Chapter 12: The Overpass

I read it in the back of the car with the bodyguard watching me in the mirror.

Nine typed pages. A transcript.

At the top, a date two years ago. A garage in Cranston.

A mechanic talking, and a man asking questions.

The mechanic said he'd been paid to cut a brake line on a black car.

He said it was the don's car.

He said the men who paid him were Ruggeri men. The don's own driver. The don's own cousin.

He said they'd told him the don wanted his wife gone.

I read that line three times.

Then I closed the envelope and held it in my lap the whole way home.

Valerio was in the kitchen with Tito, building a cardboard house for Lawyer to live in until Sunday.

He saw my face and stopped smiling.

"Paola," he said. "Take him to the park."

"I want to finish the roof," Tito said.

"Aunt Paola's great at roofs."

"She's terrible at roofs," Tito said, but he went.

I put the envelope on the long table.

Valerio looked at it and didn't touch it.

"You went to the bakery," he said.

"I went to show her my chart. She gave me this."

"Alone."

"With your bodyguard in the car. Read it."

He didn't need to.

"I know what it says," he said. "I know what she thinks it says."

"Then tell me what it really says."

He sat down at the head of the table.

For a long time he looked at the scars on his own knuckles.

"Two years ago, in March," he said, "Tito had an ear infection. Screaming all night. We were out of the pink medicine."

He spoke slowly.

"Her car was blocked in the driveway. Mine wasn't. She took my keys off the hook and said she'd be back in twenty minutes."

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