Secondhand Smoke Read online

  I glanced out the window and saw some lingering smoke, but it looked like the fire was finally out. Even from here, I could make out Dick’s figure as he darted around. I forgot what it was like to be that enthusiastic—oh, wow, a fire, a real fire. At this point in my career, I took a lot of shortcuts, shortcuts I knew I could get away with because I’d seen mostly everything already. A twinge of guilt hit me in the gut. I sat down, surprised. I hadn’t felt that in a long time.

  I suppose I should’ve felt guilty more often. Guilty that I didn’t give a shit about Dick Whitfield and his enthusiasm, guilty that I made fun of him for his eagerness. I still got that rush from the job when something big was going down. But most days I hated it, the redundancy of it. Listen to scanner, go to accident/fire/some sort of crime scene, write down what I can, talk to cops who won’t talk to me, go back to the office, put it into my computer, see the spelling error in the headline or the copy the next day, and cringe over a fucking three-inch brief.

  I should be getting back out there. But it was warm in my apartment, and I had coffee, no thanks to Walter the Pit Bull.

  My thoughts strayed to the body in the restaurant. This was big news. Sal Amato commanded a lot of respect in the neighborhood. It would be a huge funeral. My father would even come out from Vegas, and I couldn’t remember the last time he was in Connecticut. My mother wouldn’t care much about this. She never fit in here, that’s why she lives across town, with her people.

  I never thought too much about my parents’ cultural differences, what with Mom being Jewish and Dad being Italian. My mother tried taking me to temple when I was in elementary school. But I spent too much time with my dad’s friends’ kids, and they were all Italian and Catholic. My mother finally gave it up when I was about ten and the priest called to find out why I was going to confession if I was Jewish. I ended up at a Catholic high school because the city schools were so questionable. I think Dad was secretly pleased about that. I went to his alma mater, St. Anthony’s. Which was the first place I remember noticing Vinny, even though he must have been around before that. But I didn’t have anything to do with him because he was so geeky and president of the chess club. I wasn’t exactly Miss Popular, either, but I had standards.

  This was way too much ruminating for one day. It tired me out, and it was still pretty damn early in the morning. I’d need another cup of coffee just to get myself out the door. But what to wear? I stared down at my sweats. Too tempting. I rustled through my drawers and closet until I found a pair of heavy knit pants I’d bought at some point and never wore. Because they were knit, I figured that I’d bought them at a “heavy” point in my life. Which I still seemed to be in. They clung slightly to my thighs, but a long sweater disguised that.

  The What Not to Wear stylists would have a field day with me.

  I wrapped myself up in my smoke-scented coat and pulled on my gloves. The cold hit me in the face, and I regretted leaving the hat behind.

  “Back so soon?” Vinny held out his hand in front of me so I couldn’t walk past him. “They do think it’s Sal in there. Mac says he got up about four. She said he always goes to the restaurant when he can’t sleep. He works on the books, figures out what he needs to order for the day, that sort of thing.”

  I sighed. “Shit.”

  Vinny nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

  “I have to go talk to these guys.” I indicated the firefighters, who had become more still, like the rest of us. The cops were also there, and I had to talk to them, too. Dick was still getting quotes from neighbors. The old-timers could talk anyone’s ear off, so he’d be a while.

  Vinny backed off and headed toward his parents, whom I could see were trying to console an inconsolable Mac. She was a far cry right now from the woman who gave me ice cream every time my dad brought me around to the restaurant. That woman always had a bright smile and a twinkle in her eye. This woman’s mouth sagged with her grief, her eyes almost lifeless.

  There was another woman with them, and when Vinny approached, she looked up at him and touched his cheek, an intimate gesture. It was Rosie, his fiancée.

  Vinny and Rosie had been together for five years. Vinny had told me how close Rosie was with his family and how she ended up with a ring on her finger because she pressured him into it and he thought it was the “right” thing to do. Typical.

