Chapter 5 - THE VOICE BEHIND THE FERRY WINDOWS
I had never seen Luca Moretti afraid of a telephone call until the morning Detective Park asked him to come to the police station.
He stood by the kitchen window holding his phone with both hands. Beyond him, the Moretti garden was brilliant with autumn sunlight. Inside, he had turned the color of the marble counters.
"They found Priya's car," he told me. "They found blood in the passenger seat. They don't know whose."
"Did they find Lucia?"
"No."
He lowered the phone. "Park wants me to bring any letters from Lucia and a list of people who had access to the records in my mother's garden."
I watched him struggle to put on his coat. He fastened one button incorrectly, then unfastened it and began again. It struck me that grief was making his hands as unsteady as Rosie's had been over her soup.
"Let Marco drive," I suggested.
"I can drive."
"I didn't ask whether you could."
He looked at me, and something in his expression softened. "All right."
I spent the morning at home with my mother. She lived in a small second-floor apartment above a tailor's shop and had a habit of making tea even when there was no milk in the refrigerator. The bandage on my hand made it difficult to carry her laundry, so I let her put the kettle on while I sat at the table.
"You're exhausted," she said.
"I know."
"Is that little girl still at the mansion?"
"For now. The authorities are working with her uncle to decide what happens next."
My mother set a mug before me. "You always wanted to rescue everybody when you were little. Do you remember bringing home that bird with the broken wing?"
"It pecked me for two days."
"And you cried when the wildlife volunteer took it away."
"I thought it wouldn't remember me."
She sat opposite me. "You don't have to be the only person a frightened child remembers. You can help make sure there are enough good people around her."
I studied the bruise reflected in the dark tea. It had begun to yellow at the edges, but the first days' tenderness remained.
"I used to think if I kept my head down at work, I could protect us," I admitted. "Vanessa knew about your rent, your medications, everything. She made me feel as though the apartment would disappear if I argued with her."
"Honey, we have lived in smaller places than this one," my mother said. "We could live in one again. I would rather have you safe."
I looked up sharply. "You shouldn't have to lose your home because someone hurt me."
"I agree. But that isn't the same as saying you should endure it."
Her words followed me back to the mansion that afternoon.
In the library, Luca had spread documents across a large table. Detective Park had permitted his counsel to receive copies of certain verified records, but investigators retained the originals. Luca's attorney, a woman named Judith Vale, was explaining the difference between what looked suspicious and what could actually be proven.
"A document bearing a forged signature doesn't identify its author by itself," she said. "We need the account history, the underlying requests, and testimony from whoever handled it. Similarly, Northlake owning Alder House doesn't mean every employee there knew about the plan."
"Rosie knows someone called Vanessa came to see her," Luca said.
"Yes. That is an important lead, and detectives will test it independently."
She looked toward me. "Emma, we may need your account of the bakery incident again, but it should be with investigators. Please don't put yourself in contact with anyone involved."
"I won't," I said.
I'd learned something about fear over the past two days. It could make you feel as though you had to run toward every danger or lose whatever mattered. Sometimes refusing to be drawn out was the more difficult choice.
Luca showed us another record. It was a certified extract from the foundation formed after the warehouse fire. The fund had been created to relocate families displaced by the disaster and provide continuing housing assistance. Over the following years, much of its money had gone to consulting businesses associated with the Bellinis. Some entries appeared to list families who had never received support. Others referred to units in buildings that had been condemned.
"Lucia was auditing this foundation before the fire," Luca said. "That's why she went to the warehouse that night."
Judith nodded. "Priya Shah had also requested the original beneficiary register. It's the document most likely to distinguish legitimate assistance from invented transactions."
"Where was it kept?" I asked.
"The original was apparently held in a storage office at the ferry terminal. That office belongs to a successor company controlled by Bellini partners."
I remembered Mrs. Leone describing Mara Ward with a little notebook and a rose on its cover. "What if Lucia had a copy?"
"We're looking for it," Judith said. "But we can't assume every personal notebook is an official record."
