Chapter 5 - THE MAN BESIDE ANTHONY
Celeste took us to a storage unit in Quincy.
Adrian did not trust her.
I did not trust her.
My mother definitely did not trust her.
But nobody argued about going.
By sunrise, trust had become a luxury none of us could afford.
Celeste rode in the second vehicle with two security officers.
She had voluntarily surrendered her phone.
She had not been handcuffed.
Adrian said that would change the second she tried anything.
I believed him.
The storage unit had belonged to Celeste’s mother, Evelyn Ward.
Inside were old furniture, winter coats, boxes of Christmas decorations, and twenty years of things a family had been unable to throw away after losing someone.
It did not look like a villain’s vault.
It looked like grief.
That made everything harder.
Celeste opened a plastic container labeled DAD.
Inside were newspaper clippings.
Letters.
Receipts.
A child’s drawing.
I picked it up.
A little girl had drawn three people holding hands beside blue water.
MOM.
DAD.
ME.
Celeste saw me looking at it.
“I was seven.”
The stick-figure father had a huge smile.
No monster.
No criminal mastermind.
Just somebody’s dad.
Celeste took the drawing gently and put it back.
“My father became obsessed with proving Joseph had framed him. By the time I was twelve, every dinner became about Romano.”
Adrian leaned against the storage wall.
“And when did you become obsessed?”
“When I watched him die without anyone believing him.”
That answer was honest enough to hurt.
She removed an envelope from beneath the clippings.
Two photographs.
The first was the one we had already seen.
Anthony.
Joseph.
Daniel.
Eleanor.
Pier Nine.
The second had been taken later.
Anthony was standing beside a black sedan.
Alive.
The time stamp showed 11:38 p.m.
Hours after my mother had last seen him.
Beside Anthony stood Daniel Ward.
They were shaking hands.
My mother whispered:
“No.”
Celeste looked at her.
“They were working together.”
“Anthony hated Daniel.”
“According to Joseph.”
“My boyfriend told me.”
“And maybe he had a reason to lie.”
I stared at the photograph.
Anthony’s face was clear.
My father.
A man I had spent twenty-nine years imagining as a blank shape now existed in two dimensions.
Dark hair.
Deep-set eyes.
A crooked smile even when serious.
I had his chin.
That realization struck harder than I expected.
Adrian noticed me staring.
“You look like him.”
I swallowed.
“Did you know him?”
“A little. I was eleven when he disappeared.”
“What was he like?”
Adrian thought before answering.
“Loud.”
My mother laughed through her tears.
“Yes.”
“He argued with everybody.”
“Yes.”
“He gave me fifty dollars once and told me not to tell my father.”
“What did you buy?”
“A baseball glove.”
“Did Joseph find out?”
“He found out everything.”
The softness vanished.
We all felt it.
Joseph Romano had been dead for six years.
Yet somehow he still controlled the room.
Celeste pulled out another item.
A folded newspaper dated April 21, 1997.
LOCAL CONTRACTOR DANIEL WARD QUESTIONED IN WATERFRONT FRAUD INVESTIGATION.
Four days after Anthony disappeared.
“My father was blamed for missing funds,” Celeste said.
“Were funds missing?” Adrian asked.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Eight million.”
“In 1997?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not a bookkeeping mistake.”
“No.”
“Did your father take it?”
Celeste looked at him.
“No.”
My mother said quietly:
“Anthony did.”
All eyes turned to her.
“What?” I asked.
She closed her eyes.
“The night before he disappeared, Anthony told me he had moved money.”
Celeste’s face went hard.
“My father spent the rest of his life accused of stealing it.”
“I didn’t know Daniel would be blamed.”
“You knew someone would.”
“Anthony said the money belonged to people Joseph had cheated.”
“Where did it go?”
“I don’t know.”
Celeste laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
My mother flinched.
I stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Celeste stared at me.
“That money destroyed my family.”
“And apparently mine too.”
That silenced her.
Adrian picked up the photograph.
“Anthony and Daniel were working together. Anthony moved money. Father blamed Daniel. That explains the fraud case.”
“Not the blood,” I said.
“No.”
“Not Anthony disappearing.”
“No.”
“Not Eleanor bringing Mom a watch Daniel supposedly had.”
“No.”
Answer one.
Open two.
Margaret had arrived with Eleanor in another car.
Against every reasonable suggestion.
When Eleanor saw the second photograph, she sat down.
“You knew,” Adrian said.
She didn’t deny it.
“Anthony and Daniel planned to expose Joseph.”
Celeste looked at her.
“My father was telling the truth.”
“Yes.”
The word nearly broke Celeste.
She turned away quickly.
Twenty years of rage suddenly had a foundation.
Her father had not imagined everything.
He had not been innocent of every choice.
But on this?
He had been telling the truth.
Adrian asked:
“What happened that night?”
Eleanor looked at my mother.
