Chapter 3 - The Man Who Ate at Their Table
Matteo Vieri walked into the Moretti dining room carrying a pastry box. He was sixty-two, silver-haired, softly spoken, and dressed like a retired professor. Norah had expected the man accused of burning three people alive to look extraordinary. Instead, he looked like someone who might apologize when he bumped your grocery cart.
“Cannoli,” he said, setting the box down. “Your mother always said breakfast was for people who had given up on pleasure.”
Dominic did not take the offered pastry. “Why are you here?”
“The accounts are a mess. Something has triggered an inquiry into the old harbor properties.” Matteo glanced at Norah. “You must be the new nurse.”
“Norah Gallagher.”
For one fraction of a second his smile slipped. “Gallagher? Any relation to Elena Romano?”
“My grandmother.”
“Lovely woman.” Matteo recovered his expression. “I was sorry when I heard she'd passed.”
Norah didn't answer. Her grandmother had died four years ago. Matteo's condolences sounded rehearsed and terribly late.
Dominic shut the pastry box. “You can talk to me in the office. My father isn't seeing visitors.”
“He and I have been partners for thirty years. This concerns him.”
“He can decide that for himself.” Dominic moved the communication board toward Salvatore. “Do you want to see Matteo?”
Salvatore didn't hesitate. NO.
Matteo's eyes narrowed. “That's a new trick.”
“A communication tool,” Norah replied. “He's been making himself quite clear.”
“Has he?” Matteo asked, studying the old man's face. “How interesting.”
Salvatore trembled, but held Matteo's gaze. Norah noticed something she hadn't seen in his violent episodes. His fist wasn't raised. He was trying to keep it from shaking.
Dominic stepped between them. “Office. Now.”
The two men disappeared down the hall. Norah wheeled Salvatore back toward his room with his consent, taking the longer corridor because the housekeeper was polishing the main staircase. Near the family portraits, Salvatore seized the wheelchair rim, stopping her. He pointed toward a photograph of himself, Sofia, and Dominic as a boy. Sofia wore a blue scarf. Beneath the photograph sat a small brass plaque commemorating the opening of Pier 9's medical supply distribution center.
“Medical supplies?” Norah asked.
Salvatore pointed YES.
“Was that what the warehouse really handled?”
He pointed NO, then struggled toward the board: ALSO.
Norah waited while he spelled COUNTERFEIT. The last letters took so much effort that he broke into a sweat. She called for a rest and documented what he had communicated, aware that a single unsupported accusation would not settle a twenty-one-year-old case.
At noon, Aunt Mae called again. “I went through Grandma's storage cabinet. She kept an old answering machine in there. There are tapes.”
“Tapes of what?”
“I don't know. One has Sofia written across the label.”
Norah stood very still. “Please don't play it yet. Put it somewhere safe. I'm coming with somebody I trust.”
“You don't trust that house, do you?”
“No,” Norah said. “But I trust you.”
Downstairs, Dominic confronted Matteo across a massive desk. He had spent the morning asking for records on the Pier 9 fire, old insurance claims, and the current ownership of its holding companies. Matteo had responded with a thousand little evasions.
“The place was a warehouse,” Matteo said. “There is nothing worth excavating.”
“Three people died.”
“Your mother died,” Matteo corrected gently. “You were a boy. Don't let your father's confused memories reopen old wounds.”
Dominic placed a folder between them. It contained a list of deposits made through a shell company called North Quay Trading in the months before the fire. The amounts corresponded to shipments of pharmaceuticals listed at far below their usual market value. He had found the transactions that morning in his own archives.
“What was North Quay?”
“A distributor.”
“Of what?”
“Discount inventory. Your father made plenty of unfortunate decisions back then.”
“You signed every transfer.”
Matteo folded his hands. “Because he asked me to.”
“Then you won't mind giving my lawyer the books.”
The older man went quiet. Finally he smiled. “Your lawyer is already my lawyer.”
Dominic understood the warning. He also understood that he'd built an empire atop a foundation he had never personally inspected.
When Norah found him, he was standing in the hallway outside the office. She told him about the tapes. He immediately offered a driver. She refused to let his men take possession of anything her grandmother had kept. Eventually they agreed to go together with an independent attorney Norah selected from a legal referral service. Frank would accompany them only as a driver and for security, not as an investigator.
Before they could leave, Beth requested to speak privately with Norah. Her immaculate cardigan looked as though she'd slept in it.
“I didn't choose the medication,” Beth whispered. “Matteo brought it. He said Dr. Hayes had agreed.”
“Did you verify that?”
Beth shook her head. Tears pooled beneath her eyes. “My sister's boy got into trouble. Matteo paid for his attorney. Then he told me that if Salvatore ever became capable of signing documents again, there would be consequences for all of us.”
“You need your own lawyer,” Norah said. “And you need to tell the physician exactly what you administered. Every dose.”
“I could lose my license.”
“You could. Your patient could have died.”
Beth flinched. Norah was frightened too, but she wasn't going to trade patient safety for a comforting lie. She arranged for Beth's admission to be recorded in the clinical incident report, then contacted Dr. Shah.
That afternoon the trip to Mae's apartment began under a sky the color of dishwater. Frank drove; Dominic sat in front. Norah watched their route on her phone, checking that the car behind them was not keeping pace. It followed through two exits and a toll plaza. When Frank changed lanes, the black SUV changed lanes too.
“Is that one of yours?” she asked.
Frank looked in the mirror. “No.”
Dominic called his attorney. “We're diverting to a police station. Tell Mae not to answer her door.”
Before they reached the exit, the SUV accelerated alongside them. Its passenger lifted a phone to the window. The screen showed a live image of Aunt Mae standing in her kitchen.
A text arrived on Norah's phone: TURN AROUND OR SHE'S NEXT.
Norah's breath caught. She called Mae immediately. No answer. Again. Voicemail.
Dominic said something into his phone that Norah couldn't hear over the engine. Frank tightened his grip on the wheel. They drove straight to a staffed police station while the SUV vanished into traffic. Norah ran inside and explained the threat, her words coming too quickly until an officer asked her to begin again.
Then Mae finally answered.
“I'm alive,” she said. “A man rang the bell. I didn't open it. Honey, I think he knew about Grandma's tapes.”
Norah sank onto a plastic chair beneath the station's fluorescent lights. She had been threatened at home. Her aunt had been watched. The Morettis' past was no longer waiting politely in an old warehouse.
And when Mae whispered, “There's something else on the tape label,” Norah pressed the phone harder against her ear.
May you like
“What?”
“It's written in Grandma's handwriting: FOR DOMINIC, WHEN HE IS READY TO HEAR WHO HIS FATHER WAS.”
