Home Body, page 42
“That was good of him,” I said, and Maddie and David looked at me, as though they were looking for some hidden meaning.
Maddie looked away and David said, “Well, they were close, I guess.”
The door opened and a white-haired man signaled to Maddie. She smiled at him and said to Roxanne, “Well, would you like to come in and meet everyone, have coffee and biscotti or something?”
“You staying, Jack?” David said.
“No, I have work to do. I’m doing another story on Angel, actually. In fact, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to one or both of you about her. In an official capacity.”
“You do it, David,” Maddie blurted, so quickly she seemed to surprise herself, and added, “David knew her better than I did.”
Their eyes met, and there was an odd signal, a sign of understanding between them, and then it was gone and Maddie took Roxanne by the arm and David tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Sure, be glad to, Jack.”
I said I’d be back, looked to Maddie for some sense of how long the meeting might take. She said I should go do my work and then swing by the house when I was done. Roxanne could go home with her.
I looked at Roxanne and she didn’t object. She gave my hand a squeeze and, with Maddie Connelly beside her, walked to the door of the meeting room. The white-haired man held the door, heads turned from the tables, and the door swung shut.
I turned and David was watching me watch Roxanne. It was like he had some special interest in the way we interacted, and I felt for a moment that I was being spied upon. But then David gave me a touch on the shoulder, a big grin.
“Don’t worry,” he said, hustling me to the stairs. “Maddie’ll take very good care of her.”
15
k
David suggested we talk over a drink, or coffee. We took Roxanne’s car and cut across to Newbury Street, where gawkers moved slowly past the chichi shops and restaurants like sailors whose ship had just anchored in the harbor. David pointed to one restaurant he said I’d like if I was into Tuscany, and then we went another block and he pointed to a parking lot and I pulled into the back side of the Harvard Club and parked.
An attendant came out and said, “Hey, Mr. Connelly,” and David said, “Hey, Luis, man. How ’bout the Sox, baby. What’d I tell you? Is this the year or what?”
They low-fived on the way by and we went inside, through a labyrinth of corridors, and emerged in the big bar off the lobby. The bartender said, “Hi, Mr. Connelly. Been a while,” and David said, “Been up in Maine, Gregory. Clean living out on the boat. This is my good friend, Jack. Works for the New York Times, Gregory, so watch what you say. Jack, what do you think?”
I was thinking that he seemed curiously lighthearted for a guy who was about to talk about a murdered employee. Or was this just his public persona?
“A single-blend?” he said, and he ordered something, the name of which I didn’t catch. I said I’d just have a Sam Adams and the bartender moved away. I glanced around at the afternoon crowd, saw a couple of fiftyish women spot David and whisper and smile. The drinks came and David picked his up, handed me my beer, and said, “Let’s go somewhere quiet,” and I followed him through the foyer, where there was a portrait of his father that David breezed right by. He waved to the concierge and we went to the stairs and up. A left and a right and we were in a small sitting room that overlooked Comm. Ave. There was a black leather couch, a table with a cribbage board and cards. More portraits on the wall, all dour white men.
As though their mood were contagious, David turned somber.
“So,” I said, putting my notebook and tape recorder on the table.
“So,” he said. “I don’t know what I can add to what we’ve already said.”
“We were just talking, as—”
“Friends,” he said. “And this is on the record. You know, one of our lawyers wanted to issue a statement. I said, ‘Come on. I’m not a corporation. And this is a young woman who was just a guest in my home. So sorry, but I’m going to speak like a human being.’ ”
I hit the button on the recorder and picked up the pad.
“Okay. So how long did Angel work for the foundation?”
“I’m not sure. Tim would know. A year, maybe? Maybe more. Not two.”
“How often did you see her?”
“Oh, gee. Every week? At least to wave to. She was friendly, always had something to say. She wasn’t shy, which is sort of funny. Because she was sheltered, you’d expect her to be this wallflower, but it was like she had all this pent-up social energy.”
“And it all came bursting out?”
“Yeah, Very bubbly. Enthusiastic. Livened up the place, really.”
“Did she have friends there?”
“Well, there was Monica, of course. She knew everybody. Tim sort of took her under his wing, and Kathleen, too, when she first came to Sky Blue. What to wear in what situation, that sort of thing. There was a bit of Eliza Doolittle in her, but I wouldn’t want that in the paper. She didn’t know exactly what to wear to the BSO, to a luncheon thing at the Ritz.”
“You took her to that sort of thing?”
“Yeah, if a group was going, representing the foundation. We try to be pretty egalitarian about the perks, if you can call them that. I’d rather stay home, but some people like getting dressed, the whole scene.”
“What’s Maddie think of it?”
“Not much. We’re really of the same frame of mind. Rather be in Maine, given a choice. Or head out west, if it’s winter. I mean—and this is off the record, if you don’t mind—being in my family sometimes limits the conversations you have. Sometimes people just shake your hand and stare at you. It gets very old.”
“Back on the record.”
“Right.”
“So Angel left Blue Harbor Wednesday night.”
“Around seven.”
