J.Z. invited him down.
“What’s up?” J.Z. asked when David walked into the cubicle.
“Did anyone fill you in on what happened last night?”
J.Z. gestured for David to sit, which he did in the beat-up, 1950s vintage, putrid green chair on the opposite side of the desk.
“Dan was here when I came in to work. He mentioned something about a hit-and-run and your grandmother. I couldn’t make it add up, but he had to head out, so I didn’t ask. Protecting Carlie Papparelli is not the snoozer job he’d expected.”
David grinned. “That mob widow struck me as a handful. And when she teamed up with your wife…watch out!”
“Don’t remind me. I still have nightmares about that day. They could’ve been killed, and it’s only by the grace of God that they’re still here.”
“Amen, brother.”
The two men thought back to the day when J.Z., David and a group of other agents rounded up a handful of mobsters. Innocent lives had hung in the balance, but they’d carried out the arrests with no one seriously harmed.
“So what’s the deal?” J.Z. asked.
David dropped the folder on the paper-littered desk. “Take a look. It won’t take you long.”
J.Z. opened the manila folder, then let out a long whistle. “How do you get from witnessing a hit-and-run to Ric DiStefano?”
“The victim was his sister.”
Another whistle. “Think it might have been a setup?”
“I think if I hadn’t deflected the Lexus, she’d be as dead as DiStefano.”
“So the question is—What did the ‘accident’ have to do with her brother?”
David stood and shoved his hands in the back pockets of his khaki pants. “I want to know why she gave me this song and dance about the driver being her dead brother’s ghost.”
“You’re kidding. She didn’t really say that, did she?”
“Worse. Not only did she say that, but then she also insisted we didn’t need the police, that she was fine. She chalked it all up to exhaustion and stress after her brother’s death.”
“Is there a rule somewhere that says we get all the crazy women?”
“Hey, you married one!”
A goofy grin brightened up his friend’s normally intense expression. “Yeah, I guess they do have some redeeming qualities, don’t they?”
“Maryanne does—lots of them. But Lauren DiStefano, with her bogus ghost story? Give me a break, man. Along with these scraps Eliza tossed at me, it adds up to trouble.”
“I wish I could disagree, but I’m on that page. And Eliza assigning you to tail the DiStefano woman? That’s the kiss of death.”
“You know it. Something’s up, and I’m being thrown up against Goliath without a clue.”
J.Z. closed the folder and held it out to David. “Have faith. That David did okay by leaning on the Lord. You can’t go wrong when you do that, you know.”
“In our line of work?” David snorted. “What I can’t figure out is the guys who go out there day after day without counting on God’s strength. Of course, I’m trusting Him.”
“So what’s next?”
“The grieving sister has a few questions to answer, don’t you think?”
“A few. That’s where I’m headed. And thanks for listening. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being paranoid.”
David drove toward Lauren’s old-money mansion. He wondered how a guy like Ric DiStefano had wound up with a place like that. Usually, those homes were handed down from one generation to the next. The few that ever came on the market did so because the last generation had failed to reproduce. Had that been the case? Or had DiStefano been mixed up with something more sinister than corporate finance shenanigans?
He parked on the street, right in front of the gorgeous old home. It had probably started out as the gem in the crown of a self-made man, maybe a doctor, lawyer, or even a politician—this was Philadelphia, after all.
He rang the doorbell, then he waited out front for what felt like an eternity. The weather was still rotten, and the icy drizzle’s needles stung his face.
Finally, she responded. “Oh!”
“May I come in?” he asked. “I’ve a couple of questions for you.”
She opened the door; her every motion shrieked reluctance.
“Hmm,” he murmured. “You could do a guy’s ego some harm with that kind of welcome.”
Her green eyes flashed. “You aren’t welcome, Mr. Latham. But since you came up with an official ID last night, I don’t have a choice, do I?”
He shrugged, and stepped inside. The interior matched the exterior of the luxurious mansion. Gleaming wood floors, a sparkling chandelier, rich patterned rugs and a spectacular staircase spoke of old money for construction and new money for upkeep.
He had to find out how illegal the DiStefano money was.
Among other things.
He followed her into a grand living room, what must once have been referred to as a formal parlor. Now it housed a huge cream leather sectional, cushy ottoman, dark wood side tables, and a thick creamy brown area rug under it all.
“Hey, the only thing missing is the wide-screen plasma TV.”
She sat at the end of the sectional with the loungy part on the end, then shrugged. “Not me, Mr. Latham. All of this belonged to my brother. It’s—was—his home.”
“And now it’s yours.”
Her sigh held a ton of emotion, but David couldn’t identify it all.
“If I can hang on to it.”
He took note of her comment, and dropped into the curve of the massive couch. “How about if you give me a few more details. This sounds interesting.”
Again, her eyes sparked. “Interesting since it doesn’t affect you.”
“Oh, but it does,” he countered. “You see, you’ve become my new assignment. Or to put it better, last night’s hit-and-run is my business. I need to learn everything about it.”
“And that would be because…?”
“Because, Miss DiStefano, I witnessed something I can’t explain—something you couldn’t explain to my satisfaction. So why don’t we start at the beginning?”
“What do you want to know?”
For such a soft-spoken woman, Lauren DiStefano could put a sharp bite to her words when she wanted to. “How did you come to live with your brother?”
“He was widowed three years ago and left with a two-year-old son to raise. He didn’t want to deal with day care or nannies, and since I’m family and an elementary school teacher, he asked me to help. They’re the only relatives I have left so I moved in.”
“You gave up your own life to become his housekeeper and babysitter?”
Her eyes did their thing again, but her voice didn’t go up, it just took another nip with her words. “If that’s the way you see family, then I pity you.”
Ouch! “That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but—”
“Then what did you mean, Mr. Latham? Your question was quite clear. As an educator, I can understand and carry on a conversation, you know.”
He felt his cheeks warm. He had come pretty close to what