Chapter 6 - LOCKER 412
“Call the house,” I said immediately, reaching into my apron pocket for my own phone before remembering I had left it on the hall table outside the dining room when I brought Sal upstairs.
Luca was already dialing on his cell. He held the phone to his ear as the overhead train rattled the diner windows.
Ten seconds passed. Fifteen.
“No answer on the landline,” Luca said grimly. He tapped another number. “Aunt Teresa’s cell is going straight to voicemail.”
“Teresa never turns her phone on after seven o’clock, kid,” Sal said, trying to keep his voice steady while Leo watched us over the rim of his milk cup. “She leaves it in her knitting basket in the sunroom.”
“What about the gatehouse guards?” I asked.
“Marcus hired every man on the night shift after my father died,” Luca said, his jaw tightening as the pieces locked into place with brutal clarity. “Every single one of them answers to him.”
I looked down at Leo. The little boy was tracing the red wool of his mitten against the tabletop, listening to every word with wide, solemn dark eyes.
“Is the bad man at your house, Uncle Luca?” Leo asked quietly.
Luca softened instantly. He sat back down on the edge of the bench and rested his warm, broad hand over the boy’s small mittened one.
“Nobody is going to touch you, Leo,” Luca promised. “You’re with me and Mr. Sal now. Okay?”
Leo looked at Sal’s uniform coat, then nodded once. “Okay. Mr. Sal drives fast when he has to.”
A faint, aching smile touched the corner of Sal’s mouth. “That’s right, little man.”
Luca looked across the table at Vanessa.
“If your father and Marcus Vance have been working together for six years, why wait until tonight to move?” Luca asked.
Vanessa’s hands were wrapped tightly around her coffee mug, the diamond ring on her finger catching the harsh fluorescent light.
“Because of the merger documents we were supposed to sign after the engagement toast at ten o’clock,” she said slowly, her voice hollow. “My father insisted on adding the survivorship clause last week. If anything happened to you after our wedding—or once the corporate proxy was signed tonight—control of the Moretti port terminals would pass jointly to my father as trustee and Marcus as operating director.”
“And six years ago,” Sal added quietly, “when your father was facing that federal indictment, if you had died in that gray coupe instead of Matteo, your father’s heart wouldn’t have survived the shock. Hector and Marcus would have carved up the estate five years earlier.”
I looked at Vanessa. Her makeup was streaked, her dark red gown wrinkled at the hem from the damp grass behind Mrs. Kowalski’s garage.
“Did you know about the proxy clause?” Luca asked her coldly.
“I thought it was standard insurance because of the life you lead!” Vanessa cried, leaning across the table. “Luca, you have to believe me. My father has used me as a bargaining chip since the day I turned eighteen. He told me whom to date, how to dress, and whom to marry. When Camilla died in that tiny room downstate holding Matteo’s watch, I swore to her I would keep Leo alive even if I had to play the cold society wife for the rest of my life to pay for his hiding place!”
For the first time, I saw how exhausted she truly was. She had been cruel to Sal and dismissive to me because she lived in a world where showing a single crack meant being crushed by men like Hector Bellini.
“If we go back to the mansion without proof,” Sal said, tapping the brass key stamped 412, “Hector and Marcus will tell the other families in that dining room that you lost your mind, walked out on your engagement dinner, and started making wild accusations. Half the captains in that room respect Marcus because he served your father. You walk in there empty-handed, Luca, and it’s a bloodbath in your own foyer.”
“Union Station is ten minutes from here,” Luca said, picking up the brass key. “The parcel lockers in the old concourse are open until midnight.”
Twenty minutes later, Sal double-parked the black Mercedes outside the Canal Street entrance of Union Station.
The great marble hall was nearly empty at ten-thirty at night, our footsteps echoing beneath the vaulted ceiling as we hurried toward the lower-level baggage concourse. Luca carried Leo on his hip, Clara and Vanessa walked tightly beside me, and Sal kept a hand inside his driving coat where he carried his licensed snub-nosed revolver.
We found the bank of old brass parcel lockers tucked near the commuter rail tracks.
Locker 412 was at eye level, its metal door scratched and dull from decades of travelers.
“Camilla paid the annual renewal fee by mail from Springfield until she died,” Clara said softly. “After that, I mailed the money order every January just like she instructed.”
Luca slid the brass key into the lock.
The mechanism was stiff, resisting for a second before clicking open with a heavy metallic snap.
Luca pulled the door open and reached inside.
He lifted out a slim silver aluminum briefcase—the exact one the man at the bungalow fence had asked Clara about on Monday—along with a man’s folded dark gray wool scarf.
Luca set the briefcase on the wooden bench beneath the locker wall and popped both latches.
Inside lay three leather-bound bank books from a Cayman Islands trust, a stack of wire transfer receipts signed in Marcus Vance’s handwriting, and an official Chicago Police Department evidence receipt dated October 15—the morning after Matteo’s fatal crash.
Luca picked up the yellow carbon-copy police receipt.
As he read it, his breathing stopped completely.
“What is it?” I asked, stepping closer while Clara held Leo’s hand by the bench.
“This is the tow-yard inspection report from the morning after Matteo’s car went into the river,” Luca said, his voice trembling. “The brake line was severed with a pair of wire cutters. The patrol sergeant flagged it as a homicide investigation at 6:00 AM.”
“Why didn’t your father ever see that report?” Sal asked, stepping closer.
Luca turned the page over.
Stapled to the back was the original release form signing the wrecked vehicle out of police impound for private crushing at 8:30 AM that same morning—before the homicide detectives could inspect it.
And the signature on the bottom line wasn’t Marcus Vance’s.
And it wasn’t Hector Bellini’s.
May you like
Luca stared down at the bold, familiar signature in black fountain ink.
“My father,” Luca whispered, the paper shaking in his hand. “My own father covered up Matteo’s murder.”