“Did she work Thursday?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I popped in Thursday morning to check on some things. I didn’t see her then.”
“When she left, was she in good spirits?”
He hesitated, as though trying to picture her.
“Yeah. Like I said, she had a nice time in Bar Harbor. She liked boats if they were surrounded by other boats. Some people are like that. But we had lunch, she and Monica and Tim went into some shops. I think she bought some sort of jewelry. But yeah, she was good. Just like when you saw her.”
“Did she make a lot of money at the foundation?”
“Well, I would guess she was paid fairly. It depends on what you call a lot. To tell you the truth, I really don’t know. We leave that for other people to manage.”
“I know, but the Audi. Buying jewelry. She had nice clothes.”
David shrugged, almost exaggeratedly. “Hey, she was single. She lived at home.”
“Where’s that?”
“Michelangelo Street, North End. I always kidded her about that.”
“You know her father’s name?”
“Yeah. I met him. It was Rocco. Well, I guess it still is. Nice guy, very old-fashioned Italian, salt-of-the-earth type. It was like, if you wanted to date Angel, you’d have to go to him for his permission or something. But don’t—”
“I won’t. Between us, did he lavish stuff on her?”
“I don’t know. It’s not like he was a person of means or anything, although North End real estate is through the roof. Just a hardworking middle-class family, seemed to me. But I mean, the Audi wasn’t new. Maddie says I’m oblivious to stuff like that. You know, whether somebody’s wearing a thirty-thousand-dollar dress or a three-hundred-dollar one. Show me their boat, on the other hand . . .”
He grinned. Tossed down the rest of his scotch. I sipped my beer and he looked at his watch. I looked, if he wouldn’t. It was a Rolex.
“I don’t know what else I can tell you, Jack. We’re very sorry about it. We liked her. We thought she had a great life in front of her. And this is tragic, and I hope to God they find who did it and put him away.”
“Or her,” I said.
He looked at me as he stood.
“Right,” David said. “So, is that enough?”
I felt like it would have to be. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You know where to find me, if you have more questions. But I’ve gotta get back for Maeve. She’s supposed to get home from play group at two.”
I stood and picked up the recorder, took a last swallow of my beer. We made our way back down and David waved to Gregory, said “Go Sox” to Luis. He was quiet on the ride back, directing me to Marlborough. At the comer of Exeter, he waved me over in front of a massive sandstone mansion. It was four stories, surrounded by a ten-foot-high stone wall. A gated drive led to an inner courtyard and carriage house. I’d just read something in the Globe about a two-thousand-square-foot condo in this neighborhood going for $750,000.
David picked my notebook up off the seat and scribbled a number.
“My cell,” he said, and he shut the door and waved, then patted his pockets. He produced a remote for the electronically controlled gate, hit the button, and a steel panel slid open. David turned back.
“Hey, Jack,” he said as I started to pull away. “When we gonna cut wood?”
He gave me the look, endearing as a little brother.
“Soon,” I said.
“Great,” David said. “Looking forward to it,” and for the life of me it seemed he really was. For the life of me, I was, too.
16
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The map showed Michelangelo Street off Charter, around the corner from the Old North Church and Paul Revere’s place. After a few wrong turns I found myself at the end of the street. There was a playground with a great view of the harbor, the Coast Guard station, the Charlestown piers. I pulled over and composed myself, knowing that knocking on the door at the home of a grieving family was nothing to breeze into. You had one shot. If you broke through, they poured their hearts out. If you didn’t, the door slammed in your face.
The street was lined with brick row houses with occasional trees and cars parked bumper to bumper like elephants in a circus parade. I made one run past and scoped out number twenty-eight. It was well kept but not gentrified like some of the neighbors, with their window boxes full of geraniums and security service stickers on the doors. There was a van parked out front with Rocco Moretti’s name painted on the sides. Below the name it said he did ceramic tile and marble, residential and commercial. I parked at the corner, wedging the car half in front of a hydrant, and walked back.
I went to the front door. It was open. Inside was a tiny foyer with four mailboxes and buzzers. Moretti was number one. I took a deep breath and pushed.
I waited. There was no answer. I put my finger on the button again just as the door was buzzed open.
I went inside. It was a narrow hallway and I smelled food, heard the chink of dishes. There were doors on the right and left. The door on the right clicked open and a woman’s voice said, “Did you see Davie coming? He should be—”
She poked her head out. Fifties. Dark hair and skin. She saw me and jerked back like an animal slipping back into its burrow. I heard voices inside and then it was quiet. A man stepped into the hall. Forty and handsome. Tight polo shirt and jeans. Chest puffed out under a gold chain. Eyes narrowed.
“Who are you?”
“Sir, my name’s Jack McMorrow. I’m a reporter for the New York Times. I’m here to ask you if you’ll talk to me about—”
“We already told the other people. No comment.”
He turned back toward the apartment.
“But if you have a second—I met Angel. In Maine at the Connellys’. I talked to her for quite a while. I’d like to include that in the story. She was very nice. I’d like to do a story that reflects that.”
