“Sheryl!” Suzanne waved the young woman over. “Come meet Irma. She’s telling me all about these neat encyclopedias we could buy.”

“What?” Iris glared at Suzanne in protest.

“Christ.” Sheryl sighed under her breath. “Miss, don’t pay any attention to my aunt. She doesn’t really want what you’re selling. She just likes to talk. You should really be going now.” She set her daughter down inside the front door and motioned Iris to the driveway.

“But . . .” Iris still had questions, but it seemed her time was up. She stood and played along. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Peplinski. You know how to reach me if you change your mind about the books.”

Iris headed down the driveway to her car. She scanned the street, lined with rusted American cars, trying to make sense of what Suzanne had told her. The crazy old woman claimed she didn’t know the owner of the key. Beatrice Baker had called Suzanne about a safe deposit box, and then she disappeared. The old lady was worried it would happen again.

“What a nutcase,” Iris whispered, but an uneasy feeling settled into her gut. Someone had hired Ramone to guard the building with its abandoned files and whatever was still locked in the vault.

Back on the porch, Suzanne was still in her rocker, smoking. She waved as Iris pulled away.

CHAPTER 28

Friday, December 1, 1978

The late bus dropped Beatrice at the end of Doris’s street. Her bag was heavy with Max’s files and keys. Who’s the thief now? It was a small comfort to know she had something to trade for her aunt’s key. That is, if she ever saw Max again.

Beatrice climbed the crooked stairs toward her aunt’s door with her eyes at her feet. It wasn’t until she reached the top steps that she realized the door wasn’t shut. A sliver of light was gleaming at her. She froze. She knew she hadn’t forgotten to lock it, and she always turned out the light. She dropped to her knees with a hand over her mouth. The walls were paper thin, and the apartment was tiny. She held her breath and listened. Her heart pounded out the seconds as she watched the doorway for moving shadows.

After several minutes had passed, she crawled up the last three steps on her hands and knees and pushed the door open wider. Inside, the room where she slept had been torn apart. The cushions of the couch were flung onto the floor. The three drawers in the kitchenette were pulled out and dumped on the ground. The refrigerator door was standing open. Paper, pots, pans, and silverware covered the ground.

She shot up in alarm. All of her clothes had been violently ripped from the hangers and were piled on the ground next to the radiator. The bed in Doris’s room was thrown up against a wall, and the worn quilt and sheets had been torn from the mattress. Dresser drawers were smashed around the room. Doris’s trampled underwear covered the floor. The closet door had been thrown open and all of its contents tossed out. The mink, the tweed suits, the hatboxes, the go-go boots all were in a knee-deep pile next to the bed.

Beatrice snatched up the fur coat protectively. A burglar would have taken the mink. It didn’t make sense. She picked up the photograph of young Doris and Ilene off the floor. The glass was cracked. She cradled the picture frame and fur coat, sinking to her knees.

An empty dresser drawer lay smashed on the ground next to her. Beatrice stared at it until she couldn’t see anything but her own tears. Who would do this? Why? Then something occurred to her. Her aunt’s letters and bank files were gone. She looked behind the mattress leaning against the wall and around the floor. They were nowhere to be found, and yet she had left them all on the bed in plain sight.

Beatrice backed out of her aunt’s room. The kitchen drawers, the cushions, the medicine cabinet in the bathroom—they’d all been emptied and tossed on the ground. Someone had been looking for something. Her aunt’s purse was splayed out on the couch frame. The lining had been ripped out; the seams had been cut. Even her cigarette pack had been pulled apart. Then Beatrice realized her aunt’s key ring was gone. An image of the safe deposit key, the key Max had stolen, flashed in the back of her mind.

She couldn’t stay there. Someone had Doris’s keys. They might be back. They might have noticed that Doris didn’t live alone. Beatrice grabbed her old suitcase off the floor. She stuffed all of the clothes and toiletries she could fit in the bag. She fought it closed and dragged it to the open door. The frigid air outside had begun to fill the room, but Beatrice couldn’t feel a thing. She yanked the full suitcase thumping down the stairs and into the snow. She ran back up to the open door and scanned the ruined insides of the apartment once more before slamming it shut.

The bag left a trail in the snow behind her, until she reached the end of the street. Calabria’s Diner, where her aunt had worked, was still open. There was nowhere else she could think to go. She picked up the heavy suitcase and tried to walk with some composure the half a block to the restaurant.

Beatrice pushed the door to the diner open and was greeted by a warm blast of air and the sizzle of the fryer in the back. The restaurant was half-full. Beatrice dragged herself over to a booth and shoved her overstuffed luggage under the table. She collapsed onto the vinyl seat and put her head down on the coffee-stained Formica.

A few minutes later, a pair of orthopedic shoes walked up beside her. It was Gladys.

“Beatrice, honey. How are you doing? How’s your aunt holding up?”

Beatrice lifted her head and forced a weak smile.

The old woman nodded and put a hand on her shoulder. “Can I get you something, hon? It’s on the house.”

“Soup?”

“Coming right up.” Gladys squeezed her shoulder and walked away.

The room around her was distorted with overwhelming smells and sounds and buzzing yellow light. She might throw up, she realized, and buried her head in her hands. She couldn’t call the police. What would she tell them? She’d been robbed, but the burglar only took some old love letters and keys. She didn’t even have proof she lived there—she wasn’t on the lease. Worse yet, it wasn’t legal for her to be living on her own at all. She was still technically a minor. The police might drag her away to a foster home or worse. She dug the palms of her hands into her eyes to plug the tears.

The smell of food forced them back open. Gladys had brought a bowl of soup, a plate of fried chicken, a salad, and a Coke. It was a feast.

“You just let us know if we can do anything to help, okay, honey?” The sweet old woman patted her hand.

Beatrice nodded, afraid to speak.

As she ate, the wheels slowly began to turn in her mind. She had to do something. She couldn’t call her mother. She wouldn’t call Max. Then a light clicked on in between her dark thoughts. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a business card. It read “Detective Anthony McDonnell.” Tony had written a second phone number on the back. The clock that hung over the lunch counter read 8:16 p.m.

“Do you need anything else, honey?” Gladys asked, waddling toward her.

“Do you have a pay phone?”

CHAPTER 29

Max’s brother Tony answered the phone after six rings. “Hello?”

“Detective McDonnell? This is Beatrice . . . Max’s friend.”

“Right. Beatrice.” She could hear him smiling. “Is everything all right?”

“Well, no.” Her voice cracked a little. “Can you meet me at Calabria’s Diner?”