Chapter 8 - LOCKER EIGHTEEN
“Blackmailing who?” Gabriel asked.
Rocco shook his head.
“Not here.”
Frankie laughed sharply.
“You walk into my garage after beating my brother and accusing my dead mother of sabotaging a car, and now you’re worried about privacy?”
Rocco looked at Leo.
“I deserved that.”
“You deserve considerably more,” Gabriel said.
Rocco nodded.
“I know.”
Gabriel stepped close enough that Rocco finally looked nervous.
“But tonight you get questions.”
Rocco swallowed.
“Vittorio had evidence somebody inside Costa shipping was stealing from him.”
Marco looked away.
Gabriel caught it.
“My uncle?”
“No,” Rocco said.
Marco turned back.
Rocco continued.
“Vittorio thought it was Marco.”
Gabriel looked at his uncle.
Marco’s jaw tightened.
“He accused me.”
“Were you stealing?”
“No.”
Rocco laughed bitterly.
“You were covering losses.”
“That is different.”
“To accountants, maybe.”
Frankie watched Gabriel.
Another layer of betrayal.
Not murder.
Not innocence either.
Marco spoke.
“I invested family money in two shipping routes Vittorio refused to approve. They failed. I moved money to cover the loss.”
Gabriel’s eyes hardened.
“How much?”
“Enough that he wanted me out.”
“And that gave you motive.”
“Yes.”
Marco did not hide from it.
“But I did not kill my brother.”
Gabriel looked at the storage key.
“Then we open the locker.”
South Station had changed repeatedly over two decades.
The old storage area was long gone.
But Locker 18 had not been inside the station itself.
The tag led them to an old luggage-storage company that had moved its unclaimed property into a commercial warehouse.
Frankie expected the key to be useless.
It wasn’t.
The owner checked old handwritten storage ledgers, disappeared for ten minutes, then returned carrying a narrow metal box covered in dust.
“Paid indefinitely,” he said.
Frankie frowned.
“By who?”
“Cash account. Renewed every five years until nine years ago.”
“Nine?”
Her father had died five years ago.
Someone else had been paying.
Gabriel looked at Marco.
Marco shook his head.
“Not me.”
Rocco looked equally confused.
Frankie inserted the brass key.
The lock opened.
Inside were four objects.
A silver cigarette case.
A child-sized red wool scarf.
An old photograph.
And a small reel-to-reel audio cassette.
Gabriel stared at the scarf.
“That was mine.”
Frankie looked at him.
“What?”
He touched it carefully.
“My mother made it when I was eleven.”
“Why would it be here?”
Gabriel didn’t know.
Marco did.
“Teresa.”
Everyone looked at him.
“She paid the storage.”
“How do you know?”
“That scarf disappeared after Vittorio died.”
Gabriel stared at him.
“You knew about this box?”
“No.”
“But you knew my mother kept things from me.”
Marco’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
Gabriel looked exhausted.
Frankie understood.
There was a particular pain in discovering that everyone who claimed to protect you had decided protection required keeping you ignorant.
She touched his sleeve.
It was instinctive.
Gabriel looked down at her hand.
Frankie almost removed it.
Then didn’t.
Rocco picked up the photograph.
Five men stood near a Costa shipping warehouse.
Vittorio.
Marco.
Salvatore.
Antonio Vale.
And a fifth man.
Gabriel frowned.
“Who is that?”
Rocco whispered, “My brother.”
“Antonio is your brother.”
“My older half brother.”
Frankie looked closer.
The fifth man resembled Rocco.
But younger.
Lean.
A distinctive scar crossed his chin.
“Name?”
“Paolo Bellandi.”
Gabriel looked at Marco.
“Why have I never heard that name?”
Marco had gone pale.
“Because he disappeared.”
“When?”
“The day after Vittorio died.”
Rocco nodded.
“My mother never saw him again.”
Frankie’s eyes narrowed.
“And you thought Vittorio planned to kill Salvatore because your mother told you?”
“No.”
Rocco looked ashamed.
“Anna did.”
“Why?”