Someone inside the apartment said something and the guy said, “It’s a reporter. New York Times. Says he met Angel in Maine.”
Someone said something in Italian and he turned hack.
“You knew Angel?” he said.
“We chatted that one time and that was it. I was at the Connellys’ on other business. Listen, I’m really very sorry for your loss. And I’m sorry to just barge in.”
He turned back to the room and relayed what I’d said. Three or four people answered, men and women, in English and Italian. I heard the words son of a bitch and something muttered in Italian. It did not sound like a welcome.
He turned back.
“You call tomorrow, sir.”
“Thank you, but I’m going to have to go back to Maine. And I’d rather do this in person. It’s not something to do over the phone.”
He looked at me, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
“Are you a relative?” I said.
“I’m Angel’s older brother,” he said, and then he stepped back inside and closed the door. I stood in the empty hallway and waited. Told myself that what I had said was true, even if it wasn’t the whole story. Could I do the story next week? Sure. Would the Globe or the Herald have it first? No doubt, and that wouldn’t do, but I couldn’t tell him that. It was the only thing about my profession I disliked: the subtle manipulation, the carefully tailored half-truths. But all for a good cause, I believed.
Most of the time.
The door opened. The brother poked his head out, said “Come in,” and then he went back inside and left me to follow.
I stepped into a room full of relatives, red-eyed and grim. The brother motioned to a place on the couch beside a woman in her forties, a tissue held up in front of her face like a burka. The brother said his name was Joey. His mother’s name was Maria Moretti. The father, Rocco, was a short wide man with massive hands folded on his lap. He sat to my right. Next to him was Georgie, another brother, who looked at me like I was a child molester. Filling out the room were aunts and uncles, several cousins, and a grandmother. The girl cousins looked like they’d been crying. The boy cousins looked like they wanted to fight. The grandmother was seated in an armchair with crocheted things on the arms. Her eyes were blank, her gnarled fingers worrying rosary beads. She looked at me and hissed in Italian.
Joey stood in front of me.
“What did she say?” I asked him.
“Non c’è rispetto per i morti. No respect for the dead.”
“Actually, I have a lot of respect,” I said, and I nodded toward the old woman. She glared back, dark eyes glowering.
“What you want to know?” Joey said.
“What Angel was like.”
“She was a great kid,” he said.
“The only girl?” I asked, beginning to write in my notebook.
“Angel was the baby,” her mother said suddenly, her voice faraway as if she were all alone, talking to herself. “A beautiful little girl. Never gave us a moment’s trouble, not like a lot of these kids today. Out taking drugs and standing on the corner and no respect for anything. Angel was a perfect lady.”
I glanced up at the brothers, a sister-in-law who was very pregnant. I thought I detected a flicker of something, an eyebrow raised.
“She won the Blessed Virgin Prize four times at Saint Anthony’s,” Mrs. Moretti said.
“Nobody’s ever won it four times,” her husband said, staring at his hands as though they belonged on someone else.
“A beautiful child,” Mrs. Moretti said.
She had a framed photograph on her lap, facedown. She tipped it up, bit her lip, and choked back tears. Turned the photograph toward me.
It was Angel Moretti at eighteen or so, a high school portrait? Dark, welcoming eyes. A full mouth turned upward in a gentle smile. Olive skin with a touch of pink on her cheeks. She was beautiful, but in her expression there was a hint of resignation. Had she known then that there was a bigger world out there?
“Do anything for anybody,” Rocco Moretti said. “You put that in your story. Give away her lunch if somebody was hungry. Remember when she did that? That new kid, didn’t have money or something? Angel gives the kid her goddamn lunch. That’s the kind of girl she was.”
“She was the one to take in the new girl, put her under her wing,” Maria Moretti said.
“What about her adult life?” I said.
The parents hesitated. Georgie stepped in. He said Angel went to Bunker Hill Community College for business, worked with computers and as a secretary.
“Administrative assistant,” the pregnant sister-in-law said. “They’re not called secretaries.”
“Different places,” her mother said. “She moved around a lot.”
“Around the country?”
She looked at me, horrified. “No, she didn’t leave Boston. Different jobs for an agency. They sent her to different places. And then she went to the Sky Blue place, the Connellys. She stayed there. They like her there.”
“I met her, you know.”
“That’s what Joey said,” Maria Moretti said. “Then you know what she was like. A beautiful girl. So sweet.”
“Yes, she was very nice.”
“You’re a friend of the Connellys?” the father said, a new wariness in his voice.
“No,” I said. “I’d just met them, too. They seem like good people.”
“Oh, yeah. Mr. Connelly. He treated Angel very well. She was going to the parties, the Boston Pops. She got me tickets to the Red Sox, right on the third-base line, right on the railing. She said Mr. Connelly said he wasn’t gonna use ’em, asked Angel if her dad was a Sox fan. He didn’t have to do that. He treated her good.”
“And Mr. Dalton, her boss?”
A dark flicker passed through the room, like the shadow of a bird. The parents looked at each other, and Rocco Moretti said, “Mr. Dalton, he—”
