I knew he would be back. So I cleaned up the broken china, did the dishes, and told myself I needed to do something in my power to get past this, and I did. I fixed my face, slipped into a pair of lace stockings, and put on a black negligee I hadn’t worn since our honeymoon. Then I sat in a chair in the corner, with all the lights out and waited for him to return.

He said nothing when he came home, turned on the lights, and saw me there. Just looked away, trying to keep from smiling, I’ll bet. Kept that grim face on while I rose from the chair and tippy-toed across the room, put my arms around his neck, and said that I was sorry and that the things he wanted me to do and I didn’t, well, I would do them all night if he wanted, just to prove how sorry I was.

You can’t pull freight trains across the country or win a Super Bowl with that kind of power. But it works for other things. Especially when you’re female and young. At this point in my life, I could forget young. Younger would have to do. Younger than Mike Pilato, anyway. I chose the black pencil skirt, this time with a black sweater that was just a little too small and the pumps from Saks.

It was mid-afternoon by the time I located Mike Pilato’s offices. He was in the hardware business, officially anyway, in an old residential area of the city that ended at Pilato Park on the shore of the bay, west of the mills and factories. The two-storey brick building across the street from the park was neat but otherwise unimpressive, surrounded by a high wire fence. A worn sign on the roof announced it was the site of White Star Hardware Distributors. Business did not appear to be very good at White Star. In fact, it was non-existent. Two large doors at one side of the building, one marked shipping and the other receiving, were closed. Dusty blinds covered the windows on both levels. No vehicles sat in the parking lot, and the only truck I saw was a plumber’s van parked across the street in front of a crumbling brick cottage where, I assumed, someone’s toilet was backing up.

A man wearing coveralls and a battered fedora was sweeping the wide sidewalk leading from the door marked office, moving a broom back and forth with little enthusiasm.

I drove past the building, parked the Honda, and walked back to White Star, reputedly the headquarters of the most powerful crime boss in the city. The man stopped sweeping and leaned on the broom, watching as I approached. I asked him if Mr. Pilato was inside.

“He’s a-busy,” the man said. He was sixty, perhaps seventy years old.

“I’d like to talk to him,” I said, wondering if he could be carrying a weapon under those coveralls.

“What about, eh?” He was studying me. “You wanta buy hardware? I don’t think you wanta buy da hardware.”

“I need to talk to him about my husband.”

“Mr. Pilato, he knows you husband?”

I was becoming tired of this routine. What was I doing, talking to a guy sweeping the sidewalk who could barely speak English? I turned to walk toward the door again, but his broom swung up to block my way.

“What’s you name?” the old man asked.

“Josie Marshall. My husband’s name was Gabe Marshall. He was a policeman, and he died about two weeks ago. He was shot to death.”

“You tink Mr. Pilato have something to do with it, eh?”

“I don’t know.” I should go back to my car, I began telling myself. Get in it, sit down, and drive away. “I don’t believe what everybody is telling me about my husband and why he died. How he died. That’s all. Somebody said Mr. Pilato may know what happened. That’s why I’m here. In case he knows.”

The man’s face softened. As did mine. Every time I talked about Gabe something within me began to melt. There is a limit to power of any kind.

“Wait a-here,” the man said, and he walked through the office door, which was metal with a small, barred window, closing it behind him. After about thirty seconds, the door opened again and he emerged and stood to one side, beckoning me in, and I entered a small, empty foyer leading to a heavy oak door that swung open as I approached and closed after I passed through it.

From the outside, White Star Hardware Distributors may have appeared to be struggling, but Mike Pilato’s office looked like a Wall Street success. The room was large and substantial, with oak-panelled walls, silk carpets on a polished slate floor, draperies that had never come within shipping distance of a Walmart, and nicely framed oil paintings on the wall.

At one end of the room, an oak desk resembling one I had seen in pictures of the Oval Office sat on a riser. Behind it was a large leather chair that held … nobody. I sat facing the empty desk, the empty chair, and the bookshelves covering the wall behind them, the shelves overflowing with hardcover books whose perfect spines indicated they had probably never been read.

The door behind me opened and closed, and footsteps approached. A man stepped onto the riser with some agility, considering that his stomach was prominent and his white hair flowed down to his shirt collar. He wore heavy black-framed glasses, a black and gold silk shirt stretched over his paunch, and black pleated trousers. I noticed the details of his clothing because I preferred them to his face, which was round and scowling. His eyes never left me while he found his chair and settled into it. For a moment I flattered myself that he liked what he saw, but then I realized he was watching to see if I might pull a gun or a hatchet out of my purse.

“What can I do for you?” he asked. His eyes shifted away from me for short instants, glancing around the room as though confirming that everything was in place, then returning to me. His voice was deep, the words delivered with neither warmth nor threat.

What the heck am I doing here? I thought. Then, He’s a man, older than you. Maybe he’s killed a guy or two, but he’s still a man, and you know about men. “First of all, thanks for seeing me—” I began.

He waved my words away. “What do you want?” he said in the same flat delivery.

“I’m a little nervous,” I started to explain.

“You think I might hurt you?”

“Well—”

“Relax. The plumbers know you’re here.”

“Plumbers?”

“In the truck. Outside. Three, four guys from downtown. They took your picture. They take everybody’s picture. So you’re safe.” He actually permitted himself to smile briefly. “Pretty safe.”

“My name is Josie Marshall,” I said in my best headmistress voice, “and I came here, Mr. Pilato, on a serious matter. My husband is dead. I believe someone killed him. I was told perhaps you would know something about it.”

He acted as though I had insulted him. Perhaps I had. His head jerked back and his chin rose so he was looking down the length of his nose at me. “Do you think,” he said, and I felt an edge to his words like the feeling you get when you press a thumb against the sharp side of a carving knife, “that every time somebody gets killed in this city, it’s because of me? Is that what people like you think?”

“No, of course not,” I said. It was the beginning of a lie. Maybe not everybody.

“What do you need to know that’s so important you think I know it and other people don’t?” He spoke precisely, each consonant bitten off. “You tell me that, okay? Tell me now.”

A picture appeared in my mind. It was a picture of a terribly foolish woman wearing a skirt that was a little too tight and a little too short, under a cotton sweater as form-fitting as she would ever want to wear in public, and she was sitting alone in an office with a man who had a reputation for reassembling other peoples’ brains with a baseball bat.

I’m usually good at being cool under pressure. Okay, I wasn’t cool when Gabe’s body was found. This was different. I folded my hands in my lap and looked directly at Mike Pilato. “I am not making accusations,” I said, trying to match Pilato’s precise enunciation. “I would never do such a thing. I’m not a police officer, I’m not a lawyer, I’m nobody except a woman who loved her husband and wants the truth of his death to come out, whatever it might be.”