Chapter 5 - THE MAN BEHIND COAT 214
“The man who actually stole the last one hundred eighty thousand dollars.”
Elena sat slowly.
“You said you took the money.”
“I took the first transfers.”
Enzo pointed toward Marco’s watch.
“I also spent years putting them back.”
“And the final hundred eighty?”
“Gone before I could restore it.”
Dante’s face hardened.
“Who took it?”
“I never knew.”
“You just said Marco took the ticket from him.”
“I knew there was another man. Marco never told me the name.”
Elena stared.
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if Marco didn’t trust me anymore.”
Enzo accepted the words without protest.
“He had every reason not to.”
Dante picked up ticket 214.
“What was the Lunetta benefit?”
“Fundraiser for the dockworkers’ clinic.”
“And whoever checked coat 214 was there.”
“Yes.”
“Records?”
“Probably gone.”
Elena shook her head.
“Marco didn’t hide this ticket for four years because he wanted us searching a restaurant coat closet.”
Everyone looked at her.
She pointed at the brass tag threaded through Mia’s bead.
“He put it somewhere Mia would eventually have it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Mia tugged Elena’s sleeve.
“Can I have my bracelet back?”
“Yes.”
Elena crouched.
“But I need to keep the little tag tonight.”
Mia frowned.
“Daddy’s?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
She looked at Enzo.
“Are you Uncle Enzo?”
The older man went still.
“Yes.”
Mia studied him.
“Daddy was mad at you.”
Enzo’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“Are you still bad?”
Rosa whispered, “Mia.”
But Enzo answered.
“I did something bad.”
Mia considered this carefully.
“Did you say sorry?”
“Not enough.”
“Then you should.”
She walked back toward the bedroom.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Dante finally said, “Seven years old.”
Enzo stared at the doorway.
“Marco would have liked her.”
Elena’s expression hardened.
“He did.”
Enzo lowered his head.
“Yes.”
The next morning, Dante arranged for Elena and Mia to stay in a guest apartment above Lunetta.
Elena agreed only after he showed her the separate entrance, the lock she controlled and the security downstairs.
“No guards inside.”
“Agreed.”
“No one follows Mia to the bathroom.”
Dante looked almost offended.
“Obviously.”
“And nobody calls this protection if what you mean is prison.”
His eyes met hers.
“Agreed.”
It was the first time Elena began to understand why Marco had loved him.
Dante could be frightening.
But he could also be corrected.
Marco’s old things were brought from Rosa’s apartment.
The gray coat.
Pocket watch.
Photograph.
Rosary.
Elena spent the morning searching them herself.
At noon, Mia sat on the floor drawing while Dante and Enzo compared names from the old Lunetta benefit.
Twenty-seven men had checked coats.
Six were dead.
Nine had no connection to the fund.
Four had been employees.
One name made Enzo stop.
Victor Salvi.
Dante’s operations director.
Elena noticed.
“Who is he?”
Dante answered.
“A man I trust.”
Enzo gave a humorless laugh.
“That sentence has caused this family enough trouble.”
Dante ignored him.
“Victor was at the benefit?”
“He ran transportation that night.”
“Did Marco know him?”
“Very well.”
Dante looked at Elena.
“Victor was the one who recommended Marco take the accounting job under my father.”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
“What number was his coat?”
Enzo checked the old seating sheet.
“No claim number.”
“Why?”
“Staff didn’t use coat check.”
Elena looked at ticket 214.
“Then he could have taken someone else’s.”
Dante stood.
“We talk to him.”
Victor Salvi came to Lunetta rather than being summoned privately.
Fifty-eight.
Broad shoulders.
Gray at his temples.
He looked at Mia first.
Then Elena.
And quietly said, “You have Marco’s eyes.”
Elena was beginning to hate that sentence.
“You knew him.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know he was married?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know about Mia?”
Victor hesitated.
“Yes.”
Anger moved through her.
“Did everyone know about us except me?”
Victor’s face tightened.
“No. Marco made sure very few people did.”
