“Yes.” Flavia nodded, with a shaky smile. “You dropped the cookie sheet. Everybody laughed.”
Conchetta chuckled. “Noteverybody.”
“I’m sorry that Nicky is so horrible to your family. I really am. I know nobody in the neighborhood likes him, and I think that’s why they don’t like me. But there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s too late. I can’t spank him anymore. I can’t punish him anymore. He’s a grown man. All I can do is tell him I’m disappointed in him. That makes him feel bad. But it doesn’t change him. I can only pray it’s not too late to change him.” Flavia gestured at the group of women, who had fallen abruptly silent. “I’m sorry if he did bad things to you, to any of you, or hurt your family. I see you in church, sitting together. I got Conchetta’s flyer once in my door, by accident. You’re the Rosary Society, right?”
They all nodded, and Conchetta answered, “We meet every week at my house. Today we’re going over to the hospital. We’re gonna leave in an hour.”
“That’s nice.”
Conchetta paused. “You wanna come? We can always use an extra hand.”
Flavia didn’t say anything, but got misty behind her glasses.
Conchetta smiled. “Flavia, what do you say? Tick tock. The cookies are gonna burn.”
“Okay.” Flavia laughed, clapping her little hands together.
“Okay, ladies?” Conchetta turned around, facing the rest of the group. “You don’t mind if Flavia comes with us, do you?”
“She can come.” Ann smiled.
“Fine with me.” Margie grinned, and everybody else chimed in, “No problem.” “She can come.” “She can bring extra napkins.” “Don’t forget your sweater.”
“Thank you.” Flavia beamed. “Thank you all. I can even take us, if you want.”
“You candrive?” Lorraine blurted out, delighted.
“No, I have a driver. Nicky makes me. He says it’s safer. I have macular degeneration, I can’t see so good.”
“You have achauffeur?” Paul’s eyes widened. “In alimo?”
“No, in a normal car.”
Conchetta looked at Flavia like she was crazy. “But there’s fifteen of us. We don’t fit in one car. We usually take the bus.”
“He has a bus, too.” Flavia smiled slyly. “They use it for bachelorette. There’s booze in the back.”
“Party!” Lorraine shouted, and the others joined in, laughing and cheering, “Let’s do it!” “Woohoo!” “Let’s go!” “We’re ridin’ in style!” “The Rosary Society is movin’ on up!”
Mary couldn’t join in their happiness, now that she had the name of the man who killed John. All she could think of was what she could do next to bring Machiavelli and Fortunato to justice. Suddenly she heard a text come in on her phone and she stepped away from the celebration. She slid her phone out of her purse, and the text was from Lou:Here’s the enlarged video but it’s no better. Also tried but can’t find more cameras. Shanahan still at large. No new news.
Her heart sank, but she quickly ran the video. It was still dark and grainy, except that the image of the silhouette was bigger, but had no detail to help. She didn’t know what Stretch looked like, but the shadow had no distinguishing facial features whatever. The height and weight, again, looked average. She watched with disappointment as the silhouette on the videopulled up the window, which she could see better since it was bigger, then left via the fire escape. She hit Stop and put her phone away, with a frustrated sigh.
Flavia caught her eye, puzzled. “Mare, is something the matter?”
“No.” Mary forced a smile.
“What about with Stretch? What did he do something bad? I know he musta. If he did, I wanna know.”
“Um, nothing,” Mary answered, off-balance.
“Then why did you ask me his real name?”
“No reason. Just curious, because he beat up Joey.”
“You’re a bad liar. Nicky’s a much better liar than you. I answered your question, so you should answer mine.” Flavia glanced at Conchetta and the others. “You girls mind if I talk to Mary, alone?”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
