Page 64 of A Matter of Pedigree
“That’s right,” said Polly, opening the door and giving a clear signal that it was time for them to leave.
“Here’s my card,” said the cop, pulling a black leather case out of his pocket. “In case you reconsider.” Carole didn’t reach for it, so he placed it on the coffee table.
“Management will be getting in touch with you,” said Barry, sounding like a teacher warning about a visit to the principal or a call to the parents.
Not getting any response from Carole, the two turned and made their way to the door. There they paused, and the cop turned and, cap in hand, said, “Have a nice day.”
Carole’s jaw dropped, thinking it was rather inappropriate advice, considering the circumstances.
Polly shut the door behind them. “America has gotten very strange,” she said, and for once, Carole had to agree with her mother.
They had the lemon chicken for dinner; it hadn’t been damaged and neither had the pasta salad or, thank heaven, the cannoli. Carole made Frank drink a double Dewar’s before she told him about the attack, and it had the desired effect. He declared he was going to bust some heads and find out who was behind the attack, but agreed to wait until after he’d eaten. By then, he was a lot calmer, and she told him her idea that maybe the attack, and even Hosea’s murder, had something to do with the Factory job.
“After all,” she reminded him. “He was killed at the Factory, not at Prospect Place. Something’s going on there, I’m sure of it. First there was the fire, and now this attack on me. They’re both warnings.”
Frank helped himself to a second cannoli, pistachio dipped in chocolate, his favorite, and Carole refilled his coffee cup. “I don’t think so,” he said, before biting off half the cannoli. “Everything was fair and square with that job. Old Hosea, you gotta give him credit, he was a stickler for doing everything according to the book. The bids were sealed; there were no kickbacks, nothing like that. The low bidders got the jobs, and as it worked out, just about everybody got a piece of the pie. Nobody had any cause to complain.”
“But some pieces of the pie were bigger than others, no?” asked Polly.
“Yeah,” said Carole. “And no offense here, but you know that honest and aboveboard is a concept that a lot of people don’t agree with. Maybe that’s why Hosea was killed.”
“For being honest?”
Carole and Polly nodded.
“Now you’re making me lose my faith in humanity,” said Frank, pushing his chair back from the table. Carole expected him to settle down on the recliner to watch the sports network, but instead he went into the den. She followed him, surprised to see him seat himself at the desk and open a folder.
“Everything okay?” she asked, worried that there was a new development in the case against him. “Did the DA come up with new evidence or something?”
“Nah.” He smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Vince is on the job. No, this is about the fire; the insurance adjuster has some questions about the value we’re claiming for lost material.”
“Lost material?”
“Yeah. Pipe and stuff that got damaged in the fire. He says what we’re claiming is too high based on the recovered debris, something like that.”
Carole thought guiltily of Big Frank’s offcuts and decided some things were better left unsaid. “That’s what insurance companies do, right?”
Frank chuckled. “Yeah, babe. That’s what they do. They like to collect the premiums, but they sure don’t like to pay the claims.”
Carole left Frank with his paperwork, and she and Polly cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher; the buzzer on the dryer sounded, and Polly went to unload and fold the clothes. Left to her own devices, Carole wandered over to her favorite window and looked out at the view. The Coca-Cola sign was a swirl of red neon; the river gleamed in the dark, reflecting the glow of the streetlamps; the houses and restaurants on Federal Hill were all alight. And just beyond the bridge, in the shadows, lay the Factory.
As she looked out, something Mitch Chase had said that day at the hospital popped into her mind. Something about there being plenty of misery to go around. At the time, she’d just thought he was referring to the inevitable delays caused by Hosea’s death and the fire. But what if he’d meant something else? And now the insurance company was questioning their claims. What if the company demanded an investigation of their accounts. Was everything as aboveboard as Frank claimed?
Come to think of it, she didn’t like the way Frank had dismissed her suspicions about the Factory. He’d been awfully quick to tell her she was on the wrong track, but how did he know? What did he know? What was he keeping from her? She could see his reflection in the window, sitting there at his desk. He wasn’t studying the paperwork; he was just sitting there, staring at nothing. That wasn’t like him; his attitude was all wrong. He wasn’t the kind of guy who sat around doing nothing; something was bugging him, and she didn’t think it was the insurance company. Was it because of the attack? Did he think she was lying about not being raped; did he think she was spoiled goods?
No, she decided, she was being paranoid. Frank knew she’d be a lot more upset if that creep had succeeded in raping her. And then he surprised her, the old fox, by suddenly heaving himself out of his chair and coming to her, slipping his arms around her waist and nuzzling her neck. “Are you really okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, placing her hands over his. “It was scary, but he got the worst of it. Even the cannoli were okay.”
“You gotta take care of yourself; you gotta do it for me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
This wasn’t like Frank, not at all, and Carole was touched. She felt tears stinging her eyes, and she gave his hands a squeeze.
“Well,” he said, releasing her, “I guess I’ll take the dog out.”
Talk about out of character, thought Carole, who couldn’t remember a single time when Frank had volunteered to walk the dog.
While he was gone, Carole gave Gary Strazullo a call. “Do me a favor,” she said, “and check out Chase and Mooney. I think they may be up to something over at the Factory.”