“She had seen Paolo following Salvatore.”
Gabriel studied the photograph.
“Why would Paolo follow him?”
Rocco answered.
“Because Paolo worked for Antonio Vale.”
The circle tightened.
Costa security.
The people closest to Vittorio’s car.
Frankie pointed to the cassette.
“What’s on that?”
“No idea.”
The warehouse owner found an old player in the office.
The sound quality was terrible.
Static.
Traffic.
Then Vittorio Costa’s voice.
Gabriel gripped the table.
Nobody spoke.
His father sounded younger than Frankie expected.
Angry.
“…you told me Marco was stealing.”
Another man answered.
Antonio Vale.
“I told you what I found.”
“You found what Paolo gave you.”
“It matches.”
“It matches because he made it match.”
Marco closed his eyes.
The tape continued.
Vittorio said, “Salvatore says the brake line was cut.”
Antonio’s voice became quieter.
“Then you have a larger problem.”
“I have one problem. Someone wants me looking at my brother while they stand behind me.”
Gabriel looked at Marco.
Marco’s eyes filled.
Vittorio had figured it out.
Before he died, he knew Marco was not the saboteur.
The recording continued.
Another voice entered.
Anna Moretti.
Frankie stopped breathing.
“You can’t go home.”
Vittorio answered, “My son is there.”
“So is Antonio.”
The tape hissed.
Then Anna said the sentence that changed everything.
“Teresa saw Paolo leave your garage.”
Silence.
Vittorio cursed softly.
“Where is Sal?”
“Looking for him.”
Then the recording stopped.
Frankie stared at the machine.
“My father was looking for Paolo.”
Rocco nodded.
“And he found him.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Paolo came to my apartment after midnight.”
Frankie turned.
“What did he say?”
“That Salvatore had figured out everything.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“Everything about what?”
Rocco stared at the photograph.
“Antonio had been stealing from Costa shipping for years. Paolo altered invoices and schedules. They made Marco look responsible because everyone already knew Marco was hiding losses.”
Marco laughed bitterly.
“They used my dishonesty to hide theirs.”
“Yes.”
“Why kill Vittorio?”
“Because he was about to prove it.”
Gabriel looked at Rocco.
“Then Paolo cut the brakes.”
Rocco hesitated.
“No.”
The room went still again.
“Antonio did.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“You said Antonio didn’t.”
“I said he didn’t cut the first hose.”
Rocco swallowed.
“The second time, Antonio didn’t use a blade.”
Frankie understood before Gabriel did.
She looked at him.
“That’s why the replacement hose looked fine.”
Gabriel frowned.
Rocco nodded.
“He loosened the connection at the master cylinder. Slow leak. It would hold for a while.”
Frankie’s stomach turned.
Until enough pressure was lost.
Until Gabriel and Vittorio were already moving.
Gabriel’s voice became quiet.
“Antonio killed my father.”
“Yes.”
“And Paolo helped him.”
“Yes.”
“Both are dead.”
Rocco shook his head.
“Antonio is.”
Gabriel stared.
Frankie asked, “Paolo?”
Rocco looked at Marco.
Then at Gabriel.
“Paolo Bellandi has been using another name for twenty years.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
“What name?”
Rocco swallowed.
“Rocco Vale.”
Leo stood so fast his stool fell.
“That’s the name on the card-room license.”
Gabriel looked at Rocco Bellandi.
Slowly.
“What is your legal name?”
Rocco’s face collapsed.
“Rocco Bellandi.”
“Then who owns my card room?”
Rocco looked terrified.
“Paolo.”
Frankie’s blood went cold.
The man who had engineered Leo’s debt.
The man who had beaten him.
The man who wanted the garage.
It had not been the Rocco standing before them.
Leo whispered, “Then who hit me?”
Rocco Bellandi looked at him.
“My brother.”
And Gabriel finally understood.
“Paolo didn’t want the garage.”
Frankie looked at the metal box.
“No.”
Gabriel’s eyes settled on the cassette.
May you like
“He wanted whatever Salvatore had hidden inside it.”
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