had had to live with for her whole life.
Where had all the years gone?
She thought about Guy. Always a problem child, maybe because he was her first and she had been so lacking in confidence. More likely, he was simply made that way. Pugnacious, loud, with more physical energy than most. Like his father. But his legal father wasn’t like that.
There had always been an uneasy fit between Guy, Sr., and Jr. But Guy, Sr., had been so blinded by pride and by the contrast between his two sons and his daughter Anna that he had overlooked every niggling doubt.
Until a few months ago.
What had made it change was knowing instead of simply suspecting. Somehow he had known.
Her husband had confused poor young Guy, suddenly freezing him out of a relationship that had been the younger man’s life. Suddenly father didn’t want long-into-the-night conversations with son. Suddenly, Guy, Jr., wasn’t the man he wanted for business talks and beach walks. Suddenly, Guy, Sr., didn’t love his son anymore.
Because he knew.
And then an insidious attention had been focused on Zach.
“I’m sorry, Jeanne,” O’Malley said, walking up behind her. He stood without embracing her. She would not have pushed away his arms.
“I kn
ow you are.”
“I’ve screwed up so many things and now I’ve lost…we’ve lost…”
“Please, don’t”
“I should have listened to you. Thirty-eight years ago, I should have listened to you. I should have gotten down on my hands and knees and begged you to marry me in the same sentence as I asked for your forgiveness. But I didn’t. And we’ve had to live with that stupidity.”
“It could still turn out all right Do we know where Guy is?”
“No, but I’m not very hopeful.”
She looked down at the floor.
He was right. He was absolutely right
“If he’s still alive, if he’s out there, I swear to you, Jeanne, I’ll do my best.”
She turned around.
He was crying, his face wet with tears that he made no effort to hide.
“I’m so sorry, Jeanne. What I should have done was claim him as my own a long, long time ago.”
Jeanne shook her head grimly. “No, that wouldn’t have saved him.”
SITTING IN THE LIVING room of his apartment, Zach checked and loaded his automatic. The one he kept in the drawer of his desk. Just in case. He heard the knock on the door. He flicked the safety.
“If your name isn’t Angel, you’d better leave,” he said, and aimed.
When he saw Angel, he put the gun down on the glass coffee table.
Dammit, she smelled so clean and pure even after a night that felt as long as a year. Her hair was as shiny as a gold piece. And her pale blue eyes—Zach could forget himself, forget everything, every horrible thing, in those eyes. He chuckled. Even her bubble gum pink lip gloss looked right.
He had changed into a pair of jeans and a clean shirt, brushed his grimy teeth and had wasted five minutes unsuccessfully looking for his razor.
“I thought I told you to stay in the car,” he said, rubbing his chin.
“You were taking a long time.”
“Where’s Anna?”
“She’s in the back seat.”
“You shouldn’t have left her alone.”
“Zach, you spent the whole ride over with your eyes closed,” Angel said. “I can understand that you needed some rest. And I can also understand that this isn’t the sort of thing we should talk about in front of Anna. But you need to tell me…”
“Angel, just trust me. I love you.”
His Betrothed Page 13