“Why?”
“He wanted one part of his life that had nothing to do with us.”
That answer hurt in a different way.
Dante placed ticket 214 on the table.
Victor’s expression changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Marco.”
Victor sat.
“He kept it.”
Dante’s voice became colder.
“Whose coat?”
Victor looked at Enzo.
Then at Elena.
“Mine.”
Silence.
Enzo stood.
“You said employees didn’t check coats.”
“We didn’t.”
“Then why did you have a ticket?”
Victor rubbed his forehead.
“Because somebody handed me a coat that night.”
“Who?”
“Marco.”
Elena’s breath caught.
Victor continued.
“He said he needed me to hold it until he returned.”
“What coat?”
“Brown cashmere. Too expensive to be his.”
“What was inside?”
“I never checked.”
“Where is it?”
Victor looked at Dante.
“Your family storage room.”
Dante frowned.
“The old house?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Marco never came back for it.”
Elena stared at him.
“He died the next morning.”
“I know.”
“And you never thought the coat mattered?”
“I thought it belonged to a donor.”
“Then why keep it?”
Victor looked ashamed.
“Because Marco told me not to give it to anyone except him or Dante.”
Dante stared.
“And you never told me.”
“Your father was dying. Nico was gone. Marco had just been accused of moving money.”
“So you decided I didn’t need another problem.”
Victor lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
Elena almost laughed.
Another man protecting Dante by hiding something from him.
She looked at him.
“Your family has a strange definition of loyalty.”
Dante did not disagree.
The brown coat arrived an hour later.
Beautiful fabric.
Old-fashioned cut.
A monogram inside.
S.M.
Dante went still.
“My father.”
Salvatore Moretti.
Marco had taken Salvatore’s coat to the benefit.
Elena searched the pockets.
Empty.
Then Mia wandered closer.
“Mommy.”
“Not now, sweetheart.”
“The button is funny.”
Elena looked.
The lowest button was different from the others.
Slightly darker.
She touched it.
Loose.
Behind it, sewn between fabric layers, was a tiny photograph.
Marco.
Salvatore.
Victor.
And a woman Elena did not recognize.
They stood beside a loading dock.
The woman held a blue children’s book against her chest.
On the back Marco had written:
SHE KEPT THE ORIGINAL LIST.
Dante looked at Victor.
“Who is she?”
Victor’s face lost color.
“Margaret Salvi.”
Elena frowned.
“Your wife?”
“My sister.”
“Where is she?”
Victor stared at the photograph.
“She died three years ago.”
Elena’s frustration rose.
“Then another dead person has the answer?”
Victor shook his head.
“No.”
He pointed at the blue book.
“Margaret gave that book to Marco.”
Elena stopped.
Mia looked up from the floor.
“Daddy’s blue storybook?”
Every adult turned.
Elena stared at her daughter.
“What?”
Mia pointed toward the suitcase from Rosa’s apartment.
“The one Daddy read me.”
Elena remembered it.
A faded blue children’s book about a lantern finding its way home.
She had almost donated it twice.
Mia wouldn’t let her.
Elena opened the suitcase.
The book was at the bottom.
THE LITTLE LANTERN.
Inside the cover, Marco had written Mia’s name.
Elena flipped through.
Nothing.
Then Mia took it from her.
“You have to open the moon.”
“What moon?”
Mia turned to the final illustration.
A silver moon hung above a painted village.
She slipped her fingernail beneath it.
The paper lifted.
Marco had glued a second page underneath.
Eleven names were written in pencil.
Beside each was an amount.
At the bottom:
TOTAL REMAINING: $180,000.
And beneath that—
One sentence.
VICTOR KNOWS WHY I COULDN’T GIVE IT BACK.
Elena slowly looked across the table.
Victor Salvi had gone completely still.
Dante’s voice dropped.
“Why couldn’t Marco return the money?”
Victor stared at his sister’s photograph.
Then he answered.
May you like
“Because by then, Marco had already spent it.”
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