A knock came from the door. Marco entered with a silver-haired woman carrying a leather satchel. He introduced her as Ada Foster, a former administrative clerk who had handled some of the foundation's documents before she retired.
"I came because I heard the name Lucia Moretti on the news," Ada said. "I don't want another person blamed for what happened in that warehouse."
Luca offered her a chair. She remained standing.
"I was there the morning after the fire," Ada said. "Victor Bellini told us to make duplicate inventories of everything recovered from the site. He said the originals might be needed for insurance. Later, some of the inventories vanished."
"What did you see?" Luca asked.
"Two women were reported missing. Lucia and a bookkeeper, Clara Voss. But I saw an ambulance transfer record bearing Clara's identifying number. There was a mix-up in the disaster response. When I raised it, my supervisor told me the private physician had already confirmed the identity of the recovered body."
The room went still.
"Are you saying my sister wasn't the person buried?"
"I'm saying the identification should have been questioned," Ada replied. "I cannot tell you who was buried. I never saw the remains. But I kept a copy of the inventory because it bothered me."
She opened her satchel and removed a yellowed sheet of paper. The handwriting was meticulous. Two names, two identification numbers, and a note about a bracelet recovered near the east loading bay.
Lucia Moretti's name had been crossed out. Clara Voss's was written beneath it.
Luca stared at the page. "Why didn't you come forward then?"
Ada's eyes filled. "I tried. The police report took my statement. Nothing came of it. Then somebody called my daughter and told her I was bringing trouble into the house. I was raising two grandchildren. I stopped calling."
I recognized the shape of the story. Poverty and responsibility had been used to make her silence look voluntary.
Judith asked Ada for the names of the supervisors who had handled the inventory. Ada provided them, then signed a consent to share her account with detectives. She did not demand that Luca believe her. She only wanted the missing page placed beside the official file, where it had always belonged.
When she left, Luca stood at the window for a long time.
"I buried a stranger," he said.
"You buried the person they told you was your sister," I answered.
"That doesn't make it right."
"No. But it means someone else may have been denied her own name."
He turned slowly. "Clara Voss had family. We need to find them."
It was the first time he'd spoken about the unidentified woman as anything but evidence. I was glad.
That evening, Mrs. Carter served Rosie roasted chicken and mashed potatoes. Luca sat with us in the smaller dining room. He had a photograph of his sister tucked into the inner pocket of his sweater, though I don't think he realized I could see its edge.
"Uncle Lu," Rosie said, "did Mama live here when she was little?"
"Yes. Her room was next to mine. She used to steal my books."
"Does it still look the same?"
He hesitated. "Not exactly. But some of her drawings are still in a box. Would you like to see them someday?"
"Maybe tomorrow," she said. "If Mama comes."
Luca nodded. "If she comes. And if she doesn't, we can look another day."
I knew how difficult that answer was for him. He refused to promise a reunion he couldn't guarantee. Rosie watched his face and appeared to decide she believed him anyway.
Halfway through dessert, Detective Park called. Luca stepped into the hall. I heard him ask two questions, then go completely silent.
When he returned, he crouched beside Rosie.
"Sweetheart, the police have found someone who may know where your mother is. I don't know more yet."
Rosie clutched her spoon. "Is Mama hurt?"
"I don't know. We're asking people who can help her."
After she'd gone upstairs, he told me the rest.
Priya Shah had managed to call from a public telephone near the ferry terminal before disappearing again. A witness remembered a woman with a bandaged arm standing beside her. The witness had heard Priya say that the records were being sent to the state investigator, and that they could not return by the road they'd used.
"She was alive as of yesterday afternoon," Luca said. "So was the woman with her, probably Lucia."
"Did the witness hear where they went?"
"No. But she mentioned a name. Saint Brigid's."
I knew that name. It belonged to a small community medical clinic on the south side, the kind of place where people arrived late at night when they had nowhere else to go.
For the first time, I could imagine Lucia as more than a ghost in an old photograph: living, frightened, injured perhaps, and moving from one shelter to another while her daughter waited for her beneath our roof.
May you like
Luca had already called Detective Park back with the address.
All we could do now was hope the clinic had kept her safe.
