Chapter 3 - LOCKER 214
“Not tomorrow.”
Maggie grabbed her coat.
Vincent looked at the clock.
“It’s almost four.”
“Fulton closes at six.”
“You just told me to get out.”
“I changed my mind.”
“That quickly?”
“No. I still want you out. You’re driving me to Fulton first.”
For the first time since arriving, Vincent smiled.
“Understood.”
Twenty minutes later, Maggie sat in the passenger seat of a black SUV that smelled like leather and cedar.
“You actually drive yourself?”
Vincent glanced at her.
“Were you expecting henchmen?”
“I was expecting at least one emotionally repressed man named Sal.”
“Sal works Tuesdays.”
Maggie turned toward the window before he could see her laugh.
Fulton Flower Market occupied an old brick building west of the river.
Maggie had bought wholesale flowers there since she was sixteen.
The basement level contained storage cages vendors rented by the month.
Locker 214 was at the end of a narrow corridor.
Maggie slid the brass key inside.
It turned.
Neither of them moved.
“You open it,” Vincent said.
“Why me?”
“Your father’s key.”
“Your family’s disaster.”
“Fair.”
Maggie pulled the metal door open.
Inside sat a dented green toolbox.
Nothing else.
She lifted it onto the floor.
The latch resisted before finally releasing.
Inside were ordinary things.
A dried black fountain pen.
A rosary.
Several carbon-copy receipts.
A child’s drawing folded into quarters.
And a small ledger wrapped in wax paper.
Vincent picked up the rosary.
His expression changed.
“I know this.”
Maggie looked over.
“How?”
“My father carried one exactly like it.”
A small silver medal hung from the beads.
Saint Joseph.
One side was scratched.
D.M.
Dominic Moretti.
Maggie sat back on her heels.
“Why would my father have your father’s rosary?”
“I don’t know.”
She opened the ledger.
At the top of the first page:
MORETTI COMMUNITY TRUST — SPECIAL DISBURSEMENTS.
Below were eleven names.
Amounts ranging from twenty thousand to sixty-five thousand dollars.
All dated within two months of the Halsted Warehouse fire in 1999.
Maggie frowned.
“I remember that fire.”
Everyone in Chicago over forty remembered it.
Three workers had died.
Seven more had been injured.
Moretti Industrial Storage had owned the building.
Vincent slowly sat beside her.
“The company settlement came later.”
“These payments were earlier.”
He took the ledger.
“Total it.”
Maggie did.
Her pulse quickened.
“Four hundred thousand.”
The exact amount Patrick Sullivan had supposedly stolen.
Vincent stared at the names.
“These are families of the workers.”
Maggie looked at him.
“My father didn’t steal the money.”
“No.”
“He gave it to them.”
“Someone did.”
At the bottom of every page appeared two initials.
P.S.
And D.M.
Patrick Sullivan.
Dominic Moretti.
Answer one.
Another question opened immediately.
“If your father authorized these payments,” Maggie asked, “why accuse mine?”
Vincent did not answer.
He unfolded the child’s drawing.
His face went pale.
“What?”
He held it out.
Crayon figures stood beside a black car.
One figure wore a long coat.
Another appeared to be lying near the curb.
Above them, in uneven child handwriting:
UNCLE CARLO TOOK DAD’S CAR.
Maggie looked up.
Vincent had stopped blinking.
“You wrote this.”
“Yes.”
“How old were you?”
“Eleven.”
“The same year my father died.”
“Yes.”
“What do you remember?”
“Nothing.”
She waited.
Vincent pressed both hands against his face.
“I remember drawing constantly after my mother got sick. Cars. Buildings. People. But not this.”
On the reverse was another sentence.
MR. SULLIVAN SAID KEEP IT SAFE.
Maggie’s throat tightened.
“My father saw this drawing.”
“Apparently.”
A woman’s voice came from behind them.
“You need to put that back.”
They turned.
Teresa Moretti stood at the end of the corridor.
Vincent rose.
“Aunt Teresa.”
She looked smaller than Maggie expected.
Late sixties. Gray hair. Dark coat. No bodyguards.
Her eyes moved from the ledger to the rosary.
“Evelyn should have burned that box.”
Maggie stood.
“You knew?”
Teresa ignored her.
“Vincent, take those things and go home.”
“Did Uncle Carlo take Dad’s car the night Patrick Sullivan died?”
Teresa closed her eyes.
It was answer enough.
Vincent stepped toward her.
“Tell me.”
“You were a child.”
“I’m not anymore.”
“Sometimes I wish you were.”
Maggie held up the ledger.
“My father spent twenty-seven years being remembered as a thief.”
Teresa finally looked at her.
Her eyes softened.
“You’re Margaret.”
“Nobody calls me that.”
“Your father did.”
Maggie’s chest tightened.
“You knew him.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He brought your mother flowers every Friday. Even when he was angry with her. Especially when he was angry with her.”
That small, ordinary detail hurt more than Maggie expected.
Teresa looked at Vincent.
“Your father loved Patrick Sullivan like a brother.”
“Then why destroy him?”
“Because Dominic was weak when it mattered.”
Vincent flinched.
Teresa continued.
“The warehouse fire should have closed the company. Carlo had delayed repairs. Dominic knew some of it. Patrick discovered how bad it was.”
Maggie’s voice sharpened.
“People died.”
“Yes.”
“Because Carlo ignored safety warnings?”
Teresa looked away.
“Yes.”
Vincent picked up the ledger.
“And the money?”
“Dominic told Patrick to pay the families quietly from the community trust before the lawyers took control.”
“So Patrick took the blame.”
“Not at first.”
Teresa’s voice trembled.
“He was going to tell the truth.”
The corridor suddenly seemed colder.
“What happened?” Maggie asked.
Teresa stared at the black car in the child’s drawing.
“Patrick arranged to meet Dominic near Ashland that night.”
“At 8:42,” Maggie said.
Teresa nodded.
“But Dominic never arrived.”
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“Because Carlo took his car.”
Teresa looked at him.
“Yes.”
Maggie stepped closer.
“Did Carlo kill my father?”
Teresa shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s all I know.”
Vincent held up the drawing.
“You knew enough to follow us here.”
Teresa’s eyes filled.
“I came because Evelyn called me this morning.”
“So you’ve been protecting Carlo.”
“No.”
She looked directly at Maggie.
“I’ve been protecting Vincent.”
Maggie frowned.
Teresa turned back to her nephew.
“There’s something else you need to understand.”
Vincent waited.
Teresa swallowed.
“The police didn’t believe Patrick was hit by Carlo’s car.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They matched paint fragments.”
Her voice nearly broke.
“The car that struck Patrick belonged to Dominic.”
Vincent’s expression emptied.
May you like
Teresa whispered the rest.
“And when it came back to the house that night, your father was driving it.”
