Daisy Lane (6 page)

“I’m trying to find someone who can help me track down Nino Vincenzo’s family in Italy,” Scott said. “Alghero is on the northwestern coast of Sardinia, in Italy, but the international operator could not find him in the directory. There are hundreds of Vincenzos listed, which doesn’t help, plus now that everyone has cell phones it’s not as easy to find people as it once was. I called the Italian Embassy in D.C. and they’re supposed to call me back, but the man I talked to didn’t sound like he was in any rush to help. I’ll be surprised if they call back at all.”

“Have you talked to Sal yet?”

“I talked to Antonia outside of church this morning. She said he wasn’t feeling well. His heart, I guess.”

“He’s been dying of heart failure for the past ten years. He’ll probably outlive us all.”

“She said I could stop by later.”

“You could call the police in Alghero and let Sal talk to them.”

“That’s a good idea,” Scott said. “Grace didn’t understand most of what he said but she wrote some of it down, phonetically. There was a letter in his breast pocket from someone named Mary; it’s so old and the paper is so creased and worn you can hardly read it.”

“What does it say?”

Scott took out the letter, which he had slid into a cellophane bag. The sheet of writing paper was yellow with age; the beautiful cursive writing faded and blotched.

“Dear Nino,” Scott read. “I had a boy but they took him. I am in, this next part is illegible, and this line says I hope some day you can forgive me. I will always love you, Mary.”

“Romantic,” Maggie said.

“So whoever Mary was, she wrote in English, and he must have been looking for her.”

“In Jacob Branduff’s house?” Maggie said. “What was his mother’s name?”

“Colleen,” Scott said. “Ed looked it up for me. They belonged to a very strict church out on Owl’s Branch Road; one of those that doesn’t have many members, or want any more, probably.”

“Wrath of God,” Maggie said. “I think the name says it all. That church burned down, didn’t it?”

“Yep,” Scott said. “Back when we were in grade school. They meet in someone’s house now, out on Rabbit Run Road. I don’t really know anything about it. I’ll have to ask Ed.”

“I met Grace this afternoon,” Maggie said.

“What’d you think?”

Maggie told him the story Hannah told them about Grace trying to rescue Sammy. She also told him what Hannah had found out about her from asking around.

“I like her,” Maggie said. “She’s smart, and seems very mature for her age. She’s read books I didn’t read until I was an adult.”

“She is very smart,” Scott said. “All A’s on her report card; every one.”

“You’ve been checking up on her?”

“I can’t quit thinking about her,” Scott said. “If you had heard how awful her grandfather spoke to her, you would have kicked him across the river.”

“Do you think he abuses her?”

“Verbally, yes,” Scott said. “Ed and I both witnessed that. There was certainly the threat of violence implied in his words, but she didn’t have any marks on her that I could see. What did you think?”

“She certainly looks neglected,” Maggie said. “Her shoes are falling apart.”

“I don’t think she gets enough to eat, either,” Scott said. “She’s so small for her age.”

“Are you going to call Children’s Protective Services?”

Scott turned around and Maggie sat back on the edge of his desk.

“The truth about CPS is that they focus their efforts on really young kids,” Scott said. “It’s not that they don’t care about the older kids; it’s just that they don’t have the resources to do both.”

“So unless she’s being molested or beaten …”

“It’s not the way it should be,” Scott said. “But that’s the way it is.”

“What can you do?”

“Take an interest,” he said, “which I have. Keep an eye on her; on her grandfather. His health is not good. Doc Machalvie can’t tell me anything about the grandfather because it would violate his HIPAA rights; he did say he’s never seen Grace in his office, and that she probably hasn’t been to a doctor if she hasn’t been to see him. They don’t have a car.”

“She would have to have had vaccinations in order to go to school,” Maggie said.

“She could get those for free when the county sends their mobile health clinic to town,” Scott said. “Matt Delvecchio said her grandmother cleaned the dentist’s office in order to pay for her dental work.”

“So when her grandmother was alive she had better care.”

“Doc said her grandmother probably would have lived had she had medical intervention before the breast cancer spread. By the time she had symptoms it was too late.”

“Why can’t the richest country in this world take better care of its poor people?” Maggie said. “We pride ourselves on all the wrong things.”

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Scott said. ”Proverbs 19:17: ‘He who is gracious to a poor man lends to the Lord, and He will repay him for his good deed.’”

“I keep hoping this religious zeal of yours is just a phase,” Maggie said. “When you talk like that it worries me.”

Scott smiled, saying, “I mostly do it just to bug you.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” Maggie said. “Maybe I can lend Grace some books or movies.”

“Books, maybe,” Scott said. “They have no phone or television.”

“Oh, crap,” Maggie said. “And there I was recommending a mini-series for her to watch.”

“Can you imagine how much money it takes to heat that big ole house?”

“They probably only live in a couple rooms.”

“From the outside it’s practically falling down,” he said. “I haven’t seen inside.”

“She’d be too embarrassed to let you in, probably,” Maggie said. “You want me to snoop around?”

“If you can do it without her finding out,” Scott said. “I don’t want to invade her privacy or freak her out but I have this feeling she’s in danger. I can’t explain it; it’s a gut thing. I feel like I need to protect her from something bad that’s about to happen.”

“That’s sweet,” Maggie said, “and I can see why; she had that same effect on us. We all want to adopt her, braid her hair, and feed her something.”

“I talked to Ava about her and she has a whole different opinion,” he said. “She said Charlotte felt sorry for Grace but had to drop her because she was such a negative influence.”

“Charlotte is a spoiled chip off the old smug block,” Maggie said. “How could you live Grace’s life and not be depressed? Instead of abandoning her, they could have tried to help her. I thought Ava loved collecting orphans.”