  I turned around as the job pushed me forward.

  I found Len Freelander again.

  “Is it Sal?” I asked.

  Len shook his head. “We can’t get the body out yet, it’s still too dangerous to try. And even when we get it out, we might not get a positive ID right off the bat because the body could’ve gotten pulverized when the roof collapsed.”

  Not a pretty picture, but realistic.

  Len was nodding. “But it looks like it’s probably Sal. Mac said . . .” His voice trailed off.

  No one wanted to believe it.

  “You’re up early.” Another country heard from. Tom Behr and I had called it quits at the same time I became interested in Vinny. Of course Tom, being a police detective, figured it out well before I did. But there was still a little spark between us, more than just a friendly cop-reporter thing. I didn’t like knowing I was attracted to two guys at the same time. The really stupid thing was that I wasn’t sleeping with either of them.

  “When do you guys think you’ll go in and get the body out?”

  Tom shook his head. “I have no idea. Len says it’s still too dangerous.”

  Old news. Give me something new. “I know Mac says she thinks it’s Sal. What do you think?”

  Tom shrugged. “Beats me. Could be. It’s gotta be someone, and it’s his restaurant and he wasn’t home. When he wasn’t home, he was at the restaurant. One and one is always two.”

  “So can I quote you as saying you suspect it’s Sal Amato?”

  “Go ahead. Sure. What’s wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “You’re so, well, professional. You don’t have to be so formal with me. It’s okay.”

  “Sure. Okay. Yeah.” I can be so eloquent sometimes.

  Len Freelander approached us, but he was concentrating on Tom.

  “We can go in.”

  Tom’s face changed, and he took a deep breath as he started toward the charred building.

  This was going to take a long time, and I could barely move my fingers. Dick was talking to Mac now, but before I could interrupt them, a short, elderly man sidled up next to me.

  “Where are the chickens?” He chewed on his lip, and as I looked closer, I could see it was a bad habit for him. His gray hair stuck up on its ends, and the creases in his face showed that he’d lived hard.

  But before I could ask him what he was talking about, his eyes grew wide and he started backing up, his voice at a high pitch as he wailed, “They’re dead, aren’t they. He killed them, too, didn’t he.”

  Chapter 3

  The little man scurried off into the crowd of neighbors, and I started after him but felt a hand on my arm, pulling me back.

  “What the hell are you doing?” It was Tom—he was pissed—and I realized I was stuck to the crime scene tape.

  Yellow is not my color.

  “Did you see him?” I asked, pulling the tape off the front of my coat. “The little guy”—I pointed in the direction he’d run—“he asked about chickens.”

  Tom frowned, but he didn’t say anything.

  “He asked if the chickens are dead,” I continued, but Tom’s face didn’t change.

  “I didn’t see him,” he said after a few seconds, and I knew if there was any fowl situation going on, he certainly wasn’t going to tell me about it.

  “I thought you were going in there,” I said, indicating the restaurant and eager to change the subject.

  “Had to get something. You can’t get this close to the building,” he said as he turned and walked away from me. I think I heard him muttering something like “crazy.” Hell, I’d been
called worse.

  It was time to talk to Mac. I moved closer to her, where she was, unfortunately, already talking to Dick.

  “. . . always worried about the restaurant. I told him to leave it be. He needs time off, he isn’t getting any younger.” Mac was in shock; it hadn’t sunk in. Dick was taking down every word.

  I reached over and touched Mac’s shoulder. “You okay?” I asked softly.

  Dick’s head snapped back up so fast, he probably got whiplash. He stared at me as if I were a stranger. Okay, so this was a side of me that rarely showed its face in the newsroom.

  “You have to be careful what you put in that newspaper of yours,” Mac said harshly.

  I nodded. “I know. Don’t worry about that.”

  Dick’s eyes were so wide, I thought they’d pop out of his head.

  “Are you sure Sal was in the restaurant, Mac?” I asked.