Then at me.
“Anthony found proof that Joseph had been siphoning union pension money through Pier Nine.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“Jesus.”
“Daniel agreed to take the evidence to federal investigators.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Because Joseph found out.”
“How?”
Eleanor’s eyes moved toward Margaret.
Margaret shook her head.
“Don’t protect me.”
Adrian stared.
“Margaret?”
She looked older than she had the night before.
“I told Joseph.”
Celeste stepped forward.
“You?”
“I thought Anthony was going to get himself killed.”
“So you betrayed him?”
“I tried to stop him.”
My mother’s voice cracked.
“You told Joseph where he was?”
Margaret began crying.
“Yes.”
Reversal.
The woman we had considered one of the victims had helped trigger the disaster.
“I was thirty-four,” Margaret whispered. “I had worked for your family since I was seventeen. Joseph had given my brother a job. Paid for my mother’s surgery. I believed loyalty meant obedience.”
Adrian looked sick.
“What happened?”
“Joseph went to Pier Nine.”
“And you?”
“I called Eleanor.”
Eleanor continued.
“I arrived twenty minutes later.”
“The blood?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“Anthony’s.”
My mother made a small sound.
I grabbed her hand.
“Was he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Was he shot?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
Eleanor hesitated.
Celeste stepped closer.
“Say it.”
Eleanor looked at Adrian.
“Your father hit him.”
“With what?”
“A tire iron.”
My stomach turned.
“Once?”
“No.”
My mother closed her eyes.
Adrian stared at the concrete floor.
Something inside him changed.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
The way a son’s understanding of his father dies.
“Did Joseph kill him?” he asked.
Eleanor whispered:
“I thought he had.”
Thought.
Not knew.
There it was.
“Anthony was still breathing when Daniel helped put him in the car,” she said.
Celeste froze.
“My father helped him?”
“Yes.”
“Where did they go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I followed Joseph.”
“Why?”
“Because he had Adrian in the car.”
Adrian looked up sharply.
“What?”
Eleanor began to shake.
“You were eleven. Your father had brought you to the pier.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“He made sure you wouldn’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“He told you Anthony had attacked him. Told you the blood was his.”
Fragments moved behind Adrian’s eyes.
Old memory.
Broken pieces.
“I remember sitting in a car.”
Eleanor nodded.
“You saw more than anyone realized.”
Adrian rubbed his face.
I had never seen him afraid of his own memories before.
Celeste asked:
“Where did Anthony go?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I never saw him again.”
My mother whispered:
“Then why did you tell me he wasn’t coming home?”
“Because Joseph came to me afterward.”
“What did he say?”
“That Anthony had chosen his side.”
“What side?”
“The side against the family.”
Adrian laughed without humor.
“That sounds like him.”
Eleanor continued.
“Joseph told me Anthony would never be allowed near Boston again.”
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
I looked at the photograph again.
Anthony beside Daniel.
Alive.
11:38 p.m.
“What time did Joseph attack him?”
Eleanor answered.
“Just after nine.”
That meant the photograph was taken more than two hours later.
My father had survived the beating.
Maybe survived the night.
Celeste pulled one final envelope from the box.
“I found this after my mother died.”
Inside was another ferry ticket.
Same route as my mother’s.
But dated April 20.
Three days after Anthony vanished.
On the back, someone had written an address.
Provincetown.
My mother stared.
“That was where we were supposed to go.”
Celeste nodded.
“My mother went there.”
“Why?”
“She was looking for my father.”
“Daniel?”
“He disappeared for nine days after Anthony did.”
Adrian frowned.
“Where was he?”
“I never knew.”
Eleanor suddenly reached for the photograph.
“Let me see the car.”
Celeste handed it to her.
Eleanor stared at the black sedan.
Then whispered:
“Oh my God.”
“What?”
“That wasn’t Daniel’s car.”
“Whose was it?”
Eleanor turned the photograph over as if hoping she was wrong.
Then she looked at Adrian.
“It belonged to your father.”
Silence.
Joseph’s car.
Anthony and Daniel standing beside it.
Hours after Joseph nearly killed Anthony.
My mother whispered:
“Why would Joseph give them his car?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“He wouldn’t.”
Adrian stared at the photo.
Then his face changed.
“I remember this car.”
“What about it?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“I was inside it that night.”
My skin went cold.
“You said you barely remember.”
“I remember something now.”
“What?”
His voice was almost inaudible.
“Someone opened the back door.”
He looked at the photograph again.
“It was Uncle Anthony.”
My mother grabbed the table.
Adrian continued.
“He leaned inside.”
“What did he say?”
Adrian went completely still.
Then he remembered.
“He said, ‘Tell my little girl I tried.’”
My mother broke down.
And Adrian looked at me with horror.
“Rachel…”
May you like
“What?”
“I think I was the last Romano to see your father alive.”
