“I quit,” Zachary said.
“Really?”
“No. But I think we should stay as far away from this as we can. People like that don’t care who they have to hurt. And they don’t care whether you’re involved or not when they hurt you. Better just to stay clear.”
He had a point.
“Tell you what,” I said, because I realized I was being unfair to him. “Go home. Nick isn’t there. Nor is Sal. There’s no reason for you to spend any more time there. Just go home and have a nice weekend and don’t think about it anymore.”
He sounded halfway worried and halfway relieved. “Are you sure?”
“I’m positive,” I said firmly.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go see Nick. And after that I’m going to see Jacquie. And if we have to give back some of the retainer, then we will. You’re right. We shouldn’t put ourselves in danger over this.”
If it had been a simple case of a cheating boyfriend, that would be one thing. But now we had money laundering, and whatever had generated the money that needed laundering in the first place—anything from illegal gambling to prostitution or maybe drugs—and we had Megan’s kid, who might belong to Gio Abruzzi, and Izzy Spataro, who might recognize my face, and an undercover case involving local PD…
No, Zach was right. Much better to just convince Jacquie that Nick wasn’t cheating, and then return the money she had given us and wash our hands of it, no pun intended.
“OK,” Zachary said, sounding relieved.
“I don’t know how I would prove anything, anyway. I can sit outside the Body Shop until I’m blue in the face and never see Nick cheat on Jacquie. What is it the archaeologists say? Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, or something like that?”
Or maybe it was the opposite. In any case, as Mendoza had said, it’s hard to prove a negative. If Jacquie didn’t believe me, then it would have to come down to Nick doing the convincing, most likely. And if Jacquie didn’t trust him, then their relationship was doomed anyway.
I put the Lexus in gear. “Go home, Zach. I’ll see you Monday morning.”
“OK, boss.” He hung up and, I’m sure, high-tailed it away from the Body Shop and all it implied just as quickly as he could get his wheels to spin. I pulled away from the curb and rolled off down the street myself, leaving Megan’s empty house behind.
* * *
Traffic was pretty light so early on a Saturday, and I was already on the same side of town as Nick’s place, so it didn’t take me long to get there. Even going the slow way—straight down Charlotte Pike to Sawyer Brown Road instead of making use of the interstate—it was no more than fifteen minutes before I found myself cruising down what Jacquie had told me was Nick’s street.
His blue pickup was parked in a narrow driveway to one side of a duplex, nose pointed toward the street. The duplex itself was typical for the area—brick, probably built in the sixties, with a small covered porch and white aluminum siding around the doors and windows. Nick’s side had a black mailbox on a metal stick tilting drunkenly to one side, and house numbers on a reflective sticker that probably lit up in the dark. The other side had a bright orange mailbox and an old Pontiac in the driveway. There was an orange and white bumper sticker shaped like a capital T on the back of it. A Tennessee Vols fan, clearly. We have a lot of them in this area, and they’re easily spotted by the bright orange and white.
Nick may or may not have supported the Vols. He could have, but been more quiet about it than his neighbor. Then again, if he had worked for Sal for a decade, chances were he hadn’t gone to college.
I parked on the street and walked up the driveway, my heels sinking into the gravel. The morning was cool but pleasant, with a pale blue sky overhead and the faint smell of someone’s Saturday morning bacon drifting on the breeze. Someone somewhere was playing rap. American this time, not Mexican.
I rang the doorbell and waited.
When nothing happened, I tried again, holding the button down longer this time, and heard the buzz echo inside.
Still nothing.
I knocked. “Nick? It’s Gina Kelly. I’d like to talk to you.”
Silence.
I was just about to hop off the porch and try around the side when I heard a door open nearby. I turned to see an elderly woman emerging from the other half of the duplex, clutching a cardigan together at her throat despite the mild temperature. She was probably in her seventies, with white hair that had been carefully set and sprayed into submission, and she was surrounded by what appeared to be at least half a dozen cats of various sizes and colors. They wound around her ankles and poured down the front steps like a furry waterfall.
“Can I help you?” she asked. Her voice was surprisingly strong for someone her age.
I stepped off the porch and walked a bit closer. “I’m looking for Nick Costanza. Have you seen him this morning?”
She shook her head as the cats continued their slow-motion cascade down the steps and onto the lawn. “Not since yesterday. He left for work early, came home late. Such a nice boy. Always offers to carry my groceries when he sees me.”