“But Grace isn’t an orphan.”

“Plus Grace is smart,” Maggie said. “She probably saw right through her. Ava only collects blindly devoted followers.”

“Let’s not talk about Ava,” Scott said. “We’ll just argue.”

“Of course,” Maggie said. “Because I’ll be honest and you’ll defend her.”

Scott shrugged.

“What happened with her and you?” Maggie asked. “Am I allowed to ask?”

“I love you and she loves Patrick,” he said.

“Hmmm,” Maggie said. “I wondered.”

“C’mere,” Scott said. “Let me prove it to you.”

“Nope,” Maggie said. “I gotta go. What can I do to help Grace?”

“Ask around but not in a way that will get back to her,” Scott said.

“What’s Ed say?”

“That she’s a nice, quiet girl who Tommy is not in love with, and she’s got nice manners for someone being raised by such a grouchy bear.”

“I was raised by a grouchy bear,” Maggie said. “I survived it.”

“Speaking of said bear,” Scott said. “How about we get your mother to hire Grace at the bakery? She’d be the perfect person to keep an eye on her.”

“Are you crazy?” Maggie said. “Have you met my mother?”

“She kept you out of trouble throughout your teenage years.”

“That’s true,” Maggie said. “I didn’t have a thought she couldn’t read and then reprimand me for. All that oppression turned me into a rebellious mess later, though. Don’t forget that part.”

“I think you turned out really well,” Scott said, and stood up.

“Don’t you start that,” Maggie said. “We’re in your place of employment.”

Scott took her in his arms and hugged her.

“I love you,” he said.

She pinched him.

“Ow,” he said, but he was smiling as he rubbed his arm.

“What’d I tell you about that?” she said.

“Can I come over later?” he said.

Maggie felt herself flush from head to toe at the thought of it.

“Okay,” she said, and pushed him away. “Bring a pizza for dinner and we’ll watch a movie.”

“Or something,” he said, but she was already walking away.

“Bye,” she said.

“Or something!” he called out after her, but she ignored him.

Maggie walked down the alley behind Rose Hill Avenue to the back door of her family’s bakery, where her mother was rolling out croissant dough in the kitchen. Bonnie Fitzpatrick had snow-white curly hair, piercing blue eyes and permanent frown lines etched into the skin between her eyebrows and around her lips.

“What are you still doing here?” Maggie asked her.

“Hello to you, too, daughter,” Bonnie said. “Your Aunt Alice has gone down with one of her migraines, and we have a special order for the Baptist church this evening.”

Maggie washed her hands before she was asked to, donned an apron, and took over for her mother.

“What’s going on?” Bonnie asked, as she opened the back door to let some cool air into the stuffy bakery kitchen.

“Nothing,” Maggie said

Maggie added little bits of cold butter to the top of the dough before she folded it and rolled it flat.

“You don’t put a toe in here unless I call,” Bonnie said. “What’s wrong?”

Maggie deliberately took her time to answer but Bonnie stubbornly refused to prod her further.

“Add more butter,” her mother said instead.

“I need information,” Maggie finally said, heaving the long rolling pin into the air. It was a piece of wood the length of a baseball bat, tapered slightly at each end.

“About?” Bonnie said, as she closed the door.

The older woman eased her plump bottom up onto a high wooden stool and eyed her daughter suspiciously.

“Grace Branduff,” Maggie said. “Jacob Branduff’s granddaughter.”

“That old coot,” Bonnie said. “His wife died of breast cancer because he was too stingy to pay for a doctor.”

“Maybe they couldn’t afford a doctor.”

“He was offered a pile of money for that old house when Theo Eldridge bought the glassworks,” Bonnie said. “Turned him down flat, Jacob did. That family could have lived a whole different life were it not for that selfish man.”

“I didn’t know that,” Maggie said.

She paused to take a breath and stretch her arms backward to relieve the familiar stabbing pain between her shoulder blades.

“Keep rolling,” Bonnie said. “You can’t let that butter melt.”

Maggie did as she was told.

“I didn’t know Colleen Branduff that well,” Bonnie said. “She was one to keep herself to herself. Those two daughters of hers were as wild as weeds along the highway. One got herself in the family way in high school and the boy’s parents moved him away. The other one ran off and I don’t know where to or what she’s doing.”

“What about Grace?”

“She used to come in here with Charlotte; just a quiet little girl with good manners. She hasn’t been in any trouble that I’ve heard of. Ava doesn’t like her, but I don’t pay much mind to what Ava thinks of people. She’ll soon have her hands full with our Charlotte. She was in here the other day, face plastered in makeup, heels so high she could barely walk; couldn’t take her eyes off her cell phone.”

“Could you use Grace working here?” Maggie asked her mother.

“She’s just a spec of a thing, about the size of Hannah at that age,” Bonnie said. “To tell you the truth I don’t think she could do the heavy work. She looks malnourished.”

“You could certainly remedy that,” Maggie said.

“Best not to get involved,” Bonnie said. “Jacob Branduff is a mean old coot. I’d walk three blocks out of my way not to have to give him the time of day.”

“You heard she found an old man dying on their porch this morning.”

“Some foreigner,” Bonnie said. “Nothing to do with us.”

“Now, what would Jesus say?” Maggie said.

Bonnie took a dishtowel and flicked her daughter on the backside.

“Don’t you preach to me about Jesus,” Bonnie said. “Lightning will strike your tongue.”

“What’ve I done now?”

“Plenty,” Bonnie said. “You can’t tell me the chief of police isn’t sneaking up your backstairs every night and then away before dawn.”

“He comes up the front stairs and doesn’t leave until after breakfast,” Maggie said. “And there’s no sneaking involved. What would be the point in this town?”