Chapter 6 - THE MAN BESIDE THE HOOD
Roman did not touch his uncle this time.
That frightened Harper more.
“Why did you open the hood?”
Vittorio looked at Beatatrice.
“I was helping her.”
Roman laughed without humor.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
Vittorio pulled out a chair and sat.
“Because it’s true.”
Beatatrice was watching him carefully now.
Not angrily.
Searching.
Vittorio continued.
“Your father had started putting men outside the house whenever your mother went anywhere alone.”
Roman looked at Beatatrice.
She nodded.
“I thought one of the cars had a tracking transmitter.”
Harper frowned.
“In 2011?”
“Private security companies had been using crude vehicle trackers long before people started buying them online.”
He looked at Roman.
“I opened the hood because Salvatore’s men sometimes wired them near the battery.”
“And the ring?”
“Your father gave it to me that afternoon.”
“Why?”
Vittorio looked embarrassed.
“Because I was negotiating the Hudson concrete contract. He said I should look like a Moretti when I walked into the room.”
Roman stared at him.
“So Leo saw you beside the car.”
“Yes.”
“Before the crash.”
“Yes.”
“And you swear you didn’t touch the brakes.”
“I swear.”
Harper spoke.
“You lied for fifteen years.”
Vittorio turned toward her.
“So I understand why my word means nothing.”
That was the first honest thing he had said that did not sound defensive.
Roman walked toward the fireplace.
On the mantel sat a photograph of Salvatore Moretti with two sons and one much younger Roman.
The dead man smiled warmly.
Harper hated photographs like that.
They made terrible people look ordinary.
Sometimes loving.
Sometimes loved.
Beatatrice suddenly signed to Harper.
Ask Vittorio where Salvatore was while he opened the hood.
Harper translated.
Vittorio answered immediately.
“Inside.”
Beatatrice shook her head.
Vittorio frowned.
“You were in the ballroom.”
Again she shook her head.
Her hands moved.
Salvatore disappeared for almost twenty minutes.
Vittorio stared.
“No.”
Beatatrice nodded.
I looked for him.
Roman turned.
“Why?”
Her answer came reluctantly.
My necklace.
Roman frowned.
“What necklace?”
Beatatrice touched the hollow of her throat.
His mother’s.
Vittorio whispered, “The sapphire.”
Beatatrice nodded.
Harper watched as another memory seemed to move through the room.
I had packed it by mistake. Salvatore demanded it back.
Roman’s face hardened.
“You were leaving him, and he was worried about jewelry?”
Beatatrice gave him a sad smile.
Your father worried about symbols.
She removed her rosary and placed it beside the train ticket.
Ring. Necklace. House. Name.
Her hands paused.
Possession.
Harper looked at Roman.
He understood.
Probably better than he wanted to.
Beatatrice signed again.
When Salvatore came back, his right cuff was dirty.
Roman stiffened.
“What kind of dirty?”
Beatatrice rubbed her fingers together.
Black.
“Grease?”
She nodded.
Vittorio stood again.
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
Roman turned.
“You seem awfully interested in what doesn’t prove anything.”
“Because you’re talking about accusing your dead father of trying to kill your mother.”
Beatatrice slammed her palm against the table.
Everyone stopped.
Then she signed.
Do not protect him from me.
Vittorio lowered his head.
“I’m not.”
You always did.
That landed harder than shouting could have.
Vittorio looked suddenly ashamed.
Beatatrice pointed toward herself.
He controlled me.
Then toward Vittorio.
You explained him.
Then Roman.
Everyone explained him.
Her hands shook.
No one listened to me.
Harper felt tears rise again.
She knew that anger.
It was not the anger of one terrible night.
It was years of being translated incorrectly by people who believed they understood your life better than you did.
Roman approached his mother.
Beatatrice stepped backward.
He stopped immediately.
“I’m listening now.”
She stared at him.
Roman signed the sentence too.
I am listening now.
Beatatrice’s expression softened, but only slightly.
Harper noticed something on the mantel.
A second photograph.
A charity event.
Red banners.
Children’s paintings taped to temporary walls.
“Is that St. Clare?”
Roman followed her gaze.
“Yes.”
Harper picked up the frame.
The photograph had been taken that same night.
She recognized Beatatrice’s red coat hanging over a chair.
Vittorio stood near the stage.
Roman was in the background speaking to a young man.
Salvatore was closer to the camera.
Harper lifted the photograph toward the light.
“Look at his hand.”
Roman came closer.
Salvatore was wearing no ring.
Vittorio exhaled.
“I told you. He gave it to me.”
Harper looked lower.
At Salvatore’s sleeve.
The cuff was clean.
Roman said, “This could have been taken earlier.”
Beatatrice nodded.
It was.
“How much earlier?”
She studied the image.
Before dinner.
Harper looked again.
Something white protruded from Salvatore’s breast pocket.
A folded card.
The event program.
The photograph was stamped 8:41 p.m.
Leo was hit at 10:17.
Ninety-six minutes.
Plenty of time.
Not proof.
But enough to keep the question alive.
Roman’s phone vibrated.
He ignored it.
Harper almost laughed at the absurdity.
Every person in the city probably answered Roman Moretti immediately.
Tonight Roman Moretti was answering ghosts.
Beatatrice began gathering the objects from the table.
The rosary.
The ticket.
Leo’s drawing.
Roman stopped her.
“Ma.”
She looked at him.
“What happened after the crash?”
Beatatrice froze.
Vittorio looked at her.
Roman saw it.
“What?”
Neither answered.
Roman’s voice sharpened.
“What happened?”
Beatatrice signed slowly.
At the hospital, Salvatore had grease on his cuff.
Roman’s face went still.
Harper whispered, “You saw it?”
Beatatrice nodded.
Vittorio looked stricken.
Roman stared at his mother.
“So he went near the car.”
Beatatrice’s hands moved again.
Before he came to the hospital, yes.
“How do you know?”
Beatatrice looked toward Harper.
Then back to Roman.
Because he brought my necklace.
The room fell silent.
Beatatrice touched her throat.
The necklace was inside my suitcase.
Roman whispered, “The suitcase you left in the car?”
She nodded.
Harper’s stomach dropped.
Salvatore could not have retrieved it without going to the damaged sedan after the crash.
Roman looked at Vittorio.
Then at his mother.
Then at the smiling photograph of his father.
And Harper watched the most powerful man in the room realize that his dead father had lied from the first minute to the last.
But Beatatrice was not finished.
She signed one final sentence.
There is something else Salvatore took from that car.
Roman swallowed.
“What?”
Beatatrice pointed toward his pocket.
May you like
Toward the broken gold watch.
That.