  She pulled her arms around her chest and hugged tightly. Someone had given her a coat, and she wore big boots that were obviously not her own.

  “Are you sure?” I asked again.

  Mac’s eyes bored into mine. “He’s gone, Annie. I feel it.” She patted her chest. “He’s here now, only here.”

  My faith was long gone, if I’d ever had any, but I believed in hers. I turned to Dick and murmured, “Let’s leave her alone now.” I took his arm firmly, seeing he was about to protest, and pulled him away.

  “I know these people,” I said before he could speak. “She’s a friend of my father’s. We can’t do anything until that body is identified officially and Mac can bury her husband properly.”

  “I’ve got lots of quotes.”

  “That’s nice.” Vinny was coming toward us, distracting me from the matter at hand, which was to get Dick out of there. “Maybe you should go to the office and start typing up your notes, and I’ll be there in a little while and we can put this together. I know they’ll want it for the front page.”

  I’d have to get a picture of Sal, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

  I watched Dick skulk back to his car.

  “You’re still treating that kid like shit,” Vinny said.

  “It’s none of your business,” I said flatly.

  He put his hand on my shoulder, but I knew that only because I could see it there. My coat was pretty puffy.

  “Are you going to be able to write this okay?”

  He knew I was close to Sal and Mac, or at least I had been in the past. I didn’t want to hand this story over carte blanche to good old Dick, but I didn’t relish the thought of having to cover this one.

  “I’ll be fine.” I wouldn’t look at him, knowing he’d see my doubts there. I glanced over at Mac, ankle-deep in snow. “Do you think you could get her back into her house, get her warmed up?”

  “I tried, but she won’t budge.”

  “It’s good your mother is with her.”

  “They’ve always been close.”

  I didn’t like it that all of this was news to me. Where the hell had I been all these years? I’d been living in their midst and knew nothing.

  “Oh, by the way, did you see that weird little guy I was talking to?” I asked.

  Vinny nodded. “I don’t know him, but I’ve seen him around. He fishes through the Dumpsters behind my parents’ restaurant.”

  “That explains it, then. He asked me if the chickens were dead, if they were killed, too.” I chuckled. “He probably got released too early from the VA hospital.”

  Something crossed Vinny’s face that I couldn’t read, but then he cocked his head toward his mother and Mac. “I have to go see how they’re doing.” His lips brushed my cheek, burning it with his heat despite the cold.

  I VOLUNTEERED TO WORK Thanksgiving because I didn’t want to have dinner with my mother. Not that I didn’t want to spend time with my mother on a national holiday, but I really didn’t want to spend it with her boyfriend, Bill Bennett, my boss, the publisher of the New Haven Herald.

  Their relationship was lasting longer than I’d wanted it to. I’d hoped that within a couple of weeks Bill Bennett would see the side of my mother that I saw most of the time and decide she just wasn’t worth the work. No such luck. They had already been on a three-day cruise to the Bahamas and were planning a trip to Paris in the spring. Not exactly something a couple would do if a breakup is pending.

  I had heard less from my mother and more from Bill Bennett in the past couple of months. Bennett apologized for threatening my job in September, but only after I apologized for accusing him, albeit in a roundabout way, of stealing from his employees’ pension fund. Since then, he’d been my buddy, my pal. And was fucking up my life in the newsroom big-time.

  “Thought you’d be breaking bread with the publisher today, Seymour.” Henry Owens was the metro editor who had gotten the short stick and, thus, holiday duty.

  “I’ve got the fire covered,” I told Henry, ignoring him. I handed him a picture of Sal, which I’d gotten from Mac’s sister before I left the scene.

  Henry waved it off. “We’re not publishing that until we’ve got it confirmed.”

  “Oh, Christ, Henry, you’ve got the story on a fucking platter. Take it.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve gone off half-cocked before. There’s no official ID on the body. Dick says no one will say it on the record.”

  Dick’s status had been growing with the departure of two more senior reporters in the past month. I’d hoped Marty would give him the education beat or social services. But Dick had a weird talent of stumbling onto a story, and it wasn’t always in the same place. So Marty and the other powers that be decided to give him more free rein to see what he could come up with.

  “Tom Behr said it on the record,” I said, keeping my temper down. “He says one and one always make two.”

  “You’ve been doing this long enough to know that isn’t always the case.”

  “I’ve got it from the cops, Henry. Can we just move on?”

  There was more to my relationship with Henry than I’m saying. Several years ago, when the paper was still owned by a family that liked Christmas parties and didn’t think them a drain on the profits, and after many trips to the holiday punch bowl, Henry and I found ourselves in the then publisher’s office, locking lips. We were young and stupid and still embarrassed about it because we didn’t like each other then much more than we liked each other now. Thus, our rather tense relationship.

  I pulled off my coat and stormed over to my desk. The red light was blinking on my phone, and when I checked the message, my mother’s voice echoed through my ear.

  “I heard about Prego. I’ll call Mac this afternoon. And I’ll save some leftovers for you, in case you want to stop by after work.”

  I didn’t think I’d have time to stop by. I glanced at the clock. It was 10:00 A.M., plenty of time to find something to do later on. Like watch Survivor. It was stupid, but those people made me look interesting.

  Dick hopped over to my desk. Really.

  “I typed up the comments from the neighbors,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “You know, you were really nice to those people out there.”

  I sighed. “Listen, Dick, I grew up with those people. Why wouldn’t I be nice?”

  He shrugged, smoothing his flyaway hair with his hand. “You’re not nice to anyone.”

  My phone rang, and I was glad for the interruption. “Newsroom.”

  “Annie, I just heard. What’s the official word?” My dad’s deep baritone rumbled soothingly into my ear, and he sounded as if he were in the next room rather than across the country. I forgot that I’d been angry as I closed my eyes and let his voice wash over me, relaxing me, sort of like my own personal, nonprescription Xanax.

  I told him everything I knew, which wasn’t very much. “It’s not going to be much of a holiday for Mac,” I said.

  He was quiet for minute. It had been half a year since I’d seen him, and every time he called, it reminded me how much I m
issed him. I knew through the grapevine that he was a real bastard to work for, which was one reason I kept turning down his offer of a PR job at his casino. I didn’t want to have my bubble burst. Even though he wasn’t my biological father, he was the only father I’d ever known.

  “There won’t be an autopsy until at least tomorrow, maybe even Monday,” I continued. “And they have to do that before they release the body to the funeral home.”

  My father made a snorting noise. “Christ, can’t they leave the old man alone? Why do they have to cut him up?”

  “They need an official cause of death.” I didn’t want to tell him about the roof caving in and the possible destruction of what was left of Sal, but I knew he’d find out anyway, and better it came from me.

  “Fuck,” he said softly when I finished.

  My colorful language runs in the family. “My thoughts exactly,” I said.

  “Keep me posted, okay?”

  I knew he’d hear from more people than me. He’d probably gotten fifteen phone calls since the fire this morning. “Sure.”

  “How’s your mother?”

  “Still dating my boss.”

  He chuckled. “Think she’s doing it to piss you off?”

  “It crossed my mind. Of course, she’d never admit it.”

  “Have you seen Vinny?”

  He’d asked me this same question every time we talked, but this time, now that I knew Vinny’s relationship with Mac, its meaning was different. “Yeah, he was there this morning.”

  “Doing okay? His mom’s okay?”

  “Guess he’s okay, can’t say about her.” I’d met Vinny’s mother only once. “First time I see Vinny in two months and I fell on my ass in the snow right in front of him.”

  My father’s big laugh resonated over the phone line. “I guess he’s still with the fiancée?”

  “Yeah. She was there, too.”

  “Give him a little more time. He’s a good kid.”